Displaying items by tag: Orthodox Jews

The head of the Russian Orthodox Church has sanctioned a priest who conducted a memorial service for Alexei Navalny, the late opposition leader. Patriarch Kirill, a close ally of Vladimir Putin, has banned Dimitry Safronov, the priest of a Moscow church, from his duties for three years, demoted him and stripped him of his robes and cross. He gave no official reason for these harsh sanctions, but Safronov was at Navalny’s funeral, and in March conducted a memorial service at his grave. He had also co-signed a letter asking the government to give Navalny’s body (which local authorities initially refused to release) to his family and let them bury him in the Christian tradition. Before his death Navalny had publicly spoken about his faith on several occasions.

Gush Etzion is a cluster of communities at the centre of the political controversy surrounding Jewish settlements. It supposedly consists only of right-wingers who consider all Arabs to be enemies, but there is a very different side to the community. Once a fortnight, trucks arrive to collect supplies donated by local residents. The supplies are taken north for the Amalia ‘buses of angels’ to distribute to Syrian children across the border. The activity looks like any other charity activity, but the teenagers organising it are Orthodox Jews and the recipients of the boxes are Arab refugees. The teenagers have also contacted Rabbi Shivi Froman, a resident of another Orthodox community and the founder of ‘Syrians on the Fences’ (SoF). SoF has collected over a million shekels to buy equipment for Syrian children, in collaboration with Israel Flying Aid (IFA). Froman’s late father was a leading Israeli voice for peace and reconciliation with the Arabs in the Palestinian Authority.