Cult leader David Koresh visited Israel in January, 1990, accompanied by one of his wives and assistant David Schneider. Koresh’s mission: to establish a wing of his Branch Davidian cult in Israel and to bring as many Israelis back to U.S. as possible. They would be living evidence that, in Koresh’s words, “Out of Zion shall pour forth the Torah.”
           In Jerusalem, Koresh met a New York-born rabbi named Avraham Feld, who directs the Maccabee Foundation, a nonprofit service agency that “fills the gaps in the social welfare system.” Feld has made a career of helping disaffected youth in Jerusalem who have gotten involved with drugs, prostitution, crime, and cults.
           Rabbi Feld observed Koresh on Jerusalem’s Ben Yehudah Street playing a combination of Christian gospels and Hasidic melodies on his guitar. Koresh, whose real name was Vernon Howell (Koresh is Hebrew for Cyrus, the Persian king who allowed the exiled Jews to return to Israel from Babylon), confided in the rabbi, who was dressed in jeans and a leather jacket. Learning of Koresh’s recruitment plans  - that the cult leader would employ every possible coercive technique to achieve his goals- Feld decided to surround Koresh with Jews who were firm in their Jewish identity.  They would be near Koresh at all times, monitoring his activities.
           Feld has found that the best missionary containment strategy is infiltration. “We sent Koresh knowledgeable Jews (along with some non-Jews who wanted to be helpful) to make sure that Koresh’s message to Jerusalemites could be balanced with other points of view.” By listening very carefully to what the cult is up to, says Feld, you learn how fashion a compelling response.
           Koresh expressed ambivalence towards Jews: on the one hand, he apologized for crimes committed against Jews in the name of the New Testament, yet at the same time he excoriated Jews for not embracing the gospels.
           The cult leader rented a large apartment in the Old City of Jerusalem near the Western Wall. Koresh, his wife, and Schneider, spent most of their time hanging around bars and discos, seeking out disaffected young people who might be attracted to their unique brand of “gospel rock music.” Koresh registered at two Orthodox yeshivot, studying with newly observant Jews. He was a regular participant at traditional Friday evening meals and frequented Orthodox bookstores. His home was open to wayfaring Jews who needed a place to stay.
           When Rabbi Feld learned that Koresh had offered plane tickets and wads of hundred dollar bills to at least a dozen young Israelis who were to join the cult leader on a church singing tour in Texas, his Maccabee Foundation went into action. Feld’s group intervened with more than a dozen people who had signed on with Koresh, contacting their family members as well. They succeeded in all cases except one – Pablo Cohen, an Argentinian-born Israeli rock musician who boarded the plane to Texas arm-in-arm with Koresh and Schneider.
           Koresh was forced to leave Israel after his three-month tourist visa had expired. The cult leader confided in Rabbi Feld that he was bitter and discouraged. So many of the Jews he had met and tried to recruit had rebutted his arguments with compelling citations from the Talmud and other Jewish sources and all but one of the young people who had agreed to travel to Texas had backed out at the last minute. Koresh’s complaint came, of course, as no surprise to Feld, who had from the start, sabotaged the branch Davidian leader’s plans and informed the Interior Ministry of Koresh’s visa expiration.
           Pablo Cohen later returned to Jerusalem for several months, but he remained a disciple of David Koresh, now a father figure to the young musician who had been reared in poverty by a mentally disturbed mother. Feld, who had befriended Pablo, observed that “Pablo was a music-loving Israeli who said that he didn’t care what words he was singing. He loved the attention he got playing in Texas churches. Compare that to Pablo’s former life as a street musician, playing for a few shekels on Ben Yehudah Street in Jerusalem. David Koresh made Pablo Cohen feel important.”
           Rabbi Feld met and pleaded with Pablo not to return to Texas but to no avail. When the siege began in Waco Feld arranged for all the people who knew Pablo Cohen to telephone him daily to persuade him to flee the compound. But the Israeli remained with Koresh to the end. After the branch Davidian compound erupted in flames last April, Pablo’s charred remained were found near the bodies of David Koresh and Dave Schneider.