Some Christian Immigrants in Israel Hide Faith : Holy Land: Many practice their religion in secret because they don’t want to risk losing their benefits. In reality, no one has been deported, and canceled services are rare.

Jana Fungartz has a secret she keeps from her Israeli friends--she’s Christian. She puts her pictures of Jesus, her crucifixes and holy candles well out of sight in the back room of her apartment.

“I don’t think they are interested, but we don’t tell them, to be on the safe side,” said the 55-year-old former mining engineer who immigrated with her family two years ago from Kiev, Ukraine.

Fungartz, whose husband is Jewish, is part of a wave of Christian faithful who have arrived in the Holy Land among a half-million immigrants from the former Soviet Union.

Although there are no precise figures, experts such as Daniel Rossing of the Melitz interfaith center estimate 25,000 of those immigrants are Christians--many observing their faith in secret.

“There are Christians who are in hiding. They practice their religion (in secret) because they don’t want to risk losing their benefits,” said Kevin Carey, chancellor of the Greek-Catholic Patriarchate in Jerusalem’s Old City.

“We have a priest who says that so-called ‘Jews’ come up to him and ask him to baptize their children, or marry them,” Carey said.

Actually, anyone married to a Jew or who has at least one Jewish grandparent is entitled to immigrate and to get immigrant benefits. But benefits could be revoked and a person deported if they lied about their Jewish ties to gain immigrant status.

In reality, there have been no deportations, and canceling benefits is rare. Even so, many Christian Russians feel that the less revealed the better. They fear discrimination from their neighbors and in the job market as well as stigmatizing of their children in the schools.

Uri Mor, director of the Religious Affairs Ministry office that deals with Christians, said about one-fifth of the Russian immigrants since 1989 are not considered Jewish under Orthodox religious law.

The influx of non-Jews has stirred protests from Israel’s Orthodox community and some secular leaders, such as Deputy Foreign Minister Yossi Beilin, who have called for reform of Israel’s liberal immigration policy.

“It wasn’t the intention of the Law of Return to let in thousands of goyim (non-Jews),” said Rabbi Yitzhak Levy of the National Religious Party. “But what it did was let in a flood of goyim and that is harming the (Jewish) character of the state.”

The 1951 Law of Return grants automatic citizenship to anyone with at least one Jewish grandparent, whether or not the immigrant is a practicing Jew. They can bring spouses, children and grandchildren, even if they profess not to be Jewish.

Immigrants are given generous benefits--a monthly stipend, housing and language classes. The benefits have stirred resentment from Israelis who question spending tax money on Christians, Muslims and others who might be using tenuous Jewish connections to improve their economic situation.

“Christians are allowed to immigrate on the basis of the Law of Return. To my regret, well, let me say, rather, for better or worse, there is nothing we can do about it,” said Tova Elinson, spokeswoman for the Interior Ministry, which oversees citizenship matters.

One group of Russian immigrants meets secretly in a third-floor book shop in Tel Aviv to study the New Testament. They follow Jewish ritual, donning skullcaps and prayer shawls, but they embrace Jesus as the Messiah.

Other Russian immigrants worship at Russian or Greek Orthodox churches that serve native Christians, most of them Palestinian Arabs.

Demand is so high that the Greek Orthodox Church is considering building a church in the southern Israeli town of Beersheba.

Archbishop Timothy, the church’s No. 2 official, said in an interview that the church introduced Russian liturgy and in some cases moved services to Saturday to accommodate the immigrants. Sunday is a work day in Israel, where Jews observe the Sabbath from Friday evening to Saturday night.

“There has been a decades-old phenomenon of a dwindling number of native Orthodox. It is good for the church to have this increase in believers,” said the archbishop, who studied in St. Petersburg and speaks Russian.

Experts estimate about 160,000 Christians live in Israel, including the recent Russian arrivals. There are 4.3 million Jews and 725,000 Muslims.

In Nazareth, the town of Christ’s youth, church business is booming.

Radwan Romanos, an Israeli Arab who is a Greek Orthodox priest at St. George’s Church, organizes services for Russian Christians living in Jewish towns around Nazareth.

“I used to visit them at their homes, but they asked me to stop after their neighbors started asking them why a priest was coming to them. Now I call and tell them when we are holding services,” said Romanos.

He said one second-grade girl was taunted after she wore a cross to school. The other children started hitting her and stopped talking to her, he said.

While Israel has scrupulously given equal treatment to Christian immigrants, the government has a firm policy against proselytizing by members of any religion. The rule has more effect on Christians, however, because many Christian sects promote proselytizing.

Anti-missionary groups seek out evangelical Christians and report them to the authorities. It is a crime punishable by up to five years in prison to convert anyone for “material reward.”

Thumbing a dogeared copy of the New Testament, Jewish-born Vladamir Schecter and his wife, Svetlana--former Communists from the Belarus capital of Minsk--have spent the past three years traveling Israel to spread the Gospel of Jesus to immigrants.

He said he has received anonymous telephone calls warning him to stop the prayer meetings he has organized at his Jerusalem home.

“Russians are very open to the Gospel,” said Schecter, a Star of David dangling around his neck. “But it is impossible to make open evangelical services. I’m only doing it from door to door, from face to face.”