World Religions News

(RNS) — In a video widely shared on X, one of Iran’s two chief rabbis stood beside the rubble of Tehran’s Rafi-Nia Synagogue, holding a damaged sacred book in his hand.

The synagogue was leveled in a strike overnight Monday (April 6) before the ceasefire was declared, one of scores of religious and cultural heritage sites destroyed or significantly damaged by the war led by Israeli and U.S. forces.

Rabbi Younes Hamami Lalehzar and Homayoun Sameh, the Iranian Jewish community’s dedicated representative in Parliament, harshly criticized the strike, which Israel took responsibility for.

“Unfortunately, during the Jewish holidays, the Israeli entity targeted us and did not even spare Jews in Iran, as it struck one of our old and sacred synagogues,” Sameh said in a statement Tuesday. “The synagogue building was completely destroyed and our Torah scrolls were left under the rubble.”

Iran’s state-affiliated Mehr News reported that the strike fell on a residential area, while the Israeli military said the strike targeted a leading member of the Khatam al-Anbiya, the central command of Iran’s military. The military statement said it regrets the collateral damage.

Though there is no accurate count, between 8,000 and 15,000 Jews are believed to still live in Iran, down from around 100,000 before the Islamic Revolution in 1979.

“In these days of war, staying in touch with the Jewish community in Iran is not simple,” Rabbi Mendy Chitrik, chairman of the Alliance of Rabbis in Islamic States, told RNS. “They are proud Iranians and part of Iranian history and society. In conversations with their families in the diaspora, one feels the deep concern for their safety and well-being.”

Under the Islamic Republic’s Constitution, Jews, Zoroastrians and Christians are recognized religious minorities with freedom of worship and representation in Iran’s Parliament.

In practice, human rights groups and other external observers have harshly criticized the unequal treatment of non-Muslims, including the Jewish community, under Iranian law.

In 2024, an Iranian Jewish man was executed after a monthslong trial that drew international attention, with critics noting that under Iranian law, had the man been a Shiite, he would not have been liable for the death penalty.

RELATED: Iran executes Jewish man despite family pleas and attempts to pay restitution

Last March, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported that some 700 Iranian Jews had applied for asylum in the U.S., citing religious persecution, alongside 13,000 applications from members of other religious minorities.

Days before the synagogue’s destruction, St. Nicholas Russian Orthodox Church in Tehran was also damaged in a strike, earning the condemnation of Russia’s Foreign Ministry.

“We are horrified by the news of the serious damage and significant material losses inflicted on April 1 on St. Nicholas Cathedral in Tehran as a result of yet another barbaric airstrike by the US-Israeli tandem,” said Russia’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova.

The church was built in the 1940s, though the Russian Orthodox community has had a presence in Tehran since at least the 1700s.

The church was “a place of strength for the Russian Orthodox diaspora and a spiritual link to the historical homeland,” said Zakharova. “The entire Orthodox community of Tehran, regardless of citizenship, contributed as much as they could to preserving it through labor or donations.”

On March 2, Tehran’s Golestan Palace, a UNESCO World Heritage Site that once housed the monarchs of the Safavid and Qajar dynasties, was damaged by shock waves from a U.S.-Israeli strike.

In Isfahan, the centuries-old Shah and Jameh Mosque complexes were also damaged by bombardment.

Intentional destruction of cultural heritage during wartime is considered a war crime under the 1954 Hague convention,

Peter Stone, president of Blue Shield International, a nonprofit devoted to the protection of cultural heritage worldwide, told RNS that more than 100 sites have been damaged. But he added: “From all of the information that we’ve gotten from photos and videos and media coverage, there doesn’t seem to have been any specific deliberate targeting of cultural sites by either the Americans or the Israelis. All of the damage appears to have been what’s called collateral damage.”

Stone noted that the frameworks that underpin international law on the protection of cultural heritage all call for measures to be taken in peacetime.

“If you’re going to protect cultural property, you essentially have to put everything in place before a war kicks off, because if you leave it until a war has started, then you dramatically reduce the possible mitigation of damage to cultural property.”

Stone noted that his organization often serves as a conduit to get sites such as hospitals, schools and religious sites on no-strike lists.

Wars, however, scramble the best-laid plans. The strike hit the Rafi-Nia Synagogue during the Jewish holiday Passover.

RELATED: Iran war rhetoric puts Shiite Muslims in the US at risk, advocates say

JERUSALEM (RNS) — Thousands of Jews, Muslims and Christians flocked to the Old City of Jerusalem on Thursday (April 9) to pray at the Western Wall, Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the day after a two-week ceasefire was announced in the war between the United States, Israel and Iran.

On Feb. 28, Israeli authorities closed all three holy sites to everyone but the clergy who work there, out of fears that Iranian missiles or a siren-triggered stampede could harm large numbers of worshippers. Some Muslim and Christian leaders had demanded that Al-Aqsa and the Holy Sepulchre be open to the public, despite there being no bomb shelters in the immediate vicinity.

But on Thursday, for the first time in 40 days, Old City merchants opened their shops in the hopes of making a few sales, while local people and some tourists appeared more interested in reaching the holy sites than buying jewelry or souvenirs — which included hats with images of President Donald Trump and the words “Make Israel Great Again.”

Mabelle Laxinto and Connie Occena, two Filipina caregivers who have lived in Israel for 25 years and 19 years respectively, rushed to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre the morning it reopened. Since the church was completely closed to the public during the war, both women attended Easter services at Catholic churches outside the Old City, where up to 50 people were permitted to pray at any one time.

Still, “it was very disappointing not to be able to celebrate Good Friday in the Old City,” Laxinto said. Even after spending the past 40 days in and out of bomb shelters, both women said they were grateful to live in Jerusalem, where they can retrace the steps Jesus walked.

“We thank God that we live here,” Occena said. “This is the Holy Land, the Chosen Land.”

A group of Serbian pilgrims who had just emerged from the Holy Sepulchre said they had arrived in Israel last Sunday, despite the cancellation of many flights. “We are Orthodox, so for us this is Holy Week,” said a group member named Petra.  

Traveling to Israel prior to the ceasefire was an act of faith, she said. “Before we left Serbia, everyone said we would be praying to the door, not inside the church. But we prayed for the doors to open, and they did. Ask and you will receive.”

If the ceasefire continues to hold, the group and thousands of other Christians will be able to celebrate Orthodox Easter at the church on Sunday.

Omar Mahmud, a Muslim shopkeeper, was placing some wares outside his little store in the Old City’s Arab shuk, or market, for the first time in nearly six weeks, but he wasn’t feeling optimistic about business or the ceasefire. 

“First we had COVID, then Gaza, now Iran,” he said, recalling the triad of crises that have prevented many pilgrims from visiting the region in recent years. “This should have been high tourism season due to Ramadan, Easter and Passover, but war doesn’t observe holidays.”

Despite the danger posed by Iranian missiles and the shrapnel that fell in the Old City, Mahmud said he believed the holy sites should not have been closed to the public.

“When things are at their worst, people turn toward God, but the holy places were closed,” he said, adding that he was planning to pray at Al-Aqsa in the coming days. “Personally, I think that if something is going to happen, it will happen, regardless of security measures.” 

At the Western Wall, Elka Krupka, a computer programmer who lives in Jerusalem, said she could not miss the chance to pray at the second holiest site in Judaism after the Temple Mount, now that restrictions have been lifted. 

“Those of us who live here know that things can change very quickly. We don’t know what tomorrow will bring,” Krupka said. “Praying at the Kotel (Hebrew for the Western Wall) is a way for us to keep our spiritual batteries charged.”

Looking toward the women’s section of the wall, where hundreds of Orthodox Jewish women and teenage girls prayed fervently, many with their hands or foreheads touching the wall’s stones and others placing written prayers in the wall’s crevices, Krupka said she understood why Israeli authorities decided to make the Western Wall off-limits during the war.  

“Our soldiers are fighting for us, and I understand that the country needs to choose where to put its manpower. Plus, it wouldn’t have been fair to keep the Kotel open when the other holy sites were closed,” Krupka said, even if it meant that tens of thousands of Jews could not celebrate Passover there this year. Closing and then opening the holy sites simultaneously “was the right thing to do,” she said. 

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — A ceasefire deal to pause the war in Iran appeared to hang by a thread Wednesday after the Islamic Republic closed the Strait of Hormuz again in response to Israeli attacks in Lebanon. The White House demanded that the channel be reopened and sought to keep peace talks on track.

The U.S. and Iran both claimed victory after reaching the agreement, and world leaders expressed relief, even as more drones and missiles hit Iran and Gulf Arab countries. At the same time, Israel intensified its attacks on the Hezbollah militant group in Lebanon, hitting commercial and residential areas in Beirut. At least 182 people were killed Wednesday in the deadliest day of fighting there.

The fresh violence threatened to scuttle what U.S. Vice President JD Vance called a “fragile” deal.

Parliament speaker accuses US of breaking Iran’s conditions

The Iranian parliament speaker said planned talks were “unreasonable” because Washington broke three of Tehran’s 10 conditions for an end to the fighting. In a social media post, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf objected to Israeli attacks on Hezbollah, an alleged drone incursion into Iranian airspace after the ceasefire took effect and U.S. refusal to accept any Iranian enrichment capabilities in a final agreement.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi insisted that an end to the war in Lebanon was part of the ceasefire deal, but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. President Donald Trump said the truce did not cover Lebanon. When the deal was announced, Pakistan’s prime minister, whose country served as a mediator, said in a social media post that it applied to “everywhere including Lebanon and elsewhere.”

Lebanon’s health ministry said Israeli strikes killed 182 people on Wednesday, the highest single-day death toll in the Israel-Hezbollah war.

“The world sees the massacres in Lebanon,” Iran’s Araghchi said in a post on X. “The ball is in the U.S. court, and the world is watching whether it will act on its commitments.”

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the closing of the Strait of Hormuz, reported in Iranian state media, was “completely unacceptable.” She repeated Trump’s “expectation and demand” that the channel be reopened.

U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said American and Israeli forces had achieved a “capital V military victory” and that the Iranian military no longer posed a significant threat to U.S. forces or the region. The Iranian military said the country forced Israel and the U.S. to accept its “proposed conditions and surrender.”

Much about the agreement was unclear as the sides presented vastly different visions of the terms.

Iran said the deal would allow it to formalize its new practice of charging ships passing through the strait, a crucial transit lane for oil. The White House said Trump is opposed to tolls for ship passage through the strait.

Only 11 vessels moved through the strait Wednesday, roughly the same as in prior days, according to Windward, a maritime intelligence firm. Iran was requiring shippers to pay tolls of up to $1 a barrel for outbound oil, it said. The largest supertankers carry up to 3 million barrels of crude.

The fate of Iran’s missile and nuclear programs — the elimination of which were major objectives for the U.S. and Israel in going to war — also remained unclear. Trump said the U.S. would work with Iran to remove buried enriched uranium, though Iran did not confirm that.

White House looks ahead to peace talks

Trump initially said Iran proposed a “workable” plan that could help end the war that the U.S. and Israel launched on Feb. 28. But when a version in Farsi emerged indicating Iran would be allowed to continue enriching uranium — key to building a nuclear weapon — Trump called it fraudulent.

Leavitt said a plan that Iran presented Tuesday could “align with our own” proposal for peace.

The White House said Vance would lead American negotiators at upcoming peace talks, which could begin in Pakistan as soon as Friday.

Iran’s demands for ending the war include a withdrawal of U.S. combat forces from the region, the lifting of sanctions and the release of its frozen assets.

Meanwhile, Israeli Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir said Israel will continue to “utilize every operational opportunity” to strike Hezbollah. The Israeli military said it struck more than 100 targets within 10 minutes Wednesday across Lebanon, the largest wave of strikes since March 1.

Arab League chief Ahmed Aboul Gheit accused Israel of “persistently seeking to sabotage” the ceasefire deal.

Hezbollah has not confirmed if it will abide by the ceasefire, though the group has said it was open to giving mediators a chance to secure an agreement. An official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment publicly, said the group would not stop firing at Israel unless Israel agreed to do the same.

Iran and Oman could collect shipping fees in Strait of Hormuz

Iranian attacks and threats deterred many commercial ships from using the strait, through which 20% of all traded oil and natural gas passes in peacetime. That roiled the world economy and raised the pressure on Trump both at home and abroad to find a way out of the standoff.

The ceasefire may formalize a system of charging fees in the strait that Iran instituted — and give it a new source of revenue.

That would upend decades of precedent treating the strait as an international waterway that was free to transit. Such a shift would likely be unacceptable to the Gulf Arab states, which also need to rebuild after repeated Iranian attacks targeting their oil fields.

Iran’s nuclear and missile threats survive

U.S.-Israeli strikes have battered Iran and its leadership, but they have not eliminated the threats posed by Tehran’s nuclear program, its ballistic missiles or its support for regional proxies, like Hezbollah. The U.S. and Israel said addressing those threats was a key justification for going to war.

Trump said the U.S. would work with Iran to “dig up and remove” enriched uranium. There was no confirmation from Iran.

Hegseth told a Pentagon briefing Wednesday that the U.S. would do “something like” last June’s joint strikes with Israel on Iranian nuclear sites if Iran refuses to surrender its enriched uranium voluntarily.

Netanyahu warned in a televised address that Israel was “ready to return to fighting at any time. Our finger is on the trigger.”

Tehran has insisted for years that its nuclear program was peaceful, although it has enriched uranium up to 60% purity, a short, technical step from weapons-grade levels.

Airstrikes reported despite ceasefire announcement

Shortly after the ceasefire announcement, Bahrain, Israel, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates all issued warnings about incoming missiles from Iran. That fire stopped for a time, then hostilities appeared to restart.

An oil refinery on Iran’s Lavan Island came under attack, according to Iranian state television. A short time later, the UAE’s air defenses fired at an incoming Iranian missile barrage.

More than 1,900 people had been killed in Iran as of late March, but the government has not updated the toll for days.

In Lebanon, more than 1,700 people have been killed, and 1 million people have been displaced. Twelve Israeli soldiers have died.

In Gulf Arab states and the occupied West Bank, more than two dozen people have died, while 23 have been reported dead in Israel, and 13 U.S. service members have been killed.

___

Gambrell reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Magdy from Cairo and Metz from Ramallah, West Bank. Associated Press writers Edie Lederer at the United Nations, Natalie Melzer in Jerusalem, Abby Sewell and Sarah El Deeb in Beirut, Mike Catalini in Trenton, N.J., and Michelle L. Price, Aamer Madhani, Zeke Miller, Michael Biesecker and Josh Boak in Washington contributed to this report.

——

This story corrects overall death toll in Lebanon on Wednesday to 182.

(The Conversation) — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s conservative evangelical religious beliefs drew attention even before his confirmation hearings in January 2025. He is a member of the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches – CREC – whose beliefs have been influenced by a 20th-century movement called Christian Reconstructionism.

Many CREC leaders call for the implementation of biblical law and a theocratic state structured on Christian patriarchy. Theocratic states are ruled according to religious laws, which in the case of the CREC means a conservative evangelical understanding of Christianity.

The CREC website claims to have over 160 churches and parishes spread across North America, Europe, Asia and South America.

Hegseth’s use of religious language and prayers has raised questions about his religious beliefs in relation to his role as secretary of defense. At a prayer service on March 25, 2026, during the current war in Iran, Hegseth said, “Let every round find its mark against the enemies of righteousness and our great nation.” He went on to add: “Give them wisdom in every decision, endurance for the trial ahead, unbreakable unity, and overwhelming violence of action against those who deserve no mercy.”

As a scholar of the Christian right, I have studied the CREC. To understand Hegseth’s rhetoric, it is helpful to understand what the CREC is and its controversial leadership.

What is the CREC?

The CREC church is a network of churches across the globe. It is associated with the congregation of Doug Wilson, the pastor who founded Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho. Christ Church is the flagship church of the CREC and operates as a denominational headquarters. Wilson grew up in the town, where his father was an evangelical minister.

Wilson co-founded the CREC in 1993 and is the public figure most associated with the network of churches. Christ Church operates as the hub for Logos Schools, Canon Press and New Saint Andrews College, all located in Moscow.

Logos is a set of private schools and homeschooling curriculum; Canon Press is a publishing house and media company; and New Saint Andrews College is a university. All of these were founded by Wilson and associated with Christ Church. All espouse the view that Christians are at odds with – or at war with – secular society.

While he is not Hegseth’s pastor, Wilson is the most influential voice in the CREC, and the two men have spoken approvingly of one another.

Hegseth invited Wilson to give a prayer service at the Pentagon in February 2026. Wilson told the assembled military members, “If you bear the name of Jesus Christ, there is no armor greater than that. Not only so, but all the devil’s R&D teams have not come up with armor-piercing anything.” In other words, Wilson tied the success and safety of military members and their missions to a belief in Jesus Christ and the military’s enemies as agents of the devil.

Pastor Doug Wilson leads others at a protest in Moscow, Idaho.
Geoff Crimmins/The Moscow-Pullman Daily News, CC BY-SA

As Wilson steadily grew Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho, he and its members sought to spread their message by making Moscow a conservative town and establishing churches beyond it. Of his hometown, Wilson plainly states, “Our desire is to make Moscow a Christian town.”

The CREC doctrine is opposed to religious pluralism or political points of view that diverge from its theology. On its website, the CREC says it is “committed to maintaining its Reformed faith, avoiding the pitfalls of cultural relevance and political compromise that destroys our doctrinal integrity.”

CREC churches adhere to a highly patriarchal and conservative interpretation of Scripture. Wilson has said that in a sexual relationship, “A woman receives, surrenders, accepts.”

Church-state separation

In a broader political sense, CREC theology includes the belief that the establishment clause of the Constitution does not require a separation of church and state. The most common reading of the establishment clause is that freedom of religion prohibits the installation of a state religion or religious tests to hold state office.

According to scholar of religion Julie Ingersoll, in this religious community there is “no distinction between religious issues and political ones.”

The CREC broadly asserts that the government and anyone serving in it should be Christian. For Wilson, this means Christians and only Christians are qualified to hold political office in the United States.

‘Church planting’

Scholar of religion Matthew Taylor explained in an interview with the Nashville Tennessean, “They believe the church is supposed to be militant in the world, is supposed to be reforming the world, and in some ways conquering the world.”

While the CREC may not have the name recognition of some large evangelical denominations or the visibility of some megachurches, it boasts churches across the United States and internationally.

Like some other evangelical denominations, the CREC uses “church planting” to grow its network. Planted churches do not require a centralized governing body to ordain their founding. Instead, those interested in starting a CREC congregation contact the CREC. The CREC then provides materials and literature for people to use in their church.

CREC controversies

Pete Hegseth at his confirmation hearing in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 14, 2025.
AP Photo/Alex Brandon

As the church network has grown, it has drawn attention and scrutiny. In 1996, Wilson published a book positively depicting slavery and claiming slavery cultivated “affection among the races.”

Accusations of sexual abuse and the church’s handling of it have also brought national news coverage. Vice media’s Sarah Stankorb interviewed many women who talked about a culture, especially in marriage, where sexual abuse and assault was common. That reporting led to a podcast that details the accounts of survivors. In interviews, Wilson has denied any wrongdoing and said that claims of sexual abuse would be directed to the proper authorities.

Hegseth’s actions in May and June of 2025 as secretary of defense concerning gender identity and banning trans people from serving in the military, in addition to stripping gay activist and politician Harvey Milk’s name from a Navy ship, brought more attention to the CREC.

Hegseth’s religious rhetoric

As the Trump administration engages in military conflicts around the globe, Hegseth often uses religious language to justify them.

In a March 5, 2026, speech to South American and Central American leaders, Hegseth justified intervention in Venezuela, the blockade of Cuba and the attacks on boats across the region by invoking a shared Christian identity.

Hegseth said, “We share the same interests, and, because of this, we face an essential test – whether our nations will be and remain Western nations with distinct characteristics, Christian nations under God, proud of our shared heritage with strong borders and prosperous people, ruled not by violence and chaos but by law, order, and common sense.”

Hegseth’s comments about Iran since bombing began on Feb. 28 have also invoked religion. Some of these invocations align with Hegseth’s recurring references to the Crusades in the Middle Ages – a centuries-long holy war between Christians and Muslims. Hegseth has a tattoo that says “Deus Vult” – “God wills it” – the rallying cry of Crusaders, another with the Arabic word for infidel, and the Jerusalem cross, a prominent Christian nationalist symbol. He also published a book titled “American Crusade.”

In framing the use of overwhelming force in Iran, Hegseth said, “We’re fighting religious fanatics who seek a nuclear capability in order for some religious Armageddon.”

As long as Hegseth remains the secretary of defense, his affiliation with the CREC and religious language will likely provide insight into how these conflicts are managed at home and abroad.

This is an updated version of a piece first published on June 20, 2025.

(Samuel Perry, Associate Professor of Rhetoric, Baylor University. The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of Religion News Service.)

How a Mark Twain passage at our Passover seder led me to reflect on the themes of envy and Jewish self-esteem.

The post Print Issue: How Do We Regain Our Mojo? | April 10, 2026 appeared first on Jewish Journal.

“The most precious gift we can offer anyone is our attention.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh

Judy was three the first time I missed it. She had spent a solid ten minutes stacking every couch cushion on our living room floor in Vancouver, building what she clearly considered an Olympic-grade landing pad. She climbed up on the couch, stretched her arms out wide, and gave me that look. You know the one. The look kids give you right before they do something that makes your heart jump into your throat.

“Baba, watch!” she yelled.

My phone was in my hand. It was …