Tamar Weissman
In late July 2024, a Hezbollah rocket crashed into a soccer pitch in the Golan Heights town of Majdal Shams, killing twelve Druze children. This horrific event thrust the Druze community of the Golan, with their complex layers of identity and loyalties, into the limelight. Who are the Druze, specifically those that live in the Golan Heights? And is there anything instructive in Israel’s past that might help us better understand and relate to this community?
The Druze minority in Israel is not monolithic; though all Druze throughout the world are bound together through shared religion, a tenet of that religion is dogmatic loyalty to the host state. The Druze of the Galilee, for instance, are considered model citizens, with a near-100% conscription rate to the IDF, and are significant contributors to the political and economic sectors of Israeli society. Only a minority of the Druze living in the Golan, however, are Israeli citizens, and most of them do not serve in the army. Since the Golan Heights is still not recognized internationally as part of sovereign Israel, the Druze living there are torn between two loyalties. The younger residents of Majdal Shams have mostly claimed Israeli citizenship, while the older generation, remembering their pre-1967 identity as Syrian citizens, are markedly colder towards Israel.
The value of loyalty to the government of their host country is a foundational element of the Druze identity. To be Druze is to be without any specific country, but to also be staunchly allegiant to one’s hosts. This allegiance actually preserves the Druze’s independence from other peoples: they are essentially attached to no one specific state.
This independence, and flexibility, is also a defining characteristic of the Kenites, a biblical people who bear remarkable resemblance to the Druze. An examination of the Kenites, and the pattern which emerges from the Sages’ careful reading of the biblical contexts in which they appear, prompts surprising associations with the contemporary Druze, and may provide a framework for considering how our two peoples might continue our partnership.
The Kenites[1] are an enigmatic people, surfacing throughout the Bible to interact with Israel in surprising, often contradictory, ways. The first biblical reference to the Kenites seems innocent enough: they are listed among the ten nations that Abraham’s descendants are destined to conquer and inherit (Genesis 15:18-21), with no additional information provided. Perhaps they traced their origins to Cain,[2] the first child born to Adam and Eve, who was compelled to roam for his sustenance after murdering his brother Abel. Like Cain, “a ceaseless wanderer on the earth” (Genesis 4:12), the Kenites were perpetual nomads.
The next time the Kenites make an appearance in the biblical narrative is at the end of Israel’s desert journey, as the gentile prophet Balaam levels curses on all the nations that had antagonized the Children of Israel: the Moabites, the Edomites, the Amalekites and, unexpectedly, the Kenites, who had never been singled out as having threatened Israel in the past.
Then he looked on Amalek…
And then he looked on the Kenites, and he took up his oracle and said:
“Firm is your dwelling place,
And your nest is set in the rock;
Nevertheless Kain (i.e., the Kenites) shall be burned.
How long until Ashur carries you away captive?” (Numbers 24:20-22)
Balaam juxtaposes this last nation alongside the Amalekites, which spurs Rashi’s surprising comment:
The Kenites were always firmly encamped within the Amalekites. (Rashi, Numbers 24:21)
While this curious pairing is first mentioned explicitly in this context, it is actually alluded to much earlier on, with the introduction of Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, ancestor of the Kenites (see Judges 1:16).[3] Jethro becomes interested in joining Israel when he hears of their defeat of Amalek:
“Jethro, priest of Midian, Moses’ father-in-law, heard about all that God had done for Moses and Israel His people…” (Exodus 18:1). What did he hear that specifically moved him to come? The splitting of the sea… the war against Amalek… (Zevahim 116a)[4]
Another pairing of the Kenites with Amalek surfaces explicitly later in Israel’s history, as King Saul prepares to battle Amalek. He begins by sending a warning to the Kenites:
Saul said to the Kenites: “Come, withdraw at once from among the Amalekites, that I may not destroy you along with them, for you showed kindness to all the Israelites when they left Egypt.” So the Kenites withdrew from among the Amalekites. (I Samuel 15:6)[5]
This union of Amalek, sworn enemy of Israel, and the Kenites, Israel’s erstwhile allies, is a strange and contradictory one. On the one hand, Balaam groups the Kenites with Amalek; additionally, the Kenites camp with the Amalekites in Saul’s era. They seem to get along and are intertwined. On the other hand, Jethro the Kenite is inspired by Israel’s defeat of Amalek, spurring him to visit Moses in the desert wilderness, and showing him there the “kindness” that Saul was referencing. (Jethro’s kindness was in assessing and advising. Sizing up the challenges posed to Moses’ leadership, Jethro had advised him to set up a court system, an efficient procedural framework that would wean the nation from its dependence on one central authority.) In gratitude and admiration, Moses refers to Jethro as “our eyes” (Numbers 10:31), the objective observer who served Israel by remaining outside of the nation. Though he never definitively joins with Israel, Jethro is lauded by the Sages as a model convert.[6] Moses attempts to entice his father-in-law into continuing with Israel on their desert journey and ultimately into the Promised Land, promising “we will be good to you… and bestow upon you the goodness which God grants us” (Numbers 10:29-32). This “goodness” that Moses promised Jethro was the finest estate in Eretz Yisrael:
When Israel was apportioning the land, there was the rich pasture ground of Jericho, five hundred ammot by five hundred ammot, and they set it aside from being apportioned [among the tribes]… They gave it instead to the sons of Jethro, to Jonadab the son of Rechab, as it says (Judges 1:16): “The sons of Keni, father-in-law of Moses, went up from the City of Date Palms…”[7] (Rashi, Numbers 10:32)
Jethro insisted on returning to his own homeland,[8] but this separation was not a divorce. He may have taken leave of Israel in the desert, but his descendants migrated with the nation into Eretz Yisrael, taking root in Jericho, City of Date Palms,[9] and then moving south to settle near Arad:
The descendants of the Kenite, the father-in-law of Moses, went up with the Judahites from the City of Date Palms to the wilderness of Judah; and they went and settled among the people in the Negeb of Arad. (Judges 1:16)
The Kenites seem poised in a studiously ambiguous state vis-à-vis Israel. They are regularly with Amalek, but also attach themselves to Israel. Are they loyal to Israel, or are they in bed with her archenemy?
The emerging picture of the Kenites is further complicated by the comment of Rashi quoted above. He weaves in an additional layer of complexity by introducing another notable Kenite: Jonadab the son of Rechab, a figure who only surfaces much later on in Israel’s story, in the Book of Kings. Jonadab makes a brief yet powerful appearance when he unhesitatingly joins the Israelite king Jehu in destroying the city of Shomron and slaughtering all the idolators there (II Kings 10). While nowhere in that context is Jonadab identified as a Kenite, a mysterious verse from the Book of Chronicles intriguingly links Rechab (Jonadab’s ancestor) with the Kenites, and connects him to our context in Judges:
The families of scribes, dwellers of Yabetz: Tiratim, Shimatim, Sukhotim – these are the Kenites who came from Hamat, father of the house of Rechab. (I Chronicles 2:55)
This verse adds another detail to the Kenite migration in Judges: the Kenites who moved from Jericho to settle with Yabetz (another name for the judge Othniel, suggest the Sages)[10] were Rechabites. The Midrash’s[11] associative play will pleat back the most famous Rechabite, Jonadab, on top of this verse in Judges, and will also stretch forward, drawing our attention to another Jonadab reference elsewhere in the Bible, in the Book of Jeremiah. Jonadab’s sustained influence is famously evoked by the prophet, who lauds his family as exemplars of loyalty:
The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord in the days of Jehoiakim son of Josiah, king of Judah, saying: “Go to the house of the Rechabites and speak with them, and bring them to the House of the Lord, to one of the chambers, and give them wine to drink…”
And I set before the sons of the house of the Rechabites goblets full of wine, and cups, and I said to them, “Drink wine.”
And they said, “We will not drink wine, for Jonadab the son of Rechab, our father, commanded us saying, ‘You shall not drink wine, you or your children forever. And you shall not build a house, neither shall you sow nor shall you plant a vineyard, nor shall you have [any], but you shall dwell in tents all your days in order that you live many days on the face of the land where you dwell.’ And we hearkened to the voice of Jonadab the son of Rechab, our father, to all that he commanded us…”
And the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah, saying:
“The sons of Jonadab the son of Rechab have performed the commandment of their father that he commanded them–but this people has not hearkened to Me!” (Jeremiah 35:1-16)
The Rechabites, as a branch of the Kenites, are a people who maintain their identity through absolute fealty to their ancestral code. This code demands not only that they abstain from wine, but that they always be primed to pick up and move, suggesting the original Cain, who did not maintain deep ties to any specific land. So central is nomadism to the House of Rechab, and to the Kenites, that it is a value enshrined in the family name (the root r-kh-b means to ride!)
To be detached from land meant that the Kenite national character was fiercely independent and autonomous. They were so independent that they could even remain in close contact with two nations engaged in a deadly, endless war, drawing sustenance from both. The Kenites’ constant migration thrived on regular and sustained interaction with two peoples that existed on opposite philosophical poles: Israel and Amalek.
The Kenites accompanied Amalek as readily as they supported and encouraged Israel. Jethro, symbolic of the Kenites and their relationship with Israel, was colleague with some of Israel’s most hateful enemies–
Rabbi Hiyya bar Abba says that Rabbi Simai says: Three were in Pharaoh’s counsel [where Pharaoh questioned what should be done with the Jewish people]. They were Balaam, and Job, and Jethro. (Sotah 11a)
–yet he also visited with Moses after hearing of Israel’s victory over Amalek, and advised him wisely. He might have been reluctant to join with Israel when asked, yet his descendants chose to settle alongside Israel, first in Jericho, and then near Othniel in the south. In the era of the Judges, the Kenites maintained friendly ties with the Canaanites, enemies of Israel (“Heber the Kenite had separated from the other Kenite descendants of Hobab, the father-in-law of Moses…and there was peace between Jabin the king of Hazor (of the Canaanites) and the house of Heber the Kenite”) (Judges 4:11-17), yet Yael the Kenite would ally with Israel to kill Sisera, the Canaanite general (Judges 4:18-22). The Kenites are intermingled with the Amalekites in the period of the first monarchy, but they willingly separate from them at King Saul’s behest. And when Jehu seeks the loyalty of the Kenite Jonadab ben Rechab, he offers it unhesitatingly (II Kings 10:15).
The Kenites’ wandering made them suitable bedfellows for Amalek, also a nomadic people.[12] But their itinerant lifestyle also served them well. By maintaining their independence and never fully assimilating into Israel’s ranks, the Kenites consistently offered another voice, an important perspective that Israel could call upon when they lost their way. “Whenever things will be hidden from our eyes, you will enlighten us about it,”[13] Rashi interprets Moses’ plea to Jethro that he stay on and be “our eyes.” The Kenites contributed to Israel from the uniquely unthreatening position of the foreign resident, one who does not challenge land ownership or Israelite rule, and whose cordial ties with Israel’s great enemies never spills over into suspicions of dual loyalty. Clearly, their ancient affiliation with Amalek does not dampen God’s admiration for the Kenites. He promises them eternity as a reward for their faithfulness to their ancestral code:
Because you have obeyed the commandment of Jonadab your father, and you have kept all his commandments and have done according to all that he commanded you, therefore, so said the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel: ‘There shall not be cut off from Jonadab the son of Rechab a man standing before Me for all times.’ (Jeremiah 35:18-19)
What drew the Kenites to Israel, enticing them to maintain close ties, yet consistently stop short from fully assimilating? These delicate terms of engagement were first established by Jethro, who insisted on maintaining independence while still honoring and supporting the unique covenant between God and Israel. The care and closeness between God and His chosen people, first manifested in the Exodus saga and then affirmed in their victory over Amalek, was what attracted Jethro to join with Israel in the first place.[14]
Jethro may not have been present at the culmination of the Torah covenant at Mt. Sinai,[15] but he yearned for access and proximity to the Torah and its custodians:
[Jethro’s] name was Keni, for he acquired (k-n-h) the Torah for himself. Just as Jethro cherished the Torah, so did his descendants… for it is written, “the family of scribes who dwelt with Yabetz” (I Chronicles 2:55) – they [the Kenite scholars] left Jericho and traveled down to Yabetz, in the Judean desert that was in the Negeb of Arad, so as to learn Torah from him.[16] (Sifrei, Numbers 78)
The emergent pattern of the Kenites is one of a nation that consistently accompanies Israel, yet retains remarkable autonomy and detachment. They share in Israel’s eternity–
You have settled in the stronghold and citadel of Israel. You are fortunate in that you are entrenched with this power, because you will never be driven out of the world. Even if you are destined to go into exile with the Ten Tribes, you will return with the rest of the exiles” (Rashi, Numbers 24:21-22),[17]
–yet also remain linked to the wider, sometimes antagonistic, surroundings.
It is hard to miss the contemporary iteration of this pattern within the Druze people, who themselves venerate Jethro as their ancestor and prophet, and whose holiest worship compound is Kubur Nabi Shuayeb, Jethro’s burial site, located in the Lower Galilee. As mentioned above, the Druze are exceptionally loyal to national authority. Yet enshrined in their social and religious structures is a strong reluctance to assimilate too deeply into their host cultures. They fiercely protect their genetic purity, and consider intermarriage a strong taboo. They guard their mysterious religion zealously, loyal to their ancestral code, just like Jonadab ben Rechab. The Druze of Israel are uninterested in converting to Judaism, yet do wish to accompany Israel as “resident aliens.”[18] Many contemporary Jewish Israelis consider the Druze to be our “eyes” along this journey, providing necessary objectivity and fortifying our resolve with their loyalty to the State of Israel.[19]
Reflecting on the current situation of one of Israel’s valued minorities not only engenders profound grief for the tragedy of young lives lost to Hezbollah’s murderous regime, but it also encourages us to dig deeper into the Druze’s national concept and to consider the surprisingly compelling parallels with the biblical Kenites. The Kenites provide a model of fealty to ancestral tradition, for how tradition can provide a baseline of identity that transcends even the connection to the land. What is more, the Kenites provide a model of how Israel can connect to others, expanding beyond the boundaries of their own identity, saving them from the very-present dangers of narrow parochialism. What the Kenites symbolize – tradition, connection, and also ultimately independence from other peoples – is shared by their modern-day conceptual iteration, the Druze. And the age-old attachment between our peoples is as strong, and complicated, as ever.
[1]The earliest historical record of the Kenites dates to the Egyptian twelfth dynasty (early second millennium), from an Egyptian inscription from Sinai that mentions the “Keni” along with other semitic tribes. Later possible evidence of the Kenites is found in the annals of Tuthmose III (mid-15th c. BCE), which references a Nahal Kina near Megiddo.
[2] The spelling of the two is identical in Hebrew.
[3] Jethro is described in Exodus 3:1 and 18:1 as “the priest of Midian” rather than a Kenite, but Judges 1:16 identifies him as “the Kenite, father-in-law of Moses.” Sifrei, Numbers 78 lists ‘Keni’ as one of Jethro’s names (alongside five others), suggesting homiletical explanations for the name as opposed to indicating a national attributive.
[4] This exegesis is clearly based on the juxtaposition of Jethro’s “hearing” with the story immediately preceding it – the clash with Amalek (Exodus 17:8-14).
[5] This pattern of the two nations dwelling together is also found in the Septuagint version of Judges 1:16, where the verse “And they [the Kenites] went and dwelled with the nation” is expanded to include the modifier Amalek: “And they [the Kenites] went and dwelled with the nation – with Amalek.” The Septuagint version lays the groundwork for Saul’s description in I Samuel 15:6 of the Kenites as dwelling amongst the Amalekites. The plain meaning of the verse, given the context in Judges, is that the Kenites moved south, from Jericho (The City of Date Palms) to Arad, to be close to the Israelites. Rashi specifies that the “am,” the nation, are the students of Yabetz/Othniel who had flocked to him in Arad to study Torah (Rashi, Judges 1:16).
[6] Tanhuma, Jethro 1.
[7] See also Sifrei, Numbers 78.
[8] Jehthro’s visit to Moses and the Israelites at Sinai is recorded twice in the text, once in Exodus 18 and again in Numbers 10. It is unclear whether the two versions reflect the same episode (Ibn Ezra), or whether the account in Numbers is of a subsequent visit that he made (Ramban). At some point, though, Jethro parted ways with Moses and returned to Midian, as per Exodus 18:27.
[9] Jericho is called the “City of Date Palms” in Deuteronomy 34:3 and II Chronicles 28:15.
[10] Temurah 16a.
[11] Sifrei, Numbers 78.
[12] Regarding Amalek’s nomadic nature, see “Amalek,” Encyclopedia Biblica [Hebrew], vol. 6 (Bialik Institute, 1971).
[13] Rashi, Numbers 10:31.
[14] M. Weinberg, Frameworks: Exodus, 135-148.
[15] “Jethro arrived only after Matan Torah” (Zevahim 116a).
[16] That the Kenites settled down in the southern stretches of Eretz Yisrael is manifest in later narratives, such as I Samuel 15:6, 27:10, and 30:29. Perhaps their claim is also alluded to in the names of some of the cities granted to Judah’s deep south: Kinah (Joshua 15:22), and ha-Kayin (Joshua 15:57).
[17] This echoes the divine promise made to the Rechabites (Jeremiah 35:19).
[18] In January 2004, the spiritual leader of the Druze community in Israel, Sheikh Mowafak Tarif, met with a representative of Chabad-Lubavitch to sign a declaration calling on all non-Jews in Israel to observe the Noahide laws. The mayor of the Arab city of Shefa-‘Amr (Shfaram) – where Muslim, Christian, and Druze communities live side-by-side – also signed the document. (“Druze Religious Leader Commits to Noachide Seven Laws,” Israel National News, January 18, 2004. https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/56379).
[19] Beit Jann Mayor Radi Najm highlighted the specific role that the Druze might play in this current war when he suggested that “We can be a bridge between the Israelis and the Palestinians. We know both communities and understand the cultures and languages.” Taylor Luck, “Why Oct. 7 Has Bound Israeli Jews and Druze Even More Tightly,” Christian Science Monitor ( January 31 2024).
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