c. 1999 Religion News Service

JERUSALEM _ From the roof of her tiny unheated apartment in Bethany, Sharon, a 53-year-old with long red hair and 11 grandchildren, could look out onto legendary Bible sites where Jesus spent his last days prior to the crucifixion, and pray for his speedy return in the new millennium.

But late last Sunday (Oct. 24), Sharon and her longtime associate known as Brother David, a leader of a local Christian prayer house in this Arab eastern Jerusalem neighborhood, were caught up in an Israeli police sweep that has resulted in the arrest of some 21 Christian tourists, mostly Americans.

Also among the detainees were the members of a second, predominantly black congregation in the area, which is an offshoot of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. The group’s leader, a retired New York City schoolteacher named Winston Rose, happened to be in the United States when the police dragnet was laid. Rose is known here to followers as Brother Solomon.

Israeli officials justified the arrest and deportation orders saying that the two groups could”endanger public security”during the upcoming millennium year. Israeli news reports, meanwhile, compared the detainees to the Branch Davidian sect whose confrontation with U.S. federal agents resulted in the death of some 80 group members outside Waco, Texas, and to the Denver-based Concerned Christians group who tried to settle here earlier this year.

The latter group quoted convicted murderer Charles Manson in its religious teachings.

But on Tuesday (Oct. 26), as a clearer profile of the detainees began to emerge, critics began to ask if the move was really justified. Notably, the Anti-Defamation League issued a statement expressing concern the arrests had been based on”incorrect”information _ and were likely to harm Israel’s image in the eyes of Christians.”While it is important for Israel to address the security threat, the failure to distinguish violent from peaceful groups will prove to be a serious boomerang for Israel,”said Rabbi David Rosen, the director of the ADL’s Israel office.”Aside from the damage to Israel’s international image, such actions may have wider deleterious effects, depriving the Jewish state not only of the benefits of tourism but also of the enormous amount of good will that is offered by the pilgrimage of millions for the new millennium.” Indeed, interviews with the leaders and members of the two congregations, conducted by RNS over the past year, yield a profile unlike that of a secretive sect. In both congregations, prayer meetings were generally open to the public and even the press. The gatherings, which featured gospel music and emotional prayer sessions, drew inquisitive television film crews and tourists from around the world.

In their repeated interviews with journalists, both Brother David and Brother Solomon denounced violence as a means to bring about the return of the messiah _ and sought to distinguish themselves from groups that had attempted violence or committed mass suicides in the name of divine will. “There are millions of pilgrims who come here every year just to walk in the footsteps of Jesus. So to take a handful of Concerned Christians and to say that they are representative is an exaggeration,”said Brother David in an interview conducted earlier this year. A quiet, affable man in his late fifties who sports a goatee, he called his Bethany mission the”House of Prayer.””Our purpose is to prepare the way for the coming of the messiah,”Brother David added.”But anyone who thinks they are going to commit suicide or blow up other people’s buildings certainly didn’t get that from the teachings of Jesus. “We have signs showing that the coming of the messiah is very near. But no man knows the day or the hour. We believe in leaving things in the hands of God.” Prior to the sudden arrests on Sunday, Brother David supported himself by renovating old apartment buildings in Bethany, and subletting the rooms to visiting Christian tourists. Sharon spent most of her time distributing used clothing to needy Arab families.

It’s no accident millennial Christian groups chose a setting like Bethany as the stage to await the end of the world. This town edges the ancient graveyard on the Mount of Olives where religious Jews as well as Christians believe that the resurrection of the dead will first take place.

Sharon’s home, for instance, is right next door to the tomb of Lazarus, whom Jesus is said to have raised from the dead, as well to the boarded-up ruins of a dwelling where the biblical Mary Magdalene and Martha lived according to tradition. It was the place where Jesus stayed just before he was crucified. “Everyone always wants to walk in the footsteps of Jesus. Well Jesus lived here and so do we,”said Sharon in a recent interview.”It’s exciting being in the place where the major events of the Bible happened _ as well as in the middle of God’s actions today. The year 2000 may not be the exact date, but I believe it is a landmark that says we’re getting close.” (OPTIONAL TRIM _ STORY MAY END HERE)

Sharon, a former inventory consultant for an electronics firm and the mother of seven children, first came to Israel in 1992, after receiving what she describes as a direction from God.

A week after arriving, she joined the street ministry of Brother David, the former owner of an upstate New York trailer park who had sold his business and embarked on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land more than two decades earlier.

Shortly after their meeting, Brother David was imprisoned for nine months by authorities because he lacked a valid tourist visa. He was released after consistently refusing to provide officials in the Ministry of Interior with concrete evidence of his U.S. citizenship. A police list of the detainees made public Tuesday suggests his real name is Ed Anderson, while Sharon’s full name is Sharon Peterson.

Now once again under arrest, it is likely the street preacher and other key members of the group will attempt to conceal details of their citizenship and passports again, preferring to test the patience and will of Israeli authorities by spending time in prison rather than board a plane out of the Holy Land. “I’ve followed God with all my heart all my life. And I’d rather be called a civil disobedient than a God disobedient,”said Brother David, speaking at a Wednesday evening prayer meeting in Bethany earlier this year.”Did Abraham have to fill out papers to come into the Holy Land?” DEA END FLETCHER