Much of the recent coverage of Christians in Israel suffers from a basic analytical flaw: it focuses almost exclusively on the places where the fewest Christians actually live.
Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Gaza dominate the conversation. These communities matter, but they are not representative. More than 70 percent of Israel’s 188,000 Christians live elsewhere—primarily in the north, especially in Galilee—and their absence from the discussion has distorted the picture beyond recognition.
The Christians of northern Israel are not marginal figures. They play an outsized role in education, medicine, and business. They are overwhelmingly laypeople, yet media coverage fixates almost entirely on religious officials. One might be forgiven for concluding that Christianity in Israel is a clerical caste rather than a living community of families, professionals, and citizens.
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