From Islam to Judaism: Timor-David Aklin’s Tumultuous Journey

Timor-David Aklin grew up in a religious Muslim family in his hometown of Jaffa. “My grandmothers wore a hijab, my mother wears a Hijab, we fasted in every Ramadan, and attended holiday ceremonies at the mosque.”

There was only one Jew in the Arab neighborhood, an elderly Holocaust survivor named Leah. “She had massive glasses, and she walked slowly with a cane,” recalls Timor-David in an exclusive Aish.com interview. “When I was six, kids told me to go pick on her, so I did. When I walked up to her, I picked up an olive that fell from a nearby tree but didn't know where to hit her with it. I stopped and stared for a while. Then she slowly reached for her bag and made a gesture with her finger that signaled, ‘come here.’

“I approached her with that olive hidden in my hand still. She pulled out a chocolate bar and said to me, in heavily accented Hebrew, ‘If those kids send you again, tell them I'm handing out free chocolate.’ She knew I was a shy quiet kid, so I continued to go back to her, and eventually she set up a routine for me where every day I'd go alone to her and she would give me a chocolate bar.” These interactions with Leah, which continued for a couple of years until she passed away, are among Timor-David’s fondest childhood memories. “I think about her often,” he says. “She was an incredible person.”

Timor-David’s other childhood memories are not so rosy. “It’s difficult to find positive things about my past.”

He explains, “Violent incidents and hypocrisy of Muslims towards each other in my area made me question things.” As a child, Timor-David saw a man hanging from a rope, witnessed another man being thrown from the second floor, and was present in gunfights.

“I recall seeing a group of terrorist-looking, mafia-fusion mobsters armed from head to toe, looking extremely suspicious. I hid in my grandmother’s basement for a while because I was very traumatized by the sight. My uncle then walked to the roof, which shared a staircase with the basement, and I heard him cocking his gun, pointing it up to the sky, and firing away. Some days or weeks later – it was too long ago, it’s all fuzzy – he and others were arrested for a few years. Before his arrest, he gathered us children – perhaps a dozen or more because I have plenty of cousins – to tell us the tale of the three wise monkeys. If anyone – no exceptions – asks us any question, we cover our ears and we shut our eyes as well as our mouths. That was my childhood. And that wasn’t a single case – it was years upon years of repetitiveness.”

On a summer Friday in 2001, at age 7, his family and friends were having a barbeque on the beach. The spot they’d chosen happened to be right in front of the Dolphinarium discotheque. Timor-David was playing hide and seek with his friends when “out of nowhere, I hear explosions and see people screaming, not knowing what is happening, and literally just crumbling to their knees.” A suicide bomber had blown himself up, killing 21 Israelis, mostly teenagers.

While Timor-David found this experience traumatic, his family did not express any sadness over the loss of lives. “It was the same reaction when 9/11 happened later that year,” he says. “I was in school that day and there was a celebration. It was something to be happy about.”

Due to the many violent incidents Timor-David witnessed as a child, he developed night terrors. “They’re like nightmares, but worse. For many years, night terrors ruined my health, my sleeping habits, and my daily routine. I was living in paranoia and I had no one to talk to about it. I think these were the loneliest years I had. I didn’t even know how to approach people. I don’t know why but during those times I used to shave my entire head as a way to cope with some of these traumas. I woke up in the middle of the night after dreaming about dead bodies in my room and seeing dozens of human limbs trying to break in from the window. I got up and began plucking my hair, until I ran to the bathroom and completely shaved my entire head and face. I don’t know why I thought it would help, but it did that day.”

The moment he knew something had to change was seeing his beloved and feared uncle curse God out loud while threatening to kill an electrician who he thought wasn’t doing his job right. “I thought to myself, ‘I’ve gotten used to how little value human life has, but now God has no value either? My whole life is a lie, contradictions, hypocrisy, and endless cruelty. Why are we even alive? What’s the point to all of this?’”

Soul searching

At age 17, Timor-David left Israel and traveled the world, embarking on a spiritual journey as well. “I wanted to figure out who I am and what I am doing,” he says.

Timor-David always believed in God, “even though there were times when there was some distance between us.” He studied different religions, as well as history. “I was looking for answers,” he says. He didn’t set out to convert to any religion. He was simply seeking truth.

 

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Timor-David’s journey to Judaism began with books. “Before I converted to Judaism, I wasn’t very exposed to the Jewish people as much as I was exposed to Jewish literature and history.” Growing up in Israel, Timor-David was introduced to the Jewish Bible, Tanach, back in elementary school. As an adult, he found himself admiring and looking up to Jewish prophets and sages. “I wanted to be just like them. I saw them as my role models.”

Among Timor-David’s heroes is Maimonides, who lived in a Muslim society and wrote books and letters in Arabic. “On a personal level, he is someone I look up to a lot.”

Another hero is the Biblical Joseph, whom Timor-David “fell in love with when reading about his story. It was very touching and moving. I get emotional thinking about this. I was looking for my life purpose. I was searching for my soul, and I found it. It was a combination of many things, but I think it’s safe to say many Jews inspired me, modern ones, from artists and scientists to filmmakers and writers to sages and prophets and Biblical characters.”

The more Timor-David learned about Judaism, the more he was drawn to it, like a magnet.

Conversion

When Timor-David went to the Israeli Rabbinate to begin the conversion process, he met with “three judges sitting in the court. One was negative. He was telling me, ‘Why are you here? You don’t need to be here. You shouldn’t convert. Just leave.’ The second one was slightly more neutral and kind of investigative, asking questions and being polite. The third one was supportive. After hearing about my life story, he said, ‘Looking at you, I can’t help but think about Joseph. Despite all his trials and tribulations, Joseph found a voice and a way to make a difference. I sense something like that in you, and I have a feeling that you can go and change the world as well.’ I cried.”

The next three years of preparation for conversion were filled with many emotions, including tremendous fear. “I’ve seen my family do awful things to people, from abuse and torture to executing their foes.” Timor-David knew that by converting to Judaism, he was putting his life in danger.

He also worried about how he would be received by the Jewish community. “I knew I was going home. I knew that this is who I am. But even when you go home, sometimes when you knock on that door, it still feels like you’re a stranger. No one is recognizing you. You know who you are, but you are in no one’s memory. No one knows who you are. People are suspicious, worried, afraid, and rightfully so. I was never upset by people who found me strange. If I were them, I would have the hardest time trying to digest me!”

In his pursuit of truth, Timor-David didn’t let his fears stop him. “I told myself it was a covenant I was making between me and God. I didn’t expect anyone to accept me.”

 

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Shortly after his conversion, the synagogues Timor-David attended were not too welcoming. “I didn’t let that get to me. I told myself, ‘You have to accept yourself, and then everything else will follow. Those who accept you will be the ones to accept you because of who you are, not in spite of what you are.’ I wasn’t doing it for the acceptance. I didn’t need anyone’s validation. I did it for myself. I knew eventually things would change.”

Five years after his conversion, Timor-David has no regrets. He has attended different synagogues, interacted with many types of Jews, and he loves them all. He studied for conversion with two Ashkenazi mentors and one Moroccan teacher. On his own, he studied the Yemenite tradition, met Yemenite Jews, and chose their way of practice. After he converted, he began attending a Chassidic synagogue and became close with its rabbi. “I had a little bit of everything,” he says, “and I always enjoy that because I feel like they all complement each other. Each person brings his own thing.”

He also received threats to his life. He once bumped into his fearsome uncle who’d been driving down the street. The uncle stopped his car, jumped out, and told Timor-David in no uncertain terms that whoever leaves Islam needs to die and that “they” were coming to shoot him tomorrow. “I never bothered to ask who ‘they’ were – family or Muslims from the community. I simply didn’t care,” says Timor-David.

“A year ago, a couple of people tried to stab me outside of my house. I always have this dark cloud that just follows me around here. It’s a constant.”

Israel advocacy

But Timor-David refuses to hide. He feels that with his unique background, he can make a meaningful contribution to the Jewish people and to the State of Israel. He has his own YouTube channel, and he often appears in various media and podcasts, explaining the current situation in Israel.

“When I started, my agenda was to expose Arab corruption and give a better overall exposure on Islam. To be a genuine truth-teller. My target audience was Jews, but it seemed like only right-wing Jews were following me in the beginning. I realized that my message wasn’t very compelling to all Jews, so I made some adjustments and I found out the way to reach people is by sharing my story, focusing on positive things we as a nation have to offer but still not shying away from the truth. Like Plato’s cave, exposing them to the truth has to be gradual, and not all at once. Today it seems like my message is finding its way to non-Jews as well, since most of the negative feedback comes from Muslims and pro-Palestinian-sympathizers.”

It hasn’t been easy. “Given my background, my ethnicity, and my life story, I thought I was going to have a layer of immunity and be able whatever is on my mind. But not everyone wants to hear my truth because I don’t fit into the media’s agenda.”

Ancient hatred

“I’ve traveled the world since I was 17. I’ve been to 26 countries. I’ve experienced antisemitism in places where you do not expect it. In almost every nation out there, you can see or feel some antisemitic traces,” he says.

Timor-David explains that the Arab hatred of Jews is “a very ancient hatred.” It’s been around for thousands of years, and it did not start with Islam. “Of course, Islam gave strength to it,” he says. But even before that, “when Mohammed was persecuted by the Arabs because he was bringing a new religion and destroying their pagan idol worshipping, they kept accusing him of stealing from the Jews. ‘Stop trying to sell us this Jewish stuff! Stop trying to make us Jews!’”

Once Islam was accepted by the Arab world, their antisemitism became expressed in the form of persecuting and humiliating Jews. For example, early Muslims instituted “a ban on Jews riding horses, because a horse is a majestic noble animal. Jews should only ride donkeys because it’s more suitable for their status,” explains Timor-David.

“Arabs did live peacefully side by side with Jews, but that’s because the Jews weren’t strong. As long as a Jew is a weakling according to Islamic standards, as long as he is below the Muslim, who is far more superior than the Jew, then you can live at peace.”

Timor-David quotes the Koran and other Muslim texts that explicitly discuss destruction of Jews and Christians as well. For example, Quran (9:30): "And the Jews say: Ezra is the son of Allah; and the Christians say: The Messiah is the son of Allah; these are the words of their mouths; they imitate the saying of those who disbelieved before; may Allah destroy them; how they are turned away!"

Other texts explicitly call for murder of Jews, for example, Sahih Bukhari (52:177): “Allah's Apostle said, ‘The Hour will not be established until you fight with the Jews, and the stone behind which a Jew will be hiding will say. "O Muslim! There is a Jew hiding behind me, so kill him."’”

Or Tabari 7:97: The morning after the murder of Ashraf, the Prophet declared, "Kill any Jew who falls under your power." Timor-David explains, “Ashraf was a poet, killed by Muhammad's men because he insulted Islam. Here, Muhammad widens the scope of his orders to kill. An innocent Jewish businessman was then slain by his Muslim partner, merely for being non-Muslim.”

October 7^th was not unique

While most of the Jewish world was shocked by the extent of cruelty of the October 7^th terrorists, Timor-David says that similar massacres occurred in the 1930s under the British Mandate, as well as in Muslim countries throughout history.

Back in the days of Muhammad, says Timor-David, “the Qurayza Jews were completely obliterated only five years after Muhammad arrived in Medina. Their leader opted to stay neutral when their town was besieged by a Meccan army that was sent to take revenge for Muhammad's deadly caravan raids. The tribe killed no one from either side and even surrendered peacefully to Muhammad after the Meccans had been turned back. Yet the prophet of Islam had every male member of the Qurayza beheaded, and every woman and child enslaved, even raping one of the captives himself (what Muslim apologists might refer to as ‘same day marriage’).”

Timor-David was not surprised by the attack on October 7^th. “I saw it coming a long time ago,” he says. What he did not anticipate was the degree of success the Hamas terrorists managed to achieve.

On the day of the attack, Timor-David was in the southern town of Netivot. “The explosions all day were massively loud,” he recalls. “Rockets landed in front of me. A rocket landed behind my car. It was crazy! Israel did not do its job that day defending us.”

He hopes that this war will lead to complete destruction of Hamas and Israel’s other enemies, so that Israeli citizens could live in peace in the north, in the south, and everywhere in the country.

Timor-David can be found on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/timoraklin/.