At first glance, there is nothing surprising about the recent visit by a small group of Druze spiritual leaders to the tiny, crooked house of Mohana Abu Zen el-Din and his extended family just outside the Jordanian capital, Amman.
The family — two brothers, their wives, children and grandchildren — are Syrian Druze refugees who fled the ongoing violence in their country two years ago. They have been unable to support themselves in Jordan, and the religious men have come to hear about their plight, sip sweet tea with them and offer some financial aid.
But one of the sympathetic visitors stands out. Accompanying the three Druze sheiks, in their cylindrical red and white hats and baggy pants, is a man in a buttoned-down blue shirt and a skullcap — a rabbi from Jerusalem.
The scene — Syrians sitting face-to-face over tea with a patriotic Israeli religious leader — would have been unimaginable a few years ago. But in the rapidly changing Middle East, some of the barriers that once stood between enemies are crumbling. And in their place, some unusual relationships are forming.
The American-born rabbi, Yechiel Z. Eckstein, heads the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, a charity that supports an array of social welfare programs in Israel. The fellowship receives some $140 million a year in donations — most of them anonymous gifts of $10 or less — from evangelical Christians in the United States.