For 31 consecutive weeks, Israelis have taken to the streets, mostly in Tel Aviv, to protest the decision by the current right-wing
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December 20, 2011, by Chris Iosso, A Christmas Editorial When we pray for the peace of Jerusalem, we should also pray for Bethlehem. Most readers will know that the city is largely surrounded by a high cement wall. Israeli
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Opening Editorial for an Advent and Christmas Issue on Middle East Struggles Former President Jimmy Carter has recently made public that stage four melanoma is no longer present in his 91-year-old body. Thus he maintains as strong a pace as he can, a prescient productivity which by any measure has
MoreWalking Where How Jesus Walked “From search for wealth and power and scorn of truth and right; From trust in bombs that shower destruction through the night; From pride of race and station and blindness to your way; Deliver every nation, Eternal God, we pray.” I listened to the notes
MorePrayers for for Jerusalem, Gaza, Israel, the Greater Middle East…Iran….Pakistan… Cuba…North Korea…Nigeria…and our trouble spots in the US. This is not an article exactly, but nor is it a digital Christmas card. Let’s call it a Christmas letter. We do wish all our readers a Merry Christmas (or a Happy
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A Palestinian American Christian Woman I was born, the youngest of four children, into a Presbyterian (Church of Scotland) family in Jerusalem, Palestine, in 1939. My birth year marked the end of the first uprising of Palestinians against their British occupiers, who were encouraging mass immigration of European Jews into
MoreMidrash on the Great Woman of Shunem and Palestinian Refugees 2 Kings 4:8-37 2 Kings 8:1-6 She wouldn’t be a refugee any more if she could come back to the home she had made. She’d left seven years ago, at the urging of the man of God, taking her son
MoreConstruing and Misconstruing the “Divestment” Vote The Middle East is full of bad news these days. Whether the Presbyterian vote to divest from three U.S. corporations “engaged in non-peaceful pursuits in Israel/Palestine” at their recent 221st General Assembly is more bad news or a breath of fresh air is a
MoreTo divest or not to divest? Now that the vote on marriage is over, it’s the elephant in the room. To be clear, I will likely offend some people with what I have to say, so I must state that these views are not reflective of my congregation, presbytery, or
MoreEditor’s Note: As the PC(USA) heads to the 221st General Assembly wrestling with whether or not to engage in certain forms of boycott and divestment in Israel/Palestine, a church with whom we are in full communion, the United Church of Christ (UCC), finds itself wrestling with the same issue. This
MoreGrape-Nut Flakes. Eleven days in Israel/Palestine…eleven exhausting, eye-opening, life-changing days…so many defining moments, so many stop-dead-in-your-tracks encounters… And the take away? Grape-Nut Flakes. Let me explain. Put 110 Presbyterians in a hotel meeting room in Newark to prepare them for the Holy Land and you will have diversity: age, gender,
MoreA Reflection from the Mosaic of Peace Conference Our bus drive from Bethlehem to Qasr el Yahud, the latter designated as the possible site of Jesus’ baptism, is brown and dusty like much of Palestine. Israel either claims or controls most of the water, so there is no chance for
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