Eastern Bishops Plead With Israeli Christians Not to Change Identity and Join Israeli Military

From the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem: The Israeli Ministry of the Interior announced that Christian Palestinian Arab citizens in Israel can now change their registration in the Ministry from Arabs to “Arameans ”. What does this mean? Arameans were an ancient people that dwelt in the Middle East. Their language, Aramaic, was the lingua franca of the Assyrian, Babylonian and Persian Empires. It was adopted by the Jews in the Babylonian Exile and has remained important for them until today because a large part of the rabbinic tradition was written in Aramaic. Some streams of Christianity adopted a form of Aramaic, known as Syriac, and it remains a liturgical language for some Eastern Churches until today. Full letter is here.