Mike Evans

Mike Evans is the founder of the Friends of Zion Museum in Jerusalem — opened in 2015 as a tribute to non-Jewish individuals and groups who have supported the Jewish people and the State of Israel throughout history — and one of the most prolific Christian Zionist authors and advocates in the world, having written over 100 books on Israel, prophecy, and the Christian obligation to stand with the Jewish state, with total sales that his organization claims exceed 80 million copies. Born in Massachusetts in 1947 to an abusive non-Jewish father and a Jewish mother who hid her identity under family pressure, Evans converted to Christianity as a teenager and developed a theology of Christian-Jewish brotherhood and Israel support rooted in his own fractured identity, his reading of Scripture's promises regarding the land of Israel, and a prophetic framework that sees the modern State of Israel as the fulfillment of biblical prophecy. His personal story — the child of Jewish heritage who came to Israel through Christianity — gives him a credibility with evangelical audiences that purely Gentile Christian Zionists cannot replicate.

Evans has cultivated personal relationships with Israeli prime ministers and presidents spanning decades: his friendship with Benjamin Netanyahu, Ariel Sharon, Ehud Olmert, and other Israeli leaders has given him access to the Israeli government and a platform of personal testimony — "I know the prime minister personally, I have been to his home" — that evangelical audiences find deeply compelling as evidence that Christian Zionist advocacy has genuine impact on Israeli policy. He has organized multiple large-scale Christian Zionist events in Israel, bringing evangelical delegations to Jerusalem for prayer gatherings, museum visits, and meetings with Israeli officials, and has used the Jerusalem Friends of Zion Museum as a physical location that makes the Israel-evangelical relationship tangible and permanent.

The Friends of Zion Museum has become one of the most-visited sites in Jerusalem for Christian pilgrim groups and evangelical tourists, hosting over one million visitors since its opening, and has received heads of state and international dignitaries including the vice president of Nigeria, presidents of Eastern European countries, and evangelical leaders from across the Global South. Former President George W. Bush was the inaugural recipient of the Friends of Zion Award, presented at the museum in 2017 — a detail that encapsulates Evans's skill at connecting his evangelical cultural production to the highest levels of American political symbolism. His son Michael D. Evans has been active in the organization's leadership as well, suggesting a generational continuity to the Friends of Zion operation. At Rank 99, Evans is the Christian Zionist author and museum founder whose combination of personal Israeli relationships, prophetic theological framework, and extraordinary publishing output has reached evangelical audiences — particularly in the Global South — that the organized American Jewish pro-Israel community cannot access through its own institutional channels.