Concrete holiness and place attachment: Christian Zionist agricultural volunteers in Samaria

Abstract

Christian Zionism is a Protestant theology rooted in nineteenth-century Britain, advocating the return of Jews to the land of Israel as the fulfilment of God’s will and plan for the salvation of humanity. This article deals with the unique theology of the Christian Zionist group Hayovel, an organization dedicated to bringing Christian volunteers for agricultural work in the Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Based on fieldwork conducted among Hayovel volunteers, this article offers an analysis of Hayovel’s theology of rootedness and faith in the religious significance of the land. In contrast to mainstream Evangelical Christianity, Hayovel emphasizes the importance of sacred space and attempts to construct an experience of concrete holiness through agricultural work and touring the region’s Biblical sites. Hayovel’s activity is described here as the construction and cultivation of the Israel as a spatial and spiritual core and as a place of potential refuge and as a reaction to the increasing detachment from space in the global era.

The last several years have witnessed the rising prominence of the Evangelical Christian theology known as ‘Christian Zionism’, culminating in a highly publicized display during the 2018 transfer of the American embassy to Jerusalem. Christian Zionism ‘ascribes vital theological, and often eschatological, importance to the Jewish presence in Israel’ (Shapiro, 2012: 647). Shapiro’s discussion of Christian Zionism associates the theology’s roots with several Protestant thinkers in nineteenth-century Great Britain who viewed the restoration of Jews to the land of Israel as an essential element of God’s plan for the salvation of humanity (Aldrovandi, 2011; Ariel, 2006; Clark, 2007; Engberg, 2016; Hajja, 2006; Smith, 2013; Tuchman, 1956; Weber, 2004). Today, Christian Zionism is often considered to be a mainly American phenomenon: Zionists make up nearly 25% of all Evangelical Christians in the United States, amounting to approximately 6.4% of the overall US population (Aldrovandi, 2011: 115). However, Christian Zionist theology is an ideological feature of Evangelical communities around the world.

Lewis (2009) traces Christian Zionism to the construction of British Evangelical identity in the nineteenth century and the view that Britain may fulfil its destiny as a biblically elected nation through engagement with the Jews as a visible historical link to the biblical past (2009: 13). Likewise, Smith (2013) describes British attempt to become the protector of Jews in Palestine, beginning in the 1830s and culminating in 1917 with the Balfour Declaration. Christian Zionism is sometimes associated with the theology of premillennial dispensationalism, an eschatological model of time developed by John Nelson Darby in the nineteenth century, which emphasizes the crucial role to be played by the Jewish people in the redemption process. Dispensationalists developed the idea that ‘when God realizes his plans as outlined in the Bible on earth, he does so through the Jews. The Jews become extensions of the Bible, reflections of the word and the mind of its divine author’ (Dulin, 2015: 609). Accordingly, dispensationalist thinking emphasizes the creation of the state of Israel as a mark of the end of times and as evidence of the idea that the covenant with the Jews is eternal. While dispensationalism is closely associated with Christian Zionist roots, the connection between the two is often overstated (Shapiro, 2016: 12). Indeed, many Christian Zionists, including Hayovel activists discussed in this article, do not adhere to dispensationalist thinking. Indeed, contemporary Christian Zionism today cannot be traced solely to Darby’s dispensationalist ideas. Instead, Smith (2013) argues that ‘Judeo-centric prophecy interpretation can be traced back to 17th century Puritanism with Jews perceived ‘as eventual allies against the Turko-Catholic Antichrist’ (2013: 70).

Mikael Knighton (2008) of the organization ‘Christians Standing with Israel’ has defined the theology in the following terms: ‘Christian Zionism is the belief which holds that the land of Israel is sacred ground given by God to a people whom He foreknew, the Jewish people – the “apple of His eye”’. Knighton notes that Christian Zionists view the establishment of Jewish sovereignty in 1948 as ‘the literal fulfilment of Biblical prophecy’ and states that they ‘stand in firm, diametrical opposition to land concessions of any type involving the forfeiture of the holy land of Israel’ (Shapiro, 2016: 68).

Knighton’s definition of Christian Zionism is in line with Kong (2001: 213) assertion that ‘sacred space is contested space’. The contested nature of sacred space is revealed through the political assertion that the Israeli presence in the West Bank must be supported and the claim that the Christian dedication is owed not only to the Jewish people but also to the placing of the entire land under Israeli sovereignty.

This article is focussed on this unique aspect of Christian Zionism, explored through an analysis of the theology and activity of ‘Hayovel’, an American based Christian Zionist organization dedicated to providing agricultural volunteer work in the vineyards of Samaria. According to the movement’s website, ‘Over the past ten years we have brought over 1700 volunteers into Judea and Samaria (the so-called “West Bank”). Our goal is to equip every volunteer to be an educated, effective, positive ambassador for Judea and Samaria’. Despite facilitating the work of thousands of volunteers, Hayovel is the outcome and product of a single family. Its founders, Tommy and Sherry Waller lead the movement and the organization is largely run by their 11 children and their spouses. It currently operates from its compound on a hill adjacent to the Jewish settlement of Har Beracha in Samaria.

Following what has been termed the ‘spatial turn’, scholars from different disciplines have been increasingly focussing on the importance of space and its fluid and dynamic nature (Kong, 2001; Lefebvre, 1991). Tuan (1974) coined the term topophilia (love of place) to denote personal attachment to a given location. In their work on place making in diasporic communities, Vasques and Knott (2014: 13) argue that ‘religion is fundamentally about memory and “topophilia” – the emotional and visceral attachment to particular places, especially home and the homeland’. Christian Zionist topophilic bonds to Judea and Samaria are explained here in the context of what Maria Lewicka (2011) has termed ‘ideological rootedness’, a variety of place attachment based on Hummon’s (1992) model. Rootedness is defined as ‘a self-conscious decision to live in a place and to take active interest in the place’s goings-on’ (Lewicka, 2011: 677). The examples provided by Lewicka focus primarily on places of birth and early childhood, attachment to specific communities and regions (Proshansky et al., 1983; Relph, 1976). In contrast, the rootedness described here is not an attachment to a location of birth a home or homeland, but rather to a tangible religious experience and its manifestation as a spiritual home and centre.

Lewicka notes that rising levels of mobility and education result in the gradual diminishment of place attachment worldwide, hypothesizing that the growing prevalence of neutral space or hyper-modern non-places (Auge, 1992) may lead to the renewal of ‘an interest in the concept of space, its uniqueness and meaningfulness’ (Lewicka, 2011: 679). Thus, rootedness is employed here as a form of reactive attachment – topophilia in a world where the meaning of place has significantly diminished. Such sentiments are echoed in Huyssen’s (1995: 6) work on the ‘memory boom’ described as a reflection of the need for ‘temporal anchoring … as the territorial and spatial coordinates of our late twentieth-century lives are blurred or even dissolved by increased mobility around the globe’.

Indeed, Hayovel relationship to place may be seen as a reaction to the diminishment of space in the global era. Thus, while disattachment to a given locality is often associated with a growing global trend of estrangement from places, in this case the volunteers’ transience may be seen as the means towards the continuous cultivation of attachment and rootedness. To that aim, Hayovel volunteers employ a series of spatial practices (Lefebvre, 1991: 33) in the form of agricultural work and tourism of biblical sites in the West Bank and Jerusalem. These practices serve to reconstruct the land as a sacred space where prophecies occur in the present and future, rather than a site of mere historical significance.

Viewing Hayovel through the concept of rootedness, we argue that Hayovel’s theology differs considerably from traditional Evangelical perceptions of space and holiness. Thus, Evangelical Christians are often seen as indifferent or openly hostile to the idea of holy space, rather invoking a global, non-territorial and abstract form of religiosity. In their analysis of religious concepts of place Shampa Mazumdar and Sanjoy Mazumdar (2004: 395) do not address Protestantism at all, noting that for most denominations ‘place does not appear to play a major role’. Likewise, Philip Jenkins (2011: 116) has described Evangelical Christianity as ‘a potent theology for a world of migrants and wanderers, those who define their identity in terms not of roots but of routes’. Elisabeth McAlister (2005) has noted that ‘evangelical conversion allows for territorial detachment … loosening of nationalist and even familial bonds’ (2005: 253; see also: Coleman, 2000: 63; Kalir, 2009: 150).

As WD Davies (1974: 366) notes in his work on early Christian attitudes towards the Holy Land, Christian tradition contains several strata of understanding in this regard. One strata of Christianity completely rejects Jewish concepts of territoriality, while a second engages in transforming or transmuting the land and the Temple into spiritual abstractions. However, in some sources the land, the Temple and Jerusalem remain important for Christianity. This is particularly pronounced in the Fourth Gospel, emphasizing the permanent and sacramental holiness of the space where Jesus lived. Such ambivalence regarding territoriality has changed over time. John Calvin and other early Protestant thinkers viewed pilgrimage to the Holy Land negatively as a feature of Catholic veneration of relics. However, since the nineteenth century, Protestants began to travel to the region, viewing their presence in the land as a living experience of the scriptures. Similarly, Protestant engagement in archaeology throughout the nineteenth century was largely inspired by the will to reveal the truth of the Bible in a scientifically verified form (Feldman, 2016: 39–41).

Kaell’s work on contemporary pilgrimage has challenged the division between materiality and anti-materiality in the pilgrimage experience. While noting that Protestantism does emphasize ‘grace not place’, Kaell (2014: 77) argues that Evangelical travel is in fact ‘saturated with notions of place and place meaning’. Likewise, Evangelical volunteers in Jerusalem, perceive the land as unique space where God’s presence can be felt more intensely than anywhere else in the form of personal miracles and supernatural experiences. At the same time volunteers express their ambivalence towards the idea of holy space by emphasizing that Israel is also a worldly place like any other, not to be fetishized (Engberg, 2016: 143).

The theological stance adopted by Hayovel volunteers in the West Bank is described here as a conscience attempt to move away from a religiosity based on faith and towards an emphasis on a spiritual experience of the concrete, revolving around the physical contact with the land of Israel, attained through agricultural work and visiting of the country’s sites, corresponding to the process referred to be Jonathan Smith (1993: 106) as ‘deterritorialization to reterritorialization’. Emphasis on the objective sacredness of the land is set in the context of the Hebrew Roots movement – the adoption of Jewish ritual, speech, and symbolism (Dulin, 2015: 605).

A note on field sites

This article is based on fieldwork and participant observation conducted among Hayovel staff and volunteers working in the vineyards of the Jewish settlements Psagot, Har Bracha, and Shiloh in the autumn and winter periods from 2018 to 2020. Fieldwork included initial interviews with family members and volunteers, conducted mostly in the vineyards during the picking and pruning work and in the organization’s compound. In addition, we also draw upon interviews with Hayovel founder Tommy Waller and with several Jewish settlers in regular contact with the organization. Interviews with volunteers were open-ended, focussing primarily on four major issues: personal and organizational background, theological questions regarding the meaning of their presence in Israel, emotional and religious connection to the land of Israel and their wider views regarding Christianity in the global era. Special attention was given to the meaning ascribed by the volunteers to their presence in Israel and in the West Bank in particular and on the relationship between holiness and space in the wider context of Christian Zionism.

Our identity as Israelis and religiously observant Jews clearly generated feelings of affinity and interest, as many of the volunteers came from rural areas of the United States and had little opportunity to meet Jews. Deep interest in Jewish practices and lifestyle, meant that many were eager to ask questions about Judaism and share their experience of Israel and their path to what was evidently a heavily Judaized version of Christianity. At the same time, some were reluctant to discuss certain points of Christian theology such as the nature of Jesus and the messianic age. Several staff members felt the need to declare their lack of a missionary intentions and their rejection of replacement theology: the idea that God’s covenant with Israel has been nullified and replaced by the church as ‘the chosen people’. Moreover, our association with the academic world, often viewed as hostile to religion in general and to Evangelical Christianity in particular, meant that some volunteers kept their distance from us.

The founding of Hayovel: an American counter culture

Tommy and Sherry Waller’s journey towards their particular form of Christian Zionism actually began as an attempt to break away from the wider American culture they grew up with; a family conducted social experiment in living outside of the state system. Indeed, the complete story of the organization’s movement is worth recounting here as it is strongly related to the evolution of their theology and movement from spiritual abstraction to a deep interest in physical expressions of holiness. It was conveyed to me by Zac Waller, the Waller’s second son and the movement’s executive director in the Hayovel compound in Har Brecha.

The Waller’s activity began with a sense of disillusionment with the American educational system, a system they saw as reflecting a state of moral collapse, created by people promoting a ‘feel good mentality … replacing God with themselves’. Accordingly, Tommy and Sherry made the decision to home school their children, a choice that had just recently become legally possible in their home state of Tennessee and was considered highly irregular. They eventually established their own church, comprising a number of like-minded families and began to formulate their own educational and theological positions.

After intense reading of the Bible, the Waller’s began to feel that what they found did not coincide with the strong Baptist theology they had received in their youth. In fact, they became convinced that the moral crisis that led them away from the public-school system and American society in general was the direct result of the fact that the Bible, in its original and complete form, had been rejected by most Christians. In keeping with broader trends among many emergent Evangelical communities (Bielo, 2011; Dulin, 2015; Sandmel, 2010), the Waller’s began moving gradually towards the adoption of Biblical laws – worshiping on Saturday rather than Sunday, noting Jewish holidays, adopting a form of marital customs resembling Biblical law and eventually accepting some Jewish food restrictions.

Significantly, the Waller’s move towards a uniquely Judaized form of Christianity was followed by their gradual removal from their broader social context – Tommy quit his job with Federal Express and the family temporarily moved into a Mennonite community where no electricity was used and attempted living completely off the land. The Waller’s decision to break away from mainstream American culture is conveyed in Hayovel’s website biography of Tommy: ‘Living off the grid for six years stripped away all the distractions of the modern American lifestyle while developing strong family ties and work ethics’. ¹ Moving away from the American mainstream was followed by an ideological break between Tommy and his father, a traditional Baptist minister.

Living in the rural area of the Tennessee-Missouri border, the Waller family had no contact with Jews prior to their arrival in Israel, nor did they seek them out. Feeling they had been misled by the churches they had previously belonged to, they assumed that the Jewish reading of the Bible was equally tainted. Indeed, as both Zac and Sherry told me, viewing their lives in retrospect they now believe they had probably harboured a slightly anti-Semitic attitude. As Sherry defined it, Jews were thought of as ‘Pharisees’: ‘religious’ in the negative sense of the term, implying a dry legalism and traditional outlook, whose faith is ‘not for real’. In addition, the idea of replacement theology was strongly embedded into their mind-set. After a while they began paying attention to the fact that the term ‘Israel’ was repeated in the Bible over and over again and that its overwhelming presence could not be ignored. As a result, the Waller’s developed a strong interest in making a visit to the Holy Land.

Eventually, one opportunity presented itself. In 2004, Tommy Waller was offered to travel to Israel as part of a potential business venture. Upon arrival, someone suggested a visit to meet ‘an Israeli farmer’. Tommy was driven out to the settlement of Har Bracha and met with Nir Lavi, the owner of the local vineyard. Lavi took Waller out to the fields overlooking the vineyards with a bible in hand and read out load to him from the book of Jeremiah: ‘For this is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says: Houses, fields and vineyards will again be bought in this land’ (Jeremiah 32:15). In Zac’s narrative, that was a turning point for Tommy Waller. Overwhelmed by the feeling that he was witnessing the actual fulfilment of Biblical prophecies, Tommy decided that he wanted to be part of the process. He asked how he could help and Lavi told him that he was short of workers to pick the grapes. That task has been taken on by Hayovel since its foundation shortly after Tommy’s first visit to Israel.

In an article written by the Rabbi of Har Beracha and Hayovel’s host and patron, Tommy Waller’s experience is described as follows:

I asked Tommy what led him to dedicate his life to bringing Christian volunteers to Israel. He told me that he read Isaiah 61:5: ‘Strangers shall stand and pasture your flocks; aliens shall be your ploughmen and vine trimmers’. This greatly moved him, and he said to himself: ‘Maybe I can be the one who is privileged to fulfill this holy verse!’ Ever since then, he has encouraged people to visit Israel and to help Jews work the land. (Melamed, 2013)

Following Tommy’s example, the encounter with the physical land, its vineyards and settlements has become the founding spiritual experience of the movement, described by Caleb Waller as a ‘salvation experience’. Thus, the Waller’s break with the secular American public-school system and with the essentially de-territorial faith of other Evangelical believers, eventually led them towards the creation of a centre in Samaria. Moreover, the gradual return to Biblical law and Christianity’s Jewish roots, has been followed by a physical return to the Holy Land itself.

‘What are we here for? Geula!’: Holy Land rootedness

Although Hayovel volunteers reside in Har Beracha, grape picking takes place in several locations in Samaria, including Psagot (Psagot winery) and Shiloh (Tura winery). In recent years as Hayovel becomes better known in the region, volunteers are offered the opportunity to perform other tasks, such as olive picking, mending of security fences or the construction of irrigation pools. Groups come twice a year, with several large groups arriving for the picking season of September-October and a smaller, male only group, coming for the pruning of the vines in January. The staff comprising primarily Waller family members spend 6–8 months of the year in Israel.

We first came to meet Hayovel volunteers in the vineyards of the settlement of Psagot, just north of Jerusalem. Perhaps the most striking physical feature of the group upon first glance was the dress code; the group’s women wear clothes that strongly resemble elements of the Jewish religious-Zionist costume including long skirts, long sleeves, and head coverings. While the dress code attracts little attention in the Israeli context (being almost identical to that of the settlers) in an American context, it marks a clear break from general society and further positions the group as a counter-cultural phenomenon. Indeed, as I was told by several female group members during lunchtime, arriving in Israel is an opportunity for more than just volunteer work – it is also a chance to stock up on clothing that is difficult to purchase in the United States.

The group begins work early, waking up before dawn and working on the fields until the early afternoon. Grape picking is conducted by all group members. Virtually all volunteers we encountered are committed to homeschooling, a model that enables them to travel back and forth between Israel and the United States with young children. Several of the women were carrying small children on their backs, with other children picking grapes or playing in the background. From time to time, one of the group’s leaders voices a slogan: ‘What are we here for?’ followed by the collective answer, ‘Geula!’ (Hebrew: redemption). Periodically, the group began singing a Christian hymn. According to one volunteer, singing and composing in the Tennessee Blue Grass style is a Waller family tradition and they often lead the group in what she termed ‘back and forth gospel music’. Indeed, music features prominently in Hayovel activity – two of the Waller brothers have produced songs and music videos about Israel and the Jewish redemption of the land. ²

Conversations with different volunteers revealed a wide spectrum of approaches to the land. According to Zac Waller, typically between one-third and one-half of a given group is dedicated to the Hayovel ideology regarding Israel as the Holy Land and the unchanging chosen status of the Jewish people. Others often come from a more traditional Christian background and are often ambivalent towards the form of rootedness being promoted by Hayovel. Monica, a middle-aged woman from the American west, expressed hesitance and reservation towards Hayovel ideology. She was not sure that she had actually felt anything unique towards the land. She also noted her ambivalent feelings regarding the tightly constructed narrative promoted by Hayovel leaders and the feeling that group members are discouraged from taking time on their own and are requested not to leave the parameter for security reasons.

Others, however, seemed entirely invested in their attachment to Israel and to the settlement movement. Several of the volunteers had been on a number of Israel trips and conveyed the feeling that while they maintained their homes and jobs in their countries of origin, the centre of their life had moved to Israel, with time in the United States spent primarily in an effort to earn money for another Israel trip. Such was the case of Brian, an ex-marine from North Carolina who had already participated in two groups, returning to the United States only to make enough money to join another. Lena, a Norwegian volunteer who had come to participate in the programme for the seventh time, described the reaction she had the first time she arrived in Israel as a feeling that ‘I am home’ (For similar references to arrival in Israel as ‘coming home’, see: Engberg, 2016: 128). Indeed, she stated her desire to move to Israel permanently noting that it was ‘technically impossible’ due to the fairly strict policy of Israeli authorities regarding long-term visas. Others expressed a similar sentiment in even stronger words, noting that ‘we would die to be here’, while remarking about the impossibility of realizing such aspirations.

The movement of Hayovel volunteers to and from the land may be seen as a form of sacred mobility – movement freighted with meaning, experienced through the body and senses (Maddrell, 2019: 138). In a video clip on the Hayovel website, shot at the vineyards, Matilda Haggstrom from Sweden reveals a central feature of Hayovel’s form of rootedness in which the land represents a living and ever-evolving connection to the Bible, not merely as history but as everyday reality:

The first time I came I was here for twelve weeks. During that time, I was able to connect to the land, and, every time I come back, I get more rooted in the land … there is no other place where I’d rather be … By working the land, planting vineyards and by reading the scriptures we can see, how it’s going to look like, one day in the future, by reading in the prophecies as well … And obviously since I’ve been here several years in a row now, I can see the change in front of me … We can see the restoration of the land with our own eyes. ³

Significantly, several Waller family members stressed the fact that volunteering in the land did not imply full immigration to Israel now or in the future. The need to emphasize this point was no doubt influenced by the strong ambivalence regarding Hayovel’s presence in the region among certain elements within the settlement movement. Nate Waller who offered his understanding that suspicion towards Hayovel among several rabbinical leaders in the area is fuelled by the fear that Christians may be motivated by a will to replace Jews, spearheading ‘a crusade, to take over the country’ and the understanding that the messianic trajectory of many Evangelicals includes the eventual conversion of Jews to Christianity. In contrast, Nate explained his belief that the land belonged to the Jews and not to ‘the nations’ and emphasized that Jewish sovereignty over the land was essential. Even in the messianic age, Israel will remain the land of the Jews with their Christian supporters retaining their loyalty to the land and its people from afar. As such, permanent residence in Israel was not a necessity for him, adding that ‘if the Messiah has a place for me in Tennessee, that’s good enough for me’.

Such dynamics of transience and flux are emblematic of the volunteer’s relationship to Judaism and Jewish law. The feeling of strong affinity with Judaism and interest in Biblical law, is coupled by identification with the non-Jewish category of ‘the nations’, noting the divinely assigned task of supporting the Jewish populace of the land. Such opinions confirm the Evangelical tendency noted by Dulin (2015): 610 of viewing Jews as ‘indexical extensions of the Bible’ and observing Jewish behaviour and history as confirmation of the Biblical narrative. In actuality, following Jewish behaviour includes the acceptance of Jewish rabbinical guidance on certain issues. A relationship of that sort has developed between Hayovel volunteers and the above-mentioned Rabbi Melamed, a topic we have elaborated on elsewhere (Elazar and Billig, 2021). And yet, it is important to note Tommy Waller’s assertion that ‘I cannot deny my own faith’, making it clear that Hayovel theology is still strongly rooted in Christianity.

Such descriptions of the messianic future were rather uncommon. The unfolding of the messianic age is an uneasy subject as it underlines the differences between Christians and Jews. Clearly, our own identity as Orthodox Jews contributed to the caution employed by volunteers when discussing the subject. Both Tommy and Nate Waller emphasized their opinion that the Jews will take the lead in identifying the messiah and that the temple would be rebuilt but did not elaborate on their understanding of the way these events would unfold. Hayovel theology is still evolving, a process referred to by Tommy Waller as ‘a journey’. The unfinished, theology-in-the-making of Hayovel seems to concern the specific process of the redemption and the future of the borders delineating Jews and Christian, an issue worthy of further research.

In Nate’s understanding of the region’s history, the nations are largely responsible for the deforestation of the land, beginning in Roman times and culminating with the annihilation of the forests by the Ottoman Turks during the First World War. Accordingly, it is the role of the nations to restore the land to its former position. This is exemplified in the verse most often quoted by the Waller’s making specific reference to the movement’s vineyard work: ‘The sons of the foreigner will be your ploughmen and your vinedressers’ (Isaiah 61:5). As Nate explained, agricultural work of planting and tending the vineyards, results in the restoration of the earth in a literal, biological sense; the face of the land is transformed and the seasonal decomposing leaves and grapes on the ground continuously create richer soil.

Protestant pilgrims tend to prefer natural sites, and the simplicity of the land as a reflection of reality in its authentic-Biblical and unmediated form (Feldman, 2016: 41; Kaell, 2014: 77). For Hayovel, the land is created and consecrated both physically and spiritually through the spatial practice of tending the vineyards. Direct contact with the earth through agricultural work is a physical expression of a multilayered experience of restoration. The Jewish return to the land, Hayovel’s own return to an original, Biblical form of Christianity and the return to nature and a material experience of the Bible, may all be seen as facets of the same trajectory.

According to Caleb, work as a volunteer may also be seen as a long-term investment. As a firm believer in apocalyptic prophecies regarding the end of time, Caleb thought of his work as preparation for the day in which the world will turn against Israel, described in the book of Ezekiel. When that happens, the need may arise to find a place of refuge in Israel and he is confident that the people he has worked with will not turn him away. Accordingly, investment in the land today offers both physical safety in the messianic future and confidence of being on the right side of a cosmic struggle – belonging to the nations, but with a safe place in the land.

The negotiating of spatial attachments stands at the core of this process. Place attachment is often associated with a feeling of security, protection, and familiarity, based on emotions to a place evolving around past experiences (Bowlby, 1973), and a sense of belonging and well-being (Fullilove, 1996). Indeed, memories of security in the past will often remain powerful despite a perilous present (Billig, 2006, 2013, 2019; Counted, 2019). Here the sense of protection is related to the unfolding of the redemptive process, and projected onto an imagined future in which the land will serve as a place of refuge. Hayovel’s position regarding space is paradoxical in this regard – while the sacredness and exclusivity of the centre is recognized, the impossibility of residing there permanently is equally accepted or pushed off to the messianic era. Caleb’s messianic vision exemplifies a form of rootedness and a relationship with a spatial core in which the region and its people are thought of as a potential refuge and security, with both physical and spiritual implications.

Entering the Bible

While the central task of Hayovel groups is to help Israeli farmers, the organization is equally interested in generating a sense of rootedness among volunteers. Rootedness is based not only on presenting the landscape in its biblical context but also on emphasizing the idea that it is the location where prophecies are being fulfilled in the present (Engberg, 2016). Accordingly, in addition to the daily work on the fields, groups dedicate 2 days a week to touring the region. With the exception of a single trip to the Sea of Galilee, Hayovel is heavily focussed on the West Bank and Jerusalem.

To establish the link to the land of the Bible, all groups begin their journey with the same activity. On their very first morning in Israel they are driven before dawn to watch the sun rise above the settlement of Elon Moreh overlooking the city of Shechem (Nablus). The visit is accompanied by Tommy, who recites the verses describing God’s promise to Abraham:

Abram travelled through the land as far as the site of the great tree of Moreh [Elon Moreh] at Shechem. At that time the Canaanites were in the land. The Lord appeared to Abram and said, ‘To your offspring I will give this land’. So, he built an altar there to the Lord, who had appeared to him. (Genesis 12:6–8)

Several members of the groups described the experience as one of the trip’s dramatic highlights.

Such practices are in line with what has been termed ‘place rituals’, defined by Mazumdar and Mazumdar (2004: 390) as ‘a series of acts in which places in religion are repeatedly invoked, their sacredness reaffirmed and a person’s identification with place solidified’. Ritual reading of biblical passages in conjunction with the taking on of panoramic views is discussed by Feldman (2007: 355), who adds that panoramic landscapes also allow viewers to ‘remain vertical’ rather than the crouching and bowing to the ground associated with Catholic and Orthodox pilgrims. This is partially, yet not entirely the case regarding Hayovel groups – while the tendency towards panorama and bible reading is still a cornerstone of the group’s touring practices, the physical distance from the earth has been discarded. Indeed, Hayovel programmes are centred on physical labour. As one participant noted, ‘I am not interested in being a tourist. I want to do something’.

For Hayovel, movement between the sites may also be seen as a form of consecration, affirming not only personal meaning but also the validity of a given space as the site of prophecy fulfilled and unfolding. This point was illustrated by Brian – asked if he still found interest in the tours on his third visit, as the group’s itinerary is more or less set, Brian replied that in fact his interest has not waned at all, stating that ‘every visit makes the connection stronger’. Brian’s description of his relationship to the land is largely presented as a reconnection – the end product of a personal journey towards meaning, evocative of the ideological rootedness described by Lewicka. However, it is not a heritage to be preserved but rather an individual choice to be cultivated. As such, the connectedness described here may be viewed as an integral part of the activist’s experience of becoming ‘born again’, in the Evangelical sense of the term. Indeed, like other born-again narratives, members of Hayovel often stress their separateness from the traditional church communities they grew up in, and from their parents or grandparents. As Oliver Roy (2004: 28–29) has written: ‘… the self and hence the individual, is at the core of the contemporary religiosity … Religiosity is a personal experience, not a legacy. A born-again believer is by definition skeptical of the religion of his family and forefathers’.

For Hayovel, salvation experience is epitomized in the connection to Israel and in the rejection of replacement theology which identifies the church as the ‘true Israel’. From Tommy’s perspective, the problem with Christianity is not limited to traditional churches. ‘New forms of replacement theology’ can be found even among some Evangelical groups identified with Israel. Coming to faith and ‘replacing replacement’ are viewed here as one single act in which the mistakes of the past are discarded through the construction of a connection with the land of Israel and its Jewish inhabitants as the embodiment of prophecy.

Hayovel staff are clearly self-conscious of the contrast between their own views regarding the holiness of the land and those maintained by more traditional Evangelicals. Both Nate and Caleb expressed their feeling that faith alone is simply ‘not enough’ for Christians today, drawing a parallel between the classical Protestant approach and the ideology of ultra-orthodox Judaism. In both cases, the common belief is that the Messiah will be miraculously sent from above in a manner unrelated to our actions in the physical realm. In contrast, the Hayovel’s Christianity resembles the theology of religious Zionism and the settler movement, an affinity described as ‘shared social-memory practices of viewing, classifying history, and orientalizing’ (Feldman, 2007: 353). Both groups share a specific understanding of history, relating in particular to the history of the twentieth century culminating in the Six-Day War, understood as a series of events validating Biblical prophecies concerning the Jewish return to the land (Dulin, 2015: 610; Engberg, 2016: 48–49). Moreover, both groups believe in the importance of activism as a means towards the physical redemption of the land in the form of building settlements and engaging in agricultural work to ‘make the land blossom’.

The ideological common ground between Hayovel and the Jewish settler movement was also mentioned by Rabbi Y. from Har Beracha who maintains close contact with Hayovel staff and volunteers: ‘What we have in common is the Bible’, implying a certain fundamental shared worldview regarding the holiness of the land, the religious significance of working towards its restoration and a linear concept of history moving towards redemption, the connection between Jewish settlers and Hayovel volunteers is actively maintained and cultivated through regular lectures and talks given by local Jewish teachers to the volunteer groups. The ideological connection has clear political implications. As Zac noted, they are staunchly opposed to any attempt to evacuate settlements in the context of an agreement with the Palestinian Authority and will actively oppose any such plans.

The holiness of the land is experienced by Hayovel groups in Biblical sites such as the site of ancient Shiloh, where the tabernacle stood before it was moved to Jerusalem. One volunteer described Shiloh as an experience of ‘standing just a few feet from hashem’s [Hebrew: God] presence’. ⁴ However, more than any other site, the Wallers emphasized the importance of the Temple Mount, noting their faith that the temple would be rebuilt. In Nate’s understanding, the construction of the temple has historically been a joint effort, involving Jews and the nations referring to Solomon and the Phoenician king Hiram constructing the first temple and King Cyrus allowing Babylonian Jews to establish the second, a similar role is to be played in the future by Christian Zionists like himself.

It should be noted in this context that faith in the rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem is not unique in Evangelical circles. Evangelical writers from Hal Lindsey and Carlson (1970: 56) to Dolphin Lambert (1997) have argued that the temple’s construction is an essential part of the redemption process (Ariel, 2001). While such aspirations have become common among many Evangelicals, most Christian tour groups do not visit the temple mount site, a visit considered a highlight for Hayovel groups. The organization’s attitude to the Temple Mount has evolved over the recent years. Initially the site was viewed with interest but was not regarded with any particular care. As a result of the instruction received on the matter from Jewish rabbinical authorities, in recent years more emphasis is placed on the site’s importance. Today, volunteers entering the temple mount perimeter refrain from entering the Dome of the Rock itself and confine themselves to circling the Temple Mount parameter, emulating Orthodox Jewish visitors, who avoid walking in the vicinity of the site traditionally identified as the location of the temple’s holy of holies.

In the 16 years that Hayovel has been active in the region, the movement’s contact with Palestinians has been fairly limited. Often, Israeli tour guides discourage such visits for personal security reasons. Sondra Baras of the organization Christian Friends of Israeli Communities, noted that she makes a point of telling groups who wish to enter Palestinian cities that ‘you are leaving the protection of the state of Israel’, a statement clearly invoking fear of imminent danger. As Zac Waller noted, in the past some Hayovel groups had visited Bethlehem, but after being identified as Israelis (an impression reinforced by the women’s’ dress code already mentioned), such visits have ceased. With Hayovel’s visible attachment to the settler movement and the official endorsement by Israeli authorities, ⁵ it is not surprising that relations with Palestinians are minimal.

Avoidance of Palestinian hotels and restaurants is common among many Christian Zionist tour groups, to the extent that some groups will often spend only minimal time in the city, with others avoiding it altogether (Feldman, 2016: 73; Shapiro, 2016: 50). One reason is that places like Bethlehem, with its predominantly Catholic or Orthodox churches and Muslim population tend to disappoint Protestants, who view traditional Christian sites as expressions of ‘institutional domination rather than the “truth” that institution has usurped and distorted’ (Bowman, 2000: 116). Evangelical yearning for untouched ‘natural’ sites, is often accompanied by the fear that the land of the Bible has changed beyond recognition (Kaell, 2014: 85). Indeed, Hayovel’s deep interest in the biblical sites of the West Bank is contrasted by their virtually complete lack of regard for traditional Christian sites such as the Holy Sepulchre and The Garden tomb in Jerusalem or the sites around the Sea of Galilee. The reason provided by Zac Waller was that ‘there is no proof anything actually happened there’. Moreover, lack of interest in certain sites, such as early Christian churches, is in line with Christian Zionism’s strong emphasis on the future, expressed in a quote of a tour leader provided by Shapiro (2016: 51): ‘It’s not about where Jesus walked. It’s about where he is going to walk’.

However, in contrast with prevalent Protestant aversion to sacred sites as reflecting a somewhat idolatrous attachment to space, Hayovel activists strive to create a form of rootedness within the physical landscape of the Bible, and its unique vitality evidenced by a perception of land’s positive reaction to the newly founded Jewish presence. In fact, the emphasis on ‘land and promise’ made by Christian Zionists like Hayovel has been criticized by other Christian leaders as the ‘territorial inheritance of the worldview of Judaism’ (Shapiro, 2016: 120). This last point demonstrates the theological implications of spatially based rootedness marking a borderline between Hayovel and other Evangelical groups. As we have shown the idea of breaking away from previous traditions is central to the Waller’s self-perception and narrative. Accordingly, the physical move towards the land of the bible and ‘the worldview of Judaism’ is equally a move away – an act of detachment from American culture and from other forms of Christianity.

Conclusion

Hayovel’s construction of rootedness in the West Bank occurs in multiple locations. On one hand, it makes clear use of traditional biblical sites such as Mt. Grizim, Shiloh, and the Temple Mount. On the other hand, it is equally based on seemingly mundane sites such as the fields and vineyards of Samaria, places noted not for their specific biblical significance but rather for their contemporary state of development by Israeli settlers. While the archaeological sites mentioned establish the power of the past, the work in the newly planted and expanding vineyards enable volunteers to construct a connection between the historical past and present of contemporary Israel, viewing the present as the direct fulfilment of the past. Thus, presence in the region offers Hayovel activists a unique form of rootedness, one in which they are able to actively ‘enter’ the Biblical narrative by participating in the physical manifestation of prophecies regarding the restoration of the land and its people (Engberg, 2016: 116).

Thus, the volunteer’s ideological rootedness, is one in which the object of attachment is located not in a place of residence but in a landscape viewed as the epicentre of a religious experience and the site of unfolding prophecies. In a way befitting Evangelical emphasis on personal choice rather than tradition, such rootedness is consciously constructed and maintained through the physical contact with the land and its sites. It is through the spatial practice of working in Samaria’s vineyards that Hayovel activists construct the sacred space of the land as a site where prophecies occur in the present. As Kong (2001) has noted ‘the sacred is a value of indeterminate signification, in itself empty of meaning and therefore susceptible to the reception of any meaning whatsoever. The sacred is thus tied up with, and draws meaning from, social and political relationships’ (2001: 213).

Hayovel is a multilayered attempt at returning to an original: an original, biblically based Christianity, a social space free of the ills of modernity and an attempt to actively participate in the return of Jews to their ancestral land. These historical and theological narratives of return are manifested in an experience of physical work, expressed as a rebellion, both against Protestant negation of sacred space and global cosmopolitanism. Indeed, it is only through the changes in connectivity and diminishment of spatial restrictions in the globalized West that such a rebellion can take place, resulting in the creation of a highly mobile community moving to and from a physical and theological centre.