How Timothy Plan’s Israel Common Values Fund Reflects Both Biblical Responsibility and Smart Investment Strategy
It’s been a year since the Hamas terrorist group attacked Israel on October 7, 2023.
Israel now finds itself fighting on three fronts — in Gaza against Hamas, against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, and against the Houthis in Yemen.
Read More
All three groups are bankrolled by Iran, and all share that country’s vision, which is the total destruction of Israel and its main ally, the United States.
Israel Common Values Fund
Thirteen years ago, Timothy Plan, a Biblically Responsible Investing family of mutual funds (and now ETFs) launched the Israel Common Values Fund. We did so for two reasons:
First, God’s Word says quite plainly that Israel comprises His chosen people, the Jews, and He blesses those who bless Israel.
We wanted to support Israel, plain and simple. We felt God’s calling to do so.
Jews lived in Canaan for 2,600 years before Islam was founded around 600 AD and 2,100 years before the term “Palestine” came into use.
The Bible says that God set aside Israel for the Jewish people. Genesis 15:18, which Moses wrote 3,500 years ago, states, “On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram [Abraham] and said, ‘To your descendants I give this land.’”
Supporting Israel, Resisting BDS Movement
As a Christian mutual fund company, we wanted to get behind Israel in the face of a growing “boycott, divest and sanction” (BDS) movement whose goal is to obliterate Israel.
The other reason, although of secondary importance, is that investing in Israel makes good business sense. Israel is a powerhouse of entrepreneurial energy.
Since its re-establishment 76 years ago, the modern nation of Israel has had a special relationship with America. Israel now hosts over 2,500 U.S. companies employing some 72,000 Israelis, according to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
It has the highest concentration of engineers and the most scientists and technicians per capita than any other country. Israel leads the world in breakthroughs in medicine and technology and certainly in defense and other areas. So, it’s been a very good fund for us, but it had nothing to do with economics when we launched it.
Fund Is Doing Fine Amid Attacks
People often ask us whether the October 7, 2023, attack and subsequent war with Hamas has had an effect on our Israel Common Values Fund. Well, not a lot.
When the war hit a year ago, everything did crash down for a few days. But Israel’s economy bounced right back, especially the defense industry. The Fund is doing fine.
Another question that people ask is, how did you become such an advocate for Israel when you are the son of a Palestinian immigrant and grew up with a non-practicing Muslim father?
The answer is quite simple, and it’s a Person: Jesus Christ. When I accepted Jesus as the Lord of my life, I saw a lot of things differently, including Israel.
In It For Eternity
The problem I had growing up was not that I was raised as a Muslim. In our house, we never talked about religion. The problem was that we never went to church. I had no idea that Christianity was true.
My father looked around and he saw all these churchgoing people who dressed up really nicely on Sunday morning and lived like hell the rest of the week. So, he thought, like many people do, that these folks are a bunch of hypocrites.
The thing is, everyone is a hypocrite in one way or another, because we’re all flawed human beings and cannot possibly live up to any creed. That’s why we need a Savior Who loves us enough to die for our sins, forgive us, dust us off and be there for us.
Jesus is the reason we pioneered Biblically Responsible Investing at Timothy Plan in 1994 and why we do what we do. We wanted to give people a way to invest without unwittingly making money off immoral practices such as abortion and pornography.
We believe obedience trumps performance every time. Sticking by Israel is part of that.
We’re in this for eternity, not just the next quarter. And that’s why we continue to offer the Israel Common Values Fund.
Art Ally is the founder of the Timothy Plan family of Biblically Responsible Investing funds.
Timothy Plan has stood at the forefront of faith-based investing for over three decades. Understanding the moral dilemmas inherent in the modern financial landscape, the Plan provides investors with a biblically-filtered portfolio, ensuring that their investments align with their cherished values. Timothy Plan offers a conscientiously-filtered alternatives for people seeking to combine the potential for financial growth and moral integrity by carefully excluding the companies that fail the Biblical filter.
