Sunday – 10/12

I left my apartment early this morning in order to figure out where to get a bus from Bethlehem to Jerusalem, then from Jerusalem to Ramallah, find the Friends meetinghouse in Ramallah, and then make the return trip. I wasn't sure how much anything was going to cost. I knew taking the bus was rather inexpensive, but my alternative was to take a private taxi and make sure I got there.

After having a few minutes of prayer before leaving, I made my way up the hill to try to get some more cash in case I needed it. After walking up the hill by Bethlehem University, I discovered that the ATM I've been using was temporarily out of service. Now I knew I would need to take the bus and not a taxi. I had about 140 shekels on me. Just down the hill on Scinema near the Hebron Rd. is the area I believed was the "bus station." There were a dozen or so people standing around, so I joined them. After about 10-15 minutes a large, white & blue bus pulled up with the number 21 on the front. That was it. I was pleasantly surprised. It was a large, comfortable, clean bus. We boarded the bus and paid 6 shekels. I found a seat and we began the wait. After about 20 minutes the driver felt it was time to go. We began the drive around Beit Jala and then arrived at the checkpoint.

Only the elderly, mothers with children, and internationals stayed on the bus. Two Israeli soldiers boarded. The young man stayed at the front of the bus. He and the driver joked around. The young woman went through and looked at passports. She gave some little girls a nice smile. When they were done with us, they went outside the bus. The people seemed to know to stand back and then approach one at a time. People had passports and a piece of paper. The soldiers collected the passports and returned the piece of paper back to the person. Sometimes there was a little discussion. There was one young man who only had some piece of paper. There was something about it that they didn't like. They acted like he was trying to get away with something that was quite obvious to them. I don't think he got back on the bus. After everyone was on, the bus driver came on with passports and handed them back to people. There was then another batch of passports. It was interesting to hear all the different names.

We were back underway after about a half an hour. It seemed like another half hour of winding through streets -- letting off some people, taking on new ones -- before we arrived at the bus station. I began looking around for my transfer bus, bus 18. First I had to find a restroom. I was so thankful to find the restroom, I didn't care about the big puddle of water on the floor. A man seating near the entrance had tried to tell me which restroom to go into. Good thing hand motions are an international language. There were no signs on the doors and the doors were wide open anyway.

I finally asked where to find the bus to Ramallah. He tried to tell me how to get to the other bus lot. First I went to far down the street. I asked someone and he sent me back the other way. I got back to a side street and another man directed me down that street. I had to go quite a ways before I actually saw the large parking lot full of passenger vans.

The number 18 bus to Ramallah was backing out of its spot as I approached. The driver was not going to wait for me. Then I realized another bus 18 was waiting behind it. Once again, we began boarding the bus and when we were loaded we took off. This trip cost me 6.50 shekels. I watched out the window as we drove through city streets. I kept wondering when we were going to leave Jerusalem and enter countryside before coming to Ramallah. After awhile the bus pulled up to the side of a busy street and everyone started getting off. I asked a man, "Is this Ramallah." He said, "Yes, this is Ramallah." So there I was.

The only directions I had from the Ramallah Friends Meeting web site was that the meetinghouse was on main street, next to Natche Building and across from Rukab. I had no idea where to go, so I grabbed a taxi. [I have since discovered I was sent by email a detailed description of how to get to the meetinghouse.] The taxi driver seemed to know the Friends School but not the Friends meetinghouse or the International Friends Center. He pointed to a building and said that's the Natche Building. Next to it looked like it could be the spot. He called a cop over to have me ask him where it was. The cop said he knew where and pointed and talked in Arabic for a minute. For the next 15 minutes the driver drover around town asking various people if they knew where it was. Eventually we ended up back where we started. When I asked him how much, he didn't tell me. I don't know if he felt like he had failed or if he felt like he had done more than he should have, since I couldn't give him a street name and number. I gave him 20 shekels and he seemed happy. I know in Bethlehem taxi rides are 10 shekels anywhere, so it seemed like he had gone out of his way for me.

Anyway, I got to the church on time. We had a nice time of quiet meditation, shared messages, and singing. I met Jean Zaru, the presiding clerk of the meeting, and Joyce Aljouny, the director of the Friends Schools. There were a few other visitors, and I got to know several of them.

While walking back to the bus station, I saw the famous Stars & Bucks coffee shop in the center of Ramallah. I just had to get a picture. People who know me know I love coffee. I've been accused of being able to find a Starbucks anywhere. This is the best I could do in Palestine.

One of people I met at the meeting, John, is living in Bethlehem, so we journeyed together back to Bethlehem. He had us get off the bus a block or so before the bus lot in Jerusalem. We walked down Saladin Street so he could stop by the post office. What a crazy place that was. There were maybe a hundred people sitting in the post office waiting for their number to be called.

John suggested we take the 124 bus back to Bethlehem. It's slightly cheaper and takes a little less time. However, it does mean walking through the checkpoint and then walking a little ways into Bethlehem. We were about an hour ahead of commuter traffic of Palestinians going through the cattle stalls. There weren't very many people there, but it was still a daunting experience. You enter into a building where you go through a security gate after showing your passport. The young Israeli woman was on the phone as we went one by one and pressed our passports to the window. She asked me where I was from. I fumbled a bit wondering if she meant the city and state of origin or where I'm living now. All she wanted me to say is that I was from the US. We then passed through a turnstile, walked down a sidewalk, passed through another turnstile, and then were crossing a parking lot heading toward the wall. We went through another turnstile and found ourselves in a caged walkway. It was certainly as long as an amusement park queue, to use the British term. When we came out we were on Hebron Rd. We were met by taxi drivers wanting to give us a lift and then a boy who wanted me to buy postcards to help feed his family. He was hard to shake.

There was some interesting "Wall Art" along the way. In one scene a rhinoceros is pictured breaking through the wall. It was very well done. I'm not sure how to interpret the image of the rhinoceros, what does it represent? Another wall said, "BEEN THERE DONE THAT." Continued on the wall around the corner were the words, "ICH BIN EIN BERLINER," the famous words of JFK. For many the hope is that, if the Berlin wall could come down, then maybe the Israeli wall could too.

Monday – 10/13

My plans for today were to do laundry. I had talked with my friend Rami last week about taking a trip today. After I had got myself ready for the day, I brought my laundry bag to the apartment door. Just then my cellphone rang. It was Rami asking if I wanted to take a trip today. Within a half hour he arrived, and we set off for the Jordan valley.

We first made our way into Jerusalem. We went through several checkpoints, but I don't pay much attention to them anymore. I enjoy our conversations so much that I often forget to look at the scenery around me. As we made our way east from Jerusalem, I was startled to see the Judean hill country. It is so stark and overwhelming. It went on for miles as we continued east and continued down. I could feel my ears being affected by the change in altitude. We passed the spot where sea level is marked.

We stopped first in Jericho. Once again we had to go through a checkpoint before entering the city from the highway. The Israeli soldier, after looking at my passport, asked me where I was from. This time I just said, "US." He replied with broken English and a big smile on his face, "I love USA. I ... friend ... George Bush." I had to laugh and so did the other soldier. There's a big political statement there.

Rami drove into the center of the city of Jericho and then stopped at the traditional site of the sycamore tree of Zacchaeus. It seems to me this size of a sycamore tree would have made it difficult for vertically-challenged Zacchaeus to have reached the bottom branches to begin with. The lower branches of a sycamore tree look strong enough to hold a bunch of spectators.

We arrived at the entrance to the ancient site of Jericho. There was no one else visiting the site of Tell es-Sultan and seeing the archaeological excavations done by Kathleen Kenyon. She dug here in the six years prior to my birth. She used the method of dig a hole down into the tell. A tell is the mound that grows over thousands of years of building one city on top of another. There are two deep holes. In one you can see the oldest remnant, an ancient tower dating back to about 8,000 BCE. One has a good view from there of the beginning of the mountains to the west and of the Jordan valley and the Dead Sea stretching out to the east with the mountains of Jordan beyond.

Before leaving Jericho we ate lunch at the Temptation Restaurant. This was a place we would call in the States a tourist trap. Huge buses were parked and lined up in a continuous flow of dropping off and taking away people from all over the world. Rami took me into the Arab restaurant; another cafeteria with western-style food is upstairs. From what I could tell, I looked like the only non-Arab in the restaurant. Rami, as a tour guide, knew most of the men who stopped by, taking a break from their work as a guide or as a bus driver. We had a full meal with just the pita bread and the appetizers. We then had grilled lamb kabobs. It was quite a feast and very tasty. The pitcher of lemonade was especially refreshing. We ended the meal with tiny cups of Arabic coffee.

After making our way back through the checkpoint, we proceeded to the site of Qumran. Here is another tourist trap. Rami had me take a few minutes watching a short movie about Qumran. I can imagine American tourists, particularly conservative or Catholic Christians, would enjoy the film. The production quality was good. They used three screens that almost had an "Imax" feel to it. There was hardly any information about the actual site: its discovery, the artifacts, the theories about its function, what scrolls were found in the nearby caves. All in all it was a waste of a few good minutes.

I thoroughly enjoyed getting to walk among the stone walls marking the rooms of this ancient site. As with many archaeological sites, there are many questions about the varied interpretations of the functions of rooms. Was the room marked as a scriptorium really that? Was the site even the same place as described in the documents found in the caves? Was this actually a Roman villa rather than a Jewish monastery? Whatever it was, it was an impressive feat to build a place like this and get the water down from the mountains and store it.

A large canyon runs right to the west of the site. The mountains look deceivingly close they are so big. I was glad to get a picture of me with one of the Qumran caves behind me in the distance. Somehow I had thought this site was practically on the banks of the Dead Sea. But we were not close to the Dead Sea and didn't go any closer. It might have been fun to have taken a dip in the Dead Sea, but I wasn't compelled to go closer. One has to leave something for another visit.

We stopped for a few minutes along the way at a monastery, the Dir Hajla (Dayr El-Hajla) Monastery. I found a 360 degree panoramic of the chapel. http://www.3disrael.com/dead_sea/dir_hajla_monastery.cfm It was fun to visit a Greek Orthodox Monastery. The Byzantine style Christian art is one of my favorites. After looking at their places of worship, we had some figs for our journey back. The figs were delicious. That's not all they produce at the monastery. According to Rami, they also have a pig farm. Not something I've seen in Israel, whether on the hoof or off.

Wednesday – 10-15

On Wednesday I began attending a three day conference “The Influence of Media and Education on Christian-Muslim Relations” held at Bethlehem University (BU). BU is "a Catholic Christian co-educational institution of higher learning founded in 1973 in the Lasallian tradition, open to students of all faith traditions." Fr. Jamal Khader, Chairperson of the Department of Religious Studies, was the organizer. Our sessions were held in the Cardinal Carlo Furno Hall, a very nice, comfortable lecture hall. We were furnished with headsets for translation either into English or Arabic, whichever the case might be.

On the opening day, a few dignitaries were on hand.  For example, H.B Michael Sabbah, Latin Patriach Emeritus of Jerusalem was in attendance and greeted the audience. Also H.E. Sheikh Jamal Bawatneh, the Minister of Religious Affairs for the Palestinian Authority, also greeted us.

Our first speaker was Dr. Sari Nuseibeh, President of Al-Quds University, Jerusalem. He spoke on "Religions and their Interpreters: Barriers or Bridges?" I think his basic thesis was that the problem we face in not with religion in itself, but with the people who practice the religion in ways that are detrimental to others.

In a joint session we heard from Dr. Barakat Fawzi of Al-Quds University, representing the Palestinian Ministry of Education. He talked about "The other in the Islamic religious textbooks in Palestine." Also Rev. Ibrahim Nairouz, who was listed as an educator from the Episcopal Church "The other in the Christian religious textbooks in Palestine." I enjoyed hearing them talk about how Palestinians created their own curriculum based on religious sensitivities. They acknowledged that, in spite of their efforts to write a curriculum for Muslim and Christian children in the schools, there was also a need to train teachers in respect for the "other" in their teaching of the curriculum.

Thursday – 10/16

We began Thursday with a live video conference from Gaza. Dr. Ahmad Hammad, of Al-Aqsa University in Gaza gave a talk titled, "The role of media institutions in building social unity in Gaza strip: A field study." There were some technical problems with hearing the speaker clearly. The translators did their best to hear but often had to apologize for not being able to understand some sections. He talked about how media reflects society. Media has a responsibility to preserve society and strengthen the social fabric. Media needs to work to end division and bring unity to society.

The next lecture was apparently read by someone other than the speaker, who was to have been Mr. Samih Muhsen from the Palestinian Center for Human Rights. His talk was "Christians and Christianity in the Palestinian Media." I would love to have heard this talk. Unfortunately, the speaker read the Arabic so fast that the interpreters had to speak English faster than the speed limit.

For me the highlight of the day was Dr. Paolo Naso. He is a journalist and Professor of Political Science at La Sapienza University of Rome and at Pontifical Gregorian University. Although his lecture was titled, "Western Media and Christian Muslim Dialogue," he only talked about the European Union countries. He did a masterful job with Powerpoint. He had some startling images comparing political propaganda against Jews in Germany and France in the 1930s and current images used against Islam. The similarity is remarkable. One showed the image of a Jew holding a globe in his clutches, his claw-like hands dug into Europe. A similar image from recent media depicts a map of Europe with a Bin Laden-type figure breaking out from the ground of Europe.

Just before lunch we had a very interesting presentation on the joint research of Dr. Josef Freise (The Catholic University of Applied Science, Cologne, Germany) and Dr. Sami Adwan (Faculty of Education, Bethlehem University). Their presentation was called, "Religion as an indicator of behavior for German and Palestinian youth: towards Interreligious models of education in Germany and Palestine." They did a qualitative study of groups of Muslim and Christian youth in Germany and in Palestine. It focused on the role of religion in their lives. It was a fascinating study. Many people objected to the research and its "findings." The researchers were carefully to delineate the weaknesses of this type of study and that one can't generalize too much. Some people didn't like the results. One woman said she was offended. Another person thought they should have done a different kind of study. Another suggested they tainted their results by the questions they asked. I didn't think any of the accusations had merit.

I should say that the Q&A time often was taken over by various people, usually the same ones, who wanted to make statements. The moderators did their best to limit the comments to questions.

A special lecture in the afternoon was The Michael Prior Memorial Lecture sponsored by the Living Stones Foundation, UK. http://www.livingstonesonline.org.uk/. The speaker was Victoria Clark, author and journalist from London, England. Her most recent book is Allies for Armageddon: The Rise of Christian Zionism (Yale 2007). Her talk today was, "The Influence of the Evangelical Zionist Lobby on Perceptions of Islam in the Western Media." She did an excellent and thorough job as a journalist. She interviewed the key players and attended Bible prophecy conferences. I can't fault her for the facts she presented. I was raised in this type of church. I tried to understand Bible prophecy but I never quite got the hang of it. Rather than being a literalist, I always took more of a literary approach. I can't say I ever heard anyone take it to the extreme of people like Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Hal Lindsey, or especially John Hagee. My problem with the presentation had more to do with the mocking tone and sarcasm. People seemed to eat up the anti-American rhetoric. Americans are being faulted for treating the Muslim nations and their people in the Middle East as monolithic. But then all of America was represented by the Christian right and their strange bedfellows, the Jewish lobby. Nearly all of the conference focused on Christian as represented by catholic faiths. About the only time that the US is discussed and when Protestant churches are talked about, it is Christian Zionism, Republicans, and the Christian Right. Someone asked why there aren't Christian groups in the US working to counter the Christian Zionists. The speaker couldn't name any, which left the impression there weren't any. It was a very grim picture of the US painted with a very broad brush. I've thought a lot about that. I think I've concluded that we deserve it. I've expressed my concerns with the conference organizers, but in the end it's a criticism we just have to accept until we do something about it to change the way in which the world views us.

Friday – 10/17

Last week my class asked whether I would be giving exams. So I said I would first give them a practice quiz so they can see what kind of exam I would give. I wrote out ten questions, some multiple-choice, a few True/False, and one fill-in-the-blank. The academic secretary translated the quiz for me. Because these types of questions are often based on which answer is the best answer or some questions are meant to be a little tricky, we had much discussion. On one question I agreed with the student that one of the answers wasn't worded properly. It was a good learning exercise. We ended up only able to spend time on one section of Hebrews. We've finished only four chapters of the 13.

I remembered at the end of class that I wanted to take a picture. Rami was nice enough to offer to take a picture of me with the class.

One further bit of news. I learned today that I received a letter at home from my church saying that they have decided to keep the interim minister. While I understand their reasons, it is still something that affects me deeply.