Gabriel Naddaf

Gabriel Naddaf was born in 1973 in Nazareth

Gabriel Naddaf was born on 18 August 1973 in Yafa an-Naseriyye, an Arab village near Nazareth with a Christian minority. He is married and has two children.

Since 1995 he has served as a priest at the Church of the Annunciation and at the Greek Orthodox monastery in Nazareth. He was a spokesman for the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem and a judge in its church court. In 2005 he and another priest petitioned an Israeli court to stop the removal of Patriarch Irenaios I, but the effort failed and Theophilus III was elected.

Naddaf supports the integration of Christian Arabs into Israeli society, including army and national service. He was the spiritual leader of the forum for recruiting Christians to the IDF, which initiated a conference in 2012 attended by 121 young people. His activity was condemned by Arab public figures in Israel and supported by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Ministry of Defense.

He also pushed for recognizing Israel's Arabic-speaking Christians as Arameans. In 2014 he spoke at the UN Human Rights Council, and in 2015 he published a booklet against the boycott movement against Israel. In 2016 he lit a torch at the Independence Day ceremony, and in 2018 prosecutors closed an investigation into him.