Day 5: Druze

So, our lunch time was spent with a woman of the Druze faith...haven't ever heard of Druze you say? Well, you're not alone, I had never heard of it either. It emerged from Islam back in the 11th century, and is a mystical religion with no evangelism...they rely solely on the propagation of it's members in their families for the continuation of the religion...

They don't speak of their religious beliefs to outsiders much at all, it's very secretive...anyway, we met this woman, sorry, I can't pronounce, much less spell her name, but boy could she cook!!! We had lunch sitting on the floor, truly a challenge for all of us, and no one was too graceful getting up...very comical!

We asked her questions about her family and how things work in her community. She lives right at the base of Mount Hermon which is at the very North of Israel. There are about 10,000 in her community, but I understand there are about 1.5 million Druze in Lebanon, Syria and Israel. They are Arabs, but live peacefully in whatever community they live. They are very well educated and have a very high standard of living.

Their flag has 5 colors which represent the 5 tenants of their faith...which they can't talk about...hmmm....

You can read more about the Druze here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Druze

All in all it was a wonderful meal and she was a delightful woman...our guide, Shlomi, translated for us the whole time...we also gave her gifts, so Paula and I gave her a CTK T-shirt...don't worry, I asked before if it would be offensive to give a shirt with a cross on it...Shlomi assured me it would be no problem...

Also, you may have heard about the very recent conflict between the Palestinians and the Israelis where some Palestinians tried to cross a border into Israel and several got killed. Well, one of the places they crossed was at this community, just a stone's throw from where we had lunch that day (the incident happened 4 days before on Sunday)...no one was hurt in this community because the religious leaders worked with the Israeli police to find these men and returned them home. I have a picture of the area where they jumped over the fence.

Never a dull moment in Israel!!!