WOMEN UNDER PATRIARCHY

As US debates gender roles, some women in male-led faiths dig in on social and political issues

(AP) — Outspoken women from the Catholic Church and the ranks of conservative evangelicals are engaging with gusto in ongoing political and social debates even as their faiths maintain longstanding rules against women serving as priests or senior pastors.

David Crary and Holly Meyer
November 21, 2025

The U.S. feminist movement’s perpetual quest for gender equality has suffered notable setbacks during President Donald Trump’s second term — including the dismantling of various nondiscrimination programs and the ouster of several high-ranking women in the military.

Yet strikingly, outspoken women from the Catholic Church and the ranks of conservative evangelicals are engaging with gusto in ongoing political and social debates even as their faiths maintain longstanding rules against women serving as priests or senior pastors. Many of these women see these ministry barriers as a nonissue.

In a Dallas suburb, more than 6,500 conservative Christian women attended an Oct. 11 conference organized by commentator Allie Beth Stuckey. “Welcome to the fight,” was her greeting.

Ahead of the conference, Stuckey evoked the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, saying she had been inundated with messages from Christian women saying, “We’re done sitting on the sidelines of politics and culture.’’

“We’re not backing down; we’re doubling down,” Stuckey declared. “We’re unapologetically saying no to the lies of feminism and progressivism and yes to God’s Word.”

Some Catholic nuns are on the front lines

Among Catholic women, there is a different kind of passion exhibited by sisters from religious orders who are on the front lines of social-justice advocacy.

A striking example came in September after Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the archbishop of New York, praised Kirk as “a modern-day St. Paul” who was a worthy role model for young people.

Leaders of the Sisters of Charity of New York, an order founded in 1809, issued a public rebuke.

“What Cardinal Dolan may not have known is that many of Mr. Kirk’s words were marked by racist, homophobic, transphobic, and anti-immigrant rhetoric, by violent pro-gun advocacy, and by the promotion of Christian nationalism,” the nuns said. “These prejudicial words do not reflect the qualities of a saint.”

“In this moment,” the nuns added, “we reaffirm our mission: to walk with all people who are poor and marginalized, to welcome immigrants and refugees, to defend the dignity of LGBTQ+ persons, and to labor for peace in a world saturated with violence.”

Another religious sister, Norma Pimentel of the Missionaries of Jesus, is a leading migrant-rights activist along the U.S.-Mexico border. She runs Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley, including a respite center for beleaguered migrants in McAllen, Texas.

At a recent forum in Washington, she recalled visiting immigrant families at a detention center in a “terrible condition,” and being moved to tears.

“I saw Border Patrol agents looking at us, and they, too, were moved and were crying,” she said. “When I walked out of there, the officer turned to me and said, ‘Thank you, sister, for helping us realize they’re human beings.’”

Natalia Imperatori-Lee, a professor in the theology department at Fordham University, praised Pimentel’s advocacy and the Sisters of Charity leadership’s statement as “the model of the way women show up in the public square.”

“Women religious are the face of the church,” she said.

Overall, Imperatori-Lee said she was disheartened by “this moment of very serious backlash to the gains that women and other minorities have made.” Yet she finds reasons to be encouraged.

“A lot of undergrads are passionate about women’s equality in the church,” she said of Fordham, a Jesuit school now with a woman as its president for the first time.

“Even if the headlines about our cultural backsliding are true, the on-the-ground activism that you’re seeing among young people shows they’re are up to the task,” she said.

Conservative evangelical women navigate a patriarchal doctrine

After the Catholic Church, the second largest denomination in the U.S. is the Southern Baptist Convention, whose evangelical doctrine espouses traditional gender roles at home and in the church. That includes barring women from being pastors, a belief that has put the SBC in the spotlight in recent years following high-profile ousting of churches that disobeyed the prohibition.

But this doesn’t mean Southern Baptist men are domineering nor that the women are doormats, said Susie Hawkins, a Bible teacher in Texas and wife of a former denominational leader.

“That’s not what complementarianism is,” said Hawkins, referring to the doctrine that men and women have distinct God-given roles. “The women I know have the freedom to speak their mind to their husbands, and to work through problems in situations with them, within certain boundaries.”

Many embrace being wives, mothers and women in the church, said Hawkins, who has watched Erika Kirk, the wife of the late Charlie Kirk, publicly demonstrate that same satisfaction and joy.

“I think this is really, really important for Christian women,” said Hawkins. “She exemplifies a Christian wife and mom who is not ashamed of her love for her husband and her desire to serve him and love him and their kids.”

Hawkins predicts Erika Kirk, now head of her husband’s Turning Point USA, will be influential: “I think her voice — it will be heard from this point on.”

Stuckey, who grew up Southern Baptist, recently addressed women’s roles in church and society on her “Relatable” podcast, following online blowback from men on the right for giving a speech at a Turning Point college event. Stuckey reiterated her belief that women should not be pastors nor preach from the pulpit on Sundays, and said she has turned down opportunities because of it.

“A gentle and quiet spirit is something that women are told that we should have in Scripture, and we should. But that does not mean silence,” she said. “Women are also called to raise a voice and to be a bastion and refuge of clarity and courage.”

Most Southern Baptist women embrace accepted callings in the church, including in women’s and children’s ministry, said Hawkins, noting a special commissioning service at First Baptist Church of Dallas celebrating these roles.

“I just don’t think you see a lot of malcontent women complaining about not being able to be a pastor,” she said.

The Texas megachurch, which upholds that only men can serve as senior pastor, honored 13 women, said senior pastor, the Rev. Robert Jeffress.

“Instead of focusing on the one ministry women are prohibited from doing (senior pastor) we wanted to recognize and celebrate all the things that women can do in the church,” Jeffress said via email.

Hawkins has encountered a few women who felt called to off-limits roles in Southern Baptist churches. She was straightforward with them.

“Go do what God’s called you to do, but we’re not the denomination for you. You’re just going to get frustrated here. These boundaries were established a long time ago, so go where you can be happy,” said Hawkins.

Advocates of women’s ordination vow to persist

Long-established boundaries remain in the Catholic Church as well.

As Pope Leo XIV — the first American Pope — settles into his papacy, he has made clear he has no immediate interest in advocating for women to be able to serve as deacons, let alone to be ordained as priests.

Yet women continue to serve in high-level administrative jobs at the Vatican and at Catholic institutions in the U.S., such as Catholic Charities and the Catholic Health Association.

“Within the Catholic Church when we look only at priesthood, we fail to look at the primary mission of the church — it’s education, health care, social service agencies,” said Susan Timoney, a professor of pastoral studies at The Catholic University of America.

“We need to tell that part of the story better,” Timoney said.

The largest U.S. organization working to open the priesthood to women is the Women’s Ordination Conference, which will mark its 50th anniversary in late November.

Its executive director, Kate McElwee, said she is alarmed by “anti-women rhetoric and policies being pushed out all over the globe” including in the U.S. She wants her group to function as a “Ministry of Irritation, making our cause as bold and loud and creative as possible.”

“As things get more polarized, we’re seeing more people find their courage in this moment,” she said, citing the Sisters of Charity as an example. “As feminism is under attack more broadly, our movement will become a more important symbol of resistance.”

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Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

Opinion

In new memoirs, women rabbis wrestle with Judaism's male-centered tradition

(RNS) — Female rabbis have staked a claim to a Judaism that is fully inclusive and respectful of the values of all its adherents.

Recent memoirs by women rabbis. (Courtesy images)

Beth Kissileff
November 19, 2025
RNS

(RNS) — From the days of Miriam, the sister of Moses and Aaron, Jewish women have been leaders-without-portfolio. In the Book of Exodus, Miriam, a “prophetess,” leads the Israelite women in song, but unlike Moses, the main recipient of teaching from God, and Aaron, the chief priest, she has no named role.

Today, women in many denominations of Judaism are able to attend institutions of higher learning to become equipped with the necessary skills to gain credentials to be called rabbi or cantor. What will they do with their newfound titles? A crop of new books and TV shows out this fall gives some answers.
RELATED: Jewish identity doesn’t need a disclaimer

Rabbi Léa Schmoll, the fictional subject of HBO’s new series “Reformed” (which is based on a book by Rabbi Delphine Horvilleur), is filled with doubts as she takes her first pulpit in her hometown of Strasbourg, France. The local Orthodox rabbi, Lea’s teacher and inspiration when she attended his classes as a child, visits at the behest of his congregants, but instead of discouraging her as they wish, he ends up telling her that she will be more valuable as a rabbi who has doubts than one with certainties: What she thinks of as a vulnerability, he says, can be a form of strength.

“We didn’t want the show to sound like Judaism has all the answers,” the producers of “Reformed” said in a recent interview.

Women rarely feel as if they have sufficient answers, social scientists say, an attribute that may keep them from seeking leadership roles. In her new memoir, “Heart of a Stranger,” Rabbi Angela Buchdahl shows how this works. Born in Korea, where her parents met, she eventually becomes the fourth generation of her family to attend the Reform congregation that was founded by her father’s ancestors. After college at Yale University, then cantorial school and rabbinical school, Buchdahl finds her way to her first congregation, in New York’s northern suburbs, before being invited to the staff at Manhattan’s august Central Synagogue, where she began in 2006.

As in “Reformed,” the most affecting parts of Buchdahl’s book have to do with her doubts about her lack of qualifications, starting with her Jewishness. A summer spent in Israel with roommates who are more strictly observant “pegged me in my own mind as a counterfeit Jew,” she writes. Buchdahl calls her Buddhist mother from Jerusalem “using up five expensive long distance minutes in unintelligible heaves of crying” to say: “I’m not sure I want to be a Jew anymore. I don’t have a Jewish name; I don’t have a Jewish face. No one would even notice or care; I could just stop being Jewish right now.” Her mother responds, “Is that really possible, Angela?”

Today she leads a synagogue with 7,000 members, a $30 million endowment and 100 employees, and as the book makes evident, she is a skilled interpreter of sacred texts. Her early discouragement, and her ability to be honest about it, speaks volumes about what it means to be inside (or outside) a community. It also says a lot about how porous Judaism’s borders have become since Buchdahl was young, even as there are still some who don’t consider her a rabbi. Buchdahl writes, “Feeling like a stranger might be the most Jewish thing about me.”

Doubts aren’t the only obstacle for women looking to lead. The day Buchdahl had to decide whether to apply for Central Synagogue’s senior rabbi position, which she has held since 2014, she was also slated to appear on a panel with Anne-Marie Slaughter, on work-life balance, when her daughter ended up in the emergency room. With the help of a nanny, Buchdahl was able to be in the hospital and speak at the event, but she writes about the tension involved. The lessons the rabbi recounts, such as the value of a sparring partner who is willing to argue “in service of something bigger than themselves: getting closer to the truth,” are ones worth learning. That they are taught from a personal stance with a full measure of humility and honesty makes the book so much more accessible.

Not all female rabbis come from the same mold. In her new book, “The Jewish Way to a Good Life: Find Happiness, Build Community, and Embrace Lovingkindness,” Rabbi Shira Stutman, a co-host of the podcast “Chutzpod!,” has many answers, most of them rooted in Jewish sources and traditions. But this guide for the Jewish-curious often suffers from advice that’s obvious (“community doesn’t happen to you, community is something that you build and tend to, or it stagnates, withers, and sometimes dies”) or downright unhelpful: “The best way to think about queerness and Judaism in interaction is not as a problem at all, but as a thrilling opportunity.” Tell that to the queer Yeshiva University students who have fought for years to have their club approved and even won a lawsuit, yet are still blocked by the administration.

What’s most useful is Stutman’s point that Judaism’s answers don’t come just from rules and observances but embedded practices that result in community to share Shabbat dinner with or to help one another mourn. “The best we have to offer when sitting with a mourning friend or family member is not platitudes but presence,” she writes.

One promise of female rabbis is that they can add to the male-centric tradition by reflecting women’s unique perspectives. Rabbi Wendy Zierler, in her new memoir, “Going Out With Knots: My Two Kaddish Years with Hebrew Poetry,” isn’t shy about this point. “The feminist scholarly enterprise to which I had devoted my career,” she writes, “thus entailed three crucial parts: critical readings of male-authored canonical texts to expose this bias; the recovery of alternative feminine literary ‘herstories’ or traditions; and, if extant traditions didn’t suffice, the creation of something new.”

Zierler analyzes the contributions of poets Lea Goldberg, Rachel Morpurgo, Ruhama Weiss and Rachel Bluwstein, examining how these creative voices find their voices to remake a tradition given to them and also withheld. Only a trained literary scholar — Zierler has a Ph.D. in comparative literature from Princeton — and possessor of a rabbi’s knowledge of the Bible, Talmud and later Jewish texts and the prayerbook could explicate these writers’ allusions and wordplay and apply it to her own life, which has been difficult in recent years: She lost her father in a tragic accident, then her mother to illness, and cared for her mother-in-law, a Holocaust survivor, through her dementia.

Zierler uses poetry, in the words of Hebrew poet Yehuda Amichai, like a serum that courses through the veins to effect a cure for the dark times. She also relies on her love for the Jewish tradition, and Jewish community. Friends ask why she continues to attend an Orthodox synagogue, despite being excluded from the quorum of 10 Jews required for certain prayers. “Though I wasn’t counted in the minyan in a ritual or halakhic/legal sense,” she writes, “if I didn’t make it to shul on a given morning, I would get texts and emails from regulars, both men and women, asking me if everything was okay. If that isn’t ‘counting’ what is?”

Zierler is heartened by Ruhama Weiss’ “Chapters of the Mothers,” a poem playing against the Jewish text called the “Chapters of the Fathers” which opens with Moses handing down the Torah to Joshua and continues by relating the line of authority of patriarchs and male sages. Weiss summons a line of Biblical heroines: “from Hagar I learned to submit and/ afterward, to see/ And to find strength to save the boy,” referring to Ishmael, the son of Abraham.

The poem ends with a reference to the “Book of the Upright,” also known as the Book of Jasher, an alternative telling of the Bible that, Zierler writes, questions “the identity and comprehensiveness of this masculine tradition and pointing to its need for correction and amplification.” Zierler adds that “it was incumbent upon us to compose alternative texts and interpretations to supplement, affirm, and liberate.”

This confidence — to compose alternative texts and interpretations and incorporate them into the masculine tradition — is a culmination of the years of leadership-without-portfolio. It is nice to have TV shows about female rabbis, but books like Buchdahl’s and Zierler’s comfort us that there is substance and teaching from female rabbis as leaders beyond the flimsy image on a screen, and challenge us to transform the Jewish tradition into one that is fully inclusive and respectful of the lived vision and values of half its adherents.

(Beth Kissileff is author of the novel “Questioning Return” and co-editor of “Bound in the Bond of Life: Pittsburgh Writers Reflect on the Tree of Life Tragedy.” The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of RNS.)

Global Anglican ties are under stress. It's unclear if they're at the breaking point

(AP) — After decades of fierce controversies over sexuality and theology in the Anglican Communion, some leaders of a conservative coalition say it's time to make a final break from what has long been one of the world's largest Protestant church families.

Rodney Muhumuza and Peter Smith
November 19, 2025

After decades of fierce controversies over sexuality and theology in the Anglican Communion, some leaders of a conservative coalition say it’s time to make a final break from what has long been one of the world’s largest Protestant church families.

That would make a slow-growing Anglican schism complete — if it happens.

But how many church provinces go along with the rupture remains to be seen. Some of the communion’s largest and fastest-growing churches in Africa belong to the conservative group that announced the break — known as the Global Anglican Future Conference, or Gafcon. But several member churches have been silent on the plan, weeks after it was announced.

Gafcon’s announcement came shortly after the October appointment of Bishop Sarah Mullally as the first woman to be archbishop of Canterbury, the Anglican Communion’s symbolic spiritual leader. Many in England and other Western countries hailed this as a historic breaking of a stained-glass ceiling.

But leaders of Gafcon criticized the appointment, as did some other bishops. Some said only men should be bishops, but their bigger criticism was her support for some LGBTQ+-inclusive policies — the key fault line in the communion.

Within days of Mullally’s appointment, Gafcon issued another declaration. It completely rejected the Anglican Communion as it has been structured historically. That structure has included a set of governing and advisory bodies and recognition of the archbishop of Canterbury as a symbolic “first among equals” among leaders of self-governing national churches, known as provinces. Since provinces are self-governing, the archbishop’s authority is highly limited.

The ”future has arrived,” said Gafcon’s chairman, Archbishop Laurent Mbanda of Rwanda, in its October statement. “We declare that the Anglican Communion will be reordered.” His statement decried churches it said had violated a 1998 statement by the communion’s bishops, opposing same-sex unions and describing “homosexual practice as incompatible with Scripture.”

Gafcon proclaimed what it calls a restructured “Global Anglican Communion.” It would be overseen by a new council of top national bishops, or primates. Whoever is elected chairman would be “first among equals.”

Uncertainty as to how large a breakaway could be

The question remains is: How many Gafcon members are actually going along with this plan, and how many want to remain in the existing Anglican Communion as a loyal opposition?

Primates of Africa’s two largest national provinces, Nigeria and Uganda, have joined their Rwandan counterpart in endorsing the measure, according to Bishop Paul Donison, Gafcon’s general secretary. So have smaller churches ranging from Myanmar to the Americas.

Nigeria Archbishop Henry Ndukuba confirmed his church’s endorsement of Gafcon’s plan. He called Mullally’s stances on same-sex issues “devastating.”

“This election is a further confirmation that the global Anglican world could no longer accept the leadership of the Church of England and that of the Archbishop of Canterbury,” he said in a statement.

Donison said Gafcon’s statement was drafted at a meeting in Australia, which included several church leaders on Zoom, though several others did not participate. Gafcon’s statement said its bishops would “confer and celebrate” restructuring at their next major meeting, scheduled this March in Nigeria.

Among those signing on to the Gafcon statement is the conservative Anglican Church in North America, formed in a break from the more liberal U.S. and Canadian churches.

The Gafcon move will “mark a decisive moment in the life of the Anglican family,” said ACNA Archbishop Stephen Wood, in a statement issued shortly before he took a leave of absence amid allegations of sexual and other misconduct, which he denies.

The Anglican primate of Congo is committed to maintaining Anglican ties.

In a statement, Archbishop Georges Titre Ande decried liberal trends in some churches but added: “The Anglican Church of Congo has no intention to leave the Anglican Communion, rather to keep working … to reform, heal and revitalise the Anglican Communion without leaving it.”


Tensions have been worsening for many years

The communion consists of churches descended from the Church of England. Anglicanism, with its unique mix of Protestant theology and Catholic-like ritual and sacraments, spread worldwide via colonial and missionary activity. It is especially vibrant in Africa. The London-based communion estimates it has about 85 million members across 165 countries.

Simmering tensions in Anglicanism exploded after 2003, when the U.S. Episcopal Church ordained its first of several openly gay bishops. Conservatives formed Gafcon and other structures. Large provinces such as Uganda’s and Nigeria’s have largely stopped participating in traditional Anglican structures.

The Anglican Communion itself is weighing a proposed new structuring that would de-emphasize Canterbury and share leadership roles more widely.

The proposals “won’t solve all the differences in the Anglican Communion, but they do seek to provide a structure within which people of deeply different convictions can remain in good conscience within that Communion,” said Bishop Graham Tomlin, chair of the committee that drafted the proposals. The plan will be aired before an advisory council next year.

Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe of the Episcopal Church said the latest Gafcon statement was “more of the same” from a subgroup that has largely disengaged from the Anglican Communion.

“There’s a pretty clear agenda here, which I don’t think has very much to do with the church,” he said. “I’m really interested in being in relationship with people who want to continue our relationships across the communion.”

Vocal unhappiness over a female leader

Even if the communion remains intact, its profound divisions surfaced with Mullally’s appointment.

Mullally has affirmed the Church of England’s current definition of church marriage as between a man and a woman, but she supported a plan for blessings of same-sex couples and has acknowledged “the harm that we have done” as a church to LGBTQ+ people.

Homosexuality remains taboo in many African countries, in some cases criminalized under colonial-era laws or newer legislation. Uganda enacted legislation in 2023 prescribing the death penalty for some homosexual offenses.

Stephen Kaziimba, Uganda’s archbishop, lamented Mullally’s “support and advocacy for unbiblical positions on sexuality.”

Her appointment widened “the tear in the fabric of the Anglican Communion,” Kaziimba added in a letter to Anglicans.

Bishop Lukas Katenda, leader of the conservative Reformed Evangelical Anglican Church of Namibia, a Gafcon-aligned faction independent of the Church of England, dismissed Mullally’s appointment as “a joke.”

“She is not a person to look up to for evangelism, for mission, for proclamation of the gospel of Jesus Christ, for winning souls or to call people for repentance,” Katenda told The Namibian newspaper.

When the Anglican Diocese of Upper Shire in Malawi shared the Gafcon statement criticizing the appointment of Mullally on its Facebook page, it attracted approving comments from followers who said “Amen.” However, the diocese also reposted a statement from the general secretary of the Anglican Communion, urging it to stay together.

In Accra, Ghana, Patrick Okaijah-Bortier, parish priest of St. Andrew Anglican Church, said many clergy in his country were unhappy about Mullally, notably because of her support for same-sex blessings.

“It is worrying,” he said. “If she pushes this agenda, she may end up losing almost all of us.”

Another cleric in Accra, Georgina Naa Anyema Collison of the St. Joseph the Worker Anglican Church, said she supported Mullally’s appointment because “I’m a female” yet opposed her position on same-sex unions.

But in South Africa, where same-sex marriages are legal, Archbishop Thabo Makgoba of Cape Town, primate of the Anglican Church of Southern Africa, offered “warm congratulations” to Mullally. In another statement, Makgoba’s office said he is focused on interfaith peacemaking efforts and “has neither the time nor any interest in engaging with these internal Anglican differences.”

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Contributors include Farai Mutsaka in Harare, Zimbabwe; Dyepkazah Shibayan in Abuja, Nigeria; and Edward Acquah in Accra, Ghana.

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Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

Pope tweaks a law allowing a woman to head the Vatican City State, months after a nun was appointed

ROME (AP) — Leo amended the 2023 law to remove a reference that had said the president of the Vatican City State administration must be a cardinal.

Nicole Winfield
November 24, 2025

ROME (AP) — Pope Leo XIV fixed a technical glitch on Friday in a Vatican law that became problematic after Pope Francis named the first-ever woman to head the Vatican City State administration.

Leo amended the 2023 law to remove a reference that had said the president of the Vatican City State administration must be a cardinal.

Francis in February appointed Sister Raffaella Petrini, a 56-year-old Italian nun, as president of the city state. The appointment was one of many Francis made during his 12-year papacy to elevate women to top decision-making jobs in the Vatican, and it marked the first time a woman had been named governor of the 44-hectare (110-acre) territory in the heart of Rome.

But the appointment immediately created technical and legal problems that hadn’t existed before because Petrini’s predecessors had all been priestly cardinals.

For example, Petrini wasn’t invited to deliver the economic status report of the Vatican City State to the closed-door meetings of cardinals in spring that preceded the May conclave that elected Leo.

Normally, the cardinal-president of the Vatican City State would have delivered the briefing. But those pre-conclave meetings, known as general congregations, are for cardinals only.

In changing the law Friday to allow a non-cardinal to be president of the Vatican administration, Leo suggested that Petrini’s appointment was not a one-off. He wrote that the governance of the territory was a form of service and responsibility that must characterize communion within the church hierarchy.

“This form of shared responsibility makes it appropriate to consolidate certain solutions that have been developed so far in response to governance needs that are proving increasingly complex and pressing,” Leo wrote.

Petrini’s office is responsible for the main revenue sources funding the Holy See coffers, including the Vatican Museums, but it also handles the infrastructure, telecommunications and healthcare for the city state. The Vatican City State commission she heads is responsible for approving laws governing the territory, and approving the annual budgets and accounts.


The Catholic Church reserves the priesthood for men. While women made strides in reaching top management jobs in the Vatican during Francis’ pontificate, there was no movement or indication that the all-male hierarchy would change rules barring women from ministerial ordination.

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Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

Flunking Sainthood

‘Secret Lives’ shows Mormon women working out the damage of purity culture in real time

(RNS) — 'Secret Lives' offers an absurdly one-sided picture of Mormonism. But it's also not fully wrong.

Promotional poster for "The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives." 

(Image courtesy of Hulu)

Jana Riess
November 14, 2025

RNS

(RNS) — Season Three of Hulu’s hit series “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives” dropped on Thursday (Nov. 13). Ten new episodes promise to update us on the latest scandals, catfights and shifting alliances among Utah’s notorious MomTok frenemies.

Let me say up front that I’m not a fan of “reality” TV, or what one of my friends aptly calls “fake-ality” TV. There’s a tedious and engineered sameness to these shows. “Secret Lives,” like similar shows, revolves around some type of manufactured conflict, usually low-stakes played as high stakes — for example, adults saying “OMG, she said that?! I am so not inviting her to my birthday party.” Then everyone rehashes the low-stakes conflict endlessly, in cloistered small-group gossip and in solo interviews in front of the camera, telling us again and again how they feel about it.

And yet, I can’t dismiss the show as entirely vacuous, and I can’t dismiss these women as not being real Mormons.

Yes, there’s a lot that is fake about the show and about them. For women who seem bent on asserting their individual uniqueness, they sure went all in on identical “Utah hair” styles. There’s surgical augmentation of certain body parts and the synthetic “sisterhood” they keep claiming to enjoy. They constantly speak about friendship even as they only appear to hug so they can stab one another in the back from closer proximity. Their relationships through MomTok, the nickname for their TikTok community, seem almost wholly transactional. The women use one another for clout, although they also worry aloud that other people are only interested in befriending or dating them to get more clout.

RELATED: Why are Mormon lifestyle influencers so popular?

But that doesn’t mean these characters aren’t raising vital questions about what constitutes a Mormon identity.

The first two seasons of “Secret Lives” showed some of the women working out their relationship to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in real time. The main characters fall on a spectrum where some are “all out” of the church and are very critical of it, a few are at the other extreme and still regularly attending church, and most are somewhere in the middle.

An important aspect of this identity negotiation has to do with sex. Beyond all the revealing clothing and made-for-media drama about who cheated on whom, there’s a good deal of hurt around sexuality.

I admit that the first time Mayci used the word “trauma” to refer to her picture-perfect life, I rolled my eyes. But I gave her the benefit of the doubt by reading some of her new memoir “Told You So,” which came out last month. It details a painful history of adolescent grooming and sexual assault, and the humiliation of having to confess what was mostly nonconsensual sexual activity to her bishop. It’s an important story.

Then, there’s Mikayla, who says in Season Two that she survived childhood sexual abuse that was dismissed or downplayed by her LDS mother. Mikayla left home at 15, became a teenage mom at 17 and now has four kids, despite only being in her mid-20s.

And let’s not forget Layla, who says she has never had an orgasm. Or at least, not until MomTok hired a sex educator to teach them all more about the female body and how it’s not only designed to give men pleasure.

Layla didn’t grow up LDS; she converted as a teenager, attracted to the religion’s seeming ability to deliver a happy nuclear family. She got married super young since early marriage seemed to be emphasized in her new Mormon world. But the church’s ideal of the happy family didn’t work out, and by her early 20s, she was a divorced and destitute single mom.

Some orthodox LDS church members will doubtless respond that these women made their own choices, citing agency and accountability and all that. But the common theme running through these stories is a feeling of powerlessness around their sexuality, and I do think some of that can be blamed on the church.

Promotional image for “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives.” (Image courtesy of Hulu)

The church taught women their sexual “purity” was the most important thing about them, the single-most prized virtue they possessed. The church also taught them that sex outside of marriage was a sin second only to murder (cue Spencer W. Kimball here). And the church wasn’t always careful to distinguish between consensual, chosen sex and being the victim of rape or abuse. If virginity was the commodity that gave a young woman value, then she was damaged goods when it was gone, even if it was forcibly taken from her.

For the last five years, I’ve been part of a research project about who leaves Mormonism and why. In my interviews with women who have left — particularly younger women in their 20s, 30s and 40s — it’s become very clear to me that the damage inflicted by purity culture is real.

In a broader way, the church taught women that their primary role in life was to be a wife and mother. This creates conflict for some of the women in the show. Their generation of LDS women was told to get an education, but also that any career they might prepare for was strictly a “plan B” in case they couldn’t fulfill the ideal of being a stay-at-home mother.

RELATED: Mormon women are finally allowed to wear sleeveless tops. Here’s why some are grieving.

In the series, we see this tension play out in the story of Jen, who begins as the token, quiet young Mormon wife. Jen married very young, and her husband is portrayed as controlling. The show depicts him as attempting to isolate her from her female friends when they exert damaging peer pressure on Jen by frog-marching her against her will to the den of iniquity that is Chippendales. (Did I mention these women are not real friends to each other?)

Jen’s fellow MomTokers don’t think much of her husband. Jen, meanwhile, begins to assert her own opinions and make demands of him, something she feels empowered to do, in part because she has become the unexpected breadwinner in their marriage.

Jen could well be LDS church leaders’ worst nightmare. She’s the cautionary tale of what can happen when women don’t completely buy into the church’s preferred SAHM identity and the chronic financial dependence that goes with it. Lured by the validation and the paycheck they can receive in the working world, they stop playing the role of the deferential wife who just feels lucky to have a husband — any husband, even a crappy one. (And I’m not saying Jen’s man-child of a husband is crappy. Who really knows with fake-ality TV?)

But Jen is living a deeply familiar Mormon story. I know many women like her who postponed or derailed their careers in order to follow the church’s one true approved path for them. Some are happy they did, and others are not. All of them are wrestling with the messages about work and motherhood they absorbed growing up in the church.

Yet, the church claims it can’t see itself in any way in this series. A couple weeks before the first episode of “Secret Lives” debuted in September 2024, the church released an official statement that didn’t name the show but decried “stereotypes or gross misrepresentations that are in poor taste.” The statement further noted the church’s “regret that portrayals often rely on sensationalism and inaccuracies that do not fairly and fully reflect the lives of Church members or the sacred beliefs that they hold dear.”

I agree with some of that: “Secret Lives” offers an absurdly one-sided picture of Mormonism. These women are so materialistic and obsessed with parties and clothes that they don’t resemble any of the Mormon women I know. If the MomTok divas care about the wider world beyond their influencer bubble, we don’t see it onscreen. They mine human relationships for dramatic effect and size up other people based on what those people can do for them.

That self-centered worldview is very much not Mormon. The church has consistently preached a gospel of helping others and serving God.

But in terms of sexuality and gender roles, there’s a clear connective thread to what the church taught these women about their life purpose and their bodies. And it impacts what they are grappling with today.

Their struggles are often painful to watch. But I hold a grudging respect for several of these Mormon-ish women, and I wish them the best. Mostly, I think they would be better off if they stayed away from each other and found at least one actual, tried-and-true friend. Failing that, each could use a loyal Golden Retriever.

ECUMENISM & CONSTANTINIANISM

1,700 years ago, bishops and an emperor wrote a creed. Millions still recite it in church

(AP) — Leo will commemorate the 1,700th anniversary with Patriarch Bartholomew, the spiritual leader of Eastern Orthodox Christians.

Peter Smith
November 21, 2025
RNS/AP

Centuries of church schisms show that if there’s a doctrine to be fought over, there’s a good chance Christians will fight about it.

That repeated splintering is what makes the Council of Nicaea — a meeting of bishops 1,700 years ago in present-day Turkey — so significant today. And why Pope Leo XIV is traveling on Nov. 28 to the site of this foundational moment in Christian unity as part of his first major foreign trip as pope.

In 325, the council hashed out the first version of the Nicene Creed, a statement of faith that millions of Christians still recite each Sunday.

“The occasion is very, very important — the first global, ecumenical council in history and the first form of creed acknowledged by all the Christians,” said church historian Giovanni Maria Vian, coauthor of “La scommessa di Costantino,” or “Constantine’s Gamble,” published in Italy in tandem with the anniversary.

Convened by the Roman emperor, Nicaea marked the first — but hardly the last — time that a powerful political leader took a leading role in shaping a far-reaching church policy. It was an early collaboration of church and state.

Leo will commemorate the 1,700th anniversary with Patriarch Bartholomew, the spiritual leader of Eastern Orthodox Christians.

Catholic, Orthodox and most historic Protestant groups accept the creed. Despite later schisms over doctrine and other factors, Nicaea remains a point of agreement — the most widely accepted creed in Christendom.

Other events have been commemorating the council, from the global to the local. The World Council of Churches, which includes Orthodox and Protestant groups, marked the anniversary in Egypt in October. At a Pittsburgh-area ecumenical celebration in November, the tongue-in-cheek catchphrase was, “Party like it’s 325.”

Unified empire, divided church

The Council of Nicaea is important both for what was done and how it was done.

It involved an unprecedented gathering of at least 250 bishops from around the Roman Empire. Emperor Constantine had consolidated control over the empire after years of civil war and political intrigues.

Constantine wouldn’t formally convert to Christianity until the end of his life. But by 325, he had already been showing tolerance and favor toward a Christian sect that had emerged from the last great spasm of Roman persecution.

Constantine wanted a unified church to support his unified empire. But the church was tearing itself apart.

It’s sometimes called the “Trinitarian Controversy,” though the debate wasn’t so much about whether there was a Trinity — God as Father, Son (Jesus) and Holy Spirit — but about how the Son was related to the Father.

Historians debate exactly who taught what, but an Egyptian priest named Arius gave his name to the influential doctrine of Arianism.

It depicted Jesus as the highest created being, but not equal to God. The opposing view, championed by an Egyptian bishop, said that Jesus was eternally equal to the Father.

An effort at compromise

Constantine called a council to sort things out. It’s called the first “ecumenical” or universal council, as opposed to regional ones.

The bishops nearly unanimously supported a creed endorsed by the emperor. It’s a shorter version of the Nicene Creed recited in church today. It declared Jesus to be “true God” and condemned those who proclaimed Arian ideas.

The creed described Jesus as equal to the Father, of “one substance” — “homoousios,” a term from Greek philosophy rather than the Bible.

The council also adopted a formula for determining the date of Easter, which had been controversial. The council approved the calendar favored by Arian sympathizers, setting Easter for the Sunday after the first full moon of spring. That gave each side a win, said David Potter, author of “Constantine the Emperor” and a professor of Greek and Roman history at the University of Michigan.

“The Council of Nicaea was an extraordinary diplomatic success for Constantine, because he got the two sides to agree,” he said.

As a result, an emperor’s theological legacy endures.

“I’ve often thought that it’s nice that a piece of imperial legislation is read out every Sunday,” Potter said.


Ominous language about Jews

When the council set its formula for determining Easter, it made a point of distancing the observance from that of Jewish Passover. It used highly contemptuous language for Jews.

“Institutional antisemitism was absolutely a feature of the church,” Potter said.

He noted that such harsh language was common on all sides of ancient religious disputes among early Christians, Jews and pagans. But it helped set a precedent for centuries of persecution of Jewish minorities in Christian lands.

The settlement unsettled

Despite agreement on the creed, it didn’t settle things. In fact, Arius made a comeback, returning to political favor.

NEW: Bring more puzzles and play to your week with RNS Games

Doctrinal debate raged for another couple of generations — even in the streets of the new capital of Constantinople.

“Old-clothes men, money changers, food sellers, they are all busy arguing,” wrote St. Gregory of Nyssa late in the fourth century. “If you ask someone to give you change, he philosophizes about the Begotten and the Unbegotten. If you inquire about the price of a loaf, you are told … the Father is greater and the Son inferior.”

In 381, another emperor convened a council in Constantinople. It affirmed an expanded Nicene Creed, with added lines describing the church and the Holy Spirit. The final version became the standard text used today. It’s sometimes called the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed.

Later -isms and schisms

That largely took care of the Arians, but new controversies arose in later centuries.

Some churches in Asia and Africa, including the Oriental Orthodox bodies, accepted the Nicene Creed but rejected later councils amid disputes over how to talk about Jesus being both human and divine. Pope Leo, while in Turkey, also plans to meet with representatives of two Oriental Orthodox groups, the Armenian Apostolic and Syriac Orthodox churches.

The Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches had their own schism in the 11th century. They’d already been growing apart over such things as papal authority, but a big controversy was that the Western churches had added a clause in the Nicene Creed that the Eastern ones hadn’t agreed to. Specifically, the original creed said the Holy Spirit “proceeds from the Father,” but Catholics added, “and the Son.”

Protestant churches later split over other issues, though most held to the Nicene Creed. Historic churches such as Lutherans, Anglicans and Presbyterians explicitly affirm the creed. Many modern evangelical churches that don’t officially affirm the creed, such as many Baptists, have their own statements of faith that largely agree with it.

A few notable exceptions, such as Jehovah’s Witnesses and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, don’t accept the Nicene formula.

The Catholic and Protestant churches also began observing Easter differently than the Orthodox a few centuries ago, using an updated solar calendar — and opening yet another breach in Nicene unity.

Still, Nicaea offers hope to a divided church, said the Rev. John Burgess, a systematic theology professor at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary who is a Presbyterian minister and a scholar on Eastern Orthodoxy.

“An event like the 1,700 years of Nicaea is really the celebration not of a reality but of a hope — of what Christians at their best know ought to be the case, that there is a deep call to unity,” he said.

___

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

Signs of the Times

Pope to be tested on first trip to Turkey and Lebanon

(RNS) — I don’t expect a home run on his first time at bat, but neither will he strike out.

FILE - Pope Leo XIV greets pilgrims in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican, Oct. 7, 2025. 

(AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

Thomas Reese
November 24, 2025
RNS



(RNS) — While Americans are recovering from their Thanksgiving dinners, Pope Leo will be flying to Turkey and then Lebanon. His first international trip, these five days abroad will show whether Leo is ready for primetime on a global stage.

The trip has two major themes: ecumenism and peace.

The trip to Turkey was planned by Pope Francis to celebrate the 1,700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea, most famous for approving the Nicene Creed that attempted to bring unity to Christians who were fighting over Christology and other theological issues.

The creed unites the Catholic Church with Orthodox churches and many Protestant churches.

RELATED: Pope Leo embraces the radical challenge of Catholic social teaching

Ecumenism has come a long way since I was a child, when Catholics and Protestants avoided each other’s churches (even for weddings and funerals) and treated each other as heretics. Earlier, it was even worse, with Protestants and Catholics killing each other over their differences in France (1562-1598) and in the Eighty Years’ War (1566-1648) and the Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648).

Blood was also shed between Catholics and Orthodox Christians, including the sacking of Constantinople by the Crusaders in 1204. The 1054 mutual excommunication between the pope and the patriarch of Constantinople was not lifted until 1965 by Pope Paul VI and Patriarch Athenagoras I.

Except in Ireland, the 20th century was a time of peace among Christians, but it was not until the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) that the Catholic Church fully committed itself to ecumenism. Heretics became “separated brothers and sisters.” Christians prayed together, exchanged pulpits, held theological dialogues and worked together for the common good.

Progress was made on many old issues, like justification by faith or works. Catholics are no longer selling indulgences. Although Catholics and Protestants still do not share the Eucharist, the Mass is now in the vernacular, the cup is shared with the people and the clergy encourage the faithful to read the scriptures. Luther would have been pleased.

But as quickly as issues were resolved, new ones came up, especially relating to sexual morality and the ordination of women. I joke with my Protestant friends that, considering the changes that have occurred in Catholicism and Protestantism, today Luther would be a Catholic.

The Vatican sees the anniversary of the Council of Nicaea as an opportunity to celebrate ecumenical progress and to stress that what unites Christians is greater than what divides them. Dialogue and cooperation must continue.

Leo had limited involvement in ecumenism as a priest or bishop. Only 14 percent of Peru is Protestant. But his work and travel as prior general of the Order of Saint Augustine educated him on the wide varieties of Christianity, and the Vatican has an office of experts whose sole function is ecumenical dialogue and who have doubtless prepped Leo for this trip.

But no trip to Turkey can ignore the war that is happening just north of the country on the other side of the Black Sea.

Pope Francis was accused of tilting toward Russia because of his comment that the U.S. provoked Russia with its desire to bring Ukraine into NATO. He also encouraged Ukraine to show the “white flag,” which was interpreted as surrender when he meant a ceasefire for negotiations.

He also hoped the Vatican could provide a neutral spot for negotiations between Ukraine and Russia. The Vatican has been successful in negotiating prisoner exchanges and the return of Ukrainian children taken into Russia during the war.

Like Francis, Leo had no diplomatic experience before becoming pope, but he will be well briefed before he gets on the plane to Turkey. He will avoid making spontaneous comments on the war and will stick close to the positions articulated by the Vatican Secretariat of State, especially by calling for a ceasefire and an end to the bombing and killing.

U.S. foreign policy can change radically with the election of a new president, but Vatican foreign policy stays pretty much the same no matter who is pope.

The trip to Lebanon will be a boost for Christians in the Middle East, where they are suffering, especially in Lebanon, Syria, Gaza and the West Bank. Christians have left the Middle East in droves. The region needs peace and stability.

Lebanon is still reeling from the 2020 explosion of 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate in Beirut that killed 218 people, injured 7,000 more and caused $15 billion in damage. The pope has promised to visit the site of the explosion.

Meanwhile, Israel has targeted Hezbollah leaders in Lebanon with little concern for collateral damage. According to The Associated Press, “Israeli airstrikes over southern Lebanon have intensified in recent weeks.” The most recent attack in Beirut’s southern suburbs killed five people and wounded 25 others. This is just a few miles from where the pope will be visiting.

RELATED: Catholic bishops decry treatment of migrants without mentioning Trump

Everyone will be watching to see what the pope will say about Israel’s actions in Lebanon, Gaza and the West Bank. This is a minefield for even the most experienced diplomat, which Leo is not. Again, he will be well prepared by Vatican experts, and I predict he will stick to the policies articulated by the Vatican Secretariat of State. He will support a ceasefire, negotiations and the two-state solution.

This first international trip will be a very public test of Leo’s papacy. I don’t expect a home run on his first time at bat, but neither will he strike out. A base hit will be a win.

Muslim civil rights group sues Texas governor after terrorist accusation

(RNS) — The federal lawsuit argues that Abbott improperly used his office to target the domestic nonprofit without due process and in violation of federal law.

  
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott speaks in Corpus Christi, Texas.

 (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

Ulaa Kuziez
November 20, 2025
RNS


(RNS) — The Council on American-Islamic Relations is fighting against Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s labeling of the Muslim civil rights group as a foreign terrorist organization, calling his action “illegal” and “defamatory” in a lawsuit filed Thursday (Nov. 20).

On Tuesday, Abbott filed a “proclamation designating the Muslim Brotherhood and CAIR as Foreign Terrorists and Transnational Criminal Organizations under the Texas Penal and Texas Property Codes” and argued that in doing so he could allow the state to shut down CAIR’s Texas chapters and ban them from purchasing land in the state. The federal lawsuit argues that Abbott improperly used his office to target the domestic nonprofit without due process and in violation of federal law.

Attorneys representing the Texas chapters also allege Abbott’s designation is retaliatory, meant to silence CAIR after the group won three lawsuits against the governor in recent months.

“This attempt to punish the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization simply because Governor Abbott disagrees with its views is not only contrary to the United States Constitution, but finds no support in any Texas law,” lawyers wrote in the suit filed in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas.

In recent years, several bills have been proposed in Congress to designate CAIR as a terrorist group, but none have passed. The U.S. State Department, under federal law, alone has the power to designate foreign terrorist organizations. States do not have the authority to make such a designation at a federal level and Abbott appears to be the first governor to attempt to do so at a state level.

“Governor Abbott decided to appropriate that power to himself to retaliate against CAIR,” said attorney Charlie Swift of the Muslim Legal Fund of America, one of the groups suing Abbott and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.
RELATED: Texas governor calls CAIR a terrorist organization, says he will enforce penalties

In Abbott’s proclamation, he alleged CAIR had ties to Hamas, which is designated as a terrorist group by the State Department. CAIR denies any such connection.

“Despite all the conspiracy theories, CAIR has always been an American organization,” said Edward Mitchell, CAIR deputy director. “We’ve never been an offshoot, a partner, an agent, a pen pal of any foreign organizations.”

Abbott also claimed CAIR wanted to advance Shariah, or Islamic religious law, in the country and called on local district attorneys to investigate alleged Shariah “courts” in Texas.

 Anti-Shariah conspiracy theories, a staple of 9/11-era rhetoric, resurge around Mamdani

“The Muslim Brotherhood and CAIR have long made their goals clear: to forcibly impose Sharia law and establish Islam’s ‘mastership of the world,’” Abbott said in a press release.

Mitchell called Abbott’s allegation about Shariah courts “unhinged,” saying private arbitration courts are legally allowed to resolve civil cases.

“No one is trying to impose Islamic law on America,” Mitchell said. “This conspiracy theory is used by anti-Muslim extremists to whip up fear of Muslims, and in Governor Abbott’s case, he is whipping up this fear because he wants to silence Muslims because so many American Muslims have been critical of the Israeli government.”

Abbott’s designation amassed condemnation from elected officials Tuesday. The Texas Democratic Party called on Abbott to reverse the designation. And in a joint statement signed by 28 Texas Democratic state representatives, state Rep. Salman Bhojani wrote that the governor’s action singles out Muslim Texans and treats them with suspicion.

“​​The governor’s action will only further fuel hostility toward Muslim families, business owners, and educators who strengthen our communities every day,” wrote Bhojani, one of the first Muslims to serve in the Texas Legislature

Why Switzerland Doesn’t Recognise Palestine As A State – Analysis


Young man with Palestine flag.

 Photo by Ahmed Abu Hameeda on Unsplash

November 25, 2025 
 SwissInfo
By Giannis Mavris

At the UN General Assembly in New York at the end of September 2025, several states recognised Palestine as an independent state. These included France and the UK, meaning that four of the five members of the UN Security Council recognise a Palestinian state. The US is now the only Security Council member that does not recognise Palestine as a state.

Switzerland has long backed the two-state solution to the Middle East conflict. However, it currently rules out recognising Palestine. Here is what you need to know to understand the Swiss position.

Where does Switzerland stand on the recognition issue?

Switzerland is committed to the two-state solution outlined by the UN, based on 1967 borders and with East Jerusalem as the capital of an independent Palestinian state. This is sometimes considered unrealistic or impossible, but it remains the only vision for Israel/Palestine that enjoys broad support under international law. Palestinian statehood has so far been recognised by 157 of the 193 UN member states (some 81%).

At the UN conference on the Middle East in July, Swiss foreign ministry representative Monika Schmutz Kirgöz said that “Switzerland considers the recognition of the Palestinian state to be intrinsic to a lasting peace based on the two-state solution”. Recognition could be considered if “concrete measures” that would help a two-state solution – which “guarantee both Israel’s security and the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination” – were put in place.

This means Switzerland will only recognise a Palestinian state once there is a comprehensive peace solution and a corresponding political roadmap agreed with Israel.

Switzerland has thus taken a different approach from many other states, which see recognition of Palestine as a means to increase pressure on Israel to advance the two-state solution.

Whether pressure against Israel will work is questionable. Last year the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, passed a resolution declaring a Palestinian state to be an “existential danger to Israel” and “firmly” opposing its establishment.

How does Switzerland recognise other states?

Since the Second World War, Switzerland has only recognised states – and not governments, as many other countries do. Whether and when a state recognises another is not defined by international law. Recognition is understood as an expression of a unilateral declaration of intent; it is an expression of state sovereignty. Each state therefore has its own rules and traditions for recognising other states as subjects of international law.

For Switzerland, the key principle is effective statehood, which is usually shown by three elements: a national territory, a national people and a national authority. Depending on the political climate, Switzerland has always allowed itself a wide range of options in applying these criteria. The decision to recognise a state is at Switzerland’s “political discretion”. Other elements such as “the behaviour of the international community or a group of states relevant to Switzerland” are also considered.

The recognition of a state is carried out by the federal government, which is responsible for the country’s foreign policy. In the past, there have been repeated discussions about giving parliament a greater role; for example, in the case of Kosovo, which Switzerland was one of the first countries to recognise. This has not happened so far.

When it comes to the Middle East, however, the stance of the Swiss government aligns with that of parliament. In 2024, a motion in the House of Representatives called for the recognition of Palestine. The motion was the subject of heated debate but was ultimately rejected by 131 votes to 61. Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis said in the debate that, from the government’s point of view, “now is not the right time” for recognition. At the time, it was also said that state recognition must be part of a peace plan.

Before that, Switzerland had abstained from voting on Palestine’s application for full UN membership (Palestine has had observer status at the UN since 2012). Switzerland “concluded that granting Palestine full UN membership at this time would not be conducive to easing the situation and peace efforts in the Middle East,” the government wrote in April 2024.

When did Switzerland recognise Israel – and what can be deduced from this?

Israel is recognised by 164 of the 192 UN member states (around 85%). According to the UN partition plan for Palestine adopted in November 1947, the territory was to be divided into an Arab and a Jewish state. Israel declared independence on May 14, 1948, and was admitted to the UN a year later.

Switzerland officially recognised Israel on March 18, 1949. “In an effort to maintain good relations with the Arab countries of the Middle East, the government waited for other states to make their decision,” according to the Historical Lexicon of Switzerland.
What is the Swiss policy on the Middle East?

The recognition of states has thus always depended on various factors – not least global developments and domestic political considerations. And while international momentum is currently growing for a recognition of Palestine as a way to enable peace in the region, Switzerland’s official position is still against this.

Switzerland has repeatedly emphasised its “firm support” for international efforts to implement the two-state solution. Talks on this issue have been held repeatedly in Geneva; initiatives have also been launched there. If Switzerland were to move to recognise a Palestinian state – which Israel strongly opposes – Geneva might no longer be considered as a venue for talks.

Ultimately, Switzerland has a generally cautious Middle East policy. It clearly condemns military escalation in the West Bank, as well as the “complete impunity” for acts of violence. Yet unlike the US and the EU, it has not yet imposed sanctions on extremist Israeli settlers – even if the government reserves the right to do so.

SwissInfo

swissinfo is an enterprise of the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation (SBC). Its role is to inform Swiss living abroad about events in their homeland and to raise awareness of Switzerland in other countries. swissinfo achieves this through its nine-language internet news and information platform.

Director Kaouther Ben Hania on five-year-old Hind Rajab's tragic cry for help from Gaza

Issued on: 25/11/2025 

Play (12:14 min)

Hind Rajab's phone call to the Palestinian Red Crescent in January 2024 was, for director Kaouther Ben Hania, the "tipping point" in the ongoing Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip. As the Franco-Tunisian filmmaker releases her latest film "The Voice of Hind Rajab", she tells us about re-creating the story of the five-year-old girl who was killed by the Israeli army following a lengthy phone call with Red Crescent staff who were working tirelessly to arrange her rescue.

Ben Hania tells us about the importance of using the original audio in this hybrid feature which draws on both documentary and fiction, the emotional toll the shoot took on her cast and crew, and the power of cinema to bring meaning to news reports that fail to capture the humanity and complexity of the stories they tell.

BY: Olivia SALAZAR-WINSPEAR

Laura DI BIASIO

Magali FAURE

Marion CHAVAL

Solène CLAUSSE

Opinion

Palestinian Christians issue 'Kairos II,' a cry of hope in a time of darkness

(RNS) — Updating a document issued in 2009, Kairos Palestine II demands international protection, accountability and reparations.

FILE - Displaced Palestinians return to Rafah, Gaza Strip, Jan. 20, 2025, a day after a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas went into effect.

 (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi, File)

Daoud Kuttab
November 21, 2025
RNS


(RNS) — In December 2009, a group of Palestinian Christian leaders issued the Kairos Palestine Document, a cry from a people living under occupation and apartheid. Named for the Greek biblical term kairos, meaning a critical, decisive moment in history demanding a faithful response, Kairos Palestine spoke first to Palestinians and then to the global church, urging Christians everywhere to reject “injustice and apartheid, and to work courageously for a just and lasting peace.”

Sixteen years later, Palestinian Christians say the world has changed so dramatically that a new moment of truth has arrived. Hence, the release of Kairos II this week. The updated document states plainly that “we live now in a time of genocide, ethnic cleansing and forced displacement unfolding before the eyes of the world.” That recognition, its authors argue, marks a fundamental shift.
RELATED: Global evangelical Christianity is shifting eastward, says Palestinian minister

Kairos II emerges “from the heart of the assault on Gaza — mass displacement, starvation, the destruction of every sector of life, and the burial of families under rubble.” It speaks, the authors write, as “a cry of hope in a time of genocide,” insisting that faith, hope and love can and must be renewed even in the darkest hour.

Lamma Mansour, a policy researcher in Jerusalem, said that Kairos Palestine II is a necessary update to the 2009 document “at a critical time for Palestinians and especially for Palestinian Christians.”

The Rev. Munther Isaac, pastor of the Lutheran Evangelical Church in Ramallah and a member of the Kairos Palestine board, said that the document is also a call to action. “Kairos II,” he said, “is not an attempt at the beautification of suffering, it is a call to persevere” in the wake of a brutal war. The document uses “clear, unambiguous language that calls for naming things,” Isaac said, calling Zionism and Christian Zionism “racist, exclusionary, and colonial ideologies.”

Any political solution, he insisted, “must begin with the truth. Settler colonialism and the apartheid system based on Jewish supremacy must be dismantled … We reject any state with conditions and diminished sovereignty. We demand international protection, accountability and reparations.”

The Rev. Munther Isaac, right, speaks during the release of Kairos II at Bethlehem Bible College, Nov. 14, 2025, in Bethlehem, West Bank. (Photo by Daoud Kuttab)

The document was presented Nov. 14 at Bethlehem Bible College before an audience representing the full spectrum of the Palestinian Christian community: Catholics, Orthodox Christians and Protestants. Among those present were former Latin Patriarch Michel Sabbah, Orthodox Bishop Atallah Hanna, Lutheran Bishop Sani Ibrahim Azar, and the Rev. Jack Sara, secretary general of the World Evangelical Alliance’s Middle East and North Africa region.

Isaac said the new text “comes within a new context and expresses theology and faith in a time of genocide — and what it means to be a church in a time of genocide.” But, he added, “it is also an embodiment of the theology of resilience and hope.”

The Rev. Hanna Katnasho, academic dean of Nazareth Evangelical College, said the document represents “the thoughts of a group of Palestinians who are suffering immense pain and facing the killing of children and injustice.” It is, he said, an effort “to bring this context into God’s presence — to understand his will and spread a message of peace and love in light of justice.”

Katnasho added that Kairos II places genocide at the center of the crisis and articulates a Christian message in the face of a global moral collapse that is diametrically opposed to Christ’s teachings of love, mercy and peace.

The Rev. Jack Sara, president of Bethlehem Bible College, called the new document “a new beginning for a very important initiative.” Kairos II, he said, “calls on Christians around the world to seriously consider the Palestinian issue and defines what is required from a Palestinian Christian perspective.”

The original Kairos document was hailed as a unique ecumenical voice of Palestinian Christians. Kairos II has been seen as a much more courageous document, calling the Israeli actions in Gaza genocide and addressing what they considered as the sins of Christian Zionists for their attempts at justifying Israeli war crimes against Palestinians, especially women and children in Gaza, including dozens of Palestinian Christians and churches that were also victims of the Israeli aggression.

Salim J. Munayer, a founder of Musalaha: A Vision of Reconciliation, an organization that works toward reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians, called the past two years “one of the most painful situations any people have endured,” and praised Palestinian Christians for having “the mental and spiritual depth to produce such a powerful document” as Kairos II.

Palestinian Christians at Chicago conference ask fellow believers to stand against Gaza war

“The challenge now,” Munayer added, “is to ensure that Kairos II is widely shared and heard, breaking through the longstanding silence and complicity of much of the Western Church. The realities faced by the Palestinian people over the last century will not fade away — nor should the prophetic witness contained in this document.”

(Daoud Kuttab is the publisher of Milhilard.org, a Christian news site dedicated to communities in Jordan and Palestine, and the author of “State of Palestine NOW.” Follow him on X @daoudkuttab. The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of Religion News Service.)

Israel launches strikes in Gaza ceasefire's latest test as hospitals say 24 killed

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israel has previously carried out similar waves of strikes after reported attacks on its forces during the ceasefire.

Palestinians inspect the damage to a house targeted by an Israeli strike in Deir al-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip, Saturday, Nov. 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

Wafaa Shurafa
November 24, 2025

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israel’s military on Saturday launched airstrikes against Hamas militants in Gaza in the latest test of the ceasefire that began on Oct. 10, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said five senior Hamas members were killed. Health officials in Gaza reported at least 24 people killed and another 54 wounded, including children.

The strikes, which Israel said were in response to gunfire at its troops, came after international momentum on Gaza, with the U.N. Security Council on Monday approving the U.S. blueprint to secure and govern the territory. It authorizes an international stabilization force to provide security, approves a transitional authority to be overseen by President Donald Trump and envisions a possible future path to an independent Palestinian state.

Israel has previously carried out similar waves of strikes after reported attacks on its forces during the ceasefire. At least 33 Palestinians were killed over a 12-hour period Wednesday and Thursday, mostly women and children, health officials said.

‘A fragile ceasefire’

One of Saturday’s strikes targeted a vehicle, killing 11 and wounding over 20 Palestinians in Gaza City’s Rimal neighborhood, said Rami Mhanna, managing director of Shifa Hospital, where the casualties were taken. The majority of the wounded were children, director Mohamed Abu Selmiya said.

Associated Press video showed children and others inspecting the blackened vehicle, whose top was blown off.

A strike targeting a house near Al-Awda Hospital in central Gaza killed at least three people and wounded 11 others, according to the hospital. It said a strike on a house in Nuseirat camp in central Gaza killed at least seven people including a child and wounded 16 others.

Another strike, targeting a house in Deir al-Balah in central Gaza, killed three people, including a woman, according to Al-Aqsa Hospital.

“Suddenly, I heard a powerful explosion. I looked outside and saw smoke covering the entire area. I couldn’t see a thing. I covered my ears and started shouting to the others in the tent to run,” said Khalil Abu Hatab in Deir al-Balah. “When I looked again, I realized the upper floor of my neighbor’s house was gone.”

He added: “It’s a fragile ceasefire. This is not a life we can live. There’s no safe place.”

Israel’s military in a statement said it launched attacks against Hamas after an “armed terrorist” crossed into an Israeli-held area and shot at troops in southern Gaza. It said no soldiers were hurt. The military said the person had used a road on which humanitarian aid enters the territory, and called it an “extreme violation” of the ceasefire.

In other statements, the military said soldiers killed 11 “terrorists” in the Rafah area and detained six others who tried to flee an underground structure. It also said its forces killed two others who crossed into Israeli-held areas in northern Gaza and advanced toward soldiers.

Israeli forces remain in just over half of Gaza after withdrawing from some areas under the ceasefire.

A senior member of Hamas’ political bureau, Izzat al-Rishq, in a statement accused Israel of “fabricating pretexts to evade the (ceasefire) agreement and return to the war of extermination” and said Hamas had urged the U.S. and other mediators to compel Israel to implement the agreement.

The Hamas statement didn’t comment on the claim by Netanyahu’s office of five senior members killed.

The toll of war

The war began with the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, that killed some 1,200 people and took over 250 hostage. Almost all of the hostages or their remains have been returned in ceasefires or other deals. The remains of three are still in Gaza.

Israelis rallied again on Saturday night in Tel Aviv, demanding a state commission of inquiry into the events around the Oct. 7 attack.

“The government of Israel failed in its most important mission: to protect its children, to protect its citizens, not to abandon soldiers on the battlefield without rescue and without assistance,” said Rafi Ben Shitrit, father of Staff Sgt. Shimon Alroy Ben Shitrit, who was killed in the attack.

Gaza’s Health Ministry says 69,733 Palestinians have been killed and 170,863 injured in Israel’s retaliatory offensive. The toll has gone up during the ceasefire both from new Israeli strikes and from the recovery and identification of bodies of people killed earlier in the war.

The ministry does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its figures but has said women and children make up a majority of those killed. The ministry, part of the Hamas-run government and staffed by medical professionals, maintains detailed records viewed as generally reliable by independent experts.

NAKBA II

Netanyahu convenes cabinet on settler violence in the West Bank that continues unabated

JERUSALEM (AP) — In the latest deaths, the Palestinian Health Ministry said two Palestinian youths aged 18 and 16 were killed by Israeli gunfire overnight.

Julia Frankel
November 24, 2025

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel’s prime minister met with top security officials to discuss a rising tide of Israeli settler violence in the West Bank, an Israeli official said Friday, as fresh allegations surfaced of Israeli settlers hurling rocks at passing Palestinian vehicles in the West Bank village of Huwara.

Huwara Mayor Jihad Ouda said the stone throwing was quickly followed by a huge fire at a nearby scrapyard. Flames lit up the evening sky and sent massive columns of smoke into the air, images and video on social media showed. The military said it had reports that Israelis set the fire and that police were investigating.

The U.N. humanitarian office documented 29 attacks by settlers in the West Bank from Nov. 11-17, U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters Friday. The attacks caused 11 injuries and damage to 10 homes, two mosques and nearly two dozen vehicles, as well as damage to crops, livestock, and roughly 1,000 trees and saplings, he said.

Israeli forces have killed more than 200 Palestinians in the West Bank so far this year, including 50 children, Dujarric said.

In the latest deaths, the Palestinian Health Ministry said two Palestinian youths aged 18 and 16 were killed by Israeli gunfire overnight. The circumstances of the shootings were not immediately clear. Israeli police did not immediately respond when asked to comment.

At the meeting, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and officials from the military, the country’s Shin Bet domestic security service and the police discussed the recent spike in violence and proposals on curbing it, according to an Israeli official who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not permitted to talk about a closed-door gathering. The official said proposals floated at the meeting included getting violent settlers to attend educational programs.

The Prime Minister’s Office did not immediately respond to request for comment about what was discussed. The Israeli official said there would be a follow-up meeting.

Settler attacks ramped up during the Palestinian olive harvest season in October and early November and have continued since. Netanyahu has called the perpetrators “a handful of extremists” and urged law enforcement to pursue them for “the attempt to take the law into their own hands.” But rights groups and Palestinians say the problem is far greater than a few bad apples, and attacks have become a daily phenomenon across the territory.

Stones hurled at Palestinian cars, scrapyard torched

Mohammad Dalal, the owner of the torched Huwara scrapyard, claimed that witnesses told him Israeli settlers were seen throwing rocks Thursday from an overpass at passing Palestinian vehicles below. He said the massive fire began soon after.

He said the Israeli army arrived later to force the perpetrators away.

“If the army had not removed them, they would have done even more,” Dalal said. “These settlers are causing destruction everywhere here. … Where can we go? We want to remain steadfast on our land, no matter what.”

An Israeli investigation unit of soldiers and border police officers on Friday collected evidence at the scorched scrapyard, according to an Associated Press crew who was asked to leave by the investigators.

Asked about the incident, the Israeli military said it dispatched soldiers to the area after receiving reports that settlers were throwing rocks at Palestinian cars. It also said other reports indicated that “several” Israeli civilians had set fires and damaged property in the area. It said soldiers searched the area but didn’t find any suspects and that the police were now handling the case.

Huwara has been the target of numerous attacks over recent years. In February 2023, scores of Israeli settlers went on a violent rampage there, setting dozens of cars and homes on fire after two settlers were killed by a Palestinian gunman. Palestinian medics said one man was killed and four others were badly wounded.

Settler violence surges

U.N. humanitarian office figures show 2,920 Israeli settler attacks took place between January and October this year.

Israel’s government is dominated by far-right proponents of the settler movement including Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who formulates settlement policy, and Cabinet minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who oversees the nation’s police force.

The security cabinet meeting came shortly after Israeli settlers celebrated the creation of a new, unauthorized settlement near Bethlehem.

Israel’s Civil Administration also recently announced plans to expropriate large swaths of Sebastia, a major archaeological site in the West Bank. Peace Now, an anti-settlement watchdog group, said the site is around 1,800 dunams (450 acres) — Israel’s largest seizure of archaeologically important land.

Singapore slaps sanctions on Israeli settlers

Singapore said Friday it will impose targeted financial sanctions and entry bans on four Israeli individuals for what it said was their involvement in violence against Palestinians in the West Bank. Singapore’s Foreign Ministry named the individuals as Meir Ettinger,Elisha Yered, Ben-Zion Gopstein and Baruch Marzel. Some are currently under international sanction by the European Union, the U.K. and other countries.

In a statement, Singapore’s Foreign Ministry said the settlers have been involved in “egregious acts of extremist violence against Palestinians in the West Bank” and urged the Israeli government to stop the violence and hold the perpetrators accountable.

—-

AP correspondent Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations contributed to this report.
Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

Opinion

Why did so many influential Jews dine with bin Salman at the White House?

(RNS) — Have we become so enamored with access — to influence, wealth, power — that we neglected the very old Jewish instinct that is the courage to say no?

President Donald Trump speaks during a dinner with Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in the East Room of the White House, Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Jeffrey Salkin
November 21, 2025

RNS



(RNS) — When you take your tux to the dry cleaners after a big state banquet, and you notice there is a blood stain on the cuff, do you have to pay extra for them to get it out?

I’m asking because the White House held a black-tie dinner for Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. The guest of honor was a man whom the CIA concluded ordered the cold-blooded, bone-saw murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

Seated in the room were some of the most influential Jewish business leaders and philanthropists of our generation, including: Stephen Schwarzman, CEO of Blackstone; Josh Harris, managing partner of the Washington Commanders; Bill Ackman, CEO of Pershing Square Capital Management; Neri Oxman, an American-Israeli designer; Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce; Alex Karp, CEO of Palantir Technologies; Albert Bourla, CEO of Pfizer; and David Ellison, CEO of Paramount Skydance.

These CEOs, investors and power brokers were present because they run empires — financial, technological and cultural. One is the child of Holocaust survivors, and many are extremely generous to worthy Jewish causes.

Did they shake Prince Mohammed’s blood-tainted hand?

I understand and support diplomacy, geopolitical strategy and the necessity of normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia. And some might say the aforementioned A-listers were not there “as Jews.” They were simply there, as my parents would have said, as machers, or important people.
RELATED: The ideology that killed Rabin is alive and well 30 years later

That begs a larger question: When identifiable Jews show up, can they ever not show up as Jews? And if they show up as Jews, can they ever not ask themselves questions like, is there a cost to standing too close to power that has blood on its hands? Is there a point at which access becomes complicity? And, when Jews forget the value of moral distance, what are we losing?

This moment did not emerge from a vacuum. As Chuck Freilich, the former Israeli deputy national security adviser, pointed out in eJewishPhilanthropy, we are witnessing a generational shift in American Jewish influence.

In 1981, the organized American Jewish community mobilized ferociously to fight the sale of surveillance aircrafts to Saudi Arabia. Every major Jewish organization was engaged. They ultimately lost, but they extracted a lasting victory: the U.S. commitment to Israel’s “qualitative military edge,” a pledge later codified in law.

That was what communal power looked like. But today? We have a proposed sale of F-35 stealth fighters to Saudi Arabia, which the Israeli military has warned would potentially threaten its regional air superiority and the country’s security. And Jewish leaders are still dining with Saudi Arabia’s ruler and the American president together.

As Judah Ari Gross writes in eJewishPhilanthropy:

The American Jewish institutional power that was far more potent in 1981 has been supplanted by the influence of individual American Jews, including those in attendance at last night’s White House dinner. “For Jewish businesspeople to have connections with the Saudis is not only not problematic, they can be a bridge,” Freilich said.

However, Freilich warned that while they can have an influence on geopolitical events, these Jewish business leaders are inherently constrained and are not a sufficient substitute. “Sure, they have clout, but they need to use it judiciously,” he said. That is why American Jews need to have a “really strong lobby,” Freilich said. “They don’t have the power that they once did, and that’s a real problem.

What did it mean for those Jewish leaders to be present in the White House dining room at the side of a ruler whose hands are, according to our intelligence community, stained by atrocity? What did it mean for the memory of Khashoggi? What will it mean for our children, who will learn that the business titans of their community dined in the presence of a man who allegedly silenced a dissident with a bone saw?

What did it mean for our ancestors, who taught us — through Torah, through history, through our very blood — that Jewish dignity is bound up with the refusal to bow before cruelty?

I am not naïve. I have binged “The Diplomat” on Netflix. I know international relations require engagement with unsavory actors. Diplomacy is not a seminar in moral philosophy.

But, still, there is a price, or at least a question. Have we become so enamored with access — to influence, wealth and power — that we have neglected the very old Jewish instinct that is the courage to say no? Or at least have hesitation, second thoughts or conscience? If we cannot ask for that, then, as Jews, what are we doing in the world?

Who is my hero in this story of proximity to power? Mary Bruce of ABC News. She was among the reporters let into the Oval Office to question the president and Prince Mohammed. She asked Trump whether it was appropriate for his family to be doing business in Saudi Arabia while he was president. Then, she asked the prince:

Your royal highness, the U.S. intelligence concluded that you orchestrated the brutal murder of a journalist — 9/11 families are furious that you are here in the Oval Office. Why should Americans trust you? And the same to you, Mr. President.

In response, Trump said, “You don’t have to embarrass our guest by asking a question like that.” He also later called her question, “a horrible, insubordinate, and just a terrible question.”

But in that moment, she was not just speaking for herself. The biblical prophets Nathan, who castigated King David, and Elijah, who castigated King Ahab, were speaking through her lips.

We need more of that. And we need well-placed Jews to try some of it as well.

If we cannot speak honestly when we stand too close to power that kills, then our silence is not strategy. It is surrender.

Before the next invitation arrives, let us think about this a little bit more clearly.

Israel to admit thousands from India's Jewish 'lost tribe'

THEY NEED TO INCREASE THEIR DEMOGRAPHIC VOTING BLOC

Richard Connor 

with DW, dpa, EFE

November 23, 2025

Israel says it is preparing a plan to bring thousands of Jewish-identifying Bnei Menashe from northeast India and resettle them. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said it was an "important and Zionist decision."

The Jews from India's northeastern states claim to be descendants of one the 10 lost tribes of Israel

Image: Anupam Nath/AP Photo/picture alliance

Israel has approved a plan to absorb about 5,800 members of the Bnei Menashe community by 2030, according to a government decision announced Sunday.

The group, an ethnic community from the northeastern states of Mizoram and Manipur in India, is expected to move to the Galilee region of northern Israel in stages. The region has been heavily affected by conflict with Lebanon's Hezbollah militant group, with tens of thousands of residents leaving the area in recent years.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the decision "important and Zionist," saying it would strengthen Israel's north.

What is the plan for India's Bnei Menashe?

A first group of 1,200 people is scheduled to arrive next year. The ministry responsible for their absorption will provide initial financial support, Hebrew language instruction, job guidance, temporary housing and social programs to help newcomers settle.

The government expects to allocate about €23.8 million (about $27.4 million) for the absorption of this initial wave alone. The upcoming arrivals follow roughly 4,000 Bnei Menashe who have already immigrated to Israel over the past two decades.

The plan was jointly coordinated with the Indian government.

Thousands of the Bnei Menashe have already immigrated to Israel over the past two decades

Image: Ilia Yefimovich/dpa/picture alliance

Demographic considerations remain central to Israeli state policy, particularly in relation to the broader Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Israel's population stands at about 10.1 million, around 73% of whom are Jewish, compared with an estimated 5.5 million in the Palestinian territories.
Who are India's Bnei Menashe?

The Bnei Menashe identify as descendants of the biblical tribe of Manasseh, considered one of the "lost tribes" of Israel. Many had practiced Christianity before converting to Judaism and receiving recognition from Israel's Chief Rabbinate. They observe traditional Jewish practices, celebrate holidays such as Sukkot, and have established synagogues in their communities.

Israel did not formally endorse Bnei Menashe immigration until 2005, when the then Sephardi Chief Rabbi officially recognized the communityas descendants of a lost tribe of Israel.

Galilee, where they are expected to reside, is a historic mountainous region with major cities including Nazareth, Tiberias, and Safed. It borders Lebanon to the north and the Jordan Valley and Sea of Galilee to the east.

Edited by: Karl Sexton and Roshni Majumdar

Richard Connor Reporting on stories from around the world, with a particular focus on Europe — especially Germany.