Tuesday, May 8, 2018 ~ Howard Stoess

Many of us have had the experience of being asked to express what something has meant to us in one word. It is impossible to do so for a visit to Israel/Palestine. So many thoughts and memories come to mind that is seems like a chaos of contradictory words. In our conversations and interactions with the Palestinian people, we have experienced – and witnessed – frustration, anxiety, fear, uncertainty and disappointment. But also resolve, courage and hope.

Fourth grade girls, MEEI

Fourth grade English students (learning their 3rd language)

The last five days of our trip, we are staying at the guest house of the Mar Elias Educational Institute in Ibillin. This morning, we divided into three groups. My group visited a 4^thgrade English class. The classroom was filled with excitement as we were warmly greeted by the teacher and students. The school is located in a Palestinian village in Israel and welcomes students from both communities as a way of encouraging students to intermix in a very positive way and learn that we are all humans and have equal rights and dreams for our future. It seems to be working very well as we saw only happy students with smiling faces wanting us to take their picture with their friends. The students from the school do very well academically, too and many move on to university to study medicine or science.

This afternoon, we met at the site of one of the many Palestinian villages destroyed by the Israelis in 1948. British author Jonathan Cook, who is recognized as one of the world’s most respected journalists with respect to the current plight of the Palestinians, used the site to give us a brief history of Palestine and then speak in more detail about what happened to the Palestinians living inside the border of the new state of Israel in 1948.

Jonathan Cook

Palestine was a common name used prior to 1948 to describe the geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River. During its history, the Assyrian, Babylonian, Roman, Byzantine, and Ottoman empires have controlled Palestine at one time or another. The exile described in 2 Kings was at the hands of the Babylonians beginning in 605 BC and the area was under Roman occupation during Jesus’ time on earth.

After World War I, Palestine was administered by the United Kingdom under a Mandate received in 1922 from the League of Nations. The modern history of Palestine begins with the termination of the British Mandate, the Partition of Palestine and the creation of the state of Israel, and the ensuing Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

In 1947, the United Nations proposed a Partition Plan for Palestine. The resolution noted Britain’s planned termination of the British Mandate for Palestine and recommended the partition of Palestine into two states, one Jewish and one Arab, with the Jerusalem-Bethlehem area protected and administered by the United Nations. The resolution called for the withdrawal of British forces and termination of the Mandate by August 1948 and establishment of the new independent states by October 1948.

Jewish leadership accepted the Partition Plan but Arab leaders rejected it as the more desirable areas were to go to the Israelis and the Palestinians were to only have approximately 40% of the land for their new state. The Arab League threatened to take military measures to prevent the partition of Palestine and to ensure the national rights of the Palestinian Arab population. One day before the British Mandate expired, Israel declared its independence within the borders of the Jewish State set out in the Partition Plan. The leadership of the new state were a part of Judaism known as Zionist for their belief that God had promised this land to them and they should expel the current Arab residents at any cost. Which is interesting because they are ethnic Jews, not practicing religious Jews which are opposed to the current treatment of the Palestinians, but unfortunately, are a small minority of the people in power.

The Arab countries declared war on the newly formed State of Israel beginning the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. The subsequent series of wars and other conflicts is too long to include here, but those who are interested can find a lot of information on the Internet.

Mapcard of Palestine (in green) showing loss of land over time

Very quickly after the establishment of the state of Israel, the Israelis began to take over land owned by the Palestinians living within the boundaries of the new state. In all, over 500 villages were destroyed causing the Palestinians to become refugees in the West Bank, and the neighboring countries of Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Egypt. Many have hoped to return to their lands, but the government has made that hope nearly impossible through laws that severely discriminate against the Palestinians.

After the 1967 war, Israel established even stricter laws affecting nearly every non-Jew in the combined Jewish and Palestinian areas. These laws are still in effect today and restrict almost every facet of daily life for the Palestinians. The government continues to illegally confiscate property from the Palestinians and has built over 150 illegal ‘settlements’ on these lands. Palestinians are very restricted on their movements and a wall is being built between the Jewish areas and the Palestinian areas. There are many checkpoints in the border and many more inside the West Bank where Palestinians are harassed every time they need to pass. There are even some roads and areas that are illegal for Palestinians to enter. During our visit to Hebron several days ago, our Palestinian guide had to walk the long way around to a meeting point as it would have been illegal for him to pass down the more direct road that we walked.

Israel claims to be the only democracy in the Middle East, but in actuality, it is an Apartheid system. Very good if you are Jewish, very bad for everyone else – especially the native Palestinians.

We have been very impressed with the Palestinians we have met who are working for a peaceful resolution to the conflict. Many are risking their already restrictive lives to boldly work for peace between the two peoples. They are encouraged that people in the European Union and the US are becoming more sympathetic to their plight and more and more organizations are offering aid for them to continue their work. Please pray for them, the residents of both states, and for the peace of Jerusalem.

Tuesday, May 8, 2018 ~ Rita Stoess

This morning we had the opportunity to visit some of the students at the Mar Elias School.

Our group has been hosted at the Mar Elias guest house for the past few days so it was an easy walk to the school. The guesthouse is on the top floor of the elementary school.

“I know, I know!”

Some of us visited a 4^thgrade English class and others of our group visited students at the middle school.  I had requested to visit the 4^thgrade since I used to teach that level.

The students were excited to see us and I felt sorry for the teacher, Shadia, who had to work hard for them to pay attention to her. I sat next to two very polite boys—Mojd and Marsel.

First the teacher had the students take turns reading a story from their book in English and then they had a workbook where they had to answer questions about the story.

Fourth graders with Ursula

While the students were working in their workbooks, some of them got the idea to begin asking us to write our names for them.   This, of course, led to all of the students wanting our autographs with much noise and disruption, but the teacher eventually got them back on track.

The students all seemed so happy and were excited to learn, which is a true testament to the success of this school.

The Mar Elias Education Institution was founded in 1982  by archbishop Elias Chacour.  It is located in Ibillin, an Arab village in northern Israel. Arab students from all over the Galilee attend this school. The school includes a nursery, a pre-school, a kindergarten, an elementary school, a middle school and a high school. In all, nearly 3,000 students are enrolled, 1200 of which attend the high school. High school students are bussed from a 50-mile radius. The student population is approximately 60% Muslim and 40% Christian. The teachers are Christians, Jews, and Muslims, all working together.

Church of the Sermon on the Mount, Mar Elias Campus, Ibillin

Later in the morning we visited the beautiful Church of the Sermon on the Mount which is part of the Mar Elias campus.  The church was completed in 2005 and has the most beautiful icons and stained glass windows. It was a special time for reflection as we read once more The Beatitudes and remembered our visit to the traditional site of the Sermon on the Mount on Sunday.

Monday, May 7 ~ Dana Wright

Mar Elias English students

Today was a day for all of us Pilgrims of Ibillin to be touched by the hearts of young people in modern Israel. We spoke with young teenagers at the Mar Elias school in the morning, allowing them to practice their English on us and us to practice our Arabic on them (no contest!). Then we drove to Nazareth, where Mary and Joseph grew up and where Jesus spent the bulk of his childhood.

Nap time at Al Tufula

There we visited the Al Tafula Center for Women and Children founded by Nabila Espanioly. We saw young toddlers tossing and turning and twisting their little bodies into impossible contortions during nap time. We listened to Nabila tell of her work with these dear ones and their mothers, whom she helps inspire and empower by affirming their native wisdom (what Nabila called their “heritage knowledge”) and connecting that wisdom with scientific insights.

Having lunch at Liwan, hosted by Sally Azzam and her partners in the Culture Cafe

In the afternoon we visited the Liwan Cultural Cafe and lunched on frekhey (green cracked wheat) and met owner Sally Azzam. Sally grew up in Nazareth largely ignorant of and sheltered from knowing what her Palestinian identity meant under subtle forms of occupation in Israel. But as she grew into womanhood she learned what it meant to be oppressed by the 50 laws that keep her and her people second class citizens in her own land. After years of activism she founded her cafe as an experiment in cultural subversion, providing a space for all people to engage in conversations that really matter about improving life in Nazareth.

Later in the afternoon we visited several churches built over important excavation sites related to the common lives of Nazareth’s most famous family (to put it mildly!). We visited (1) the excavations that may be the remains of the houses of Mary and Joseph at the Sisters of Nazareth Monastery (where the sisters did the excavating!); (2) the Church of the Annunciation at the site at which the Angel Gabriel announced the Good News to an unsuspecting young girl; and (3) remains from the kind of workshop Jesus’ father Joseph maintained excavated under Saint Joseph’s Church, where perhaps Jesus learned his original trade as a carpenter.

For me it was a day to reflect on what it meant for the Creator to became a small human creature-a baby, a child, and a young person. Jesus was not a humanoid or a generic human who came to earth fully formed as an adult. Jesus was a full blooded Palestinian Jew who was born and who grew up in a concrete place and time-just like all genuinely human beings. He cried like a baby when he was hungry, like the babies at Al Tufula do. He wet his diapers and threw his food on the floor. When he learned to walk he stubbed his toe and fell down (and cried only if he saw that his parents were watching!). He felt the wind and the rain and the burning sun as we did today. He ate food with his fingers. And he no doubt smashed his little finger with a mallet on more than one occasion as he painfully learned his father’s trade (and as his father winced and laughed at the sight of it all!).

But the Incarnation means even more than that Jesus knew human experience as an individual Palestinian Jew. To be fully human means that Jesus felt the full forces of economic, political, and religious oppression that surrounded him all his life. Even as a baby he must have felt deep down in his bones the anxieties that his mother and father felt continually in their bones under Roman occupation. The very historical experience of oppression was in their DNA and had to be passed down into Jesus’ DNA (at least through Mary!). In other words, the Incarnation began before Mary got pregnant and before Jesus got born! Jesus was fully human!

And what about their forced emigration to Egypt?  Did not this devastating experience make an impact on the Christ child? Even coming back to Palestine under the potential threat of Archaelus left its mark (potential threats can be more fearsome because they are always threatening). Jesus’ coming of age in Nazareth meant that he also witnessed uprisings and crucifixions and the imperial propaganda that were commonplace to Rome’s oppressive modus operandi of control. He would have suffered as a child from the plight of many families drained by overtaxation, defeated by the lack of opportunity, and dominated by the pall of military presence everywhere. No doubt the children we met today have been deeply impacted by the form of oppression they and their families experience day to day in Ibillin and Nazareth. Meeting them and contemplating Jesus’ life in Nazareth under occupation gives all of us a truer sense of the amazing truth that God became human precisely in a place like Nazareth. The Incarnation was Nazareth imbued.

Throughout today I kept thinking of what one ancient church father (Athanasius or Irenaeus?) once noted: “What Jesus has not assumed he has not saved.” More positively stated, one could also say: “What Jesus has assumed he intends to save.”

As we spoke to students in Ibillin in the morning and toured through Jesus’ boyhood home Nazareth in the afternoon, this ancient theological insight regarding the profound significance of the Incarnation took on new meaning for me. Jesus must assume our full humanity if he fully saves us. And his full humanity included his experience of oppression. Jesus assumed the whole of human existence (including oppression) because Jesus intends to redeem human experience in its entirety!  Jesus will not just redeem individuals. He will redeem heritages. He will redeem traditions. He will redeem history. He will redeem every aspect of what makes human beings what they are. He will redeem economics and politics and language. He will redeem human relationships to land and to non-human creation. He will redeem cities and nations and corporations. And he will redeem all of it because he himself became fully human. And what he has assumed he will save. Sola Deo Gloria.