The Holy Land's Catholic Community: Feat. Bishop Rafic Nahra

In this episode of Jerusalem Talks, Avraham (Avrum) Burg engages with Bishop Rafic Nahra, an auxiliary bishop of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem, to discuss his unique role in the Holy Land. Bishop Nahra reflects on his journey, which spans multiple cultures, languages, and religious communities. The conversation explores the bishop's mission of fostering coexistence, interfaith dialogue, and love. He emphasizes the Catholics church’s commitment to education, service to all communities, and rejecting hatred while navigating the complexities of being a Christian minority in Israel.

Transcript

Jerusalem Talks ND

Season 2 Episode 3

Host: Avraham Burg

Featured Guest: Bishop Rafic Nahra

Avraham Burg: Peace on you, Bishop Rafic.

Bishop Nahra: Peace on you. 

Avraham Burg: How are you?

Bishop Nahra: Well.

Avraham Burg: I ask myself how to begin this conversation. Because knowing about your activities and involvement and commitments and responsibilities, I will say maybe you are the one who embodies the entire complexity of the Middle East, which is Lebanese and Egyptian educated in Paris, speaks Hebrew, Arabic, Italian, French, what else, English? Vicar in Jerusalem, but responsible for the entire region. And among other things, up until recently, the Hebrew speaking Catholics in the Holy Land. That's a lot. 

Bishop Nahra: Yes. You know, it was not in my program. Life guides you. I would say as a religious man, God guides you, But you have to say yes to follow and to be convinced to like what you're doing. And I thank God honestly for the way he gave me to do until now. And it's very rich. Yeah. For the moment, I work with the Arabic speaking, but Arabic speaking Roman Catholics in Israel. But I was, for several years, a vicar responsible for the Hebrew speaking, and I worked also with the migrants and asylum seekers. So I had this opportunity to be close to all these different populations who live in the same country. 

Avraham Burg: You have actually have 2 locations, Jerusalem and Nazareth. Right? 

Bishop Nahra: So let's precise it. I am auxiliary bishop of the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem. This is the title. But I am his vicar for Israel. So I live in Nazareth since October 2021. So essentially, I work in Galilee. 

Avraham Burg: We'll get to that because this region is so particular and so important, both in the history of the church and the psyche of the believers and the contemporary Christian realities of the Middle East will get to your region.. But before that, if you and I bishop somewhere in the Middle America and Latin America, so you have one community. Most people look the same, but not look, but believe the same, educated the same, molded the same. But here, under your wings, you have many more people than just pure Catholic, members of the church. Right? 

Bishop Nahra: Well, you know, the Latin Patriarchate covers several countries. The Latin Patriarchate. It covers Jordan, Palestine, Israel, and Cyprus.

Avraham Burg: Recently, after so many years, we have a cardinal. We have a cardinal.

Bishop Nahra: Yeah. This is new, but his function, his local function is the same. I mean, it's already an important mission to be patriarch, But for the patriarch, you can imagine it's very difficult to be present in all these places with so different languages, cultures, challenges. You know, Cyprus is so much different from what is happening in Jordan or in Israel or Palestine, even between Palestine and Jordan. They are very much different. So he has vicars. So he has a vicar in Jordan, a vicar in Palestine. I was appointed for Israel. And 2 or 2 months ago, I think, we had now a new bishop ordained for Cyprus. 

Avraham Burg: Before we go there, just for our American audiences, when you say vicar, it corresponds with the English word of vice, vice president, vice chairman, etcetera.

Bishop Nahra:  Exactly. Exactly. 

Avraham Burg: Still my question, when you go to your community. You have malachites. 

Bishop Nahra: That's right. 

Avraham Burg: Which maybe in some other time, some other place would have been independent. 

Bishop Nahra: So let's, yeah, let's make it clear. I am bishop for the Roman Catholics.

Avraham Burg: So everybody who is oriented west western churches is part of you? 

Bishop Nahra: The Roman Catholic. Yeah, the Latin Rite. It's a question of rights. So there is a Latin rite. It has its own rules, its own hierarchy. It is the church of the western birth. Yes. That's right. Europe, United States, South America, and now also in Asia, elsewhere. Anyway, it is the Roman Catholic Church. And there are communities of Greek Catholics. They have their own bishop. Presently, it's Bishop Youssef Matta, who stays in Haifa. There are the Maronites. There is Bishop Musa Al Hajj, who is responsible for the Maronites, and then, you know, you have also many other communities. In Nazareth, there is an important community of Anglicans. We have some Protestant communities, many small communities of Protestants, and so on. So, yes, you're right.

Avraham Burg: It's a mosaic. 

Bishop Nahra: It's a mosaic. 

Avraham Burg: And it's much more, not complicated, but it's much richer than a regular. “just like us people”.

Bishop Nahra: Of course. I forgot the orthodox.

Avraham Burg: So help you God. 

Bishop Nahra: God help me.

Avraham Burg: So we have a community or we have communities because at every locality you have their own 

religious spiritual center. What is the kind of help they need? Part of it I come because it's my gathering, it's 

my congregation, it's my faith, it's my ritual, A part of it is looking for some support. 

Bishop Nahra: So it's very complex, to give a yeah. To give you a simple answer in their name because you have also many kinds of expectations. Normally, the role of the church is, first of all, to preach the gospel, to help people in their relationship with God, in their relationship with one another, to teach, yeah, the Christian way of life. But, you know, the religion in the Middle East is also a question of identity. This is very much strong in the Middle East. I didn't feel it. I lived for long years in France, in Paris. I never felt it, that it's a question of identity. I mean, it's like really like identity, more or less like citizenship. You know, I am Arab, I am Latin, I am Orthodox. You know, in France, okay, we are Christians, we go to the church, but you don't feel this. It's not a question of identity. I am, which means I am Latin, I am not Orthodox, I am not Muslim, I am not a Jew. 

Avraham Burg: It's a definer.

Bishop Nahra:  Definer, yes, that's it. It is a definer of the person, which is not the same in the Western world. So this is very important. Also, the fact that we are a small number of people, of believers, of the faithful. So sometimes, they expect also the church to help them continue living in the country. So, support us, for instance, with the schools. Which are…

Avraham Burg: for people to know the Christians private school system in Israel is one of the best in the country and gives educational opportunities for non Christians as well. 

Bishop Nahra: Also, of course, we have, we welcome well, Jews don't come so much to our schools. Very few. But Muslims, yes, we have some schools could have 90% of Christians, 10% of Muslims, but it can go to the opposite. We have certain schools where it comes almost to 90% of Muslims and 10% of Christians, which is why not? Simply, we should keep our Christian identity. Otherwise, it's no longer a Christian school. So they expect us to support them because, you know, we have fees for our schools because we don't receive enough subs subsidies from the states. So people have to pay to come to our schools. So sometimes they help us to yeah. They ask us to help them for the fees, help them to find house. 

Avraham Burg: Do they need you either as a father or as a church to defend them, to protect them?

Bishop Nahra: Yes. I for sure, they need us. Our faithful need us to speak out in the name.

Avraham Burg: Let's let's stay there for a second. Okay? I look at the last couple of years, and I mean many years. It's actually two processes that are going through and over and with the Christian community or communities in Israel. On one hand, I see a very interesting Palestinianization process. And on the other hand, a very intensive Israelization. At what sense? The definer in Israel is the language. Arabic is a language which used to be a language of many half of the Jews and all the Arabs, Christians, and Muslim alike. Now the language of most Jews in Israel is Hebrew. Very few speak Arabic. And the language of the Arabs is Arabic. So I'm a Christian who speaks Arabic, so I'm an Arab. So I'm not part of the collective majority. But on the other hand, since the Islamic fundamentalist threats coming from the North, Hezbollah, Iraq, what we had there with the massacres of ISIS versus Christian communities, etcetera. So Israel is a kind of a protector of me as a Christian in the region. So can you talk about the collision of these two, opposite dynamics? 

Bishop Nahra: It is a big difficulty for our communities, particularly for the youth because old people have always had their own identity, which is clear for them. They are Arabs in Israel or Palestinian in Israel. Today, many of them will choose to say you are Palestinian in Israel. And I want to give a small explanation on it because they don't feel they are welcome in Israel. Even the old Arab people, some of them used to say we are Israeli Arabs. But in these last years, they say, but we do lots of efforts and we would like to be really completely integrated into the society. We are not welcome. I mean, we can't identify. We cannot identify because the others don't identify with us. So we once again, the people want to define themselves as Palestinians in Israel. And, I'm very proud to be Palestinian in Israel. So for the young generation, it's more difficult because young generations, as you said, many of them work in the Israeli Jewish speaking, Jews, work with Jews in Israel. So they, on one side, they belong to Arab families, and our families are very traditional. And also, many of our families have a part of the family in the West Bank or in Gaza.

Avraham Burg: Or in Lebanon. 

Bishop Nahra: Or in Lebanon, because many of them before ‘48, well, this was the same family, but then they couldn't continue to be in touch. So there is this solidarity. On one side, they live in Israel and they want to have a good life in Israel. They want to integrate really the Israeli society because they live there. They want to earn their life, to live in peace, in good relationship with the Jews and with the Muslims as much as possible. On the other side, with all these political problems, they suffer because a part of them is in the West Bank and Gaza and so on. So how to define themselves? For our youth, really, it is a big challenge. There is no easy answer to it. And I think that as Christians, we try to help our people to understand that, anyway, a Christian has always been a kind of somebody who wants to be really faithful to his country, to his people, but who belongs in a certain way elsewhere. Okay? 

Avraham Burg: As well. As well, here and there. 

Bishop Nahra: Here and there. 

Avraham Burg: We have dual belonging. 

Bishop Nahra: Exactly, exactly. So if they can really understand the meaning of their Christian identity, which means also a way of life. We live in a country you know, the Christian mentality is a bit different from the local mentality, the real Christian mentality. Which means today, in this very, very difficult situation where everybody is suffering and where it is very easy to understand the suffering of everybody, of the Israelis with the hostages, of the Palestinians in a horrible situation, and so on. So what is our role as Christians when you are in the middle? And I think what I say to my people is, “please don't be drawn completely by a discourse of hate, of anger, of revenge. This is not our gospel.”

Avraham Burg: Let me dive into it, okay?

Bishop Nahra: Yes. 

Avraham Burg: You invited me to walk in. At your ordination, which was a very moving one, I mean, to see you on the floor with a book over you and people representing other churches as well coming to show respect for the for the newly appointed bishop, the patriarch, Patriarch Pizaballah, opened up with a very, very interesting, verse from the book of John. And he asked you, Rafic, do you love Jesus? Which is a reflection of the famous exchange between Simon, son of Jonah, and the reappearing Christ saying, do you love? One time, two times, three times. And then he turned instead from you personally to the audience and said, Do you people love Jesus? It was a very, very interesting opening because I believe that the question Patrick Pizaballa asked us all is as follows. “What is the role of faith in an era of such a profound cynicism? And what is the place of love in a region so saturated with hatred?” That was the moment in which you were ordained to a bishop. So how do you address these two cynicism and faith, love and hatred in this region?

Bishop Nahra: It's a very difficult question, the question you're asking. Now, first of all, yes, for me, as a Christian, first, as a priest, as a bishop, for me, Christ is the center center of Christian life, first of all, the relationship to Christ. And in my stemma, you know, when you are ordained bishop, you have always a stemma, and you put things that are the most important for you. And the things I put in the stemma was the vine because Jesus says in the gospel, I am the true vine. He speaks of himself. I put the book because there is the word of God, and I put the chalice, which is the body of Christ, his blood given. So for me…

Avraham Burg: Which leads to the sacraments. 

Bishop Nahra: Completely. So it's Christ in his sacraments, in his word, in his church, the vine. And I think that the relationship to Christ teaches us how to live truth and love in the same time. Sometimes we say justice and peace, but I would say in parallel, truth and love. So love and forgiveness, I understand sometimes when I try I remember there was an interview once, and I used the word reconciliation, forgiveness, and I said, what are you talking about? They said, but look at the situation. How can you forgive? I understand this question, but I still believe that the only answer to violence, to destruction, is love. I'm coming to you today for this meeting and yesterday evening, both, I was listening to the radio because it's a long way from Nazareth. I was listening to the radio, and I heard two interviews in which this morning it was somebody, I don't remember the name, a singer. And he spoke, he said, “I composed a song of love.” And the journalist asked him about love in these days, you think really and he said, “I think that this is the only answer. This is the only real answer.” The individual life where love is so important. You know, if I don't receive love and give love to the others, life has no meaning and destruction will continue and revenge will continue. So there are the politicians, and I hope also Christians will be committed to political life. They have to do their job. But the individual, the individual Christian in his daily life, everyday life, where he works, people he is in touch with, the way is your speech, where you live. You have to bring love, to bring a discourse of forgiveness. And this, the gospel really gives it to you. So it doesn't replace politics. You need politics, you need politicians. They have to do their job. But for us Christians who live in the society simply, I think we have a very important mission and the example of Jesus. That's why I said the relationship to Jesus in the Gospels shows what it means to say the truth and at the same time, to love and to support and to be patient. 

Avraham Burg: Which means truth might be a very hard reality. No compromise. Yes or no. Black and white. And love is roundish. It makes it possible to build bridges. Ha’emet v’ha Shalom. The truth and peace. That you shall love. And it's a combination of two contradicting dynamics into one. 

Bishop Nahra: Which I am not sure they are completely contradict. Apparently, they are contradicting. Apparently. But also, truth means to truly understand the others, truly understand the others, you know, because you have the what appears outside and you have to listen to… You know, I think one of the main problems in this country is that for the two peoples who live here, is that each people is not ready to listen to the suffering of the other people, to know him truly, to understand, to have compassion for the other. Israelis refuse to hear, many, most Israelis refuse to hear the suffering of Palestinians. 

Avraham Burg: Israeli Jews. 

Bishop Nahra: Israeli Jews and Arabs refused, most of them, to hear really, for instance, for the Shoah. 

Avraham Burg: The Holocaust.

Bishop Nahra: The Holocaust. To listen to it, to understand what an Israeli feels really when he speaks about the Holocaust. 

Avraham Burg: So I will come back to that and even supports your culture of exchange of consideration and compassion. I'll come back to that. But before that, I want to stay one more minute here at the theological level. This region, which is the cradle of the three monotheistic civilizations, is saturated, full of divinities. I mean, every religion has five expressions of God. Okay? My God, your God, God, Allah, Elohim, Joba, Allahu Akbar. I mean, we have all of it. And each and every religion has volumes of writings and preaching about loving of God. So how comes that a region which is the birthplace of God - of one God - and the birthplace of loving God is using so much hatred in order to promote this love of God. And not just by Jews and Muslims. Christians have their sharing history as well here. How do you reconcile this inner built in contradiction?

Bishop Nahra: You know, fanaticism is always a temptation in religion. Also fundamentalism because, you know, fundamentalism is easy in a certain way, it's the easiest reading of the Holy Scriptures, whatever Holy Scriptures. 

Avraham Burg: As said.

Bishop Nahra: …and let's apply it. If you take it in this way, there will always be violence. But there were periods in history where all of these populations were able to have another kind of interpretation. Also Jewish, the Jewish tradition managed to live for long, long years without all the land of Israel. Okay? All the land of Israel, which means also territories.

Avraham Burg: Which is a physical expression, of political being. 

Bishop Nahra: Yes, which is while today there is a real speech that we cannot live if we don't have all of Israel, all this is our land. But for centuries, Jews managed to live and so it's a real discussion. I mean, why? But we could say the same for Islam. We could say the same for Christians also. The temptation of fundamentalism and fanaticism is present everywhere. And here in this place, since but you said that God there are many divinities. I think that there is one God who has so many names. He has so many names. But hatred is not one of his names. And I am not sure even and here you have interpretation because you could take the Holy Scriptures, whatever holy scriptures for whatever religion, and find some text where there is hatred as if God was content to revenge. You can find it, I revenge. 

Avraham Burg: It's an anecdote. During the 2nd Intifada in Jerusalem, 2000, Some right wing religious, Jewish extremists painted many walls in Jerusalem with a graffiti of El Ne’komot, God of revenge, which is taken from the prayer, from the solemn, etcetera. So my son and his friends went one night, sprayed it all, covered it all, and replaced it with a graffiti, Adon Ha’Shalom, the master of peace. God has many names and many manifestations. And my son and his group preferred the peaceful one rather than about the simplistic revenging one. An anecdote. I promise you that I'll show you or I will try to share with you how this teaching of you is wider than your community. You at a time said you quoted the Saint Francis of Assisi prayer, which is a beautiful one, which says, “Lord, make me an instrument for thy peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love. Where there is injury, pardon. When there is doubt, faith, etcetera.” I sent you yesterday a soundtrack of Shuli Natan, a very classic Hebrew singer. She sings it in Hebrew. And there is a whole debate in the religious media, which rabbi, okay, which rabbi wrote these beautiful lyrics? What is this rabbi, the other rabbi, the other rabbi, the other rabbi? Nobody gives the royalties to Saint Francis of Assisi. And I say, okay, if you remove the writer and the load of, of identity, wow. We have a common ground. Yes. People on both sides who seek. Love, pardon, faith, hope, light, joy. So your teaching is wider than your own community.

Bishop Nahra: Yeah. It's, you know, the problem is I think one problem is that people don't look in the eyes of the others. I'm very much surprised sometimes when I walk in the streets, the young people, you know, there's much violence in the Arab society. That's how I live in, and you find young people walking in the street, they never look at you dressed in black, looking down and going here and there and running. But it could be, I mean, I speak of Nazareth because I live there. You could find it also elsewhere in Jerusalem. My gosh. There are so many I sometimes I change cyber, you know, when I see some people coming because I'm afraid of the way they come so strongly. And so, you have people don't look in the eyes of the others. I am not sure they are aware of who is staying in front of them. They are not aware. You know, you have an ideology. You have so much hatred, accumulated hatred now, you know, because of all the violence that has been in this country now for, I don't know, more than 70 years. So people are full of hatred, and now it's all the more after October 7th. I mean, there's so much anger in the hearts. So people don't look in the eyes of the other. They they would refuse. I am sure that if I would say to some of them, look in the eyes of the others, he wouldn't answer. So this is a problem because you forget the human being and you put, you use religion. I don't say that religion asks you to do what people are doing. You use religion to justify your own anger, your own fanaticism, and you take it as if it's what religion asks me to do. 

Avraham Burg: But if you look at the bigger picture, I can say you are in a way privileged. In what sense? Your compatriots, Elias Khoury, the famous author, Majdil Shams, and so many others, is a good friend of mine. Once told me and for our audience to understand, we are enemies, official enemies. He lives in Lebanon. I live in Israel. But we talk and we meet, and he once told me something very, very powerful. He said in ‘48, when the state of Israel was established, the Arab speaking societies got emptied of its Jewish other. During the ISIS and recent up until recently with Muslim fundamentalism in the region, it get empty of its Christian other. And he said, I'm afraid that the Arab society is becoming one dimensional and boring. You are blessed because you live in the only place in the Middle East, I think, in which the Christian communities are more or less protected in numbers and even growing. And when you walk the street, you have to cross path with other. And in so many classic places of the region for 1000s of years, you don't see the other Christian or the other Jew anymore. So you live in a very, colorful reality.

Bishop Nahra: It's a very exclusive. Yeah. That is yeah. On all sides on all sides. On the Muslim side, yes. The Jewish side, there are places where today I don't say today, they don't want Arabs any longer. We don't want Arabs. Perhaps they fear, but, anyway, they don't want Arabs. Some Christians have this temptation. Let us build the kind of a small quarter. You know, we will live in our they don't use the word ghetto, but this is the idea. It's a kind of, let's live in our ghetto. To be protected, to be protected from these bad people around us. So this temptation of, yeah, to live exclusively, you know, together because it's more safe to be together, this is a temptation. This is really a temptation. And I think that, yes, here in Israel, it could be a place where we learn to live altogether, But there has to be a real will to build such a society, and this will is unfortunately missing a lot. 

Avraham Burg: When I look at the origin of your will or where was the first one of the first steps in your long journey, I cannot ignore your maybe I hope I'm not wrong, your spiritual model, Cardinal Lustigier. 

Bishop Nahra: Yes. 

Avraham Burg: Okay. He is a person I met only once in my life, but I loved him all my lifelong. The story in a very brief capsule. Here is a guy who was born in France to immigrants from Eastern Europe, Jewish family. At the age of 14 in the middle of the 2nd World War, he voluntarily converted into Christianity, became a devoted Catholic, later his sister, I think also, converted, and with the time became the cardinal of Paris. 

Bishop Nahra: Yes.

Avraham Burg: And there as a cardinal of Paris, he actually said two things. The first is I'm Christian, but my Christianity is the continuation and the extension and the expansion of Judaism the same way the New Testament is the new wing of the Old Testament. Here is an anecdote. I'm the speaker of the parliament. He came to the country. Very few dignitaries and officials wanted to meet him. I said, of course. (Quote in French) So he came to me to the Knesset. The day was the Holocaust Memorial Day. We talk about this and about that. And I said, listen, Cardinal, I'd like to meet you a bit later. I'm invited to a sermon in the forest outside of Jerusalem for the sacred victims of Zaguenbeia. That's a region in Poland. They said, But I'm coming from Zaguenbeia. So I said, come with me. He said, nah, you know, with my dress and outfit and white color, and I'm Christian. People will be upset. And I said, I'll be that with you if they attack you. So we went to the place. People loved him, and we ended the sermon by him as a cardinal of Paris saying the Kaddish in Hebrew. So I cannot understand you without understanding him. It's not a typical Christianity, is it? What is it? What is this Judaism Christianity continuity?

Bishop Nahra: You know, Christianity, Judaism are the roots of Christianity anyway. And I think that during history, we forgot it. We forgot it because we saw that this Bible, which is our Bible, we consider it as Christians, in the end is only our Bible and that the Jews, they read it only as a book, written book, but not really understanding what it talks about. There is much arrogance in it because anyway, the book all the book is the book of the Jews, and it remains the book of the Jews that we Christians, because of Jesus, took, and it became also our book because without what we call the Old Testament, without the Old Testament, you cannot understand really the New Testament. You cannot understand really the person of Jesus, the person of Paul. When you read all the epistles, the letters of Paul. You cannot understand anything if you don't know where it comes from. That Paul was a Jew and he became Christian, and he has all these difficulties, how to deal with this new religion. 

Avraham Burg: How to expand this? 

Bishop Nahra: Yeah. Will it continue to be inside Judaism, a part of Judaism, or will it be something different? I mean, lots of questions. Cardinal Duisier had something kind of a prophetic aspect in it. And when I looked at him and when sometimes I spoke to him, he looked like always somebody who is looking, I don't know, 10 years after. 

Avraham Burg: And 10 centuries?

Bishop Nahra:  Yeah. Or centuries after. I was very much impressed by him. I insist to say that he is not the one who sent me to Jerusalem. 

Avraham Burg: But influenced.

Bishop Nahra: I was very much influenced by him. I wanted to go to Jerusalem. And when I told him, he told me, it will be difficult for you. So are you sure you want to do it? And I said, yes I want. But he told me no. He delayed my coming to Jerusalem. 

Avraham Burg: To study Jewish philosophy. 

Bishop Nahra: Before, this project was not present.So, yeah, I wanted to come because I discovered the small Hebrew speaking communities who needed support, and I said, I want to support them, this small community. He said, it's okay, but I can’t send you without knowing exactly what is your mission, because he was a very responsible person. And until this occasion came that people who work on interreligious in Paris were getting old, and they asked. They said, we would we need somebody who who learns more about Jewish tradition in order to continue this dialogue. So I said, I am ready. I'm ready to do it. And then he said, okay, now there is a good reason. So go to Jerusalem. This is how it started. But, anyway, I have always this figure of Cardinal Lustigier in front of me as somebody first of all, he was very Christ centered, very much. He kept his Jewish roots, but he was very much Christ centered. And for me, this is really the center of my spirituality, if I can say. And in a certain way, I think I inherited this from him. And also, he was able, even though he was of Jewish origin, he was able to be very close to the Eastern churches. So he came to Lebanon. He went to he was in touch with Iraq, Syria, everybody, and he was very much respected. And this thing was wonderful for me. It means that he had the good words. He understood really how, what it means. I mean how can you be together in the middle of all these people opposing a waging war and to be close to everyone? So in order to be perhaps one day, consciously or unconsciously, perhaps to be a bridge, if possible, a kind of bridge, a small bridge. We are so few in the Middle East. So this thing impressed me. And I decided to come and stay in this country. And then, you know, it was prolonged. And then the church asked me to become responsible for the Hebrew speaking communities and the migrants and now the local Roman Catholics in Israel. So, yes, I think that the figure of Cardinal Lustigier anyway has been very important also for the Diocese of Paris. 

Avraham Burg: Let's stay with you and him for a second. 

Bishop Nahra: Yes. 

Avraham Burg: Though he was named a French name, Jean Marie Lustigier, which was previously, it was Aaron Lustiguer. And he said I keep the name Aaron because Aaron is one of the saints of the original Saints of the church. If you, Bishop Rafiq, have to have an Hebrew name, Christ at the center I understand, which is Yehoshua at the center of the being. Will there be any other biblical name you'll say that's my other name? 

Bishop Nahra: A wonderful figure that I love very much. The Bible is your name, Abraham. Avraham Avinu. All the stories of Yahya..

Avraham Burg: Our patriarch. 

Bishop Nahra: So, I think that if I had, but I have no reason to have a Jewish name. 

Avraham Burg: But it's a problem, you know? It's a problem because you stand for, positively, of course, for a very conservative, conserving way of life. And the Abrahamic philosophy is a radical one, is a revolutionary one, is a one never to be happy with what you have and always Lech Le’Cha, when onwards. Never stay in one place. So is that attention built in within you? Move on, stay in.

Bishop Nahra: I think you're thinking of the fact that I am a bishop, no? So a bishop has to be conservative in a certain way. 

Avraham Burg: He has to conserve. 

Bishop Nahra: Yeah, you have to. Yeah. But you conserve because you believe what you can serve. Otherwise, what does it mean to conserve? So, but you know how the pope, the present pope, Pope Francis, invites always his faithful to go to the peripheries. Don't stay inside. Don't stay in ghettos. He's against this.

Avraham Burg: He's coming from the periphery. Not sure that, Pope Ratzinger had the same philosophy about how far you should go with your faith. 

Bishop Nahra: But, you know, take the first books when he used to teach theology, when he was a German theologian..

Avraham Burg: An important one. 

Bishop Nahra: Revolutionary. He was considered revolutionary. And I think he was a very open minded man. But, you know, also revolutions you have, it's not enough to have revolutionary ideas. You have to understand how to, how to do it, how to apply it without destroying everything. Because it's very easy to destroy. You have an old house, we destroy it and we do something new. It doesn't, this is not the way it works in religions. So you have to keep the house. And in the same time, to do the necessary changes by steps, by small steps. So I think that Cardinal Ratzinger was there. He was open. But, yeah, then you have every character is different in life. 

Avraham Burg: So Let's go back to our region. You said couple of times we're a minority, we're a tiny minority, which is maybe three times minority. A minority of Christians in the Middle East, a minority of Christians among the Israeli Arabs, and a minority of Arabs among the Jews in Israel. So it's a minority within a minority. In the Christian world, in which every Christian born into a Christian majority, be it Protestant, be it Catholic, be it whatever, do they know what happens in their holy land, or it's just a virtual holy land? Do they know your reality?

Bishop Nahra: I think that today, all those who organize trips, you know, to come to visit the holiday.

Avraham Burg: I see the Pilgrims. 

Bishop Nahra: Yeah. All those who organize pilgrimages are aware of it because there was a time in which people came to visit only the holy sites, the ruins, these beautiful ruins, and Arabs sometimes laughed at them when they saw these archaeologists' works. So what are they what are they doing? What are they doing with these ruins? We are the Yeah. The people, the living people, the living stones, incidentally. So but today, pilgrims are much more aware, I think. And very often, it happens that when they come to visit, they ask, they try to find a way to meet local people. It's not always very easy to let them meet, I don't know, simple people, families, but at least they meet some responsible, they meet some people who have activities here to tell them about what the local faithful live and about the local situation.

Avraham Burg: But pilgrims are so very few. I mean, the overwhelming majority of 1,000,000,000 Christians around the world have no clue about this. I don't know, 10 pilgrims a year. I mean, when you look when you go to churches in the west, Jesus has blue eyes, and he's a blonde, curly, individual, not the Levantine like us people. So it's about the conscience to the reality. 

Bishop Nahra: Yeah. You know, that's why the church works on changing also the kind of education in the seminaries because everything comes to the people through the priests in the end. Without the priests, you know, it is their mission to learn and to teach. So that's why it is important. In many places, not everywhere, for sure, surely not everywhere, but in many big dioceses, now they bring at least once the seminarians to visit this land during their studies. They come for a trip, very few of them come to stay 6 months or whatever. Okay. But they come to visit and they discover the reality. You know, it's even us, I mean, I live now. I've been living here for long years. You've been here for perhaps you were born here. I don't know. 

Avraham Burg: More years as I care to remember. Yeah, I was born here.

Bishop Nahra: We never managed to really understand fully what's happening here. So people understand was part of what they said. 

Avraham Burg: But this not fully understanding which is there raises a question. Is it possible that religiously speaking or theologically speaking, we speak about two parallel realities? That the pilgrims and the seminary students and the spiritual leaders who are coming here or aiming their hearts toward the terra santa, and they have no clue that the on the top of the terra santa, there is the state of the Jews. So they separate the land from the political reality. 

Bishop Nahra: You know, once you speak of Israel and Palestine, people immediately feel that it concerns them. It always amazes me. Why does it concern them? I mean, sometimes people didn't come to visit the land. They don't know what is really, what are the borders of Israel or the borders of Palestine, what are the countries around Palestine and Israel. But people feel that it concerns them. So we cannot say that they are not aware of it. I am not sure that the people know exactly what it is about. Okay. So they have ideas. And the problem is that we live with ideas with what the media tell us, you know, because the media speak so much about what's happening here, everywhere in the World. You open the radio, you will have news always from Israel, Palestine, Palestinians, the war, Gaza, and this and that. So, I think it's a shallow knowledge of what's happening here. It's not so much that they are not interested or they are they don't know that there is a state. They know. Nowadays, they know that there are Israelis, there are Palestinians, but I am not sure they know really what it is about. It's simplified to a kind of, with stereotypes. Okay. That's it. 

Avraham Burg: Recently, you said the following, and I'm sorry that the translation is not fully accurate. “Here, we see the beauty of this land in which we live in. It's not just a rich and blessed country with its natural resources. It's also sacred for all the monotheistic religions, and it's very important for our identity, all of us, each and every one of us according to his or her belonging. At the same time, this land raises huge challenges for us because if we really want to live in it good life, one next to the other, it obliges us to go from our comfort zone and our prepositions, narrow worldviews in order to learn and to know the other and the different, to respect him and her, to love her and him, and even to wish him all the best that we wish for ourselves, not just in words, but with deeds.”

Bishop Nahra: Yes, I really believe it. Yeah. 

Avraham Burg: Let's talk a little bit about realities, facts on the ground. How many are you? Are you Christians? Are you Catholics? 

Bishop Nahra: Well, yeah. Christian you know, according to the last statistics I saw, there are almost 125,000 Christians in this land without counting the migrants and asylum seekers. We don't count the Filipinos, Indians, Sri Lankans, and Eritreans, and so on. So people living here, 185,000. Among them, perhaps 135,000 Arabs. The others are probably Ukrainian or from other citizenships. So and these, the 135,000 are all denominations together. So the Orthodox and Greek Catholic are the biggest communities. Then you have the Latins, you have Maronite, you have Anglicans, and so on. But you have no clear statistics, no clear statistics about each of these churches, how many faithful there are. 

Avraham Burg: Why is that?

Bishop Nahra: Because also, our people get married with one another. Almost all families are one Anglican with a Maronite, a Catholic with so on. So how to define, I mean, the belonging of their children. It's not so…

Avraham Burg: When they celebrate Easter and Christmas. I mean, tell me when is your vacation. I'll tell you which church you belong to. 

Bishop Nahra: Exactly. So I tried, you know, personally to count with my priests who work in the Latin parishes to 

ask them, each one of them, how many faithful do you have? It gave, in the end, something around perhaps 17,000 Roman Catholics, which is very few. But our communities count essentially by the are present by their institutions. We are present by our institutions more than by our…

Avraham Burg: Whatever institutions we're talking about. 

Bishop Nahra: So we have, there are many schools, relatively to the small number of Christians. I counted the other day. If you take altogether for all denominations, the schools, you have around 40 schools in Israel, which is a lot. Because, you know, each school, it's very heavy work, I mean, to run a school and with all the aspects, I mean. Material, the teachers, the spiritual and so on. So, 40 schools, and I think that many of them are for the Latin institutions. I mean, the Latin Patriarchate, the custody of the Holy Land that has many schools, and then religious institutes who opened schools at the end of 19th century, in 20th century. So this is really our, a very important part of our work and the way we are present in this country. Schools where there are Christians, where there are Muslim, where we try to teach people how to live together, to accept one another. 

Avraham Burg: And what kind of cooperation is there, if at all, amongst all Christians or old rivalries are still alive. 

Like, I remember at the 800th anniversary that there were couple of joint missions of Catholic and protestants that by itself was a statement. So what kind of rivalries are still here and what kind you said, Come on, not for us. We have bigger challenges. 

Bishop Nahra: You know, I think that what we call ecumenism, which means working together and living together. Ecumenism in several countries in the world is something they remember one week a year, you know, because there is the week or the Ecumenism year always in January. But here, it's a domestic acumenism, as I told you, because everybody is married with everybody, which creates some difficulties sometimes. This year, for instance, there are 5 weeks between the Catholic Easter and the Orthodox Easter. So when you have a family where the husband is Orthodox and the wife is Catholic, so how will they celebrate? Because they have their families and so on. So it's not always very easy. But, anyway, what does it mean? It means that we have to work together because I cannot serve the husband and forget the wife. So, you know, so, we work together. Now this is one thing. The ideal would be that all churches have a pastoral activity together. I don't know. We work with the youth, so we organize together activities for the youth. But this, you are not there. Okay? 

Avraham Burg: There you are still segregated. Each does its own camp and also when you look at the boy scouts, the kid scouts, is it a joint venture or each church has its own? 

Bishop Nahra: It's some type of work. You will have Catholic children who go to the Orthodox scouts, Catholics or Orthodox children who come. Of course.  But, the responsible will be separate. Okay? So we have good relationships, which is already, wow, a very good thing, which means when I meet it's really a friend of mine when I see the Orthodox Bishop Kyriakos in Nazareth. He's really a friend of mine. I love him, this man. But it doesn't mean that because of it, all our activities will be together. No. There are the Orthodox activities, the Catholic activities. And among Catholics, there is an assembly of the Catholic ordinaries, ordinaries which means bishops, if you wish, Assembly of Catholic Ordinaries of the Holy Land. And we meet twice a year. We try to organize our…

Avraham Burg: In your ordination, as I mentioned there were bishops and high ranking priests coming to your sermon, even I think holding the book over your head. No? 

Bishop Nahra: No. The one who holds the book is essentially the patriarch. And they were present. Yeah. And really friendly present. And I felt supported.

Avraham Burg: So that's on the higher level. When I sit with my friends, be it Christmas or New Year and sometimes Santa knocks on the door. Is it the same Santa for all the kids or each church has its own Santa Claus?

Bishop Nahra: Each church will have its own Santa Claus, but he can knock the door of somebody else. It's not a big problem. We have to respect one another. You know, when you have small communities, each community wants to keep its own identity. This is normal. This is human. So nobody wants to cancel the identity of the other or to or to absorb it. So we have to respect it. But the idea would be to, you know, to join our, you know, our energy to work together. It would be much better for all our people. We manage partly to do it. We are not in a bad situation, but it could be much better. 

Avraham Burg: Let's talk about one other element which I find fascinating. When I go to Tabha, which I know is difficult to go in and it is closed and all of a sudden you see the special needs kids, which are not Christian only.

Bishop Nahra:  Yeah. Of course. 

Avraham Burg: And this is a kind of a service that I will say from my point of view, really, holy people. Are serving the entire needy community. Are there more places in which the church is blind to the faith of the recipients? 

Bishop Nahra: Well, blind..

Avraham Burg: Not blind. But anyway accepting

Bishop Nahra: You know, I'm really honestly, I don't like the word proud. Pride, I don't like it. But on this issue, I'm I am really proud of the Christian message. Perhaps we don't live it all the way, but the Christian message, Jesus sends us to everybody. And this, I'm proud, I mean, I'm very happy to live with it. I think this is a light for us, Christians, and we have to live it because everybody needs it. It's for everybody. It's not only for us. It's to I mean, the mission given to us by God is not only to serve those who believe like me. I mean, my belief, my faith strengthens me in order to serve everybody, to love everybody. So sometimes you manage to do it, sometimes it's not enough. It is very challenging. It is very challenging. It's not so easy to keep your identity and to serve every keep serving everybody. But this is a very beautiful thing. And what you said, what you saw in Tabha, the schools have it everywhere. For our schools, we welcome in our in the, you know, we have for the Latin Patriarchate, our schools are always linked to parishes. In these schools, one of the most important things, and we try to remind we reminded always to the directors, These are schools to welcome everybody, not the elite. We don't want to be people for the elite because if you take the elite, you will have very good results. Everybody will applause, but this is not really our mission. So everybody, as much as possible, through, you know, human limits, But to be open to others and to serve 

Avraham Burg: So the same tool, you don't want to call it proud. I understand because it goes against the meek. The meek will inherit the earth. Okay? 

Bishop Nahra: Yeah. Of course.

Avraham Burg: But it goes against the concept of meekness, of humbleness. But is that the same mechanism that helps you to cross the street of East Jerusalem when Jewish fundamentalists are cursing and harassing and even spitting on clergy people to say, I have to contain even those? 

Bishop Nahra: Yes. I have to contain even those. I for me, you have to react, not to accept it. And, of course, we have to react. We have to protect our people also because, you know, as a responsible, it's not only my own security. I have to care for the security of all the community. But never to hate. For me, this is not the first commandment, but it's one of the first commandments, really. Never to let hate, you know, dwell in your heart because hate and the Spirit of God cannot dwell together. So if you want to be able to change anything in this world, you cannot hate. You can suffer. You can do everything against those who are acting badly. You have to find political need. I mean, you have to but don't hate. So, yes, we have to this is our reality. We don't like it. We suffer from it. The last year was a bad year for Christians in this country because of all these things. There was many acts of harassment against Christians. I don't like to tell it, but this is true. 

Avraham Burg: So in a way Yeah. In a way in a way, and I'm very, very cautious here, nowadays, 2024, when Abuna Rafic walks this some streets of Israel or some streets of Jerusalem, it's a Via Dolorosa?

Bishop Nahra: It's not I don't feel the it's not easy. Well, I I lived 17 years in Jerusalem. I never had this feeling. When I come now to Jerusalem, perhaps also because I'm dressed, like a bishop, so it's more visibly Christian. And I walk in Jerusalem. I'm all the time, I expect whatever. I don't know what.

Avraham Burg: a surprise.

Bishop Nahra: Yeah. Surprise. I would be I wouldn't be surprised if there is a reaction of somebody. 

Avraham Burg: So the only thing I have to wish you is that you will be surprised by love. 

Bishop Nahra: I hope.

Avraham Burg: So by the end of this conversation, I will say, Father, bless us. 

Bishop Nahra: God bless you and bless us all and bless this land and bless all these populations who are who are suffering. May he help us to not live up to the standard. I don't like this expression. To understand really what all these revelations, what they mean. Who is our God? Who is the God who called the people of Israel? Who is the God who sent Jesus for the Christians? Who is the God who cared for the Muslim and then send them a message through Mohammed? And let us learn from one another. Okay? So this is the blessing would be that God help us to to understand really what is his message, not a message of hate, refusal of the other, but a message to accept the other and see the riches of everyone who doesn't understand life like me, doesn't believe like me, and who has perhaps other interests than mine.

Avraham Burg: Abuna Rafiq, Bishop Rafiq, so many thanks for your being, for your deeds, for your blessings, and for this conversation. 

Bishop Nahra: Thank you. Very pleased to be with you. 

Avraham Burg: Thank you very much.