United Christian Communities' Blog

The Catholic News Agency reports : The first three books of a Hebrew-language Catholic catechism have been published to help teach the children of Christians of all denominations who live and work in Israel.

“These books are necessary for Hebrew-speaking children, born in the country, so they may have access in Hebrew to the teaching that explains what our faith is . . . The three translated books are titled “Know the Church,” “Know Christ,” and “Know the Holidays.” said Fr. David Neuhaus, S.J., the vicar of the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem.. . .

“They are mainly of mixed Israeli origin, relatives of Jews, children of Jews, some converted Jews and other persons who are not Jewish but have been integrated into Jewish society,” Fr. Neuhaus said. The effort also serves Arab citizens of Israel whose Palestinian ancestors did not flee during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.

“So, our catechesis books, our magazine, our website, our liturgy serve this population, even when it isn’t their own rite. We insist on Christian formation. Christian in a secular and Jewish environment,” the priest said.

Foreign workers in Israel must send their children to public school, where they speak and teach in Hebrew. The catechesis books are for anyone who attends Hebrew school, Fr. Neuhaus said.

He noted that the project intends to help children, adolescents, and young adults to give them “a sense of the Church and of being Christian, a sense of joy.”

The translation project required addressing questions like how to write “Trinity” and “Immaculate Conception” in Hebrew, whose culture and theology are not acquainted with the concepts.

Fr. Neuhaus said there are about 200,000 foreign workers. [in Israel] . . All children of foreign workers and asylum seekers are in Hebrew schools, where they receive a “very good” education. However, they sometimes assimilate to Jewish culture and “do not know the Church,” he said.

Read the full article at http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/church-publishes-catechism-for-hebrew-speaking-children/

The partisan passions surrounding the Palestinian-Israeli disputes can, and do, overwhelm discussions of the situation facing Christians in the Holy Land, i.e., Palestine and Israel. We are speaking of the situation that is resulting in the flight of Christians from the Holy Land and threatens the very existence of living Christian communities in the Holy Land. The truth is each side, Palestinian and Israeli, is contributing to this situation, and accordingly, each side can be constructively criticized in this regard with little if any implications for the justice/injustice of their positions or actions viz a viz each other.

Interestingly, apparently this perspective is becoming seen to apply to approaches to the Palestinian-Israeli dispute itself. Nine bishops from the US, Canada, and Europe meeting in the UK have called for peace in the Holy Land. In a statement they issued they said:

“While the faith we see in the Christians of the Holy Land is an inspiration to all, we have heard repeatedly and have seen ourselves that occupation and insecurity, fear and frustration dominate the life of people across this land,” . . .

“Blaming the other is an abdication of responsibility and a failure of leadership, a leadership that the people so desperately need. We have heard and we make this conviction our own: to be pro-Israeli has to mean being pro-Palestinian. This means being pro-justice for all, whose certain fruit is lasting peace.”

. . . “Dialogue is threatened and undermined by extremism and intolerance of the other, the signs of which are only too apparent in the attitudes, judgments and actions of far too many in the world today. This is a concern for both sides and we appeal for tolerance and courageous leadership, able to show forgiveness and humility, to promote peaceful co-existence.”

The Guardian newspaper ran two articles about life for Christians in the Holy Land at Christmas. They are instructive as to what it means to live as a Christian minority among two majorities: Israeli and Palestinian, Muslim and Jew.

“That’s why I don’t celebrate Christmas any more”
“If Jesus were to come this year, Bethlehem would be closed,” says the priest of Bethlehem’s Beit Jala parish. “He would either have to be born at a checkpoint or at the separation wall. Mary and Joseph would have needed Israeli permission – or to have been tourists.

“This really is the big problem for Palestinians in Bethlehem: what will happen when they close us off completely?”

Bethlehem is the heart of Christian Palestine and it swells with pride every Christmas. Manger Square is transformed into a grotto of lights and stalls crowned by a towering Christmas tree. Strings of illuminated angels, stars and bells festoon the streets. But just a few minutes’ drive to the north, the festive atmosphere stops abruptly.

A strip of Israeli settlements built on 18 sq km of what was once northern Bethlehem threatens to cut the city off from its historic twin, Jerusalem.. . .

Dr Jad Isaac, an expert in Bethlehem’s demographics and a consultant to the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, says aside from the physical restrictions on development, Bethlehem’s economy is being strangled by the loss of land and restrictions on Palestinian movement.

With work in Jerusalem now impossible to all but the 6,000 granted permits to work inside Israel, unemployment in Bethlehem sits at 23%, poverty levels simmer at 18%. Many have little option but to work illegally for £25 a day building the nearby settlements. Dr Isaac’s forecast is bleak.

“The little town of Bethlehem? It will soon be the little ghetto surrounded in all directions by Israeli settlements,” he predicts. “We’ve already passed the stage where Bethlehem can be saved. Frankly, that’s why I don’t celebrate Christmas any more.” Click here to read the full article.

Gaza Christians long for days before Hamas cancelled Christmas
Since the Palestinian Authority left the Gaza Strip, festive celebrations and displays of crucifixes have become taboo.

Christians in Gaza say they face intimidation and arrest over Christmas celebrations since Hamas took charge in 2007. . . . There hasn’t been a Christmas tree in Gaza City’s main square since Hamas pushed the Palestinian Authority out of Gaza in 2007 and Christmas is no longer a public holiday.. . .
Imad Jelda is an Orthodox Christian who runs a youth training centre in Gaza City. With unemployment hovering at 23%, he has seen young Christian men leave to study and work abroad in their droves. “People here do not celebrate Christmas anymore because they are nervous,” Jelda said. “The youth in particular have a fear inside themselves.”

Karam Qubrsi, 23, and his younger brother Peter, 21, are the eldest sons in one of Gaza’s 55 remaining Catholic families. Both wear prominent wooden crucifixes. . . It’s a demonstration of faith that has caused him some trouble. He describes being stopped in the street by a Hamas official who told him to remove the cross. “I told him it’s not his business and that I wouldn’t,” Peter said. After being threatened with arrest he was eventually let go, but the incident scared him.

. . . “This is not a Christian environment. There are no good universities, there is no opportunity to work, no apartments to rent and so no way we can get married. We have no future here.” Read the full article at http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/dec/23/gaza-christians-hamas-cancelled-christmas

United Christian Travel, a division of United Christian Communities Inc., the publisher of this newsletter, is now offering Connection ToursTM to the Holy Land.

Connections Tours encourages Christians to visit the Holy Land as a place to Refresh Your Mind and Your Body . . . As Well As Your SoulTM and to view a Holy Land visit not as a once in a lifetime mission, but as a place to return to over and over again.

Visiting all the most famous religious and historic sites in all of the Holy Land (i.e.,Israel and Palestine), Connection Tours in addition offers opportunities to meet Christians from all walks of life who live in the Holy Land and to connect with them and the land and opportunities to view and learn about all communities living in the Holy Land. For more information visit www.UnitedChristianTravel.org .

Haaretz, an Israeli newspaper, reports “Shifting demographics are changing the landscape of Israel’s Christian communities as an influx of migrant workers poses a new set of demands for local churches. While the number of Christianswith roots in Israel . . . is diminishing due to emigration, . . . the overall population of Christians remains steady due to the arrival of many foreign workers. . . . But . . . the additional membership is only temporary. Many of these foreign workers eventually leave Israel. . . .

This shift in demographics is evident [at] St. Anthony and St. Peter churches in [Jaffa which] offer only two Masses in Arabic for the town’s native Arab Christian population,[but] four in English, primarily for Filipina caregivers.

Additional services are also offered in Spanish and French for African migrants, and several are offered in South Asian languages. ….[Services are also held in Hebrew and Russian].. .

[The immigrant Christians from different countrues and with different languages tend to keep to themselves and not mingle with each other or those with long roots in the Holy Land]
Provost Uwe Grabe of Jerusalem’s Church of the Redeemer now speaks of “a completely new Christianity in the Holy Land.” It remains unclear whether, in the long run, it will be possible to create a dialogue between the old and new communities, he said. If not, he said they risk becoming disconnected, fragmented islands – a trend he foresees happening in the future to West Bank Christians.

According to Grabe, Christian emigration from the West Bank [i.e. Palestine] is causing a continuous decrease in the number of Arab church-goers. Eventually there will only be a few communities left around the holy sites, he warns. Read the complete article at http://www.haaretz.com/weekend/anglo-file/churches-in-israel-struggling-to-keep-up-with-mass-influx-of-foreign-workers-1.404520

Some time ago we reported on a brawl that broke out in Jerusalem among Christian clergy responsible for protecting and maintaining holy sites. The brawl was triggered by a broom belonging to one denomination that was left on a stairwell which was under the charge of another denomination. The brawl spread to the street and Israeli police had to be called in to break it up.

Well it happened again. This time in Bethlehem. A s reported by Reuters, a Christmas cleaning of the Church of the Nativity turned into another brawl with brooms and fists flying between rival Christian clerics zealously guarding denominational turf at the holy site. Palestinian police, bending their heads to squeeze through the church’s low “door of humility,” rushed in with batons flailing to restore order.

As if Christians living in the Holy Land, weren’t under enough stress from being a double minority (among Jews and Muslims, Israelis and Palestinians). Sigh .

 Archbishop Elias Chacour, is the Melkite Catholic Archbishop of Akko, Haifa, Nazareth, and all Galilee   In an interview with the Boston Pilot on a visit to the US he said: : “So, I come here not as a tourist, not to enjoy time, but to work. Every evening and every day I have one or two meetings with big crowds… And I share with them the story and I ask them to accept giving us their friendship and their solidarity, which means I invite them to choose either sides, Jews or Palestinians, but never to allow themselves to become one-sided for their choice. The other side deserves also their attention because the conflict (in the Holy Land) is not a conflict of right and wrong, it’s a conflict of two rights that collude together. . . .

Well, to update you about the situation on Christians in Israel is a very tricky thing. Whatever I say might be partial, and someone else can say “No, it’s not true.” All I can tell you is part of the truth that I’m living. And the emigration, unfortunately, it’s continuing. But we do everything we can to slow it down, if not to stop it.  Some years, like last year and this year, it has been stabilizing a little bit. How long that will go on all depends on what will happen around us in the Arab countries, to discourage people to stay or to encourage them to leave.”

The Boston Pilot noted that: “Born in 1939 in the village of Biriam in Galilee, Archbishop Chacour and his Palestinian Christian family were forcibly removed from their homes by Jewish authorities when he was 9 years old. Remaining in the region as refugees, the Chacour family became residents of the state of Israel when it was established in 1948.”

The Archbishop also said: “We are trying with all of our activities — whether the schools, all the youth meetings, family meetings, group meetings — to convince them that if they stay in Israel, it should not be for the land, for the political might, or for the economy; it should become because of the message they carry for Jews and Muslims. And to speak out clearly about the importance of forgiveness, and the importance of sharing, and the importance of making concession. When you are right — not when you are not right — you are powerful. That’s how we pave the way towards reconciliation. When that will happen, I don’t know, God knows.”

Read the full interview at  http://www.thebostonpilot.com/article.asp?ID=13623

YNET news reports that:
Off the track beaten by most Holy Land tourists lies one of the richest archaeological sites in a country full of them: The walled port of Akko, where the busy alleys of an Ottoman-era town cover a uniquely intact Crusader city now being rediscovered.  Etched in plaster on one wall was a coat of arms – graffiti left by a medieval traveler. Nearby was a main street of cobblestones and a row of shops that once sold clay figurines and ampules for holy water, popular souvenirs for pilgrims.

 In 1291 a Muslim army from Egypt defeated Akko’s Christian garrison and leveled its remains.
 
The existing city, built by the Ottoman Turks around 1750, effectively preserved this earlier town, which had been hidden for centuries under the rubble.
 
“It’s like Pompeii of Roman times – it’s a complete city,” said Eliezer Stern, the archaeologist in charge of Akko. He called the town “one of the most exciting sites in the world of archaeology.”
 
The newly excavated area, part of a Crusader neighborhood, is set to open later this year.
 
Today, old Akko is a picturesque enclave jutting into the Mediterranean, home to 5,000 Arab citizens of Israel who live in dense warrens of homes that are themselves historic artifacts. Most residents are poor.
 
In 2001, Akko became a UNESCO World Heritage site.  Akko has existed for at least 4,500 years, but reached the height of its importance with the Crusader conquest in 1104.
 
A French bishop, Jacques de Vitry, reached Akko after a perilous sea journey in 1216. He was appalled. Akko, he found, was “totally depraved.” Murders took place constantly, the town was “filled with prostitutes,” and residents – many of whom he believed to be outlaws who had fled their own lands – were “utterly devoted to pleasures of the flesh.”
 
Also open is an underground passage constructed by the knights of the rival Templar order, leading from their own fortress to the port. Some used it on the day Akko fell to escape to Europe-bound vessels as their city, and the two-century-old Crusader kingdom, collapsed around them.

Read the complete article at http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4087137,00.html

United Christian Communities is proud to announce the conclusion of the “2011 My Galilee Leadership Program.” 

Undertaken in conjunction with The American Cultural Center of Nazareth, the two-week leadership program partnered Christian university students from the United States with Christian university students in the Holy Land and encouraged them to explore and deconstruct the stereotypes, prejudices, and social issues facing their respective societies and their relationship to each other. Through a series of dialogue sessions, cultural excursions, and meetings with prominent individuals in politics and society, the Americans and their Holy Land counterparts came to develop a greater appreciation for each other and the nuances of the challenges facing that particular part of the Middle East.

The program was the opportunity for the American delegates to stay with the families of their Christian partners and to provided a valuable opportunity for both the sides to build the kind of bonds that can overcome the misconceptions that abound about both societies and to create lifelong connections.

The program gave the participants the opportunity to meet prominent individuals, community leaders, clergy, business people and elected officials and to engage various issues affecting Christians living in the Holy Land.

The delegation met with prominent individuals such as, Ramez Jeraisy, the mayor of Nazareth, Dr. Victor Batarseh the Mayor Bethlehem, , Sheikh Abdelmajid Al-Amarneh the Grand Mufti of Bethlehem, William Shomali the in-coming Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Prof. Hossam Haick from the Technion, Mr. Muhammed Shamiyeh , Senior Assistant to the Director General of the Knesset and Brother Robert Smith, the Vice President for Academic Affairs at Bethlehem University, Dr. Maray Taisseer, General director of the Golan For Development of the Arab Villages, Rev. Issa Elias the Press spokesman of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem, the Honorable Reem Naddaf Magistrate Court Judge and the Rotary Club international of Nazareth

When not in Arabic class, meetings or dialogue sessions, there were many visits to sites of interest, such as the beautiful Bahai Gardens in Haifa, the summit of Mount Precipice in Nazareth overlooking the lush Jezreel Valley, the souks of the Old City in Jerusalem, The Knesset, Acco, Bethlehem, Haifa, the Techneon, the Golan heights, Kana Village and the Dead Sea. Through the combination of these excursions and more formal events and meetings, the American and Holy Land delegates were able to form a connection that is sure to last.

It is our intention that this bond will continue to be nurtured by the program’s participants now that the formal program has ended, and that this bond will serve as the foundation for future understanding and cooperation between both peoples.

Come and See, which calls itself The Christian website from Nazareth, reports that Bishop Giacinto-Boulos Marcuzzo, the Catholic Bishop of the Galilee, “says the Christian community is in danger of dying out in Nazareth, an Israeli Arab city where Christians believe Jesus spent his youth. Bishop Marcuzzo says many of Nazareth’s minority Christians began emigrating more than a decade ago largely because of tensions with local Islamists who tried to build a mosque next to the city’s main church. Israel terminated the mosque project in 2003 and Nazareth has been calm ever since. But, Bishop Marcuzzo says several threats remain to one of the region’s oldest Christian communities, whose first church was built in the 5th century AD.

Bishop Marcuzzo says the emigration of Christians from the Israeli Arab city of Nazareth is endangering the survival of the Christian community in a place of biblical importance to Christianity.  The bishop says the main cause of that emigration is a campaign by Islamists to boost their political power in Nazareth at the expense of Christians and moderate Muslims. “Our problem is not religious, but it’s the political situation of insecurity, of non-peace, of non-justice, of non-equality among the people,” said Marcuzzo.”

At the same time CatholicCulture.org reports: “The mayor of Nazareth Illit (Upper Nazareth), a suburb of the city where Jesus was raised, has refused to allow Christmas trees in the town’s Arab distict. “Nazareth Illit is a Jewish city,” declared Mayor Shimon Gapso. He characterized the request to put up Christmas trees in the town squares as “provocative.”

And Haaretz, the Israeli newspaper, reports that “The mayor of Upper Nazareth told a Nazareth-based Arabic newspaper that his town will never be a mixed Arab-Jewish city, despite the fact that 16 percent of its residents are Arab [many of whom are Christian].  In an interview, Mayor Shimon Gapso also told the weekly Kul al-Arab Upper Nazareth was “a city for Jews” and he wanted more Jews there. ”