Yet this man who helped Jews escape the Holocaust -- a man who suffered Bulgarian persecution from so-called Christian anti-Semites, and received public floggings from Nazis during the occupation of Bulgaria -- was a man who loved Yeshua as the Messiah of Judaism after a personal revelation of Yeshua to him.
When Nazi Germany occupied Bulgaria without shooting a single shot, Rabbi Daniel Zion as the spiritual leader of the Jewish community became the object of persecution and ridicule. Daniel was taken and publicly flogged in front of the Great Synagogue of Sofia. During these times Rabbi Daniel walked upright before the fascists and his only reaction was to call upon God.
When there was talk of shipping the Bulgarian Jews to Germany, Rabbi Daniel and his secretary A. A. Anski wrote a letter to the King of Bulgaria. In this letter Rabbi Daniel begged the King in the name of Yeshua not the allow the Jews to be taken out of Bulgaria. Daniel wrote in this letter that in a vision, he had seen Yeshua tell him to warn the King from delivering the Jews to the Nazis. After a long ordeal of waiting many hours at the door of the King's palace in Sofia, the Rabbi and his secretary were able to deliver this letter to the King's secretary. On the next day the King was going to Germany for a meeting with the Nazi Government and Hitler himself. King Boris of Bulgaria stood his ground against Hitler and did not submit to the Nazi pressure to deliver the Jews from Bulgaria to the death camps of Poland and Germany.
By that small miracle, Daniel and many Bulgarian Jews survived the persecution and the Nazi occupation.
After the war in 1948, the state of Israel was recreated after nearly 2000 years. Daniel and many Bulgarian Jews emigrated from then-Communist Bulgaria to Israel.
When in 1954 Rabbi Samuel Toledano became the chief Rabbi of Israel, he invited Daniel to be a judge in the Rabbinical court of Jerusalem. When the rumors started to fly that Rabbi Daniel Zion believed in Yeshua, Rabbi Toledano invited Rabbi Zion to his office and asked him personally about these rumors. Rabbi Daniel explained to Toledano his position. He explained that he accepts Yeshua as the Messiah and he does not accept Christianity as the true expression of the teaching and person of Yeshua the Messiah. Rabbi Toledano said to him that he can live with this position as long as Rabbi Daniel will keep it to himself. When Rabbi Daniel said that he did not think that such a message can be kept a secret, Toledano was forced to take Rabbi Daniel to the Rabbinic court, and allow the other Rabbis to decide what should be done.
In the Israeli Rabbinic court, after evidence of Rabbi Daniel's faith in Yeshua the Messiah was presented in the form of four books that Rabbi Daniel had written in Bulgarian about Yeshua, the right to speak was given to Rabbi Daniel. Here are the words which Rabbi Daniel Zion spoke in his own defense:
I am poor and feeble, persecuted and vulnerable, Yeshua conquered me, and with the New Man he honored me, He delivered me from the poverty-stricken self with his great love, he cherished me.
Every day the canny devil aspires to grab my faith, I hold on to my encourager, and chase the devil away. I stand here alone in my faith, the whole world is against me. I give up all the earthly honor for the sake of the Messiah my mate.
The Rabbinical Court striped Rabbi Daniel from his Rabbinical Title, but the Bulgarian Jews continued to honor Rabbi Daniel as their Rabbi. A Russian Jew who was one of the early Zionist settlers in Rishon LeZion, and had become a "believer", had given Rabbi Daniel Zion a building on Yeffet St. in the heart of Jaffa for a Synagogue. In that Synagogue Rabbi Daniel officiated until the 6th of October 1973. In this Synagogue Rabbi Daniel Zion did not often speak of Yeshua openly, but many times he brought stories and parables from the New Testament. However, each Sabbath after the Synagogue Rabbi Daniel would bring home a group of his fellow worshipers from the Synagogue and they would study about Yeshua and from the New Testament all the Sabbath after-noon until they would go back to the Synagogue to say the evening prayers.
Many Missions, Missionaries, and Christian Societies, visited Rabbi Daniel Zion in his Jaffa home. They wrote many articles about him, and at rare occasions would even offer him large amounts of money for the use of his name in their ministries. In every case Rabbi Daniel rejected their offers. He did not want to destroy his witness with the people of Israel for a handful of dollars. If any one would give him some free-will offering without any strings attached the Rabbi would accept it and pass it on to charitable organizations of the blind, or to orphans and widows. He himself lived in abject poverty. There was nothing in his own house that was of value and he would never lock his home.
Rabbi Daniel Zion wrote hundreds of songs about Yeshua the Messiah, Sabbath, and the good life.
Rabbi Daniel's major contribution to the Messianic Judaism is his personal example. He lived 100% Jewish lifestyle, and was 100% follower of the Messiah Yeshua. He did not compromise faith for neither money from the Christian missions, nor did he succumb to the pressures of the chief rabbinate.
In 1979 Rabbi Daniel Zion departed to be with the Lord in a ripe old age of 96 years. The Bulgarian Jewish community of Israel gave him full military, and state honors. His bier stood in the center of Jaffa with a military guard and at noon was carried by men all the way to the Holon cemetery on foot. He was buried as the Chief Rabbi of Bulgarian Jews who saved them from the Nazi holocaust. A true Jew in every sense, a man who stood up against fascism, the Nazi's, anti-Messiah Jews, and anti-Jewish Christians. Yeshua was his savior and friend and until the last days of his life Rabbi Daniel Zion lived up to the poem that he wrote with the acrostic of his name, Daniel Zion the Servant of God.
His poems survive to this day. Below is one of Daniel's poems, set to music by the Messianic Jewish music group Meha Shamayim.
No not I, No not I, only you are Yeshua in me!
Only you bring me before the God of my fathers,
Only you can heal me from every evil illness,
No not I, No not I, only you are Yeshua in me!
Only you teach me to love all creation,
Only you teach me to love even the enemy,
No not I, No not I, only you are Yeshua in me!
For this reason I will stay in your love,
For ever will I be within your will,
No not I, No not I, only you are Yeshua in me!
Daniel Zion's poem: No, Not I.mp3
Credit for most of this post is due to Joseph Shulam's article on Rabbi Daniel Zion.