Jesus in Jerusalem: A guide

On our tour (April 15-May 16, 2016) we will be visiting a good number of the churches identified here. This is not actually a "guide" to Jesus in Jerusalem. Rather, the map of Jerusalem in this piece from HaAretz shows the location of churches marking the spots where the history of Jesus in Jerusalem unfolded. Of course the accuracy of the locations is disputed. As is typical, churches were built to commemorate events, the locations of which were based on tradition. Even so, the church at each site doesn't so much identify the location, as it invites pilgrims, both imaginatively and prayerfully, to enter the story it commemorates .

From the introduction to the page: "Once there was only a cave, or a scarred piece of bedrock. Across the generations, the faithful passed on the stories of Jesus, and pointed at the places in Jerusalem where a miracle, a teaching or an event was said to have happened some 2,000 years ago. And over the eons, sometimes a mere few centuries after the event, churches were erected to mark the sites where Jesus is believed to have worked his wonders. Today these shrines, restored to glory, are destinations for people all over the world."

On the map, click on the yellow church icons to open up a picture and explanation of the spot.

1913: Seeds of Conflict

Tonight (June 30, 2015) PBS broadcasts what I think will be a very interesting documentary.

From the PBS webpage: "Most observers consider the Balfour Declaration and Mandate period of the 1920s as the origin of today’s Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Breaking new ground, 1913: SEEDS OF CONFLICT, a one-hour documentary directed by filmmaker Ben Loeterman, explores the divergent social forces growing in Palestine before World War I, when Arabs and Jews co-existed in harmony as Ottomans, each yearning for a land to call their own."

CLICK HERE to go to the PBS web page.

View the trailer.

More from the website:

"Government documents, newspaper accounts, and personal letters in five languages from the Turkish state archives provide new and fascinating insights into dramatic events that took place in Palestine just before the outbreak of World War I.

1913 Palestine is a multi-lingual, multi-cultural society. Muslims, Jews and Christians coexist in relative harmony and often gather together in the coffeehouses of Jerusalem. It is a time before Jerusalem’s Old City is segregated into separate ‘quarters’ for various groups. But after European Jewish migrants arrive, Ruhi al-Khalidi, Jerusalem’s representative to the Ottoman Parliament in

Istanbul, voices growing concerns about what he sees as their secret agenda to build a state. So does Albert Antebi, an Arab-speaking Sephardic Jew known as the Jewish “pasha,” who embraces economic and cultural Zionism, but fears the consequences of a Zionist land grab.

Meanwhile, Arthur Ruppin arrives from Germany to be the Zionist’s land agent and Khalil Sakakini returns from a trip to America filled with pride and optimism of a new Palestinian Arab identity. In 1913, growing tensions erupt into violence in the vineyard just outside Rehovot, leaving an Arab and Jew dead, and sowing the seeds for a century of conflict.

Read more »

The Enright Files: Israeli-Palestinian Relations

Now that next Spring's tour dates have been set (April 25-May 16, 2015), we're ready to prepare ourselves for what we're about to experience. The tour's title, "Ancient Stones, Living Stones," suggests that participants will enter the ancient world of biblical sites and stories and will visit with some of the people who live, work, and long for peace in the land. This CBC Radio "Ideas" program from May 4, 2015, takes us into the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which serves as one avenue into the world of the living stones. Michael Enright interviews two Jewish Israeli journalists who offer their rather different perspectives.

"In the wake of a highly contentious election in March, many were wondering about the future of Israeli-Palestinian relations. It's an issue that Israel's oldest daily newspaper, Haaretz, has long grappled with.  In this episode, Michael Enright revisits recent conversations with two of Haaretz's most influential columnists: Ari Shavit, the author of the acclaimed book, My Promised Land: The Triumph and Tragedy of Israel, and the award-winning, but highly polarizing Gideon Levy."

Listening to the full 54 minute program will be well worth your while. CLICK HERE TO LISTEN

Related websites:

Haaretz
Ari Shavit
Gideon Levy

Alain Epp Weaver's recent book is the subject of an extensive discussion at the journal Syndicate, at which four authors will engage with Epp Weaver's book. Readers interested in this theopolitical conversation will be richly rewarded. Check back every few days for new essays. After the online versions have been posted, the essays will only be available in the print edition. The editor begins his introduction this way:



"Talking about Palestinian-Israeli affairs is very uncomfortable. It is a practical matter of grave significance for contemporary foreign affairs and a historical malaise of maddening perplexity; the lack of peace has tragically grave consequences as we all learned this last July when escalating violence between Israel and Hamas in Gaza led to the deaths of over 2000 Palestinians in Gaza and 71 Israelis. The historical complexity of the political reality is redoubled when the issues therein are discussed as political-theological matters, mostly because political theology itself is inherently awkward. Political theology forces us to discuss topics that are gauche, uncouth, and imprudent: violence, sovereignty, God, rights, and money. And so, one can be forgiven for thinking that, if it is taken up as a political-theological matter, any further discussion of the distance between Jewish, Christian, and Muslim perspectives (not to mention the multiplicities therein) about how to organize and arrange—that is, to map—their collective futures, only promises to deepen the distrust, pain, and dispossession."

Click here to read more