CBS report: There are 158,000 Christians in Israel, 80% are Arab; The level of Christian education is notable, with 64% of Christian high school students earning a high school diploma, compared to 59% for Jewish Israelis and 48% for Muslims.
Christians in Israel Well-Off
Israeli Christian woman defends allegiance to Jewish state and military service
“The New Alliance” supports national service, including in the military, and recognizes Israel as the home of the Jewish people • “We are completely Israeli, and then comes religion,” says party founder Bashara Shlayan of Nazareth.
By Dror Eydar, ISRAEL HAYOM
Bashara Shlayan: “Israel’s first demand, which I support — and which needs to be understood — is that Israel is the home of the Jewish people.”
The events in the Middle East have unleashed deep sociological and ideological processes, of which we are only seeing the beginning. It is not only political Islam in the eye of the media storm. Throughout the various Arab countries in the region, the bruised and battered Christian community is raising its voice. Israel appears to be the only country in the region whose Christian community does not have a negative emigration ratio as its members flee West in pursuit of a more promising life.
Recent newspaper headlines involve Christian Israelis who are setting themselves apart from their Muslim counterparts, disproving the traditional perception of Israel’s Arab population as homogenous. They want to join the Israel Defense Forces.
Against the backdrop of hysteria expressed by Arab MKs who object to national service of any kind, but particularly in the army, the comments emanating from Israel’s Christian Arab community sound like a cultural and social declaration of independence.
Now comes the next phase in the independence process: forming a political party. As of today, the Arab Christian party will be named Habrit Hahadashah (The New Alliance — the word “brit,” which also means covenant, references the New Testament).
This is a historic turning point with profound and far-reaching consequences for Israeli society. If the party is successful, it will provide an alternative for that sector of Israel’s Arab population that seeks full partnership in Israeli society, and which sees a Jewish democratic Israel as its home.
Israel Hayom sat down with the leader of the initiative, professional ship captain Bashara Shlayan (58) from Nazareth.
“The entire thing started from the fact that I wanted to get my nephew into the army and there were difficulties, they really didn’t want him to integrate. Today he is a major in a combat unit,” Shlayan says.
“When I wanted my son to join the army we decided to create a forum for Christian enlistment. We also invited priests from the church to a conference we held in Nazareth Illit. One of them is the Church patriarch, Father Gabriel Nadaf [who has drawn the ire of Arab MKs recently for encouraging Christian Arab youth to join the IDF], who preferred [our way] and said we were right.”
Shlayan is proud that the forum was able to get a representative from the community assigned to work at the IDF’s enlistment offices.
“We saw that we needed to create a political party,” he says. “There were articles about us published in the Arab newspapers and it sparked interest throughout the region that there is an Arab Christian in Israel who recognizes the land of Israel as belonging to the Jews.”
How do you define yourselves?
“Firstly we are completely Israeli, and then comes religion.”
Shlayan is not fooling himself. In fact, he gives the impression that he was pushed into this position for lack of an alternative. He says he has also been met with skepticism that anything can actually be changed.
“People see what is happening now in Lebanon, Egypt and Syria. They understand where we are living. I tell them, ‘For 65 years we have given to the Arab communist parties; 65 years and they have done nothing!’ Give me three years, I will manage and solve their problems.”
They haven’t done anything?
“Look at what the Arab parties have done. Just talking nonsense about nothing but communism; [MK Dov] Khenin and [MK Mohammad] Barakeh (Hadash), what have they done for us? They want us to disappear and are not acting according to the integrity of their country’s citizens.”
What integrity?
“The integrity is very simple. A person belongs to his country. This is the integrity. You need to be like any citizen. If you were in America, you wouldn’t be an American? At least in Israel, those who stayed here have been given the right to be a citizen and to integrate. But Israel’s first demand, which I support — and which needs to be understood — is that Israel is the home of the Jewish people.”
What is your opinion about the automatic position taken by the Arab parties against Israel and in support of the Palestinians?
“It’s stupidity. You can be against something pertaining to a certain matter, but the state does a lot of things, so be a partner! Don’t always be against. They think being against Israel is Arab nationalism, that it is the manly thing. But if you oppose this way of thinking, you are a traitor. This is what needs to be changed. It’s stupidity. So I demand that we, the Christians, be recognized as loyal citizens of the state.”
yamit82 Said:
Yamit, those videos don’t disprove the resurrection they just go over Bible verses the guy who picked them out is blinded to [2 Cor 4;4].
Questions needed to be answered regarding the resurrection are ones like;
Who rolled the stone?
Why were the body wrappings undisturbed but there was no body?
Where did the body go?
Why was the facecloth separate from the rest of the body wrappings?
If you can answer these questions to disprove the resurrection you’d get all the missionaries out of Israel and everyplace else.
@ yamit82:
Congratulations Yamit! You finally made me laugh. Shabbat Shalom!
@ alanmos:
Bye Bye!!!!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5D_hjrYu5Gw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_cIR5ATVb4
yamit82 Said:
You could get every missionary out of Israel and everywhere else if you did just one thing.
Disprove the resurrection of Jesus.
The three phases of christianity’s development:
1. Christianity started out as a solely Jewish movement. Jesus said he was the Jewish messiah who had come to usher in the kingdom of god on earth within the next few years. When he died and nothing changed, Israeli (Judean) Jews understood that he was a false, failed messiah, and stopped paying attention to him.
2. Then Paul, who was a paganized greek jew (or a converted greek pagan), who lived in greek Asia Minor 300 miles from Jerusalem, and never met jesus, took the jesus story to Asia Minor in a new pagan greek form. He said jesus was a supernatural human being, whom god chose to be a human sacrifice to atone for original sin. Only those who accepted this idea would be saved when jesus came back to earth in the next few years.
3. When jesus still failed to return, the greek pagans transformed jesus into a pagan man-god, and you could now only get to heaven if you ate jesus body and drank his blood. Jesus would burn everyone else in hell for eternity, particularly the Jews.
When christian missionaries try to trick Jews and get them to convert, they first stress that jesus was “the real jewish messiah predicted in the bible”, and only later bring in the true pagan nature of christianity: the three gods, the man-god, the human sacrifice and the cannibalism.
@ CuriousAmerican:
I probably have a better understanding of Jesus than you do. I wish he would show up today. He would stand before his accusers (and you would probably be one of them) with the Torah in his hand. It is G-d who will be back – we just don’t know yet when or how or who G-d will choose (if anyone) to set the record straight!
Paul was a Roman Jew – a false apostle – self righteous. A murderer of the REAL Jews.
This is where it gets dicey as Christianity was created by a Jew – Paul NOT Jesus. Paul was anti Jewish. So, go ahead and spout your religion but make sure you understand WHO was the founder and study the differences and see WHY most Jews will stick with Judaism as Christianity will NEVER replace it. It hasn’t so far. If it was suppose to then your religion would have succeeded by now and it has not.
@ CuriousAmerican:
CA I have had many very good Christian friends all my life. One thing we never do to each other is try and convert or harrass each other about religion. Your attempts at Jesus acceptance talk is repulsive ( I think it is more hate than a true conversion attempt)!
Mostly I ignore your comments now a days because you are not a serious person. You appear to be some sort strange person who pretends at constructive dialog with Jews while trying to snare them in your Christian beliefs. When they are not successful you start harassing via the keyboard.
If I were Ted I would ban you for proselytizing which is illegal in Israel and this is an Israeli website I believe.
@ yamit82:
.
Uncle, never let it be said you are not a person of wisdom.
From time to time G-d sees fit to reveal what we need to know and is not written.
Remember not all that was written was inspired by G-d there were those who came before us who were heavy drinkers.
@ Shy Guy:
No I don’t often use and never promote modern biblical criticism of the Torah. I haven’t here either. This is not, in my opinion Biblical criticism but history based on available sources including Jewish sources which include “Jewish apocryphal books” not included in Jewish cannon.
Sometimes what is not written and recorded is often more revealing than what is long after the events.
yamit82 Said:
Wow! A paragraph on Wikipedia!
Do you always promote modern critics of Torah and everything Jewish.
You are serving a lower purpose. Lotsa luck to you.
origin of the miracle of hanukka lightsShy Guy Said:
I did not call them Liars and if you want to debate the truth or falseness of my statement it’s up to you.
I advise you not to go there, as it will serve no higher purpose.
CuriousAmerican Said:
“Go ahead. Hold your breath”.
Liar, Liar pants on Fire
Still waiting after all those years.
It’s the Jews fault that yeshu hasn’t returned. Baruch haba b’Shem Adonai (revelation)
We Jews are holding up the Big Show. 😀
yamit82 Said:
Sad. Calling Chazal liars.
Liar!
dove Said:
I did relate positively to the Sicarii .
The Jewish wars of the Maccabees: And precisely who WAS the enemy? What were they fighting FOR and who were they fighting AGAINST? May I remind you that the war of the Maccabees lasting over 23 years, some ay even 25 years was a civil war by those traditional torah observant Jews against those un-Jews who had adopted non-Jewish ways of the Greeks. They were the liberal assimilationists of their time and were a major threat to all other Jews as Jews. The Traditional Jews won, Torah Judaism won, but there was a terrible blood bath of Jew killing Jews and the real Jews prevailed. Judaism and Jews survived to this day.
When the enemy sent its troops into the town of Modin to set up an idol and demand its worship, it was a Jew who decided to exercise his freedom of pagan worship and who approached the altar to worship Zeus (after all, what business was it of anyone what this fellow worshipped?) And it was this Jew, this apostate, this religious traitor who was struck down by the brave, glorious, courageous Mattathias, as he shouted: “Whoever is for G-d, follow me!” The rabbis don’t like to speak of the bloody civil war so they mostly ignore it, criticize it or make excuses for it. That’s why they invented in the middle ages the myth of the miracle of oil.
The Sicarii were in the Tradition of the Maccabees, They were the ones who defended Massada
Read: The Sicarii and the Zealots
CuriousAmerican Said:
First accept Marx – or better – Trotsky!
Same stupid logic.
CuriousAmerican Said:
Go ahead. Hold your breath.
HDJ
So why don’t you accept Him, then?
Wrong. Paul called himself a Hebrew of Hebrews. Philippians 3:5
I do not subscribe to Haim Maccoby’s theories. They are weak.
Paul was an ethnic Jew, not a Roman.
YES! When Jesus returns, that will be seen to one and all.
@ CuriousAmerican:
CA CAN IT! Who said Christians weren’t intelligent? Of coarse they are! Intelligent enough to con the world again and again and again. These Arab Christians are willing to acknowledge Israel as a JEWISH STATE. That is the ONLY reason why they should be supported. We don’t owe Christians like you ANYTHING! Stop trying to compare us. Your jealousy over Jews being Hashems people is ridiculous. You obviously don’t know what it means. Remember, your Jesus was NOT a Christian – He was a JEW. The Roman zealots under Paul changed it. Judaism lives now and FOREVER!! Will your religion survive forever??
Yamit needs to be more careful with analogies. On another thread he was proud to say he believes he was from the zealots who killed and persecuted Jews. There are two types of zealots and he descibed himself as the type that would be classified as a ‘christ killer’ in todays world. I didnt say he claimed to be a messenger of Hashem. I just wanted to make it clear that he was not. Yamit, you dont who my descendants are but I do. They date back alot further than yours.
@ yamit82:
Except it didn’t work out so well for Bar Kochba and for the Jews in the Cypriot Trajan war. Otherwise there would be 200 million of us today.
dove Said:
Yamit may be a bit too isolationist for me, but even if you consider him a zealot, that is a far cry from claiming that he speaks for Ha-shem. Look, I think Israel should have already nuked half of the Middle East and will eventually have to nuke much of Europe, so I guess that makes me a zealot too.
dove Said:
Every Jew alive today except recent converts are decedents of Zealots. Masses of other Jews — sometimes the majority — chose to forfeit their core identity as Jews in order to assimilate into the prevailing religious milieu. You are not descended from them.
Jewish role model Zealots:
“Rabbi Noah Weinberg, o.b.m., used to say: “Figure out what you’re willing to die for. Then live for it.” That could have been the motto of the Maccabees. They were willing to die (and all five of them did die!) for G-d and His Torah.” Had they been pragmatists, they would have cowered before the Greek army with its 40,000 well-trained, well-equipped troops, plus elephants, the tanks of the ancient world. Had they been realists, they would have surrendered to the zeitgeist of assimilation that had already swept their country and their people. But they were idealists, and an idealist does what’s right, whatever the cost, whatever the result. Some 6,000 guerilla fighters waged war against 40,000 trained Greek warriors equipped with state-of-the-art weaponry and elephants.
Fortunately for us, the ZEALOUS Maccabees were not discouraged by difficulty. If they had been, the Hellenists would have won, and Judaism would have disappeared. Not only would there be no Chanukah, but there would be no Judaism and no Jews.
The Maccabees, dedicated to an ideal and undaunted by difficulty, are indeed worthy Jewish role models.
@ Eric R.:
He’s an admitted zealot.
Israeli christian “arabs”:
Around 300 CE, Constantine “the great”, operating from Istanbul (Greek Constantinople) made christianity the official religion of the Greco-Roman empire. Over the next 300 years, the greek orthodox christians persecuted the Jews of palestine, driving them away, and replacing them with semitic christians from Syria and greek christians from Asia Minor (the dejudiazation of Israel and christianization of palestine).
Around 630 the muslim arabs conquered palestine and severed it from the byzantine christians. The Greek orthodox christians either quickly converted to islam or fled to byzantium. The aramaic speaking semitic christians slowly converted to islam, changed from speaking aramaic to arabic, and eventually started to call themselves “arabs.” Even the few who remained faithful to christianity called themselves “arabs” to make themselves less odious to the true arabian arabs.
The christians, when they were in control of palestine, were ferocious Jew-haters. After the muslims took over, the muslims played the christians against the Jews, making them fight for leftovers like starving dogs. This reinforced the christian hatred for the Jews, and many of them still hate the Jews even more than the muslims.
In the Israeli War of Independence, the muslims told the christians that if they stayed and took the side of the Jews, then they and their families would be killed as traitors. Thus, many of the original “palestinian refugees” were christians. Most of them went to Lebanon, where the Lebanese christians welcomed them and immediately gave them citizenship.
The few christians who remained in Israel hated the Jews, and were still terrified of the muslims. It has taken 60 years for the Israeli christians to lose their fear of the muslims and overcome their hatred of the Jews, so that they are now beginning to co-operate with the Jews, not out of loyalty or friendship, but in return for increased benefits and opportunities.
@ Eric R.:
Thanks for that Eric R
@ CuriousAmerican:
They are first on my list for shipment to Chile or wherever.
I don’t know a single christian Arab who does not call themselves Palestinian. Do You? Nough said missionary.
Great Video about Christian in Israel
About 2 minutes with a lot of facts.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9sY6jg5t68
Christians perform at levels equaling or excelling Jews. They are in academia at percentages equal to the Jews. However, their numbers are small so they go unnoticed.
dove Said:
Where and when did Yamit ever claim to be one?
@ Bear Klein:
I agree. Yamit is no messenger of Hashem.
Andy Lewis Said:
Suggestions?
Bear Klein Said:
Mostly a thing of the past today the the young ones have become radicalized.
@ yamit82:
Seek help.
@ yamit82:
IDF has them serving. Their are some loyal Bedoin and Druze. Our attitude to non Jews also matters.
@ Bear Klein:
There are no loyal minorities especially christian one.
Loyal minorities should be supported!