On Good Friday, new US ambassador Huckabee lands in Israel, brings Trump’s prayers to Western Wall, reads Psalm 121

JERUSALEM, ISRAEL — For the first time in history, an American president has sent a devout Evangelical follower of Jesus Christ to serve as the U.S. ambassador to the Jewish state.

How timely, then, for Mike Huckabee to arrive on Good Friday, holy to 2.4 billion Christians around the globe, because it marks the day that the Romans tortured, crucified, and buried Jesus in Jerusalem.

Huckabee immediately traveled to Jerusalem and came to the Western Wall, also known as the Wailing Wall because of all the tears that Jewish people have shed there over the centuries.

Incoming United States ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee visits the Western Wall, Judaism's holiest prayer site, in Jerusalem's Old City, April 18, 2025. Photo by Chaim Goldberg/Flash9

Wearing a kippah on his head, Huckabee prayed to the Lord before the massive stones, the only remains of the Second Jewish Temple.

Then he put a handwritten prayer of President Donald J. Trump in stones that he had brought with him from the Oval Office.

Statement by US Ambassador to Israel, Mr. Mike Huckabee, during his visit at the Western Wall pic.twitter.com/w583wbDnbC
— Government Press Office 🇮🇱 (@GPOIsrael) April 18, 2025

“What an honor it is for me to come on behalf of the President of the United States – President Donald Trump – and to present a prayer that he hand-wrote and gave to me last Thursday in the White House,” Huckabee told reporters, under tight security, and watched by large crowds.

Huckabee said Trump gave him “the instruction that my first act as the ambassador would be to take his prayer, praying for the peace of Jerusalem, and to bring it to the Wall, and to pray that there would, in fact, be peace in the Land.”

Incoming US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee visits the Western Wall, Judaism's holiest prayer site, in Jerusalem's Old City, April 18, 2025. Photo by Chaim Goldberg/Flash90

The new ambassador, accompanied by several Orthodox rabbis, then read Psalm 121 from a Hebrew-English Bible set on a stand near the Wall.

“I will lift up my eyes to the mountains; from where shall my help come? My help comes from the Lord who made heaven and earth. He will not allow your foot to slip; He who keeps you will not slumber. Behold, He who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord is your keeper; the Lord is your shade on your right hand. The sun will not smite you by day, nor the moon by night. The Lord will protect you from all evil; He will keep your soul. The Lord will guard your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forever.”

On Monday, Huckabee will formally present his credentials to Israeli President Isaac Herzog.