Jerusalem Musings:  On the Trials of Travel, and the Virtues of Trying Again

            My job affords me the chance to travel world-wide, meet diverse people, and most importantly, to remain optimistic about the future of humankind.  In May, I attended NAFSA, the annual conference of international educators, and enjoyed hearing from university presidents and high-ranking diplomats who echoed the chorus of hope and possibility.  We reveled in the words of writers such as Thornton Wilder, who defined education as “the bridge man crosses from the self-enclosed, self-favoring life into a consciousness of the entire community of mankind.”  We shared notes on best practices to maintain institutional relationships across barriers of language and politics, and more mundane matters of budget constraints, health and safety.  We do it all for the students and the professors and for our countries, because we believe that working with educational partners abroad is our best bet to reduce military conflict, promote religious and cultural understanding, and attain a more equitable balance of wellbeing for the world’s peoples.
            But on occasion words fail us.  As well-traveled as we may be, now and then we too fall prey to discomfort, anxiety, and misgivings.  Other people really do seem unfathomable.  The experience bowls us over, leaves us breathless.  And makes us vow to return, and try again.  As educators, we pledge to make such opportunities available for our students.  Maybe they will figure it out.  Maybe they will find the way to overcome prejudice with peace.
            Such was my experience this March in Jerusalem.  I travelled with OIS colleague Liz LaFortune and stayed at the University’s Tantur Ecumenical Institute for Theological Studies: it is a lovely low building sitting in the midst of an olive grove on a hill overlooking Bethlehem, where daffodils bobbed in the balmy spring air.   It is an other-worldly sort of place inhabited by kindly contemplatives dedicated to interfaith dialogue and prayer, and overseen by a board of committed scholars and priests.  But as soon as I ventured out of Tantur, the swirling discontent of Middle Eastern politics pulled away my usual equilibrium and left me feeling bewildered, confused, and, I’ll admit it, occasionally afraid.  Much of our time was spent in meetings with administrators at Hebrew University, Bethlehem University and at Tantur.  But we also witnessed a powerful sense of the region through our wanderings, meals, and chance encounters.   To give a sense of the experience, here are a few entries from my journal: 

Monday, March 3. 
7am. It is sort of surreal here.  The wind has been howling all night and the sliding glass door which is right next to my bed has been rattling and banging.  But otherwise it is absolutely quiet.  Feels like an air raid shelter or something, so quiet in here, so few of us in this huge cement complex, an island of domesticity surrounded by a world that has been for centuries at war.  Reading the guidebook and materials given to me last night, I was struck by the vicissitudes of this region over time—first Arab, then Jewish, then Christian, always coexisting and always trying to annihilate each other’s hold on to Jerusalem.  Clearly the Jews are in the ascendancy now. But it was not always such.  The Arabs dominated in AD 638 and built, on top of Jewish temples, their own shrines such as the Dome of the Rock—because they believe Muhammed had ascended to heaven on his Night Journey from the same rock in Jerusalem on which, according to the Bible, Abraham had been about to sacrifice his son, and over which Jews had built their temples.  Turks took over in 1009, and forbade Christians access to the Holy City, instigated violent reprisals against non-Muslims.  Christians of course led crusades for 200 years to recapture biblical sites in Palestine and Jerusalem, led by Pope Urban II who launched the crusades on November 27, 1095. And so it goes, for years and years, each religion fighting the others for the rights to Jerusalem [...]   
Right now, outside in the howling wind, I hear shrill shouting.  Sounds like a woman’s voice on a loudspeaker in a village far off, shouting slogans in an angry tone.  What is going on?  It is dark, windy, and stormy.

Same day.  10:58pm.
What a day!  Relaxing breakfast with Fr. Michael McGarry, Sr. Bridget and a Danish man (a minister, I think) of whole wheat toast and a bowl of fruit.  Headed out with Stephen and Liz to explore Bethlehem on foot, down the rocky path through the olive grove to that ominous-looking cement goliath at the bottom of the hill, and winded our way through the narrow passageway and past armed soldiers and into Bethlehem, Palestine.  It was only a five-minute walk, but so weird.  Got a cab from the crowd of cab drivers mingling at the other side of the wall (we were with Stephen, thank goodness) and made our way through the narrow streets to Bethlehem University.  Oddly quiet, streets closed, we started to wonder what is afoot.  Turns out that the students are striking and there’s been rock-throwing against Israeli soldiers and things are a bit tense. 
Other thoughts (so tired!):
Deserted school
Revolutionary banner, red / black flags
Nice interview with Brother Jack, and watched a heart-rending film of Bethlehem under siege
Delightful lunch (Greek salad) with a Cornell grad, now inhabitant of Bethlehem, who shares Stephen and Kate’s passion for Middle Eastern cultures and languages.  I’m starting to understand why they love it here.  She tells us a funny anecdote of taxi ride to house of “Leila,” a woman she met. She didn’t know Leila’s last name, so after long-winded deliberations among the taxi drivers, she was delivered to a house in a Palestinian village where a family greeted her warmly and invited her in.  But when the hostess arrived, it wasn’t the Leila she knew!  No matter, they insisted she stay for dinner anyway.  So she did. The real Leila arrived in the course of the evening, and they all had a good laugh about it. 
            Later, We had a fun stroll through the souk, shopping for gifts (silver jewelry in olive leaf motif), visited the Church of the Nativity where Christ was born.  Powerful experience.  The church is hung heavy with gaudy lights, pockmarked by bullets. 
There is an easy sense of being in town, people not aggressive.  But cab drive rode by site of conflict.  Israeli soldiers with rubble and lots of cars fleeing.  Bizarre scene at check-point: hysterical Brit and her “Free Palestine” t-shirt wearing friend.
Dinner at Jerusalem Hotel in East Jerusalem: atmosphere warm, intimate, exotic; live music of lute and giant autoharp lilting and fun.  Cab driver zoomed us back here at evening’s end.

Tuesday March 4
Headed out around 9am for a meeting with an Israeli woman I have been corresponding with via email for last year or so about my work in French literature, Orley and her husband Assaf, in West Jerusalem.  Kate went with us.  Took a Palestinian bus—really felt like we were going local with that.  Orley turned out to be about my age, three kids, two grown; a woman of many talents—art, artificial intelligence, French literature.  We had coffee together at an outdoor café and enjoyed a lively, frank discussion.  We talked about the Israeli military and the youth of the soldiers; they told anecdotes of their girls’ military service and their own sense of parental tenderness at the sight of passing patrols.  They explained their consternation over the extremists on either side—Israeli or Palestinian—and the efforts of their rabbi to lead peace efforts at their synagogue; offered to help us with interfaith dialogue efforts for our potential undergraduate program.  They walked us around Jerusalem and showed us sights of souk, Church of Holy Sepulcher, Western Wall.  The wall is separated into two sections male/female; people were bobbing and praying fervently.  I wrote a prayer for Dad to be healthy and stuck it in between the stones.  Then Orley and Assaf left us, and Liz and I were free to just wander a bit.  We walked on the old city wall overlooking the landscape dotted with churches and white rocks, green scrub, almond trees in bloom, lots of new buildings, all in white stone.  Wandered up the hill to the Armenian Quarter, back into the souk where I got some gifts. Wandered along and found our way through the tiny narrow streets, finally met Kate, cheerful and chipper as always.  Rode Arab bus back to Tantur.  Problem:  “flying checkpoint”, where we had to get out of the bus and were delayed 15-20 minutes by Israeli soldiers (three girls, aged 19-20), who took everyone’s ID and milled around ineffectually before giving a ticket to a one-eyed toothless crone.  Apparently her ID had an invalid travel permit.
Finally made it back to Tantur for meeting with Sr. Bridget, then headed out with Stephen and Kate, and walked down through that creepy checkpoint in the dark back to Bethlehem.  Rocks and rubble on the ground where “some trouble” had happened earlier.  Took cab ride to “The Tent” restaurant in a neighboring village in this region called the West Bank (of the Jordan River, which is actually miles away.)  Amazing.  A Bedouin tent construction, great meal of little dishes of hummous, babba ganoush, Greek Salad, olives, on little plates.  We were joined by a few Palestinian friends of Stephen, and it was fun although a bit complicated after a while to hear of nothing but Israeli-Palestinian politics.  And it got extremely smoky—ugh, when everyone started smoking the nargyles.  After riding in a taxi through the dark night back to the checkpoint, and trudging all the way up the cattle shoot to the turnstile, we found that it was locked.  We shouted and called out, and finally a young soldier came over, and told us it was closed.  We had to walk back down and go a block or two all around in the dark on the filthy and trash-strewn streets, to encounter three kid soldiers with machine guns.  Annoying.  Interesting but exhausting existence here. 

Wednesday, March 5, 4:30am
What the heck is going on?
Outside the early morning air echoes with a wailing man’s voice, sort of singing, lilting up and down, echoed and multiplied by other voices, sounds like they are projected by loudspeaker on a clock tower or mosque—call to prayer?  But why so early?  Sounds like moaning or wailing.  Multiplied by other voices moaning.  Sounds like voices of dying, if they could sing, crying out to heaven, and to earth, trying to communicate a lonely longing sadness.  Or the wails of those who have lost a child, fathers singing their hearts breaking.  Birds are twittering, waking, one or two, as the voices now quiet, subside.  It is 4:45am.  ... The birds’ melody is so pretty.  Try to sleep more, ask questions later…

11:00pm  That same night
My husband Rich was right; although I was apprehensive about coming, this week has been the most powerful experience I’ve ever had traveling abroad.  When I spoke to Fr. McGarry tonight about my feelings of angst and confusion, he just nodded.  And told me a little anecdote about the scholars who visit Tantur:  If you stay for one week, you go home and write a book.  If you stay for one month, you go home and write an article.  If you stay for one year, you don’t know what to think.  So you just join the living. 

                                                                        ***
It is with joy and optimism that I announce that, after a hiatus of eight years, the University of Notre Dame Office of International Studies is re-establishing an undergraduate program in Jerusalem at the Tantur Ecumenical Institute for Theological Studies.  This new summer program will begin in 2009.  Through structured academic and experiential learning, the Jerusalem Summer Program will offer students the opportunity to understand their potential as leaders in a global world through exposure to unique academics, research, and cultural engagement in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
The Jerusalem Summer Program will take place from May 20 to July 3, 2009.  Examples of courses to be offered include:  Middle Eastern History, Religion & Culture; International Relations and the Arab/Israel Conflict; and Holy Land Geography and Archaeology.  The Program will also incorporate introductory language instruction in Hebrew and Arabic.  As part of the academic program, students may visit the Galilee, Haifa, Jericho, Beer-Sheba, Acre, and various archaeological and religious sites in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories, accompanied by the Faculty Director and On-Site Director. 
Professor Patrick Gaffney, CSC, will serve as Faculty Director for the Program, and as the primary professor for the courses offered.  Courses may also include lectures by professors from Israeli and Palestinian universities.  An On-Site Director, Stephen Steinbeiser, will supervise the Notre Dame Jerusalem Summer Program and provide for the particular needs of undergraduates. 
The program in Jerusalem is open to qualified students of the University of Notre Dame and Saint Mary's College.  Selection decisions will be based on a series of essays, academic and rector references, and personal interviews.

FOR MORE INFORMATION:
Contact Liz LaFortune at llafortu@nd.edu or 574-631-7251, or visit the Program website at http://www.nd.edu/~ois/Locations/Jerusalem/Jerusalem.html. 

May peace be with you,
Julia Douthwaite