Root & Branch Brings Christians and Jews Together in a Powerful Agricultural Pilgrimage
Shortly after her first visit to Israel in 2023, Marziyeh (Marzi) Amirizadeh had an epiphany that would become the catalyst for a powerful experience to bring fellow Christians to Israel, and to be a blessing to Israel and among Israelis of all backgrounds. Her history is as important as the program that she envisioned. Marzi was born in Iran and raised and spent most of her life under the misogynist extremist Islamic regime. In 1999, she became a Christian, and in 2009, she was arrested and sentenced to death by hanging for becoming a Christian, a “crime” under the Islamic regime known as “apostasy.” She spent nine months in Tehran’s infamous Evin prison, where she experienced unspeakable atrocities and witnessed the execution and torture of her best friend and cellmates. Marzi’s life and journey, and two books, are available at www.Marzisjourney.com.
Marzi was a suspect of the brainwashing to which she was subjected all her life under the Islamic regime. The regime forced children to chant “Death to Israel,” and “Death to America” in general, and especially any time the Islamic regime wanted to create a distraction to deflect its own crimes against its own citizens, trying to create a common enemy to take the blame and distrust away from itself. Throughout her life in Iran, the Islamic regime branded Israel as evil and the Jewish people as subservient. Even in Iran, she dreamt of coming to Israel. After her miraculous release from prison and becoming an American citizen, through a series of divine appointments, she realized that dream in April 2023. She connected to and fell in love with the land and the people whom the Islamic regime tries to make Iranians hate, a spiritual pilgrimage in the land where Jesus lived.
Marzi and I met on that first trip and became fast friends. Later, I learned that I was not only her first Jewish friend, but the first Jewish person she met and got to know personally. We spent many meaningful hours together, including her first Shabbat, and stayed in touch. Shortly afterward, Marzi shared the vision to bring Christians to harvest olives in Israel, as an act of love with biblical significance, to connect Jews and Christians together in solidarity. Recognizing the significance of olives and olive oil in the Bible, and the New Testament imperative to gentiles not to be arrogant to think that they, the gentiles as the branches, support the root, the Jewish people, but that the root that supports the branches (Romans 11), Root & Branch was born. (www.rootandbranchisrael.com)
Also connected to Israel, Marzi envisions that when the Iranian Islamic regime falls, Israel and Iran in specific, and Jews and Persians in general, will restore the once positive and indeed warm relationships that existed, and which go back to Esther, and King Cyrus enabling the Jewish people to rebuild the Temple. She has big visions for what that will look like.
After the October 7, 2023, Hamas massacre in Israel, Marzi returned to express solidarity. “I saw the horrible destruction in Israel and the resilience of the Israeli people. One olive farmer near the Gaza border told me that what we really need is for Christian friends to show their love. Our goal is to bring Christians to demonstrate this substantially and symbolically.” Because of her imprisonment, persecution, and suffering in prison, she related to the suffering of Israel and the Jewish people more than most. Israel’s trauma brought her back to Evin prison and the suffering she experienced and witnessed there. As an Iranian, she apologized to as many Israelis as she could on behalf of the Iranian people for the pain and grief inflicted upon them by the Islamic head of the terrorist octopus. Adding substance to her vision that Israel and Iran will once again become allies, she noted repeatedly that it’s the Islamic regime that is the common enemy of both Israel and the Iranian people, and that indeed most Iranians support Israel.
Related Article: Lessons from My Friend’s Execution in Evin Prison
Marzi and I partnered together to create Root & Branch, as friends, but also through our respective nonprofits, the Genesis 123 Foundation and NewPersia.org with common missions to build bridges between Jews and Christians in support of Israel, and to advocate for persecuted Christians.
Immediately, dates were planned for this past November to bring as many Christians as possible to harvest olives, knowing that in the midst of the war, and with airfare sky high, it would be harder. While nearly 200 people expressed interest, some could not make the dates work, and some couldn’t find reasonable airfare. In the end, 18 people joined the pilot year. On the first day of the program, as everyone was preparing to leave to harvest olives for the first time, our WhatsApp group started blowing up with pictures of a magnificent rainbow from north to south high above the Mediterranean Sea. On the way back to where we were staying at the end of the day, another stunning rainbow appeared. We understood this was a divine affirmation of the beginning of our mission.
The first day also coincided with the 15th anniversary of the day that Marzi was released from Evin Prison, making our day all the more joyous.
Especially in the midst of the war, it was particularly meaningful that the first person to note the significance of the number of participants, 18, was Minister of Agriculture and former head of the Shin Bet (Israel’s domestic security agency) Avi Dichter. Dichter welcomed the group at the Tel Ashkelon National Park, with the muffled sounds of artillery fire intermingled with thunder during an early rainfall that saw the participants take cover and be hosted to herbal tea by one of the park’s employees. Eighteen, he noted, is the numerical representation of the word “life” in Hebrew, providing yet another significant divine wink.
Our location was significant because we chose to be in communities along the Gaza border that were devastated by the October 7 terrorist attack, and particularly where last year’s harvest was all but decimated. In 2023, it’s estimated that across Israel, volunteers helped to rescue Israeli agriculture and save farmers from outright devastation to the tune of $50 million. Over 10 days, we harvested about 1000 kilos of olives, making 80 liters of very high-quality virgin olive oil.
One of the unique aspects of Root & Branch is that we harvested public trees across the Gaza border area. We spent a day in Kibbutz Nir Yitzhak, harvesting along beautiful but still empty residential streets and learned about the Hamas attack there. We harvested olives from trees in public parks in Sderot and as landscaping along the streets, taking shelter from another rainstorm. And we harvested in the stunning Tel Ashkelon National Park, picking olives from hundreds of years-old trees in a place whose “modern” antiquities are 2000 years old, but where we were an olive’s throw away from (and got to explore) a 3500-year-old Canaanite Gate.
It was the first time anyone had come to harvest these trees as a group, engaging the wonderful park staff, some of whom became part of the team, excitedly harvesting from trees they had driven by and walked under thousands of times, but whose fruit had been more of an adornment until then. The fact that these trees were not cultivated and maintained for harvesting, some reaching far higher than the 6-foot rakes we prodded into the branches to bring the olives dropping to the blue tarps laid out under the trees, brought home another significant point related to Romans 11: that these were indeed wild olive trees.
Dr. Hagay Dvir, the Tourist Product Manager of the Israel Nature and Parks Authority, greeted the Root & Branch team on the first day and was so moved by the experience and opportunity that he came back on the last day to thank the group and invite them back this year. “We are very happy to partner with Root & Branch and to host them in our national parks. Working together with a group of Christian supporters for Israel, harvesting the many olive trees in Ashkelon National Park last autumn was an exciting experience. This project enhances the connection to the Land of the Bible and its heritage. We look forward to expanding this special cooperation in the coming years.”
The enthusiasm of the Israel Nature and Parks Authority staff was reflected in several other activities throughout the 10-day experience. During a briefing at the Tel Ashkelon National Park, we met Gad, one of the volunteers who serves as a historian, explaining the significance of the park historically and architecturally. Gad is also the grandfather of twin hostages, Gil and Ziv Berman. He spoke personally about his grandsons, leading the Root & Branch team to pray for him and his family spontaneously, bringing tears to everyone’s eyes.
On two separate occasions, the Root & Branch team interacted with soldiers, first sponsoring a beautiful bar-b-que dinner for an elite combat unit that had just come out of Gaza. During the meal, Marzi spoke to the soldiers in what was described by some as “unforgettable.” She spoke from her heart as everyone listened in silence, expressing love, gratitude, and support for the soldiers fighting Hamas, one of the Iranian proxies, and apologizing on behalf of the Iranian people for the death and destruction that the Islamic regime has caused, and which they were now fighting, calling the Islamic regime our “common enemy.”
By the end of the night, the soldiers and volunteers were all well fed and inseparable.
Spontaneous prayer became quite standard. As we began one of the days, Pastor Danny Austin prayed for our work to be multiplied. That morning, at Kibbitz Nir Yitzhak, we came upon a decent-sized tree which, no matter what angle we approached it from, more and more olives became visible. It was an endless supply just from that one tree, multiplied indeed.
In Sderot, the harvesting experience was made more personal with a briefing at the site of the police station battle and a tour of its powerful memorial. We visited with a special program for at-risk youth where the children from the Stewart family from Alaska literally jumped in and engaged the children, using solid Hebrew that aided fast friendships and incredible warmth. This was followed by dinner with Deputy Mayor Elad Kalimi. “We loved having Root & Branch in Sderot, with Christians from all over the world expressing solidarity with our residents and especially the at-risk youth. Nobody has ever done anything like this before, through harvesting olives in our public parks, and we are looking forward to having the group back again this year as we deepen the roots of this amazing relationship.”
In addition to seeing sites of destruction throughout the Gaza border, throughout the week, participants got to know one of those documented and celebrated as a hero of October 7. Yousef Ziyadne is a Bedouin Arab who is credited with risking his own life to rescue 30 people from the Nova festival in his 14-seat minibus. With the intent of maximizing the experience, we decided that if we were going to hire a driver anyway, we would hire a hero and his bus. At the site of the Nova festival, we shared his story amid the sounds of sobbing, and artillery fire in the distance.
Also, at the site of the Nova festival, we connected with Shlomi, who has spent most of the past 18 months making food for soldiers going in and coming out of Gaza. His food truck, from which he serves more than 1000 sandwiches daily, was sponsored by the Genesis 123 Foundation in conjunction with the Isaiah Projects and others. We cut salad, made shakshuka, fried schnitzel, and delivered hundreds of sandwiches straight to the border.
Becoming new experts in harvesting olives and making oil, we looked for an opportunity to maximize the experience in every way possible. Elias is a Christian Israeli Arab who owns an olive press in Latrun. In the context of building bridges and showing the participants another dimension of Israel’s diverse population, they were excited to meet him and see how olive oil is made from the very olives they picked, and he was excited to meet them as fellow Christians who had come to volunteer in Israel at this traumatic time.
On Shabbat, the Sabbath, not only did the team rest from harvesting olives, but they experienced the day of rest and preparations for that, including shopping for food at the Machane Yehuda market, a traditional Shabbat dinner together, and a special ceremony called Havdalah, concluding the Sabbath, in the Old City. During Shabbat dinner, participants tasted from the first of the 80 liters of olive oil we made, dipping fresh challah in the newly pressed oil. If ever there was such a thing as an agricultural pilgrimage, Root & Branch defined it.
Plans are to sell the oil as a special anointing oil, proceeds from which, along with other olive products, will directly benefit projects along that Gaza border in the communities and among people still impacted by the war.
As a means to build bridges between Jews and Christians, the Root & Branch logo contains both the reference to the injunction in Romans 11 that Christians are grafted into the covenant that God made with the Jewish people, as well as the prophesy in Ezekiel 36, that the Land will blossom again when the Jewish people return. Experiencing the latter, participants not only witnessed but were a part of, and even tasted that prophecy.
Root & Branch will hold an informational meeting via Zoom on Saturday, May 31, at 2:00 pm Eastern, 11:00 am Pacific. All are invited to register here and be part of that, and to meet some of the people from around the world who are planning to participate in 2025.
For information or to register for Root & Branch 2025, please visit www.RootandBranchIsrael.com, or contact rootandbranchisrael@gmail.com.
Photo Credit: ©Root & Branch
The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of the Salem Web Network.
Jonathan Feldstein is president of the Genesis 123 Foundation (www,genesis123.co) whose mission is to build bridges between Jews and Christians and Christians with Israel. He was born and educated in the U.S. and immigrated to Israel in 2004. He is married and the father of six, and grandfather of four (so far).
Two sons and a son in law are currently serving in the IDF and have been involved in combat in Gaza and Lebanon since the October 7, 2023 Hamas massacre in Israel.
Jonathan is a leader working with and among Christian supporters of Israel, and shares experiences of living as an Orthodox Jew in Israel through his work, writing, and as host of the Inspiration from Zion podcast. Since the war began, he has authored more than 150 articles, and participated in a similar number of interviews, briefings, prayer events, and more.
Jonathan is working with Christian leaders all over the world to realize a true peace in Gaza, details of which can be found at www.SolutionforPeaceinGaza.com.
In 2023 he published the highly acclaimed book, Israel the Miracle (www.israelthemiracle.com), which makes a great gift for Chanukah and Christmas, and year round.
Originally published May 13, 2025.
