The Jews of Lebanon Project

يهود لبنان على الإنترنت

بلال عبود

يستقبل موقع «يهود لبنان» زوّاره بجملة «لبنان أكثر من بلد، إنه رسالة» ويؤكد أصحاب الموقع أن رسالتهم هي «المحبة والحفاظ على التراث التاريخي لأبناء الطائفة اليهودية في لبنان الذي يُعرف بالمجتمع اليهودي في لبنان» والذي يمثّل جمعية تعنى بشؤون اليهود اللبنانيين المغتربين والمقيمين.
يصف الموقع لبنان بأنه «البلد العربي الوحيد الذي ازداد عدد اليهود فيه بعد 1948» وهذا ليس من قبيل الصدف، «فاليهود اللبنانيون هم جزء تاريخي من المجتمع اللبناني يحميهم الدستور مثل باقي الطوائف، وهم لم يواجهوا حتى الآن أي تغيير في المعاملة القانونية ولم يطردوا من وظائفهم مثلما حصل في الدول العريبة المجاورة». يشير ارون ميشال بيضون، وهو مؤسس الموقع، إلى أن «وضع الطائفة اليهودية في لبنان تغير مع الحرب الأهلية، فهاجر معظم اليهود الى الارجنتين والبرازيل وكندا». وفيما لا إحصاء دقيقاً لعدد ابناء الطائفة اليهودية في لبنان، يؤكد أرون أنهم بين 500 و 1500 يعيش معظمهم في بيروت والكثير منهم غيّروا أسماءهم وهوياتهم بدافع الخوف.
يحتوي الموقع على معلومات وصور عن تاريخ اليهود في لبنان وعن طريقة التواصل فيما بينهم في بلدان المهجر، كذلك يضم مقالات وآراء لرؤساء الجمعيات اليهودية وبعض الكتّاب العالميين مثل باولو كويلو. يرفض هذا الموقع ربطه بأي جهة سياسية خارجية وأجنبية، ويؤكد انتماءه اللبناني واحترامه للدستور والقانون اللبنانيين. وهو ليس حكراً على اليهود « فأي شخص يؤمن بأفكار الحرية والمساواة واحترام حقوق الآخرين يمكنه أن يكون جزءاً من عمل هذه الجمعية» شرط الابتعاد عن المواضيع السياسية او العنصرية. لا يقبل الموقع أي مقالات او تعليقات تتعلق بالصراع العربي ـــــ الاسرائيلي، وهو يشدّد على احترام الآراء المختلفة والديموقراطية في التعبير، على أن تلتزم المواضيع المطروحة مبادئ إنسانية عامة غير سياسية.
www.thejewsoflebanon.org

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Paulo Coelho, best selling international author and one of the greatest writers of the century:

…your profile and project are really inspiring.
love
Paulo

I speak to you today as a human being and someone who subscribes to an overriding loyalty to all mankind as a whole.

I speak and write to anyone in the world who can hear this call, let us reaffirm our belief in mankind. Let us not stumble in the valley of despair, let us leave this cave of ignorance and hold hands in these days of challenge.

Yesterday afternoon I participated in a historic event, where men and women of goodwill shared their stories of hope and change. I simply asserted, I love God, therefore I love his greatest creation and that is the human being. For what is religion? Is not religion that path of righteousness to the Supreme Being? I ask those of you who may read this, what religion in the world, suffice to say, allows hatred of the other? Is not religion but fingers of the loving hand of God?

This entire website has broken the barriers of hate and has been a venue of love, tolerance, and acceptance of the other. In Montréal this past February, we brought together Lebanese Jews, Christians, and Muslims in one room, with one message and with a common conclusion- we want to see Beirut once again a playground for humanity, for all of God’s children to rejoice. Never in the last 40 years have we witnessed this bond between the Lebanese and all of the Lebanese.

We don’t seek fame or glory, all we seek is a country for all Lebanese, to show the world we can still exemplify the words of the late Pope Jean Paul II, that “Lebanon is more than a country, but a message” and it shall remain as such.

Today we see in Lebanon the emergence of almost two separate governments, Sunni-Shiite tensions now overshadowed by tensions within the respective and various Christian communities. We even witnessed the questioning of the identity of the Lebanese Armenian communities and yet still have not learned. Have the remaining minorities in Lebanon realized they are commencing towards the departure of their existence? Shall we begin working on www.thechristiansoflebanon.org anytime soon?

To the Lebanese, wake up and love the other. Your existence is contingent upon the existence of the other. The most noble and beautiful act any person can do is to help another. We protect ourselves, and we reserve our happiness and wellbeing when we reserve the happiness and wellbeing of the other.

There is a Jewish community in exile but there is also a Jewish population living in Lebanon today, yes they are living in Lebanon today. This community is much larger than 50 or 100 individuals, they have persevered in a society that denies them their freedom to exist and practice their religion openly. The Lebanese Jews have persevered in a society that generalizes their religious belonging to the shallow geo-political circumstances in the region. A community of over 1000 years.

The dangling discord in our nation strings can and should be reunited into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood where all of the children of good rally around the homeland.

This is a responsibility, not an opportunity, for all Lebanese and all mankind who are genuinely interested in peace in this world. Lebanon shall become an example for the world, that all of the children of God are brothers and sisters, that true faith is faith in humanity, not faith in the bomb or the gun. Faith in love, faith in tolerance, faith in coexistence, faith in ourselves.

A boy they called crazy,

A man of principle and persistence,

This will grow out of the flower in our hearts, we shall drink from the cup of life together, one day in Beirut, as Jews, Christians, Muslims, and all mankind. We shall sit together at the table of humanity and eat from the bread of life in Place d’Etoile (Nijmeh Square) -one day we hope to observe Shabbat and Passover in Beirut once again over the echoes of the Church bells and the call to prayer in the city’s Mosques.

We’re one people, we’re one blood, we have one destiny.

Aaron-Micaël Beydoun

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Statement

To our esteemed visitors, www.thejewsoflebanon.org has been honored and afforded the opportunity to participate in the launch of the “Manhattan Project” in Ann Arbor, Michigan on the weekend of 11 August 2007. A brief presentation detailing the history, motivation, and future of our noble endeavor will be incorporated in this revolutionary occasion. Writers, publishers, academics, artists, and clergy will descend from across the United States to participate in this event.

More information about the project is forthcoming.

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In Lebanon, A Quest for Rabbi, Community
From Sun-Sentinel Ft. Lauderdale - 11/10/1996
RODEINA KENAAN The Associated Press

Joseph Mizrahi, temporal leader of Lebanon’s Jews, sips Turkish coffee in the garden of his elegant house in this mountain resort town and talks about his dreams.

“I want a rabbi for our shrunken community. That will help it grow anew,” he says. “And I long for a definite word about seven kidnapped Lebanese Jews whose fate still is in doubt. These are the two things I want most.” The kidnapping spree in the mid-1980s was the ultimate terror that decimated Lebanon’s once-flourishing Jewish community. It numbered 8,000 before the 15-year civil war broke out in 1975. Now there are about 80. The Jews’ gradual exodus, prompted initially by the downturn in commerce from the war, sped into headlong flight when Jews suddenly were targeted by Shiite Muslim extremists.

Mizrahi, a prosperous electrical engineer, was the first Jew to be abducted - on March 26, 1984. He was quickly released, but three months later his elder brother, Raoul, was grabbed from his Beirut office. His body was dumped on a street in the city’s Muslim sector a few days later. “There were ugly scars of torture all over his body, and we could not even give him a decent burial,” Mizrahi said. There was no rabbi to conduct the funeral. The last one fled after the civil war started. And Beirut’s Jewish cemetery was right on the Green Line that split Beirut into warring Muslim and Christian sectors. “We had to brave shell fire and drive all the way to Sidon. We buried him in the Jewish cemetery there,” said Mizrahi.

The port city of Sidon, 25 miles south of Beirut, was one of several Lebanese cities and towns where Jews once lived among Muslims and Christians. Now they live only in the Christian heartland north of Beirut, Mizrahi said. In all, 11 Lebanese Jews were kidnapped and apparently killed during the hostage-taking spate. The bodies of only four, including Raoul Mizrahi, were recovered. All had been tortured. The Organization of the Oppressed on Earth, an extremist Shiite faction, claimed it abducted and killed most of them. It accused them of spying for Israel, an allegation that Mizrahi vehemently denies.

“Those Lebanese victims - and I insist that they are Lebanese - are mostly aged, highly respected, learned and valued citizens of this country. Kidnapping them because they are Jews is unpardonable,” he said.

He distances himself and his community from Israel, which occupies 10 percent of Lebanon in an enclave north of the Israeli border. “When a Jew lives among Arabs in a country as near to Israel as Lebanon, this is a strong indicator that he doesn’t want to have anything to do with Israel,” Mizrahi said.

The seven missing Jews are among at least 3,000 Lebanese of all faiths whose fates remain unknown, years after they were kidnapped by various factions.

“In the absence of corpses, we still consider them missing and want to appeal to the kidnappers, be they the Oppressed on Earth Organization or others, to deliver them dead or alive,” Mizrahi said. At least 92 foreigners were taken hostage during the 1980s. Eleven of them are known or presumed to have died or been killed in captivity. The rest were set free after imprisonments ranging from a few days to seven years. Shiite guerrillas have proved they can keep the remains of captives for a long time. On July 21, they released the remains of two Israeli soldiers who were ambushed a decade ago. But that was part of a complicated exchange of live and dead prisoners held by both sides.

Mizrahi, 56, and his Portuguese-born wife, Aida, have two daughters - Sarah, 11, and Lara, 5. Nearly all the other Jews are elderly, with neither the means nor desire to build new lives abroad. Many survive on donations from the Jewish Council, headed by Mizrahi.
Mizrahi says his tiny community observes the basic rituals of Judaism, but it is difficult without a rabbi.

“I can lead the community only on civil matters such as matrimonial law, birth certificates and burial services.”he said. “Religious affairs need a rabbi”.

“We eat only kosher meat. But since we don’t have a rabbi to oversee the slaughter, we import kosher meat from Syria and Europe.”