Professor Aapeli Saarisalo (1896-1986), the renowned Finnish orientalist and archaeologist, was one of the early supporters of Pastor Per Faye Hansen and his Nordic Christian-Zionist movement. Being a keen advocate of the KARMEL vision, Prof. Saarisalo gladly contributed his articles in Finnish for the KARMEL magazine published in Finland, a sister of the Norwegian periodical by the same name.
For many years Saarisalo himself was an ardent Christian Zionist. He wrote more than 40 books about Israel and was instrumental in the translation of the KALEVALA, the Finnish national epic, into Hebrew. As a strict vegetarian he enjoyed garlic cloves and often expressed great confidence in its therapeutic powers. Ideologically, Saarisalo closely identified with the plans of Faye-Hansen about interconnecting Scandinavians with the contemporary nation of Israel and the Promised Land.
Since the early 1920s Prof. Saarisalo spent long periods of time doing field research in Eretz Israel, including studies about the Druze community. From the 1950s onward he challenged young...
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