I’ve been quiet for a while. Not because I haven’t been paying attention but because work has been overwhelming and I haven’t had the time to digest what has been an unbelievably painful week. These are just a few of the things that happened. There was an abhorrent Mideast “peace accord” that essentially endorsed apartheid for Palestinians and a destruction …
If someone like me, a lifelong political junkie who is continually appalled at what is transpiring in this current administration, is wearied at the impeachment votes unfold, I cannot imagine what people who are less obsessed with politics feel. But that is exactly what authoritarian regimes want to happen and why they succeed. Because people get worn down by the continual …
On Monday, I read their names. The names of some of the men, women and children who were among the 6 million Jews who were killed during the Holocaust. As part of Yom Hashoah Holocaust Remembrance Day, Voices of Hope and the Mandelll Jewish Community Center in West Hartford, Conn., sponsor a Community Wide Reading of the Names. A member …
I am writing this blog with my headphones on and classical music ringing in my ears. We are staying at a Youth Hostel on the Sea of Galilee, where a lot of families come, and near as I can tell, let their children run wild. Last night, there were shouts in the hallway echoing loudly in my room until midnight …
It’s loud at our lodging tonight as I write this. Children are running around, yelling joyfully, riding on scooters and playing with each other as parents mill about, sipping on wine. Toto, we aren’t in Palestine anymore. Tonight is our first evening in Israel, as we are staying in Galilee to see the places where Jesus grew up and where …
A story in four acts. The first act involves the land and nature. We visited the Environmental Education Center, a ministry of the Lutheran Church, on the campus of the Talitha Kumi Lutheran School. Michael, the very knowledgeable and passionate ornithologist on staff, showed us around their wonderful center. There we saw the botanical garden with only indigenous plants, tasted …
I have traveled the world and been in all sorts of situations. But I never experienced what I did today in Hebron. I walked through what felt like a war zone on a tense truce as I saw a town gasping for its own survival. This story, which is the story of Old Hebron, began in 1979 when a group …
In February 1994, I wrote a letter to the editor of The Fargo Forum. I wrote it on a Saturday morning. The day before two events occurred. In one, Nancy Kerrigan and Tonya Harding faced off in the Ladies Short Program of the 1994 Winter Olympics. In the other, 29 Muslims, including women and children who had come to pray …
Today we journeyed to Bethlehem (pictured above). No star to guide us, but walls to divide us, and to divide the Palestinian people. Once we passed through the wall, we headed to the Shepherd’s Field, where shepherds kept their watching o’er silent flocks by night. This was without a doubt my favorite place we have visited so far in terms …
After doing a photo essay yesterday on Facebook, it is back to blogging today, to sort out what was a day of intense emotion. As it is Sunday, and we are a group from the New England Synod visiting our Companion Synod, The Evangelical Lutheran Church of Jordan and the Holy Land, we set off early for worship. Our group …
Although over the years I have read articles and books about the situation in Palestine and Israel, today as we drove through the West Bank and East Jerusalem on a tour led by Jeff Halper, the founder of the Israeli Committee Against Housing Demolitions, a nonprofit, direct action group dedicated to opposing and resisting the demolition of Palestinian homes, it …