5 facts about Israeli Druze, a unique religious and ethnic group

ANGELINA E. THEODOROU
Pew Research
MARCH 21, 2016

Like a number of other ethnic groups in the Middle East, such as the Kurds, the Druze live in several different countries, separated by borders drawn after the breakup of the Ottoman Empire in the early 1920s. But unlike the Kurds, who are largely Muslim, the Druze are a unique religious and ethnic group. Their tradition dates back to the 11th century and incorporates elements of Islam, Hinduism and even classical Greek philosophy.

Today, 1 million-plus members of this community live primarily in Syria and Lebanon and, to a lesser extent, in Israel and Jordan. In Israel, the Druze are a close-knit community active in public life, according to a new Pew Research Center study of Israel. They make up roughly 2% of the country’s population and most live in the northern regions of the Galilee, Carmel and the Golan Heights.

Here are five facts about Druze in Israel:

1Nine-in-ten Israeli Druze say they have a strong sense of belonging to the Druze community and about the same number (93%) say they are proud to be Druze.Roughly two-thirds say they have a special responsibility to take care of Druze in need around the world. About seven-in-ten Druze (72%) say their religious identity is very important to them. But when asked if their Druze identity is mainly a matter of religion, culture or ancestry – or a combination of these elements – roughly eight-in-ten say being Druze is either essentially about ancestry or culture (33%) or a combination of religion and ancestry/culture (47%). Only about one-in-five say being Druze is primarily a matter of religion (18%). By comparison, more Israeli Christians (31%) and Israeli Muslims (45%) say being Christian/Muslim is mainly a matter of religion to them.

2Israeli Druze rarely marry across religious lines. In our survey, fewer than 1% of married Israeli Druze say they have a spouse or partner from outside their religion. This mirrors other religious groups living within the country; only 1% of married Muslims and Christians and 2% of married Jews say their spouse belongs to another religion. For Druze in particular, this lack of religious intermarriage may also be a reflection of the community’s history. Since just after its founding in the 11th century, the Druze tradition has been officially closed off to outsiders and proselytism has been prohibited. Since that ban, the Druze population has continued to exist solely based on the continuation of its previous generations.

3The Druze place heavy emphasis on philosophy and spiritual purity.Nearly all Druze (99%) believe in God, including 84% who say they are absolutely certain in their belief. But there are no set holy days, regular liturgy or obligations for pilgrimage, as Druze are meant to be connected with God at all times. A quarter of Israeli Druze say they attend religious services at least weekly (25%) and a similar share say they pray daily (26%). Druze tradition also honors several “mentors” and “prophets,” including Jethro of Midian (Moses’ father-in-law), Moses, Jesus, John the Baptist and the Prophet Muhammad. Several philosophers and other influential people are also held in high regard by the Druze, including Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and Alexander the Great.

4In Israel, the Druze are active in public life and subject to the military draft. In fact, for more than four decades, the Israeli military had a primarily Druze infantry unit called theHerev, or sword battalion. This is in contrast with Israeli Arabs, who are exempt from military service. About six-in-ten Druze men included in our survey say they have served (45%) or currently are serving (15%) in the Israeli military.Druze women are not required to serve. Among Israeli Jews, 75% of men and 57% of women currently serve in the military or have served in the past (Israeli Jewish men and women are required to serve, with some exemptions).

5The Druze and other Israeli groups share similar assessments of the possibility of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. While 42% of Druze say a way can be found for Israel and an independent Palestinian state to coexist peacefully, 51% of Muslims, 45% of Christians and 43% of Jews also take this view. About a third of Druze (32%) say “it depends,” when asked about prospects for peaceful coexistence. Just 18% of Druze say a two-state solution isnot possible – a lower share than among Muslims (32%) and Jews (45%) in the country.

Pew Research Center received helpful guidance on the Druze from Alexander Henley, American Druze Foundation Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies at Georgetown University.

Angelina E. Theodorou is a research analyst focusing on religion at Pew Research Center

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/03/21/5-facts-about-israeli-druze-a-unique-religious-and-ethnic-group/

Lebanon's Druze sect fearful as Syria's war moves closer

World Bulletin/News Desk
November 9, 2014

On mountains close to the Syrian border, members of Lebanon's minority Druze sect say they are ready to defend their towns and villages with arms if the civil war next raging door gets much nearer.
"Here in the east, the danger has become very close to us, it is right in our faces and in our lives," said Ali Fayik, a regional official speaking in the predominantly Druze town of Rashaya, set in steep mountains with a panorama over the region.
The town is in a sensitive area close to the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights and home to various religious communities which fought one another in Lebanon's own 1975-90 civil war.

Walid Jumblatt

On the other side of the mountain range, fighters are battling Syria's army as well as other insurgents.
Fresh battles over the border late last week killed at least 31 members of pro-government forces and around 14 insurgents, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said on Saturday.
The Lebanese army, its resources stretched, has struggled to secure the border with Syria, in some places giving rise to security patrols by local volunteers.
Militants from Syria crossed into the Lebanese Sunni border town of Arsal in August further north, killing and capturing dozens of soldiers and demanding the release of their fellow fighters held in Lebanon. Since then the army has said it has captured people it suspects of wanting to carry out more attacks
Also in August, Druze villagers opened fire on a bus carrying Syrians after it failed to stop at an army checkpoint at Ein Atta outside Rashaya, according to local officials, who said one Syrian was killed and two were wounded.
The villagers thought the bus was transporting militants but they turned out to be Syrian refugees.
War weariness in Lebanon makes a return to all-out civil conflict a remote prospect, but the onset of winter is heightening fears of more clashes if insurgents seek to create supply routes across the frontier ahead of winter snowfall.
With most Druze and Christian parts of Lebanon spared violence from Syria's three-and-a-half-year conflict that has hit other areas, Druze leaders on a national level have urged communities to avoid acting independently from the army.
"The Ein Atta incident was unfortunate, and it means there needs to be more involvement by the army," in safeguarding security, said cleric Jamal Eddine in Rashaya, dressed in the distinctive black shirt, trousers and white cap of the Druze community.
A member of the local Druze religious council, he said events in Syria and the wider Middle East had made local people worry about their future and said it would be natural for the community to protect itself.
People in Rashaya said they still saw the army as the first line of defence but they were ready to back it up if there was an incursion. The army draws its members from all of Lebanon's communities.
GUNS IN EVERY HOME
Some suspected Syrian fighters have also appeared in the Rashaya area, according to the Lebanese army.
In a statement late last month, it said intelligence and security services had arrested 12 Syrians on suspicion of belonging to groups fighting the army further north in Arsal. It said they had entered Lebanon illegally, without giving details.
Some in Rashaya worry that the nearby town of Shebaa, which sits on a well-trodden smuggling route near Israel, could become a refuge for Nusra Front, like other Sunni towns in northern Lebanon that are hosting refugees that have fled the violence.
Keen to prevent strife, Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, the head of the Progressive Socialist Party (PSP), has urged the community to leave security to the state. In a visit to Ein Atta after the bus shooting, he condemned any attack on Syrian refugees, local media said.
Despite support among the Druze for Assad, Jumblatt has said the Syrian president should step down. However, he has drawn closer to Assad's ally Hezbollah in recent months.
To bulk up security, the PSP has proposed strengthening municipal police to monitor villages to report any suspicious activity to the army, said party spokesman Rami al-Rayess.
"We are against any security measures that would be taken independently from the state apparatus," he said.
But preventing an armed response may prove difficult in areas where residents say there is a gun in nearly every home, like in many other parts of Lebanon.
"We do not commit aggression against one who would assault us, but we will stand up to him - the response is in the mouth of the gun," said registrar Riaf Ferhat, speaking in Rashaya's old market where vendors displayed goods in wood-fronted shops.
"We have dug a big trap here and we shall bury anyone who attacks us," he said, speaking about defences metaphorically.
Fayik, the other local official, agreed. He said it was a natural response now the fight had been brought to their door.
"We will not leave from here and when somebody threatens me...and I mean my life is threatened, it would make no sense for me to avoid using all means to hold ground and preserve the nation," he said.
Officials in Rashaya are quick to point out that the Druze have no organised militia like other Lebanese communities and say they have discouraged such movements.
Though the PSP says it has no militia, as recently as 2008 its supporters displayed significant firepower during fierce battles with Hezbollah.
"Of course, it is a natural phenomenon in Lebanon that people have private arms, but we do not have a dedicated, organised force," said Asaad Serhal, a Druze council cleric.
"There are arms found in each house to defend ourselves and our dignity, but they are not visible in the streets."
He was less worried about the risk of a spillover than other local people, saying militants would struggle to make their way over the border in large numbers because of the rugged landscape, which has so far acted as a natural barrier.
Rashaya lies just below a mountain known by locals as Jebel al-Sheikh and also referred to as Mount Hermon. Some residents said militants could make their way over the mountain passes if they have 4X4 cars and seize higher ground.
"There is concern and fear," PSP's Rayess said. "But it is not restricted to the citizens in this area, but in all the villages in Lebanon."
http://www.worldbulletin.net/news/148023/lebanons-druze-sect-fearful-as-syrias-war-moves-closer

Jumblatt issues warning for Druze sect in Syria

The Daily Star
Lebanon News
Aug. 18, 2014

BEIRUT: The Druze sect in Syria should not fall prey to manipulative Syrian regime policies that aim at sparking sectarian strife said Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblatt Monday, urging the offshoot Muslim sect to look toward a wider pan-Arab belonging.

“The Arab Druze must decide between a narrow and temporary sectarian affiliation that is being manipulated by the Syrian regime and a wider Arabic belonging” he said.

Jumblatt’s statement followed the death of a Syrian member of the Lebanese “Arab Tawhid Party”, who died “while resisting an armed attack” in the neighboring country's town of Dama.

Jumblatt said that sectarian identity does not protect the Druze minority that is spread across Lebanon, Syria and Palestine, arguing that a united Arab identity preserves the sect in the framework of its indigenous political and geographical climate.

The Druze leader called on the sect’s spiritual heads to employ the highest degree of vigilance, warning that the Syrian regime wants to use the Druze in a battle that has destroyed both Syria and its population.

“The policy of manipulating sects and faiths that is relied on by the Syrian regime hasn’t even spared the Alawite sect” said Jumblatt, in reference to President Bashar Assad’s sect and main constituency.

The Socialist Party head emphasized that Syrian regime policies aim at turning regions and sects against each other as to facilitate the spread of Assad’s control over different areas in Syria.

“The moment that the Druze fall in the regime's trap, and follow the minority theories that the [regime] promotes, then they will have abandoned their... struggle for a diverse and pan-Arab Syria” he concluded.

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Lebanon-News/2014/Aug-18/267590-jumblatt-issues-warning-for-druze-sect-in-syria.ashx#axzz3AtBY7eFj

Court questions discriminatory practice in Arab and Druze schools

Patrick Ryan

March 14, 2014
Haaretz.com

Education Ministry rules forbid dismissal of teachers during school year, but not for Arabs and Druze.

By Yarden Skop and Eli Ashkenazi

Education Ministry regulations allowing Arab or Druze teachers to be fired in the middle of the school year have been criticized by the Haifa Labor Court as “raising serious questions, to say the least.”

The court was hearing a suit brought by Rawda Shakour, a Druze teacher who was dismissed during the school year, and the Teachers Union.

Shakour had worked for four years as a teacher for children with special needs at a school in the Kisra-Samia regional council. She argued that her dismissal was the result of a discriminatory practice used only in the Arab and Druze sectors, which allows teachers to be fired during the first month of the school year, based on “placement errors."