Indonesia boosts Christmas security over potential terror threat

Yahoo – AFP, December 17, 2019

Despite being a Muslim-majority nation, many Indonesians are happy to take part
in Christmas festivities regardless of their religion -- although conservative Islamic
groups frequently target public displays (AFP Photo/ADEK BERRY)

Jakarta (AFP) - Muslim-majority Indonesia will deploy nearly 200,000 security personnel nationwide ahead of Christmas to guard against potential terror attacks, police said Tuesday.

The Southeast Asian archipelago of 260 million has significant numbers of Christians, Hindus and Buddhists who have been targeted by radical Islamist groups.

On Tuesday, authorities said some 192,000 police and military personnel would be deployed to secure Christmas and New Year's Eve celebrations across the country -- including in easternmost Papua, a predominantly Christian region.

The deployment, which comes after a recent spate of attacks, is more than the 167,000 personnel deployed last year.

"As many as 10,000 personnel will be deployed in Jakarta" alone, said National Police spokesman Argo Yuwono

"Based on intelligence data, there are potential risks... so we're taking preventive measures but we are also ready to take proactive action," he added.

Many past attacks in Indonesia, which has dozens of groups loyal to Islamic State's violent ideology, have been against police and other state symbols.

Authorities routinely arrest suspected IS-linked militants ahead of alleged planned attacks.

In October Indonesian President Joko Widodo ordered beefed-up security after two militants from an IS-linked terror group stabbed his chief security minister. He survived the assassination attempt.

Last month a suicide bomber blew himself up at a police station in Sumatra, killing himself and wounding six civilians.

Hundreds of suspects were rounded up after the attacks, which came more than a year after a suicide bomber family killed a dozen congregants in attacks at churches in Indonesia's second-biggest city, Surabaya.

On Tuesday the country's new chief security minister Mahfud said high security was also meant to ensure Christian communities could celebrate Christmas without being targeted by groups keen to disrupt the festivities.

"We need to anticipate as early as possible things like intolerant incidents and burning down houses of worship," the minister, who goes by one name, told reporters.

Conservative Muslim groups frequently raid shopping malls and other public places to protest against Christmas displays or seasonal attire worn by Muslim employees.

Indonesia's halal tourism bid faces pig pushback

Yahoo – AFP, Albert Ivan Damanik, with Haeril Halim in Jakarta, October 31, 2019

Contestants in a pig-catching competition show off their prize in Muara,
Indonesia (AFP Photo/Albert Ivan Damanik)

Indonesia's bid to lure more visitors by spreading halal tourism across the archipelago is facing a backlash, with a Christian celebration of pigs -- forbidden for Muslims -- the latest act of dissent.

The weekend festival-cum-protest in Sumatra, featuring pig racing, chubbiest hog contests and a porcine fashion show, comes as holiday hotspot Bali pushes back against rolling out more Muslim-friendly services on the Hindu island.

Critics say a government plan to cash in on halal tourism -- part of a broader campaign to replicate Bali's success nationwide -- is another threat to minority rights in the world's most populous Muslim-majority nation.

And critics have warned that the sprawling nation of 260 million -- where nearly 90 percent of the population follows Islam -- is taking hard-right turn with a conservative cleric now installed as vice-president and hardliners growing increasingly vocal in public life.

Indonesia's reputation for tolerant Islam has been under fire for years.

Pushing halal tourism in areas with religious minorities -- including Christians, Buddhists and Hindus -- may do more harm than good, warned Ali Munhanif, an expert on political Islam at Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic University Jakarta.

Indonesian children gather around a caged pig at the Lake Toba 

Festival in Muara, on Sumatra island (AFP Photo/Albert Ivan Damanik)

"The phenomenon signals an effort to institutionalise conservatism," he said.

"Bali successfully manages its tourism sector without using a 'Hindu' label.

But advocates say halal tourism is misunderstood.

"There is a public misperception that halal tourism is Islamisation. That is wrong and it's why some people overreact to the concept," said Zainut Tauhid, Indonesia's deputy minister of religious affairs.

"It is about providing necessary facilities for Muslim visitors such as prayer rooms. So it is facilitation rather than Islamisation."

'Divide people'

That view isn't shared by some around Lake Toba, a scenic crater lake in Sumatra where the weekend pig festival was held.

Indonesian children take part in a pig-themed colouring contest (AFP Photo/

Albert Ivan Damanik)

Most locals are Batak, a Christian ethnic group that puts pigs at the centre of its traditional cuisine, with hog farming a key source of income.

Last month, provincial governor Edy Rahmayadi raised eyebrows when said he wanted to boost tourism with Islam-friendly facilities and services.

That included opening more halal restaurants and mosques, as well as banning the public slaughter of hogs, with the governor saying the practice could turn off Muslim visitors.

"This idea to bring in halal tourism is going to divide people," festival organiser Togu Simorangkir told AFP

"It's a step back for tourism here," he added.

About 1,000 people dropped by the event, including children who scribbled in pig-themed colouring books and adults watching as hogs were judged on their plump proportions.

"Batak culture is particularly known for its pigs," said higher schooler Edo Sianturi.

A blindfolded boy takes part in a pig-catching competition during a 

festival in Muara (AFP Photo/Albert Ivan Damanik)

"We've been raising them and earning a living from them for generations."

Visitor Sabrina Singarimbun, a Muslim student in a head-covering hijab, was keen to see which best-dressed pig would win the festival's fashion contest.

"I disagree with the (halal tourism) idea because it's Batak culture here and most people aren't Muslim," she said.

'Tourism is about happiness'

Elsewhere, halal tourism is often seen as a lucrative business opportunity.

Thailand and Taiwan are among regional destinations tapping the halal tourism sector, which a 2017 study found will be worth some $300 billion annually.

This month, Indonesia ushered in new halal labelling rules for consumer products and services, as the government eyes travellers from other Islamic nations to rev up its much-touted "10 New Balis" tourism push, which includes Lake Toba.

But efforts to cater to Muslim visitors has drawn controversy.

A farmer splashes water over pigs in their pen during the Pig and Pork Lake 

Toba Festival in Muara (AFP Photo/Albert Ivan Damanik)

This summer, officials in Lombok -- an island next to Bali that has many Muslim-friendly services -- quickly rolled back plans to set up separate camping areas for male and female hikers in Mount Rinjani National Park after a public backlash.

Two restaurants in Makassar on Sulawesi island, meanwhile, were forced to close after a Muslim group in July complained that the smell of their pork dishes was wafting over to nearby mosques and halal restaurants.

Back in North Sumatra, the governor's spokesman Muhammad Ikhsan said his boss was misunderstood.

"He just wants to make Lake Toba a friendly place for Muslim visitors," Ikhsan said, adding that he hoped it would also curtail the environmental impact of pig farming.

"What we want is just to make things organised, not to make it a halal place."

Jews live in the shadows in Muslim-majority Indonesia

Yahoo – AFP, Peter Brieger in Jakarta and Ronny Buol in Tondano, 5 March 2019

Most members of the tiny Jewish community in Muslim-majority Indonesia
keep their identity under wraps

Yaakov Baruch is the rabbi at Indonesia's only synagogue but he keeps his religious identity under wraps, like most of the tiny Jewish community living in the world's biggest Muslim-majority nation.

A group of men threatened Baruch with death and called him a "crazy Jew" as he walked in a mall with his pregnant wife several years ago, prompting him to limit when he wears his kippah -- a Jewish skullcap.

"It's never happened again because I chose to hide my identity as a Jew in public," he said.

There is a similar ripple of concern among many of the estimated 200 Jews living in the Southeast Asian country of 260 million people, with most centred in a remote corner of the sprawling archipelago.

Manado on Sulawesi island is one of the few places that Indonesia's remaining Jews -- mostly descendants of traders from Europe and Iraq who were once thought to number around several thousand before World War II -- feel comfortable showing their faith.

A 62-foot-tall menorah, possibly the world's largest, stands near the town of Tondano -- around 20 kilometres (13 miles) south of Manado -- where Baruch holds regular services at a modest, red-roofed synagogue.

Indonesia's remaining Jews are mostly descendents of traders from Europe and

Iraq who were once thought to number around several thousand before World War II

'The enemy'

The Shaar Hasyamayim synagogue is Indonesia's lone house of worship for Jews after the only other one in the city of Surabaya was demolished in 2013.

It had been the site of anti-Israel protests for years, and was sealed off by religious hardliners in 2009 and left to decay.

Indonesia has long been praised for its moderate brand of Islam, but more conservative forms of the religion have taken centre stage in recent years, driven by increasingly vocal hardline groups.

Tensions in the Middle East, particularly between Israel and the Palestinians, spill over here and deepen religious divides.

Thousands of hardliners demonstrated in Jakarta when US President Donald Trump announced last year that the American embassy in Israel would be moved to the contested city of Jerusalem.

"There is still a lot of anti-semitic sentiment in Indonesia," Baruch said.

"Generally speaking, Indonesians don't differentiate between being Jewish and Israel. They think Jews and Israel are the enemy of their religion and state," he added.

"There is no denying that tolerance is fading in our country."

The size of the Jewish community makes it almost invisible so Jews have not 

been the target of Islamist militants like some of Indonesia's larger religious minorities

The size of the Jewish community makes it almost invisible so Jews have not been the target of Islamist militants like some of Indonesia's larger religious minorities.

A wave of deadly suicide bombings at churches in Surabaya last year highlighted the threat to minority groups, while Shiites and Ahmadis -- regarded as heretics by some majority Sunni Muslims -- have also been the target of violence.

Kosher food shortage

Still, Indonesia's Jews are on the radar of some groups.

Monique Rijkers' efforts to bridge the divide with a TV programme about Judaism drew the ire of the Indonesian Muslim Students Association, which she claims reported her to government and broadcast regulators.

"They demanded that I be fired and that the programme be cancelled," said Rijkers, founder of Hadassah of Indonesia, a non-profit organisation that offers cultural education programmes centred on Israel, Jews and the Holocaust.

Indonesia's Jews face some practical challenges, too, such as finding kosher food in a country where it's not widely available.

Another hurdle is that Indonesia has long allowed for only six different religious categories on all-important ID cards -- Islam, Protestantism, Catholicism, Buddhism, Hinduism and Confucianism.

Indonesia's Jews face some practical challenges, too, such as finding kosher 

food in a country where it's not widely available

The cards are crucial for accessing government services, and for doing things such as registering marriages and births, meaning most Jews lie and put "Christianity" on the documents.

Even some Muslim Indonesians learn that taking an interest in anything Jewish can raise eyebrows.

Sapri Sale, who started teaching a Hebrew class in Jakarta a year ago, has been studying the language since the 1990s and compiled what he says is the world's first Hebrew-Indonesian dictionary.

But his interests got little positive feedback at home.

"I was called Sapri the Jew," he said.

Tunisia scraps ban on Muslim women marrying non-Muslims

Yahoo – AFP, September 14, 2017

Tunisia is viewed as being ahead of most Arab countries on women's rights
(AFP Photo/FETHI BELAID)

Tunis (AFP) - Tunisia has abolished a decades-old ban on Muslim women marrying non-Muslims, the presidency said Thursday.

"Congratulations to the women of Tunisia for the enshrinement of the right to the freedom to choose one's spouse," presidency spokeswoman Saida Garrach wrote on Facebook.

The announcement comes a month after President Beji Caid Essebsi called for the government to scrap the ban dating back to 1973.

Until now a non-Muslim man who wished to marry a Tunisian woman had to convert to Islam and submit a certificate of his conversion as proof.

Human rights groups in the North African country had campaigned for the ban's abolition, saying it undermined the fundamental human right to choose a spouse.

Tunisia is viewed as being ahead of most Arab countries on women's rights, but there is still discrimination particularly in matters of inheritance.

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"Listening to the Voice of Spirit" (2) - Feb 20, 2016 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll) - (DNA Efficiency is on average at 35 percent now) - (Text version)

“… With free choice, the percentage of DNA efficiently started to go down as humanity grew. As soon as the DNA started to lose percentage, the gender balance was dysfunctional. If you want to have a test of any society, anywhere on the planet, and you want to know the DNA percentage number [consciousness quota] as a society, there's an easy test: How do they perceive and treat their women? The higher the DNA functionality, the more the feminine divine is honored. This is the test! Different cultures create different DNA consciousness, even at the same time on the planet. So you can have a culture on Earth at 25 percent and one at 37 - and if you did, they would indeed clash. …”

“… You're at 35. There's an equality here, you're starting to see the dark and light, and it's changing everything. You take a look at history and you've come a long way, but it took a long time to get here. Dear ones, we've seen this process before and the snowball is rolling. There isn't anything in the way that's going to stop it. In the path of this snowball of higher consciousness are all kinds of things that will be run over and perish. Part of this is what you call "the establishment". Watch for some very big established things to fall over! The snowball will simply knock them down. …”

Grand Imam of Istiqlal Mosque Calls for Preservation of Indonesia's Diversity

Jakarta Globe, July 07, 2017

Jakarta. Nasaruddin Umar, the grand imam of the Istiqlal Mosque in Central Jakarta, said Indonesian communities should preserve their diversity by continuing to celebrate the differences and dynamics between them.

Speaking at an Idul Fitri gathering hosted by the Lippo Group in Karawaci, Banten, on Thursday (06/07), the former religious affairs minister said the country's people should strive to overcome these differences.

"The most important issue for Indonesia now is to acquaint ourselves, our younger generation, to get accustomed to a pluralistic lifestyle," said Nasaruddin, who heads the capital's largest mosque.

"If we are already living with diversity, the entire world will become jealous of us, as we, Indonesia, with more than 15,000 islands, may create a [new] model culture," he added.

Nasaruddin described diversity in Indonesia as beautiful, calling for its preservation.

"Being different is beautiful, so it is better to celebrate differences," he said, adding that these differences should not cause any problems.

He further highlighted tolerance as the best way to accept diversity in Indonesia.

"Tolerance may be present in our hearts and minds if we have the capacity to accept differences. There is no tolerance without acceptance of others [who are different from us]. Indonesia is a laboratory for tolerance in the world," he said.

Related Article:

"The Recalibration of Awareness – Apr 20/21, 2012 (Kryon channeled by Lee Carroll) (Subjects: Old Energy, Recalibration Lectures, God / Creator, Religions/Spiritual systems  (Catholic Church, Priests/Nun’s, Worship, John Paul Pope, Women in the Church otherwise church will go, Current Pope won’t do it),  Middle East, Jews, Governments will change (Internet, Media, Democracies, Dictators, North Korea, Nations voted at once), Integrity (Businesses, Tobacco Companies, Bankers/ Financial Institutes, Pharmaceutical company to collapse),  Illuminati (Started in Greece, with Shipping, Financial markets, Stock markets, Pharmaceutical money (fund to build Africa, to develop)), Shift of Human Consciousness, (Old) Souls, Women, Masters to/already come back, Global Unity.... etc.) - (Text version)

“.   New Tolerance

Look for a softening of finger pointing and an awakening of new tolerance. There will remain many systems for different cultures, as traditions and history are important to sustaining the integrity of culture. So there are many in the Middle East who would follow the prophet and they will continue, but with an increase of awareness. It will be the increase of awareness of what the prophet really wanted all along - unity and tolerance. The angel in the cave instructed him to "unify the tribes and give them the God of Israel." You're going to start seeing a softening of intolerance and the beginning of a new way of being.

Eventually, this will create an acknowledgement that says, "You may not believe the way we believe, but we honor you and your God. We honor our prophet and we will love you according to his teachings. We don't have to agree in order to love." How would you like that? The earth is not going to turn into one belief system. It never will, for Humans don't do that. There must be variety, and there must be the beauty of cultural differences. But the systems will slowly update themselves with increased awareness of the truth of a new kind of balance. So that's the first thing. Watch for these changes, dear ones. ...."

Obama calls for tolerance and unity in childhood home Indonesia

Yahoo – AFP, July 1, 2017

Former US President Barack Obama waves to the audience alongside Indonesian
media figure Eddy Kusnadi Sariaatmadja (C) and former Indonesian Ambassador
 to the United States Dino Patti Djalal during the 4th Congress of Indonesian
Diaspora in Jakarta (AFP Photo/ADEK BERRY)

Jakarta (AFP) - Barack Obama called for tolerance and respect in his childhood home of Indonesia Saturday, amid rising religious tensions in the country where the former US president spent four years as a boy.

At the end of a 10-day family holiday, Obama spoke to a packed crowd in the capital Jakarta, where he praised the spirit of tolerance in Indonesia, saying you could see mosques, temple and churches alongside each other.

"That spirit is one of the defining things about Indonesia, the most important characteristics to set as an example for other Muslim countries around the world," Obama said.

The 44th president of the United State then said: "Bhinneka Tunggal Ika," -- Indonesia's motto, which means unity in diversity, prompting huge cheers from the crowd of thousands of leaders, business people and students at the Fourth Congress of Indonesian Diaspora.

Obama lived in Indonesia when he was a six-year-old boy with his mother, an anthropologist, and his Indonesian stepfather and half-sister.

His mother later divorced and Obama moved back to Hawaii at the age of 10 to live with his grandparents.

The Muslim-majority country has recently seen a rise in Islamic radicalism.

Its track record as a tolerant nation is being tested after former Jakarta governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama -– an ethnic Chinese Christian -- lost Jakarta's mayoral election in April against a prominent Muslim candidate.

Purnama was later sentenced to two years prison in May for blasphemy over comments he made about the Koran which divided the nation and stirred up issues of religion and ethnicity in the archipelago, which was long hailed by other countries for it's ability to tolerate different religious.

Prior to Jakarta, Obama and his family visited the resort island of Bali and the ancient city of Yogyakarta which is known for its temples.

The Obamas will leave Indonesia for South Korea on Sunday.

Huge cheers for @BarackObama as he quotes "Bhinneka Tunggal Ika" motto in call for unity during visit to #Indonesia https://t.co/0BB0J1o4Ho pic.twitter.com/KBFEdJvHHD

— AFP news agency (@AFP) July 1, 2017

Taboo-breaking liberal mosque opens in Berlin

Yahoo – AFP, Yannick PASQUET, June 17, 2017

Lawyer and women's rights activist Seyran Ates opened the
Ibn-Rushd-Goethe-Mosque with words of welcome before Christian and
Jewish guests and a large media contingent (AFP Photo/John MACDOUGALL)

Berlin (AFP) - With a mission to spread a liberal form of Islam, a mosque where men and women pray side by side has opened its doors in Berlin, complete with female imams.

The Arabic phrase "Allahu Akbar" ('God is greatest') resonated through the crowded Ibn-Rushd-Goethe-Mosque Friday as US-Malaysian Ani Zonneveld, one of the world's few female imams, launched the call to prayer.

Then one of the founders of the new place of worship, lawyer and women's rights activist Seyran Ates, opened the event with words of welcome before Christian and Jewish guests and a large media contingent.

"We want to send a signal against Islamic terror and the misuse of our religion," said Turkish-born Ates, 54, dressed in a long white robe. "We want to practise our religion together."

Ates -- no stranger to breaking taboos, having called for a "sexual revolution" in the Muslim world -- vowed she would not allow ultra-conservatives "to rob me of my right to be Muslim".

Kneeling on green carpets, the faithful -- men and women, side by side -- bowed to Mecca for the traditional prayer as the imam spoke in German.

Some of the women wore veils or head coverings, others did not.

'Depoliticise' Islam

The new mosque, the 88th in the German capital, is located in a rented room on the third floor of the Protestant Johanniskirche (St. John's Church) building.

Founded by Seyran Ates, the mosque aims to establish a humanistic, 

secular and liberal reading of Islam (AFP Photo/John MACDOUGALL)

All Muslims -- Sunni or Shia, Alawite or Sufi -- are welcome in the mosque named after one of Germany's greatest writers, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, and 12th century Islamic scholar Ibn Rushd, also known as Averroes.

The seven founding members said they want to open their prayer hall to all groups, including gays and lesbians.

"This mosque allows Muslims to define themselves in a new way," said co-founder and German Islam scholar Abdel-Hakim Ourghi.

He added that "we will try to depoliticise Islam", as the religion was being torn by rival political movements. "Because religion is a private matter."

Police stood guard outside the entrance of the building.

The founders said they had not received any threats or insults, but that they fully expected not everyone would be happy.

Time for change

Germany, with some four million Muslims, has been the target of jihadist attacks, the deadliest last December when a truck tore through a Berlin Christmas market crowd killing 12 people.

Seyran Ates -- who has campaigned against forced marriages,
domestic violence and so-called "honour killings" among Muslim
migrants -- said the project was eight years in the making (AFP
Photo/John MACDOUGALL)

The arrival of more than one million refugees, most from mainly Muslim countries, since 2015 has worsened the fears of some Germans.

Ates -- who has campaigned against forced marriages, domestic violence and so-called "honour killings" among Muslim migrants -- said the project was eight years in the making.

"Many left along the way," she said. "They told us it was dangerous, that they were afraid."

Elham Manea, a Swiss political scientist of Yemeni background, said the time had come for change, with other so-called liberal mosques having also opened in the United States, Britain and Switzerland.

The Berlin mosque, financed by private donations, is located in the Berlin district of Moabit, which has a large immigrant population.

It was in this neighbourhood that Tunisian Anis Amri, the Christmas market attacker, frequented a radical mosque that has since been closed.

Pakistani human rights activist Mukhtar Mai (C) receives a standing ovation
as she takes the stage following performance of the opera 'Thumbprint', at
the Roy and Edna Disney/Calarts Theater (REDCAT) in Los Angeles, on
June 16, 2017 (AFP Photo/Robyn Beck)

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women pray together in her mosque, albeit segregated, with the women praying

 in the back of the prayer hall. Devotions and sermons are conducted mostly in

 Dutch rather than Arabic. And non-Muslims are welcome. Across Europe Muslims

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In Muslim Indonesia, tiny Jewish community lives on

Yahoo – AFP, Olivia Rondonuwu, April 27, 2017

In a remote corner of the Indonesian archipelago, a modest synagogue stands
 in a tiny Jewish community that has found acceptance despite rising intolerance
in the world's most populous Muslim-majority country

In a remote corner of the Indonesian archipelago, a modest synagogue stands in a tiny Jewish community that has found acceptance despite rising intolerance in the world's most populous Muslim-majority country.

The red-roofed building on Sulawesi island is the only synagogue in the nation of 255 million people. Here, unlike other parts of the country, the Jewish community feel safe to practise their faith openly.

"We can wear the kippah (Jewish skullcap) in the mall or anywhere we want, it's not a problem," Yobby Hattie Ensel, a Jewish leader from the nearby city of Manado told AFP.

In Tondano, the "Shaar Hasyamayim" synagogue sits close to several churches and residents of different religions live, work, and worship alongside each other without incident.

Indonesia has long been praised for its moderate, inclusive brand of Islam -- and this enclave of diversity is a testament to that.

But across the archipelago, intolerance has risen in recent years as more conservative forms of Islam have become popular, driven by increasingly vocal hardline groups.

Tensions in the Middle East, particularly between Israel and the Palestinians, spill over here and deepen religious divides.

Outside the safe haven on Sulawesi, those who refuse to hide their faith have faced hostility.

Yaakov Baruch, an Orthodox Jew who runs the Tondano synagogue, revealed how he was threatened with death in a Jakarta busy mall as he walked along with his pregnant wife.

"From a few floors up, they shouted at me 'Crazy Jew'," he told AFP, adding the group of men then ran towards him and demanded he remove his skullcap.

"They said to me: 'We don't want you to use your kippah in this country. If you continue to use it, we'll kill you'."

In 2013, the country's only other synagogue in the city of Surabaya was demolished. It had been the site of anti-Israel protests for years, and was sealed off by hardliners in 2009 and left to decay.

Indonesia's Jewish community faces practical challenges, such as access

to kosher food, which is not widely available in the Muslim-majority nation

Secret worship

Indonesian rabbi Benjamin Verbrugge concedes any flare-up of tensions in the Middle East provokes hostility towards the local faithful.

"Problems between Israelis and Palestinians are a liability for me -- when someone is stabbed there, it makes me uneasy here," he said.

Faced with such open hostility, the Jews in the capital worship in secret.

Last month Verbrugge, head of the United Indonesian Jewish Community (UIJC), held celebrations for the festival of Purim, traditionally one of the most joyous days in Judaism's calendar, hidden in a small hotel room with a handful of fellow worshippers.

The UIJC estimate there are around 200 practising the faith in the country, believed to be the descendants of traders from Europe and Iraq who came to Asia to trade. The organisation was set up to bring the nation's Jews together.

The Jewish population in Indonesia is believed to have peaked at around 3,000 in the years before World War II, according to Rotem Kowner, a professor from the University of Haifa in Israel.

The fact that those remaining are scattered across the archipelago means Verbrugge has to defy rules that forbid Jews from using electrical gadgets on the Sabbath to lead group prayers online via the LINE messaging app.

The small community also faces more practical challenges, such as the fact kosher food is not widely available in Indonesia, said Phinechas, a local convert to Judaism.

"I try my best to be a good Jew but I can't manage it 100 percent," he added.

But across the archipelago, intolerance has risen in recent years as more 

conservative forms of Islam have become popular, forcing some Jews to

hide their faith for fear of repercussions

Increasing intolerance

Faith-based tension has been mounting in Indonesia, undermining its pluralist reputation.

Christian churches and mosques where Muslim minorities pray have been closed due to pressure from hardliners. Shiites and Ahmadis -- regarded as heretics by some Sunnis -- have been forced from their homes in mob attacks and on occasion even killed.

Successive governments have been criticised for failing to tackle the radicals for fear of being accused of attacking Islam.

Due to their small number and the fact most live in the shadows, the nation's Jews have not been a major focus of radical Islamic anger in Indonesia and have largely escaped the serious attacks directed at other minorities.

But having a low profile also brings problems.

According to the law, freedom of worship is guaranteed for all religions, including Judaism, but in practice Jews cannot be honest about their faith.

Easter Celebrations Should Inspire Unity in Indonesia: Religious Affairs Minister

Jakarta Globe, Eko Prasetyo, April 14, 2017

Indonesian Catholics pray at Gua Maria ("Mary's Cave") in Sendang
Sriningsih in Yogyakarta on Thursday (13/04). (Antara Photo/
Aloysius Jarot Nugroho)

Jakarta. Religious Affairs Minister Lukman Hakim Saifuddin said Easter celebrations in Indonesia are perfect manifestations of the country's motto Bhinneka Tunggal Ika, or "unity in diversity."

Lukman said the theme for this year's official national celebration of Easter — to be hosted in Manado, North Sulawesi — "Torang Samua Ciptaan Tuhan," or "Everyone is God’s Creation," was chosen to reflect the values of the often-quoted motto.

"The founding fathers of this country clearly understood we're a pluralistic, diverse nation, that's why unity is something to be fought for," Lukman was quoted as saying on the Ministry of Religious Affairs website.

Shephard Supit, the chairman of the 2017 National Easter Celebration committee, said a series of ceremonies and events celebrating Easter will be held in Manado and Tondano from April 21-25.

More than 25,000 Christians are expected to attend, including foreign visitors.

North Sulawesi Governor Olly Donkokambey said the province is more than ready to host the Easter celebrations.

"It will be another honor for us. Last year we also hosted the National Christmas Celebration and the Maulid Nabi [Prophet Muhammad's birthday] Celebration," Olly said.