The Lebanese in Israel – Language, Religion and Identity research-article Ori Shachmon, Merav Mack Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft, Jahrgang 169 (2019), Ausgabe 2, Seite 343 - 366 This essay describes recent language transitions in the community of former soldiers of the “South Lebanon Army” (henceforth: SLA), now living in Israel. While native speakers of Arabic, the SLA's children attend Hebrew-speaking schools and are not taught to read and write in Arabic. As an additional factor, while the majority of the SLAs are Maronite Christians, their children gain only limited knowledge of their religion. Looking at the nexus between language, religion and communal identity, this essay follows the measures taken by the SLA community to educate their children and preserve their religious and cultural identities. We describe two seemingly contradictory strategies, namely, writing liturgical Arabic texts in Hebrew letters, and systematic instruction of Standard Arabic. We show that for the adherents of both strategies, the Arabic language remains a key to strengthen the sense of affiliation and to maintain, or indeed re-define, communal identity.