Jean-Roger Héné

He was born in 1918 in Munich to a Protestant Alsatian father and a Jewish German mother. At the age of five his family immigrated to the United States where he lived in Chicago until the age of 11. He was then sent to a Catholic religious boarding school in France. He was baptized at the age of 16 and entered the Assumptionist congregation at the age of 23, in 1941. He lived through the German occupation in France sometimes in hiding and succeeded in saving civilian lives at one point in the war. He was ordained a priest in 1948 while specializing in languages, he being fluent in three at the time (French, German and English).

After a short stay in Rome, Jean-Roger was named by the Assumptionists to the community in Jerusalem in 1952. The Assumptionists were then based in Notre Dame de Jerusalem, right on the border between the State of Israel and the Jordanian ruled Old City. Jean-Roger got to know the two Little Sisters of Jesus who were living in the nearby Mamilla neighborhood and the dream of establishing a kehilla was shared by them all. On arriving in the new state, Jean-Roger recognized the need to learn Hebrew and attended an ulpan. He also trained to be an Israeli guide. Later he would teach New Testament and Christianity to future generations of Israeli Jewish guides. Stimulated by the developments in the Church, especially after the Second Vatican Council, Jean-Roger participated enthusiastically in the developing Jewish-Christian dialogue.

One of the earliest collaborators in the foundation of the Oeuvre Saint-Jacques, Jean-Roger founded the community in Beer Sheba. First frequenting the town in order to celebrate the Eucharist for French engineers working in the Negev, he presided at the Sunday celebrations in premises belonging to the municipality. In 1959, he was named responsible for the community in Beer Sheba, which now included others too, and he put in place what has become the House of Abraham. In the beginning, religious services were held in Beit Ha’Am, a cultural center, in Beer Sheba. In 1971, Jean-Roger bought a house and a piece of adjacent land. The house would become home to two Sisters of Saint Joseph of the Apparition who came to Beer Sheba to help with the community (Johanna and Anne). Jean-Roger built alongside the house a small chapel and home for the priest. Later these two buildings made way for the building that houses the kehilla and the priest’s residence today.

Jean-Roger continued throughout to guide groups through the land he loved. He remained the beloved pastor of his flock in Beer Sheba until his death of cancer in 1979.