A Dutchman who gave up his career as a TV producer and moved to Jerusalem, Bart Repko is a man with a purpose: "Never Be Silent." He takes this phrase, the name of his organization, from Isaiah 62:6: "On your walls, O Jerusalem, I have appointed watchmen; all day and all night, they shall never be silent; those who remind the Lord, be not silent." Mr. Repko, who has taken the job as "watchman," leads Christian tourists through Jersualem, exhorting them to read the prophets and pray for the welfare of the Jewish people. His thoughts on the actual Messiah he keeps to himself. He sees his work as entreating, and even badgering, G-d to fulfill His Plan.
Jewish Week
A Pilgrim’s Progress, Toward Tourism
“Christian insanity…This
is our history, guys. Guys, we need to repent. We blew it for 2,000 years.”
Jewish Week
A Pilgrim’s Progress, Toward Tourism
Wed, 05/21/2014
Steve Lipman, Staff Writer
Jerusalem — It’s a typical weekday morning
at the Jaffa Gate, a de facto center of Israeli tourism. Outside the towering
gate through the Old City walls, tourists and tour guides are gathering by 8:30
for scheduled excursions. Freelance guides, Jewish and Arab, approach
stragglers and ask, “Do you need a guide?”
A few visitors circle around a middle-aged
man, dressed in white shirt and tan slacks and a baseball cap, who stands near
a stone bench, briefcase in hand. The group quickly grows to a few dozen men
and women, from their 20s to their 50s, until the man in the baseball cap
shouts, “Guys, there’s business to do — spiritual business.”
Whereupon Bart Repko, a Dutch graphic
designer-turned television producer-turned Israeli guide leads the group up
sets of winding staircases to the narrow pathways along the Old City walls —
the ramparts that served as defensive posts for Jews two millennia ago. In the
background is traffic noise, cranes helping to erect new buildings, and a view
of the King David Hotel and other landmarks of contemporary Israel.
But Repko is guiding his group to the
past.
In the shadows of the Tower of David, at
the start of the morning, and of an Ethiopian Orthodox Church, two hours later,
he lectures and cajoles, prances and jumps, points and shouts — and the members
of the group (all are non-Jews; he calls them “watchmen.”) shout along, reading
God’s prophetic promises to the Jewish people.
Repko, 62, gave up his successful TV
career in his native Holland seven years ago to lead fellow non-Jews — he was
raised as a Christian, was active in his church, calls himself a “believer” but
eschews the term “Christian” (“because I know our history”) — along the walls
of the capital of ancient Israel.
He was in Israel on assignment in 2006, he
says, when his assignment was cancelled without notice; his TV show was
cancelled; he was in tears. He heard a voice: “Bart, remove the camera from
your shoulder … you have been observing the world, but from now on you will
participate.”
He opened his Bible, turning to Isaiah
62:6, which states, “On your walls, O Jerusalem, I [God] have appointed
watchmen; all day and all night, they shall never be silent.”
Never Be Silent (neverbesilent.org), the
independent, unaffiliated organiation under whose auspices Repko takes groups
along the Old City walls every morning except for Shabbat and Jewish holidays,
was born.
The words “Never Be Silent” are printed on
his cap.
He and his wife, Joki, who supports his
efforts here, bought an apartment in southern Jerusalem, living here on tourist
visas most of the year, returning to Holland every few months for a few days to
comply with Israeli residence requirements.
Back in Israel, he has fashioned a unique
career as a guide, an avocation for which he does not charge. His “tours” are
free, except for the few shekels Jerusalem takes for entrance to the ramparts;
voluntary donations support his work, he says.
The work of Repko — and of other tour
guides in Israel who cater to the spiritual leanings of pro-Israel Christians —
has a leveraging affect that increases his influence beyond the actual people
who walk alongside him. Christian pilgrims from around the world constitute a
disproportionate number of visitors here, and they return home and share with
fellow believers what they have seen and learned at the country’s biblical
venues.
By now Repko is a familiar face to the Old
City’s tour guides and shopkeepers.
Repko peppers his sentences with “Baruch
Hashem” and “Judea and Samaria” and other Hebrew expressions he’s picked up
here.
Most of the people who join him are Dutch;
many are German. This morning two young women from China come along. “Gentiles
from all locations” come, some mornings as few as a dozen, sometimes as many as
120 people, Repko says.
Attracted by word-of-mouth publicity, they
come rain or shine. Rain is fine. Especially for the Dutch, Repko says. “We
love the rain.”
All come prepared with a Bible, or with a
smartphone from which they read verses from Jewish scriptures.
“Let’s start proclaiming,” he declares.
He is assisted on his rounds by Albert
DeHoop, a fellow Dutchman, who left his job in the insurance business last
year. “We feel it is important to present the prophets’ words.”
DeHoop’s name, he points out, means “the
hope” — the same meaning as “HaTikvah,” Israel’s national anthem.
Led by Repko and DeHoop, they shout out
chapter and verse, and everyone reads along. “Daniel 9.” “Deuteronomy 33.”
“Psalm 121.” All refer to God’s relationship with the Jewish people, and God’s
promises to protect and defend them.
“Father, we remind you of your word,”
Repko says, looking toward the cloudless sky. “Father, we give You no rest —
keep your promise!”
“God,” Repko tells the group, “wants to be
reminded.”
The folks around Repko seem familiar with
the biblical words. “Many watchmen know these verses.”
Members of Repko’s group read verses in
English, Dutch, German, and any number of other tongues. “It seems that Hashem
understands quite a few languages.”
“Amos 9:11,” someone shouts. The verse
contains God’s vow to “raise up” the “ruins” of Jerusalem.
“That’s one of our favorites,” Repko
declares. “We have many favorite chapters. Almost all the prophets are our
favorites.”
“Know your prophets, guys,” he advises.
Repko continues with Amos 9:12: “They upon
whom my name is called may inherit the remnant of Edom and all the nations.” An
End Days prophecy of Israel’s triumph.
“Don’t tell that to the Palestinians,”
Repko says,
He’s unabashedly supportive of Israel,
unabashedly critical of Israel’s hostile Arab neighbors. “We do not pray for
our enemies,” he says. “It’s not politically correct. But it’s spiritually
correct.”
All the readings are from Tanakh, Jewish
scripture. Not a word from the New Testament. Not a mention of Jesus. Hardly a
nod to the surrounding historical sites, although this is ostensibly a tour. No
prayers. No political flags.
Repko calls his work spiritual tourism.
“It’s a spiritual adventure.
“I’m not a tour guide,” he says. “I’m not
a theologian.”
A morning with him sounds like an
evangelist’s revival meeting — except that Repko is not an evangelist, not a
missionary. He’s against preaching to Jews, against telling Jews to accept
Jesus, against the belief that Christianity has supplanted Judaism, he says.
“We do not need missionaries. I tell [Christian] people,’ ‘Stop missionizing.’”
Repko’s outspokenness “has earned him
opponents within the Christian community,” a recent profile in The Jerusalem
Post stated. “Churches find it difficult, what I am doing,” the article quoted
Repko as saying, “because I am challenging them on the replacement theology, so
I am a pain in the neck.”
“Many pro-Israel Christians have a hidden
agenda” — to convert Jews, Repko says. He rejects that approach.
Repko “is authentic — I don’t [sense] a
hidden agenda,” says Rabbi Chaim Eisen, a Brooklyn native who lives in
Jerusalem and is founder of Yeshivath Sharashim (yeshivathsharashim.org), a
“Web-based educational venture to engage users — both Jewish and gentile
seekers of God and His word — in a deepening understanding of the Hebrew Bible and
other religious classics.”
Rabbi Eisen, who says he has tried to
“build bridges with Christian believers,” has gone on Repko’s tours. “He
definitely has a sensitivity to the unique role of the Jewish people.”
Every morning, Repko berates Christianity,
citing the Inquisition, the pogroms, the Holocaust, part of a litany of
offenses committed “in the name of Christ, in the name of the Church.”
“Christian insanity,” he says. “This is
our history, guys. Guys, we need to repent. We blew it for 2,000 years.”
“I like that he helps Christians face
their guilt,” says Rabbi Reuven Tradburks, a Canadian-born Orthodox rabbi who
met Repko a few years ago on a morning jog through the streets of Jerusalem and
heard Repko’s story.
Two hours after Repko’s group met outside
Jaffa Gate, the members descend another staircase and disperse through the
streets of Jerusalem.
His work is done — until tomorrow morning
at 8:45 at Jaffa Gate.
