DOLEV, West Bank รข?? Sitting in the shadow of a row of leafy grapevines, 26-year-old Zac Waller grabbed his guitar and started playing a hymn.
The soulful sounds tripped down the hillside adjacent to the Jewish settlement of Dolev west of Jerusalem, bringing a smile to the volunteers harvesting grapes in the warm October sun.
Waller was among a group of Christians who are increasingly coming here to help Israelis and Palestinians with the grape and olive harvests. They see it as a religious duty.
During a trip to the Holy Land several years ago, Tommy Waller, father of Zac, was deeply moved when Nir Levy, a winemaker from the settlement of Har Bracha, pulled out his Bible and read from the Book of Jeremiah, “Again you will plant vineyards on the hills of Samaria.”
“That verse spoke to me from a spiritual place,” Waller says. “Before that, God was ethereal. I had never been physically touched by faith before.”
Waller is the founder of Hayovel, which brings together more than 300 volunteers from 14 countries to work in the summertime and winter time in vineyards owned by Jewish residents, or settlers, of the West Bank.
Referred to by residents here by the biblical names Judea
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