Sabati Rohold
1876 - 1931

First Sabra missionary

Sabati Rohold, son of Rabbi Naptha Rohold, was born in Jerusalem in 1876.  The details of his coming to faith in the Messiah of the Jews are not known, but somehow he came in contact with an elderly Jewish missionary, Mr Joseph, in Haifa, and this contact may be what resulted in Rohold's faith.

Rohold pursued a theological education in the University of Glasgow and the Free Church College in Edinburgh. From the years 1897 to 1906 he served as the Superintendent of the Bonar Memorial Mission ot the Jews in Glasgow. In 1908 he accepted a call to the Toronto congregation of the Presbyterian Church of Canada, where he helped also in founding the first Hebrew Christian Synagogue. He also participated closely in the founding of the Hebrew-Christian Alliance of America.

Mr. Joseph proposed to give his property on the slopes of Mount Carmel to Rohold, but the latter thought it wiser for Joseph to deed the property to the British Jews Society, as CWI was then known. Two years later, Rohold offered his services to the BUS for work in Palestine, and thus returned to his homeland.

The indefatigable Sabati, soon well known throughout the land, traversed the country on his equally indefatigable donkey, arguing the Jewish cause before the British authorities and taking an active role in the exciting new phenomenon of a rejuvenated Jewish nationhood. It was not without reason that Rohold was numbered among those invited to participate in 1925 in the formal celebration of the founding of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.  Rohold established a medical clinic and an extensive literature outreach throughout the land.

Sabati (or, Samuel) Rohold died in Cairo in 1931 at the early age of 55.

The oversight of the work then fell to his wife, who continued in that post until 1960, when she was succeeded by Dr. James Churcher who had worked under the oversight of the two Roholds since 1924.