Lela Gilbert

Oct 5, 2015 | Christians and Minority Rights, Jerusalem Notebook

I hadn’t been awake very long last Sunday morning when I opened a rather cryptic email from my friend Dexter van Zile, a talented researcher and writer based in the United States.

His subject line read, “So what do we know about the fire in the monastery in Bethlehem?” The email text asked me, “Got anything substantive?”

At that point I was still half-asleep – mostly focused on a cup of very strong coffee. But Dexter’s message was a literal wakeup call, and I bolted upright, thinking, What fire?

I quickly wrote to two friends in Bethlehem who I was sure would know about a local inferno. One sent me some photos from an Arabic-language media source, but said that no details were available. Another said that the Palestinian Authority was blaming an electrical problem.

A few hours later, the Israel National News (Arutz Sheva) featured a rather ironic headline, “PA Strangely Silent after Muslims Set Bethlehem Church Afire”

The story continued,

The Palestinian Authority has been curiously silent over a major fire at a Christian church in Bethlehem. In its sole statement, the PA said that the fire at the St. Charbel Church in the city was caused by an “electrical malfunction” – a description that is at odds with an account by Israeli Christian Arab Father Gabriel Naddaf, who said that the church was burned down Saturday night by “Palestinian extremists.”

I posted the story on Facebook, and almost immediately received a string of responses – most of them mocking the “strangely silent” wording of the headline. My friends’ comments all said pretty much the same thing: “What’s so strange about that? Of course they aren’t reporting the real story!”

It took a day or two more to collect further details: the St. Charbel Maronite Monastery in Bethlehem had been intentionally torched. And Sobhy Makhoul, the chancellor of Jerusalem’s Maronite Patriarchate, wasted no words: “It was an act of arson. An act of sectarian vandalism by radical Muslims.”

Asia News, a Catholic site, went on to say,

The fire caused no casualties or injuries because the building is currently unoccupied and under renovation, but the damage is evident and the local Christian community is now fearful of further violence. The arsonists “got inside a room that had a lot of stuff, including furniture … because the building is undergoing restoration work. The fire reached it and spread quickly throughout the structure.”

Police sources said that Muslim extremist groups have been active in the area and the culprits are already known and should “be soon apprehended.”

Meanwhile, a reliable source informed me that although thieves had ransacked the Maronite Monastery two days prior to the fire, the police neither responded nor investigated. And, contrary to the PA’s report of an electrical fire, St. Charbel has no electrical supply.

All this reminded me of another fire at a Bethlehem church – the Church of the Nativity. After Pope Francis’ visit to Bethlehem in May 2014, a blaze did substantial damage to the grotto where tradition says that Jesus was born.

I also received photographs of that incident from someone in Bethlehem who indicated more harm than what was described as a “curtain set ablaze by a lamp.”

Friends of Fox News posted the photos on Facebook. The entire area appeared to have been seriously torched.

Still, the lamp-curtain story stuck, even though Christians who live or work in Bethlehem remain convinced that radical Muslims set the church alight in defiance of the Pope’s visit – and that the destruction was far greater than the widely reported smoke-damage.

More recently, the beloved Tabgha Church in Galilee was also set on fire by vandals and was badly damaged. The historic church is cherished by Christians all around the world because of its beautiful setting and its fifth century mosaic portraying a basket of bread and two fishes. This mosaic recalls Jesus’ miraculous multiplication of loaves and fishes, which is believed to have taken place at that same seaside location.

In a Philos Project article, I wrote that the church sanctuary itself was, thankfully, not too badly harmed. However, the roof, some storage areas and a few meeting places were significantly damaged.

But deeper injury was inflicted on the tenuous alliance between Israel’s Jews and Christians. The bold red graffiti marking the incident indicated that the attack was the work of “price-tag” vandals; this term generally describes vandalism carried out against non-Jews in response to Arab attacks, government decisions or disapproval of Christian activity.

The Tabgha Church fire was widely reported internationally. The assumption was that Israeli Jews had harmed a historic Christian site, providing just the kind of sensational hook that news editors rely on for headlines, as well as for multiple tweets and likes.

In sharp contrast, radical Muslims attacking a church that is supposed to be under the protection of the Palestinian Authority is an entirely different matter. Unless there is serious bloodshed or celebrity involvement, such episodes remain largely unreported.

Unlike the press freedom in Israel, where reportage and commentary are freewheeling and unrestrained, all news outlets in PA-controlled areas are carefully monitored – including social media. It is perilous for Christians and their families, who live in those areas, to write or speak openly about radical Islamist threats, injustices or violence.

At times, the powers-that-be aren’t even satisfied with silence. In a recent article, a prominent Protestant minister in Jerusalem accused the Palestinian Authority of coercing the Christian leadership in the Holy Land into speaking out against Israel.

Wishing to remain anonymous, this senior clergyman told The Algemeiner that the release of a “Statement from the Heads of Churches in Jerusalem” – signed by 13 church leaders and demanding that Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan take custody of all holy places in Israel to maintain the “status quo” – was the direct result of an “unholy” relationship between Arab Muslims and the Christians who live in fear of their wrath.

The Christian leaders in Israel and the Palestinian Authority “are put under threat by the Palestinian-Muslim authorities … so much so that today there was a meeting of the heads of the churches, begging the PA to be nice to the Christians in Bethlehem, who live under severe threat.”

In exchange for temporary relief from Islamist harassment, the Christian leaders signed a document that falsely accused Israel of “threats of change to historical (status quo) situation in the Al-Aqsa Mosque (Haram Al-Sharif) and its courtyard, all buildings and in the city of Jerusalem.”

Dhimmitude is a term for the obligatory discrimination and subjection of minorities – dhimmis – under Islamic Sharia law. In the days of the Ottoman Empire, both Christians and Jews were required to submit to their Muslim overlords with regards to their clothing, their places of residence, their finances, their means of transportation – in short, every conceivable Islamic demand required their abject capitulation.

Those who did not submit suffered harassment, physical abuse and perhaps even death. We see this acted out horrifically before our eyes in today’s world: the cruelty of Islamist terrorists such as ISIS toward Christians, Yazidis and other minorities is widely reported, including graphic videos of beheadings and mass executions.

To a lesser degree, we also see dhimmitude in the Palestinian territories. Likewise, it is evident on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, where Jews (and Christians) are required – like dhimmis – to obey the demands of the Jordanian Waqf. They are denied the right to pray or worship, and even have been accused of defiling the holiest site in Judaism with their “filthy feet.”

After centuries of subjugation, Christians who live in Bethlehem and other PA-administered cities habitually live in dhimmi-like fear. Most do not openly oppose Muslims. Those of us who write about Christian persecution in such places are well aware that we cannot provide real names or cite organizational sources.

This is the primary reason for media silence about Muslim attacks on churches and individuals in Palestinian-controlled areas. Few Christians are willing to take the risk of speaking openly. In the meantime, by many accounts, the pressure on Christians is increasing exponentially.

With these realities in mind, and after concluding his research, van Zile passed on to me his personal observations about the monastery fire – and the grim picture of intensifying Christian subjugation in the Palestinian territories.

It’s hard to talk about the fire at St. Charbel’s without implying that the chickens are coming home to roost. But that’s what is happening and it needs to be said openly.

For decades, [Palestinian] Christians have been pointing the finger of accusation at Israel, where Christians are able to participate in politics in a free and open manner. Meanwhile, they remain silent about the mistreatment they endure at the hands of radical Muslims in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

Palestinian Christians have aligned themselves with a Sharia-inspired nationalist movement in hopes of protecting their lives and property. This was always a short-term strategy, because Sharia enshrines Islamic supremacism over non-Muslims. And now those attitudes are manifesting themselves in an undeniable manner.

“Such,” van Zile concluded, “are the wages of dhimmitude.”

Oct 9, 2015 | Jerusalem Notebook, Jews and the Jewish State, Muslims and Muslim Majority States

On Saturday night, I welcomed my good friends Gary and Cindy Bayer for dinner. They live in Jerusalem’s Old City part-time, but we hadn’t seen each other in months. It was a happy reunion and although they’d been wrestling with health issues, our conversation was entirely happy and upbeat.

After they left, I checked my computer for messages or late news, as usual, and quickly noticed that there had been another terrorist attack – this time in the Old City. I say “another terrorist attack” because it wasn’t the first one to take place last week.

A heartbreaking double murder occurred last Thursday. A husband and wife, Rabbi Eitam and his wife Naama Henkin, were shot dead on a road near the Itamar community in Samaria. Miraculously, their four small children survived – orphaned, but physically unharmed.

It was reported that a hail of terrorists’ bullets killed Naama instantly. Her husband Eitam, although mortally wounded, somehow got out of the car, opened the back door to get his children out safely, and then collapsed in death.

Hamas happily took credit for this murder and celebrated it that night and the following day, handing out candies on the street.

Back to Saturday night. What had happened this time? I frantically surfed the Internet for details, and it didn’t take long to find them.

It was another murder; another attack on a family of four.

When I tried to figure out where this all took place, I braced myself as I watched a rather gruesome video in which I could hear a woman screaming, a baby wailing, and a male voice shouting, “Allahu Akbar.”

I also recognized the location. That’s when I realized it a happened way too close to my friends’ home.

I phoned Cindy Bayer immediately.

“Yes, we just walked through the Damascus gate,” she said. “We hit a wall of riot police. Not sure when we’ll be able to get home.”

The police were indeed out in force. Why? Because a young Muslim had tried to murder another Jewish family, this time with a knife. He stabbed to death Aharon Banita, a young Orthodox Jewish father, and seriously wounded Aharon’s wife Adele as the couple pushed their two babies in strollers, making their way to the Western Wall.

Nehemia Lavi, a rabbi who lived nearby, heard the family’s screams and rushed out to help. He, too, was stabbed to death. The Banitas’ two children survived, their toddler was injured by a bullet (the assailant had grabbed Lavi’s gun after killing him and fired it at the police) and their infant was traumatized but unharmed.

The minute the police appeared, the assailant was shot dead. The sound of the gunfire was piercing, even in the video I saw.

Thankfully, the Bayers eventually made it home. It took them a long time to get past the police barricades, because the murders had happened just around the corner from their building.

One of them later told me, as they waited in the crowd behind the police lines, that the local Arabs had “displayed no remorse whatsoever.”

This was confirmed by Ruthie Blum, who wrote in The Algemeiner that the incident was “documented on the cell phones of Arab onlookers, who laughed and spit at the young mother covered in blood, begging for help as she tried to flee the scene with a knife wedged in her shoulder. ‘You should die, too,’ they chanted, while she stumbled ahead in the direction of Israeli Border Police.”

Haaretz later reported,

The attacker was identified as Mohammad Halabi, a 19-year-old Palestinian law student at Al-Quds University from a village near Ramallah. On his Facebook page, Halabi wrote that the Palestinian people would not accept Israel’s attacks on the Al Quds Mosque in Jerusalem’s Temple Mount and that the third intifada has already begun.

In the days that have followed, a list of subsequent terror attacks continues to grow longer.

Terrorists have repeatedly thrown rocks at buses and cars. These are not small stones or pebbles, but cinder blocks and weighty projectiles large enough to shatter windows and windshields.

On Wednesday, dozens of young, masked Arabs stoned several cars as they drove toward Jerusalem in the morning traffic. A popular talk-show host and free-lance journalist, Israeli-America Josh Hasten, reported that he feared for his life as his car was attacked.

Lone wolf stabbings have also continued.

Yesterday, Oct. 8, a Jerusalem man was seriously wounded in a Jerusalem stabbing. Five Israelis were “lightly injured” in a Tel Aviv attack; one of them was a female IDF soldier.

As I write, a man has been critically wounded in Kiryat Arba, a community in the Hebron area. “Initial reports indicate a Palestinian assailant stabbed a civilian. The attacker fled the scene. Forces are searching the area. The civilian was severely wounded and is now being evacuated for emergency medical care.”

Stone-throwing at IDF troops, rioting and violence has spread so dramatically over the last week that it is difficult to keep up with it.

Clashes between IDF troops and rioters were reported today near Ramallah.

A soldier was stabbed hours ago in Afula.

Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat instructed residents with gun permits to carry their weapons with them. “I have a licensed gun,” Barkat said. “Every time there is tension, I instruct people who are allowed to carry weapons and are experienced in using them to carry their guns with them. If you check, you’ll see that in many cases, those who neutralized terrorists were citizens who aren’t necessarily police officers, like former soldiers.”

And the trouble isn’t over yet.

The Jewish holidays ended on Monday night. Between Rosh Hashanah and the Sukkot feast, many Jews from abroad as well as local residents visited not only the Western Wall but also the Temple Mount. They are forbidden to worship or pray there, but still they go, as an act of remembrance and courage, and as a statement of faith.

These visits are reported across the Middle East with the absurdly libelous Temple Mount accusations: “Settlers storm the al-Aqsa.” As I recently wrote for The Philos Project,

It is no exaggeration to say that on the Temple Mount, incitement to violence by radical Muslims never stops for long. Disturbances frequently break out, usually inspired by rumors and falsified reports that the Jews are “storming,” or otherwise “defiling” Al-Aksa. These reports are widespread in Middle East news, simultaneously appearing in Saudi, Iranian, Turkish, Lebanese, Egyptian and other Muslim-dominated media.

Provocation – including name-calling, threats and shoving – is predictable during the brief window of time Jews are permitted to enter this site; they are watched carefully, lest they so much as move their lips in silent prayer.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has rightly blamed Arab incitement – particularly the outrageous lies about the Temple Mount – for the largest part of this recent wave of Arab violence. Indeed, many are calling it “The Third Intifada.”

Will it be so? Or will this epidemic of hatred be stopped – once again – by Israel?

Another of my friends is the survivor of a terrible Hamas bombing, which took place in 1997 at the Mahane Yehuda market in Jerusalem. In that infamous assault, 16 people were killed and 178 injured. My friend was terribly burned and lived with excruciating pain for years following the attack.

Originally from Germany, Dr. Petra Heldt is a scholar, professor and ordained minister in the Lutheran church. She came by my home for a visit just a few hours ago.

After a pleasant conversation, I had to ask her what I hoped wasn’t an inappropriate question: What does she think about when terrorism escalates the way has done in recent days?

Today, Petra’s scars are still visible, but her smile always eclipses them. And she smiled broadly as she answered my question.

“Whenever those who hate Israel strike out with terrorism, there is invariably strong resistance – a powerful pushback,” she said. “And every time that happens, Israel becomes just a little stronger.”

Needless to say, we all know that the loss of life to terrorism is horrifying – that much is obvious. Death and injury leave behind orphaned children and disabled survivors. And in the meantime, fear is a dark shadow that hangs heavily over the country.

And yet Petra has more to say than simply to mourn what threatens and what has been lost.

“When they bombed the Mahane Yehuda Market where I was injured,” she told me, “they not only wanted to kill people, but they also thought they had destroyed a thriving center of Jerusalem’s way of life – the beating heart of the city.

“Instead, today, the market is bigger, livelier, more beautiful than ever before.

“Whenever terrorism means to kill and destroy, the brutality is always defeated. It is overcome by the Israeli people’s faith in God, love of life, and celebration of their beloved country.

“And that,” she concluded, with another radiant smile, “is the spirit of Israel.”

Nov 4, 2015 | Jerusalem Notebook, Jews and the Jewish State, Muslims and Muslim Majority States

In its early days, the current Arab uprising in Israel brought almost daily violence to the streets of Jerusalem.

Now, the action has largely moved to other parts of the country – at least for the time being. Nonetheless, we Jerusalemites are still paying close attention to our surroundings and taking careful note of the random characters that walk behind us on the sidewalks.

And, like most of my friends and neighbors, I am especially conscious of bus stops. How many people are gathered around them? How accessible they are to “vehicular” attacks? And what kind of expressions do I see on the faces of those who are standing nearby?

A few days ago, in this present calm but cautious atmosphere, I was delighted to have coffee with my friend Liz Kopp. Her husband Chuck pastors the Narkis Street Congregation, a non-denominational church near the center of town. In fact, Liz and Chuck have been deeply involved in the city’s spiritual and material concerns for more than 40 years.

For me, the opportunity to catch up with Liz was long overdue. We met at Aroma Café in the German Colony, and we started our conversation by updating each other about our families and friends.

But then the subject changed. I was stunned by what I learned from Liz. And she wasn’t just reporting what she had read or heard on the radio.

Her story began with a widely recounted terrorist attack. I could hardly believe what she told me.

On Oct. 14, Haaretz reported,

11:05 A.M. Two Israelis were killed after two suspected terrorists entered bus 78 in Jerusalem’s Armon HaNatziv neighborhood. At least 16 other Israelis were wounded in the attack, which saw one assailant open fire within the bus while the other attacked passengers with a knife; at least one person is in critical condition. One of the attackers is dead, while the other is in serious condition.

It so happened that Liz and Chuck Kopp and their family were well acquainted with not just one, but two of the injured victims who were, coincidentally, riding on Bus No. 78 at exactly the same time.

One survived; the other has since died.

For almost as long as she’s been in Jerusalem, Liz has been part of a group of a dozen-plus women – all Jewish except for Liz herself – that she affectionately calls her “Koffee Klatch.” One of the women, an alarmed Karen Lakin, phoned Liz on Oct. 13.

That morning, her ex-husband Richard Lakin, 76, had been rushed to Hadassah Hospital Ein Kerem in critical condition.

Liz knew that her son Jesse was already at Hadassah hospital for an unrelated medical reason. She told him to go to the emergency room and check on Richard. The next morning, Jesse Kopp posted on Facebook:

Yesterday, a friend of mine was stabbed in his liver, and was shot in the head on a bus. Doctors are currently fighting for his life. He is a man of peace and promotes coexistence. My heart goes out to him and his family who I was with during the first few hours at the ICU. I would like to ask everyone I know for more love, no matter where you are in the world. Love as hard as you can. Peace.

The Kopps knew Lakin, a Jew, to be a valiant advocate of peace between Jews and Arabs in Israel. He taught English to Arab and Israeli children. His Facebook page features the well-known “CoExist” banner as its cover photo. And his rabbi recalled that Richard Lakin never missed a peace rally.

The New York Times described the morning’s events.

After a routine doctor’s appointment on Oct. 13, Mr. Lakin called his ex-wife (and still best friend), Karen, to say he was taking the No. 78 bus rather than walking home because he thought it would be safer amid the spate of stabbings on Jerusalem streets.

When news broke that a No. 78 had been attacked, she and her son started frantically dialing Mr. Lakin’s number.

“Eventually, one of the nurses in the operating room answered his phone,” recalled [their son Micah Avni], 46, who works in finance and had walked out of a meeting in his Tel Aviv office to drive to Jerusalem. “She said, ‘Come to Hadassah Ein Kerem as soon as possible.’ ”

Hadassah and Jerusalem’s other hospitals are rare oases of the Arab-Jewish coexistence Mr. Lakin promoted.

A Palestinian nurse in the emergency room recognized him as he was wheeled in: Her two sons had taken his classes.

The surgical team that struggled to stitch together his injured organs included Dr. Abed Khalaileh, an Arab from East Jerusalem, like the attackers on the bus.

Despite valiant medical efforts, Lakin died two weeks after the bus attack. His son Micah is participating in a lawsuit against Facebook, the social media outlet he holds responsible for numerous posts and videos that did far more than incite terrorists to attack Israelis with knives.

Those graphic posts actually instructed would-be assassins about how best to cause maximum injury – for example, by stabbing deeply and then forcefully shoving the knife downward, injuring the victim as severely as possible.

Liz Kopp explained to me that Richard Lakin was stabbed repeatedly in the head, face and abdomen; his intestines and several internal organs were severed, as per the instructions on Facebook. He was also stabbed in the head and slashed in the face. And shot in the temple.

One of Bus No. 78’s terrorists was shot dead. The other was also rushed to Hadassah Hospital, where he shared the same intensive care unit as Lakin.

Lakin’s son said, “I had the auspicious pleasure of holding my father’s hand and looking that man straight in the eye as he woke up … and it sounds like he’s doing OK – as opposed to my father.”

Unfortunately, Lakin wasn’t the only victim who ended up at Hadassah. Among the other injured Bus No. 78 passengers was a Danish Christian woman, Marike Veldman.

“I knew Marike as one of the many Dutch Christians serving in so many different ways in Israel, and who occasionally attended the Narkis Street Congregation,” Liz told me. “From a distance, I admired this attractive tall, regal and single Dutch woman who was known for the many Arab children she had taken in to live with her.”

Indeed, for some 30 years, Marike Veldman, 78, had taken in unwanted Arab children who were abandoned in Jerusalem’s Old City. As Ynet news reported,

Veldman remembers the attack. “I entered the bus 78 in Armon Hanatziv [and] I saw two Arab men sitting in the very beginning of the bus. I thought to myself, ‘What were they doing on a bus at this hour? They should be at work. They looked suspicious,’” she said.

“They were laughing, exchanging maybe a joke or something, and then all of a sudden they got up and started screaming ‘Allahu Akbar,’ and then one of them started stabbing me and he stabbed me several times.

“I yelled, ‘Jesus help me!’” she recounted.

Ms. Veldman went on to say that the man pulled away from her after she cried out those words, and he appeared to be frightened; he retreated from her immediately and headed further back in the bus, stabbing several others. He didn’t touch Marike Veldman again.

But to this day, she cannot erase from her memory the look of hate that was in the eyes of her assailant. She has struggled to regain her sense of security ever since. One of the stab wounds punctured her lung. Although it was a dangerous injury, she is gradually healing, both inside and out.

Majda Shakawi, 28, grew up in Marike Veldman’s foster home. Today, she lives in Virginia. Asked about the attack on her foster mother, she said, “When it happened, I was in shock. There is a lot of anger, shame and guilt. I am thankful that she is alive and I am trying to accept the forgiveness that she feels. I believe that everyone was born in the image of God. That’s what my faith taught me. It’s a shame to my religion when someone goes and does something like this. It’s cowardly. I thought that even before this happened to my mom, but now it’s personal.”

The intertwined stories of the attacks on Bus No. 78 are profoundly troubling. Such vicious assaults on two elderly and charitable members of the Jerusalem community are unbearable and indefensible.

Those knives and bullets did more than carve and slash the flesh of two innocent people. They also cut to the quick the benevolent vision shared by Richard Lakin and Marike Veldman – a vulnerable and perhaps even improbable dream of peace – which each of them persistently expressed in both word and deed.

For most of us, all this is simply unforgivable.

And yet…

In reflecting on this tragic scenario, Liz Kopp told me, “One would be tempted to give up hope if it weren’t for people like Marike, who is choosing to forgive.

“And, amazingly, each member of the Lakin family is doing the same, even in the face of such brutality and murder. Although Richard was taken from them by hatred and evil, the family knows that he wouldn’t want them to respond with hatred and evil in return.

“Difficult as it is, they agree that only in forgiveness can this kind and loving man’s legacy be upheld.”

Nov 19, 2015 | Current Events, Jews and the Jewish State, Muslims and Muslim Majority States

Late Friday night, I was headed for bed when an ominous news bulletin flashed across my computer screen – something about a shooting in Paris.

It wasn’t long before the “small number” of shootings and casualties began to double and triple and quadruple. The locations of attacks seemed crazily disorganized, and the tweets and videos became more and more horrifying.

It was a long night for many stunned observers. We tried to understand what was happening, and we hoped and prayed that the carnage would stop.

But it didn’t. Not for far too many hours.

The following day, I was invited to lunch at the home of my friends Daphne and Iddo Netanyahu. Both of them are Israeli, born and raised in this country, but also well traveled, thoughtful and exceptionally well read. And (thankfully for me) they speak flawless English.

Daphne is a lawyer, speaker and writer; she is also the publisher and editor-in-chief of an online political Hebrew language magazine called Maraah (which, in Hebrew, means Mirror). Most importantly, at least in my view, Daphne is a dear friend.

Iddo
Iddo Netanyahu

Iddo is a physician, author and playwright. Two of his plays are presently in production (more about one of those in a moment), and he is currently in the process of finishing a third one. And, in case his family name sounds familiar, Iddo is also the brother of Benyamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister.

Along with his two brothers, Iddo served in an elite Israeli special forces unit called Sayeret Matkal. The oldest brother, Yoni, was killed in 1976 while leading the historic rescue of 106 mostly-Israeli hostages from a hijacked Air France flight in Entebbe, Uganda.

Needless to say, I was eager to hear my friends’ views about the Paris terror attacks. “So what was your first thought when you heard the news?” I asked.

“It certainly wasn’t a surprise,” Iddo answered. “These things will happen. They’ve already happened in Paris, just not on this scale. Even worse things might happen. So there was no surprise about it.”

Iddo
French President François Hollande

He went on to say,

The question is really not about these particular incidents’ happening, whether in Paris, whether at a specific nightclub, or in some other place. The question is how to stop them.

French headlines reported that President Hollande said, “We’re at war.”

So if you’re at war, then you have to find out who the enemy is. You have to define the enemy. And you have to actually wage war. And I think people in the main understand that there is an enemy and who the enemy is. The problem is not so much with the population. The problem is with its leadership.

Our lunch discussion went on from there, and fortunately the subject changed to happier matters. But it occurred to me that by interviewing Iddo, I might add his well-informed voice to the ongoing international discussion about terrorism in Europe. I was very curious myself to hear what he had to say about it.

We met a few days later and continued the conversation.

Iddo Netanyahu’s so-far best-known play – which appeared off-Broadway earlier this year in a five-week run and has been staged in more than half a dozen countries – is titled A Happy End. It is set in 1932-1933 and depicts a Jewish family in Berlin as they watch the rising dominance of Hitler and struggle to understand what kind of long-term threat he poses. But most of all, they remain distracted by heartfelt personal concerns and complications in their day-to-day lives.

I asked Iddo how he would compare attitudes in Europe today, especially in light of the recent attack on Paris, with those preceding the Third Reich’s dictatorship.

“A Happy End is set in the early 1930s,” he explained. “It’s about a Jewish family and the dangers they faced in 1932-33. But really, I wrote the play about Europe of today and, of course, about Israel. In a sense, it’s about the internal struggle between optimism, which resides in every human soul, and realism which can run counter to it.”

He went on to describe his play’s primary theme.

Self-delusion, in not wanting to understand dangers, is so strong in us because it’s painful to admit to processes that are threatening our cherished world, and sometimes taking action can be is even more painful.

In a sense, I can better understand those people in Europe then, during the rise of Hitler and even a few years after he took power, than today’s Europeans. They told themselves, “No, there’s still a chance here for peace.” Because Hitler always talked about peace. He didn’t say openly, “I’m going to wage war and destroy you.” True, if you’d read his earlier writings or carefully read between the lines of his speeches and analyzed his actions, then yes, you’d might have understood his intentions. But publicly, all he wanted was “peace.” Just give me a little bit of this and all will be well. So Chamberlain believed him.

But now, with ISIS or Al-Qaeda or Iran or Iran’s proxies like Hezbollah, they talk openly about what their real goal is. They don’t hide it: It’s world domination. Whether it’s Sunni world domination on the part of Al-Qaeda and ISIS and others, or whether it’s Shiite world domination on the part of Iran and its proxies, there’s nothing hidden here. They openly state what they want, even though they often give ad-hoc reasons for specific terrorists acts, supposed retaliations for actions by the West.

So I cannot even compare today’s leaders to Chamberlain. What are they thinking? They are being told to their face, “This is what we’re after. We’re out to destroy you.”

Told to their face day in and day out. Yet they persist in not doing much of anything. In fact, they persist in leaving themselves open to attack.

As our conversation continued, it focused on Europe’s leadership and what has weakened it so drastically. Iddo explained that in his view, “Europe’s leadership feels beholden to ideas that have been standard with academicians, with the press, with the various elites – ideas of universalism, internationalism, and certainly pan-Europeanism.

“This has to do with a rise anti-Western sentiment and a weakening of the national sense in each of these countries – certainly among the intellectual elites and those who follow them,” he added. “I think that explains a lot about what’s happening in Europe.”

He went on to say that in many ways, the European Union is a product of an anti-Western and anti-nationalist mindset that has taken over the West. Much of this emanated from World War II, when war was waged against the Nazi’s extreme form of nationalism – “a pathological hyper-nationalism.”

So it was asked, what’s the way to prevent wars like WWII? Do away with nationalism altogether (at least for the West). Instead, a sort of commodity was created – which is hard to define – where “bureaucrats are running this vague entity called Europe, thereby obliterating the whole sense of national identity.

“Nationalism,” Iddo went on to say, “is a very fine idea. And it is an idea that, in many ways, is the only guarantor of freedom. A leader who knows that he is leading his own people and is beholden to them has the sense and finds the courage to do what needs to be done for his people’s sake. But what if he is merely a part of some vague machinery of internationalism, and all the more so feeling beholden to it ideologically? He might pay lip service to the desires of his own nation, yes, but then do nothing of any real consequence when strong, painful action is needed.”

As I listened, I could almost hear John Lennon’s anthem playing in my head: “Imagine there’s no countries; it isn’t hard to do. Nothing to kill or die for, and no religion too.”

In fact, just days before, one of my 30-something sons in the United States pointed out to me that both faith in God and patriotism are frowned upon by his generation.

Ideas are powerful forces. And these two forces – nationalism and anti-nationalism – are battling each other not only in the minds of the young, but in the thinking of today’s most celebrated leaders.

Iddo
German Chancellor Angela Merkel

“You can even see even it in Angela Merkel,” Iddo remarked. “She has her own particular problems in terms of Germany’s identity from World War II. So she does something that she believes will finally give a new face to Germany for the whole international community to see. And she certainly has been lauded for it! Who in the media hasn’t lauded her over the last few months?: ‘My God, It’s a new Germany! Finally, it’s really, really changed!’”

So Merkel is opening the gates of Germany to countless immigrants from Muslim countries. Some of them are refugees, to be sure, but I imagine most are merely migrants seeking a “European” future.

Does she not have the sense to realize that this means a destructive weakening of her country? Doesn’t she know that she’s inviting in people who, for the most part, will not integrate, thereby causing endless internal strife, slowly tearing apart the fabric of German society? And I’m even not mentioning the terrorist potential.

Germany is a case in point because of the guilt it rightly feels about what happened in World War II. And certainly it’s a case in point in its active attempt to weaken the idea of peoplehood, of nationalism. And of paying lip service – and more than lip service – to other ideas. They couch those ideas in very nice terms like “human rights” and “multiculturalism,” but we all know that in the main such ideas are actually anathema to the societies these migrants come from, running counter to their ethos and beliefs, and that these very ideas will be under attack internally very soon.

In reflecting on all this, the big question in Iddo Netanyahu’s mind is, “Will the actual people of Europe – these are all democracies, after all – will they realize that this is their 11th hour? Will they come to their senses? Will they force their leaders to act as leaders of free nations? Or not? I don’t know.”

He believes that the free world is hanging in the balance. And, at this point, the future is unpredictable.

“Iran is far more dangerous than ISIS,” he told me. “It’s a huge nation with a very talented people and a standing army that will be getting stronger in the coming years. And they are in the process of getting nuclear weapons.”

He also pointed out that during the recent Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action negotiations,

The West relinquished any kind of confrontation with Iran. We saw that. And don’t think ISIS doesn’t watch it and see what’s going on. They are gaining tremendous energy from seeing the weakness of the West. This is a huge factor in the support they’re getting.

Just as the support Hitler got from his own population was from his early gains. He changed the status quo in the Rhineland. He was able to get part of Czechoslovakia – the German speaking part – as his own. He was able to get Austria. All these early gains were achieved without firing a single shot.

Likewise, the more the West relinquishes, the less it does in – at the very least – physically fighting the terrorist Islamic movements, the greater will be the growth of extremist elements.

Iddo Netanyahu concluded, “America is still a nation with a great degree of self-identity and sense of nationalism. Although its strength has been eroding over the past 50 years because of a particular ideology that has taken hold in many places, Americans still view the United States as a nation to be cherished.

“If America revives, it might push Europe to do something. And it’s also possible because of what’s just happened that France might show the way to the rest of the West, including America. Though I don’t place many hopes though on this latter possibility.

“But in the long run, as it was throughout the 20th century, so it is now. In the end, it depends on America.”

Nov 25, 2015 | Jerusalem Notebook, Jews and the Jewish State

Nearly a decade ago, my first Thanksgiving in Israel was a strange and a most unholiday-ish experience. After a lifetime of festive dinners with family and friends, I found myself in Jerusalem’s Old City, speaking to a small gathering of maybe 20 people about a rather grim subject: the persecution of Christians in Muslim countries. There weren’t any Americans in the crowd, which was made up mostly of German Christians.

After the fact, it occurred to me that not one of us had even thought to give thanks for our own safety and for the freedom to discuss the matter without fear.

As I walked home, I passed a brightly lit restaurant (which no longer exists) on Emek Refaim. It was noisy and packed with people. And I immediately noticed that the waiters and waitresses were wearing rather odd-looking costumes, apparently meant to represent Pilgrims and Indians (this was my conclusion after studying an array of Pocahontas-inspired paper headbands with a single feather thrust into the back).

It occurred to me that I hadn’t yet eaten, and that the eatery was sure to be serving turkey, dressing and pumpkin pie. But for some reason, I wasn’t in the mood. Instead, I made my way home and ate some leftover ravioli.

That rather solitary evening got me thinking about the holiday itself and its seeming disappearance from Jerusalem.

I asked my neighbor, Joe Straus, why Jerusalem’s Jews don’t celebrate Thanksgiving. “We do!” he said, with a smile. “Every Shabbat is a day of thanksgiving.”

Fair enough. For sure, there is a lot to be thankful for at Shabbat dinners – that is indisputable.

In any case, I later learned, as you’ll see below, that I was wrong about the lack of Thanksgiving dinners in Israel. I just hadn’t been in the right place at the right time.

Meanwhile, Joe’s remark stirred my curiosity. It didn’t take me long to realize that gratitude lies at the heart of nearly every Jewish prayer. Last week, I finally asked a rabbi about both Thanksgiving and the giving of thanks.

David Sterne describes himself as a Chasidic rabbi “living and enlivening in Jerusalem’s Old City.” I met him a few years ago and knew that he would have some insights into Thanksgiving in Judaism.

“As an American Jew,” he told me, “I have fond memories of Thanksgiving meals with the family, enjoying some turkey with all the trappings, cranberry sauce and especially pumpkin pie for dessert.

“Here in Israel, those memories serve me well, as I create a Thanksgiving Shabbat for friends and new immigrants, inviting guests over to enjoy the same cuisine (I make the pumpkin pie myself). Frequently, I am asked what this secular American holiday has to do with Judaism. Well, it has nothing to do with Judaism, and yet it has everything to do with Judaism.”

Of course I had to ask, “What do you mean it has both nothing and everything to do with Judaism?”

“Nothing” – because Thanksgiving was conceived and established by Christians who found themselves in a new and strange land (the east coast of what was later to become the U.S.) – with no association with either Jews or Judaism.

And yet “everything,” because those same Christians were devout pilgrims who had endured a difficult year and wanted to thank the One above for getting through that year (with a “little help” from some native American friends). And there is nothing more Jewish than giving thanks and acknowledging God.

These days, most Christians are not only aware of, but also intrigued by, the Hebraic roots of our faith. Meanwhile, we have been taught – for as long as most of us can remember – to give thanks for all things, even the things that seem less than welcome.

Still, I was particularly surprised by an English version of the Kaddish – the Jewish mourners’ prayer – which is not a lament at all (as I expected), but rather an offering of praise to God, even in the midst of great sorrow:

Exalted and hallowed be His great Name.
Throughout the world which He has created according to His Will.
May He establish His kingship, bring forth His redemption and hasten the coming of His Moshiach (Messiah).
In your lifetime and in your days and in the lifetime of the entire House of Israel, speedily and soon, and say, Amen.
May His great Name be blessed forever and to all eternity. Blessed and praised, glorified, exalted and extolled, honored, adored and lauded be the Name of the Holy One, blessed be He.
Beyond all the blessings, hymns, praises and consolations that are uttered in the world, Amen.
May there be abundant peace from heaven, and a good life for us and for all Israel; and say, Amen.
He Who makes peace in His heavens, may He make peace for us and for all Israel; and say, Amen.

Rabbi Sterne provided me with some further insight into the praise and worship that is so prevalent in Jewish prayer. “In fact, he told me, “the Hebrew word for ‘Jew’ – Yehudi – means ‘one who acknowledges.’ The etymological root of the word – hoda’ah – means ‘admission; acknowledgment.’”

He went on to explain,

There is nothing more basic, and yet profound, as acknowledging the One above, fully, face-to-face with the admission that we are “nothing,” no more than a speck in the cosmos. Yet we are “everything” for the precise reason that He smacked us right down here in the middle of this incredible universe – undoubtedly for the purpose of doing something unique.

Some of us manage to discover what that purpose is. Others don’t. But we can all give thanks to Him for putting us here, and acknowledge that we have a task.

The first thing that a Jew does in the morning, even before getting out of bed, is say, “Modeh ani lefanecha” – “I acknowledge your presence.” He then begins his prayers in the morning with the words “Hodu Lashem” – “Give thanks and acknowledge the Lord.” And finally the very pinnacle of prayers occurs when we say “Modim anachanu lach” – “We thank/acknowledge You.”

There are different levels and nuances of this gratitude and acknowledgment, but that is what Jews are all about: hoda’ah, Thanks-giving.

In fact, even the Hebrew word for turkey is hodu!

This year, once again, I’ll be in Jerusalem while my family abroad feasts on turkey, dressing, potatoes and gravy, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie and all the other trimmings – delicacies that reappear without fail on groaning tables all across the United States.

And in spirit, I’ll be right there with them. But I’ll also join my Jewish friends and neighbors here in Jerusalem, giving thanks, lifting a glass and being grateful for all the blessings we receive during our lifetime on earth.

As the Israeli toast says, “L’Chaim!” – “To life!”

Thank God for the gift of life He’s given to each of us.

Dec 24, 2015 | Jerusalem Notebook, Muslims and Muslim Majority States

And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”
Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying,
“Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.”
Luke 2:8-14 NIV

The inspiring words of the Luke the Evangelist are woven into the colorful Christmas tapestry that envelops us this time of year. And the wonderfully evocative word “peace” – such an integral part of the angelic declaration – is a common parlance in today’s world.

In Peter’s first letter to young, first-century churches, he quoted from Psalm 34,

Whoever would love life
and see good days
must keep their tongue from evil
and their lips from deceitful speech.
They must turn from evil and do good;
they must seek peace and pursue it.
(1 Peter 3:10-11)

With Christmas in the air, and hymns and carols declaring the arrival of the Prince of Peace, we are even more attuned to the word – but what does peace really mean? And how are we supposed to seek it?

As violence screams from international headlines and blood surges and pools across the face of the earth, the word peace often seems to be used almost promiscuously. We hear it frequently in phrases such as, “Peace envoy,” “Peace talks” and “Middle East Peace Process.”

Those of us who have seen several decades pass have been hearing about peace for as long as we can remember. The word emerged from the smoldering warzones of Vietnam, resounding in protest folk songs, in campus anti-war chants, and in the familiar “peace sign,” which appeared on T-shirts as a tie-dyed illustration of youthful hope.

Fast-forward some 40 years and we now hear the same outcry from the Middle East – and particularly from those who support “peace talks” to resolve the Israel-Palestine conflict.

Peace is a noble cause. It is a beautiful, if elusive, goal. And, in fact the Hebrew word Shalom – which both welcomes and bids farewell to guests – offers a deep blessing, evoking a state of completion and even of earthly perfection.

Today, however, the word shalom is often applied to redundant conferences and diplomatic dialogues; to a quest for compromise that will supposedly end tensions. A so-called cycle of violence is invariably introduced, to project moral equivalency onto both sides of the conflict.

Of course, the Biblical vision of hammering swords into plows, abandoning warfare and “pursuing peace” should never be taken lightly. But anyone who has lived in Israel for a prolonged period clearly recognizes that no one desires peace more than the Israelis.

Unfortunately, since the founding of the Jewish State in 1948, at least three generous peace offers from Israel have been turned down flatly by either Yasser Arafat or Mahmoud Abbas. CAMERA (Committee for Accuracy for Middle East Reporting in America) reported,

In 2008, after extensive talks, then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert met with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and presented a comprehensive peace plan. Olmert’s plan would have annexed the major Israeli settlements to Israel and in return given equivalent Israeli territory to the Palestinians, and would have divided Jerusalem.

In the summer of 2000, U.S. President Bill Clinton hosted intense peace talks at Camp David between Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli leader Ehud Barak, culminating in a comprehensive peace plan known as the Clinton Parameters, which was similar to the later Olmert Plan, though not quite as extensive.

The 1978 Camp David Accords between Israel and Egypt … provided for Palestinian autonomy in the territories of the West Bank and Gaza. Egyptian President Anwar Sadat begged the PLO and Arafat to accept what he had negotiated with Israel, and to engage in talks with Israel. President [Jimmy] Carter also called on moderate Palestinians to come forward and join the Cairo conference. Unfortunately, Arafat refused and did everything he could to undermine Sadat and the Camp David Accords, with PLO gunmen even murdering West Bank Palestinians who supported Sadat’s approach.

Recent Middle East history affirms that achieving peace is more easily said than done. In fact, an interesting biblical statement seems to foresee this awkward use of language.

In Jeremiah 6:14, in reference to Israel, the prophet relates that others have prophesied falsely, then goes on to say, “They have healed also the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, saying, Peace, peace; when there is no peace.”

One of the most well-known “peace” groups in Israel is called Shalom Achshav – meaning, in English, “Peace Now.” The word “achshav,” or “now,” implies impatience, seemingly offering a quick reconciliation, and is usually based on offering land for peace.

It is curious that such notions still survive after Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza in 2005. This unilateral decision by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has provided a foolproof laboratory analysis of how unrealistic such peacemaking ideas really are.

The vacuum left by Israel’s disengagement from Gaza – the removal of some 8,000 Jews from their beautifully tended settlements, synagogues, schools and gardens – brought forth a tsunami of Hamas terrorists, who have continued to launch missiles at Israel ever since.

As if that weren’t enough, similar arsenals have also appeared in the Sinai Peninsula after Israel’s departure in 1982, and in Southern Lebanon after leaving in 2000.

The Gaza disengagement and those before it “healed the daughter of God’s people slightly” with its hopes for peace, but did not provide true peace. Why?

For one thing, the religious and nationalist negotiators for Palestine have made it clear that they do not genuinely want to resolve the situation. This is true for a number of reasons, including financial ones. As author Edwin Black has said in his book Financing the Flames, “Peace is not profitable for the Palestinians.”

By this, Black simply means that a continuous influx of massive international funding lines the pockets of Palestinian leaders (never reaching ordinary Arab citizens) and is also doled out in the form of salaries to imprisoned terrorists and the surviving families of murderers.

Another reason involves radical Islamist claims to the land itself. Because all of Israel was once under the authority of Muslim rule (most recently that of the Ottoman Empire), according to strict interpretations of Islamic Sharia Law, it cannot return to the hands of infidels – in this case, specifically Jews.

As we close our eyes, envisioning a star-lit Bethlehem manger, a royal visitation of Eastern kings bearing elegant gifts, and a dangerous flight to Egypt to shield the infant Jesus from genocide, we have to ask ourselves what “Peace on Earth, good will to men” actually means. How are we supposed to “seek peace and pursue it” in today’s war-torn world?

There are three thought-provoking ideas in the angelic declaration to Bethlehem’s shepherds – which, through the words of Scripture, are a declaration to us as well.

First of all, we are instructed not to fear. Those simple guardians of their flocks were terrified by the supernatural radiance that surrounded them, eclipsing their familiar pastures. Yet the first thing they were told was to rejoice and not to be afraid, even though they were in clearly unexplainable circumstances.

So we find ourselves today in unusual times, facing unfamiliar scenarios and unpredictable dangers. Yet the Bible’s message to us is repeated again and again, and remains the same today: Fear not! I am with you always.

Second, the shepherds were given the somewhat contradictory message that the Jewish Messiah had been born, but that he was swaddled in pieces of cloth and lying in a manger! What a mystifying revelation – perhaps more puzzling to those who heard it later than to the dazzled shepherds themselves.

The promised Messiah was to bring God’s rule and reign to earth, and to rescue the Jewish people from their unjust treatment. Christians believe that Messiah has indeed come in his first advent. But we also anticipate a second advent. According to an ancient creed, “He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end.”

When? Then, as now, the timing of that glorious Messianic reign remains uncertain. But the promise is undeniable. And, as with most God-related matters, faith has to precede sight.

Finally, we have the familiar phrase, “Peace on earth, good will to men,” which is so beloved in Christmas lyrics.

More complex wording appears in the New International Bible: “and on earth peace to those on whom His favor rests.” Or, as the Amplified Bible says, “And on earth peace among men with whom He is well-pleased.”

How can we possibly gain the favor of God, or please him? If we seek him with all our hearts, we will surely find him. And from the beginning to the end of the Bible, we learn that he is pleased and honored by our faith in him and by our obedience to his Word.

Can we bring peace to the Middle East? As individuals, probably not. But we can each play a part in changing minds and hearts by being informed about the facts and by speaking the truth. Some of us can serve as warriors; others can battle with words, informing those who are misled or otherwise deluded.

We can all watch and pray; trust and obey.

But for now, we can and should recall some wonderful old words:

And ye, beneath life’s crushing load,
Whose forms are bending low,
Who toil along the climbing way
With painful steps and slow,
Look now! for glad and golden hours
come swiftly on the wing.
O rest beside the weary road,
And hear the angels sing!

Jan 13, 2016 | Christians and Minority Rights, Jerusalem Notebook, Muslims and Muslim Majority States

I was fortunate to meet Charmaine Hedding, a young South African Christian, during my first year in Jerusalem. Before long, we discovered that we were kindred spirits and became good friends. Our concerns regarding the attacks on Israel, as well as about Islamic persecution of Christians, have provided us with much common ground for more than a decade since.

Not long after I met her, Charmaine spent several years working to repatriate (mostly South) Sudanese to their African homeland. Some of them had initially entered Israel illegally and could not stay in the country.

Hedding and others – with Israel’s blessings – devised a plan through which these Africans would not only return to South Sudan, but would receive from Israel new skills and knowhow to help rebuild their devastated homeland.

Good friends, common ground.

Since those days, apart from our interest in Israel, both Charmaine and I have turned our attention toward the ever-increasing plight of Christian refugees in the Middle East. She has founded a humanitarian aid group called the Shai Fund and makes frequent trips to visit Christian refugees in order to discern their specific needs and provide them with basic necessities.

I, too, have visited the refugees. I went to Erbil, Kurdistan to interview some of those who had fled the onslaught of Islamic State terrorists in 2014. Tragically, some of them had run for their lives more than once, finding temporary shelter in the relatively safe Kurdish region of northern Iraq. But they had lost everything in the process.

As I wrote elsewhere,

Young Christian men who resisted Islamic State’s edict of “convert, pay jizya tax or leave” were shot. The elderly and newborns did not fare well on the long, hot trek, since most of those who fled weren’t even allowed to carry food or water with them. The survivors eventually limped into Erbil, the Kurdistan region’s capital city.

Even today, they have little more than the clothes in which they fled, with nothing remaining of a lifetime’s toil.

And not only have they lost many loved ones, but in a sense, they’ve lost some part of themselves. They are no longer teachers, shop owners, farmers, bankers or businessmen. They’ve forfeited all control over their lives, and have to rely on strangers whom they barely trust.

I have never encountered such utterly dispossessed people before – except for the Israelis I’ve interviewed over the years who were among some 850,000 Jews driven out of their ancient homelands in the mid-20th century. I recounted a number of their stories in my book “Saturday People, Sunday People.”

More recently, thousands of Iraqi and Syrian believers – most of them Assyrian Christians – have been expelled from their ancestral homes and subjected to unthinkable violence and abuse. In fact, my book’s title reflects a jihadi slogan: “On Saturday we kill the Jews; on Sunday we kill the Christians.”

Today there are fewer than 10 Jews left in Iraq. And now the Christian community is precipitously shrinking, as well. Along with a number of other groups, Shai Fund continues to assist the displaced Christians in Kurdistan, most of whom have nowhere to go.

But this Christmas, Hedding and her Shai Fund team visited a different locale. They found an opportunity to help provide for Christians who have made their way out of Iraq in the hope of finding a better future in neighboring Turkey.

I knew Charmaine had cut short her own family Christmas festivities to visit small enclaves of Christians scattered across Turkey. So I asked what she had learned during her recent trip.

What she and her team discovered reflects that some Muslim communities will open their lands and villages to fleeing Christians. The Turkish government and state, though Muslim, has most certainly given a place of refuge and protection to the Christians refugees. Though many of the Christians now settling in small villages in Turkey are greeted with some suspicion by the locals, government authorities are allowing them to enter Turkey and apply for refugee status.

During the Christmas season, Shai Fund visited 10 remote villages where Christian refugee communities have been forced to live. These towns do not have churches or local Christian populations, so Hedding and her team traveled with two priests from Istanbul, hoping to allow the refugees enjoy a more traditional celebration of the birth of Jesus.

“All of our Christmas services were held in wedding halls,” Charmaine told me.

She then explained that the UNHCR informs these Christians that they have permission to only live in far-flung Turkish villages where they are unable to work and provide income for themselves and their families. They have to wait for UNHCR interviews in these cities for years – some as long as until 2022. Only then will they be allowed to resettle.

Although their children are permitted to attend Turkish schools, many parents prefer that their children be taught in classrooms that make a point of keeping the children’s Christianity intact. Otherwise, they try to find a way for them to be tutored privately.

Hedding described their Christmas outreach:

We started in a town near the Black Sea, where we helped 26 families from Iraq. We visited a home where three families are living together in one apartment.

Originally from Mosul and Qaraqosh, when ISIS invaded their village, these Christians fled to Erbil. However they found no place to live there – no food and no opportunities. They came to see that, as Iraqi Christians, they no longer have a future.

So they made the painful decision to leave Iraq forever. They escaped to Turkey in the hope of eventually reaching Europe or North America.

And now, without food or any income, these believers are desperate to leave Turkey. They are longing for a country that will provide them with the right to work, to send their children to safe schools, and to be free to practice their faith.

So besides assisting with their Christmas services, we also gave out food cards loaded with Turkish lira at each location so that they can buy food.

In the next two villages they visited, the Shai Fund team assisted another 251 families.

In this region, the Christians had to wait not only for permission from local authorities to celebrate Christmas, but also for a priest to travel some eight hours to visit the villages.

Christian

“Outside the halls, there was security to protect the Christians from attacks by radical elements,” Charmaine explained to me.

“The families were warned not to linger outside the wedding halls after the service for fear they would be identified. A woman told me that she and others are afraid to wear a cross on a chain, for fear it will identify them and place them at risk.”

One of the halls refused to allow the celebrants to use microphones or loudspeakers, despite the fact that there were 800 people gathered in the hall. The local residents didn’t want anyone to know that Christians were holding a religious service for fear of reprisals or the vandalizing of their property, or both.

It is difficult to imagine living in such circumstances. Charmaine went on to explain,

The priest arrived with a suitcase holding the wafers and the wine for the Eucharist. The music was pre-recorded. And I had a sense of sorrow, because I know that some of the lost churches in the Nineveh Plain were not only beautiful buildings, but were known for their wonderful music.

Church choirs that once led congregations in singing and chanting their prayers are now scattered across the globe. One family tells me that some of their relatives are still in Turkey, one is in Germany, others are in Australia and two girls are still in Erbil, Kurdistan.

After the service, when they talk to me about their lives, sorrow is reflected in the eyes of the men, while the women weep quietly. During one conversation, an older woman quietly walked away, into the kitchen. I found her there, her face hidden between her shaking hands as she wept bitterly.

Yet, despite the pain and the fear, I couldn’t help but notice that their home has a small nativity set, openly celebrating the birth of their Savior.

Despite the danger, at each location the halls were packed to capacity as Christmas hymns and carols were sung in Aramaic and Arabic. And after the Christmas services, a number of babies were baptized, their names recorded in the church rolls.

“Providing help to these believers both physically and spiritually at Christmastime clearly strengthened their hope with faith,” Hedding concluded.

“And sadly, hope and faith are all they have left.”

Feb 3, 2016 | Christians and Minority Rights, Muslims and Muslim Majority States

Most of us who follow the news have seen the heart-rending photos of weary parents holding beautiful, brown-eyed babies, making their way to Europe in search of a better life. We’ve seen barbed-wire borders, evacuees fleeing across deserts and the tragedy of capsized boats and lost children. We’ve also watched the behavior of newly arrived young Muslim males toward women, particularly in Cologne, Germany on New Year’s Eve.

The word “refugee” is on many people’s lips as a virtual tsunami of Middle Easterners and Africans floods Europe, setting in motion a seemingly never-ending drama.

Winter weather has slowed the pace of perilous sea crossings between Turkey and the Greek islands. But the political storms directed at Europe’s leadership – and outrageous behavior on the part some of the migrants – seem to be intensifying.

Germany’s beleaguered chancellor, Angela Merkel, initially adopted an open-arms policy toward migrants (leading to burgeoning numbers of arrivals into Europe) alongside raging debates about the wisdom of her decision.

On Jan. 30, Merkel announced rather belatedly that many of the refugees will be expected to leave Europe and return to their homes once the Syrian civil war has ended.

Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel Saturday said she expects many refugees to leave Europe’s largest economy once the war in Syria is over, addressing public concerns the country won’t be able to cope with the continued influx of immigrants.

“We expect that once peace is restored in Syria” and once terror organization ISIS is curtailed, many refugees will return back home, Ms. Merkel told members of her conservative Christian Democratic Party at a gathering broadcast on German television.

Some laughed at Merkel’s optimistic declaration. But the desperation of many refugees is not in question. The war-torn Middle East – Syria and Iraq, along with Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan – is roiling with the displacement of millions. Some have fled Syria’s war, while others have run for their lives from the Islamic State. Many have languished in miserable refugee centers and squalid displacement camps for years.

The refugees’ fragile hopes of returning to their homes have been shattered, much like the houses and villages they once populated.

However, along with the genuinely displaced and dispossessed Syrians, Iraqis and even Iranians, thousands of economic migrants have also joined the parade, traveling from North and Sub-Saharan Africa and beyond to seek a new beginning in prosperous Europe’s welcoming embrace.

Meanwhile, there are repeated warnings, not only from security forces and police, but also from some of the refugees themselves (see below) that ISIS has quietly infiltrated the tide of evacuees.

After visiting some displaced Christians in Kurdistan a little more than a year ago, I had another recent opportunity, as I traveled back to Jerusalem from the United States, to listen to some other concerned voices. They told me not only about the ongoing refugee drama, but also about the Islamist ideology that overshadows it.

The first person I met with was Baroness Cox, former deputy speaker of the House of Lords in the United Kingdom and an indefatigable warrior for human rights in the world. I had the honor of writing a biography of Lady Cox a few years ago, Baroness Cox: Eyewitness to a Broken World. We shared a lovely mid-January dinner in London.

Refugee
Lela Gilbert and Baroness Cox

I wanted to hear from the baroness about the “private members’ bill” she has recently introduced to the House of Lords. She has done so, working with British Muslim women’s organizations, in hopes of addressing some of the dangers and struggles they face.

I asked her why she is concerned about the practice of Sharia (Islamist) law in Britain. Does it really cause suffering to Muslim women? Here’s what she told me:

As a result of the rulings of Sharia Councils/Courts operating in this country, which not only discriminate systematically against women in ways which would make our suffragettes turn in their graves, they also represent a threat to the fundamental principle in our democracy of “One Law for All.”

Essential tenets of Sharia Law include many forms of systematic gender discrimination against women such as:

– Asymmetrical access to divorce: A man can divorce his wife merely by saying, “I divorce you” three times. The woman has to pay and also often to fulfill other requirements, which may be difficult or impossible for her.

– Polygamy: Under Sharia Law, a man may have four wives; some Muslim women in this country say they often have no choice. Sometimes they are married into a polygamous marriage without even realizing it is polygamy.

– Inheritance provisions: Under Sharia Law, a girl or woman characteristically receives half the amount of legacy left to a man or boy.

– Unequal respect and weight of evidence: In a Sharia Law context, a woman’s evidence is deemed to be half the value of a man’s, and therefore two women may be required to testify compared to one man.

Sharia Law also legitimizes physical “chastisement,” thereby allowing some forms of domestic violence.

I also asked the baroness whether the massive number of refugees flooding Europe and the ongoing reports of sexual abuse by male immigrants might awaken the West to the issues about Sharia law that she is addressing.

“This is a complex, confused and confusing issue,” she told me. “The UK has an honorable record of providing refuge to genuine refugees, which would include, for example, some of the Christians and Yazidis fleeing from ISIS terrorism in the Middle East. However, there is a real fear that many of those seeking to come to the UK are not genuine refugees and may include member of ISIS or activists with some related Islamist agenda.”

After hearing these troubling words from Baroness Cox, I flew to Munich, Germany the following day. There I found people who have lived under the shadow of the Islamism Lady Cox described, and have suffered in greatly because of its brutality.

Binan is a soft-spoken Yazidi woman who arrived in Munich before the notorious 2014 ISIS assault on her people. Today she is working with admirable tenacity and humility to help her co-religionists. She has lost many friends and most of her extended family to the murderous violence.

Even before ISIS emerged in a blaze of horror, in her Iraqi village (in Nineveh), Binan saw friends and acquaintances gunned down by radicals for such crimes as purchasing alcohol or eating during the Ramadan fast.

Eventually, her village was wiped out entirely during the 2014 invasion, and the threatened families fled on foot toward Sinjar. Few survived. Stories about the violence against women that the Yazidis subsequently suffered – from rape to kidnapping to sexual slavery – are well known.

Today, she told me, it is very difficult to help the brutalized Yazidi women who have found their way to Munich. “They will not talk to anyone about what happened to them. They feel shamed and afraid. And it is very difficult to see their pain and not be able to help them.”

“We have lost everything,” one of these women told Binan. “They have taken everything from us. They have taken ourselves. Ourselves. Our identity, who we once were. We have nothing left.”

A day or two later, a friend and I shared pizza with a young man and woman who had recently arrived in Munich from Syria. They are Assyrian Orthodox Christians. He is from Damascus; she is from Latakia.

I won’t reveal their names, as they continue to be at risk. We’ll call them “Miriam” and “Yako.”

Binan has described the Yazidis as “a minority within a minority [Kurds].” The two Syrians I spoke to are in similar circumstances – Christians among the largely Muslim refugee minority in Europe.

After an agonizing farewell to their families, Miriam and Yako crossed into Turkey, found their way on foot to the coast (which took more than a week) and braved the notoriously dangerous journey across the water to Greece.

“The worst 17 hours of my life were in that boat,” Miriam told me. “The smugglers threw away our backpacks – food, water and whatever we’d tried to take with us.” Thankfully, they had hidden their documents under their clothes. “We were so crowded in the boat we could hardly move. The sun burned our skin. And everyone was deathly seasick.”

But other dangers awaited them. Miriam is a beautiful young woman. Along the way, Muslim men continuously assailed her. They groped her, threatened her, spit on her, followed her and at least once attempted to rape her.

“I had to constantly watch over her,” Yako recalled. “She didn’t even dare to visit the toilet on her own.

Their entire journey took 27 days.

“I’ve heard,” I began, hoping I wasn’t bringing up a touchy subject, “that there may be terrorists among the refugees. Did you have any reason to think so?”

They looked at each other and nodded. “Yes, there were Daesh (the Arabic word for ISIS or Islamic State) with us.”

“How did you know?”

“By things they said,” Yako told me. “You could even tell by the way they behaved.”

“And the look in their eyes,” Miriam added, with a shudder.

“So there were a few…?”

“No, many!” she said emphatically. “There were many,” Yako agreed.

For Westerners – Europeans and Americans alike – questions about the refugees often relate to the financial burden they will place on their host countries, or about their inability (or refusal) to assimilate culturally. And, of course, the possibility of jihadi infiltration is unquestionable.

But there are other considerations.

My new Yazidi friend Binan said something especially poignant at the end of our interview. I asked, “If you could say anything to the people in the West about what has happened to the Yazidis, what would you tell them?”

“I would like to say,” Binan began rather hesitantly, “I would like to inform them about the Yazidis, to interest them in what the Yazidis had to go through in Iraq and Syria.”

Then her voice broke. “I want to apologize for being in Germany. We are sorry to be here, but we became refugees in our own country, and were in great danger. We could do nothing about that.”

Christian and Yazidi refugees. Muslim women and girls trapped in Sharia enclaves. They all need our prayers. They – and those who help them, like the baroness and Binan – need our voices to tell their stories. And they need our wholehearted efforts to provide them with hope for the future.

Feb 12, 2016 | Jerusalem Notebook, Jews and the Jewish State

Just days after my family’s Christmas and New Years celebrations ended in California, and before I returned to Israel, I stopped at a drugstore to pick up a couple of travel-size products.

As I searched for Aisle 8, where small bottles of shampoo, hairspray, shower gel and other TSA-approved carry-on items are displayed, I noticed some rather urgent activity going on in Aisle 3, the greeting card section.

Christmas, New Year and Hanukkah cards were hurriedly being yanked off the racks, tossed into bins and carefully replaced by valentines of every shape, style and message. Meanwhile, on the other side of the aisle was a vast array of chocolates in heart-shaped boxes.

It was only the first week of January. But America’s Valentine’s Day merchandising machine was already in full swing.

As I stood in the checkout line, my mind wandered to Israel. I tried my best to recall what Valentine’s Day looks like there, but I simply couldn’t remember. And then it dawned on me that there was an explanation for that: If you want to celebrate Valentine’s Day in Jerusalem, you have to go looking for it.

There are a couple of reasons for this valentine void. For one thing, Hallmark holidays haven’t yet hijacked the Israeli market – not Mother’s Day, Father’s Day or birthdays. Not even Valentine’s Day.

For another, Valentine’s Day is a theoretically a Christian holiday – ostensibly celebrating the life and martyrdom of a soldier named Valentine who was reportedly executed by Claudius Caesar for a heroic act. The story is sketchy, to say the least. There seem to have been several heroes with the same name.

Meanwhile, even in America, it’s tricky to try to explain how a courageous saint’s burial date has become an occasion for roses-are-red rhymes (sometimes risqué ones at that), pre-wrapped jewelry items studded with red rhinestones, and bouquets of red roses tied, of course, with red ribbons. Not to mention a zillion cards addressed to friends, classmates, family members and sweethearts.

And as for Israel? Granted, the lingerie shop window on Emek Refaim Street in Jerusalem currently features a few dozen red paper hearts serving as a backdrop for a slinky red nightgown and some other lacy items. But I looked in vain elsewhere, on both sides of the busy street – which boasts at least 10 gift shops – for any other signs of Valentine’s Day.

Interestingly, one possible explanation is that there is a Jewish holiday that bears some resemblance to Valentine’s Day. It’s called Tu B’Av, and it takes place in the summertime.

Tu B’Av, the 15th Day of Av, is both an ancient and modern holiday. Originally a post-biblical day of joy, it served as a matchmaking day for unmarried women in the second Temple period (before the fall of Jerusalem in 70 C.E.). Tu B’Av was almost unnoticed in the Jewish calendar for many centuries, but it has been rejuvenated in recent decades, especially in the modern state of Israel. In its modern incarnation it is gradually becoming a Hebrew-Jewish Day of Love, slightly resembling Valentine’s Day in English-speaking countries.

In any case, young Jerusalem lovers really don’t need a holiday to revel in their passion. As in the west, they are free to flirt, walk hand-in-hand, embrace and kiss (except in very religious communities) every day of the year. The radio plays love songs 24/7, amorous films are everywhere and wedding celebrations never cease. Love is always in the air.

But there’s another kind of love in Israel that seems rather exceptional to me, and uniquely Israeli. It’s not a hearts-and-flowers expression, but rather a kind of communal, brotherly love that I’ve rarely witnessed elsewhere

For example, a story recently appeared in the Israeli news site Algemeiner that caught my eye.

Dozens of Israelis answered a Facebook appeal to help a 90-year-old woman living alone in poor conditions in the northern part of the country. Photos documented her squalid surroundings. The following are samples of responses from complete strangers:

“Willing to give her a brand-new feather quilt, warm slippers and clothing. And where can I bring bedding and a winter coat?”

“I can organize food – easily, since I live in her area – and sheets and I can donate a table, and because I have a car, anyone can contact me to deliver things to her.”

“Interested in buying her a new heater, and if she needs any other electrical appliance, I’d be happy to buy that, too. Is there a cell phone number I can call?”

“Send me a cell number, and I’ll take care of doing her shopping and bring her blankets or whatever else she needs.”

“I have a new heater to give her and a used stove, if she needs it. I can deliver the heater today.”

“Is there a bank account where one can transfer money to her?”

“When can I get to work?”

“Hey, I’d love to know how I can donate supplies and to come and help renovate her house.”

As one writer pointed out, “This is the beautiful side of Israeli society, which so often gets overlooked in the fray of politics and conflict.”

In another recent story, a “social experiment” – a kind of “do you love your neighbor?” exercise – resembled episodes on the old Candid Camera TV show. A man pretending to be blind was videotaped asking passersby to give him change for a 20-shekel note. Except what he was holding in his hand was a 100-shekel note.

According to the video, “Every single person he stopped on the street – including some who approached to ask if he needed help – pointed out that the bill he was holding was, in fact, a 100-shekel bill. One man even gave him an additional 20 shekels. Other passersby behaved in exactly the same way when the same experiment was conducted with a 200-shekel bill.”

I was sorry to read that when a similar experiment was performed in the U.S., “many Americans took advantage of the situation.”

For me, an especially poignant Israeli-style “valentine” took place a few weeks ago. A young man who works in real estate and is about the age of my 30-something sons was in touch with me by phone about a referral I’d given him.

In passing, I asked him if he knew where I could purchase a new printer for my computer and have it delivered to my home. He called me back with a couple of websites, but both were in Hebrew, and apart from the HP logo and the prices, I couldn’t figure out what was being offered.

We talked again, and he looked at the sites and provided me with prices, features and phones numbers. I tried phoning a nearby store, but reached a robotic phone tree; not only was it in Hebrew, it also kept disconnecting my call. I decided to go to the store in a taxi, but there was a downpour so I thought I’d better wait.

When the young man called me back to check yet again, I told him what I’d decided to do.

“No, don’t do that,” he said, and then paused momentarily. “Look, I’m going to go buy the printer and bring it to you right now.”

“No! You don’t need to do that – I can do it!”

“No, I insist. It no big deal.”

“But…”

“I’ll be there in an hour.”

He appeared at my door (third floor, no elevator) an hour later, dripping with rainwater and carrying the printer. He had paid for it himself (of course I paid him back), installed it, called technical support to solve an ink cartridge issue – which took an hour – and didn’t leave until the job was done.

It’s true that there are many kinds of love, and the romantic version that inspires poems of the “roses are red, violets are blue” variety is a wonderful, exhilarating experience.

But the kind of love I’ve so often seen demonstrated in this war-torn nation is spontaneous, generous and guileless. I’m pretty sure it’s rooted in an eternal principle that believing Christians and Jews share. And it dates back to something very close to the Year One.

“Love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord” (Lev 19:18).

Greeting cards, red hearts, boxes of chocolates and bouquets of roses are optional.