NY Times article on Jackson and Park Ave CC

Some in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) may already know that the Rev. Alvin Jackson has been called as senior minister at Park Avenue Christian Church in New York City.

We at DisciplesWorld reported on this earlier in the week, and now New York Times reporter Michael Luo has written a piece about Jackson's fresh start with the historic Disciples congregation.

In light of Luo's article, I looked back at our coverage of the story as it unfolded 3 years ago. I think we were fair. There were some who accused us of racism. That still hurts.

In any case, we wish him well.

July 3rd - Haifa

Note: Our second week of travel took us places where easy internet access was not available and our presense in some locations may have caused our hosts problems. Therefore, I chose to wait to post these entries until I returned to the States.

We arrived in Haifa this morning. Haifa is a community of both Jewish and Palestinian Israelis. For the most part, they live side by side peacefully, if not together in spirit. The first thing we saw was the Bahai Temple. As we drove down a street, the gardens of the temple rose from street level up the side of a hill towards the temple. They were beautiful. Unfortunately, the gardens weren't open for visitors. Later in the day, we took our bus up the hill so we could look down on the grounds of the temple. Again, they were so beautifully landscaped.

After lunch, we met with a representative of Ittijah. Ittijah provides an organizational network for Palestinian NGOs in Israel. It helps to coordinate their activities so the strength of each organization is put to its best use. They put a lot of focus on the unrecognized Palestinian villages in Israel, representing about 70,000 Palestinians. By denying the existence of these villages on their maps, (located primarily in the North and in the Naqab), Israel is not required to provide basic services to their residents such as roads, housing, clean water, electricity, healthcare.

We then met with Ilan Pappe, a professor at Haifa University and Israeli Jew who has worked tirelessly towards an end to the oppression of the Palestinian people. He is an advocate of a boycott of products made in Israel as well as divestiture from companies who are profiting from the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. He believes that although the conflict must be resolved between the Palestinians and Israelis, it will require pressure from the international community to bring the parties to the table. In his opinion, this pressure must include the United States.

Our evening was spent celebrating the 30th wedding anniversary of one of the couples on our trip. Andy made a very beautiful toast to his wife Carol and to the rest of the group. A nice way to end the day!

July 2nd - Tel Aviv

We arrived in Tel Aviv this morning to tour the Diaspora Museum at Tel Aviv University. It is an exhibit set up to trace the Jewish culture, people and traditions through the centuries. It was very well done with much information. One thing that struck me that as all the various cultures merged into what is now the State of Israel, there appears to be a push towards sameness of culture instead of a celebration of what each culture brings to the table. There are small concessions to this, but overall, this seems to be prevalent.

As I was walking through the part of the exhibit which dealt with the Holocaust, I caught up with one of our group. As we talked, he made the comment - "I was only a child, but there must have been something I could have done".

Our afternoon was spent with Adam Keller of Gush Shalom, a Israeli activist who has been protesting (non violently) since the age of 13. He brought us up-to-date on a protest held outside of the Gaza Strip on Saturday which he attended. They were planning to hold their protest at the place where the Israeli soldier was kidnapped. But as they drew nearer, they saw an Israeli post set up. They realized that this group of soldiers were there getting ready to occupy Gaza. They got out of their vehicles and began to talk to the soldiers through the fence, asking them why they would go into Gaza, what their personal thoughts were about this action, etc.. They were eventually chased away, and began walking towards their protest site. Eventually, the military police stopped them and began to arrest the protesters. When it was pointed out that the MPs are not allowed to arrest civilians, they produced a civilian police officer who proceeded to make the arrests.

In the evening, we met with members of New Profile and with a refusenik. New Profile is a group that is working to create a new military profile or status for people who are either conscientious objectors, or refuseniks - those who do not oppose the army per se, but refuse to serve in the occupied territories. Their stories were personal and varied. One woman was a mother of 6 living on a kibbutz, which by their nature are very militaristic, who had a son tell her and her husband that he is a pacifist and would not serve in the army. She told of the problems trying to get him out of conscription - the months in court, and his months in prison. They were finally successful, but at what cost? Two of her other children were given medical releases - meaning they had to say that they were mentally ill and unable to conscript. This type of designation will follow them for the rest of their lives, affecting the future possibilities for employment, mortgage loans, etc..

Our refusenik guest was in the Army for six years. As he matured into an adult, from the raw 18 year old conscript, he realized that he could no longer participate in actions in the occupied territories. He asked to be reassigned, which he was. He believes in being part of the army to defend Israel, but not in being part of the occupation.


News Muse note: Beth Sullivan is the bookkeeper for DisciplesWorld and has served as board member of the United Christian Missionary Society and the Disciples Divinity House at the University of Chicago. Sullivan is visiting Middle Eastern holy sites on a trip with her alma mater, Earlham College, located in Richmond, Ind.

July 1st - Hebron

We left Bethlehem this morning for Hebron. On the way there, we stopped at the village of al-Tuwani. There we walked through a small rural village with no running water, electricity for 4 hours a day provided by a generator and a settlement just over the hill from them. A settlement whose occupants will try anything to make life so unpleasant for the villagers in hopes they will leave. There are still about twenty families left. However, al-Tuwani also has the only school in the area, so children from other villages go to school there. There have been many incidents, many confrontations, but the village remains. We met with a representative of the Women's Cooperative, which was formed to supplement the income of the men of the village. They produce needlework and jewelry for sale. The women had to ask for permission from the men in order to form the cooperative. After an initial reluctance, the men agreed. This cooperative has been very empowering for them - a feeling of contribution and partnership for survival.

While in al-Tuwani, a member of our group fell on the uneven terrain and cut his forehead. As a precaution, we stopped by a hospital in Hebron for a doctor to take a look at him. Examination, X-Rays, stitches and a prescription - $20.00!

In Hebron, we took a walking tour of the old city. This is another example (such as old city of Jerusalem), where the settlers are building on top of the Palestinian homes, taking any little inch of land/space they can. There are places where the merchants have had to set up nets across the streets - string them from their shop canopies, to catch the stones, trash and debris the settlers try to throw down upon them.

Part of our walk through the Old City included a tour through the Ibrahimi Mosque. Once inside, all the women had to wear a hooded cloak provided by the mosque, making sure that all of our hair was covered. It was very beautiful - memorials to the tombs of Isaac, Rachel and, of course, Abraham. The room that the Abraham tomb was in had windows on both ends, so that the people of the mosque might see it as well as the people of the synagogue on the other side of the mosque.

From there we toured a Palestinian refugee camp in Jerusalem. When I first read about this stop on our itinerary, I was a bit confused. My perception of a refugee camp is tents, no electricity, etc. This camp, Deheishe Camp, has been in existence since 1948. It was first populated by about 3000 refugees. It now holds over 12,000. The original housing was concrete and cinderblock structures to hold 10 people provided by the UN. Over the years, the inhabitants of the camp have built homes upward over the original structures. They have created a community - but one which is hanging on by a thread. Unemployment runs about 80% - food is scarce and hope is in very short supply. The desperation of these people was hanging in the air.

We returned for an evening at a hotel in Bethlehem. The exhaustion of our group, both mentally and physically was in our body language and in our silence as a group. I feel fortunate that I have this blog as a way of getting some of these feelings out. It allows me to process what I am seeing and begin to understand how I feel about it. Being with a group from Earlham College, my alma mater, gives the concept of a trip through the Holy Land a whole new spin. Being a Quaker school, the focus of this journey is peace, what peace means in this land today, how to achieve peace amidst this conflict and asking the question - will it be possible to ever achieve a lasting peace here. The questions are complex, with many different perspectives to consider, emotions to validate and work to be done.

News Muse note: Beth Sullivan is the bookkeeper for DisciplesWorld and has served as board member of the United Christian Missionary Society and the Disciples Divinity House at the University of Chicago. Sullivan is visiting Middle Eastern holy sites on a trip with her alma mater, Earlham College, located in Richmond, Ind.

June 30th - Bethlehem/Beit Sahour

This morning we left Jerusalem, where we have been based for the past 5 days, and traveled to Bethlehem. We first met with Jad Isaac, who gave us a recent history of Bethlehem, then went with us as we traveled through the city. Bethlehem and its surrounding cities, Beit Jalla and Beit Sahour are completely surrounded by the wall. You enter through one of two areas - a fully functional checkpoint, built just to the north of the main artery between Bethlehem and Jerusalem, or to the south, where the checkpoint is still under construction. We were told it would be finished within a month.

The effects of this, as well as residual effects of September 11th, 2001, and the current ongoing tensions were amazing. The city was like a ghost town in comparison to images I have seen on TV or heard other people talk about from their trips to Israel. When we arrived at the Church of the Nativity, we were the only tour group there. There were maybe a half dozen other people in there with us. This was also the case with Shepherds Field. For a city whose livelihood depends on tourism, this is devastating.

We visited the Guidance and Training Center, a group who work with tramatized children. The mental health of children is finally being recognized as a serious issue in the occupied territories. In order to deal with the tension, the bombings, children in many cases are developing physical afflictions (blindness as an example), emotional afflictions (almost an autistic state or post-traumatic stress disorder) or a combination of both. At this center, these issues are addressed with trained child psychiatrists and therapists. They also work with the whole family to help overcome the trauma.

In the evening, the group was divided up and we spent the night in the homes of families living in Beit Sahour. My family was delightful. It was a common situation - a two story home - on the ground floor were the parents, one son, his wife and two small children. On the second floor (where I stayed), was the other son, his wife and three children. It made for a very lively household. When I arrived, the Germany/Argentina World Cup match was on. I was immediately asked who I was pulling for (Argentina) - then all eyes were focused on the game. Once it was over, the entire family gathered for a barbeque, with chicken, pork, hamburgers cooked on a grill, along with several fresh salads and lemonade. As the second match started, I slipped away to bed - too much for me!


News Muse note: Beth Sullivan is the bookkeeper for DisciplesWorld and has served as board member of the United Christian Missionary Society and the Disciples Divinity House at the University of Chicago. Sullivan is visiting Middle Eastern holy sites on a trip with her alma mater, Earlham College, located in Richmond, Ind.