Journey to the Land of My Soul: An African American Woman Tells the Story of Her Journey to Judaism and Jerusalem

When people looked at Delores Gray, they saw a dynamic corporate executive, and entrepreneur, a devoted African-American minister, an American success story. But there was another side to this granddaughter of Mississippi sharecroppers- a yearning soul that longed for something she could not name. As a child she dreamed of walking in the footsteps of the Patriarch Abraham; as an adult she walked through the Holy Land and felt something profound stir within her. The story of how Delores Gray, a minister from Chicago and Los Angeles, became Ahuvah Gray, a Torah-observant Jew living in the holy city of Jerusalem, is a compelling and fascinating one. It is a tale of earthquakes, both physical and spiritual, a story of friendship and of almost unbelievable Divine Providence. In "Journey to the Land of My Soul," Ahuvah shares with us her journey of discovery, allowing us to look at her life with wonder and astonishment-and to look at our own lives with renewed inspiration and faith. " Knowing Ahuvah Gray is a spiritual adventure... Presenting the heroines of the Bible has always been a challenge... Ahuvah is one of those heroines. Her story cannot fail to inspire us to make our own lives a bit bigger."

Born in Chicago, the granddaughter of sharecroppers from Mound Bayou, Mississippi, raised as a Christian, Delores Gray followed a highly unlikely path from airline stewardess to minister, then tour guide, and finally to Orthodox Jew now living in Jerusalem. How does one make sense of this journey? What were the spiritual pushes and pulls along the way that could explain this radical metamorphosis? When African-American Delores Gray says she feels she was present at Mount Sinai and was one of the original Jews to receive the 613 mitzvos (commandments), her Christian friends are bewildered. Originally a born-again Christian who was first licensed as a minister at the Strait-Way house of Worship in Los Angeles and ordained as a minister at the international assemblies of God in San Diego, Delores now prays in Hebrew three times a day, keeps kosher and lives in Bayit Vegan, an Orthodox Jewish neighborhood in Jerusalem. Ostracized by many of her born-again Christian friends, denounced by others for ＂trafficking with the devil＂, Delores has not wavered from her course. Once a nonbeliever, as her mother described Delores as a young girl, today her life is informed and affected on the most intimate level by her belief in the Creator. She prays daily for vision and clarity, as a Jew to perform God’s will The first time Delores visited Jerusalem, she knew instantaneously that it would become her home, and that she would leave everyone and everything behind if necessary to fulfill that vision. How could a person so sheltered by family and friends take such a perilous step that would cut her off forever from her roots? How could she abandon her religious heritage and her home-land? Unlike Ruth of the Bible, Delores had no Naomi to cling to, no Naomi to lead the way as she changed her home, her people, and her God. What she did have was her God and the people he provided for her - strangers who became her guides, her friends and ultimately her new family. ＂Journey to the land of my soul,＂ is the story of Delores’s amazing journey to Zion, a journey full of thorns and nettles; a story that ultimately transformed Delores to Ahuvah, a daughter of Israel. Ahuvah Gray has been privileged to live in Israel for sixteen years. She is a renowned international lecturer and authoress. Ruth Broyde-Sharone Journalist, Documentary Filmmaker, Interior Decorator