A pro-Israel Christian student organization on Wednesday donated $100,000 to honor the victims of last year’s deadly Hezbollah rocket attack on a soccer field in the Golan Heights village of Majdal Shams, which claimed the lives of 12 Druze children.
The donation by Passages, which has been dubbed the “Christian Birthright” for its student tours to Israel, will go to a local foundation that supports community youth pursuing higher education and leadership roles, a memorial soccer tournament and other infrastructure projects.
“In bringing our students to Israel, we try and help them understand the full spectrum of Israeli society and its complexities,” said Zach Bauer, CEO of Passages. “The Druze community underwent a deeply traumatic event in July last year when it lost 12 of its beautiful children, so we wanted to come and express our solidarity as Christian Zionists, show them they have deep support in the U.S., and to make a small gesture to help them, not just recover, but to help them build a better future for their children.”
Majdal Shams Mayor Dolan Abu Saleh said: “The meeting of the delegation with the families of the victims gave them great strength, and the hope to carry on.”
A religious sect that began about a thousand years ago in Egypt as an offshoot of Shi’ite Islam, the Druze, who number about one million worldwide, primarily live in Syria, Lebanon and Israel, as well as in smaller communities in Western cities around the globe.
More than 150,000 Druze live in Israel, mostly in the Galilee, representing about 1.6% of the population, according to figures from Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics.
The tens of thousands of Druze who live in four communities in the Golan Heights that came under Israeli control in the 1967 Six-Day War have long been divided between Israel and Syria, but are increasingly seeking Israeli citizenship.
Last year, during another solidarity trip, the Christian organization donated $500,000 to Israeli communities bordering Gaza.
Over the last decade, Passages has brought more than 11,000 Christian students from North America to visit Israel for the first time to strengthen their religious identity and to build bridges of friendship with Israel and the Jewish people.
“Bringing future Christian college leaders to visit Israel and engage with its people, is the most critical thing we can do to strengthen the future of the US-Israel relationship,” U.S. Ambassador Mike Huckabee said this week.