The Eleventh Hour author
The Eleventh Hour authorCourtesy

Not many novels are written which are played out in the backdrop of Judea and Samaria, and which are filled with characters devoted to Torah and to the Redemption of the Nation of Israel in its biblical Homeland. While “The Master of Return and the Eleventh Light” is fiction, its author, Eliyahu Berkowitz, says that it is based on actual people and events.

The plot follows a newly religious young man named Eli who takes his new bride to live in a small caravan on a mountaintop in Judea. Unemployed, he spends a lot of time out on the hillsides praying to God and jumping into ice-cold springs, trying to reconcile his secular past with his spiritual aspirations. At the same time, his relationship with his wife is not working out. She is unsatisfied with his lack of religious discipline and unwillingness to work, and he discovers that despite his religious aspirations he has not left his desire for romance behind. A modestly dressed wife with a head covering does not fit into his fantasies.

When Eli is not wandering over the hilltops in search of Hashem, he sits at home trying to write novels. When a friend hooks him up with a job writing articles for a news service, he has no choice but to take it. Dismayed when he discovers that the news service caters to evangelicals who want to hear about news from a prophetic angle, he does the best he can trying to establish himself as a journalist. But when he is introduced to a bizarre “holy man” who has visions and performs miracles, his writing and his personal life become blurred. Heightening his growing instability, he faces a crisis when friends are murdered for the “crime” of being a Jews answering the prophetic call to return to the Promised Land. Then one day, Eli's pregnant wife is standing at a bus stop on her way for an ultrasound to check their baby when an Arab with a knife appears and stabs her repeatedly.

The author, a longtime resident of Yesha and the Golan, describes events with the authentic voice of someone who knows the detailed ups and downs of Israeli "settlers":

“As the ambulance slowed down, I looked up, twisting around to gaze over the medic's shoulder and out through the windshield. My blood froze as I saw the road blocked by a crowd of angry Arabs. Thankfully, Rina was strapped down with her back towards the front of the emergency vehicle and couldn’t see what was going on. The ambulance hopped up onto the center island and moved forward until it was behind an army jeep painted in the deep olive green of the Border Patrol branch of the IDF. The doors of the vehicle opened on both sides, and four young soldiers exited calmly. I was shocked at how young they looked and at how undisturbed they were. They moved slowly, smoothly, and confidently as if crowd control was just another day at the office.

"One soldier cracked open a stubby gun, loading it with a tear gas canister. Another placed a tiny black cylinder on the front of his M16, while a chubby officer pulled a pin from a small grenade and tossed it matter-of-factly into the crowd. The sound of the flashbang could not penetrate the thick 82 armor of the ambulance, but I saw its immediate effect on the Arabs blocking our way. The soldier with the M16 took cover behind the armored door of the jeep, placing the muzzle of his gun in the V-shaped opening separating the door from the body of the jeep. Again, I couldn’t hear the report of the weapon, but the effect was unmistakable.

"The crowd parted; the jeep began to move forward slowly as the soldiers got inside, and the ambulance followed. A few minutes later, the riot was behind us, and the ambulance got up to speed. I watched as the jeep made a U-turn, heading back to the riot. Ten minutes later, we arrived at Hadassah Ein Kerem.”

I won’t give away the resulting drama is told against the turbulent political backdrop of modern Israel, hostile Arab villages, and a group of ardent believers who long for the building of the prophesied Third Temple.

Berkowitz is the founder of Israel365 News, originally called Breaking Israel News. The site reports the news from a Biblical/prophetic perspective. Staffed by all Orthodox Jews, the news site attracts a large audience of American evangelicals. Berkowitz says: “I do not cater to them or change my message for them. I write as a Torah-observant Jew living in the Land of Israel. This is the perspective the evangelicals want. We focus on the Temple Mount, the return of the Temple Service, as well as graphic signs that prophecy is being revealed. We rely on rabbinic authorities who rule that as the Mashiach approaches, Jews need to enact their role as "a light unto the nations" and serve as Kohanim for the nations to understand the Bible and God.”

The novel “The Master of Return and the Eleventh Light” is available on the Root Source website.

Tzvi Fishman was awarded the Israel Ministry of Education Prize for Jewish Culture and Creativity. Before making Aliyah to Israel in 1984, he was a successful Hollywood screenwriter. He has co-authored 4 books with Rabbi David Samson, based on the teachings of Rabbis A. Y. Kook and T. Y. Kook. His other books include: "The Kuzari For Young Readers" and "Tuvia in the Promised Land". His books are available on Amazon. Recently, he directed the movie, "Stories of Rebbe Nachman."