Haifa

Today we left Jerusalem and went to Haifa where we met the priest in charge at St. Luke's Anglican church.  That church has a private school, St. John's which is on the grounds of the church.  The priest talked briefly about how it is to be Christian in Haifa where life is different for the minority religions than it is in Jerusalem.  These Christians are Israeli citizens and many of them work in Israeli institutions.   The neighborhoods are not integrated but Jews and non-Jews do come into contact with one another more here than in Jerusalem.  They get to know one another as work colleagues.  He talked about his own experience of being a pretty radical liberation theologian when he went off to seminary and how angry he was at the injustices suffered by Palestinians under Israeli occupation.  He was intent to do his ministry addressing that injustice.  He said when he got to Haifa he realized that he had to learn to live beside the Jewish majority and somehow find a way to co-exist and to work for peace and tolerance.  The former headmaster of the school spoke to us about the school, which is the most highly rated private elementary school in Israel, and talked about their Education for Peace program where they try to teach children how to deal with conflict and work for peace. He described an exercise they make the children go through if they get into a conflict with a classmate where they put the two of them in a room alone together and don't let them come out until they have worked out a solution to their conflict.  If they seem unable to come to a resolution they can both live with the teacher will then go in and offer them several options and require them to decide on one that they can both live with.  I thought it would be a good thing to make Netanyahu and Mahmoud Abbas and the leader of Hamas go through that exercise! Lock them all in a room and don't let them out till they've come up with something that works for everybody.  The school is 50% Muslim students even though it is a Christian school.  They have a morning assembly every day which consists of Christian hymns and some religious instruction and the Muslim children are required to attend.  The Muslim kids also have to take the religion classes which are all about Christianity. They said the Muslim families are OK with this because they want their children to be in that school.  I asked if they let Muslim children do the Muslim prayers at the appointed hours and they said no.  Personally I find that bothersome but then I don't live in this context so who am I to say?  Israeli law forbids proselytization so they cannot directly proselytize others but  it feels a little coercive to me to make Muslim children attend Christian prayer services and not to allow them to do their own prayers.  They also do not teach Islam in the school.  This seems to be the subtle way that they are evangelizing.  But again, in this context Muslims and Christians are allies since they all suffer the same discrimination in Israeli society at the hands of the Israeli system.  The man who spoke to us about the school is one of those Arabs who's village was taken over by the Zionists in 1948 during the war and his family and everyone else in the village had to flee.  They have never been allowed back to the village.  They are classified by the Israeli government as "present absentees" because they are absent from their village, which was razed by the Israelis, but they are present in Israel.  This man is in his late 80s and said he would like to be able to visit the grave of his father in his old village but he does not even know if the graveyard is still there.  This is the story of so many Israeli Arabs who lived through 1948.  He spent his life as an educator, working for the Israeli ministry of education after serving as headmaster of St. John's school for 16 years.  He has good working relationships with Israeli Jews but he admits that life is not great for Arabs under the Israeli system.

We got a tour of the school and of the two churches that are yoked and attached to the school.  A class of children sang some songs for us, which was delightful.  Then we went to lunch with the two priests at the parish and the former headmaster.  These middle eastern lunches are delicious but a bit generous in the amount of food!  A first course of salads and hummus and pita and other veggies followed by grilled chicken and lamb kebabs with rice and french fries. Baklava for dessert.  And that is just lunch.  Then we do it all over again at dinner!

After lunch we drove to Nazareth and stopped at a lookout point that has a wonderful view of the entire region around Nazareth and out to Mt. Tabor and the Kidron valley.  Then we checked into our convent lodgings which are simple but quite nice.  We were supposed to meet with another priest at another church this evening but his plans changed so we are actually relieved to be able to rest at the convent and enjoy dinner and take it easy for a few hours.  Tomorrow is a very full day starting with Eucharist at 6:30 AM.   Pics are from the school we visited today.