בְנֵי־לֹ֣וט
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Be Happy on Your Holiday. V'samchata B'chagicha #TuesdayThoughts pic.twitter.com/5BTWRRsFeh— David Ha'ivri 🇮🇱 (@haivri) October 10, 2017
Until I saw it, I didn't believe it is real. This is the sign found by a Jewish family in a Swiss hotel in Arosa. https://t.co/FmTf0lp4Ks pic.twitter.com/HjeuRrcFiZ— Sacha Rojtman Dratwa (@SachaDratwa) August 14, 2017
We wish our friends and all people who celebrate Sukkot (Feast of Tabernacles) a joyous and happy holiday. pic.twitter.com/yYL7lWI4kt— Embahada ng Israel (@IsraelinPH) Oktubre 16, 2016
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!”
Neighborhood Facebook page is BLOWING UP b/c the local Filipino bakery started selling rugelach but calls it "Jewish Chocolate Croissant."
— David Ziff (@djsziff) September 6, 2015
Karen Bowerman: Jews have been arriving in the Philippines since the Spanish Inquisition in the 16th century
I catch up with a local guide, Angelo Alon, for a tour of Intramuros, Manila’s historic quarter, built by the Spanish, destroyed in the Second World War but since restored with the old citadel, Fort Santiago, forming the centrepiece.
Manila is also home to a tiny Jewish population
The rain ricochets off the river; I note the paparazzi are in the dry. I brave it out, and, at the risk of a wobble, wave and smile. A man fires off a volley of shots then waves and smiles back. Such is my introduction to Bohol, "the Island of Friendship," in the Philippines.
As the sky clears, my instructor, Troy, and I paddle through dripping rainforest to the small Busay Falls. Clearings reveal patterned huts woven from banana leaves. A man fishing for tilapia drops a line from a bamboo pontoon. There’s the smell of meat cooking on hot coals.
But it’s another form of wildlife for which Bohol is known; it’s the Philippine tarsier, said to have been the inspiration for the character of Yoda in Star Wars.
The nocturnal, fist-sized creature is among the smallest primates in the world. Its eyes cover three quarters of its head and it has an exceptionally long ‘middle finger’ or tarsus bone, hence its name.
I creep through a forest protected by the Philippine Tarsier and Wildlife Sanctuary near Corella. Amazingly, I’m in luck; clinging with its sucker-tipped hands to a narrow branch, I spot a shy fellow snoozing. It opens its goggle eyes and almost seems to smile.
I visit during the May-to-October wet season, when everything is green. But it’s all still pretty dramatic, as the hills seem to glow under a brooding sky.
Modern Jeepneys are now produced with surplus engines and parts coming from Japan. The decorations are entertaining – "God is the answer," one vehicle claims. "In God’s speed," declares another. But my favourite is "Thou shalt not kill" – always worth remembering when you hit the road.
From Manila, it’s a short flight south-west to Busuanga in the island province of Palawan, for a relaxing end to my stay. I catch a boat to the privately-owned Dicilingan Island, occupied solely by the Huma Island Resort and Spa. I’m welcomed with garlands and song, and dine on locally-caught lapu lapu and cassava cake made from a grated root vegetable, eggs and coconut milk.
Then it’s off to my over-water villa and outdoor Jacuzzi, from where I can spy the setting sun and say a fond farewell to the Philippines.
j.: Ruthie Arbeiter and Joseph Caparas were married on Sunday, Aug. 2 at the Lake Natoma Inn in Folsom. Rabbi David Booth of Congregation Kol Emeth officiated at the wedding. The couple had a traditional Conservative Jewish ceremony, combined with Filipino customs to reflect the groom’s heritage.
The couple met in 2008 during their freshman year at Stanford University. The bride works at Congregation Kol Emeth in Palo Alto, and the groom works in marketing and operations for a local startup. The newlyweds live in Mountain View, and the bride has changed her name to Ruthie Caparas.
Bnei Lot are of an ancient origin. In the migratory tradition of Ruth begun more than two millennia ago, a remnant of David and Solomon migrated into Maritime Southeast Asia which comprises what is now Brunei, East Timor, Indonesia, Malaysia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, The Philippines, and Singapore, as well as Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia, with a sizeable minority of Malays migrating back to their tribal allotments in Sephardic Judah, besides Terrestrial and Figurative Jordan.
