Saturday in Jerusalem

We began the morning with a bus ride to the Mount of Olives, and a fascinating hour with Margaret who runs a kindergarten at the Lutheran Church. She shared with us some of the frustrations the Church experiences  with the Israeli authorities, who are withholding planning permission that  is being sought to develop some housing units which would provide an income stream to help education and hospital work. The hospital on the site provides the only radiation treatment for cancer suffers in East Jerusalem and across the West Bank.

But Margaret also shared some of her more personal experiences and concerns. Christians are paying higher rents and taxes to Israel, yet receive far inferior services compared with their Jewish counterparts. “And who is suffering?” she asked? – “Our children and our youth.”  There are problems with drugs and addiction among your people; but also there are concerns at the number of  unprovoked attacks made on them by conservative Jews who have been brought up to regard Palestinians as the enemy. “I pray for my children to come back home safely.”

Christians like Margaret living in East Jerusalem may have a Jordanian passport, and a Jerusalem ID and travel document. In the eyes of Palestinians in the West Bank they are lucky, as they are able to travel – even to fly out the country through Ben Gurion, though some are more restricted and have to cross the Allenby Bridge and fly out from Amman. But such journeys always require a visa, which is not necessarily granted.  Yet despite all these disabilities, Margaret insists that her job is to build bridges – and she mentioned an American Jewish woman who is involved with her in various  women’s projects and youth activities.

Living in occupied East Jerusalem she has rights to stay there for as long as she lives – but she has to pay her taxes, as well as her utilities bills. She is then entitled to the Israeli state’s high quality social services and health care – which is a great bonus compared with her Palestinians relations in the West Bank, where health care has all to be paid for.  Yet time and time again discrimination against Palestinians is seen – and no where more so than through the ubiquitous checkpoints. Margaret’s daughter is studying at university in the West Bank, less than a half hour journey away – yet every day the journey turns out to be one and half or even two hours. Despite it all, Margaret insisted that she and her people want to live at peace with the Israelis, and that they are against any form of violence, but as she described her daily life experiences she admitted “You have to be so tough that you can come through”.

St Anne's

From the Mount of Olives we took in the famous panoramic view of the Old City, sadly a little hazy today, and then made our way down the hill, stopping at the usual churches – Pater Noster, Dominus Flevit, and at Gethsemane the Church of all Nations. It would be good to visit these places, surely intended as places for reflection, in quieter times – yet knowing how much damager the Intifada did to shopkeepers and others involved in the tourist trade, something I saw for myself ten years ago, it’s really good to see the “pilgrim” crowds. We’ve been well led by Brian all the way, and he certainly has a gift in putting the essentials of a place into a few quiet pithy sentences – would that some tour guides could take note! He then led us to place I had never visited before, the Orthodox Church of the Dormition, down a very long flight of steps in the floor of the valley. How far below ground it must be I wouldn’t want to guess – but in Jerusalem, the further down something is, the closer it is to the time we are seeking to inspire us. If Jesus didn’t actually walk here, he walked somewhere at this level!

The Christian Quarter from the Austrian hostel

We climbed up into the old city, entering through the Lion Gate and visiting St Anne’s Crusader Church, a magnificent Norman building famous not least for its resonant acoustics. We are not, I fear, the most musical group ever to have visited the Holy Land, but we brought a touch of Reformed spirituality to the place by singing a verse of “When I survey” – and were complimented on our way out by the White Father standing at the door. But then, it turned out that he is from Middlesbrough.

We made our way along the Via Dolorosa, stopping for lunch at the Austrian Hostel and then enjoying the magnificent view from the roof, up to the Holy Sepulchre, and across to the Dome of the Rock. Then we continued along the Via Dolorosa, through the narrow streets and then up on to the roof of the Holy Sepulchre, passing the Ethiopian monastery on the roof, and descending the staircase that runs through their two chapels. Giving ourselves half an hour for another look round the church, we learned that a procession was due in the next few moments.

Fortunately I was up on the first floor where the Greek Orthodox chapels are, and with others of the group could look down on the Stone of Unction where every procession stops. Before long the church doors, which had been closed, were opened wide – and the dignitaries in all their finery were allowed in, headed by the Muslim “guardians”. The episcopal figure at the centre of it all was prepared just beneath us as we crowded against the stone edge of the balustrade, resting our cameras. I allowed a small child to creep in front of me and  view it all through the rails. Afterwards, his mother thanked me, saying “It was the first time he saw it”. Unfortunately none of us knew just what this “it” was.

After a time wandering on our own if we so chose, and a rest back at Notre Dame, we jumped into the bus and drove down to Gethsemane again. Here we rang on the door of the Russian monastery and were eventually allowed in to the service of vespers – which as well as having a particular beauty of its own, also gave the opportunity to enter the Church of St Mary Magdalene, one of the hardest for casual pilgrims to get to see. After an hour or so we left and had a quick conversation with Sister Martha (whom we met on ? was it Tuesday) outside – learning from her that “groups”, especially of Orthodox from various countries are increasingly a trial on the nuns’ patience!

Now it was time to go to Bethlehem once more, taking up an invitation from Khalil and Ellyanna to have  a meal with them in a restaurant that looks out on to the wall. To get there we were taken by bus as far as the check point, and then walked through the vast halls ourselves to get out on the Palestinian side. Of course, at that time on a Saturday evening everything was deserted, but one could easily imagine the whole area heaving with people early in the morning as everyone set off for work on the other side of the wall.



Arlette's house is on the left

As we walked into Bethlehem proper we were stopped by a woman who asked us if we could stay a few moments for her to tell us what the wall had done to her life. George and Arlette have a house and shop virtually surrounded  by the wall, as it snakes around the area of Rachel’s Tomb. They now lie in what is a threatening cul de sac, but which just over ten years ago was the main street leading into Bethlehem. In December 2002 when Bethlehem was shut in they were confined to their home for 40 days. Soldiers came at night and forced them outside, frightening their young children. Then the foundations of the wall were laid (originally planned to abut the house, but because sewage pipes were discovered there moved instead to the other side of the street) and the wall itself, nine metres  high, was built in a day. Because their house is more than nine metres high, they are not allowed on the roof: anything needing to be fixed requires a permit. And the effect on their business has of course been devastating.

All of this was in our minds as we made our way into the restaurant where our hosts welcomed us warmly, Khalil giving us a reminder of the disadvantages that Palestinian Christians, and particularly those from Jerusalem, live under. He was also generous in his praise for the continuing support and interest shown by the United Reformed Church, proposing toast to us all, but particularly to Brian, and Jane and Linda who keep the flame alive.

Conversation over the meal has helped me at least to put a human face on some of the scenarios and statistics we’ve rubbed up against over this past week – but all too much to do more than mention this late on in the day. And then the lift home by Ellyanne helped to ground it all in reality as we took over half an hour to drive back through the checkpoint at a very quiet time on an unbusy road. Would we keep our cool as she has learned to do (and doubtless thousands of others too)? At last we were there: and when the IDF young soldier saw that the passengers were all British they were suddenly very friendly, quite uninterested in looking at our passports, and all too ready to wave us through.

But when you don’t have a car full of Brits, no doubt it can all be very different.