A Christian Zionist organization opened a visitor center in Samaria last week, seeking to buttress the connection of faith-based Christians to the Land of Israel.
The Israel Guys Visitors Center in the Har Bracha community, Hebrew for the Mount of Blessing, or Mount Gerizim, located about an hour north of Jerusalem near Nablus (Shechem), was inaugurated on Thursday evening by The Israel Guys, an activist group best known for bringing in thousands of volunteer farmers to work in Judea and Samaria over the last quarter century.
“Now there is a place in Samaria where the nations can come to and see what it means for them to fulfill their role in the biblical heartland,” Joshua Waller, chief executive officer of The Israel Guys, told JNS.
The group has reached tens of millions of evangelical Christian supporters over the last two decades through its media network, including some 5,000 volunteers who came to farm and harvest crops, primarily vineyards in Judea and Samaria, and ten thousand visitors.
The visitor’s center, which includes a coffee shop and wine tastings from the local winery and will offer local tours, was built by a team of 70 volunteers from the United States at the beginning of the year on land provided by the regional council.
The community, located on the southern ridge of Mount Gerizim, is also home to the Har Bracha Yeshivah led by Rabbi Eliezer Melamed, who offered his blessings for the opening of the center at the inauguration event.
“This is a celebration of a partnership and shared values,” said Yossi Dagan, head of the Samaria Regional Council. “Especially after October 7, we understand that Jews and non-Jews must fight together.
Tommy Waller, who founded the organization, also spoke at the inauguration.
“I am not Jewish, but I believe in the Bible, and it is amazing to see I can touch what the prophets said,” he said.
Walker first came to the hilltop 23 years ago with his family after selling his farm in Tennessee, and founded the NGO, initially known as Hayovel, the Hebrew word for Jubilee, with eight rows of vineyards.
After the war against Hamas in Gaza broke out on Oct. 7, 2023, the organization drew international attention by bringing a group of American Christian cowboys to Israel to volunteer with agricultural work in the wake of the terrorist massacre.
