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Helsinki, Ten Jews, and a Prophecy in Motion

I white-knuckled the last hour of my three-hour flight out of Moscow before our Aeroflot IL-62 finally dropped through the clouds into a blinding whiteout, the wheels screeching onto the runway moments later. We had landed in Murmansk — 125 miles north of the Arctic Circle, home of Russia’s nuclear submarine fleet.

That was twenty-five years ago. The International Christian Embassy Jerusalem had sent me to Murmansk to help escort ten Russian Jews west across the frozen north, through Finland, all the way to Ben Gurion. I would meet a van there — Michael Utterback and Dr. Ulla Järvilehto arriving from Finland — and together we would get these ten people home.

Verbal communication was a challenge. Their English was limited; my Russian was nonexistent. We laughed — a lot. There were tears too, and not just tears of joy. There were tears of pain as they talked about saying goodbye to friends and family. Real pain. Things that broke my heart, though I’ve saved some of those stories for a later chapter.

Along the route we stopped at homes where Christians hosted us overnight. Some said they believed they had been born “for such a time as this.” They already knew more about our Jewish travelers than I did — had prepared for weeks for their arrival, praying for them, learning their names, their birthdays, even their clothing sizes. I watched the room fill with tears — from both Christians and Jews — as the hosts pressed toys into the children’s hands, brought out new clothes for the adults, and embraced people they had only just met.

These Finnish Christians weren’t there to evangelize. They were there to serve. They believed they were fulfilling a biblical mandate — to carry these people on their shoulders as they made their way home to Israel.

At Helsinki-Vantaa Airport, I handed over my passport at a security checkpoint and stepped aside. My first Jewish passenger handed over his paperwork. The agent’s brow furrowed. Then Ivan. Then Sergei. He waved me back. His voice had an edge to it.

“Why don’t any of your passengers have return tickets?”

I hadn’t thought about it, but the answer came swiftly. “Sir, they’re not coming back. They’re going home.”

Something happened when those words left my mouth. A recognition — not a thought, just a sudden knowing. I had carried the theology: read the prophecies, studied the history, attended the conferences. But standing at that counter with ten people I had just spent days with, who had packed their entire lives into two bags each, I felt it for the first time rather than simply reciting it. I didn’t know what was in their hearts. Maybe some were running toward something. Maybe some were just running. But it didn’t matter — they were part of something ancient whether they understood it or not. Biblical prophecy doesn’t require its participants to understand it. It just requires them to show up.

And they showed up.

The prophecy I was helping to fulfill has a name.

Going Up

Aliyah (ah-lee-YAH). It means “ascent” or “going up.” The same root as going up to read from the Torah, climbing toward the Temple Mount, rising toward something higher. When Jewish people make aliyah, they are not simply relocating. They are ascending. The language refuses to pretend this is ordinary immigration — and the language is right.

At the airport, Ivan, Sergei, Olga, and the rest of the group had lunch in the food court while I met with an agent from the Jewish Agency for Israel. Then we boarded our flight from Helsinki to Tel Aviv. They were stepping into the end of a sentence their great-great-grandparents began in Russia. Those ancestors prayed. They passed it down. Whether the family boarding that plane felt the weight of it or not, the thread ran straight back to those prayers. I could hear it — or imagined I could — in the way my friends said it. “We’re making aliyah.” Going up.

Since Israel declared independence in 1948, over three million Jews have made aliyah from more than one hundred countries. Ethiopia, walking through deserts to reach Sudan before being airlifted. Russia, escaping persecution and rediscovering a heritage the Soviet Union tried to erase. France and Argentina, Yemen and the United States, India and South Africa. Different centuries, different dangers. The destination has always been the same.

The Israeli government facilitates this through the Jewish Agency and the Ministry of Aliyah and Integration — flights arranged, absorption centers where new immigrants learn Hebrew and find work, citizenship through the Law of Return, passed July 5, 1950, which states simply: “Every Jew has the right to come to this country as an oleh.” An entire national infrastructure built around one idea. Come home.

But the paperwork can’t capture what actually happens at Ben Gurion Airport. Olga on her knees kissing the tarmac. The young family who sold everything to move somewhere they don’t yet speak the language, where life is harder than staying put, where rockets sometimes fall. The elderly man who spent seventy years dreaming of Jerusalem and never gave up hope.

Two days before I wrote this, I met an eighty-year-old woman at the Central Bus Station in Jerusalem. She was from Houston. Made aliyah four years ago.

“I cannot say that it has been easy,” she told me. “I am the only one of my family who came. But I have no regrets.”

You don’t leave Houston at eighty, with your entire family staying behind, unless something deeper than comfort is calling you.

This Land, Not a Concept

The land question confuses Christians sometimes, especially those raised to think of faith as purely spiritual. I used to assume that once you’re “in Christ,” geography stops mattering. But the Jewish people never prayed for a homeland. They prayed for this one. Not a concept, not a symbol — the valley where David fought Goliath, the Mount where the Temple stood, the city their parents described to them in kitchens in Murmansk, Warsaw, Addis Ababa, and Buenos Aires. For two thousand years, every Passover Seder ended the same way — “Next year in Jerusalem” — and they meant a city with streets and stones and a wall you can press your forehead against and weep.

Every time I walk through the Jaffa Gate into the Old City, we stop. We always stop. There’s a verse for that moment — Psalm 122:2 — “Our feet are standing in your gates, O Jerusalem.” I love this city. I feel at home here — not because of ancestry I can point to, but something spiritual, something I can’t prove and won’t try to. Many Christians feel it. For a Jewish person walking through that same gate, something else is happening entirely. Two thousand years of saying that verse in exile, in cities that were never quite home. And now — feet on the stones. Standing in it.

And it’s not just land. When a Jew makes aliyah, they are rejoining a conversation that began at Mount Sinai. Judaism is communal in a way that Christianity often isn’t. We tend to think individually — my faith, my salvation, my relationship with God. To make aliyah is to say: I belong to this people. Their story is my story. Their future is my future.

I can’t tell you what was driving the ten people behind me at that Helsinki counter. We hadn’t known each other long enough for that. What I can tell you is what I saw: people boarding a flight to a place they had never been. No return tickets. Whatever had brought them to that moment — faith, fear, longing, desperation, something they couldn’t have named if you’d asked them — I didn’t know. I still don’t. But they were going.

Except Here

By every historical measure, the Jewish people should have disappeared.

Name another ancient people — Hittites, Moabites, Philistines, Edomites — who survived without a homeland for two thousand years and then returned to reestablish national sovereignty in their ancestral territory. You can’t because it has never happened. Not once in recorded history. Except here.

The modern return didn’t begin with politics or a United Nations vote. The prophets described it in detail centuries before anyone boarded a plane. At some point the prophecy left the page.

This didn’t happen by accident.

In Murmansk, before we left for Helsinki, I watched a mother give her son his final instructions in a small, cold apartment. She stood at the door and talked and talked, and the tears ran down her face the whole time. He was one of the ten I was escorting. I don’t speak Russian, so I have no idea what she said. But I know what I was watching. Two thousand years of waiting, compressed into five minutes at a door.

At the Western Wall, I stood back and watched a Yemeni family celebrate a Bar Mitzvah — strangers to me, but not to this place. It was a very colorful celebration. They’d come from a country where Jews had lived since before the destruction of the First Temple, and now they were here, at the Wall, the boy becoming a man in the city his ancestors had faced in prayer for centuries, from Yemen.

Through my work with the ICEJ, I was invited to the circumcision of an Ethiopian baby — a young father beaming, surrounded by family, in Jerusalem. I attended an Ethiopian wedding in the city. I met with new olim at an Ethiopian absorption center, people still finding their footing in a country that was simultaneously ancient and brand new to them.

And I’ve sat in a park with an American Jewish couple — comfortable, established, not going anywhere — and asked them straight out whether they thought we might see an emergency aliyah from the West. From America.

They said yes. But only if it got bad enough. If something like the Holocaust happened again — well, now they had a country to flee to.

I’ve thought about that answer for years. They weren’t dismissing the idea. They were telling me where they are right now. Aware, maybe for the first time, that they might need to go. Just not ready yet.

You can have opinions about this from a distance. It’s different when you’ve been there.

Going Home

The agent at the Helsinki counter was just doing his job. He needed an explanation for the paperwork. I gave him the only one I had.

They’re not coming back. They’re going home.

I didn’t know it then, but that sentence is what this book is about. Not a government program, not a political movement — something older than both. Ancient promises meeting the people they were made to. And those people finally saying yes.

I’ve been watching it happen ever since.

Endnotes

1  Isaiah 49:22, NIV. “This is what the Sovereign Lord says: See, I will beckon to the Gentiles, I will lift up my banner to the peoples; they will bring your sons in their arms and carry your daughters on their shoulders.”

2  Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics records show that between May 15, 1948 and December 31, 2023, over 3.3 million immigrants made aliyah from more than 120 countries across six continents.

3  The Law of Return (Hebrew: ??? ?????, Chok HaShvut) was passed by the Knesset on July 5, 1950. Amended in 1970 to extend the right of return to non-Jewish children, grandchildren, and spouses of Jews.

4  Psalm 122:2, NIV.

The Biblical Case for Aliyah

Thirty-five years ago I was eating lunch with a friend in Colorado Springs when he said something I almost let slide right past me.

There’s going to be a greater exodus than the first one, Jonathan said. Bigger than Egypt. The prophets saw it coming.

My first instinct was to move on. I grew up in a denominational church where Israel barely came up. Not because anyone was hostile — just because it wasn’t on the map. The unspoken assumption, though nobody called it this, was that the Church had replaced Israel in God’s plans. The Jewish people’s story was finished. What happened to them now was history, not prophecy.

Which meant nobody was watching for what the prophets actually said.

But something made me put my fork down.

Say that again, I said. And explain what you mean.

I had been to graduate school. I had studied theology, read the prophets, written papers on the Old Testament. I thought I knew the landscape.

I didn’t know this.

I went home and found it in Jeremiah — and once I found it, I couldn’t stop. Isaiah. Ezekiel. Amos. Prophets separated by centuries, writing from different countries, different circumstances. And they were all pointing at the same horizon. A second Exodus so vast it would make the first one look like a rehearsal.

I had read these passages before. I just hadn’t understood what I was reading. This was no small thing — and I was only now discovering it.

What would it look like if it were true?

It would look like what’s happening right now.

The Covenant Foundation

The story begins not with end-times prophecy but with a command to leave. Go, God says, to a land I will show you. And then: to your offspring I will give this land. Specific dirt. Actual geography. The return was already written into the covenant before the exile ever happened.

We’ll go deeper into that night with Abraham in the next chapter. For now — the prophets.

The Prophets Speak

During the rush of the Russian aliyah, a photograph showed up in numerous printed articles. Michael Utterback — with the ICEJ, not Jewish, under no obligation — carrying a Jewish woman off a bus and into a waiting van. She had survived things I can only imagine. And he was carrying her home.

That image made the circuit because it captured something people couldn’t quite articulate.

Isaiah could have. He did, 2,700 years earlier.

“This is what the Sovereign Lord says: See, I will beckon to the Gentiles, I will lift up my banner to the peoples; they will bring your sons in their arms and carry your daughters on their shoulders. Kings will be your foster fathers, and their queens your nursing mothers.”1

Nations carrying Jewish children home. That’s what Isaiah saw. That’s what Michael Utterback was doing for ten years during the aliyah from the former Soviet Union. I caught the tail end of that wave — not Jewish, escorting Russian Jews through Warsaw to Ben Gurion. We weren’t thinking about prophecy at that moment. We were just trying to get people on the right planes.

But Isaiah knew.

Jeremiah saw it too.

He says a day is coming when people will no longer invoke the Exodus as their primary reference point for God’s faithfulness. For three thousand years, the Exodus was the story — the one miracle so large it defined everything else God had ever done. And Jeremiah says it’s going to be surpassed.

“The days are coming, declares the Lord, when it will no longer be said, ‘As surely as the Lord lives, who brought the Israelites up out of Egypt,’ but it will be said, ‘As surely as the Lord lives, who brought the Israelites up out of the land of the north and out of all the countries where he had banished them.’”2

Out of all the countries.

The Exodus was one nation — Egypt, one direction, one sea. What Jeremiah is describing is something categorically different. A global ingathering. Jews returning from every country where God had scattered them, from every continent and every direction. And when it happens, it will be so unmistakable, so clearly the hand of God, that it will reframe how people talk about His faithfulness entirely.

That was Jonathan’s lunch conversation thirty years ago. The story has only grown since. The current aliyah from the west is a trickle. Manageable. But if the first Exodus was a stream, the second will be a flood. That day is coming. We’ll get there later in this book.

Isaiah comes back to this, and he names the directions.

“Do not be afraid, for I am with you; I will bring your children from the east and gather you from the west. I will say to the north, ‘Give them up!’ and to the south, ‘Do not hold them back.’ Bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the ends of the earth.”3

North. South. East. West. The ends of the earth. Isaiah isn’t being poetic — he’s being precise. Every direction. Every nation. No exceptions.

And then he says it a different way. He calls it a second time.

“In that day the Lord will reach out his hand a second time to reclaim the surviving remnant of his people. He will raise a banner for the nations and gather the exiles of Israel; he will assemble the scattered people of Judah from the four quarters of the earth.”4

The first time was Egypt. One nation, one direction, one Exodus. The second time is different in every way — global in scope, drawing from every quarter, involving the nations themselves in the process.

Ezekiel sees the same return, but he sees it differently. He doesn’t describe a movement of people. He describes a resurrection.

God takes him to a valley full of dry bones — the whole house of Israel, scattered and dead. And Ezekiel watches breath come back into them. He watches them stand. He watches an army rise from what was nothing.

Then God says: “I will take you out of the nations; I will gather you from all the countries and bring you back into your own land.”5

The dry bones weren’t poetry. They were a portrait. A people scattered across the nations for two thousand years, their national identity buried, their language dead, their land occupied by strangers — and then, in one generation, standing again. Speaking Hebrew. Planting vineyards. Defending borders that didn’t exist the decade before.

Some Christians read this as a future event, and I agree. But that doesn’t negate what’s happening right now. I’ve stood in Israel and watched the people Ezekiel saw in his vision — walking past me in the supermarket, driving taxis, arguing about politics, raising children who have never known exile. The bones are not dry anymore.

A number of years ago I was travelling from Cairo to Alexandria when I saw large dome-shaped structures in the distance and asked my driver what they were.

Dove cotes, he said. The doves leave — sometimes for days. But they always come back to their nests.

We talked the rest of the drive. But the next morning, during my quiet time, the dove cotes came back to me. And then Isaiah.

“Who are these that fly along like clouds, like doves to their nests? Surely the islands look to me; in the lead are the ships of Tarshish, bringing your children from afar, with their silver and gold, to the honor of the Lord your God.”6

He had words for the ships. He didn’t have words for the planes — so he reached for the closest image he had. Clouds. Doves. Things that move through the sky faster than anything on the ground.

Here was my takeaway from that conversation with my Egyptian driver: you cannot return to a place you’ve never been. And yet Jewish people who have never set foot in Israel speak of going there as going home. Something in them knows where the nest is.

In a later chapter I’ll tell you about Gustav Scheller and Operation Exodus — a hundred ships sailing from Odessa in Ukraine to Haifa. Isaiah saw all of it coming.

Amos gets the last word.

“I will bring my people Israel back from exile. They will rebuild the ruined cities and live in them. They will plant vineyards and drink their wine; they will make gardens and eat their fruit. I will plant Israel in their own land, never again to be uprooted from the land I have given them.”7

Never again uprooted.

Every previous return ended in another exile. Egypt ended. Babylon ended. The brief restoration before Rome ended. The pattern held for three thousand years — return, exile, return, exile. Amos said one return would be different. One planting would be permanent.

They’re still there.

Different prophets, different centuries, the same promise. Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Amos — they never met, they never compared notes, they were separated by generations and geography. And they all saw the same thing coming.

A global ingathering. Jews flying home like doves to their nests. A final planting that would never be uprooted.

Is aliyah biblical?

Michael Utterback has carried Jews home on his shoulders for decades — captured in one photograph, with dozens of other moments that never made it onto film. The prophets had the framework for what he was doing. They wrote it down centuries before he showed up.

The prophets spoke. History is answering.

And Yet

I’ve lived in Israel. I love it deeply. And anyone who has actually lived there — not visited, lived — knows that not everything is spiritual and perfect. Traffic is terrible, the politics are fierce, people argue about everything, and rockets fall. I’m writing this between runs to the bomb shelter, so I say that without irony. The tensions are real and the solutions aren’t simple.

And yet.

It is not yet the world the prophets envisioned. The wolf hasn’t lain down with the lamb. The Temple hasn’t been rebuilt. The messianic age hasn’t arrived. My Jewish friends will be the first to tell you that — and they say it not with despair, but with expectation.

The return is real. The fulfillment is partial. The desert is blooming. A language dead for two thousand years is spoken by nine million people.8 No one knows what the full fulfillment looks like. We can only imagine.

Which raises a question older than the prophets themselves.

Why this people? Why this Land? Why has God been this stubborn about keeping these particular promises across four thousand years of human chaos?

The answer goes back further than Isaiah. Further than Jeremiah. Further than Moses and the Exodus. It goes back to a night in the ancient Near East when God made a promise — and did something to seal it that changed everything.

Endnotes

1  Isaiah 49:22, NIV.

2  Jeremiah 16:14–15, NIV.

3  Isaiah 43:5–6, NIV.

4  Isaiah 11:11–12, NIV.

5  Ezekiel 37:21, NIV.

6  Isaiah 60:8–9, NIV.

7  Amos 9:14–15, NIV.

8  Eliezer Ben-Yehuda (1858–1922) is credited as the primary force behind Hebrew’s modern revival. Hebrew is now spoken by over 9 million people worldwide.

9  All Scripture quotations are from the New International Version (NIV) unless otherwise noted.

I grew up in an evangelical church and never heard the word “Aliyah,” or any teaching on the prophetic end-time return of the Jews to Israel.  I even spent four years in a graduate school of theology, and nothing. Crickets! Yet aliyah is as biblical as the parchment the early prophets wrote upon.  Here are some of the words penned by those forth-tellers of end time history.

ISAIAH

Isaiah 10:20

“And it shall come to pass in that day that the remnant of Israel, and such as have escaped of the house of Jacob, will never again depend on him who defeated them, but will depend on the LORD, the Holy One of Israel, in truth.

Isaiah 11:11-12

“It shall come to pass in that day that the Lord shall set His hand again the second time to recover the remnant of His people who are left, from Assyria and Egypt, from Pathos and Cush, from Elam and Shinar, from Hamath and the islands of the sea. He will set up a banner for the nations, and will assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth.”

Isaiah 27:12-13

“And it shall come to pass in that day that the LORD will thresh, from the channel of the River to the Brook of Egypt; and you will be gathered one by one, oh you children of Israel. So it shall be in that day: the great trumpet will be blown; they will come, who are about to perish in the land of Assyria, and they who are outcasts in the land of Egypt, and shall worship the LORD in the holy mount at Jerusalem.

Isaiah 43:5-6

“Fear not, for I am with you; I will bring your descendants from the east, and gather you from the west; I will say to the north, ‘Give them up!’ and to the south, ‘Do not keep them back!’ Bring My sons from afar, and My daughters from the ends of the earth.”

Isaiah 49:12

“Surely these shall come from afar; Look! Those from the north and the west, and these from the land of Sinim.”

Isaiah 60:9

“Surely the coastlands shall wait for Me; and the ships of Tarshish will come first, to bring your sons from afar, their silver and their gold with them, to the name of the LORD your God, and to the Holy One of Israel, because He has glorified you.”

JEREMIAH

Jeremiah 16:14-15

“Therefore behold, the days are coming,” says the LORD, “that it shall no more be said, ‘The LORD lives who brought up the children of Israel from the land of Egypt,’ but, ‘The LORD lives who brought up the children of Israel from the land of the north and from all the lands where He had driven them.’ For I will bring them back into their land which I gave to their fathers.”

Jeremiah 23:3

“But I will gather the remnant of My flock out of all countries where I have driven them, and bring them back to their folds; and they shall be fruitful and increase.”

Jeremiah 23:7-8

“Therefore, behold, the days are coming,” says the LORD, that they shall no longer say, ‘As the LORD lives who brought up the children of Israel from the land of Egypt,’ but, ‘As the LORD lives who brought up and led the descendants of the house of Israel from the north country and from all the countries where I had driven them.’ And they shall dwell in their own land.”

Jeremiah 30:7-11

“Alas! For that day is great, so that none is like it; and it is the time of Jacob's trouble, but he shall be saved out of it. 'For it shall come to pass in that day,' says the LORD of hosts, 'that I will break his yoke from your neck and will burst your bonds; foreigners shall no longer enslave them. But they shall serve the LORD their God, and David their king, whom I will raise up for them. 'Therefore, do not fear, O my servant Jacob,' says the LORD, 'nor be dismayed, O Israel; for behold, I will save you from afar, and your seed from the land of their captivity. Jacob shall return, have rest and be quiet, and no one shall make him afraid. For I am with you,' says the LORD, 'to save you; though I make a full end of all nations where I have scattered you, yet I will not make a complete end of you. But I will correct you in justice, and will not let you go altogether unpunished.”

Jeremiah 31:7-11 

“For thus says the LORD: Sing with gladness for Jacob, and shout among the chief of the nations; proclaim, give praise, and say, ‘Oh LORD, save your people, the remnant of Israel!’ Behold, I will bring them from the north country, and gather them from the ends of the earth.  Among them the blind and the lame, the woman with child and the one who labors with child, together; A great throng shall return there.  They shall come with weeping, and with supplications I will lead them.  I will cause them to walk by the rivers of waters, in a straight way in which they shall not stumble; for I am a Father to Israel, And Ephraim is my firstborn. ' Hear the word of the LORD, O nations, and declare it in the isles afar off, and say, ' He who scattered Israel will gather him, and keep him as a shepherd does his flock.”

Jeremiah 46:28

“Do not fear, O Jacob My servant,” says the LORD, “for I am with you; for I will make a complete end of all the nations to which I have driven you, but I will not make a complete end of you. I will rightly correct you, for I will not leave you wholly unpunished.”

Jeremiah 50:4-5

"In those days and in that time," says the LORD, " the children of Israel shall come, they and the children of Judah together; with continual weeping they shall come and seek the LORD their God. They shall ask the way to Zion, with their faces toward it, saying, "Come and let us join ourselves to the LORD in a perpetual covenant that will not be forgotten."

EZEKIEL

Ezekiel 11:17-20

“Therefore say, "Thus says the Lord GOD: "I will gather you from the peoples, assemble you from the countries where you have been scattered, and I will give you the land of Israel."" And they will go there, and they will take away all its detestable things and all its abominations from there. Then I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within them, and take the stony heart out of their flesh, and give them a heart of flesh, that they may walk in my statutes and keep my judgments and do them; and they shall be my people, and I will be their God.”

Ezekiel 36:24-29

“For I will take you from among the nations, gather you out of all countries, and bring you into your own land. Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean; I will cleanse you of all your filthiness and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my Spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes, and you will keep my judgments and do them. Then you shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers; you shall be my people, and I will be your God. I will deliver you from all your uncleanness. I will call for the grain and multiply it and bring no famine upon you.”

Ezekiel 36:33

“Thus says the Lord GOD: “On the day that I cleanse you from all your iniquities, I will also enable you to dwell in the cities, and the ruins shall be rebuilt.”

Ezekiel 37:22-28

 “And I will make them one nation (Judah and Ephraim) in the land, on the mountains of Israel; and one king shall be king over them all; they shall no longer be two nations, nor shall they ever be divided into two kingdoms again. They shall not defile themselves anymore with their idols, nor with their detestable things, nor with any of their transgressions; but I will deliver them from all their dwelling places in which they have sinned and will cleanse them. Then they shall be My people, and I will be their God. “David My servant shall be king over them, and they shall all have one shepherd; they shall also walk in My judgments and observe My statutes and do them. Then they shall dwell in the land that I have given to Jacob My servant, where your fathers dwelt; and they shall dwell there, they, their children, and their children’s children, forever; and My servant David shall be their prince forever. 

AMOS

Amos 9:8-9

"Behold, the eyes of the Lord GOD are on the sinful kingdom, and I will destroy it from the face of the earth; yet I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob," says the LORD. " For surely, I will command, and will sift the house of Israel among all nations, as grain is sifted in a sieve; yet not the smallest grain shall fall to the ground.”

Amos 9:11-15

“On that day I will raise up the tabernacle of David, which has fallen down, and repair its damages; I will raise up its ruins and rebuild it as in the days of old; that they may possess the remnant of Edom, and all the Gentiles who are called by my name,” says the LORD who does this thing. 'Behold, the days are coming,' says the LORD, ' when the plowman shall overtake the reaper, and the treader of grapes him who sows seed; the mountains shall drip with sweet wine, and all the hills shall flow with it. I will bring back the captives of my people Israel; they shall build the waste cities and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and drink wine from them; they shall also make gardens and eat fruit from them. I will plant them in their land, and no longer shall they be pulled up from the land I have given them,” says the LORD your God.”

HOSEA

Hosea 2:14-16

“Therefore, behold, I will allure her, I will bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfort to her. I will give her vineyards from there, and the Valley of Achor as a door of hope; she shall sing there, as in the days of her youth, as in the day when she came up from the land of Egypt. “And it shall be, in that day,” Says the LORD, “that you will call Me ‘My Husband,’ and no longer call Me ‘My Master.“

Hosea 3:5

“Afterward the children of Israel shall return and seek the LORD their God and David their king. They shall fear the LORD and His goodness in the latter days.”

MICAH

Micah 2:12
 “I will surely assemble all of you, O Jacob, I will surely gather the remnant of Israel; I will put them together like sheep of the fold, like a flock in the midst of their pasture; They shall make a loud noise because of so many people.”

ZEPHANIAH

Zephaniah 3:18-20

“I will gather those who sorrow over the appointed assembly, who are among you, to whom its reproach is a burden. Behold, at that time I will deal with all who afflict you; I will save the lame, and gather those who were driven out; I will appoint them for praise and fame in every land where they were put to shame. At that time, I will bring you back, even at the time I gather you; For I will give you fame and praise among all the peoples of the earth, when I return your captives before your eyes,” says the LORD.”

ZECHARIAH

Zechariah 2:6

“Up, up! Flee from the land of the north,” says the LORD; “for I have spread you abroad like the four winds of heaven,” says the LORD.”

Zechariah 8:7-8

“Thus says the LORD of hosts: ‘Behold, I will save My people from the land of the east and from the land of the west; I will bring them back, and they shall dwell in the midst of Jerusalem. They shall be My people and I will be their God.”

If you do a Google search on aliyah, one of the first things you will discover is that Aliyah is currently a very popular name for baby girls. And second, Aliyah is a Canadian professional wrestler who holds the record for the fastest victory in WWE history at 3.17 seconds. 

But that is not the aliyah that we are talking about. Aliyah is not an individual, but a term to define the return of the Jews back to their covenant homeland. 

OPEN FOR JEWISH IMMIGRATION

“The State of Israel will be open for Jewish immigration

and for the 'Ingathering of the Exiles.”

This is what the Government proclaimed in its Declaration of Independence on the 5th of the month of Iyar in the year 5708, May 14, 1948. The integration of immigrants into the social fabric of the community has been one of the central objectives of the State of Israel from the day of its founding, and, as such, it stands at the forefront of the Government's scale of priorities. (https://www.gov.il/en/departments/guides/the-aliya-story)

WHAT IS ALIYAH?

The Hebrew term for this process of the Jews immigrating to Israel is “aliyah.”  Aliyah literally means to “go up,” as in the scriptures that talk about “going up” to Jerusalem three times a year for the biblically mandated holy days of Pesach, Shavuot and Sukkot.  

Other terms for this end time return of the Jews is “The Greater Exodus,” “The Second Exodus,” or what I am calling the “Far Country Exodus.” I have developed this term from the parable of the Prodigal Son in Luke 15, who left the “far country” of idolatry, adultery, and riotous living to return to his father at home. It is the story of the exile of the Hebrews from their covenant promised land, and their end time home-going from all the far-off countries to which they were scattered.

Here is what the International Christian Embassy of Jerusalem says of aliyah: 

“Aliyah, simply stated, is the ingathering of the exiles from the four corners of the earth — it is the immigration of Jews back to their ancestral homeland. Aliyah ‘is rooted in the Jewish people’s fervent hope to rebuild its national life in the country from which it was exiled nearly 2,000 years ago.” (https://www.icej.org/defining-aliyah/)

The International Fellowship of Christians and Jews defines aliyah thus: ”Aliyah is the Hebrew word used to describe immigration to Israel—bringing Jews from the “four corners of the earth” to their biblical homeland is the very backbone of the Jewish state. It’s the return of Jews to the land of Israel from the diaspora (Jewish communities outside of Israel). Since Jerusalem is located on top of Mount Zion, the pilgrims literally ascended to the Holy Temple.” (https://www.ifcj.org/learn/resource-library/what-is-aliyah)

Nefesh B’Nefesh, one of the leading organizations of aliyah has this to say about the ingathering of the exiles: The Hebrew word “Aliyah” literally means ascent or rise, but for generations it has been used to mean “immigration to Israel.”

Israel has always been the center of the Jewish universe, but for centuries the dream of moving to Israel was just that, a dream.

In the 1880s, organized groups began to immigrate to Israel with the goal of building communities and settling the land. “Aliyah” became the official term for immigration to Israel when, in 1950, the State of Israel opened her doors to the Jews of the world and passed the Law of Return.” (https://www.nbn.org.il/what-is-aliyah/)

The Ships That Ran Without Lights

Several months ago, I drove through the quirky south Texas town of Marfa — home of the mysterious Marfa Lights and the setting for a movie called Blanche, described as a captivating tale inspired by true events. The Marfa Lights didn’t do much for me. They seemed to target sci-fi buffs with a lot of time on their hands, and Blanche turned out to be about a chicken thrown from the window of a Cessna at 7,000 feet.

But something else was in Marfa. Something I never would have thought to look for.

Tucked into a modest building on a quiet street sat the Marfa Holocaust and Model Ship Museum. According to its owners, it is the only heritage museum in the world that showcases the Aliyah Bet. I had no idea what that phrase meant when I walked in. I had a pretty good idea by the time I walked out.

Inside the glass display cases were handcrafted model ships, ornate and precise, sitting in that particular silence that only objects carrying real weight can manage. I stood there longer than I planned. Because what those ships represent is not quaint maritime history. It is one of the most desperate, courageous, and heartbreaking rescue operations in recorded memory — a secret network built to pull Jewish men, women, and children out of a dying Europe and carry them home to the land God had promised their ancestors three thousand years before.

Plan B

You already know the word aliyah. But here it carries a particular kind of weight.

Aliyah is the Hebrew word for ascent — the act of immigrating to the Land of Israel. The bet in Aliyah Bet is just the Hebrew letter B. Plan B. The second option. The thing you do when the first door gets slammed in your face.

Together the phrase describes the clandestine immigration of Jewish people into Palestine from 1920 to 1948, the years Great Britain controlled the region and was actively, stubbornly working to keep Jewish refugees out. The British set strict quotas on how many Jewish immigrants could legally enter Palestine. In times of political tension they didn’t reduce the quotas — they closed the door entirely. Jewish people who had nowhere else on earth to go were turned away at the coast.1

So they found another way.

The Ships

Travel by sea became the lifeline of the Aliyah Bet. Every year, thousands of Jewish refugees boarded ships and attempted to reach the Palestinian coast. Most of these vessels were old cargo ships with no business carrying human beings across open water. They were overcrowded. They were worn out. And people boarded them anyway, because the alternative was staying in a Europe that had already shown what it intended to do with them.

In 1938, a Jewish organization called the Mossad LeAliyah Bet — the Organization for Illegal Immigration, established by the Jewish leadership in Palestine — began coordinating the effort formally. Between 1937 and 1944, sixty-two voyages were carried out. During World War II, hundreds of people died at sea. The ships came anyway.2

When the war ended and the full scope of the Holocaust came into the open, the movement surged. Survivors left the displaced persons camps in Germany, Austria, and Italy and moved through an underground network called the Brihah — Hebrew for flight. The name says everything about the mood of the people moving through it. They were not migrating. They were fleeing. The Brihah carried them to gathering points in port cities along the coasts of France, Italy, Yugoslavia, and Greece, where they boarded whatever ships were available. Most were barely seaworthy. All of them were overcrowded. By 1948, well over 100,000 people had made this journey, including more than 70,000 Holocaust survivors.3

More than ninety percent of those ships were intercepted by the British Navy. The passengers were transferred to detention camps, most of them on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus. By 1948, more than 50,000 Jewish refugees were being held in British internment camps there. Holocaust survivors — people who had walked out of Auschwitz and Dachau and Bergen-Belsen — behind wire again. Different flag. Same wire.4

Below Deck at Atlit

Years back, I sat in pitch darkness below deck of a ship called the Galina as our captain pushed our humble vessel toward the lights of Haifa. British patrol boats were somewhere out there in the black water. We were running without lights, without sound, holding our breath. And then — the coast. We were almost home.5

Of course, I was not actually fleeing anything. The Galina is no longer floating on the Mediterranean. She sits a kilometer inland at the Atlit Detention Camp National Heritage Site, turned into an interactive exhibit for visitors like me. But sitting below deck in the dark, I forgot that for a moment. The darkness has a way of doing that.

The people who actually made that crossing knew they might not reach the shore. They knew that if the British intercepted them, they would end up behind wire in Cyprus — or worse, sent back to Europe. They got on the boat anyway. Every single one of them made a decision that most of us will never have to make: that getting home was worth the risk of not getting there.

Her Father Was on the Patria

A few weeks ago, Darla and I were having breakfast with two Israeli friends, Offra and Kennet. I was sharing my research on Aliyah Bet when Offra stopped me. Her father had been on the Patria.

This is what I love about being in Israel. The stories don’t just come from books. They surface from people sitting across the table from you.

The Patria was an Aliyah Bet ship anchored in Haifa Bay in November 1940. The British intended to deport its roughly 1,800 Jewish refugees to Mauritius. The Haganah planted a bomb to disable the vessel and prevent the deportation. The bomb did more than disable it. The explosion ripped a fatal hole in the side of the ship. It sank in under an hour. More than 200 Ma’apolim (refugees) and crew members died. Heinz survived. He and the other survivors were immediately taken to the Atlit detention facility, and in this way, permitted to stay in Mandatory Palestine.6

Heinz had climbed aboard a ship to reach the Land, that ship was sunk by a bomb, and he ended up staying because the tragedy was too visible for the British to ignore. Offra is here — in Israel, at a breakfast table in Zichron Ya’akov — because her father, Heinz, got on that boat.

One Ship That Changed Everything

In July 1947, a vessel called the Exodus 1947 left the port of Sète, France, carrying 4,500 Jewish refugees from displaced persons camps in Germany. They had no permission to land in Palestine. They knew that going in. The British intercepted the ship off the coast, forced it into the harbor at Haifa, and physically removed every passenger. When France refused to take the refugees back, the British shipped all 4,500 people to displaced persons camps in Germany.7

Jewish survivors of the Holocaust. Back on German soil. Behind wire.

The foreign press was there. The photographs circled the globe. The outcry was immediate and didn’t quiet down. Something had cracked in world opinion, and the British government could feel it. The Exodus became a symbol not just of the Aliyah Bet, but of the entire Jewish claim to a homeland. The world had seen enough.

In November 1947, the United Nations voted to partition Palestine into two states, one Jewish and one Arab. British troops began withdrawing in April 1948. On May 14, 1948, David Ben-Gurion stood before his people and the watching world and declared the establishment of the modern State of Israel. The gates opened. All restrictions on Jewish immigration were lifted immediately. The Aliyah Bet was over because it no longer needed to exist.8

The Ships of Tarshish

I drove out of Marfa that afternoon thinking about those model ships in their glass cases. Beautiful, carefully crafted replicas of vessels that crossed the Mediterranean loaded past capacity with people who had already survived the worst thing the modern world had produced, and were risking the open sea to get home.

Seventy-five years have passed since those voyages. Today there is Ben Gurion International Airport and El Al flights and an aliyah process that, while not always simple, is nothing like a midnight departure on a leaking cargo ship with British warships on the horizon.

But I haven’t been able to shake what Isaiah wrote, and it’s been brought home to me since that afternoon in Marfa:

“Who are these that fly along like clouds, like doves to their nests? Surely the islands look to me; in the lead are the ships of Tarshish, bringing your children from afar, with their silver and gold, to the honor of the LORD your God, the Holy One of Israel, for he has endowed you with splendor.” — Isaiah 60:8–9

In the lead are the ships.

Isaiah is describing a great ingathering — a massive and urgent return of the Jewish people to their homeland. And when he reaches for an image to carry that moment, he lands on ships out front, leading the way. He didn’t have words for the planes, so he reached for the closest image he had. Things moving fast across water toward home.

The Aliyah Bet ships were leaking cargo vessels. They were rust-bucketed cattle boats. They were barely seaworthy. And they were in the lead.

The Aliyah Bet was not the end of the story. It was, in a way, the birth cry of something much larger — because on May 14, 1948, the moment the State of Israel was declared, aliyah changed permanently. It was no longer a clandestine operation run in darkness. It became something open, something official, something an entire nation now stood behind and invited.

What happened next is aliyah on a scale the world had never seen. That’s where we’re going.

Endnotes

1  The British White Paper of 1939 severely restricted Jewish immigration to Palestine, limiting it to 75,000 over five years, then requiring Arab consent for further immigration. This policy remained in effect during the Holocaust, preventing many Jews from reaching safety in Palestine.

2  The Mossad LeAliyah Bet (Institute for Aliyah B) was established in 1938 by the Haganah to organize clandestine Jewish immigration to British Mandatory Palestine. Operating primarily in Europe, it coordinated the movement of tens of thousands of Jewish refugees through a network of agents, safe houses, and chartered vessels. The organization operated until Israeli statehood in 1948.

3  The Brihah (Hebrew: flight) was an underground network that operated from 1944 to 1948, moving Holocaust survivors from Eastern Europe toward Mediterranean ports for illegal immigration to Palestine. It is estimated to have facilitated the movement of over 250,000 Jews.

4  By 1948, more than 50,000 Jewish refugees were held in British internment camps on Cyprus. The camps operated from 1946 to 1949. Most detainees were Holocaust survivors intercepted while attempting illegal immigration to Palestine.

5  The Atlit Detention Camp National Heritage Site is an essential stop for anyone interested in aliyah history. Efraim Cohen is highly recommended as a guide.

6  The SS Patria was sunk in Haifa Bay on November 25, 1940. The Haganah planted a bomb intending only to disable the ship and prevent the British from deporting approximately 1,800 Jewish refugees to Mauritius. The explosion sank the vessel in under an hour, killing more than 200 Ma’apolim (refugees) and crew. The survivors, including Heinz, were taken to the Atlit detention facility and eventually permitted to remain in Mandatory Palestine.

7  The Exodus 1947 (originally the SS President Warfield) carried 4,515 Holocaust survivors from France toward Palestine in July 1947. British forces intercepted the ship, and after a struggle that killed three passengers, forcibly returned the refugees to displaced persons camps in Germany. The incident drew international attention and sympathy to the plight of Holocaust survivors and the restrictions on Jewish immigration to Palestine.

8  Israel declared independence on May 14, 1948. The declaration was signed by David Ben-Gurion and 36 other members of the People’s Council at the Tel Aviv Museum. The United States recognized the new state eleven minutes after the declaration. The Arab-Israeli War began the following day when armies from Egypt, Transjordan, Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon invaded.

During the 1990’s, over a million Russian Jews made aliyah to Israel. It was as though a dam had burst with the collapse of the Soviet Union, and photos taken of the new Olim disembarking jets on the tarmac of Ben Gurion Airport seemed endless. The earlier story that I shared with you of my journey to Murmansk was one of thousands like it, of organizations and individuals assisting the Jews from the Former Soviet Union (FSU) on their journey home. 

While this wave of Russian immigration seemed like a tsunami due to its strength and numbers, it was preceded by numerous other, smaller waves that began nearly a century earlier.  For this information, I am going to lean into the International Christian Embassy of Jerusalem (ICEJ). Over the past three decades they have gathered statistics, and their research continues to evolve as they engage in the aliyah process, not just from the FSU, but globally. Thank you ICEJ!   

Waves of Aliyah

“In the Land of Israel, Jews have always maintained a presence down through the centuries. However, it was during the late 1800’s that increasing numbers of Jews, seeking refuge from anti-Semitism and inspired by Zionist ideology, returned to what was then called Palestine. These early pioneers drained swamps, reclaimed wastelands, afforested bare hillsides, founded agricultural settlements and revived the Hebrew language for everyday use.

The return of the Jewish people to Palestine, and later Israel seemed to come in waves.

The First Aliyah (1882-1903) – This Aliyah followed pogroms in Russia in 1881-1882, with most of the 35,000 immigrants coming from Eastern Europe, Imperial Russia and what was later to be the Soviet Union.

The Second Aliyah (1904-1914) — In the wake of pogroms in Czarist Russia, 40,000 young people, inspired by socialist ideals settled in Palestine.

The Third Aliyah (1919-1923) — Triggered by the October Revolution in Russia and the pogroms in Poland and Hungary, this Aliyah was a continuation of the Second Aliyah that was interrupted by WWI.

The Fourth Aliyah (1924-1929) — The Fourth Aliyah was a direct result of the anti-Jewish policies in Poland and stiff immigration quotas in America.

The Fifth Aliyah (1929-1939) — This Aliyah was a result of the Nazi accession to power in Germany (1933).

Aliyah during WWII and its aftermath (1939-1948) — Effort focused on rescuing the Jews from Nazi occupied Europe. The yishuv, Jewish partisans and Zionist youth movements, cooperated in establishing the Beriah (escape) organization, which assisted 200,000 Jews to leave Europe.

Exodus of 1947 — From 1945-1947, during this period, the number of immigrants (legal and illegal alike) was 480,000, 90% of them from Europe.

Mass immigration after 1948 — On May 14, 1948 the State of Israel was proclaimed. The Proclamation of the State of Israel stated:

“The State of Israel will be opened for Jewish immigration and the ingathering of the Exiles; it will foster the development of the country for all of its inhabitants; it will be based on freedom, justice and peace envisioned by the prophets of Israel…”

Mass immigration from the FSU – From 1989 to the end of 2010, more than 1 million Jewish people from the former Soviet Union have made their home in Israel. There are still another 1 million Jews still in the former Soviet Union (FSU) yet to come. Plus 800,000 in Germany, the USA and Canada.

ICEJ has assisted more than 120,000 Jews from the FSU and other countries!

Operation Magic Carpet – In May 1949, when the Imam of Yemen agreed to let 45,000 Jews in his country leave, Israeli, British and American planes flew them “home” in Operation Magic Carpet. The Yemenite Jews, mostly children, were brought to Israel on some 380 flights.

Operations Joshua and Moses – Under a news blackout for security reasons, Operation Moses began on November 18, 1984, and ended six weeks later on January 5, 1985. In that time, almost 8,000 Jews were rescued and brought to Israel. Later that year, through Operation Joshua, another 800 Ethiopian Jews immigrated to Israel.” (https://www.icej.org/defining-aliyah/)

Operation Solomon - May 24, 1991.  This is where I want to take back the baton from the ICEJ.  I would like to share a story related to this made-for-movie, covert operation that I think you would find interesting.  Click here or continue to OPERATION SOLOMON.

Aliyah is the Hebrew word used to describe the prophesied return of the Jews to Israel.  For millennia they have been scattered to all the nations of the earth, and have now begun their ascent back to their ancestral homeland. 

Because the complexity and intensity of the aliyah process varies according to time and location (One size doesn’t fit all), I am going to identify four levels of aliyah, and then define them.  These terms are not intended to be rigid; as you will see, they are quite fluid.  I am simply applying them to help identify the level of intensity, so that, if necessary, we can adjust our strategy to assure a more successful aliyah.

These terms that describe the different levels of intensity are: 1) Traditional Aliyah, 2) Aliyah Under Pressure, 3) Emergency Aliyah, and 4) Extreme Aliyah. 

The Christian and Jewish organizations that are currently co-laboring to bring the Jews back to their Land are largely engaged in what I will refer to as “traditional Aliyah.” They send teams, sometimes referred to as the Jeremiah 16:16 “fishers,” into a geographic region to identify and assist the Jews with their homeward journey.  This involves everything from the initial casting of the vision that they can emigrate to Israel, to assimilating them into their new Israeli home and culture.  I recall that on one “fishing” trip to Siberia, we took care baskets to Jewish families and introduced them to the return process.  And on another trip, the aliyah journey for ten Jews from northern Russia culminated in Israel as we walked into Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv. While these were awesome experiences for me, aliyah is not without its challenges for the returning Jews.  More about that later.  

Besides the initial fishing expeditions, aliyah organizations help the returning Jews in procuring their documents and passports.  This usually means several trips, often from remote areas, to the city to meet with the Israeli Consulate, the Jewish agency, synagogues, and meetings with rabbi’s and local government officials. 

Once the passports and paperwork of the returning Jews are in order, their airline tickets are secured, often-times paid for by the same organizations and individuals that have assisted them since the beginning of their aliyah journey.  

Those of us who have worked with the aliyah have learned that it is easier to get the Jews home in times of peace and prosperity, but that’s when it seems fewer are likely to return. When challenging times come, it is more difficult to get them home, but that’s when we see the uptick in the numbers of those returning.  

I use the term, “traditional aliyah”, to identify the process that most are familiar with, and to differentiate it from the other three, less known potential levels of the return process.  In other words, traditional aliyah is the current process used to get the Jews home, and extreme aliyah may be the process, in a time much like the European holocaust, when the traditional methods of their return will be impossible. And sandwiched in the middle are the two, more fluid levels of intensity; aliyah under pressure, and emergency aliyah. 

I am thankful to have been introduced to aliyah several years ago, particularly the return of the Jews from the former Soviet Union, and have a deep appreciation for those actively involved in traditional aliyah today. My concern is this, that there are potential extreme challenges on the horizon, particularly in the West, that may tip the scales toward a necessary, extreme aliyah.