יוֹחָנָן: Dear Friends, we are B'nei Elohim now and it has not yet been made clear what we shall become; we do know that when He appears, we shall be like Him because we shall see Him as He really is:
StandWithUs: Did you know? There is an annual Philippine Fair in Haifa, organized by the Philippine Embassy in Tel Aviv and the Municipality of Haifa, featuring booths selling Filipino nicknacks and food as well as showcasing Filipino music and dance.
Babylonian Talmud, Pesachim 87b: The Holy One exiled Israel among the nations only in order that converts might join them.
SARAH HERSHENSON: Every year, a number of Filipino women who come to work in Israel convert to Judaism and are here to stay.
Amnon Ramon: We can see this is a growing phenomenon and it has changed the face of Christianity in the Holy Land.
In the Holy Land, a changed Christian world: The schedules for Mass at the two Roman Catholic churches in Jaffa, on Israel’s Mediterranean coast, reveal a change that has dramatically, if quietly, altered the face of Christianity in the Holy Land.
The two Masses in Arabic for the town’s native Arab Christian population are outnumbered by four attended mainly by Filipina caregivers.
Father Ramzi Sidawi, an Arab Catholic from Jerusalem, is the parish priest in Jaffa. Outside the church windows, he said, he now listens every day to children from Africa and the Philippines playing in Hebrew, the language of their schools and their parents’ employers.
On a recent Sunday, the chapel at the Ratisbonne monastery in downtown Jerusalem rang with the sound of hymns in Tagalog, one of the languages of the Philippines. Most of the worshippers were women who serve as caregivers for elderly Israelis.
There were 5,000 Filipino workers in Israel when Father Angelo Beda Ison, a Manila-born Franciscan who tends to the local Filipino community, arrived in 1991. Today there are 40,000 to 100,000.
The past two decades have seen one of the most significant influxes of Christians into the Holy Land since the Crusades, and it has created a wholly new Christian landscape shaped by the realities of Israel.
For the first time, the Catholic Church has to deal with Catholic kids who are assimilating into a Jewish majority. There are now several thousand children born to foreign workers who speak Hebrew as a first language, celebrate Jewish holidays with their classmates and are subject, like children everywhere, to the pull of the mainstream.
Catholics are not the only Church dealing with demographic shifts. Immigrants from the former Soviet Union began moving to Israel en masse in the early 1990s. Among them were an estimated 50,000 to 80,000 practicing Christians, mostly Orthodox. So the Russian Orthodox Church now holds services in Hebrew every week in Jerusalem. The tiny Ethiopian Orthodox Church, too, has been dealing with its own newcomers: asylum seekers from Eritrea reaching Israel in increasing numbers, smuggled in from Egypt by Bedouin.
These disparate groups of Christians share one trait — they have gone almost unnoticed by the majority of Israelis.
DAVID W. CHEN: Hillcrest now has Rockland’s highest percentage of African-Americans and Asians, plus a growing number of Hispanic residents, making it one of the state’s most diverse communities.
But the shifts also show how racial change, particularly in sprawling suburbs, can occur not just relatively amicably but sometimes without attracting much notice.
Even within Ramapo, Hillcrest is often overlooked. To the south is Spring Valley, a diverse hub grappling with overcrowded housing and economic redevelopment, while to the southwest and northeast, respectively, are the Orthodox and Hasidic enclaves of Monsey and New Square.
Still, most residents seem genuinely surprised and grateful that Hillcrest has changed so much with so little fuss – so far.
Thelma DeGuzman immigrated directly from the Philippines, joining relatives already in the area. She saw immediately that Hillcrest differed from her expectations of an American suburb.
“I thought there were only tall white people because of what I see in the movies,’ said Ms. DeGuzman, a nursing aide. ‘But then I said, 'Oh, my God! This is like the Philippines! So many Filipinos!”
