Aramean Christians Train to Fight for Israel For decades, the country classified this community as Arab over its objections By Rebecca Sugar and Michael Freund.
Forty-eight Israelis graduated in February from Kinneret, a premilitary program, or mechina, in Kibbutz Beit-Zera, near the Sea of Galilee. They spent seven months undergoing training, lectures and field exercises to prepare for army service. Unlike the country’s dozens of other mechinot, Kinneret’s founder and half of its students are Aramean Christians.
The Jewish state is home to some 185,000 Christians, including around 15,000 Arameans, whose ancestors lived in the Levant before the Arab conquest and were early followers of Jesus. For decades Israel registered them as Arabs over their objection.
In 2014 Israel recognized the Aramean Christian community. That recognition was an important step toward fuller integration into Israeli society, says Shadi Khaloul, who founded Kinneret in 2017.
Mr. Khaloul, 48, was born in Jish, a mixed Christian-Muslim community in north Galilee, and educated in Haifa. His uncle served in the Israel Defense Forces, and his father was an Israeli policeman. It was no surprise, then, when he joined the army and became a paratrooper at 18. “I was taught that the Jews are our brothers and our allies,” Mr. Khaloul says. “This state is our state. We need to defend it too.”
He laments that young Aramean Christians study in Israel’s Muslim educational system, where they aren’t taught about their own heritage or historical ties with the Jewish people. Students “become anti-Israel under this system,” Mr. Khaloul says. “It’s what they are taught.” He says he filed a complaint two years ago with the Education Ministry after a Muslim teacher in Jish reprimanded an Aramean high-school student for honoring Israel’s fallen soldiers on Memorial Day. “This is not our holiday,” the teacher reportedly told the teenager. Mr. Khaloul says there are many such incidents in the schools.
As a result, Israeli Arameans, who aren’t drafted like their Jewish peers, don’t usually volunteer for the IDF. For Mr. Khaloul this is both an individual and communal tragedy. The military is one of the most important institutions in Israeli life. Soldiers form lifelong social bonds and vital career networks. “Joining the IDF opened many doors for me,” Mr. Kahloul says. “When the youth in my community don’t serve, this affects their whole lives.”
The IDF also promotes shared identity, bringing together disparate groups from across Israeli society. Aramean Christians who don’t enlist are disconnected from their history and destiny. “Jews and Aramean Christians are the indigenous people of the region,” Mr. Kahloul says. “We developed from Jews. If we deny Jewish existence here, we deny our own.”
There is a practical benefit to military service as well. Christians have been persecuted in the Mideast for centuries. “Only in Israel are Christians safe,” Mr. Khaloul says. “They want to keep the country strong. They saw what Hamas did, and they say that this threat will follow them too.”
He created Kinneret with this in mind. The program teaches Hebrew to Christians, prepares them for IDF entrance exams, and connects them with Jewish peers. Kinneret has graduated 315 men and women since its inception, all of whom have joined the IDF. In 2023 Mr. Khaloul says limited funding allowed him to accept only 48 out of 1,000 applications.
Neveen Elias became an IDF officer last year at 39. She is the main recruiter for Kinneret and proudly walks around Jish in her military reserves uniform. “I am an Israeli Christian Aramaic citizen belonging to the Maronite Church of Antioch,” she says. “I don’t care what they say about my uniform. There is no safer place for Christians than in Israel.” She adds: “I feel that God needs me to help in this time, especially now.” Her eldest son, Elias, is serving in the IDF, an example Ms. Elias hopes others will follow.
Wasam Salameh has. He graduated from Kinneret last month and says his goal is “to be recruited to 8200,” one of the IDF’s most storied intelligence units. The 18-year-old from the Galilean village of Tur’an says military service will help him feel “more Israeli” and that he wants to be “a good citizen” and protect his family.
“Before this program, I didn’t know about the modern existence of the Aramean people. I was sure they had disappeared from the world,” says Jonathan Heimann, a Jewish Kinneret graduate from Kfar Saba. Today, he says he appreciates the significance of the Arameans and their connection to the Jews.
“The Jews are an open-minded people,” Mr. Khaloul says. “They want to know about the people who are sharing statehood with them, who are willing to defend the country.” That shared sense of affection and purpose binds Jews and Christians together at one of the most critical moments in Israel’s history. “This is our role in this land as Christians,” he says, “to build bridges.”
Ms. Sugar is a columnist for the New York Sun. Mr. Freund is a columnist for the Jerusalem Post.
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