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April 4, 2003/Nisan 2 5763, Vol. 55, No. 32
Jordanian Judeophile longs for Israel
MATTHEW GUTMAN
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
AMMAN, Jordan - Aviv's mother marvels at the way her son, perhaps one of Jordan's only self-avowed Judeophiles, references the Bible in discussing contemporary politics in the Middle East.
"You see," says Aviv professorially, "the borders of Israel are supposed to stretch from the Nile to the Euphrates. That is what it says in the Bible: Numbers, Chapter 2."
Aviv says, "Who knows? Maybe I have Jewish blood somewhere in these veins."
Aviv - a Christian whose family asked that his Arabic name not be used - stands in stark contrast to the prevailing sentiment in Jordan.
With the local and Arabic satellite channels searing the suffering of the Iraqi people onto Jordanians' minds, anything American, British and especially Jewish is taboo.
Thus his courtship with Hebrew is conducted under supreme secrecy.
A crafter of mosaics who once owned a thriving arts shop near the Roman ruins in Jerash, he has developed numerous friendships with visiting Israelis who were stunned to hear his astoundingly good Hebrew.
His only formal training was a six-week course conducted at a local tourism college in Amman. The rest he picked up from tourists and long hours of studying after work.
Now his Hebrew books - Amman booksellers have since taken such texts off the racks - are stashed away under the family's Armenian Orthodox Bible.
They stand beside the heirlooms his family managed to cart with them from Jerusalem to Jordan following their displacement in 1948.
Aviv is even unique in his own family. Isam, his older brother, disapproves of Aviv's Judeophilia.
"We were taught for a long time that Jews are the enemy," said the gruff mechanic. "Just like Jews are afraid to say they are Jews in Arab counties, that is how we feel about speaking Hebrew here. It is too much trouble."
The family belongs to the minuscule Aramaic Christian group that numbers fewer than 1,000 in Jordan. They speak Aramaic, which was the language of Jesus, and have a tortured history of flight and persecution.
Turkey expelled them in the late 19th century. They fled to Syria and ultimately settled in the Jerusalem area from which they fled in 1948, during Israel's War of Independence.
Lamia, Aviv's mother, was born to a Christian family in Bethlehem in 1941.
She struggles with her son's identity, yet is resigned to what she calls his "quirks."
In truth, she gushes, "I wish I had more sons like Aviv, but all this Israel business concerns me."
Aviv's politics are a mixture of hard-line Likud and Shimon Peres' "New Middle East."
"Likud," he says, "is much better than Labor. In this region you need an iron fist, and Labor cannot provide that for Israel."
Most strikingly, Aviv displays an intense dislike of Palestinian Muslims.
"All the problems of this region are their fault. When I see a suicide bomber I think he is an animal, not a human," he says.
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