The Holy Land - Day 5

On Friday, we had two hours of class in the morning and then had free time to head out into the city. A few friends of mine and I decided to go into the old city and do the Stations of the Cross with the Franciscans. From Tantur, we got on the Arab bus and went into the city.

We met up with the large group of Franciscans, and joined them for the Stations in Italian and Polish. (They went around asking what language everyone spoke, and since most of the pilgrims there spoke Italian or Polish, they did it in those two languages. Lucky for me, I was able to understand some of the Italian.) I did not take photographs during the Stations (remember my commitment to be less of a tourist and more of a pilgrim?), so the photos below are from other days.

At each station, the Franciscans read the Scripture passage which went along with the station first in Italian, then in Polish. After the passage, there was a very short little reflection (one or two sentences). In between the stations, we prayed the Hail Mary in Latin, Italian, and Polish. And the Italians sang their version of the Stabat Mater, which I remembered from when I did the stations of the cross in Milan back when I was studying abroad in 2005:

"Santa Madre deh voi fate / 
che le piaghe del Signore / 
siano imprese nel mio cuor(e)."

 

The Holy Land - Day 4

On Thursday morning, we met up with our tour guide for the day, a Palestinian journalist and human rights activist in the city of Hebron. Born on the very first day of the Israeli occupation back in 1967, our guide told us that he had spent his whole life in the city, and had never lived a day without being in one way or another under the careful eye its occupiers. He informed us at the start of our tour that the things that he would be telling us about and showing us would be disturbing. He spoke with great sadness, but also great urgency, and pleaded with us to go back to the USA and tell everyone what we would see and experience that day.

Our first stop was to go to the Abraham Mosque where the Patriarchs (and Matriarchs) Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Sarah, Rebecca, and Leah are buried. In order to get into the building, we had to go through a security checkpoint guarded by the IDF (Israeli Defense Forces). Each of us had to pass through a metal detector and have our bags searched. The building where the tombs of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs are is split in half, one half is a mosque, the other, a synagogue. Since our guide was a Muslim, we were only able to see the mosque portion of the building. Only non-Muslims are allowed into the synagogue. Not wishing to put our guide in the uncomfortable position of having to wait outside while we went into the Jewish side, we chose not to visit the synagogue.

The mosque itself was beautiful and very decorated. But its physical beauty betrayed an ugly history. Up until the Islamic conquest in the 700s, this place had been a church. Afterward, it was converted into a mosque. Inside the mosque, our guide also told us about what has come to be known as the Cave of the Patriarchs Massacre which took place there in February of 1994 when Baruch Goldstein, an Israeli settler entered the mosque and opened fire on unarmed Palestinian Muslims praying inside the mosque. Twenty-nine persons were killed and another 125 were wounded. The attack set off riots and protests throughout the West Bank, leading to the death of an additional 19 Palestinians killed by the IDF within 48 hours of the attack. Our guide showed us a few remaining signs of the attack -- a large number of bullet holes in the front of the mosque near the mihrab or prayer niche at the front of the mosque which still had numbers next to them from the forensic team's investigation after the attack.


While this might seem to be an isolated act of terrorism against the Palestinian Muslim community, our guide told us that it is highly unlikely that the attacker had entered the mosque without the IDF guards (who are constantly patrolling the area since it is a contested site, and one which is very important for both Jews and Muslims) seeing that he was carrying such a large weapon. Our guide seemed to imply that there had been some collusion between the guards and the attacker, and that they had allowed him to enter the mosque with the deadly weapon in plain view.


Seeing the tombs of Abraham and Sarah and the others was an interesting experience particularly with this background. As Christians we consider Abraham our father in faith - that is, we regard him as a spiritual father. The Jews are the actual descendants of Abraham through Isaac. But Muslims too claim him as their father, and regard themselves as descendants of Ishmael, the firstborn son of Abraham through Hagar, Sarah's slavewoman. The site that was now a mosque had at one time been a Christian church, which had subsequently been taken over by the Muslims during the Islamic conquest. For a very long time (up until the present day) there hasn't been an active Christian community in Hebron. Since Abraham is important in our own tradition too, and since the site had once been a Christian church where the Eucharist would have been celebrated daily, the absence of the Christian community was very apparent. During the day I kept thinking back to this, and I wondered whether the lack of Christian presence in Hebron contributed to the tension there. After all, Christians are supposed to be prophetic witnesses of love. I thought back to a class I had about how in the early Church many Romans were deeply moved (and converted to Christianity because of) by the witness of the love that the early Christians had for one another. I wondered what kind of difference a similar community would make in a place like this. Visiting the site, I was left with the feeling that something was missing there.


Walking through the town one cannot ignore the fact that this area is economically depressed. Buildings were in disrepair; trash lined the streets. The poverty of the area is in part a result of the Israeli occupation. Economic development is prevented as a way of controlling the people and the region; after all, it is easier to control people when you keep them poor and vulnerable. Our guide warned us that we would likely be pestered by a group of children to buy things the next street that we walked down, and that while we were free to buy the items he would be happy to ask them to leave if they bothered us too much. Sure enough, we were greeted by a bunch of school-aged children who followed us relentlessly, asking us to buy trinkets: beaded bracelets which looked like the flag of Palestine, or small embroidered purses. These were some of the most persistent - and desperate - children I have seen anywhere. I tried to avoid making eye contact with them, even as they put their items right in front of me, saying "Miss, you buy? Pleeeaaseee? 10 shekel." I simply shook my head no. Our guide spoke to them in Arabic, saying essentially, "scram!" I felt a bit guilty; 10 shekels is about $2.60. Though I didn't want to buy the items, part of me felt bad later on that I had not just given them the money.


Our guide then showed us a number of streets which are closed to Palestinians. Only Israelis, living in one of the settlements are allowed to use them. If Palestinians live on a closed-off street they are sometimes required to get to their houses by climbing across rooftops to get there. Otherwise, they are allowed to pass, but only if they show proof of residence, and guests are not allowed to visit, ever. There was also another street where only a small part is open to Palestinians, a section about the width of a narrow sidewalk, just big enough for two people to walk; the Israeli portion is big enough for two cars to pass by. This area was heavily guarded; there was a little booth manned by several guards with guns. Any Palestinian caught walking in the Israeli part is reprimanded.

Later, we walked through the market place, and our guide showed us a large section of the city which was formerly filled with Palestinian shops and which has been closed by the Israelis. The Palestinian shop keepers were forced to move out, and the Israelis then came in and welded all 512 of the shop doors closed.

The part of the Palestinian market which we were able to walk through which was still open around the Israeli settlements was quite another terrible story. Above the road was a screen which looked like a metal fence covered in garbage in other refuse, sometimes even bottles filled with soiled water (sometimes even urine). Our guide explained that the Israelis who live in the buildings on either side of the market often throw trash down at the Palestinians who work or are shopping below. The screen was put up to prevent some of the trash from hitting them. When they did this to protect themselves, the Israeli settlers started throwing eggs, which would break upon hitting the fence and fall onto the shops and people below. Then, to protect themselves from liquids or eggs being thrown at them, some shopkeepers put up tarps above their shops. Some Israelis responded by throwing a highly corrosive chemical, melting the plastic tarp in one spot, ruining the shop below.

Walking through the streets, one can't help but notice that all around us there were Israeli security cameras. Our guide explained that when they capture Israelis doing these terrible things to the Palestinians, the occupying forces do nothing.  But if a Palestinian so much as picks up a rock and waves it, threatening retaliation (or self-defense, depending on how you look at it), he or she is quickly taken into custody. Our guide also read some of the graffiti (in Hebrew): "Death to the Arabs!" or "Arabs to the gas chambers." It is utterly appalling to me - especially since I just took a class this past spring in which I read Primo Levi's heart-wrenching account of surviving through the war in Auschwitz (and since I've actually been to Auschwitz) that a people who have gone through such a collective tragedy as the Shoah (Holocaust) can make jokes about putting another group of people through a similar dehumanizing experience.


What I have not yet mentioned is that on my plane ride from JFK to Tel Aviv I sat next to a middle-aged Israeli man who, upon hearing it was my first trip to Israel insisted on talking to me for FIVE hours, feeding me the most blatantly anti-Arab, anti-Palestinian propaganda I have ever heard. He actually said to me that the Americans got it right and knew how to take care of the Japanese problem. After Nagasaki and Hiroshima, they surrendered. He suggested that the way to stop the Arab problem is to drop bombs on Mecca and Medina (major Muslim shrines). Do that he said, and they'll give up.


As someone who has been strongly influenced by Catholic Social Teaching and the social justice tradition, all of this deeply angered me. I believe firmly in the dignity of all human persons. To hear such hate - and see such injustice, the curbing of basic human rights, the mistreatment of one group by another simply on the basis of ethnicity or creed -is offensive to me, first because of my faith commitments and values, but for other reasons as well: my boyfriend is an Arab-American, of Jordanian/Palestinian heritage. It disgusted me to think that someone could utterly hate a group of people so much, a group which includes someone I care about deeply. I found myself beginning to develop a deep bias against all Israelis - particularly Israeli Jews - in light of what I had seen and heard.

With these new sentiments rising up in me, I knew I had an interesting conversation ahead of me. Though an Arab-American, my boyfriend is generally pro-Israeli, much to the chagrin of many of his family members, some of whom are Palestinian and left the Middle East around the time the occupation began. Some of his relatives were displaced by the Israeli occupation and had their homes seized and destroyed by the occupying forces. Having heard and seen such terrible things, I had to tell him what I saw, and I wanted to know how it was that he didn't have any negative feelings toward a group that has caused his own family such suffering. In the past when we've talked about the whole Middle East situation he has said that his family ought to "just get over it" because they're in America now. He couldn't see why they still held grudges for what happened back then. Seeing what I saw, I told him I couldn't blame them. I pushed him a bit more on this, saying, "it seems a bit flippant to say "just get over it." We talked a bit longer and he explained a little more of why he has come to this position.


What he said last really surprised and has continued to challenge me: He said, "When my cousins start arguing about how I can be so soft on the Israelis, and are angry with me for not hating them for what they did to our family back in the day, I ask them: "Do you pray for them?" to which they say, "Heck no!" To which I say, "Well, then you're not a Christian; you're just like one of them, filled with hate, because Jesus said, "Love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you.... What credit is it to you if you love those who love you? Even evil persons do that!" (see Mt. 5:43-48). If you are truly a Christian, then you will pray for and even do good to your enemies."

I was speechless. How can I argue with Jesus? Though part of me wants to dismiss this as a pious platitude, I know that my boyfriend really means this, really lives this. Though these words can seem naive or even foolish on one level, the words of Jesus contain infinite wisdom. In the earlier verses from the same chapter of Matthew, Jesus says, "if a soldier pressures you to carry his load for a mile, carry it for two; if someone strikes you on the cheek, turn and give him the other..." I once heard it explained that here Jesus is calling us to non-violent resistance. Legally, Roman soldiers could ask you to carry their load for a mile, but no more. If you carried it for two, you put them in the precarious situation of being liable for a crime against you. In that sense, by going above and beyond, you had power over someone who formerly had power over you. And rather than using that power to control the other, Jesus suggests that we ought to use that situation to bring good. By going above and beyond what is required of you, you gain the power to influence the other and bring about change. It seems counter-intuitive, but there are countless examples in history which point to the irresistible power of non-violent resistance: Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr. By doing good even in the face of great evil, ultimately, these individuals prevail.


What I realized from his words and from thinking about all of this is that I was hardening my own heart. Here, he was challenging me (without knowing it) to greater love. In this case, his witness, of choosing love over hate convicted me of the need to choose the same. In closing, this is what I was talking about earlier when I asked how might the situation in Hebron be different if there were a vibrant Christian community living there, exuding this kind of prophetic, counter-cultural  love in the midst of conflict and hatred? It seems to me that the witness of individuals who choose to take the higher road instead of the easy one really could make a world of difference.

The Holy Land - Day 3

Unlike the previous day, this night I was able to get almost a full night’s sleep. I woke up briefly around 11:30pm but was able to get back to sleep with the help of some medication and slept through the whole night until my alarm clock went off at 6:30am.

On day three we went to the Muslim quarter of the Old City. We met up with our guide at the Damascus Gate. We went through another entrance into the old city, and just stood there while he talked for a long time about how the Muslim quarter is not only made up of Muslims; a good number of Christians and Jews live there as well. The Via Dolorosa (which we had walked along the other day and which we passed by again briefly today) is located in the Muslim section. Unlike other cities which separate themselves into ethnic areas, the Muslim quarter is sort of a misnomer. One thing that he pointed out is that the section of the city is overcrowded; about 30,000 people live in the Muslim section even though it should only hold about 18,000 or so. Consequently, there is a high poverty rate, and a high rate of all of the social issues which come with that (domestic abuse, drug use, etc). 

As we walked through the narrow, cobblestone streets, we saw a good deal of what I would call graffiti. In many places, it looked like the walls had been white-washed, and there was Arabic writing, flowers, green mosques, pictures of the dome of the Rock, and images of Mecca and other things. He explained to us that hundreds of years ago the Muslims would often wait until they were older to make the Hajj – to make their pilgrimage to Mecca, and because the journey was arduous, many never returned (died along the way or on the way home). Consequently, when people would return, there would be great celebrations, and people would decorate the outside walls of their homes, celebrating their return. Hence, the tradition continues today. This was a really helpful thing because looking at the graffiti one feels a little uneasy. Knowing that there are tensions between Jews and Muslims (Israel and the Arab states) – one can mistakenly regard this as political propaganda or political graffiti. It is not.

He then explained that at various points in history different sites have been controlled by Jews, Christians or Muslims. He made an interesting comment that people are willing to give up their God more easily then they are willing to give up their religious sites. For example, Churches were often built on the site of pagan temples – and if these churches were taken over by Muslims – they became mosques. The people’s religion in the region changed, but they worshipped at the same ancient sites.

We were then welcomed by a local Muslim businessman to go up on the roof of his office – which took us up to a very high point in the city, giving us a stunning view of the surrounding area and the Dome of the Rock in particular.

After that we went to a small Palestinian run university right near the Temple Mount where we continued our lecture – our guide spoke about the connection of Islam to the Abrahamic tradition, and how Jerusalem has come to be regarded as a holy site in Islam. He talked about how frequently people make a stop in Jerusalem before going to Mecca or stop there on their way back. The Hajj isn’t complete unless one visits the Haram al Sharif. Anyway, we had lunch there – hummus, pita, cucumbers, tomatoes, falafel , labana, and some other pita covered in thyme and spices. I also had some Arabic coffee – with cardamom.

We walked around the Muslim quarter a little bit more – saw some places in the buildings – saw another small part of the Wailing Wall (which I put my petitions in along with some others put there by other pilgrims)

We finally got to go up onto the Temple Mount – Haram al Sharif- which was a quick visit. It was neat just to get pictures from up there. 

The Holy Land - Day 2

My day began with me waking up at 3:15am. Still suffering from Jet Lag, my body had not yet become accustomed to the local time. After getting only around five hours of rest, I tossed and turned for quite a long while, unable to get back to sleep. Eventually I surrendered to this restlessness and began to pray a rosary for all the intentions that people had given me before coming to Jerusalem, and I thought of the mystics(or even the desert monastics of the Judean countryside) who considered it a joy to wake up at 3am, exactly twelve hours from when Jesus suffered and died on the cross (3pm).

I was awake long enough to hear the sound of one of the first calls to prayer echoing across the valley near Tantur from several mosques just beyond the wall separating Jerusalem from the West Bank. If I had gotten up to look out our window, I would have seen the dark horizon speckled with the green lights from around fifteen minarets from which the call was being given. Staying in bed, I listened to the Arabic chant, which lasted only two minutes or so but cannot help but leave me with the sense that I’m out of my familiar world, though I’m not sure why. In many ways, this call to prayer is no different than the five a.m. bells which rouse the sisters at the convent in my hometown to prayer every morning. But there is something comforting and familiar about the bells; I cannot yet say the same about the morning call to prayer.

On this day we went to Bethlehem (located in the West Bank). We had to pass the checkpoint behind the wall which separates Jerusalem from this area under Israeli occupation. Our driver Samir just told the guards (with guns) that we were “all Americans” in Arabic, despite the fact that we had a Nigerian on the bus too.  Driving into the West Bank, I was immediately struck by how very different the environs looked; in many ways, the West Bank reminded me of my trip to Bosnia. There were a large number of buildings made of cinder blocks, many of them incomplete or decaying; there was trash everywhere, and crowded streets. The landscape is rugged, hilly, mountainous even. The terrain is the same as Jerusalem, except that is was noticeably more economically distressed.

Immediately after the checkpoint, we met up with our guide – Elias, a Palestinian Christian who lives in a town right near Bethlehem.

Our first stop was a small mosque located in Bethlehem – Omar Mosque. We were met there by an alum of Notre Dame who is Muslim and lives in the West Bank just outside of Jerusalem. The women had to cover ourselves (I wore long black pants, my spring jacket, and wrapped a green scarf around my head to cover my hair).  As we entered the mosque, the first step has a little wall around it – about a foot high, signaling to those who enter that one ought to remove one’s shoes before proceeding any further. We walked barefooted up two flights of stairs, into the main prayer room, which was quite simple. It was carpeted in green carpet, which was marked by ornate gold lines, forming guidelines for rows of worshippers in the main worship space of the mosque.

 

We heard an interesting presentation from this ND Alum about the basic teachings of Islam and the structure of Muslim prayer, and about different features of the architecture in the mosque. It was interesting to see how in the basic beliefs of Islam there are many similarities to Christianity. Both emphasize that there is only one God; both have strong traditions of prayer. Both believe in angels and in the final judgment.

Additionally, our guide was quick to point out that in Islam women and men have equal status before God. However, there are certain distinguishing things about men and women – women for example, are the ones who bear children, etc.  Not unlike traditional Catholicism, there is a distinction in role between men and women in Islam. But unlike Christianity, there is a separate area for women to pray at mosque. The women’s prayer area is behind a green curtain and is separate from the main worship area. They explained that women are not required to go to mosque to pray five times a day (for example, if they have their period, or have other duties to tend to at home). Women are permitted to stay at home.

This quick talk about the separate role of women would serve a motif throughout our day. Our next stop was to visit the famous Mar Saba (St. Sabas) Monastery in the Judean wilderness. The road that we took to get to the monastery took us through many distressed towns – and finally led us out into the wilderness. The Judean hills are breathtaking. They have a reddish tint, and are covered with rock and dry grasses and wiry plants. We passed a group of three boys who were, along with their cattle herding dogs guiding a herd of goats and sheep to pasture. One was on a grey donkey; the others were on foot. The road out to Mar Saba was one lane- and was very, narrow and windy. I began to get worried that too much more of this would make me carsick when we spotted the monastery up ahead of us, not too far from the edge of the last buildings.

 The Mar Saba monastery is controlled by the Greeks, and has been so for many centuries. Though the monastery boasted hundreds – perhaps even thousands of monks in the early centuries of Christianity, there are currently fewer than 20 residing there today, and all of them are men. The monks there live a very austere life – they eat one meal a day, and spend their time in prayer and manual labor. Most of them live in solitude in one of the caves or rooms of the monastery. 

Having read some stories from St. John Moscus (another early monastic) about the early Saints and monks who lived there, I was struck by how obsessed they were with purity. So many of the stories we read involved monks who were tempted to sin against chastity. It seems that their harsh and austere life – their constant denial of the flesh for the sake of Christ – led them in many ways to struggle constantly with the desires of the flesh.

At the monastery, the men in our group / class were allowed to enter the monastery, but the women had to sit outside and wait. Less than five women have been permitted to enter the monastery in its almost two thousand year history.  Traveling with a group of women, of whom many have been influenced by feminist theology, it was very difficult to not be permitted to enter.

Another issue is that we are Catholic, and the monastery is run by the Greek Orthodox, who can sometimes be less than welcoming to Catholics, whom they often regard (and even refer to) as heretics. Thankfully, our guide Elias (a Greek Orthodox himself) was able to get the men into the monastery, despite the fact that the majority of them were Catholics. The gatekeeper was kind enough to bring us womenfolk a printed sheet in English, describing the history and some of the features of the monastery which we read while waiting for the men to come back out.

Though the women could not enter the monastery, we could hike up one of the hills and look out over the valley and cliffs on which the Monastery is built, and see the caves which monks used to dwell in hundreds of years ago. It was a beautiful sight.

After that, we visited another monastery- The Monastery of St. Theodosius -- which was back towards Bethlehem. We had some problems getting in, but our guide was finally able to get us in. A monk (a priest?) showed us the Church (he spoke in Arabic to our guide, who translated for us) and told us the history of the monastery. He also showed us the skulls of some of the Christian martyrs from the Persian invasion. 

He took us down to see the tombs of John Moscus and St. Sabas’ mother. There really wasn’t a whole lot to see there, but the courtyard in the middle of the monastery was beautiful and filled with flowers and grape vines. There were two Greek nuns who were hanging laundry out to dry, and one of them brought us a dish of candy on our way out.

Our next stop was the Church of the Nativity. Walking into the Church of the Nativity, one has to bend down to enter through a small door. During the Crusades, the large door was blocked off to make it impossible for maurading Muslims to enter on horseback and sack the sacred building. People through the ages have commented that it is fitting that one ought to stoop down to enter the humble place where Jesus was born, who himself “stooped down” to take on our flesh, though he himself was God.

The Church was dark, old, and seems kind of dirty, much like the Church of the Holy Sepulchre which I saw the day before in the Old City in Jerusalem. The walls are held up by huge columns which appear orange-ish on the bottom, and dark on the top, as if covered from soot from all the incense burned there. From the ceiling hang numerous lamps – both Armenian and Greek. There are icons all over.

Our trip down into the place where Jesus was born was very, very brief. The Armenians were just preparing to go down into the chapel to venerate the place of Jesus’ birth, and several police officers / guards were working to clear the area so that the procession and service could happen. On my way down the steep steps into the small chapel, I was overcome with emotion.  Although I had visited the Church of the Holy Sepulcher (though had not yet had a chance to venerate the Tomb of Christ, place of the Resurrection), I wept, overcome by the fact that Jesus was born on this spot.

Though I have believed all my life that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, being there was a reminder to me that yes indeed, Christ did all of this for me. He was a real human being who really lived – not a mythological figure. When it was my turn, I climbed in and kissed the spot where Jesus was born before quickly getting up and moving to the back of the chapel to be out of the way. I felt a little embarrassed because I was crying. Elias seemed to take notice and I think he may have said something to the guard, something to the effect of, “look, she’s crying. Give her another minute to pray” because we were allowed to stay for another few minutes before being shuffled out the exit and back into the main church. Afterward we went and looked at the Franciscan controlled portion of the Church. Just as at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, the Church is owned by the Greek Orthodox, but is shared between three denominations: the Greeks, the Armenians, and the Catholics.

We also made a quick visit to the Church of the Milk Grotto. The tradition says that Mary stopped there as the Holy Family was fleeing Bethlehem and going to Egypt, and that she nursed Jesus in a cave. There, some of her milk spilled on the ground, coloring the stone white. Since then, pilgrims have traveled there asking Mary's intercession, particularly those suffering with infertility.

On our way out of the West Bank, I couldn’t help but notice a large image painted on the wall immediately before the security checkpoint which leads back into the city of Jerusalem. It was an image of a Lion (symbol of the city of Jerusalem) gnawing on (attacking) a white dove, on which someone had put a Palestinian style black-and-white head covering. The image made it clear that all of those leaving the West Bank were heading into hostile territory, to the land of the enemy. Israel – Jerusalem – was portrayed as a lion which preys upon the innocent dove – Palestine.

I wanted to take a picture, but was discouraged from doing so by the threatening officers with guns just ahead of us at the security checkpoint. My friend Layla informed me that I wanted to take a picture from the bus window I ought to do so discreetly; during her last trip, some had taken pictures and the guards had confronted them and demanded that they delete them immediately. I decided not to take any chances, but a friend of mine was able to get a picture of it on another trip into Bethlehem a few days later. She also took other pictures of some of the other images and graffiti  on the wall which detail the sad state of affairs there.

 At the checkpoint, a guard got onto our bus / van and asked to see our passports. We held them up for him to see, and he said “thank you” and got off. He looked to be about 17 years old and had a large gun and was dressed in a simple grey police uniform.