JERUSALEM — Leaders with the National Association of Christian Lawmakers (NACL) concluded an eight-day delegation to Israel’s north on September 5, meeting with mayors, Druze leaders, farmers, bereaved families, and residents rebuilding communities battered by Hezbollah attacks. The trip, titled “Gateway to the Galilee,” was hosted by the Galilee Development Authority (GDA) from August 29 through September 5 and included NACL leadership alongside state lawmakers from across the United States. The delegation also met with U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee.
NACL Founder and President Sen. Jason Rapert said the trip went beyond sightseeing. “This journey has been about much more than seeing Israel,” Rapert said. “It has been about knowing her people. We prayed with them, listened to their stories, saw their courage and discovered practical ways that NACL and our friends in America can stand beside them. We came as friends of Israel, but we leave with strong relationships that I believe will last for generations.”
Remembrance at the Ghetto Fighters’ House
Among the delegation’s most significant stops was the Ghetto Fighters’ House Museum, founded in 1949 by Holocaust survivors, veterans of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, and Jewish partisans. It was the world’s first Holocaust museum, and it stands near Israel’s northern border, an area recently struck by Hezbollah rocket and missile fire. During the visit, NACL leaders identified a path toward securing additional support for the museum’s work of preserving Holocaust memory and educating future generations.
The visit produced an unplanned moment of its own. While delegation members sat in front of the glass booth used to seat Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann during his 1961 trial, they learned that President Donald Trump had publicly amplified NACL’s recent call for the United States to establish a lawful humanitarian pathway for Jewish Canadians facing antisemitic persecution.
“Here we were confronting one of history’s darkest examples of where antisemitism can lead, and at that very moment we learned that President Trump had amplified our appeal to help Jewish people facing antisemitism today,” Rapert said. “That timing was profoundly meaningful. ‘Never again’ cannot simply describe what happened in the past. It must influence what we are willing to do in the present.”
The Cost of Terror on the Northern Border
The delegation traveled through border communities including Metula and Kfar Yuval, towns that have absorbed direct Hezbollah attacks. In January 2024, a Hezbollah anti-tank missile struck a home in Kfar Yuval, killing Mira Ayalon and her son Barak Ayalon. NACL used the encounter with the Ayalon family to arrange direct assistance as the family continues to recover from the loss.
Michigan State Sen. Lana Theis, who chairs NACL’s Committee on American-Israel Relations, said meeting the families made the war’s cost concrete. “Behind every headline there is a family, a home and a community,” Theis said. “We met people who have experienced heartbreaking loss and yet refuse to surrender their future. Their courage and resilience moved all of us. Standing with Israel means standing with these families and helping them know that they are not alone.”
Agriculture, Innovation, and the Druze Community
Beyond the security briefings, the delegation toured a side of the Galilee rarely covered internationally: a region of agricultural innovation and technological investment. Members visited projects in advanced agriculture, water management, and climate adaptation, including the Kinneret Innovation Center, which links the Galilee’s farming heritage to emerging AgriTech, WaterTech, and ClimateTech ventures.
Alabama State Rep. Mark Gidley, NACL’s Alabama State Vice Chair and Vice-Chair of the Committee on American-Israel Relations, has visited Israel multiple times but said this trip gave him new depth of understanding. “To say that the people of this area live with intense caution would be an understatement,” Gidley said. “As we traveled throughout the region, we heard story after story of lives lost, homes devastated, and the continuing threat that exists from the Lebanese border. Yet what impressed me most was their resilience. They continue to work their farms and go about their lives, refusing to give up the homeland they love.”
The delegation also spent significant time with Israel’s Druze community in the villages of Peki’in, Kisra-Sumei, and Julis, meeting local leaders, bereaved families, Druze military veterans, and Sheikh Mowafaq Tarif, the spiritual leader of Israel’s Druze. Lawmakers heard directly about the historic Druze-Jewish alliance, the sacrifices of Druze soldiers in Israel’s defense, and the deepening crisis facing Druze communities across the border in Syria.
Walking the Ground of the Gospels
For the Christian lawmakers, the trip carried personal and spiritual weight as well. Members prayed and worshipped while sailing the Sea of Galilee, viewed the 2,000-year-old fishing vessel known as the “Jesus Boat,” and explored Magdala, an archaeological site offering a window into the Jewish world in which Jesus lived.
The group also visited the excavation at el-Araj, on the Sea of Galilee’s northern shore, which the El-Araj Excavation Project identifies as the leading candidate for the lost city of Bethsaida-Julias, the hometown of the apostles Peter, Andrew, and Philip according to the New Testament. Archaeologists there have uncovered substantial Roman-period remains along with a Byzantine basilica that the excavation team believes ancient pilgrims associated with the house of Peter and Andrew. The 2026 season marked the tenth consecutive year of excavation at the site.
“To stand at Bethsaida and consider that Peter, Andrew and Philip grew up there, and that Jesus Himself ministered in that community, makes the Gospel accounts tangible in a way that is difficult to describe,” Rapert said. “The stones and the geography are no longer just names on the pages of Scripture. They become real.”
The Golan Heights: Memory and Strategic Ground
In the Golan Heights, the delegation visited the restored ancient synagogue at Ein Keshatot and the Tel Saki battlefield, and toured agricultural operations that underscored the region’s strategic and historical weight. The Golan also placed the crisis facing Syrian Druze in direct view, reinforcing what delegation members had already heard from Druze leaders about conditions across the border.
In one of the trip’s most personal moments, delegation members joined the mother of fallen Israeli soldier Captain Shahar Gamla to plant eighteen olive trees in his memory. In Jewish tradition, the number eighteen corresponds to the Hebrew word chai, meaning “life,” making the planting a living act of remembrance.
The delegation closed its trip in Jerusalem with stops at the Mount of Olives, the Western Wall, the Garden of Gethsemane, and the Garden Tomb.
A Call to Return
Rapert said the delegation’s members left with a shared intention: to tell what they witnessed and to come back. “Walking where Jesus walked, sailing the Sea of Galilee and seeing the land of the apostles is something no photograph or textbook can reproduce,” he said. “But this trip also reminded us that the Holy Land is not simply about what happened here two thousand years ago. It is filled with people today who are building families, farming the land, creating businesses, defending their communities and looking toward the future.”
GDA CEO Yakhin Zik called the delegation a turning point in the relationship between the authority and American lawmakers. “It was an honor for the Galilee Development Authority to host this historic delegation and to cultivate relationships in a way that has never been done before,” Zik said. “These are not relationships that end when a delegation goes home. We expanded our existing working relationships, understanding and cooperation, and I am confident these bonds will bear greater fruit for the Galilee, for Israel and for our friends in the United States for many years to come.”
Nitzan Meir, the GDA’s foreign relations manager, echoed that assessment. “This historic trip has further informed the NACL by connecting them deeper to the land and the people of Israel,” Meir said. “It will only enhance the NACL’s existing impact and strengthen its future achievements through its initiatives and resolutions for the Galilee and its people. History was made in Israel with this delegation.”
Rapert framed the trip as an open invitation to American Christians. “Come to the Galilee,” he said. “Walk where Jesus walked. Stand in Bethsaida, the city of the apostles. Sail the Sea of Galilee. Meet the farmers, families, innovators, and community leaders. See the beauty of the Golan Heights. Hear their stories and support their communities. We came hoping to be a blessing, and we discovered that we were blessed beyond measure. We will be back.”
Founded in 2020, NACL describes itself as the first formal national association of Christian lawmakers in United States history, with 42 state chairs and a network of members in all 50 states and Puerto Rico. The organization has adopted 75 model laws, resolutions, policies, and ordinances since its founding.
