Why would a blond, “non-Jewish” American want to immigrate to Israel? What is the connection? Especially when so few Jews in the United States are willing to take the plunge.
What force would compel someone to travel to Israel 11 times, serve in 8 kibbutzim, and even stay there during the Persian Gulf War, wearing a gas mask, with their room designated as a cheder atoom, “sealed room,” which other volunteers had? ? to run every time the mysterious sirens sounded that another Scud missile was headed for the Promised Land? Why would such an individual risk arrest, smear and deportation for participating in legal demonstrations in Jerusalem?
The first time I visited Israel was with the Worldwide Church of God in 1980 to celebrate Sukkot, the Biblical Feast of Tabernacles. (Some Christians understand Israel’s harvest festival to herald the peace and prosperity soon to be enjoyed by all under Messiah’s golden rule.) But that whirlwind experience only whetted my appetite.
I wanted to go back to see Israel more closely than through the window of a tour bus. That’s how I decided to return as a kibbutz volunteer in the fall of 1982. A kibbutz is a collective farm, although increasingly it includes other industries as well. I initially served in Ramat Yohanan near Haifa, within sight of Mount Carmel, famous for the fiery prophet Elijah’s close encounter with the pagan Israelites.
You could say that I have a God-given love for the Jews and the nation of Israel (Isaiah 62:6-7). That sacred bond has been strengthened over the years by the fact that I have been blessed to have lived all over Israel, knowing its land and people quite well. Aside from 5 months in Ramat Yochanan, I have also stayed in Sdot Yam on the Mediterranean, next to Caesarea, the site of my first ulpan (crash Hebrew course), and where Israel’s hero Hannah Senesh was from; Regavim, near Zichron Yaakov, where I continued my Hebrew lessons amid its rolling green hills; Reshafim, near Bet She’an, with Mount Gilboa practically in our backyard and the Jordan Mountains a beautiful view out front; Adamit, on the border with Lebanon, on top of a mountain, from where on clear days you can see all the way to Haifa’s Mount Carmel; Shoval, a rose in the Negev desert just north of Be’er Sheva; Dan, up there in the northernmost part of Israel, between Syria and Lebanon, by majestic snow-capped Mount Hermon, where I lived when “Operation Desert Storm” broke out; and Ha’On, with its camp and ostrich farm on the eastern shores of the Sea of Galilee, opposite Tiberias; and last but not least, my beloved Jerusalem, next to my favorite place on earth: the Temple Mount.
But why would you leave the beautiful farms and gorgeous greenery of Ohio for a Middle Eastern country? (My ancestors sailed to America from England, including John and Priscilla Alden on the Mayflower.) Why would I legally change my name from David A. Hoover to David Ben-Ariel? (Hebrew for: David, son of the Lion of God – a nickname for Jerusalem/Isaiah 29:1). Yes because?
1) Because I am a Christian-Zionist who believes that the rebirth of Israel is nothing short of a miracle, and that all Bible believers must support this fulfillment of prophecy or deny their faith.
And 2) because I firmly believe in what many are now discovering: the Israelite identity of the peoples of northwestern Europe. This awareness of our Hebrew roots and biblical responsibilities accelerates the process of redemption. Herbert W. Armstrong was one of the greatest to restore this truth to millions through The United States and Great Britain in Prophecy, but I am friends with Yair Davidiy in Israel, founder of Brit Am Israel and author of The tribes Y Ephraim, who represents a growing number of Jews who are again accepting the revelation of his brother, Joseph, head of the ten northern tribes of the Kingdom of Israel (as distinct from the southern Kingdom of Judah). Due to my Anglo-Saxon ancestry, as well as descent from the British and Scottish royal families, I am considered to be from the tribes of Joseph and Judah. (There are twelve tribes of Israel). For people like me, Israel is also our ancient Homeland. I truly feel that my return to Zion completes a historical circle in my family’s history.
Having been to Israel so many times, and writing countless letters to The Blade (the Toledo, Ohio newspaper), and several articles in support of a Jewish state, I never imagined that one day I would be deported from it!
As reported on the front page of the Jerusalem Post (January 8, 1996), the GSS (Israeli Secret Service) sought my deportation on false charges of my alleged involvement in a plot to blow up the Al-Aksa Mosque. This travesty of justice occurred during the “witch hunt” that followed the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. The Israeli left was exploiting the death of Yitzhak Rabin to crush their legal opposition. Such Stalinist tactics were condemned by former Russian rejecters and “Prisoners of Zion”. Fortunately, the regime of Shimon Peres was overthrown with the election of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. Bibi (as she was affectionately called by Netanyahu) had also been branded an “enemy of peace” for opposing total surrender to PLO demands. She promised Israelis “peace with security.”
As a Christian member of the Temple Mount Faithful, I had the privilege of participating in their legal demonstrations during my 10-month stay in Jerusalem awaiting citizenship. Israeli television often showed me with my Jewish friends carrying Israeli flags throughout the Old City. I have also published letters in the Jerusalem Post, the Traveler and other publications on the hot topic of the Temple Mount.
Today, that holy of holies is under a militant Muslim occupation that forcibly prohibits Christians or Jews from praying or reading the Bible there. This despite the fact that both Solomon’s and Herod’s Temples were there, and Jesus and his disciples taught and prayed there. Israel has such a violent anti-religious discrimination law, but apparently they are afraid or unwilling to enforce it. Such a shameful appeal rewards the aggressors and punishes the innocent! The Faithful on the Temple Mount boldly call for an end to this injustice.
Within Beyond Babylon: The Rise and Fall of EuropeI have called on the Israeli government to exercise its Jewish responsibility to build the Temple. I wrote that book in the United States before any problem. The book clearly explains that I am not asking any individual to remove the mosques, but I expect the GOVERNMENT to fulfill its historical obligations. I mentioned this to the police during my six and a half hour interrogation. I was later imprisoned in the Russian Compound in Jerusalem for three weeks until my harrowing deportation.
As my lawyer in Israel, Naftali Warzberger, has written, my future is linked to that of the Jews and Israel. That is why I am confident that justice will prevail. Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur (D. Ohio) has persistently brought this case of religious discrimination and political persecution to our State Department. Senator Mike DeWine (R. Ohio) applied on my behalf to return to Zion and was informed that the Department of the Interior “has made the decision not to grant the visa and is not providing any information behind its decision.” They have since written to Senator DeWine that he will not be “visa eligible until 2005.”
Is it a crime to have a permanent love for Israel? Believe what is written in the Law and the Prophets about the Temple and our responsibility to build it? Cry that it hasn’t been done yet? As the Jerusalem Talmud says: “every generation in which the Temple has not been built is as if the Temple was destroyed in it…” Is not the emblem of the state of Israel a golden menorah between two olive branches? of gold?
Am I to remain in exile, banished from the Land I love, because my hope, prayer and dream is that Israel fulfills what that symbol represents: the Temple and Israel’s destiny to become Light for all nations?