A Death in Zion

“Weep with Those Who Weep”

Recently I heard tragic news from my Israeli friend and long-time Christian Zionist Jim Schutz. He and his wife had just buried their beloved and only son David on August 12th in Jerusalem. The news shook me. It has been a long, hard season of deaths in Israel. There have been many funerals and many bereaved parents grieving the loss of their children. Psalm 34:18 assures us that, “The Lord is close to the brokenhearted.” He stands close to many in Zion today.

A parent burying their child is considered to be among the most heartbreaking and stressful experiences in life that we can ever face. This kind of trauma violates the natural order of life. Children expect to bury their parents, but parents usually do not expect to bury their children. It is a shock to our entire being when it happens in reverse.

When I listened to the comments that Jim and Leslie Schutz made to their family congregation in Jerusalem just days after finally finding out their son’s body had been recovered, I marveled at the grace with which they spoke. There was no holding back my own tears at the sorrow they expressed either.

Their thirty-six-year-old son David had gone missing on April 18, 2026 from Chicago. David travelled to Chicago from the home of his aunt in Connecticut, whom he had been visiting. After a while he decided to travel to Chicago for three days to visit a friend he had known since childhood in Israel.

A Death in Zion continued

The third night in Chicago he left the hostel wearing heavy-duty wetsuit bottoms, and he never came back, although all the signs indicated that he intended to return.“David’s clothes, passport, all items were still at the hostel,” his father Jim reported.

David had walked out of the hostel wearing a wetsuit bottom, presumably for a swim in Lake Michigan. His unexplained disappearance was reported to the police.

David was a champion swimmer. At fifteen he had won the championship for Israel in the 50- to 100-meter breaststroke. He continued his swimming in his college years at Princeton. “When we would go to the beach at Tel Aviv,” Jim told his congregation in Israel, “he would just jump in the water and swim out to sea. He really was attracted to the water. He didn’t care how cold it was. We don’t know what happened… we still don’t know what happened.”

“Lake Michigan is a huge body of water,” Jim explained. “When he disappeared the police immediately thought he went into the water, which is dangerous there because of the rip tides. A lot of bodies are pulled out of there. And the police thought that must have been what happened. But his body didn’t show up.”

“Days, weeks and months passed,” Jim said with an emotional edge. “The police finally closed the case.” They expressed no recriminations against the police, just the emotional strain of the fifteen weeks not knowing what had happened to their son. Jim recounted that David had been through a period of high stress, “but he wasn’t suicidal, nobody thought that,” he elaborated.

It was not until searching an online database on August 2nd that Jim found a photograph of a tattoo on a drowning victim who had been recovered. Jim recognized the tattoo as the one on David’s body, under his rib cage. His body had been in the water so long the tattoo was the only remaining identification that could be used. Within ten days David was flown back to Israel for burial.

As Jim told their home congregation, “David was born here, this is where he should be buried.” It is another testimony in their son’s life.

Leslie shared with the congregation, “Throughout this past summer Jim and I had peace that David was okay. I told Benjamin and Reuven, the leaders of their congregation, that David was either dead and with the Lord, or alive and okay.” Benjamin and Reuven are also brothers, known affectionately in Israel as the Berger Brothers. The congregation meets at Christ Church in the Old City of Jerusalem at the Jaffa Gate.

Leslie also told of two dreams she had this summer as they waited to learn what became of their son. “I saw David and he truly was okay, even content, and God was watching over him.”

When they finally knew David had drowned, Leslie asked God, “why has this taken so long?” The Lord spoke to her in a comforting word: “I wanted you to have no doubt that he is with Me.” Leslie understood then and said, “Without knowing during the long summer whether or not he was okay and without the confirming dreams, we would have wondered.”

“For any parent who knows the Lord,” Jim added, “the most important thing for your child, your son or your daughter, no matter how old, is that they are right with God. Because you know eternity is before us and that’s what matters.”

Even though he is gone too soon, Jim believes God had a purpose for David to be a testimony, and that purpose was fulfilled. “David’s life was a testimony in so many ways.” He also acknowledged that God gave them great assurance in His answer to Leslie’s honest question to God. Jim confided that David had been through “a difficult time these last few years.”

As often as that is the case in the death of a loved one, it is God’s assurance to us about their eternal state that is the most healing word we can receive.

Many of the Messianic community came to grieve with them. During the funeral Jim and Leslie were seated between their congregational leaders and Reuven Doron, a decades-long friend of the Schutz family. David is well remembered by both Israeli Messianic Jews and the Christian community that serves with the Shutz family in Israel and abroad.

[Here is a short YouTube video of photos taken at the funeral although it is not footage of the service.]

There were many unbelievers who attended the funeral from David’s different circles of friends. Worship songs were mostly in Hebrew but also in English and Arabic. There was a strong sense of God’s presence that many commented on. Jim also was pleased that, “We have been receiving very moving condolences, some in Arabic, from Palestinians in the territories whose lives were deeply touched by David.”

A Promised Child
Jim and Leslie moved to Israel 40 years ago, in 1986. I had come to know Jim from his time as the director of a large humanitarian aid supplier in Israel, the Joseph Project, but before that he had served at the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem. The couple were passionate about serving Israel, and David was their “miracle child,” born three years after arriving in Israel.

“Isaiah 49 became like a map of our lives,” Jim said. God had also spoken to Leslie that they would have a son and gave her the name David.

“On our wedding day in 1980, God gave us Isaiah 49 in a divine intervention,” Jim said. “We received it as a love letter from God, but did not understand the relevance of it to Israel until after He called us here.” They also understood it was all part of God’s plans for their lives together because Isaiah 49 contained the promise of a child for them: “I will save your children.”

The two were childhood sweethearts – at least from Jim’s point of view! He recalls, “I first fell in love with Leslie in 5th grade at 10 yrs old but we were not married until age 28. During our early 20’s we independently came to faith. When we decided to marry, we committed our lives to serve God wherever He would send us, having no idea then it would be Israel.” But God called them to Israel and at age 35 they moved there. David was born three years after arriving in Israel.

Isaiah 49 contains many promises, and is sometimes called the Song of the Suffering Servant. We who follow the Lord will walk in the fellowship of His sufferings, but God gives grace as we do.

Although they are not Jewish, when David was born, they wanted him to be circumcised. “This was our custom,” Jim said, indicating he was also circumcised. It was not a covenantal act because they were not Jewish. “So we just wanted to do it quietly,” he continued. “We didn’t want to make a splash.”

“But it seemed like God wanted something else,” because then the rabbi from the synagogue across the street from where they lived in Ein Kerem suggested, “Why not do it here?”

This was another unusual testimony in their son’s life, Jim commenting, “God’s House is a House of Prayer for All Nations.”

David’s circumcision ceremony took place on the twelfth day in the Orthodox synagogue. Jim describes the event: “Many, many people came. People that we didn’t know from Ein Kerem, and a lot of believers came too. It turned out to be an incredible testimony.

Our Ulpan (Hebrew) teacher came and said, ‘I can’t believe I witnessed this in Israel…in an Orthodox synagogue.’

There were other signs that God was using David’s life as a testimony, such as the time when David was three he recited Psalm 100, a psalm of thanksgiving, in front of 3,000 people during the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem Feast of Tabernacles.

Jim says, “From then on my name changed at the Christian Embassy. It was no longer ‘Jim,’ I was ‘Abu David.’ ‘Abu’ is an Arabic word meaning ‘father of.’”

Leslie explains, “When I took my son out in the baby stroller, I faced him toward me instead of focusing him on the road ahead. As I walked him I would recite to him chapters of the Bible that I had memorized.” From that time of the Feast onward, young David would memorize twenty-five full chapters of the Bible. His mother proudly remembers, “and five of them in Hebrew!”

Leslie described David’s upbringing in Israel surrounded by both Christians and Messianic Jews in the heart of Jerusalem. Between Jim’s work at the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem and his congregational family. the Congregation of the Lamb on Mount Zion, David was immersed in the heart of God for Christians and Jews living and working together in harmony.

She told their congregation that David had grown up there. He had been “a part of Anki’s Shabbat School and Christi’s youth group.” At age thirteen he had a Bar Bracha with the Berger brothers officiating. Leslie homeschooled David obviously in excellence because he was accepted at Princeton University in New Jersey. But with strong emotion, Leslie said how David went to college and “there he was schooled against Christian Zionism which caused him to doubt his faith and his upbringing. He became a prodigal son.”

Leslie refers to the indoctrination her son went through with the same angry exasperation many of us in the United States have. Our young people are propagandized against our faith and educated in a history that bears no resemblance to the truth. From kindergarten to universities, educators seem hell-bent on teaching that everything good is “bad” and everything bad is “good.”

When David returned to his lifelong home in Israel, he was shaken in his faith, even doubting how he had been raised by his loving parents. He then entered Hebrew University to attend law school. Before finishing his final semester he became involved in the Jordan Valley Activists. They are a peaceful group of Israelis and internationals who provided a protective presence for Palestinian shepherds and farmers in Judea and Samaria who were suffering from Jewish settler violence.

In the time that David spent with the Jordan Valley Activists, he saw many difficult things, from the slaughter of Palestinian sheep herds to the setting on fire of Palestinian houses and vehicles. The JVA group is there to provide a protective presence, so David lived among Palestinian families in Judea and Samaria (known by Western media as the West Bank). Once he raised $15,000 for one family whose herd of 300 sheep was stolen. That is admirable integrity. Honesty is what all believers should be operating in.

In March of this year his phone was stolen twice by religious settlers agitating against the Palestinians. The activists David worked with did not carry weapons, but used their phones to record injustice. Their ‘weapon’ was the phone video recording incidents.

The second time his phone was stolen, David immediately tried to grab it back, but as they scuffled, the settler smashed David in the head twice with the butt of his rifle, leaving a big gash over his right eye. That incident impacted David. His mother said that he was never the same after that. So his parents decided to purchase him a ticket to fly to the United States to spend some time away from Israel to decompress.

The Settler Violence Taboo
It’s understandable why Israel does not want to talk about the settlers’ violence against Palestinians. Israel has enough enemies already. However, without being honest and without making those settlers accountable, this presents an integrity problem for Israel.

It must be said that not all the religious settlers are extremists who do violence against Palestinians. Many are of high moral character, and those that are not, but do use violence, do a disservice to all Israel.

This makes settler violence a real problem in Israel, although it is rarely mentioned, often ignored and unknown among most Christian Israel-supporters. Personally, I do not believe it should be a taboo subject or unknown to Christians who ought to be able to handle the truth without withdrawing support for Israel. The incident with David was caught on video and the Jordan Valley Activists may try to have the guy prosecuted.

I realize that the anti-Israel narratives most people hear about the extent of settler violence are wildly overblown, even as most Israel-supporting Christians have no clue that any bad acts of religious settlers are taking place.

Years ago I wrote about it in an article about the religious extremist settler who left a bomb in a Purim basket at the doorway of a family of believers in Ariel in 2008. The bomb blew up in the hands of a fifteen-year-old boy whose family ministered Yeshua in Ariel. The boy, clearly by a miracle, survived the blast but barely and with many surgeries over years.

In my view, even the current super-supportive U.S. Ambassador to Israel didn’t want to know anything about the extremist religious settler who was later apprehended and imprisoned for other violent acts.

Prodigal Children in Israeli Ministry
It is not only the Schutz family who know the anguish of a prodigal son. Many in ministry in Israel have prodigal children. It is a strategy of the demonic enemy to bring discouragement and heartache to parents doing the work of the ministry. For parents who are following God the enemy seeks to wear them down from effective witness and ministry.

But God has made promises like Proverbs 22:6, “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.” Jim and Leslie did their part; how much more would God honor His promise to them from Isaiah 49, the Song of the Suffering Servant, “I will save your children.”

God did not promise us lives without suffering, even deep suffering. But He did promise us that He would be with us always and in the end, we would know His peace and salvation.

Most of us cannot imagine the level of spiritual warfare in Israel. That is especially true for those that have never been to Israel, or have only been on a Christian tour that avoids all mention of the unpleasant truths stirring the spiritual climate in Israel. I know I sure experienced the heaviness of warfare when I was in Israel. Imagine the level it is at right now after all this time since the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023.

I thought it was important to tell the story in detail of a Christian Zionist couple who have lived in Israel for 40 years raising a son who was bright, gifted and most of all, a promise from God and a testimony in his life. As they continue on the path of healing their broken hearts, I pray God will continue to speak to them of their way forward, and of how He is using David even now.

Jim and Leslie’s story needed to be told because of the truth that there is a price to pay as Christians committed to God and His plans for Israel. Each of us pays our own cost for this path we are walking. At David’s funeral, Rick Ridings of Succat Hallel, a Christian who brought the first 24/7 prayer & worship to Israel, spoke of losing his own daughter to cancer 8 years ago.

Most of the Messianic ministry leaders have prodigal sons or daughters, but my emphasis here is on the Christians who have been in the forerunner stage of joining ourselves to the Israeli Messianic Jewish body. It is part of the “One New Man” the Schutz’ family friend Reuven Doron wrote about it 1993. We know from experience that suffering is part of the price we pay for walking in God’s will about the unity of Messianic Jews and Christians in these days. We are contending for the salvation of Israel.

I believe David’s story needed to be told too. It was not only because he was a delight and a blessing to his parents through his life, but also for the testimony he speaks now to me of being raised in Israel and in a Christian Zionist environment. I believe that influence is the basis for David’s integrity. It sprung from his faith to not be willing in his generation to turn a blind eye to violent actions of extremist religious settlers against Palestinians.

The American University system has surely been hijacked by Islamist propaganda, but David’s parents planted the seeds in him for a love for the truth. He did not want Israel to pretend what the religious settlers were doing was not happening and it has been happening for a long enough time to be considered a serious issue. The fact is the failure of transparency created a conflict of conscience in David who was looking for justice. There is never a good cause to pretend justice is not needed anywhere injustice is practiced.

David was not wrong about that. I saw the same thing when I researched the article about the terrorist bombing of Ami Ortiz. The extremist settlers are generally not as barbaric as Islamist terrorists, but the terrorist bombing proved they can be. These are not the “holy ones” of Israel and their violence will continue if they are not fully held to account.

If more international Christian leaders refused to turn a blind eye to this violence, perhaps they would also quit funding so many of the religious settlers who also persecute Israel’s Messianic Jews.

For every action, there is a consequence. In the spiritual kingdom there is a consequence for inaction too. If we do not correct injustices, there are consequences that will surface, creating greater trouble.

I don’t know all that God is up to in David’s story, but maybe it is to call us all to handling the issue of extremist settler violence with more honesty and transparency. I believe if the testimony of how David was put into a crisis of conscience over such issues, that it well could be another testimony coming from his life. If his story prompts Israel-supporting Christians to deal with the truth without losing God’s desire for us to stand with Israel without wavering, then praise the LORD! God knows exactly what He is doing in His mysterious ways.

God bless the memory of David Schutz and comfort the parents who loved him so well. As his mom Leslie said, “Now we know that our beloved David is with the Lord. Let this be a testimony to you all that our God is merciful, loving and truly present in all our trials. We give God glory.”