Jane Kiel is just a simple Christian girl from a small town in Denmark, but her reach is ginormous.
With nothing but a small phone and a handful of social media pages, she is reaching tens of thousands of people all over the world with the truth about Israel.
Affectionally known as “Jerusalem Jane,” Kiel turns 50 in a few months.
“Never would I have imagined to be single and living in Israel for nearly 10 years,” Kiel told Christian World. “What a roller coaster ride it has been: numerus injuries, surgeries, death threats, not seeing my family for years, sleepless nights, tears from yet another heinous terror or rocket attack I had to report about – so much trauma and so many broken hearts.
“But it will never just be a job,” she said. “It’s my life.”
Kiel is living in Israel on a journalist visa. She is a full-time video blogger, sharing her story with Christians around the world. She has remained independent, she said, in order to maintain her editorial voice. For some Christians, she told Christian World, she is the only unbiased new source to which they have access.”
Kiel’s story began decades ago with her grandparents, who before going to bed every night would pray for their children, grandchildren and for the people and State of Israel.
Her mother held a weekly prayer group on Mondays that Kiel attended. Rain, snow or shine, she said, the women in that group would get together to bless Israel - something they continue to do until today.
“My personal faith in God has followed me my whole life,” she told the website.
But when she became a teenager and began watching the nightly news, she discovered that the world did not feel the same way about Israel as she did. In fact, Kiel realized that the news reports contradicted what she had been taught in church and from the Bible about the Holy Land.
However, it was not until she was nearly 30 that she publicly advocated for Israel for the first time.
In 2001, former Palestinian Authority leader Yasser Arafat visited the Danish Parliament. When Kiel learned of the trip while watching the news, she said “I had a cup of coffee in my hand and nearly dropped it.” Kiel phoned her mother and said she wanted to attend the welcome ceremony and protest Arafat’s state visit.
She and her mother traveled six hours by train carrying huge Israeli flags tied to broomsticks and set themselves up in the courtyard of the parliament where everyone could see.
She recalled that as Arafat’s motorcade approached “the heavens opened up and it started pouring. The atmosphere was so evil. The closer he came, the more the rain poured down. But we just stood there holding our flags.”
Kiel said she looked Arafat in the eyes as he passed.
“I know that he saw us,” she said.
Kiel took her first trip to Israel in 1999, a visit she said changed her life.
“I knew I was never going to be the same again,” she told Christian World. “You leave a little piece of your heart in Israel and that piece keeps bringing people back.”
She managed to visit many times over the next decade until in 2007, Kiel was on a trip with her mother’s church group and she realized she wanted to move to the country. Kiel was traveling on a bus when she thought she heard God speak to her.
“I sat down in the back of the bus, and I was crying, but I did not know it until I felt the tears on my hands. I heard God say, ‘I will bring you back,’” Kiel recalled.
Soon after, she “stepped out in faith,” sold everything she had, bought a plane ticket and came to Israel. At first, she was on a tourist visa and had to return to Denmark every three months. But eventually she qualified for a journalist work permit, the same one she has been renewing for around the last seven years.
In 2011, when Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas appealed to the United Nations to recognize Palestine, Kiel decided she needed to speak out.
“I felt like here was my destiny, to tell the truth about Israel, what's really going on here, which you often don’t hear in mainstream media around the world,” she said.
So, she took her phone to the streets and started capturing Jerusalem’s reality. She went up on the Temple Mount and filmed what really goes on there. And she made a Facebook page called “Israel, One Nation,” where she shares photos, videos, blogs, scriptures and news every day.
“I share my heart and thoughts and what I experience every day in Israel,” Kiel explained. “I have nearly 188,000 followers on that page alone. I'm also active on Twitter, Instagram, Telegram and YouTube. I have made hundreds of videos over the years giving news updates from Israel.”
Four times, Kiel was apprehended by officials of the Jordanian Islamic Waqf and kicked off the Temple Mount, including one incident where the Waqf wiped her phone of all its contents before releasing her back into the Old City.
She has been followed by and received death threats from Hamas for her pro-Israel work. Still, she chooses not to leave.
Last May, during the Hamas-Israel war, Kiel was streaming several times a day on her Facebook page, ultimately reaching 1.3 million people over the 11-day period. But she was also bombarded by hateful comments from Palestinians and Muslims around the world.
"I had to block many of them," Kiel said. "I have had many hateful comments over the years on all my social media platforms against me, the Jews and Israel."
Kiel said that in seven years, she has only left Israel twice. The last time was four years ago.
She said that her heart is in Israel, and she has “become one with this nation. Not being here, makes me not able to breathe.
“As long as I have a pulse, God has a plan for me in His land of majesty, mystery history and great destiny,” Kiel concluded. “I’m doing what I absolutely believe God created me to do.”