“Stuck in Between”: A Druze Love Story

by Jihii Jolly
June 10, 2014

Feras Anteer and Rabaa Swaid in Haifa.

HAIFA – One day three years ago, Feras Anteer and Rabaa Swaid met on the campus of the University of Haifa. He had been visiting the university to explore its Master’s programs and overheard her talking to some students about needing young Druze people to take a survey for her class research project. He offered to take a handful of questionnaires back to Maghar, the Arab village of about 20,000 where he grew up, which has a predominantly Druze population. She accepted. Her own Druze village, Peki’in, about 40 minutes away from his, has a population of only about 5,000 people.

Anteer and Swaid are members of the Druze minority in Israel. According to the nation’s Central Bureau of Statistics, there are just over 125,000 Druze in Israel, mainly populating villages around the northern city of Haifa. Because their religion prohibits exogamy, they marry within their own community. Both Anteer and Swaid grew up knowing they must marry other Druze. Little did they know that fateful day in 2011 would lead to them falling in love with each other.

The story of their relationship tells a lot about the place of the Druze in Israeli society. Unlike Palestinian Arabs, Druze men like Anteer serve in the military and often rise to the diplomatic ranks. But they do not have the full advantages of Jewish Israelis. English is a third language for both Anteer and Feras. With their families, they speak Arabic. In school, they speak Hebrew. They are a people who embody within their own identity the divide between Arabs and Israelis in the Holy Land.

Soon after their meeting, Anteer took a job at the Israeli consulate in New York. But he was determined to stay in touch with Swaid. Now, he is back in Israel and they are planning a future together. One day this spring they discussed their future at the Baha’i Gardens in Haifa, not far from the university where they met.

“We didn’t tell our parents because we weren’t sure if it was going to work or not,” 23-year-old Swaid explained. “So we waited like two years… I waited two years.”

“For me,” interjected 28-year-old Anteer, who was sitting beside her.

“Thank you,” he said to her with a loving smile.

For two years, Anteer had been living in small studio apartment in the middle of Times Square after taking an unexpected job offer to work at the Israeli Consulate in New York City. Meanwhile, Swaid was completing her undergraduate education at the University of Haifa, studying psychology and English.

The Druze are perhaps the most intriguing and misunderstood of the world’s minority Arab religious communities, largely because of their reputation for secrecy. In the Druze faith, which was founded nearly 1,000 years ago, only a particular, initiated portion of the population may partake in the acts of prayer and studying the holy texts called Kitab al Hikma (in English, Epistles of Wisdom). These acts take place in the hilwah, or prayer house, which non-initiated Druze may visit, but not worship in.

The initiated and uninitiated live side by side in Druze villages throughout Northern Israel: parallel lives of the religiously devoted and secular masses. In some cases, some members of the family are religious while others are not. The religious class runs the affairs of the village; they perform marriage ceremonies, handle civic duties and mediate conflict. They are also available to teach religion and history to the secular Druze, but to a limited degree.

Though not initiated themselves, Anteer and Swaid grew up living in adherence to a strict set of cultural traditions, which they learned in school and from their families.

“We have a lot of big rules,” explained Anteer. “You have to marry a Druze girl. You cannot kill people. We also have small rules. You cannot eat pork. You cannot smoke. You cannot drink.”

The day they met, Swaid had been working on a research project about the Druze identity in Israel, which is extremely complex. The largest Druze populations in the world are found in neighboring Syria and Lebanon. She explained that because the Druze are a minority in Israel and so little is known of their mysterious religion, professors will often ask Druze students to research their own community for class projects.

So she created a survey questionnaire about whether Druze consider themselves to be Arab or Israeli.

“We are between,” she explained, with a sigh of exasperation. “We are not Arab. We are not Israeli. It’s so confusing.”

While the Israeli government officially recognizes the Druze as non-Arabs, every Druze you ask about their own identity will likely give you a different answer. Even Feras and Rabaa don’t agree.

“I am Israeli Druze,” said Anteer, “and I have Arab culture. I have to say Arab, because I look Arab, speak Arabic, eat Arabic? food and live with Arab people.”

“Every time someone asks me this, I have to think about it,” said Swaid. “I haven’t decided yet. I am Druze, first of all. And I think I’m Arab,” she said with hesitation.

Though the Druze are historicized as an offshoot of Ismailism, which is a branch of Shia Islam, affiliation with Islam is something some Druze vehemently deny, because of the persecution by Muslims that they have faced since their founding. Since the early years of the Israeli state, Druze with Israeli citizenship were given a status as distinct from other Palestinians, which ended up resulting in them being subjected to compulsory service in the Israeli army since 1956. And because they have Israeli passports, they cannot travel to Syria or Lebanon. Instead, they’ve been embattled against their own brethren on account of the draft.

Anteer served in the IDF for 3 years and the majority of men from his village continue work for the government or army. If he stays in Israel, he will likely do the same.

“Because we are a minority, it’s better for us to stay next to the government in the place we live,” explained Swaid. “Not with the other side.”

“The government loves and helps the Druze if they are in the army,” Anteer added.

“But in daily life, I think they look at us like we are Arabs,” said Swaid.

“It’s difficult,” explained Anteer, pausing to think. “The Arabs look at us go to the army and say we cannot be Arabs because we are with the Jews.”

“They kind of hate us.”

“But then there are Israelis who say you look like Arabs, you speak like Arabs, you are Arabs.”

“We are stuck in the middle,” Swaid said with a look of frustration on her face.

“I say it’s good,” Anteer posited, looking at her. “You can say what you want.”

“But you’re not honest,” she argued.

“It’s okay, don’t be honest. It’s the Middle East, not America,” he said. “You can say what the people want to hear. It makes it easier.”

“Make benefits from everything. That’s what he means,” she clarified.

The conclusion of her research was that the Druze is something of a national religion, like Judaism. “It doesn’t matter where in the world they are,” she explained. “They consider themselves Jews. We are the same. If we are in America or anywhere else, we are Druze.”

While Anteer was in New York, the two kept in touch on the phone. When he went home to Israel to visit his family, he would see her. Though long-distance was difficult, he knew he wanted to eventually marry her.

“There are few Druze girls in America. I knew I had to marry from my country,” he said. “And I liked her, she’s a beautiful girl, a nice girl.”

“And smart, that’s the most important,” she interjected.

“Yes. I loved her and I kept in touch with her and I decided I will come back and I will marry her.”

In the Druze tradition, if a man and woman are interested in each other, they must make their intentions known to their family, and then enter a formal dating period, which is something of a pre-engagement. So Anteer is now back in Israel, doing just that. The two are soon-to-be engaged.

Swaid is quiet and answers most questions shyly, the way Druze girls are taught to be, but it’s clear she has strong opinions under the surface.

The most difficult thing about being Druze, she said, is being a girl. “There are many limitations on girls, not like guys. He decided to go to New York and nobody said don’t do it. If I decided to go to New York, I need either my parents or my husband. It’s not possible alone.”

“It’s because we are so few,” interjected Anteer. “We have to keep our girls close, to keep us from other people.”

“Primitive,” said Swaid.

The Druze in Israel are known for being the most conservative of their Middle Eastern counterparts. Perhaps because of their precarious place in Israeli society.

“It is changing,” she added. “Ten years ago, maybe it wasn’t possible to study and live outside the house in university dorms… but we are influenced by the Jews. We need to keep up with the times.”

After they get engaged, which is a simple meeting of the parents, after which couples will often wear a necklace with their spouse-to-be’s name on it, they’ll have a wedding in which a Sheikh will draw up a marriage contract, and Swaid will be taken by her new in-laws to their joint-family home. Her relatives will come too, and they’ll have a big meal. Beyond music and food, there are no special rituals to be performed.

For now, as she prepares to graduate from college, she yearns to build a meaningful career for herself in Israel. Anteer really wants to return to New York City.

“He is confusing me. He is saying come with me. But I want to do my M.A.”

“I said do it there!” he said to her.

“When I went to New York, people said you will never come back and I said, ‘Oh, I don’t know about this place,’” Anteer explained. Then when I went to Times Square, I said, ‘Okay, this is my place.’”

“You have to go just to check it,” he said smilingly to Swaid. “If you go to Columbia? To learn there? It’s the best!”

She paused and sighed. “Okay,” she sais, laughing at him, “I’m gonna think about it.”

“Song of Songs” Revisited: Orthodox Women Struggle with the Ancient Text

by Yvonne Juris

JERUSALEM – The Song of Songs, the Biblical text attributed to King Solomon, has long been a source of controversy. Because of its sexual nature and sensual imagery, the ancient rabbis debated whether or not it should be included in the Bible altogether.

The debate gets re-engaged in every generation, but perhaps never more so than now that the book is being taught to young Orthodox Jewish women, who bring both their faith and their modern sensibilities to the task.

For the students’ in Debbie Zimmerman’s class in a woman’s school near Jerusalem called Nishmat, the sexualized content of the book seemed at odds with the righteous lifestyle they have been taught to live. At a recent session, the young women in the class were strikingly candid in the way which they explored the controversial book. They were educated, learned in the Torah and opinionated. Eager to approach the meaning of the book as well as reconcile it with preconceived notions, there was an egalitarian aspect to the class.

Students engage in discussion in Debbie Zimmerman’s class. (The Land/Yvonne Juris)

The class became a forum for discussion on what values were more conducive to a healthy marriage, whether it was a sin to have sexual relations before marriage and the libidinous nature of romantic secular poetry.

“Let’s put it this way,” Zimmerman said quoting Shakespeare, “Shall I compare thee to a summers’ day?” She added: “How often do love poems talk about your great sense of humor and how often do they talk about how beautiful you are and how your skin looks?”

“What about ‘let me not to the marriage of true minds,’” said a student. “It’s all about how love is timeless and even if your look changes.” Her statement, a defense made on behalf of the virtues of secular poetry and its potential to extol enduring love, was interrupted midway by another student who approved of her peer’s comment. She took the sentiment a step further and dismissed the Song of Songs as “candy bacon,” a designation she said she gave to the book because of its inclusion in the Torah, even though it was suggestive of promiscuity.
The teacher allowed, or rather resigned herself, to letting the students express their discomfort with the text, which some rabbis prefer to interpret as a metaphorical comparison between a love for God and a romantic love for another person.

“The question is, is Shir Hashirim supposed to disturb us?” a student asked using the Hebrew name for the Song of Songs.

“I think it’s supposed to move us emotionally,” Zimmerman said. “I don’t think it’s supposed to be titillating. I think there’s a difference between being sensuous and titillating and I think it’s supposed to be sensual.”

The questions raised in Nishmat classroom have been a subject of discussion and imagination among scholars. Shir Hashirim or Song of Songs has undergone myriad changes in perception and interpretation, everything from the literal to the allegorical. The literal interpretation confronts the reader with a perplexing question of why such a romantic poem would be placed in the Jewish scriptures, known as the Tanakh.

“Song of Songs has been understood throughout Jewish tradition as an allegory but what the allegory is has many different approaches throughout the ages,” Zimmerman explained after class.

While the concerns regarding the book have more or less been settled, the curriculum surrounding the book varies widely depending on if you are a young Orthodox woman or a young Orthodox man. The book is not as commonly studied in depth at men’s yeshivas where the study of Talmud takes precedence.

An excerpt from the first part of the Song of Songs, reads as follows:

Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth—
for your love is more delightful than wine.
³Pleasing is the fragrance of your perfumes;
your name is like perfume poured out.

Some scholars have argued that the romantic poeticism is an extended metaphor, representative of the highest expression of love between God and a person, or God and the temple. It is included in the Christian bible and was adored by St. Bernard of Clairevaux, who interpreted it as a poetic homage to Christ. But while it is undoubtedly part of the Jewish canon, some scholars were uncomfortable with its sensual and sexualized language that describes the angst and passion of two lovers.

So it comes as no shock that in the quaint school of Nishmat, the book should once again be re-examined and interpreted through the lens of the young women. The rate at which the questions and interjections were raised by the five students during the Bible Studies class, was incessant-creating a cacophony of concerns, objections and opinions that Zimmerman patiently addressed. Many of these opinions circled around the discomfort of reading a book that so openly expressed the sensuality of two lovers.

The roadblocks in this lesson for the women who were in their late teens to early twenties, were par for the learning process, which is aided by thorough debate and engagement, Zimmerman later explained. It is part of a growing trend for Modern Orthodox education for women who want to further their religious study with detailed examination of the text.

“I encourage my students not to censor their concerns – as long as they’re approaching the topics respectively and if they can’t approach the topic respectfully then they should still approach that,” Zimmerman said.

Students at Nishmat said that it took a different approach to Jewish learning than other schools.

Elizabeth Liberman, 23, grew up in a Jewish household that she described as being moderately observant and “egalitarian.” Liberman and her husband decided to take some time off to enrich their knowledge of Jewish law after they got married. She has been studying at Nishmat for six months.

“I would say that when I grew up thinking that if women are doing exact thing as men, then that’s a form of sexism, and here it’s a much more realistic look,” said Liberman, 23, who came from Brooklyn to study at Nishmat. “I guess what makes it unique is how high the level of learning is for women.”

The ability for women to study the Torah and Talmud in-depth at this post-high school yeshiva, Nishmat, is part of a growing trend in Modern Orthodox seminaries. This is a stark contrast to the education afforded to many Haredi or ultra-orthodox women who are supporting their household while the husband studies. According to an article by Orthodox Jewish education reformer Bezalel Cohen, in many Haredi Israeli households in Israel “it is the woman who carries most of the financial burden.” This is reflected in the classes available to women in orthodox seminaries, which are often geared toward training women for vocational work, such as teaching and jobs in computer science.

Nishmat is creating a conduit for women who want to further their religious studies with advanced classes. According to Sharon Flatto, an associate professor and deputy director of the Graduate Program of Judaic Studies at Brooklyn College, in-depth learning is a major step forward for women’s religious study and empowerment in the Orthodox Jewish community.

“Even allowing women to study Torah is a revolution. That was a huge concession — even Orthodox giving women the opportunity to learn,” she said. “Women have kids and that’s a huge pressure and I think that is the unspoken fear.”

For Debbie Zimmerman, one of the foundational elements to her classroom is the acknowledgement that there are many layers present within the Torah, which also opens up more possibilities for interpretation, and the elusive but ever present concept in Torah study: debate.

The student in Zimmerman’s class who made the candy-bacon comment, added: “I think its hugely problematic that we are coming to understand Hashem in terms of illicit affairs-and that’s uncomfortable because there are two sides to this –there is the assumption that you can identify with this on some level-but it shouldn’t be if we are being good frum girls-and it’s totally inaccessible if you can’t.”

For this student, the conflict lay in the fact that many of the behaviors she had been told to abstain from in order to live a frum or devout lifestyle that the Jews believe Hashem, or God, decreed in the Book of Moses, were flagrantly rejected in the Song of Songs.

The teacher soothed the students by reminding them that there was a literal and metaphorical connation and cautioned them not to forget the duality of the text. She broke down the book into five parts and delivered a brief lecture.

“This is what the Jewish people do,” Zimmerman said. “They’re scared to get close to love. They’re scared to get closed to God. And then when they do finally do get close to God, there freaking out and they make an egel-hazahav (golden calf).”

Zimmerman wrapped up the lesson, giving an outline on the stages of textual analysis and gave the disclaimer that the book is both “incredibly external and physical,” an aspect of love that people feel for God and for one another.

Looking for Love in One of the World’s Tiniest Religions

by Jihii Jolly
June 6, 2014

As seen in The Atlantic.

CHERRY HILL, NJ — “It’s a question people ask. I’ve been asked it myself. Are you only marrying this person because he happens to be Druze?” Fatin Harfouch tells me from her armchair in the lobby of the Crowne Plaza Hotel in the suburbs of Philadelphia.

Harfouch is 23 years old with green-blue eyes, lightly freckled skin, and long, dark hair. On her left hand she wears a big diamond engagement ring. On her right wrist she wears a multi-colored beaded bracelet: green, red, yellow, blue, and white—the colors of the Druze star. We’re at one of the regional conventions that supplement the annual National Druze Convention, organized by the American Druze Society. Druze is a tiny Arab religion that originated in the Middle East 1,000 years ago. There are just over 1 million adherents in the world, with large concentrations in Lebanon, Syria, and Israel and roughly 30,000 in the United States.

Fatin Harfouch and Samer Abou-Zaki (via The Atlantic)

The Philadelphia convention, attended by about 400 Druze, took place over four days in April. In the hotel’s hospitality suite, catered Middle Eastern meals were served. Children did arts and crafts, older women drank Lebanese-style tea, and birthdays were celebrated. There were religious sessions for teens and adults. There was a young professionals mixer. Nearly everyone attended a gala-style party on the last evening.

Several Druze mothers told me they hoped their children would meet their future husbands and wives at the convention. It’s how Harfouch’s parents met. It’s how Rima Muakkassa, current vice president and soon-to-be president of the American Druze Society, met her husband. The search for a spouse at these gatherings is supposed to be discreet, Muakkassa explained. But ultimately, the idea is to find fellowship with other Druze and hope it blossoms into something more—that’s why there are always singles mixers at these conventions.

This desire to marry someone within the faith is not just a preference—the religion prohibits exogamy. If a Druze marries a non-Druze, it will not be a Druze wedding, nor can the couple’s children be Druze—the religion can only be passed on through birth to two Druze parents. There are no conversions into the Druze faith.

Occasionally, high-profile cases of Druze marrying outside the faith pop up—for example, the recent engagement of Amal Alamuddin, who is Druze, and the actor George Clooney. Since Clooney cannot convert, and because he’s not Druze, the couple cannot have Druze children, which many, including Alamuddin’s grandmother, are not entirely happy about.

Muakkassa, of the American Druze Society, said that marrying someone non-Druze would never have been an option for her. “It would have come down to marrying Druze, or not marrying at all,” she said.

She met her husband at the 1994 convention in Long Beach. She lived in California, but he lived in Ohio. In order for the couple to continue getting to know each other, he had to travel across the country—along with his older sister, who came all the way from New York to chaperone their dates.

Muakkassa laughed as she explained all of this. Things have since become slightly less conservative in the past three decades, she said.

“I think most parents nowadays, although they are opposed to the term ‘dating,’ have gotten an understanding of the fact that if they want their kids to marry somebody Druze, they have to give them that opportunity,” says Harfouch.

She has been coming to these conventions since she was a child. Her father was the president of a regional ADS chapter in Michigan, and her mother organized the Society’s first several mini-conventions. She would attend religious seminars for teenagers taught by Sheikhs, or the select number of “initiated” Druze who have fully immersed themselves in religious life and are allowed to pray and read the faith’s holy text, the Kitab al-Hikma. All other Druze are considered secular, or uninitiated, and aside from a cursory understanding of the religion’s main tenets, which they are taught as children, most do not know much about the religion.

That’s why these types of educational sessions are held at conventions, especially for young people who might not have access to Sheikhs in their own cities. Kids might learn about Druze history, including its complicated connection with Islam and years of persecution by Muslims. They might also learn about cultural requirements, like modest dress and rules against tattoos and piercings. Most importantly, they learn about the central belief of the Druze faith: Humans are reincarnated lifetime after lifetime, which is one of the biggest reasons why exogamy is prohibited—marrying a Druze means continuing the cycle.

Harfouch sees being part of her religion as a rare and special opportunity. “I think the secrecy has a lot to do with the fact that the religion is closed,” she said. Over a thousand years ago, when the religion was officially founded (although the Druze believe the religion has existed since the beginning of time), there were two periods of openness when people were given the opportunity to become part of the faith. “Most people believe that your soul at that point in time chose to follow this religion and that was where you started your progression,” she said.

Marrying a non-Druze means turning your back on your family’s efforts to maintain the faith over many generations. “I always come across people who say ‘I would never want to rob my kids of the opportunity to be involved in something like this,’” she said. “I want to preserve that. It’s a kind of honor, to me at least … and I can raise my kids to understand it at least, and to want to be a part of it.”

Many other young people grow up less knowledgeable about the faith and choose to marry non-Druze, though, which has led to a declining Druze population, especially in the United States.

“I think it’s hard for young people today who are raised here in the U.S., who are not around Druze people all the time, who, in a school of 5,000 people might be the only Druze person,” said Harfouch. “The Druze part is just a small portion of who they are. So I think coming to a convention is bringing it to the forefront of their mind … and they can meet people who are just like them.”

For those who care about preserving the faith, dating is pretty difficult. “It’s not like we can go grab coffee and see somebody sitting there reading a book and say ‘Hi, can I get your number? I’d like to date you,’” she said.

Harfouch was at the gala dinner at the National Convention in Florida during the summer of 2011 when she met Samer Abou-Zaki, a media engineer at Microsoft. She was 19. He was 21. She lived in Michigan. He lived in Washington state.

Sparks didn’t exactly fly when they first met, but they kept in touch via the occasional Facebook message and the large number of friends they had in common.

“We had a couple of group Google chats with people who were at the convention. Sometimes it would be 12 of us from all over the United States who would get on and talk and catch up,” she says. “He happened to be one of them.”

They exchanged numbers after about a month. Then, in December of 2011, Harfouch and her mom flew across the country to see him and other friends in the Seattle Druze community. They stayed in a hotel for about a week and met his family and friends.

That’s when the young pair knew they wanted to date. And so the long-distance relationship began—Abou-Zaki would fly to Michigan to see Harfouch every month or so. Out-of-state and, sometimes, out-of-country relationships are fairly typical for American Druze. “I know a couple that met at the same convention as us who were from Australia and the U.S.,” Harfouch told me. “They are married and have a child now.”

The following year, Harfouch and Abou-Zaki did the traditional tetmeem, which is sort of like a formal dating period before engagement. He and his entire family traveled to Michigan to meet with her family, including parents, uncles, aunts and brothers. “It’s kind of like a trial period,” she explained. “We don’t want to get engaged yet, but we think it’s the next step.”

Four months later, after asking Harfouch’s father and ensuring that her family could travel to Seattle with her for the engagement, Abou-Zaki asked for Harfouch’s hand in marriage. The wedding will take place in Michigan on August 30 of this year.

Like Harfouch, many American Druze who choose to marry within their religion are willing to overcome challenges along their quirky path to love, like the limited pool of eligible spouses and the strong chance of having to date long-distance. What seems to make it worth it is the chance to share and preserve a rich spiritual history with a spouse.

“When you meet somebody, and you like them, and you hit it off on so many different levels, and they’re Druze? Is it worth it? Probably, because you don’t find that everyday,” she said. “And that’s the truth.”

Religious and Political Divisions along the banks of the jordan

by Saman Malik
June 4, 2014

Archdeacon Peter Hill anoints a woman with water from the Jordan River, where many Christians believe Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist. The Land/Saman Malik.

ON THE BANKS OF JORDAN RIVER, ISRAEL — The first thing most pilgrims to the Qasr al-Yahud baptismal site notice are the gilded crosses atop the Orthodox Church of John the Baptist across the river in Jordan.

Few seem to take notice of the barbed wire fence on each side of the dusty path leading to the baptismal site. Yellow metal signs every few feet, alert pilgrims and tourists against straying from the path.

“DANGER MINES!” the signs warn in English, Arabic and Hebrew.

Then, as they get closer, they see the Jordan River itself. Considering its great role in the Bible and in the ministry of Jesus in particular, many are surprised to find little more than a stream just a few feet wide. Concrete steps lead down to the water where pilgrims, many in white robes, renew their baptismal vows by immersing in its opaque green waters.

According to the Christian faith, this is where Jesus was baptized. It is considered the third most holy site in the Holy Land, after the Nativity Grotto in Bethlehem and Golgotha in Jerusalem.

Directly across from the Qasr al-Yahud baptismal site is a similar site in Jordan. Last weekend as part of Pope Francis’s first trip to the Holy Land, he visited the site in Jordan, bringing attention and a fair amount of increased tourism to the country. Pilgrims enter the water on both banks as armed soldiers – Jordanian on one side, Israeli on the other – keep a watchful eye. There is netting in the middle of the river to keep pilgrims from swimming across.

Located east of the town of Jericho, Qasr al-Yahud sits on land that was captured by Israel in the Six Day War in 1967. Since then it was considered a closed military zone, open only through advance coordination and with a military escort. The baptismal site on the Israeli side opened to daily visitors in the summer of 2011.

The landmines are remnants of the 1967 war. Much like the rest of the estimated 1.5 million landmines and unexploded ordnance in the Holy Land today, they are also harsh reminder of the current political climate of the Holy Land. That political climate is never far removed from the sacred sites.

Among the groups visiting Qasr al-Yahud this spring was one lead by Archdeacon Peter Hill of Nottingham Church, England. Hill has been bringing Christian pilgrims from England for many years. This was his first time at the Qasr al-Yahud site.

Minefield along the Jordan River in the West Bank. The Land/Saman Malik.

“For those that haven’t been (to the Holy Land) before it’s something very challenging to understand why there’s such division between Israelis and Palestinians,” he said. “We’ve just traveled through the West Bank and there’s a stark difference from when you’re in the West Bank to when you’re here.”

Hill was referring, in part, to the separation wall that divides the Israeli-occupied territories and the West Bank territories. He was also speaking of the travel restrictions that Israel imposes on Palestinians Christians who live in Palestine. “Today I think there’s just a very sad and horrendous situation,” he said. “There is injustice all around. I see our Palestinian Christian (Roman Catholic) guide; I hear his story and he has a faith despite all the things that he’s had to put up with.”

Of the three Abrahamic religions represented in Israel, Christianity is the smallest, representing about 2 percent of Israel population, approximately 150,000 people. In Palestine, 8 percent of the total population of the West Bank and less than 1 percent of the population of the Gaza Strip are Christian; approximately 210,000 and 12,000 people respectively, based on current population figures. In both Israel and Palestine, the vast majority of these Christians are ethnic Arabs. In Israel, for example, 80 percent of all Christians are Arab born.

But while Christians are a tiny minority, they constitute a majority of the tourists to Israel. According to the Central Bureau of Statistics, a record 3.54 million tourists came to Israel in 2013. Just slightly more than half of the tourists were Christian – and half of that number were Catholic. For Christian tourists in the Holy Land, a visit to the birthplace of Jesus, in Bethlehem is as obligatory as visiting Jerusalem, the site of his crucifixion and resurrection. Tourism drives Bethlehem’s economy.

Separated by only a few kilometers, Bethlehem and Jerusalem feel like they are worlds apart. Linked by biblical history, today the two cities are estranged by a wall. The Israeli government forbids its own citizens to cross the wall into any Palestinian controlled areas, while Palestinians need to apply for temporary permits to enter Israel.

Access to holy sites is just one of the many difficulties facing Palestinian Christians. Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem have different residency cards, and traveling back and forth necessitates a permit that’s hard to get. On either sides of the Green Line, Christians confront the same conditions of systematic racial discrimination as Muslims under occupation; political discrimination, lack of employment, restrictions on freedom of movement. Residency policies also divide families. Reportedly, there are some 200 Christian families split between the West Bank and Jerusalem.

And in a recent strategic move, the Knesset approved a controversial law that legally distinguishes between local Christians and the bulk of the Arabic-speaking population, which is primarily Muslim. According to its sponsor, the purpose of the law is to distinguish between Muslim and Christian Arab citizens and to heighten the involvement of Christians in Israeli society.

But while the Israeli government may seek to divide Muslim and Christian Arabs, the two groups do their best to advance a united front. Sami Awad, the executive director of the Holy Land Trust, a Palestinian non-profit organization, grew up in Bethlehem and makes no distinctions between Muslims and Christians when he talks about the struggles of Palestine. As a result of their Arab ethnicity, Christians in the Holy Land, on both sides of the separation wall, find themselves more closely aligned with Muslim Palestinians than with Israeli Jews.

The road to Qasar al-Yahud baptismal site, on the Israeli side, cuts through a field of active minefields. The Land/Saman Malik.

“I grew up in a Palestinian environment in the seventies, where that concept of armed resistance deliberation and movement was quite popular, not just here but globally. That was the culture we grew up in,” he said. “Every Israeli no matter who they were, was defined as either soldiers or settlers. Soldiers and settlers had guns; soldiers and settlers had weapons. They hated us and we were supposed to hate them. That was the struggle. They occupied us, they controlled us and we were to resist them.”

The conflict, as it stands, means that the majority of Palestinian Christians, who reside in the birthplace of Jesus, are unable to visit the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, one of the holiest sites in Christianity, or the Qasr al-Yahud baptismal site.

Standing at the edge of the river, Archdeacon Hill dips his right hand into the water and draws a cross on the forehead of a man from his group, as he blesses him.

“Michael, I sign you with a cross here at the River Jordan. On this day you renew your baptism. Jesus says: Michael, follow me. Amen.”

A few feet along the river, one group of pilgrims dressed in baptismal robes that look like oversized white t-shirts, emerges from the river as another group lines up to go in. Once the pilgrims have renewed their faith with a dip in the holy water, modern facilities such as showers, a separate space for prayers and a souvenir shop await them, before they get back on to their tour bus. As they make their way back, the pilgrims are more likely to see the signs warning of landmines.

The Rev. Bronwen Gamble from Nottingham, another tour leader, saw a powerful metaphor in all that. “Most of us were walking straight forward and I think that’s often what we do in life: we look towards the goal or the place where we want to go and we don’t necessarily look to the side and that’s when we miss things and that’s how injustices take place.”

On a Holy Land pilgrimage, she said, it was vital to take in both the holy sites and the warnings about landmines. “When you see the signs it really brings it home for you,” she said.

A Tale of Two Gay Cities

by Shayna Freisleben
May 14, 2014

A reveler at Tel Aviv’s gay pride parade dances on a municipal bus stop. (Courtesy of Madeline Renov.)

TEL AVIV — Under the relentless Mediterranean sun, a collection of rainbow flags thrash in the ocean breeze along a strip of oceanfront in Tel Aviv known as Hilton Beach. In fact, the rainbow flags hang on pillars of the beachfront bar, are pinned between the beach’s public restrooms and wave persistently and proudly on the wall dividing sand and the boardwalk.

Hilton Beach, according to Trip Advisor and just about any in-the-know Tel Avivian, is the gay mecca – the unrivaled, most popular destination during Tel Aviv Gay Pride week – in an already open and increasingly gay-friendly city. The array of rainbow flags is likely the most fabric one will see there; Haaretz wrote in February 2014 that Hilton Beach attracts the “fittest, hottest guys in the tightest bathing suits,” a relatively tame description in light of the beach’s unabashed liberalness.

Sixty-three kilometers away, in Israel’s capital of Jerusalem, the rainbow flags are much harder to spot. At the Jerusalem Open House for Pride and Tolerance, the city’s largest LGBT community center, the small rainbow flag that hangs in the window is easy to miss. It functions merely as an identifier, not as a rebuke of Jerusalem’s more traditional and religious environment.

The rainbow flags vividly illustrate the two starkly different cultures that have taken shape in Israel’s largest cities. While Israel’s LGBT policies are among the most tolerant in the Middle East, Jerusalem has exhibited slower progress than Tel Aviv in its overall friendliness towards, and acceptance of, gay Israelis. For many LGBT residents and activists in Jerusalem, the city – and public sentiment within the city – still has large strides to make before gays and lesbians achieve full equality.

In the past five years, the Ministry of Tourism in Israel has actively plugged the nation as a popular destination for gay Jews and non-Jews alike. The efforts have been remarkably successful in Tel Aviv – over 100,000 people, tourists included, participated in last year’s gay pride festivities, according to city data. But the tourism ministry’s promotion seemingly bypassed Jerusalem.

The demographic disparities between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, in large part, explain the contrasting receptions to LGBT culture. According to 2013 research from the Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies, a policy think tank in Jerusalem, 30 percent of Jerusalem’s Jewish population consists of ultra-Orthodox Jews, or Haredim. Conversely, only 2 percent of Tel Aviv’s Jewish population identifies as ultra-Orthodox, while 61 percent classify themselves as secular.

“In Israel, to be Jewish is to be Orthodox,” said Elinor Sidi, executive director of the Jerusalem Open House, or JOH. “When I came out of the closet 12 years ago, I was taught to believe that if I wanted to live as a complete person, I had to leave religion – there was no place for me in shul.”

Sidi is among the leaders of Jerusalem’s small, but growing LGBT community. She oversees a staff of four at JOH and a dedicated army of volunteers, running initiatives from a free HIV clinic to a bullying support group. A large component of her work at JOH rests in challenging and correcting traditional perceptions of the gay community. The biggest undertaking on Sidi’s plate, however, is the funding and planning of Jerusalem Gay Pride. The raucous gay pride parade in Tel Aviv is a municipal event, Sidi said. In Jerusalem, the event is entirely organized by JOH.

“Tel Aviv Pride is more of a celebration of the rights that we have, a celebration of what we have achieved,” Sidi said. “Jerusalem is smaller – 5,000 people – and it’s a protest and demonstration for the rights that we don’t have yet.”

The solemnity and political nature of gay pride in Jerusalem is appropriate, given the surroundings, Sidi said. According to a 2013 Haaretz poll, only eight percent of ultra-Orthodox Jews believe gays should be afforded equal rights, including the right to marry. Sidi leads demonstrators in a march to the Knesset, Israel’s house of parliament, and uses gay pride each year as an opportunity to “say something.”

Sidi and her colleagues believe that the tide in Jerusalem is beginning to shift, and that members of the Orthodox community are beginning to find that “gay” and “religious” are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Sidi cites handfuls of members of JOH’s support groups, who feared being marginalized upon coming out, but were instead met with tacit recognition by their religious leaders.

Today, an evolving Israeli society confronts a confluence of progressive movements – beyond LGBT rights, including gender equality and religious freedom. Some scholars believe that vocal, and seemingly omnipresent, demands for social justice in Israel, such as installation of a pluralist prayer area at the Western Wall or inclusion of Reform and Conservative rabbis within Israel’s chief rabbinate, will only benefit the LGBT cause.

“Gay Israelis have forced the local variance of Orthodoxy to at least acknowledge that LGBTs exist,” said Lee Walzer, an American attorney and author of “Between Sodom and Eden: A Gay Journey Through Today’s Changing Israel.” “What they’re struggling with, though, is how to acknowledge it.”

The politicization of Judaism in Israel further complicates the issue of legalizing gay marriage, according to Walzer. Under Israeli law, Orthodoxy maintains a “religious monopoly over marriage and divorce,” and civil marriages are illegal. Walzer is skeptical of significant progress for Israel’s gay rights movement without overhauling the state’s religious establishment.

“I would not say never,” Walzer said. “But it’s not going to happen any time soon.”

The current climate for gay life in Israel, religious gay life included, has shifted considerably since the initial publication of Walzer’s book, in 2000. At that time, gay rights were seldom discussed in the United States. LGBT matters were, however, a part of Israel’s public discourse, albeit in concentrated pockets of the country – like Tel Aviv.

“The stereotype was that Tel Aviv is just this hedonistic, Mediterranean city that parties non-stop, and in Jerusalem, they learn Torah all day long,” Walzer said. “Jerusalem today is very schizophrenic – there are secular areas and gay communities – but it doesn’t reflect Israeli trends, and to me, it doesn’t feel part of the Israeli experience.”

Even so, manifold outlets for gay, religious Israelis have emerged in Jerusalem within the past decade. The Jerusalem Open House, in fact, helped spawn and cultivate gay religious support groups that ultimately developed into non-governmental organizations, including Havruta, for gay religious men, Bat Kol, for gay religious women and al-Qaws, for gay Palestinians. The groups function as a viable middle ground for religious members of the LGBT community, and are becoming increasingly present and influential in gay Israeli society.

“We represent something else,” Daniel Jonas, a chairman of Havruta, told the Daily Beast last year. “More moderate, more communal.”

Sidi, of the Jerusalem Open House, considers the ingratiation of religious gay groups into mainstream Israeli society as beneficial and necessary. It is, she said, perhaps the best way for the Orthodox establishment in Israel to gain exposure to members of the gay community, and ultimately accept gay congregants and followers.

“The Reform and Conservative movements were really leading the change, and Orthodox rabbis saw that gay reform rabbis were being ordained,” Sidi said. “When a person comes out today, they are not necessarily forced to leave the community. There is still a place in front of God for them. It’s going to take [the Orthodox] a lot of time, but they’re getting there.”

Don Goor is among the gay reform rabbis who have potentially impacted the shifting Orthodox approach to homosexuality. Goor, 56, made aliyah, or immigrated to Israel, in June 2013 with his husband, a Reform cantor. He had previously been a pioneering figure in Reform Judaism in Los Angeles, Calif., where he was among the first gay rabbis to be appointed senior clergy of a synagogue.

When Goor was named senior rabbi of Temple Judea, it was “the country’s largest mainstream synagogue to have an openly gay man as its spiritual leader,” the Los Angeles Times wrote in 1997.

“I’m a rabbi who happens to be gay,” Goor said to the Times then. “I’m comfortable discussing homosexuality. There’s nothing that’s hidden.”

Today, as an “oleh hadash,” or new immigrant, to Jerusalem, Goor’s “Jewishness” is not necessarily impeded by the overwhelming presence of Orthodoxy in the city, he said, but his approach to daily life is decidedly more secular. He elects not to wear a yarmulke on a daily basis, and his new job no longer places him in a pulpit, yet in a traditional office environment, coordinating educational trips to Israel for American Jewish youth groups.

“I try to my best to stay unaffected by Haredi impositions,” Goor said. “It’s not the judgment or the lack of acceptance that I care about – it’s when Haredi rabbis cause an uproar over the new cinema being open on Saturdays.”

A ruling by the Israeli Supreme Court in 2006 mandated that Israel’s government recognize all foreign same-sex marriages. It was touted as a landmark achievement for gay rights in Israel. As a result, Goor and his husband, Evan, maintain the same rights as heterosexual spouses in Israel. Their respective Israeli identity cards read “MARRIED.”

But there are instances, Goor concedes, in which he and his husband wonder if they would be better off living in Tel Aviv, where the gay community is more lively and where the distinction between those who are religious and those who are not feels less severe.

“Something about Jerusalem just feels right,” Goor said.

Holy Land Christians hope Pope might revive peace talks

by Evan Simko-Bednarski and Harry Stevens
May 13, 2014

As published in Religion News Service.

Two nuns cross the street in front of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, where Pope Francis will make his first visit on Sunday, May 25. The Land/Evan Simko-Bednarski

Two nuns cross the street in front of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, where Pope Francis will make his first visit on Sunday, May 25. (Evan Simko-Bednarski/The Land)

BETHLEHEM, West Bank (RNS) — With the last round of peace talks between the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority stalled if not moribund, some are hoping that a scheduled visit by Pope Francis to the Holy Land in May will breathe new life into the peace process.

Vera Baboun, the first female mayor of this embattled city where Jesus was born, is one.

The peace process, she said, has been hampered by a lack of courageous leadership. “How many courageous hearts do we have in the world? Francis is a courageous heart.”

Baboun, 50, is Roman Catholic in a city where most Christians are Orthodox and the Christian population as a whole has dropped to 15 percent from a high of 85 percent in 1947.

Bethlehem is within Israel’s occupied territories. But though it lies just five miles north of Jerusalem, a 26-foot-high concrete wall separates the two cities, tracing fault lines of religion, politics and history. Travel between Israel and the territories is highly restricted.

“It’s time to topple it down,” Baboun said. “And I hope that not only Francis will be the one to say it, but as well, around him, people who are listening and responding.”

The Jerusalem side of the wall on the road to Bethlehem. “It’s time to topple it down,” said Vera Baboun, Bethlehem’s mayor. (Evan Simko-Bednarski/The Land)

Not all Palestinian Catholics are as sanguine as Baboun about the promise of Francis’ visit.

North of Bethlehem, in Ramallah, the political capital of the Palestinian Authority, Xavier Abu Eid said a statement from the pope in support of Palestinians would mean little.

“I don’t think we need statements here,” said Abu Eid, a Palestinian Catholic who was in charge of communications for the Palestinian negotiating team during the peace talks. “We need action. I think the church is capable of doing a lot more than it is now.”

Abu Eid decried the Israeli government’s refusal to allow him to travel the 12 miles from Ramallah, where he works, to Jerusalem to pray at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. He doubted whether the pope would take a stand on such an issue.

The Vatican has downplayed whatever political symbolism might be seen in Francis’ visit to the Holy Land.

“The Holy Father is coming to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the meeting of Paul VI and Patriarch Athenagoras,” said Monsignor Giuseppe Lazzarotto, the papal nuncio to Israel. “That is the main purpose of the visit and everything will be focused around this event.”

To mark the anniversary, Francis will travel to Jerusalem to meet with Patriarch Bartholomew I, head of the Eastern Orthodox Church, on May 26. The trip marks the historic 1964 meeting in Jerusalem between their two predecessors, in which the leaders lifted a mutual excommunication that had been in place for a millennium.

The excommunication of 1054 split the Catholic Church into East and West and came, gruesomely, to a head when Roman Catholic crusaders sacked Constantinople in 1204. So pivotal was the event in the annals of Christianity that in the centuries that followed it came to be known as the Great Schism.

But the meeting with Bartholomew I is just a portion of the pope’s three-day itinerary, which also includes a day in Jordan and one in Bethlehem. After saying Mass at the Church of the Nativity, where Christians believe Jesus was born, Francis is scheduled to eat lunch with Palestinian families and greet children at the Deheishe refugee camp.

Baboun remembers Pope John Paul II’s meeting with refugees when he came to Bethlehem in 2000. She said the visit brought hope to Palestinians, Christian and Muslim alike.

“John Paul II made it clear, why are we masters at building walls?” she asked. “Let us build bridges.”

The Notre Dame hotel in Jerusalem, where all 140 rooms will be occupied by Pope Francis and his entourage. (Evan Simko-Bednarski/The Land)

Francis will stay at the Notre Dame of Jerusalem Center, a Vatican-owned hotel in the Old City where, come May 24, all 140 rooms will be reserved for the papal entourage.

From the rooftop of the hotel, the Rev. Eamon Kelly, vice chargé of the hotel, gestured toward the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, where Jesus is said to have died on the cross. Today, the church is controlled by six separate Christian denominations whose relationship is so fraught with mutual suspicion that a local Muslim family holds the key to the front door. It is often the butt of jokes about divisions within Christianity. Kelly feels differently.

“For me, the Holy Sepulchre is a model of peace,” he said. “The Old City is a model of peace. It’s live and let live.”

Kelly quipped that his role during the pope’s visit would be to “get out of the way while the Israelis put up their security barriers.”

Kelly brushed aside security concerns surrounding the papal visit.

“Pope Francis is not interested in niceties,” he said. “Pope Francis is interested in looking people in the eye.”

Finding refuge in Christ: African churches of Tel Aviv

by John Albert, Indrani Basu and Poppie Mphuthing
May 12, 2014

Pastor Jeremiah’s Church: Building a community of hope
By Poppie MphuthingTEL AVIV — On Saturday mornings, the thunderous sounds of singing can be heard from the Evangelical and Pentecostal churches on Levanda Street, which is known locally as Church row. The singing comes from derelict-looking buildings that house churches like Lift Up Your Head Ministry, run by Pastor Jeremiah Dairo from Nigeria. Read more…

Pastor Solomon’s Church: Where African flags stand beside the flag of Israel
By John AlbertTEL AVIV — The window shades are drawn. Tambourines are scattered on chairs across the room. Although it is a Christian house of worship, there are no crosses to be found. Guitar amplifiers, microphone stands, a keyboard and drum kit stand in one corner of the room. Propped up in the other corner are five national flags – Nigeria, Ghana, Ivory Coast, the Philippines, and Israel. Read more…

A new church for migrants flourishes in south Tel Aviv
By John Albert and Indrani BasuTEL AVIV — Many of the locals living around 33 Shivat Zion Street in the southern end of this booming Mediterranean city haven’t heard of the new church there. The façade is plain cement, and there’s no sign hanging outside. The church’s leaders prefer it that way – they aren’t exactly advertising their presence. Nor do they need to.Read more…

A pastor gives a fiery sermon in English to African migrant workers at a church as the band plays in the background. Photo taken at 'Grace Covenant Church' in south Tel Aviv on Saturday, March 22, 2014. Photo credit: Indrani Basu
Congregants in this church are largely African migrant workers, who come dressed to services in their best ethnic attire every Saturday, keeping their community alive in Tel Aviv. Photo taken at 'Grace Covenant Church' in south Tel Aviv on Saturday, March 22, 2014. Photo credit: John Albert
A church congregant sings during the charismatic services on a Saturday. Photo taken at 'Grace Covenant Church' in south Tel Aviv on Saturday, March 22, 2014. Photo credit: Indrani Basu
Saturday services have families spending their entire morning in this community atmosphere. Photo taken at 'Grace Covenant Church' in south Tel Aviv on Saturday, March 22, 2014. Photo credit: Indrani Basu
A bookkeeper counts shekels contributed as tithe (one-tenth of income as support to the church) by congregants who largely comprise of African migrant workers. Photo taken at ' Lift Your Head Up Church' in south Tel Aviv on Saturday, March 22, 2014. Photo credit: Indrani Basu
An Indian priest, Father Ivo Coelho SDB, leads the English language services during Lent in the church for congregants belonging to different migrant communities. Photo taken at 'Our Lady Woman of Valor Pastoral Church' in south Tel Aviv on Saturday, March 22, 2014. Photo credit: Indrani Basu
Church services like this one are often packed to overflowing at the church. Photo taken at 'Our Lady Woman of Valor Pastoral Church' in south Tel Aviv on Saturday, March 22, 2014. Photo credit: John Albert
An altar stands inconspicuously in the back courtyard of the church. The church did not have room for an altar inside, and keeps this altar obscured out of respect for Jewish neighbors. Photo taken at 'Our Lady Woman of Valor Pastoral Church' in south Tel Aviv on Saturday, March 22, 2014. Photo credit: John Albert
Two young congregants at a Hebrew-language mass for the Catholic children of migrant workers. The children have been integrated into secular Israeli schools where they are educated in Hebrew and receive religious training at the Pastoral Center. Photo taken at 'Our Lady Woman of Valor Pastoral Church' in south Tel Aviv on Saturday, March 22, 2014. Photo credit: John Albert
A majority of congregants in the church are women, of whom many are single mothers. Photo taken at 'Our Lady Woman of Valor Pastoral Church' in south Tel Aviv on Saturday, March 22, 2014. Photo credit: John Albert
Strangers hold hands at 'Sunday' services, praying together. Most of the congregants in the church are single women. Many of them belong to the Filipino community and work in Israel as caregivers. Photo taken at 'Our Lady Woman of Valor Pastoral Church' in south Tel Aviv on Saturday, March 22, 2014. Photo credit: Indrani Basu

99 years after the genocide and the wounds are still fresh

by Patricia Guerra

Armenians in New York City commemorate the 99th anniversary of the genocide at the St. Vartan Cathedral. (The Land/Patty Guerra)

JERUSALEM – Every April, Armenian Christians around the world remember the lives of the more than 1 million Armenians who were annihilated by the Ottoman government during World War I. In Israel, however, the annual commemoration is tinged with extra sadness because of the reluctance of the Israeli government to publicly admit that the genocide ever happened.

“We are hurt that the Israeli government doesn’t recognize it officially yet, even though it was used as a pretext for their own people,” said Archbishop Aris Shirvanian of the National Armenian Church in Jerusalem.

“We all know that this injustice was perpetrated against our ancestors and 1.5 million Armenians perished in that genocide,” said Shirvanian. During and after the First World War, the Ottoman government exterminated Armenians and other Christian groups in an effort to establish an Islamic nation. It began on April 24, 1915 with the arrest of several hundred Armenians. During that time, Palestine was a part of the Ottoman Empire, so Armenians were driven to Syria to the desert of Deir ez-Zor. Hundreds of thousands were massacred or buried alive in the desert. Out of those who made it out alive, some moved to Lebanon and others settled in Jerusalem. That was the last wave of Armenians that got established in Jerusalem, and their descendants live there today. It is calculated that about 25,000 Armenians fled to Jerusalem after the genocide.

“They came to Jerusalem and were offered shelter within the walls of the monastery,” said Victor Azarya, a retired professor from Hebrew University and author of “The Armenian Quarter of Jerusalem.” The monks inside those monasteries took it upon themselves to nourish the survivors of the genocide. “They started to develop a community around the monastery,” said Azarya, “for many of them it was a temporary measure, for some of them the temporary asylum became permanent, therefore we find a sizeable Armenian community who lives in Jerusalem.”

The presence of Armenian Christians in the Holy Land is not only a result of people fleeing Turkey during the genocide; in fact, “Armenians were one of the first groups who accepted Christianity,” they “consider themselves the oldest community in Jerusalem,” said Azarya. Armenians accepted Christianity in 301 after Tiridates III proclaimed it as the State religion. Armenia would then become the first State to adopt this religion officially and they began taking interest in holy places. Armenian Christians “established themselves in holy places of Christianity over the 4th century,” including the much-coveted Church of the Holy Sepulcher, where some believe Jesus was crucified and later buried. After that, Empress Helena, mother of Constantine, commissioned the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, where Jesus is believed to have been born, and Armenian clergy started settling in Jerusalem. They expanded their presence with over 50 monasteries and convents throughout the Holy Land, the main one being the Monastery of St. James in Jerusalem. “This shows that Armenians were deeply invested in the Holy Land,” said Shirvanian. Azarya says Armenians’ presence in the Holy Land can be traced continuously since the fifth or sixth centuries.

Centuries later, during the Crusades, which were a series of military campaigns sanctioned by the Latin Roman Catholic Church aimed at regaining control of holy sites in the Holy Land from Muslim control, Armenians were a key ally; they “were one of the few Christian communities to cooperate with crusaders,” and “as a result of their cooperation with crusaders, they occupied what is now known as the Armenian Quarter.” Shirvanian explained that the Crusades strengthened Armenian presence in the area. With time, Armenians came to Jerusalem as pilgrims, “their beliefs anchored them here,” said Azarya. But for most of this time, it was only a religious presence: priests and monks keeping custody of holy spaces, not civilian presence. That is, until the genocide of 1915.

But even though the terrors of the genocide were behind them, the memories still haunted survivors. “Over the years, those immediate survivors couldn’t forget what happened, they kept telling their stories, and it was transmitted from generation to generation,” said Shirvanian, whose grandparents on both sides went through the genocide. His paternal grandfather was conscripted to the Turkish army “and never came back,” he said, “he was taken to a valley and along with other Armenians, he was executed.” Men were killed and subjected to forced labor, and “women and girls were raped, slaughtered,” said Shirvanian.

Memories of The Great Crime are fresh in the Armenian collective memory, and it is a strong source of identity and shared history. “We always remember it. Not just on April 24,” said George Odabashian, a convenience store clerk who lives within the walls of the St. James Monastery with his wife and two children. “Daily, we talk about the genocide and what happened… we never forget it, we can’t,” he said.

There are obvious parallels between the Armenian Genocide and the Holocaust. In planning the extinction of European Jews, Hitler was said to have remarked: “Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?”

Nonetheless, the Israeli government has yet to publicly acknowledge the genocide. Many speculate that Israel does not want to alienate its economic and political ally Turkey, a nation that also does not recognize the Armenian genocide. Others suggest that Israel likes to claim the mantle of suffering for itself.

Azarya believes that the Holocaust was “a terrible thing, but it’s not unique.” It was a “very traumatic, cruel event, but it was not unique,” he added, “there are other places and other communities that were ethnically destroyed.”

Armenians feel betrayed by this lack of recognition. “Why don’t you let us call our calamity a holocaust?” said Azarya.

Shirvanian believes that the Israeli government cares more about economic and political ties with Turkey than the truth.

Azarya noted that relations between Turkey and Israel have deteriorated in recent years. “We may have reached that point,” he said, where the Israeli government is willing to break with Turkey on this issue.

Even without formal recognition of the genocide by Israel, many Armenians feel like the Jewish people empathize with their suffering. “They keep telling us we’re just like the Jews, we suffered a lot,” said Odabashian as he bagged groceries for a customer. Shirvanian hopes that the Jewish people’s awareness of the genocide may push the conversation forward. Some 21 nations have recognized the Armenian Genocide.

Shirvanian thinks this issue should be brought up at the United Nations General Assembly to “force Turkey to accept its guilt and to make reparations to the Armenian people.” He says that although Israel is small, it is a very powerful country; he is convinced that that is the reason why the United States hasn’t recognized it either. “It’s about time that we not protect the Turkish when it comes to genocide,” said Azarya.

During his presidential campaign, Barack Obama vowed to recognize the Armenian Genocide. “America deserves a leader who speaks truthfully about the Armenian Genocide and responds forcefully to all genocides. I intend to be that president,” he said in 2008. But six years later, this promise is still unkept. During this year’s commemorative speech, President Obama said “I have consistently stated my own view of what occurred in 1915, and my view has not changed;” he talked about the horrors endured by the Armenian community, and he described the Great Crime as a massacre. Yet no mention of the word genocide.

Today, some 1,500 Armenians live in Jerusalem and there are about 15,000 in all of Israel. In Jerusalem, the Armenian Christian community is comprised of three main groups: the members of the monastic order of St. James, a small minority of locals who arrived before World War I, and, the largest segment, descendants of refugees of the genocide. But the community has been shrinking since 1948, and some fear that it may become extinct. Since Israel was established as a Jewish state, immigration of Christians is possible but rare. “Yet the community is surviving,” said Shirvanian.

But will all the Armenians in the Holy Land eventually die out? “It will take time,” said Shirvanian, “when the community is small and shrinking, there will be less births and less marriages and the community may die out. Unless laws change in the country and Armenians are allowed to come here and strengthen the community.”

Azarya doesn’t think that Armenians in Jerusalem will cease to exist, “they will not disappear definitely as long as the religious nucleus is there,” he said, “but it may revert to what it was before the genocide, before the refugees got here.” Azarya says Armenian clergy will always have presence in Jerusalem, “because they serve the needs of the religious community.”

Every April 24, Armenians around the world gather at their local churches to commemorate the genocide. At the St. Vartan Cathedral in New York City located at 630 2^nd Ave., dozens of parishioners attended a morning service in Armenian which was followed by a candlelight ceremony. At the back of the church, an all-women chorus adorned the service. Seven women dressed in long gowns and wearing handkerchiefs on their heads sang praise songs in Armenian that can only be described as angelical. The all-male cohort officiating at the front of the church engaged in beautiful exchanges with the female ensemble. The depth of the bishops’ voices elegantly contrasted the high-pitched notes produced by the chorus. Although the experience was elevating, its somberness could not be ignored.

After the service, a striking Armenian woman in a headscarf and floral black and white dress past around long, white candles. The attendants assist her in giving out the candles, and the lighting quickly spreads. Parishioners then followed the bishop to a foyer by the entrance of the church, and a group of about four men recited prayers in Armenian. Everybody gathered in the tight space where bowed heads and bright flames were a reminder of those who perished in their own homeland.

David Meliah, 48, says he comes every year to the commemorative service, “it’s part of our history, we all have ancestors that were killed in the genocide,” he said. “It was a sad, tragic event that keeps us together,” he added. His grandparents arrived in the United States in the early 1920s by way of Syria. Meliah is not particularly bothered by Israel’s reluctance to recognize the genocide, he feels a stronger connection to Armenia, “that is our Holy Land,” he said. In Jerusalem, there is a Genocide Commemorations Committee, which will be in charge of putting together a special program for next year’s observation of the 100th anniversary. They normally have a requiem service at St. James and the whole community is mobilized, then they form a procession led by the patriarch and they walk across the street to the genocide memorial which consists of seven cross stones, each one representing an Armenian province wiped during the genocide.

With Turkish and Israeli relations deteriorating, and the 100th anniversary of The Great Crime approaching, this may be the momentum that was needed for Israel to publicly acknowledge the atrocities perpetrated by the Ottoman government against Armenians. “We never give up the hope that the Israeli government will one day recognize the genocide,” said Shirvanian, “politics change day by day, yesterday’s friends may become enemies today.” He said that a public admission would make the Armenian community feel more at home in Israel, “we are citizens of this country – there are Armenians with Israeli citizenship,” he said, “some are stateless, but after all, they are citizens of this Holy Land.”

A long distance Hindu-Jewish love story

by Indrani Basu

A “HinJew” wedding ceremony. (Photo by Aneta Mak, via smashingtheglass.com)

NEW YORK – Last April, Josh, 37 at the time, watched his wife Priya, 34, convert to Judaism at a Reform synagogue in midtown Manhattan. He was in Israel, watching the proceedings over FaceTime on an iPad that Priya that had propped up on a high table under the domed arc of the synagogue. He lived in Jerusalem, she in New York. He was Jewish, she was Hindu. They had been married for two months.

As Priya stood patiently, waiting for the Rabbi to finish blessing her, she felt the now-familiar bout of nervousness grip her. Her parents had no idea she was converting. “They would have my head in a platter in an instant,” she said in an interview earlier this year in February, almost a year since her conversion. “I probably will never tell them.”

Out of respect for her parents, Priya, not her real name, asked that pseudonyms be used in this article for both her and her husband.

While Priya may be part of the miniscule number of Asian-American Hindus who have switched their faith – a mere seven percent according to a 2012 Pew study – she is also part of the larger demographic of the same group (91 percent of Hindus) who “reject the notion that their religion is the one, true faith.” The study also indicates that 90 percent of Hindus say, “[T]here is more than one true way to interpret the teachings of their religion.”

Supporting this theory is the explosion of Indo-Judaic blogs and online discussions that have popped up over the last few years. Hindu-Jewish couples are trying to find ways to integrate both religions in their marriage, sometimes taking advice from couples that have gone before them. In fact, there is even a term coined for it – “HinJew” – and someone has already written a book on the phenomenon of Hindu-Jewish unions.

Priya goes to synagogue on weekends, and also celebrates all Hindu religious festivals. Her parents can never know of her Jewish life, and Josh respects that. “I’m totally with her,” he said. Likewise, her synagogue can’t know that she is still a practicing Hindu. The rabbi would never have completed her conversion had she known that Priya would maintain her old faith.

Though Josh is not religious, he made it clear to Priya from the very beginning that she would need to embrace Judaism if they were to hope to marry, he said. “It was difficult for me to bring up,” he said. “But we eventually got married and she has learnt more than me about Jewish faith.”

Priya, who works in a hospital, had been studying the Torah for the past year and a half. She would run to class once a week after her shift at work, barely catching the last half hour of each session.

She had taken the first half of the day off that particular Tuesday, telling her colleagues at the hospital that she had an “appointment.” At the synagogue a panel of three rabbis screened her one last time to decide if she was ready for the conversion. Half an hour later, she was led to a neighboring building where an attendant helped prepare her for immersion in the mikvah pool. Priya had to take off all her clothes, even her wedding ring, before she plunged into the pool that recalls the “watery state” that each of us was born from. She emerged ritually cleansed, ready to embrace a new stage of life. The final stage of her conversion came in front of the Torah, where she was given a blessing and accepted by the congregation as a Jew.

Priya and Josh had met in Israel in 2007, through a mutual friend. When the friend was suddenly unavailable to travel with Priya, Josh volunteered to show her his country.

Priya still remembers great dinners, whirlwind shopping trips, and a beautiful day at the Dead Sea. As they watched the sound and light show on their last day in Beit Jann, Priya decided to extend their trip by three more days. Three weeks later, Josh came to New York.

“She took my hand and then we became friends,” said Josh, of his first visit. Since then, Josh would visit New York twice every year, many times spending a month with Priya before going back. The flexibility of his job as a software engineer allowed it to be part vacation, part work. Priya, who had fewer vacation days, would visit him in Israel for one week twice a year, celebrating all Hindu and Jewish holidays with him and their friends.

What about the rest of the nine and a half months? “There would be lots of Skype dates,” Priya laughed. “We would need to wake up really early, and sleep really late.”

Sometimes they would stay up all night.

Google Talk, Whatsapp, FaceTime were all their co-conspirators. Weekends would be spent lounging at home, watching television shows together, yet apart. Their favorites included “Homeland”, “NCIS” – all with Hebrew subtitles for Josh. Saturday afternoon was “date night,” where they would, each a glass of wine in hand, watch movies streamed online at the same time, sharing jokes on Skype.

In the August of 2011, three years since their first meeting, they planned a trip to the Grand Canyon. Josh had bigger plans in mind. As their helicopter landed near the mile-deep canyon, he bent one knee. Priya wasn’t expecting it. “I was surprised that she was surprised,” Josh later said, during an interview last month. Priya told Josh that he would have to ask her father’s permission before she could agree to marry him. Though her family had lived in the U.S. for generations, they had strong Hindu values, and convincing them to agree to an inter-religious alliance wouldn’t be easy.

Priya’s father wasn’t an exception – the Pew survey also shows that Hindus have the lowest intermarriage rate among all Asian Americans. “Nine-in-ten married Hindus (94 percent) have a spouse who is also Hindu,” according to the study. Only about a third of Hindu parents said they would be “very comfortable” if their child married someone with different religious beliefs, according to the survey.

It wasn’t until almost a year later that Priya’s father approved. He had visited Josh’s family while on an overseas trip, making a stop in Israel just to meet them. Convinced that his daughter was marrying into a good family, finally gave the green light. How did they wait so many months? “We just kept the faith,” Priya said, with Josh nodding in agreement.

Their wedding – in February last year – was an extravagant affair. Priya’s mother, who had been planning her eldest daughter’s wedding since Priya turned 25, had everything in place. Their big fat Hindu wedding had three celebrations over the course of two days. Josh wore the traditional Hindu kurta, a long, flowing shirt to his knees and a regal golden turban. His three sisters wore sequined saris, long pieces of intricately designed cloth, pinned and pleated around their tall Jewish frames. “It was like a fairytale,” said Priya. “I felt like a princess.”

While the traditional ceremony itself was a small, private family affair at Priya’s east coast home, the festivities two weeks later included a raucous music event, a six-hour long wedding the next morning, and a reception party that went on late into the night.

As Josh walked into the wedding venue, his baraat (wedding entourage) included only his siblings and a couple of friends from Israel. Priya’s friends and family, charmed by Josh, rushed to join him as he entered the venue, propping him up on their shoulders as he arrived to a deafening welcome. What followed was a day-long whirlwind of Hindu rituals – exchanging garlands, reading out vows in front of the holy pyre, getting blessings from elders and exchanging rings – all under a makeshift canopy, much like the Jewish chuppah.

“It was at once unique, strange and new,” said Josh. “All the colors, the length of each ceremony – it was all very different from a Jewish wedding, which is short and not as interesting.” His parents and the rest of his family watched it on livestream from Jerusalem.

Josh stayed in the U.S. a few extra weeks before returning to Israel, this time as one half in a long distance marriage. Now that Priya is Jewish, the couple is scheduled to have a Jewish ceremony in Israel later this year, for Josh’s family and friends.

Their eventual children will be raised with both faiths, the couple has decided. “We’ll let them decide when they are ready,” said Josh. “We won’t impose either of our beliefs,” said Priya.

For now, the couple celebrates Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights, in Israel, along with the Israeli New Year, Rosh Hashanah, which is usually around the same time. Holi, which is a Hindu spring festival, is usually celebrated in New York along with Purim, the fourteenth day of the month of Adar in the Hebrew calendar.

But how much longer do they plan to remain living across continents? What of children, and a family home? Not too long now, if things work out.

Josh is in New York, filling his immigration papers. Initially, the couple had planned on moving to Israel. But Priya, who plans to go back to college this fall, will have limited career prospects in the Holy Land, so they’re hoping to make New York their home, at least for now.

The couple is eagerly awaiting news from the immigration services. “Unless I’m very miserable, we’ll be staying in New York,” said Josh, in an interview last month after Friday services at the synagogue. The couple was meeting the same Rabbi who had helped Priya through her conversion process. As they walked out of what is now “their” synagogue in midtown Manhattan, Josh said, “I believe that the connection between us will make it, wherever we are.”

There are already Orthodox Jews in the IDF, so why is Israel up in arms?

by Rachel Delia Benaim

JERUSALEM— Alex Katz, a 19-year-old high school graduate, wears a kippah, prays three times a day, and spends a good part of his day studying Torah. But Katz recently added a new cap to his wardrobe: the aqua beret bestowed upon members of totchanim, the artillery brigade of the Israeli Defense Force (IDF).

Katz is a vivid reminder that despite all the debate in Israel about the ultra-Orthodox and the military, there are many Orthodox men who serve in the IDF. He is enrolled in a program called mahal hesder, or just hesder, that requires students to make a five-year commitment that combines intense Torah study with army service.

There are currently 4,900 participants in the hesder program, an IDF spokeswoman said. These men study at 68 religious institutions in Israel preapproved by the government that affords its students the opportunity to both learn Torah and serve in the IDF. Katz is a student at one of them, Yeshivat Hakotel.

The Orthodox and the draft have become big news since The Equal Service Bill was passed in March by Israel’s Parliament, known as the Knesset. The law made it illegal for yeshiva students to dodge the national army draft. The ultra-Orthodox were up in arms. To them, the army will force them to integrate into secular Israeli society. To them, young men studying in yeshiva, engaging with God’s text fulfill the Divine will. They feel that this is how they protect Israel, through Torah study.

Alex Katz before he is initiated into the Israeli army on March 18th at the Bakum. (Courtesy Alex Katz)

Alex Katz before he is initiated into the Israeli army on March 18th at the Bakum. (Courtesy of Alex Katz)

The experience of the hesder students provides another model in that these young men merge Torah study and military service. Rabbi Reuven Taragin, a rosh yeshiva at Yeshivat Hakotel, where Katz studies, said “we encourage people to do both and follow the model of the hesder yeshiva.” He made the statement on behalf of the yeshiva.

Until the passage of the draft bill, Orthodox Israeli high school graduates had three choices: (1) apply for the an exemption because they’ve put Torah study first, (2) enter the army for a three- year stint or (3) combine the two in a hesder program.

The first hesder yeshiva, established in 1953, five years after Israel’s War of Independence, was a natural outgrowth of religious Zionist ideology. The hesder movement gained popularity and government in funding in the 1970s. The first year and a half of the program, the young man is in yeshiva, followed by 16 months of active military service. While serving, they are fully integrated into the army, serving along side all other soldiers. Afterwards, he must return to yeshiva for approximately two years during which the army can call on him if need be.

Hesder has its champions and detractors. In 1991, the hesder yeshivot were awarded the Israel Prize for their special contribution to society and the state of Israel, and yet today, this compromise of a program, which seems to symbiotically fuse the desire of the religious people to learn with the desire of the state to be defended, faces disapproval.

Hesder supporters believe that the Equal Service Bill includes harsh stipulations towards hesder. The bill extends hesder’s 16 month active duty service by one month, without increasing its already sparse budget.

Despite all of the program’s critics, Katz heeded his draft summon with excitement. He remained idealistic—“we need Torah and the army,” he chanted just before his draft ceremony.

At the moment, approximately 2,300 of the IDF’s 170,000 active soldiers are hesder young men, and 73 percent of them serve in combat units. The IDF Spokeswoman contended “the percentage of hesder soldiers who go into combat is very high compared to the general population.”

Katz chose to walk this path less traveled because he firmly believes that the security of the state of Israel will come from both Torah study and the army.

“There’s a religious side to serving,” Katz said. “We’re serving the Jewish people,” he clarified, emphasizing the country’s religious bond.

Naftali Bennett, a member of the Knesset from the Bayit Yehudi party, sings the praises of the hesder yeshivot, and maintains that he would express only “thanks” for their existence.

“There has been criticism for years about the disconnect between Torah and the state,” he said in light of the draft bill. “Support for hesder yeshivot has been a source of growth and connection between Torah and the state and Torah and Zionism.” Bennett supported the draft bill.

Hesder detractors like Ofer Shelah from the Yesh Atid party, criticize the program because the soldiers do not serve the full three years of active duty.

“If I were a graduate of a hesder yeshiva, I would be very embarrassed,” Shelah said at a Knesset meeting in September. He has notoriously branded hesder as “an escape route for someone who isn’t interested in serving three years.”

Omer Lupa, 24, who finished the hesder program two years ago, is not nearly embarrassed about serving in hesder—he’s proud.

Sitting in his family’s den in Israel’s Newe Aliza neighborhood, Lupa, gestures towards a picture of him in his purple beret, which marks him as a member of Givati, an elite infantry brigade. He wants Ofer Shelah and other detractors to know something: “people who do hesder have integrity,” he began. “Look at your friends who have done hesder. What kind of people are they now? They have a moral backbone, right? Now, tell me, would you cancel hesder after all it has given to the country and to the army?” Lupa asked, alluding to prominent political figures like Yitzhak Levy, who served in coalition governments between 1988-2005.

To anyone who says that he and his fellow hesder soldiers are looking for an easy way out, Lupa laughed: “In hesder, we’re out of commission from age 18 to 23. We’re not allowed to work. We’re not allowed to leave the country, whereas other people at 21, they’re done,” he said. “For people who say it’s not fair, that we’re serving less time, look at those figures.”

Because of this extended contract where people are committed to the army in some capacity for five years, hesder culture is deeply influenced by army life. During their army service, many hesder men spend at least part of their vacation leave at yeshiva, their second home. Yeshiva is a place that “It helps us figure out who we want to be and how to live. It’s our spiritual food,” Lupa reflected.

The IDF has strict rules for active soldiers on leave. When they take their gun home, which combat soldiers must do, they must either wear it on their person at all times or else double lock their gun and the magazine- separately- in a safe in a locked room or closet.

When people revisit yeshiva, many of them feel uncomfortable leaving their guns in their yeshiva dorm rooms. Instead, they have their gun at their person at all times- even while they’re learning in the beit midrash, the sacred hall of Torah study.

To outsiders, this creates an odd scene in hesder study halls. “In Gush,” a nickname often given to one of the largest hesder yeshivot, Yeshivat Har Etzion, “it is not uncommon at all to see guns around the beit midrash,” explained Rabbi Jonathan Ziring, who is learning in the post rabbinic studies program at the yeshiva. “People are always tripping over M16s.”

These M16s belong to both soldiers on leave and the 4^th and 5^th year students who returned to yeshiva post army to complete their commitment, like Katz will next summer. During this time, they are not on active duty, but they have different kinds of army responsibilities. They have, for instance, shmira, guard duty rotations around their yeshivot, most of which are located in occupied territories or disputed land.

This experience holds true in Katz’s home yeshiva, HaKotel. In the white and wooden walled beit midrash, the large windows and wooden tables are no stranger to soldiers and reservists alike. “It’s normal to see soldiers with their guns, of course!” Katz said.

Katz is a dedicated hesder member, and respects all Jews. He values the ultra-Orthodox’s dedication to God and Torah—he has a similar dedication. But just because they have the same God and sacred text, doesn’t mean they agree on everything “They view army service so differently than I do,” Katz said of the ultra-Orthodox and their protest against the draft bill. “I don’t know if they’re right or wrong, but I don’t agree.”

The ultra-Orthodox disagree with hesder too, not just the army, though they dislike the program for different reasons than secular Israelis like Shelah. They fundamentally differ in opinion with the religious Zionist’s approach to connecting Torah and the state. That is why they protested so vehemently against the Equal Service Bill, which seeks to draft 5,200 ultra-Orthodox recruits, about 60 percent of those of draft age, by 2017.

Amit Hamelnik, a 19 year old soldier stationed at Jesus’ Baptismal site on the Jordan River just outside of Jericho, resents the ultra-Orthodox for evading army service. “It’s not fair. Just do a little bit!” he said as Christian tourists asked him for a photo near the baptismal site. “At least have them do national civil service, just something. At least for an hour, for a day—just help out.”

This elusiveness got the ultra-Orthodox into the draft problems in the first place. Initially, their deferments started out small. In the state’s fledgling decades, former Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion agreed to give 400 draft exemptions for full-time yeshiva students in order to repopulate the rabbinic population that had been wiped out during the Holocaust. Those 400 slowly increased until 1977 when Menachem Begin was elected. At the urging of his ultra-Orthodox coalition partners, Begin extended draft exemptions to anyone enrolled in a yeshiva.

In the decades that followed, the number of ultra-Orthodox men who worked to earn a living declined markedly, and the number engaged in full-time studies who received state support rose dramatically. Today, only an estimated 40 percent of ultra-Orthodox men are gainfully employed, and the ultra-Orthodox remain the poorest group in Israel’s Jewish population.

Now, while young men like Hamelnik wear the olive colored IDF uniforms throughout their conscripted service, the ultra-Orthodox have their own uniform—white shirts, black pants, and black skull caps, which sets them apart from the rest of the population, and, for their critics, serves as a way to identify them as the people to resent.

Though hesder ideologues also learn in yeshiva, Hamelnik, a secular Israeli, doesn’t resent them. On the contrary, “They balance religion and responsibility—it is admirable.”

Caption TK (Photo from Shimon Peres' Facebook Page)

Israel President Shimon Peres and IDF Chief Benny Gantz award an orthodox solider an achievement award, one of 120 soldiers awarded on Israeli Independence Day. (Photo by Chaim Tzach, via Shimon Peres Facebook page)

Israel President Shimon Peres and IDF Cheif Benny Gantz award an orthodox solider an achievement award, one of 120 soldiers awarded on Israeli Independence Day. Photographer: Chaim Tzach, courtesy of Shimon Peres Facebook page

It has been suggested that, in light of the draft bill, which necessitates ultra-Orthodox serving in the army, the ultra-Orthodox adapt the hesder model for themselves. It could, perhaps, be a way for them to balance their faith in God and their duty to protect, another biblical commandment.

The ultra-Orthodox leaders adamantly refuse this suggestion on the grounds that they protect the land by studying God’s words in yeshiva, and that serving in inclusive units with non religious soldiers may cause ultra-Orthodox men to lose their spiritual way. This, however, this is unrealistic in today’s political climate.

Ideally there would be no need for a mandatory army draft, but because that is not the case in Israel, hesder has become the new ideal. Even its supporters, see it as an accommodation, not an ideal. “Hesder is a compromise with reality,” wrote Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein, the rosh yeshiva of Yeshivat Har Etzion, in his article explaining the program, The Ideology of Hesder.

Lichtenstein doesn’t believe in military lifestyle—herding people around with guns, for instance—and that’s what he’s talking about here. His argument seems like it could suit the ultra-Orthodox community, especially now.

(Lead Photo: Soldiers praying beside an armored personal carrier unit. Photo by David Choresh via Wikimedia Commons)

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