Letters from Jerusalem

I am writing from Jerusalem, where I am serving for three months in the spring of 2005 with the Ecumenical Accompaniment Program in Palestine and Israel sponsored by the World Council of Churches.  The purpose of the EA Program is to accompany Palestinians and Israelis in their non-violent actions and to advocate for an end to the Israeli occupation.  

Participants in the program monitor and report violations of human rights and international humanitarian law, support acts of non-violent resistance alongside local Christian and Muslim Palestinians and Israeli peace activists, offer protection through non-violent presence, engage in public policy advocacy and, in general, stand in solidarity with the churches and those struggling against the occupation. 

To read more about this program online go to http://www.eappi.org. 

For maps of Israel and Palestine go to maps.

An edited version of most of these letters is now published as Jerusalem Journal: Finding Hope (Davies Group, 2005).

My Letters from Jerusalem express my own views, and should not be understood as representing the views of the World Council of Churches or any of the organizations participating in the Ecumenical Accompaniment Program.   

1) Letter from Jerusalem, The Old City

This review confronts us with the long and often tragic history of the city of peace, which is the meaning of the word "Jerusalem." And the Arabic names remind us that Muslims ruled this city from the middle of the seventh century to the beginning of the twentieth century, when the British took control during World War I, with the exception of the period when Crusaders ruled the city (1099-1187). It should not be surprising, therefore, that the Arab peoples of this land, who are now called Palestinians, think of it as their home...

To see more photographs from the Old City and also greater Jerusalem, click photos, and photos2, and photos3.

2) Letter from Jerusalem, Greater Jerusalem

For more than three millennia Jerusalem has been a place claimed by one people at the expense of other peoples. Might Jerusalem today become a beacon of hope for the nations, as the Jewish scriptures foretold (Isaiah 49:6)? Only if there is a just peace between Palestinians and Israelis, which will require Christians, Muslims, and Jews to find a new way of living together.

To see maps of Greater Jerusalem that show the separation wall and how it extends far to the East from Jerusalem, click here. 

3) Letter from Jerusalem, Rabbis for Human Rights

Rabbis for Human Rights begin with the affirmation that every human being "is created in the image of God." (Genesis 1:27) Because every person bears the divine image, the Torah admonishes the people of the covenant to pursue justice. Therefore, the second crucial text from scripture for Rabbis for Human Rights is Deuteronomy 16:20: "Justice, justice shall you pursue so that you may live and inherit the land that the Lord your God gives you." These rabbis believe all Jews, to be faithful Jews, should be advocates for human rights.

For several statements by members of Rabbis for Human Rights, go to http://christian-bible.com/Ethics/rhr.statements.htm.

4) Letter from Jerusalem, Working for Reconciliation 

Members of the Parents Circle - Families Forum are all involved in their own way politically, but in their work together they set that commitment (and their differences about politics) aside in order to lay the groundwork for reconciliation. For they believe that sowing the seeds of reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians is necessary for a just peace in the Middle East.

To see more photos from the Old City and areas around Jerusalem, click photos4 and photos5.

5) Letter from Jerusalem, Talking Points: Israel/Palestine

Recently I met with a group of Americans on an alternative tour of the Holy Land. They asked me for advice on talking about what they’d seen, when they returned home. Here’s what I told them.

6) Letter from Jerusalem, Talking Points: Religion

After I sent out a few "talking points" on issues here in Israel/Palestine, I was asked to comment on how religion is affecting the conflict. I had omitted any reference to religion in my previous remarks, so here are a few "talking points" on religion in Israel/Palestine.

7) Letter from Jerusalem, Holy Places

On Sunday I visited the Haram Al-Sharif (Temple Mount), where the Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock are located, and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The Haram Al-Sharif is an open plaza, with trees and a vast courtyard, where intense sunlight reflects off the stone pavement and the bright colors adorning the Dome of the Rock. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre is dark, its many chapels lit primarily by candles or dim electric lights, and it is filled with caverns, violent paintings, and stained tapestries.

For photos of the Haram Al-Sharif, click on photos6.  For photos of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, click on photos7.

8) Letter from Jerusalem, Men with Guns

We were five men without guns -- a rabbi, three other Jewish Israelis, and one American Christian. The Palestinians had appealed to Rabbis for Human Rights to come, because they said the nearby settlers were preventing them from cultivating their land. Rabbi Arik Ascherman, the Executive Director of RHR, had confirmed with the district army commander of the area that the Palestinians owned the land they wanted to plow and had a right to plow it. But men with guns decide who plows the land in the South Hebron Hills.

For photos taken from this trip to the South Hebron Hills, click on photos8.

9) Letter from Jerusalem, Planting Trees Near Bethlehem

We helped plant trees on a property owned by Christian Palestinians that is threatened by Jewish settlers.  The property owners have created a multicultural youth program both as a way to raise funds for legal fees, but also as a way of representing their view of living at peace with Muslim Palestinians and Jewish Israelis.

For photos from the hilltop near Bethlehem and of the Separation Wall on the north side of Bethlehem, click on photos9. 

10) Letter from Jerusalem, Palm Sunday

Worship in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre from 6:30-9:30 AM, in Latin, Coptic and Greek.  Then an afternoon process with thousands of pilgrims from Bethphage over the Mount of Olives and into the Old City.  But pilgrims from Bethlehem were unable to pass through the checkpoint, so didn't reach Jerusalem.  All this, in memory of Jesus and his disciples.

For photos from within the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and of the procession from Bethphage, click on photos10a and photos10b.

11) Letter from Jerusalem, Easter and Purim

Christians will continue to observe Easter, and Jews will continue to celebrate Purim. But Easter for Christians, and Purim for Jews, will only be a source of hope and new life, if Christians and Jews purge these holidays of the blame cast on those too easily characterized as enemies.

For photos from the Easter weekend, click on photos11.

12) Letter from Jerusalem, Land (f)or Peace

To be faithful, must Jews strive to control all the land, where their ancestors once lived and sometimes exercised political control? Is that commanded of Jews? Or, are Jews commanded to seek a just peace for all those living on the land of their forefathers, which includes Palestinians as well as Jews?

13) Letter from Jerusalem,  At Rachel's Tomb

Rachel’s Tomb is a place of mourning, for all the Jews and their ancestors who have been killed in and around Jerusalem. But it is also, today, a place of mourning for many Palestinians, who are oppressed by the barriers, checkpoints and soldiers enforcing the Israeli Occupation.

For photos from the protest of the Separation Wall near Rachel's Tomb, click on photos13.

14) Letter from Jerusalem, "Freedom School" in Abu Dis

Recently I accompanied Helle Preisler, a young Danish woman in the Ecumenical Accompaniment Program in Palestine and Israel, as she went to Abu Dis and taught English to professors at Al Quds University and then volunteers at the Jerusalem Center for Democracy and Human Rights (JCDHR). As I listened to her lead a discussion with each group about the Israeli Occupation, I was reminded of teaching Freedom School in Mississippi 40 years ago.

For photos taken in these two classes, click on photos14.

15) Letter from Jerusalem, Journey to Jayyous

Jayyous is a village of 3,000 Palestinians on the West Bank. It is well known among international peace activists in Israel, because the Separation Barrier constructed by the Israeli government alongside the village is six kilometers west of the Green Line. This barrier takes most of the fertile land owned by the Palestinian farmers, whose homes are now on the other side of the fence.

For photos from Jayyous, click on photos15.

16) Letter from Jerusalem, Right and Wrong

I went with three carloads of Israeli volunteers to help protect Palestinians from the West Bank village of Einabus, who have been attacked by the settlers that live on the hilltop above the village.  The settlers have cut down their olive trees and last fall killed a Palestinian in the olive groves about the village.  We were hoping the Israeli would do their job by providing protection, so the olive grove owners could work in their fields and we could help them.

Photos from the olive groves above Einabus and below Yitzhar, the very aggressive Jewish settlement, are at photos16.

17) Letter from Jerusalem, Visiting the Mishmar Ha'emek Kibbutz

The Mishmar Ha’emek kibbutz began 82 years ago, when the pioneering Jews who came to the area drained the swampland in the valley and learned from the Arabs nearby how to farm the land. Until the 1948 war, relationships between Jews and Arabs were good there. But the war in 1948 changed all that. What began as a socialist experiment is now a capitalist success.

Photos of our guide, Lydia Aisenberg, and some of the EAs who visited the kibbutz, are at photos17.

18) Letter from Jerusalem, The Golan for Development

The Golan for Development (GD) is a non-profit organization founded in 1991 in the occupied Golan Heights. Its headquarters are in Majdal Shams, one of the five Syrian villages remaining out of the 139 villages that existed in the Golan Heights before the Israeli occupation in 1967. Majdal Shams is located northeast of the See of Galilee, in the furthermost corner of the territory now controlled by Israel. Lebanon is to the west, and Syria is to the east.

Photos taken in the Golan Heights are at photos18.

19) Letter from Jerusalem, New Historian Ilan Pappe

Records from the war allowed Pappe and other researchers to verify that what we would today call "ethnic cleansing" not only occurred during the war, but was part of the Zionist plan that continued to guide Israeli government policies. Arabs did not flee during the war because they were told to by Arab governments to do so, but because they were driven out by Israeli armed forces acting on orders from Israeli political leaders.

Photos from Acre (Akko) north of Haifa are at photos19.

20) Letter from Jerusalem, A Visit to Acre

The influence of the Crusaders accounts for only 5 per cent of the long history of the walled port of Akko, now known as Acre, and yet that influence in many ways remains dominant. Walking in this old city is like stepping back into the Middle Ages, when the knights who came to save the holy places from infidels were celebrating their glorious victories.

Photos from Acre (Akko) north of Haifa are at photos20.

21) Letter from Jerusalem, Transforming Difficult Texts

I was privileged to hear an Orthodox Jew, Rabbi David Rosen, discuss how a passage from the Psalms, which is read every Passover, might be understood as an appeal to God to transform, rather than destroy, the obdurate peoples of the world. I think his insights may help Christians read more creatively, as well as respectfully, some of the difficult texts in our own tradition.

22) Letter from Jerusalem, Kiddush HaShem: Sanctifying G-d's Name

In the week before Easter I spoke with three rabbis, who have been active in Rabbis for Human Rights. Each of them has a distinctive view today of the challenge for Jews in Israel, but all of them believe that defending human rights is Kiddush HaShem, the sanctification of G-d’s name. Although the three rabbis differ in their critical assessment of RHR, they agree that it has linked Jewish support for human rights to this fundamental commandment acknowledged by every Jew: Kiddush HaShem.

23) Letter from Jerusalem, Stones of Hebron

In Hebron stones have been used to build a beautiful memorial to the ancestors of both the Israelis and the Palestinians, to the patriarchs and matriarchs who are remembered with reverence by Jews and Muslims. But smaller stones are used as weapons by Jewish children against Palestinian children, who must walk a gauntlet of hatred in order to attend their neighborhood school.

Photos from Hebron are at photos22 and photos23.

24) Letter from Jerusalem, Water in the Desert

Water that for centuries has run in streams from the gorges and bubbled up from underground springs in the desert. Water that can be used to grow olives grapes, and bananas as well as flowers. Water that can be taken from others, or shared. Water that means poverty or wealth, death or life, despair or hope.

Photos from the Monastery of St. George of Koziba and Jericho are at photos24.

25) Letter from Jerusalem, Restoring the Old City

Unfortunately, the Jews who are committed to restoring the Old City by creating Jewish Israeli settlements in the Muslim and Christian Quarters, are silent when it comes to supporting equal rights for Arab Israelis and for Palestinians. Moreover, these settlers and their supporters seek to restore the Old City by using coercion and exploiting unjust laws and corrupting officials.

Photos of changes in the Old City are at photos25.

26) Letter from Jerusalem, In the Olive Groves Again (soon to be posted)

Despite the depressing facts of the continuing Occupation, my day in the olive groves above Einabus filled me with hope. Palestinians were recovering the use of their land, and with their care the olive trees would again bear fruit. Moreover, Israeli and Palestinian men and women were creating friendships that their children would remember, and rely on, in their struggle to realize a just peace for both peoples.

Photos from the olive groves above Einabus are at photos26.

27) Letter from Jerusalem, Rabbi Ehud Bandel (soon to be posted)

The early founders of Zionism had a colonial mentality, because they were coming from Europe. They believed this was a land without a people, because they did not see the Bedouins and Arabs as "a people." We must admit today that the early Zionists were wrong. This was a land with a people. And now there are two peoples living in this land, who should each have a state in order to fulfill their national aspirations. 

28) Letter from Jerusalem, Israeli Women for Peace

Mothers and grandmothers of soldiers in the Israeli army are the heart of the Israel peace movement. They not only see through the rationalizations of the politicians for continuing the brutal occupation of the West Bank, but they also have seen the damage that serving in the West Bank has done to their children and grandchildren.

29) Letter from Jerusalem, Finding Hope

"There must be a coalition of hope among Israelis and Palestinians and all those who seek a just peace." For Jews, Rabbi Ascherman said, this is what the Shabbat is all about. "We pause for a day of rest each week, letting go of our hopes and worries about what we are doing, to find hope in remembering that we are not the masters of our universe, but co-creators in it with God."

30) Letter from Jerusalem, Christian and Muslims in Jerusalem

In remembering Mary, all three religious traditions come together. A Jewish mother, her son now revered by all Christians as God’s chosen one, and both the mother and son remembered for their holiness in the Qur’an, which is read by all Muslims. In these common memories, may we may find hope for a just peace in Jerusalem.

Photos from this program and walk in Al Quds are at photos30.

31) Letter from Jerusalem, Sunday Mosaic

On this second Palm Sunday (in the Orthodox calendar) I went to six worship services. All had in common the symbol of the cross and the elements of communion. But in the Orthodox and Coptic services only the priests participated in the communion, whereas lay people were invited to come forward for communion in the Lutheran and Catholic services.

Photos from this Sunday in the Old City are at photos31.

32) Letter from Jerusalem, Fearing Evil in the Valley

Without internationals in the village, drinking tea and coffee with elderly ladies, visiting the school, and spending the night, as the lights of the settlement remind the villagers of what might happen to them, the settlers would likely return to the valley with their guns and their threats. And the Palestinians in Yanoun would be driven from their homes and their land.

Photos from my visit to Yanoun are at photos32.

33) Letter from Jerusalem, Telling the Truth

I suggest we may come closer to discerning the truth, if Israeli and Palestinian leaders address issues concerning Jerusalem earlier in any peace negotiations that may take place. For the truth is that Jerusalem must be shared by both peoples and open to both peoples, if there is to be a secure peace for Israelis and a just peace for Palestinians.

34) Letter from Jerusalem, "Stopping" Watch

"The occupation of the West Bank has become a system of oppression," Hannah said. "Most Israelis don’t understand this, because they don’t want to know about it." Machsom Watch, an Israeli women's organization that monitors the checkpoints on the West Bank, has come to understand what the Israeli occupation of the West Bank really means, for Jewish Israelis as well as Palestinians.

35) Letter from Jerusalem, Orthodox Easter

In Jerusalem Easter comes twice a year, as the Orthodox Churches have a different calendar than the Catholic and Protestant Churches .  So, once again I had an opportunity to experience the Easter season, but this time in liturgies celebrated by the Greek Orthodox Church, the Armenian Church, and the Coptic Church.

Photos are at photos35.

36) Letter from Jerusalem, Visit to Galilee

On my trip to Galilee I visited Caesarea, Nazareth, Sepphoris, Tiberias, other sites near the Sea of Galilee, and also historic sites in the Jordan River valley.  Hyperlinks to photos from many of these sites are included in the text.

37) Letter from Jerusalem, Yad Vashem

"The annihilation of the Jewish people put an end to the flourishing cultural Jewish centers in Europe. The Holocaust challenges the fundamental beliefs and values of human civilization – it is a warning sign for us and for future generations." Quoted from the brochure visitors receive when entering Yad Vashem.

38) Letter from Jerusalem, Back to Abu Dis

The facts on the ground here seem hopeless to most of the people in our program. Yet, this Palestinian man living behind the Separation Wall in Abu Dis has hope for the future. "We trust that God is just," he said, "and we know people can change."

Photos from this trip to Abu Dis are at photos38.

39) Letter from Jerusalem, Redefining Security

Recently leaders of the nine women’s groups that make up the Coalition of Women for Peace in Israel met and agreed on a new strategy. Instead of arguing that the occupation violates human rights and international law, these women’s groups will try to answer the question: "What does security mean to Israelis?"

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