Prophecy channels spent six weeks warning that a false messiah, or even the Antichrist, was running in Israel’s election.
The candidate, a kippa-wearing Jerusalem Jew who funded a biblical Jubilee campaign out of his own pocket, says it all began with a translation.*
Jesus, Son of David, ran for the Knesset this year, at least according to Christian YouTubers. For six weeks before Israel’s October 27 election, prophecy channels warned of a false messiah, scanned the candidate’s photos for signs of the Antichrist, and asked breathlessly whether the end of days had arrived on an Israeli ballot slip. The candidate, a Jerusalem Jew named Yeshua Yisrael ben David, told Israel365 News the whole frenzy began when his party’s Hebrew name, “Gan Eden headed by Yeshua ben David,” appeared in the English-language media as “Paradise… headed by Jesus, Son of David.” Ben David blames an AI news system.
“They wrote ‘Gan Eden headed by Yeshua ben David,’ and that’s how it came out,” Ben David said. “And what happened was that the AI of the Israel Today news system automatically turned it into ‘Paradise, headed by Jesus son of David, in the Knesset.’ Again, I learned that the Holy One, blessed be He, has a great sense of humor.”
Meet the Man Christian YouTube Called the Antichrist
According to his party’s official biography, Ben David was born on May 21, 1988, the fifth of Sivan 5748, in Lithuania. He grew up in the Galilee and lives in Jerusalem. His Facebook profile says he studied at the Air Force Technical School in Haifa. His campaign biography describes him as a political leader, social entrepreneur and thinker who has independently studied the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament, the Quran, law, history, economics and systems of government. English-language media have rendered his name “Yeshua Israel Ben David.”
Asked directly whether he is Jewish, Ben David answered without hesitation.
“I am a Jew, and a Levi, and of the house of Joseph,” he said. He explained that his grandfather, a Levi, was murdered in the Holocaust, along with his father’s sister. “My father grew up in a Jewish orphanage.”
Ben David spent two years in the United States before returning to Israel. He said the experience of the coronavirus pandemic there set him on his current path.
“During the corona season, I prayed to the Holy One, blessed be He, and asked Him, what are we doing? What is happening to the world?” he said. “I saw that it was terrible, and I saw that people were simply going like sheep to the slaughter. I truly prayed about it for four months before I returned to Israel, and what I saw was that this was the beginning of the end of days. Corona, in Latin, is a crown.”
He did not want the job, he said.
“Believe me, I prayed for four months that God would send someone else to do this, because what do I need it for? I live my life, I’m comfortable, I don’t worry about anything, I can do what I want. Being anonymous is the best thing that can happen to a spiritual person.”
Ben David is active in interfaith peace work. The Abrahamic Reunion, which brings together Jewish, Muslim, Christian and Druze participants, named him one of three young peacebuilders representing the organization at the People’s Peace Summit in Tel Aviv on April 30, 2026. In a video from the group, a leader introduced him as “a very dedicated peacebuilder” who had traveled with the group to Germany.
“I don’t want children in Israel to keep living and growing up in fear, and all the more so, I don’t want my neighbors to grow up in hatred,” Ben David said. “So I am also a peace activist, with whoever loves peace and doesn’t want to throw Israel into the sea.”
He is also no stranger to the Temple movement. In 2022, he took part in the Temple Institute’s reenactment of Nisuch HaMayim, the water libation ceremony of Sukkot, at the Shiloach (Siloam) Pool in Jerusalem. He appears in the photographs raising the golden jug. As a Levite, he is destined to serve in the Jewish Temple, though not as a Kohen. While Kohanim (priests) are from the tribe of Levi, the two branches of the tribe serve very different roles in the Temple. Levites do not wear the priestly garments nor do they bless Israel. As a Levite, Ben David will enter into the inner courtyard of the Temple. While it was improper for him to act the role of a Kohen in the reenactment, the ceremony itself belongs as much to the Levites as to the priests. The Mishnah describes the Levites standing on the fifteen steps of the Temple during Simchat Beit HaShoevah (the Rejoicing of the Water-Drawing) with harps, lyres, cymbals and trumpets (Sukkah 5:4), and the Sages taught that “whoever has not seen the Rejoicing of the Water-Drawing has never seen joy in his life” (Sukkah 51a). Video from the event shows an officiating kohen calling Ben David over and handing him the golden jug himself.
Seven Weeks, No Bank Account, One Jubilee
Ben David said Gan Eden grew out of a movement he had been building quietly, and that its name came to him in prayer.
“When I prayed to the Holy One, blessed be He, for the name of the movement, I truly received Gan Eden,” he said.
“Until the elections, everything I did, I tried to do in humility, behind the scenes, because the Holy One, blessed be He, loves the humble,” he explained. “But I understood that if I want to make a change, I need to get up and go to the front of the stage. Behind the scenes is not enough. So I said, let’s prepare vessels for the redemption.”
He began moving toward the Knesset in April. The party received its registration documents on September 6, and on September 7 Ben David submitted his seven-candidate list to the Central Elections Committee, chaired by Supreme Court Justice Noam Sohlberg.
“We tried to do all kinds of things outside the system, and then I understood that Gan Eden needs to be brought inside, into the Knesset, into the courts, everywhere, into the consciousness of the public,” he said.
At the committee session, Ynet reported, Ben David wore a badge in the shape of the choshen, the High Priest’s breastplate, and said he would like to serve as a kohen (priest) in the Temple. “If I can’t, we’ll start in the Knesset. It’s a Sanhedrin,” he told the outlet. Asked why he was running when his party could not cross the electoral threshold, he said that if Gan Eden broke through in the media, “it will allow the people of Israel, who receive many judgments here, to choose new parties.”
His party requested the Hebrew letters Yud-Hey for its ballot slip. The committee rejected the request because the two letters form a name of God, citing concern for harm to public religious sentiment, and assigned the party the letter Hey. On September 30, Ben David argued an election appeal against the committee before Supreme Court President Yitzhak Amit and Justices Ofer Grosskopf and Alex Stein, representing the list himself without a lawyer. He withdrew the appeal on the court’s recommendation. The ruling does not state what the appeal concerned.
Gan Eden ran a campaign built around what it calls the “National Jubilee,” which Ben David described as his central mission.
“I promote what I can: the will of God, the will of the prophets, the economic Jubilee,” he said. “I think the god of money causes many people to do immoral things, so I think a repair of the economy will repair the whole chain, from top to bottom.”
The party’s published platform grants every adult up to one million shekels in debt settlement, and a married couple up to two million. It pays every adult a “life stipend” of five shekels per hour of life, or 3,650 shekels per month on average, and caps public-sector salaries at 20,000 shekels per month. It would be financed through a new sovereign digital shekel, with eligibility beginning January 1, 2027. The Times of Israel’s party guide added free education from birth to age 18, cancellation of annual vehicle license fees, a ministry of peace and reconciliation, and a national trauma-healing program, and noted that the platform does not detail how the basic income would be funded.
One campaign ad posted on the Gan Eden party’s Facebook page shows a High Priest in full vestments sounding the shofar (ram’s horn) over Jerusalem beneath the Jubilee verse, “Proclaim liberty throughout the land unto all the inhabitants thereof.” Another shows Ben David in a white kippa and tzitzit (ritual fringes) on the Temple Mount, wishing Israel a joyous Simchat Torah under the words of Isaiah: “For out of Zion shall go forth Torah, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.”
Ben David ran the campaign on his own money.
“I didn’t even have a bank account. Every penny came out of my pocket,” he said. “And now I joke with the Holy One, blessed be He, that ‘the son of David does not come until the last penny is gone from the pocket.’”
The line comes from the Talmud (Sanhedrin 97a), where the Sages list the signs that will precede the Messiah, son of David.
He said he never expected to win.
“I didn’t expect to get four seats. I said, if it happens, it will be a splitting of the Red Sea, the whole world will talk about it,” he said. “I make my effort. I am responsible for my actions, for my effort, and if it is the will of God, it will happen.”
He described the campaign as a test run.
“I built the system, like you test a prototype. You run it to see that everything works,” he said. “And if the Holy One, blessed be He, does not want this government to be established, He will give us elections again and again and again, until Gan Eden enters.”
Gan Eden received less than 800 votes.
From “Paradise” to “Antichrist” in Two Weeks
In Hebrew, “Yeshua” is a name found in the Hebrew Bible. In English, it is the name Christians use for Jesus. On September 8, the day after Ben David filed his list, Israel Today published “Paradise for the Knesset: When Jesus Son of David Wants to Become Head of Government” under the byline of editor Aviel Schneider. The article cast Israel’s elections as a stage for eccentrics and reported that Ben David hoped to serve as a priest in the Temple and regarded the Knesset as “a kind of Sanhedrin.” It noted that his name means “Jesus, Son of David.” It quoted no witnesses and made no claim that Ben David considered himself the Messiah.
Christian prophecy outlets cited it as their source, and they supplied the rest themselves.
What followed was a flood. YouTube videos appeared with titles including “Yeshua Israel Ben David Claims He Is MESSIAH of Israel (NEW INFORMATION),” “‘Yeshua Ben David’ Is Running for Prime Minister of Israel… Is This ANTICHRIST?,” “Who Is Yeshua Israel Ben David? (NEW INFORMATION UNCOVERED),” “Yeshua Ben David Wants to Be Israel’s Prime Minister?” and, three days before the election, “The False Messiah of 2026 Who is Yeshua Ben David.” The Sling and Stone channel posted a video titled “New Messiah in Israel.” The Olive Roots Podcast asked, “A New ‘Messiah’ in Israel?”
Written outlets joined in. Endtime Ministries, the American prophecy ministry founded by Irvin Baxter, published “A New Meaning to the Term ‘Antichrist’?” by Bryan Smith. Smith stated plainly that “we are not suggesting that Yeshua Ben David is the prophesied Antichrist,” and in the next breath observed that “photographs of Ben David show him as a physically large, imposing man among those around him.” He linked that to the prophet Daniel’s description of the little horn “whose look was more stout than his fellows” (Daniel 7:20).
Australia’s Daily Declaration ran “False Messiah Emerging in Israel’s Elections? A Prophetic Warning for Christians” on October 22. Author Enoch Lavender wrote that “one witness reports that he believes himself to be the Almighty Himself,” while conceding that “these claims require careful verification.” The witness was not named. Someone on Instagram tagged Ben David’s account with an image asking whether he was the Antichrist.
The YouTube channel That Blessed Hope produced a series of videos on Ben David. The YouTuber, who identifies himself as Thomas, opened one episode by stating that Ben David “claimed himself as Messiah,” and went on to comb through his Instagram, Pinterest, Telegram and old YouTube accounts. When Ben David’s posts later disappeared, Thomas concluded that “probably either Yeshua Israel or a member of his team are watching the videos.” Other YouTubers published what they said was Ben David’s birth name, pulled from social media accounts more than a decade old.
No Messiah, No Followers, No Seat
The central claim of the coverage, that Ben David declared himself the Messiah, has no public statement behind it. No interview, speech or campaign material reviewed by Israel365 News contains Ben David saying he is the Messiah or Jesus. His party’s official platform contains no reference to Jesus, Christianity or messiahship.
Asked about the Christian speculation, Ben David turned to the Rambam (Maimonides).
“The Rambam, in the Laws of Kings, says something very simple: that Jesus of Nazareth and Muhammad the Ishmaelite prepare the way for the King Messiah,” he said.
In that ruling (Laws of Kings 11:4), the Rambam teaches that Christianity and Islam spread knowledge of the Bible and its commandments to distant nations, preparing the world for the true Messiah, who will rebuild the Temple and gather the exiles of Israel.
Told that any Christian who believed he was Jesus would be disappointed after three minutes of conversation, Ben David answered with characteristic openness.
“Either yes or no. Or he’ll say, okay, maybe this is the spirit of our messiah. Maybe that’s what they’ll understand,” he said. “I’m not going to fight with them, because I know their scriptures, the New Testament, very well. If Joseph Caiaphas, the High Priest of Israel, could not determine whether there was a messiah or not, how can the gentiles determine it? That should be a paradox for them.”
He explained his broad study of other faiths in Jewish terms.
“I know all of it, Judaism, Christianity, Islam and beyond. Why? Because the first restoration is to establish a Sanhedrin, to restore the systems of old. You need to be learned in all the wisdoms of the nations in order to judge, to judge the heart of a person, the intentions. So of course I am learned in all of them.”
He had pointed words for one popular Christian doctrine. “All kinds of things they invented, like the Rapture, which needs to be canceled, nonsense that came in 200 years ago, all kinds of strange things that need a tikkun (repair),” he said.
A Florida pastor whose sermon was aired on That Blessed Hope told his congregation that Ben David had attended his church’s Thursday night Bible study “a couple years ago” and that he believed he was “Jesus incarnate.” The pastor, whose name is unclear in the recording, went further. “They’ve proclaimed him the Messiah. He’s got followers,” he said. Even Thomas, who played the clip, admitted, “I’m not sure where he got that part about they’ve proclaimed him as the Messiah.”
That claim collapses on contact with the numbers. One of Ben David’s public Facebook pages had 88 followers. His Telegram channel had 12 subscribers. Ynet’s election-night roundup of the smallest parties, which listed vote totals for the Pirates and for Sharshar, did not mention Gan Eden. Commenters on That Blessed Hope’s own videos wrote that they had never heard of him.
On The Winepress podcast on October 28, author Joel Richardson said he had translated a Russian-language interview in which Ben David said “the Father sent me back.” Israel365 News has not seen that interview. Richardson’s guest, an Israeli Messianic Jew named Yariv who volunteered with Tel Aviv’s Hands of Mercy street ministry, said a ministry leader told him that Ben David had confided “ani hu” (“I am he”) years ago. Neither account could be independently confirmed.
Yariv was blunt about Ben David’s political weight. “There’s going to be only a fringe minority,” he said. “I’m actually surprised he made it this far.”
Several videos implied a link between Ben David and Jerusalem’s Temple Institute, based on his appearance at the 2022 water libation. The Institute told That Blessed Hope that he “has absolutely no connection whatsoever to the Temple Institute.”
The coverage also described Ben David as “running for prime minister of Israel.” Israelis do not vote for prime minister. They vote for party lists, and the Knesset majority forms the government. Gan Eden’s website named Ben David its candidate for prime minister and finance minister. Its list needed 3.25 percent of the vote to win a single seat.
Yariv said the frenzy says more about the YouTubers than about the candidate. He tied it to commentators such as Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens, and to the Russian ideologue Alexander Dugin, whose circles promote the idea that “the Jewish state, the Jewish people are somehow so connected to the Antichrist.”
“They look for any sneeze in Israel and go like, ‘Haha, the Jews are trying to take over the world, there’s going to be a false messiah from Israel,’” Yariv said, “while there are camels literally being swallowed, meaning what you see extreme Islam is doing around the world against Christianity, and there’s crickets. There’s silence from this group of people about this.”
Richardson, a prominent evangelical author on Bible prophecy, went further. He argued that the popular image of a Jewish antichrist has no basis in the biblical pattern.
“All of the biblical historical patterns, the prototypes, the prophetic foreshadows of the antichrist, every single one in the scriptures is a gentile, a hostile adversarial gentile from outside of the people of Israel, who is against the covenant, against the promised land, against the people, against Torah, against the God of Israel,” Richardson said.
The Other Yeshua
Christian prophecy channels heard “Yeshua ben David” and saw a counterfeit Jesus. What does the name Yeshua mean in the Hebrew Bible itself?
Long before it became the name Christians use for Jesus, Yeshua was a Hebrew name borne by the leaders of Israel’s return to its land. The Book of Nehemiah calls Joshua son of Nun, who led Israel across the Jordan, by that very name: “since the days of Yeshua the son of Nun” (Nehemiah 8:17). Most significantly, it was the name of the High Priest who led the return from Babylon and restored the service of God in Jerusalem.
“Then stood up Yeshua the son of Jozadak, and his brethren the priests, and Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, and his brethren, and built the altar of the God of Israel, to offer burnt-offerings thereon, as it is written in the Law of Moses the man of God.” (Ezra 3:2)
The prophet Zechariah, who calls the same High Priest Yehoshua, saw him in a vision standing before the angel of God in filthy garments, with the Satan at his right hand to accuse him. God silenced the accuser: “The Lord rebuke thee, O Satan; yea, the Lord that hath chosen Jerusalem rebuke thee; is not this a brand plucked out of the fire?” (Zechariah 3:2). The angel ordered the filthy garments removed and the High Priest dressed in pure robes, with a clean turban on his head.
The image fit the moment. Yeshua the High Priest had survived the destruction of the First Temple and the Babylonian exile, a remnant snatched from the flames, and the accuser sought to disqualify him. God answered by clothing him for service.
Zechariah then received a further command: to place crowns on the head of the High Priest and announce, “Behold, a man whose name is Tzemach (the Branch), and he shall grow up out of his place, and he shall build the Temple of the Lord” (Zechariah 6:12). Targum Yonatan, the ancient Aramaic translation, renders this Branch as the Messiah. In Jewish reading, the High Priest Yeshua stood as a sign of the coming King Messiah, son of David, who will build the Third Temple.
In the Bible, the name Yeshua belongs to the High Priest of the return, the man God defended against his accuser and dressed in clean garments to rebuild His House.
Seeds in the Ground
The Christian prophecy world went looking for the Antichrist on Israel’s ballot. It found the grandson of a Levi murdered in the Holocaust, son of a father raised in a Jewish orphanage, a man who prays in a white kippa on the Temple Mount, works for peace among the children of Abraham, and paid for a campaign for a biblical Jubilee out of his own pocket. Gan Eden won too few votes to touch the 3.25 percent threshold.
Ben David is undeterred.
“I know it will grow. I only planted the seeds for now,” he said. “The day we plant seeds is not the day we eat the fruit.”
