The 13,000 Arab-speaking Christians in Jerusalem belong to a variety of denominations. Most of them are Greek Catholics, or Greek Orthodox. It should be noted, however, that most of them are secular. they do celebrate the main holidays
but do not visit the church every Sunday. In Jerusalem the political pressure is very high and the Palestinian identity is strong. Rejection from the Israeli side is a result of fear and pressure of the surrounding society.
The Hebrew course project is only the first step in a variety of future projects designed to bring the Jerusalemite Christians closer to Israeli society and the State of Israel and to introduce them to their historical roots (Jews
and Aramaic) before the term "Arab Christians" came up.
The efforts for their rapprochement with the State of Israel and their subsequent integration into Israeli society is a step towards strengthening the State of Israel and comes from a Zionist perspective of us.
At the same time, this is a step of building trust between Jews and Christians. The average Israeli does not distinguish too much between the different denominations, and during daily life in Israel, he sees and knows the Arabic-speaking Christians. Therefore,
building the bridge has an important contribution to building the trust that will also have a positive impact on the relations between Jews and Evangelical Christians.
In the future, we hope that more Arabic-speaking Christians from Jerusalem will be integrated into the Israeli society and will take another important step in volunteering for the to IDF or National Service (today only very few
of the Christians in Jerusalem are taking this step, which is a dangerous step for the whole family due to their residential environment).
For further reading - CHRISTIANS ISRAEL - RISING SPRING: https://www.breakingisraelnews.com/120851/christians-israel-rising-spring/
SILOAM - BUILDING BRIDGES
Amit Barak
Consultant on Relations between Israel and the Christian world,
Christians enlistment in the IDF,
and Christians
integration in Israeli society.
+972-55-6611685
שילוח - בונים גשרים
עמית ברק
יועץ ליחסים בין ישראל לעולם הנוצרי,
לגיוס נוצרים לצה"ל והשתלבות בחברה הישראלית.
055-6611685