It is rare that religion and science find agreement, but that is what happened when Britain’s Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks spoke at a meeting on saving the earth from climate change.
“The great Harvard biologist E.O. Wilson published a book in 2007 called “Creation”, subtitled An Appeal to Save Life on Earth,” Sacks told leaders of all the major faiths meeting at Lambeth Palace in London on Thursday.
(Photo: A partially dried reservoir in Yingtan, Jiangxi province, China, 29 Oct 2009/stringer)
“I thought that was a very good book. E.O. Wilson is known not to be religious, but what this book was was a call to religious people and scientists to call off the war between religion and science and work together for the sake of the future of life on earth.
“And I felt that was a very generous and appropriate call by a non-religious scientist.”
He said “that science and religion despite their apparent friction actually converge on a profoundly scientific and at the same time religious idea that there is a kinship of life and hence a covenant of life”.
Not only did such a high-profile religious figure agree with the scientific world, but faith leaders found harmony among themselves at the same meeting.
Sitting next to Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury and spiritual head of the Anglican Church, was the Archbishop of Westminster Vincent Nichols, who only days earlier had delivered the Pope’s offer to disaffected Anglicans the chance to convert to Rome.
Also attending were faith and community organisation leaders including Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Baha’i, Jain and Zoroastrian.
(Photo: Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, 23 July 2006/Paul Hackett)
Organised by Williams, the leaders issued a joint statement in which they “recognised unequivocally that there is a moral imperative” to tackle the causes of global warming.
They agreed to work together to raise awareness about the effects of “catastrophic climate change”, saying it was the poor and vulnerable who most suffered from the ensuing droughts, floods, water shortages and rising sea levels.
Quoting from the book of Genesis, Sacks said man was placed on earth to serve it and protect it. “Man was a guardian, not the owner using and abusing the good things on earth,” he said.
“We are taken from the earth and therefore owe it a sense of kinship and responsibility. We believe our very existence as human beings come wrapped up in environmental imperatives and ecological responsibility.”
Drawing on the story of Noah’s Ark where all animals, including the lion and the lamb, had to survive side by side, he said we would all drown if we failed to work together.
Of course, if everybody kept the Sabbath, when nobody drove cars, flew by plane, or switched on any electrical appliances, the environmental problem would be solved, he said.
But more realistically, a new set of rituals would have to be devised that recognise the importance of the environment.
“What religion allows us to do is take the big ideas and translate them into daily rituals,” he said.
(Photo: Posters for protest in Jerusalem against parking lot open on Sabbath, 8 July 2009/Baz Ratner)
In a move that may literally take the breath away from many of the world’s Orthodox Jews, a group of Israel’s top rabbis recently ruled that riding in what for decades have been designated as “Shabbat (Sabbath) elevators,” is against Jewish law. This decision — already been opposed by other leading rabbis – could force many Jews who live in apartment buildings to sweat their way up staircases once a week.
The Jewish Sabbath, or Shabbat, is meant to be a day of rest. Observant Jews refrain from working, traveling in vehicles, spending money and from using electricity.
In modern times, it’s tough to imagine going 24 hours without using anything electric. So gadgets have been invented to allow the use of certain appliances without physically turning them on. Like timers for lights, called Shabbat clocks. Or special cookers for stove tops. Or elevators for Shabbat.
The Shabbat elevators, which are ubiquitous in Israel and fairly common in Jewish neighborhoods around the world, are designed to stop automatically at every floor, so passengers are guaranteed to (eventually) make it to their destination without having to activate anything electrical.
But in a surprise decision, a group of top rabbis ruled that riding these elevators was not kosher.
The decision, published as a small notice (shown below) in a religious newspaper last week, decrees that due to changes in the technology of the elevators, based on information provided by elevator technicians and engineers, riding up or down in the elevator indeed breaks the laws of Shabbat. It was signed by Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv, a top leader in the ultra-Orthodox community, and others.
It follows discussion over the direct impact on the elevator because the weight of passengers may determine the amount of electricty used.
“This is an edict that will not work,” one resident of a Jerusalem retirement home was quoted as saying. “If we all adhere to it, not only will we not leave our rooms on Shabbat, but life in places like Manhattan will come to a standstill.”
Some book titles are too good to pass up. “How God Changes Your Brain” is neuroscientist Andrew Newberg’s fourth book on “neurotheology,” the study of the relationship between faith and the brain. All are pitched at a popular audience, with snappy titles like “Born to Believe” or “Why God Won’t Go Away.” Anyone reading the latest one, though, might wonder if the title shouldn’t be “How God Meditation Changes Your Brain.” As he explains in an interview with Reuters here, the benefits that Buddhist monks and contemplative Catholic nuns derive from meditation and intense prayer are also available to atheists and agnostics. The key lies in the method these high performing believers use, not in the belief itself. But that would have made for a more awkward title.
That’s not to say Newberg doesn’t have some interesting points to make in this book. His brain scans of meditating monks and praying nuns show that the frontal lobe — the area that directs the mind’s focus — is especially active while the amygdala — the area linked to fear reactions — is calmed when they go through their spiritual experiences. His studies show these brain regions can be exercised and strengthened, like building up a muscle through training. And his treatment of a mechanic with a faltering memory showed that a traditional Indian meditation method, even when stripped of its spiritual trappings, could bring about these changes in two months.
The book goes on to ascribe a list of positive results from meditation and offer advice on caring for the brain. Newberg’s “number one best way to exercise your brain” is faith. As he puts it, “faith is equivalent with hope, optimism and the belief that a positive future awaits us. Faith can also be defined as the ability to trust our beliefs, even when we have no proof that such beliefs are accurate or true.” Critics, especially clerics, would probably protest that this is not really theology, but psychology. If we’re talking about God, where’s the religion?
That brings up another interesting aspect. While he is clearly favourable to faith and spirituality, Newberg remains a scientist eager to study the religious feelings he calls “among the most powerful and complex experiences people have.” He studiously avoids promoting any one faith or closing the door to atheists who might be reading the text. The tone is upbeat, the approach inclusive and the conclusion optimistic. There’s a touch of Eastern mysticism, too, with sections on how widely practiced meditation could foster compassion and understanding among people and peoples. Thanks to this open-minded approach towards both religion and science, Newberg teaches radiology, psychology and religious studies at the University of Pennsylvania and speaks frequently to church groups or in religious media.
Newberg gave me a few SPECT brain scan images that illustrate the changes he finds in his subjects’ brains. The image above left shows the brain of a Buddhist monk before and during meditation. The increased yellow in the lower right of the right-hand image shows reduced activity in the parietal lobe, the brain area responsible for orientation in space and time. Below right, the image shows a nun before and during prayer, with increased activity in the frontal lobe, the area for concentration and analytical thinking, and in areas linked to language.
Newberg, a cheerful and optimistic man who was brought up in a Reform Jewish family and says he is still exploring his own beliefs, told me his next book will be an academic work on neurotheology. He stresses that the field is in its infancy and its brain scanning methods are still “incredibly crude. We really don’t know which neurons are firing in that little three-millimeter space” captured in fMRI scans. “If we can ultimately say something epistemologically interesting, then that’s great,” he told me. “But it’s going to take me a long time before I get to saying something like that.”
UPDATE: After some failed attempts at editing this, here is a video clip of Newberg explaining his views during our interview:
What do you think about “neurotheology”? Do you think brain scans and neuroscience can tell us anything significant about religion?
Far from the spotlight of peace talks and military conflicts, Israel is facing a different kind of land crisis: it is running out of space to bury its dead. Most Jewish cemeteries in major cities like Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Haifa, are filled beyond maximum capacity. Gravestones are packed together leaving little room for mourners to gather.
You can read about a new system of multi-tiered burial chambers being used in the Jewish state to solve the issue of land. It's actually an ancient system, used thousands of years ago by Jewish sages, that was modernised by two Israeli architects and given approval by the country's chief rabbis.
Ancient Sanhedrin tombs and their modern-day revival
Adding to the problem of dwindling burial space for Israelis, each year about 1,500 Jews from around the world choose the Holy Land for their final resting place. For some, the choice could come from the allure of being buried in the Jewish state. For others, it stems from the Bible. And you can always find some group that offers to help make it happen.
Israel's Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger said in an interview with Reuters that it is written in the Talmud -- a collection of ancient Rabbinic texts -- that "the earth of the Holy Land cancels all the sins of the person who passed away so he can go directly to heaven and paradise without sin".
One of the most sought after -- and expensive -- cemeteries is Jerusalem's Mount of Olives, just outside the Old City walls. Many Jews pay thousands of dollars to be buried at the Mount of Olives because the Bibilical Prophet Zecharia said that the Messiah, upon arriving in Jerusalem, will first ressurect those buried there.
Given the popularity of glitzy television gameshows of all sorts, it was probably inevitable that some secular channel somewhere one would come up with one about religion. Turkey’s Kanal T television station now has.
Its show, entitled “Penitents Compete,” will bring together spiritual guides from Islam, Christianity, Judaism and Buddhism who try to convert a group of non-believers. Those who get religion win a pilgrimage to a holy site of the faith they’ve chosen — Mecca for Muslims, the Vatican for Christians, Jerusalem for Jews and Tibet for Buddhists.
But the show, due to debut in September, has run into some unexpected trouble. The religious authorities in Muslim but secular Turkey have refused to provide an imam for the show, which they say will cheapen religion. Read the whole story here.
Do you think a program like this is offensive?
(Photo: Popular German TV gameshow “Wetten, dass…?”– “Bet that..?” — on 22 Jan 2005/Christian Charisius)
Amid the glum news from Afghanistan, Golnar Motevalli of our Kabul bureau has sent this from Herat:
“Behind a parade of old mud brick shops, through narrow winding alleys, a tiny door opens onto a sundrenched courtyard, where school children giggle and play alongside the ghosts of Afghanistan’s Jewish past.
The Yu Aw is one of four synagogues in the old quarter of Herat city in west Afghanistan, which after decades of abandonment and neglect, has been restored to provide desperately-needed space for an infant school.”
(Photo: Afghan children study in Yu Aw synagogue in Herat, 8 June 2009/Mohammad Shoiab)
The restoration work has been done by the Agha Khan Trust for Culture. The city’s three other former synagogues are also being restored. Read the feature here.
Afghanistan’s Jewish community, once said to have numbered 40,000 or more, now consists of just one person, Zebolan Simanto. He receives a care package from New York every spring with matzos, grape juice and oil to conduct the Seder, the meal on the first evening of Passover.
(Photo: Zebolan Simanto in Kabul, 26 Jan 2005/Ahmad Masood)
There’s a legend in Afghanistan that the Pashtun, the country’s largest ethnic group, actually descended from one of the Lost Tribes of Israel. In this legend, the capital’s name Kabul comes from “Cain and Abel” and many Pashtun tribe names had Jewish roots, as in Afridi (Ephraim), Yusufzai (Joseph) and Shinwari (Shimon). After the Taliban were overthrown in November 2001, this legend was mentioned so often on Jewish-interest websites that I looked into it during a reporting tour in Kabul in early 2002. After much asking around, I finally tracked down Abdul Shukoor Rishad, the doyen of Afghan historians, at his home in the dusty suburb of Khairkhana.
Rishad, who was 80 at the time, burst into a very un-Afghan fit of exasperation when I explained through an interpreter that I wanted to know about the legend of Jewish origins. Foreigners had been asking him this for decades, he complained, and he always told them there was nothing to the story. He said some of the Jews sent into captivity in Babylon were settled in present-day Iran. But he rejected claims that some then moved from there into parts of present-day Afghanistan.
Rishad was so convinced the legend had no basis in fact that he once turned down a large grant to research it further. “There is an association in California that is searching for the Lost Tribes,” he said. “When I was there in 1995, they were ready to provide me enough money for a new study. I turned it down because the theory is wrong. Afghans are not Jewish.”
Olaf Caroe, the British author of the authoritative history The Pathans (1958), called the legend “all great fun” but too riddled with inconsistencies to be true.
Asher Frohlich’s painting of “God’s Holy Mountain” (at right) depicts a scene from an imagined future Jerusalem where Islam’s Dome of the Rock stands beside a rebuilt Jewish temple and worshipers of different faiths mingle in the courtyard.
The problem today, in the simplest of terms, stems from the fact that one spot in the heart of the old city of Jerusalem, is sacred to Jews, Christians and Muslims alike. Jews know it as the Temple Mount and Muslims call it al-Haram al-Sharif (the Noble Sanctuary). For more about the religious history of the complex, click here.
Today, a gilded dome stands above a rock where Muslims believe Mohammad rose to heaven. It is the same spot where a sanctuary known as the ‘holy of holies’ of two ancient Jewish temples is believed to have been located. Many Jews still pray for the temple to be rebuilt, a step some believe would then herald the return of the Messiah and a time of world peace.
A project launched this week hopes to pave the way, through theological research and debate, to a new outlook that would allow all religions to share the complex. Part of this ”vision” is explained in depth in an entry on the Washington Post Web site.
The group says the initiative is “based on five years of research into the requirements for the precise location of a rebuilt Temple”. Its web site quotes a passage from Jewish law, called Halacha, to argue that a new, nearby location could be chosen to build a third temple, not in the spot traditionally regarded as the correct site but has been occupied by the Dome of the Rock since the 7th century:
“Halachically, it is possible to extend the area of the Temple Mount as noted in the Mishnah (Sanhedrin 1:5, Shevu’ot 2:2),” the passage said. “A possible way of expanding the Temple Mount could be to build an earthen extension in a way that it becomes an integral part of the original mountain (Mount Moriah) and to sanctify that area per the methods described in Maimonides.”
Even if all three monotheistic religions re-examine their theological connections to the site, is it enough to lead to a remapping of the holy complex? Or, as even the project’s director Yoav Frankel acknowledges, would it take “a holy revelation given to an authentic prophet” to realize this vision?
(Photo: L’Aquila’s Santa Maria of Collemaggio Basilica, 13 April 2009/Daniele La Monaca)
They came, they prayed, they appealed.
Religious leaders from around the world held their own not-so-mini “G8 summit” in Italy on June 16-17. The “Fourth Summit of Religious Leaders on the occasion of the G8,” as the meeting was officially called, started with a visit to L’Aquila, the central Italian city severely damaged by an earthquake on April 6. That will be the venue in July of the actual summit of the G8 club of industrial nations.
Nearly 130 religious leaders and diplomats then moved to Rome where they held two days of talks under the auspices of the Italian foreign ministry. This was the religious leaders’ fourth annual meeting, following those held in conjunction with earlier G8 summits in Moscow, Cologne and Sapporo.
They were hosted by Bishop Vincenzo Paglia, the bishop of Terni who is one of the founders of the Sant’ Egidio community and a member of the Italian bishops conference commission for ecumenism and inter-religious dialogue.
Apart from the Catholic hosts, the participants including high-level Muslims, Protestants, Orthodox, Hindus, Anglicans, Zoroastrians, Jews, Shintoists and Buddhists.
Their final appeal, which will be published soon on the Italian Catholic Church’s website, was sent to reporters in advance. It is posted on the next page.
Both are Muslims. Both are chaplains. Both are in the military. But one is French and one is American. That alone ensured there would be enough to talk about when Mohamed-Ali Bouharb and Abu- hena Saifulislam met in Paris to discuss their work with chaplains and academics from the United States.
(Photo: Bouharb (l) and Saifulislam with CIEE’s Hannah Taieb. Note the Islamic crescents on Bouharb’s cap and Saifulislam’s sleeves, 7 June 2009/Tom Heneghan)
Muslim chaplaincies are relatively new additions to the armed forces in Europe and North America. Establishing their place alongside the traditional Catholic, Protestant and Jewish offices of religious services has not always been easy, even though both imams reported the top brass in their countries strongly supported the effort. While they tend to the spiritual needs of their co-religionists in the ranks, as other chaplains do, these imams also spend much time explaining their religion and its practices to their non-Muslim superiors.
Both spoke of the obvious issues such as getting halal food or having time and space for Muslim prayers. Both had encountered questions from both within the forces and outside in the Muslim community asking why they had agreed to work as imams in the military. Their presentations were part of a seminar entitled “Religious Diversity in Everyday Life in France” organised by the U.S.-based Council on International Educational Exchange (CIEE) and the Institute for the Study of Islam and the Societies of the Muslim World in Paris.
Bouharb, 32, is a French-born Muslim with Tunisian roots who studied Islam at a private Muslim institute in Paris and graduated from a special training course for imams at the Catholic Institute here. He is chaplain to the National Gendarmerie, which comes under the Defence Ministry. France only launched its Muslim chaplain corps in 2005 and it is still finding its way. “I first got a two-year contract. It’s just been extended by four years. Nothing is certain. We’ll see the results in 20 years,” he told the meeting on Sunday. Bouhard stressed how tricky the issues he faces can be as he discussed the delicate bridge function he has to play with the example of five French Muslim soldiers who refused to go to Afghanistan:
“If a Muslim soldier doesn’t want to go to Afghanistan for religious reasons, that’s his right. My role is not to convince him. But if he doesn’t want to go, he shouldn’t be in the army. That’s not a religious opinion. Sometimes the Muslim chaplain has to put aside his religious role and deconstruct what is religious and what is not. What I do is go see the soldier and ask him about his vision of Islam. I can help him to understand things better, but not to make a decision… If a soldier’s not clear in his mind (about shooting at Taliban), he might hesitate for a moment. That could endanger the troops around him…
“To the commanders, I say I’m not the representative of a Muslim soldiers’ trade union. When those five refused to go, people said the Muslim chaplains weren’t doing their jobs. It was all over the media. But the chaplain’s duty is not to ensure the cohesion of the troops. (The doubting soldier) could endanger others. My religious duty is not to put those others in danger… We Muslim chaplains asked for a right to reply to the media but the Defence Ministry press office said it was not worth the effort… They were right. A few weeks later, all was forgotten.”
Another issue was whether Muslim soldiers due for commando training had to fast if the session occurred during Ramadan. “They get up at 3 a.m. and march for 25 kms with backpacks weighing 25 kilos. It’s very difficult to fast,” he said. Muslim soldiers asked him what to do. “I told them that, if you signed up to do this training, you have to respect that contract. You can stop your fast and catch up on those days after Ramadan is over.” Ten Qatari soldiers in France for advanced training could not understand why the session was not rescheduled, as it would be in their majority Muslim society, but Bouharb said it could not be and the Muslim soldiers had to adjust. “There is only one Islam, but there are many ways of expressing it,” he said.
Saifulislam, who emigrated to the U.S. from Bangladesh in 1989 and became a U.S. Navy imam 10 years later, had a slightly different approach. “If there is special training during Ramadan, I ask the commander if it can be moved to another date,” he said, stressing he was giving his personal opinion and not speaking in an official capacity. “I tell the Muslims that they’re away from home while on training so they can not fast and make it up later. It’s his or her call. I provide the counsel.”
(Photo: Bouharb and Saifulislam, 7 June 2009/Tom Heneghan)
He said there were about a dozen imams in the U.S. armed forces, which appointed their first Muslim chaplain in 1993. That compares to over 800 Christian and Jewish chaplains in the Navy alone, he said. “They don’t necessarily need us for the number of Muslim soldiers but to advise them on religious inclusiveness, like about how Islamic practices can affect a mission, before they deploy to Iraq or Afghanistan. They get training in cultural sensitivity.”
Possibly because imams have served in the U.S. military for longer than in the French, the American Muslim chaplains seemed more integrated into the overall chaplain corps. Saifulislam said:
“Ninety-nine percent of the people who come to me for counselling are from another faith. They come to you with issues, it could be about family, stress or violence. People can get more religious in boot camp, also in prison. I’ve also been trained in suicide prevention, PTSD recognition and crisis management. We also do grief counselling, regardless of the religion. Of course, we don’t perform services for other religions. You’re not going to see me baptise a baby! But we facilitate things. If someone comes to me as a Wiccan and asks for a place to pray, I help them. The Department of Defense recognises over 290 different religions and denominations. If a Muslim asks one of the other chaplains to help him get a copy of the Koran, he has to help him.”
(Click on the photo above for a slideshow on the Samaritans)
Samaritan High Priest Abdel Moin Sadaqa was relaxing on his porch watching Al-Jazeera on a wide-screen TV when we dropped by his home to talk about his ancient religion. “I like to keep up with the news,” the 83-year-old head of one of the world’s oldest and smallest religions explained as he turned down the volume. Told we wanted to make him part of the news, more precisely part of a feature on Samaritanism, he sat up, carefully put on his red priestly turban and proceeded to chat away in the fluent English he learned as a boy under the British mandate for Palestine. Our interview with him and other Samaritans were the basis for my feature “Samaritans use modern means to keep ancient faith.”
(Photo: High Priest Abdel Moin Sadaqa at his home, 19 May 2009/Tom Heneghan)
Visiting the descendants of the biblical Samaritans was the last stop in a series of visits in Jerusalem, Gaza and the West Bank I made after covering Pope Benedict’s trip to Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian territories. Leaving Jerusalem with Ivan Karakashian from our bureau there, we drove through Israel’s imposing security barrier to Ramallah, picked up our Nablus stringer Atef Sa’ad there and then drove north along the web of priority roads that link the spreading network of Israeli settlements in the West Bank back to Israel. Signs of the Israeli-Palestinian face-off were all around — Israeli army patrols and checkpoints, guarded Jewish enclaves flying the Star of David flag on the hills and Palestinian villages with their mosques and minarets in the valleys. The tension seemed to melt away, though, when we turned onto a narrow road to wind our way up Mount Gerizim to the Samaritan village of Kiryat Luza.
The West Bank Samaritans used to live in Nablus, the nearest Palestinian city, but left it when the first intifada in 1987 brought the tension too close for comfort. The Samaritans get along with both Israelis and Palestinians and many have identity papers from both sides, Husney Kohen, one of the faith’s 12 hereditary priests, told us at the community’s small museum in Kiryat Luza. But their custom of not taking sides and keeping secrets meant that gunmen began using their neighbourhood as a place to execute enemies in broad daylight without worrying about witnesses. “We weren’t hurt, but we were afraid,” he said. Now living on their holy mountain, the Samaritans feel safe.
The museum looked like a treasure trove of ancient Judaica, but Kohen made sure to point out the differences between Samaritanism and Judaism. “We are Israelites but not Jewish … we have 7,000 differences between our Torah and the Jewish one,” he declared as he showed a copy of a Samaritan scroll he said was the oldest book in the world. The original is locked in their temple for safe keeping. The museum boasted genealogical lists dating generations back to Adam and a few paintings of biblical scenes where Samaritans play a cameo role.
Amid all the ancient artifacts, it seemed strange to hear Kohen talk about Samaritan boys meeting girls over the internet or Samaritan couples going to Israeli hospitals for pre-nuptual genetic tests. Samaritan life is governed by strict laws, especially those isolating women during menstruation and after childbirth, but Samaritan women do not keep any other kind of purdah. In fact, they stand out in Nablus — along with the few Christian women there — walking around in western clothes and flowing hair among the veiled and covered Muslims. Kohen’s oldest daughter works as a journalist for the Palestinian news agency Wafa, the second is a pharmacist and the third is studying English at the university in Nablus.
(Photo: Samaritan priest Husney Kohen with a copy of the faith’s ancient Torah in the Samaritan museum, 19 May 2009/Tom Heneghan)
Kohen caught our attention by mentioning mail-order brides and we wanted to pursue that angle, but he said several couples had been burned by intrusive questions from journalists and no longer wanted to give interviews. He mentioned that High Priest Sadaqa’s daughter-in-law was Ukrainian, but wasn’t sure we could see her. When we called on Sadaqa, though, he was more than ready to introduce Shura to us.
The problem was that she wasn’t as ready to be introduced. With her fair hair, black pants and tank top, she could have passed as a European tourist visiting the town. She reluctantly sat for a few minutes to a hail of questions, from Atef in Arabic and Sadaqa in English (for my benefit), and stammered a few shy answers in Arabic.
There was so much we wanted to ask — how did you get here? how do you like it? was it hard to convert? would you recommend this life to other foreign women? — but she suddenly ducked back into the house, saying she had to work in the kitchen. That was the end of our fleeting encounter with one of the women helping to keep Samaritanism alive. (For more on Shura, see below)
While most of Samaritanism’s outside brides have been Jews from Israel, Kohen said three were Muslims and five Christians like Shura. All of them came from far away — the Muslims from Turkey and the Christians from Russia and Ukraine. Seeking converts among the local Muslim majority or the tiny Christian minority in Nablus could strain the good relations the Samaritans have with their neighbours.
Another Samaritan priest, Khader Adel Kohen, said he didn’t want his three sons to marry foreign brides when they grew up. “It’s better to take one from the Jewish community, as long as she converts,” he said. “I have nothing against Russians and Ukrainians, but we don’t know who they are.”
(Photo: Samaritan priest Khader Adel Kohen in Nablus, 19 May 2009/Tom Heneghan)
Hearing so much about their strict rules and the struggle to keep the religion alive prompted me to ask Sadaqa if the community had any rebels. Some had left, he conceded, but very few. And are there any atheists? He waved his hand dismissively and frowned. “Thank God, there are none. This is the biggest blessing. A Samaritan would never abandon his religion voluntarily.”
So did Sadaqa, who has travelled the world and studied the scriptures of other religions, have any advice for faiths that were losing their flocks? “I know everything, I see it, but I don’t want to interfere,” he said. “I can lead my community but I haven’t the strength to lead the whole world. Those who preserve their religion, God preserves them.”
Filmmaker Efim Kuchuk and Mark Mejerson interviewed Shura and her husband for their 2007 film “New Samaritans.” Among other things, it shows Samaritans with the genetic defects from intermarriage that also worry the community. Here is a YouTube excerpt:
It is rare that religion and science find agreement, but that is what happened when Britain’s Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks spoke at a meeting on saving the earth from climate change.
Also attending were faith and community organisation leaders including Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Baha’i, Jain and Zoroastrian.
