With only 3 to 4 million adherents, Alawites are a tiny Shiite minority among the almost two Billion Muslims living in the world today. Of these, the vast majority of Alawites live in Syria, where they have ruled the country with an iron fist for sixty years and currently comprise nearly 20% of the population.
In Israel, there is exactly one Alawite village with some 2,200 inhabitants living astride the border with Lebanon and in the Syrian-claimed Golan Heights. By this I mean that the UN considers most of the village to be across the “Blue Line” that is effectively the “border” between Israel and Lebanon, though it was actually captured by Israel from Syria during the 1967 Six Day War. The residents wish to be part of Syria, but they are currently in Israel and to maintain the village intact, Israel controls the entire village even though most of it is technically in Lebanon.
In one of the photos included here, you can see the UN demarcated border headed straight towards a building that should be sliced in half to allow for the border fence to go through it. When the fence was built, the Israeli government had every intention of tearing the building down, but the residents protested and for a while the village was jointly held by Israel and Lebanon. That ended in 2005 when Hizballah crossed over to the Israeli side of the village in an attempt to kidnap Israeli soldiers.
All of this is to say that since 2005, the only people who were allowed into and out of the village were the villagers themselves. Anyone else had to receive permission from the Israeli armed forces. Two weeks ago, Israel completed a high-tech fence and reopened the village to outsiders for the first time in 17 years!
I have been to Ghajar once before, but it was a supervised visit and we were limited as to where we could go, so I headed out there last week to really explore the village. It is a very colorful place that is kept impeccably clean and includes some impressive public art works and an immaculate Peace Garden.
Ghajar’s claim to fame is that it is purportedly the only place in the world where you can see a statue of Ali Ibn Talib who was the son-in-law of the Prophet Mohammed, the fourth Muslim Caliph, father to Hussein, husband to Fatima, and the founding father of the Alawites.
In general, the Alawites are an eclectic and syncretic faith tradition that emerged from Shiite Islam that also celebrates Christian holidays such as Epiphany and Christmas and venerates Mother Mary. They believe in reincarnation and even consecrate bread and wine in a secretive ceremony similar to mass which is open only to males.
Today the building that was supposed to be split in half houses a fantastic sweet shop run Ahmad Hatib, a young pastry chef who has studied in France and proudly merges East and West in his confections and baklavas.
There is some trepidation in the village now that it is open to one and all, but it is an excellent place to truly get a taste for the diversity of the Levant while learning about this important mystical tradition.
Feel free to contact me if you are interested in visiting the village and want to meet some residents while learning about this unique culture.
