Pod Save America Hosts Call on Democrats to Cut All Israel Military Aid, No Longer Accept AIPAC Funding
Jews, Israelis Targeted in Austria Amid Surge in Antisemitic Incidents; Local Jewish Community Calls for Action
‘All of Our Strength’: Over 1,000 Pro-Israel Activists Gather in DC for Solidarity Conference
‘Devastated’: Wesley LePatner, Killed in Manhattan Mass Shooting, Was a Jewish Communal, Philanthropic Leader
Sen. Angus King Vows to No Longer Vote for Israel Military Aid Until Gaza Conditions Improve
Europe Won’t Pressure Israel to ‘Commit Suicide’ Amid Gaza Backlash, Palestinian State Push, Says Israeli FM
Israel’s National Soccer Coach Attacked in Athens Before Soccer Fans Chant ‘F–K Israel, Free Palestine’ at Match
New York Judge Sentences Neo-Nazi to 5 Years for Livestreaming Bomb Threats Against Jewish Hospitals
US Pressures Lebanon to Issue Cabinet Decision to Disarm Hezbollah Before Talks Continue
UK Plans to Recognize Palestinian State in September Unless Israel Meets Conditions, Starmer Says
Christian Pilgrims From Nigeria Flock to Israel
Error: Contact form not found.
by Algemeiner Staff
14,000 Nigerian Christians made the pilgrimage to Israel in 2014. Photo: Twitter.
Around 14,000 Christians from Nigeria have been transported to Israel this year on a pilgrimage “for moral and spiritual transformation,” the head of the Nigerian Christian Pilgrims Commission has announced.
John Kennedy Opara was speaking while addressing the last batch of pilgrims at the Murtala Mohammed International Airport, Abuja, as they prepared to fly to Israel.
“Christmas is all about the celebration of our Lord Jesus Christ and you people are going to celebrate him in his own birth place,” Opara said. “It is something that many people would love to celebrate in the Holy Land.”
Opara said that arrangements for a further pilgrimage to mark Easter in 2015 were already in place, and that 3,000 pilgrims had signed up so far.
Some of the pilgrims are residents of Kaduna state, where Christians are a minority and where Islamic Shari’a law prevails in Muslim majority areas. At the end of November, the governor of Kaduna, Ramalan Yero, was praised by Opara “for making it possible for the pilgrims to fly from the state airport for the first time to Jerusalem for the pilgrimage” – in 2014, 567 of the Nigerian pilgrims who visited Israel were from Kaduna, the site of brutal and frequent attacks on Christians by the Islamist Boko Haram terrorist organization.
