Reading Response: Karen's 8-10

I am quietly struggling with the depth of hatred and hypocrisy I have read and heard for myself within these pages.  I know that the ostrich syndrome is no excuse, but, truly I had no idea as to the depth of division and downright hatred 'Christian to Christian' and 'Christian to another religion' could be found within this time period.  These chapters show the progression of Christianity in a light I have never heard.  For example, she shares how "a new Christian identity was also in the process of being constructed (p180).  Yet this 'process' seemed contingent on who was in power and who was appointed to the various offices, rising and falling as fast as the rulers themselves.  The idea that Jerusalem was the city of guilt turned into the idea that Jerusalem was the "center, where the divine power had touched the frail world of humanity" (p183), following the same belief as the Jews-whom they hated-had believed for centuries.  The Christian view that God had rejected Jerusalem because of the Jews (including the grand finale of the crucifixion of Jesus) morphed into "God had rejected the Temple, not the city; he had not condemned Jerusalem but only the Jews (p191).  They introduced attitudes and laws of supremacy, including forbidding intermarriage or conversion from Christian to Jew, calling Jews 'savage,' 'abominable,' and 'blasphemous' (p192).  Continuing, Karen pens "Jesus had preached a religion of love and forgiveness, but now that Christians had come into power they were beginning to stigmatize Jews as the enemies of society, pushing them to the margins and making them outcasts as the Christians had once been.  Over and over, internal struggles of men and desires won out over justice and compassion, and it seems the very fruits preached by Jesus were not adopted by his followers.  Yet, in the name of religion, they went forth.....

I cannot help but wonder:  How in the world can we contemplate peace for the Arab/Israeli conflict when the very foundations on which the individual religions stand are at the expensive of another religion and its people.  How can one religion, in this case Christianity, stand on a foundation that was more fluid than the air around them, changing like the wind as they strove to create myths, symbols, and  sacred geography, all to give credence to the acts against humanity they perpetuated, in the name of religion.  How have we existed like this?  And Christians are not the only ones guilty of these atrocities; we all have, in one way or another, succumbed to this most primitive of survival, in the name of religion...I know that first we must take a good look inside, past the natural biases, past engrained teachings, to try to be fair, human to human....is this possible?  If not, for all our struggles and battles and war, can we ever be found pleasing in the sight of our most sacred God?

Journal Assignment 2

This assignment is intimidating to me..."drawing on our previous readings...what are my ideas for future Arab-Israeli negotiations?"  Too fast a move could cause cataclysmic results.  I first would have to consider something Thomas Edison made clear: it's not that he failed 9,999 times while trying to invent the light bulb filament.  Rather, he found 9,999 ways it would not work.  And I should also consider something Confucius pointed out: A wise man learns from his own mistakes, but a really wise man learns from the mistakes of others.  Armed with that food for thought, I think I would approach a conflict resolution by thoroughly itemizing every attempt, every hint of an attempt, of conflict resolution that 'did not work' for other wise and not so wise men through the ages.  I would list each one and appoint highly (if not overly) qualified committees to research the attempts inside and out.  Then I would try and find common denominators for any of the attempts made at conflict resolution.  Maybe they would be rated from 'almost worked' to ‘never came close.’  Also, a computer genius could surely take the millions of facts and spit them back out with some kind of pattern for consideration; a 'road-map to conflict resolution.'  Likewise, maybe they would be rated 'worth trying' to 'waste of time.'  Anticipation would build as the information was again reviewed by the committees and a final tweaking of last minute changes made before offering the road-map, in some sort of order, to the world...or at least to the involved parties.

This may sound rather simplistic, but it’s only part of what might be needed for conflict resolution.  If ground isn’t made receptive for seed, the seed is wasted and nothing grows.  Likewise, the hearts and minds of men must be made receptive.  Now, maybe this has been the real challenge all along.  How can this happen?  Reverting back to Thomas Edison, we can look at history in a million areas and see what hasn’t and what doesn’t work with people.  Realizing that we are dealing with intensely multidimensional heartfelt issues, experts would have to be gathered to discuss this aspect of conflict resolution amongst and with those involved.  

Where is the icing on the proverbial cake, the carrot on the stick…that which makes mouths water, minds consider, and hearts melt?  That may be the priceless question and the impossible answer.  But, as another wise person once told me, “Mom, if you don’t try, you’ll miss 100% of the shots!”  So, while we may try 9,999 more times to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict and find 9,999 more ways that don’t work, without working toward conflict resolution, we miss 100% of the shots, 100% of the time.  This may not be the answer to the Arab-Israeli conflict you can take and run with, but it may be one that offers a first step on the roadmap to conflict resolution.

Pressman's brief history article

Very interesting article in that Pressman wrote this in a relatively chronological order (I am figuring out that my brain can attempt to categorize it all little better this way).  And it really helped me to begin (yes begin) to look at the modern conflict between the Jews and Arabs.  "This is this, and that is that...," like a follow the dot puzzle, from 1881 to the present.  I found it fascinating that there was actually a date marking its beginning: 1881.  1881? That marked a time I guess when they could count the Arabs and Jews in Palestine, and identify them by religion...so here I am at the beginning, again.

He, step by step, walked me through dates, actions and reactions, wars and rumors of war, and even the varied attempts to resolve internal grumbles that may yet lead to a climatic ending or beginning...,only time will tell.

But, while his information made for a good 'modern conflict between Jews and Arabs' 101 course, dancing all over the details with the skill of a master, it didn't offer answers...and, it seems, the answers are the coveted key! 

Reading Response #4

Hmmm...it's getting sticky.  All kinds of questions are popping up in my head colliding with previous notions.  For example, the pull and tug of isolation versus integration found within chapter 5.  Karen writes of Jerusalem being the 'city of peace' and the concern about “the new exclusive attitude of the Golah: should not the City of God be open to everybody, as Zechariah had suggested.  Perhaps Jerusalem should open its doors to foreigners, outcasts, and eunuchs....Yahweh had proclaimed, ‘My house will be a house of prayer for all the peoples’: one day he would bring these outsiders into the city and let them sacrifice to him on Mount Zion” (p96).  Yet Nehemiah’s legislation prevented the members of the Golah from “marrying the local people.”  And it wasn’t an attempt to maintain purity of the race but rather a segregation of Golah versus Goyim to “express the new sacred geography developed in exile by such prophets as Ezekiel” (p99). I understand the importance of maintaining one’s own identity but I struggle with the seeming original attempt versus the path taken…..

Also, it surprised me when she wrote “…This was especially apparent in the new festival of Yom Kippur…” (p96).  New festival?  I thought it always was, really.  It kind of made the math click, thinking about when the words may have been penned…my goodness…maybe Yom Kippur was ‘invented’ and penned immediately?  New festival?  That is hard to digest.

A side note: I found it interesting that, probably like a ‘new festival,’ Nehemiah “forced the nobles and officials to take a solemn oath to stop charging interest (p99).  Guess I also thought this always was.  Here I read Jewish men were actually taking the sons and daughters of the poor (in addition to their fields and crops) when their loans couldn’t be repaid with interest?  I suppose there was just a lot in chapter 5 for me to ponder….I am still pondering…..

Reading Response #3

Karen Armstrong's Jerusalem: One City, three Faiths is amazing.  How does one person research and discover so much information?  She sure did a good job recording it: the beginning was a refreshing and well-written explanation of 'history' without historicity, but she made it easier for me to visualize.  And as soon as there is valid historical evidence, she quickly ties it into her story.  While the first and second chapters seem a familiar refreshment of something I enjoy reading and hearing (yep, I listen to her every day while commuting to school), I soon got into information that I am unfamiliar with.  Though I'm thoroughly absorbed with the detail of the new information I'm reading and hearing, it changes so fast, and leaves me wondering who's on first and what's on second.  And not only does it seem fast paced, but it gets faster, with more intensity and conflict.  And, each of these newcomers claim a stake in Jerusalem.  How can one city be pulled internally and externally so many different directions? 

Something that really struck me was the opening of chapter three: "The Jebusites were convinced David would never be able to conquer their city.  Jerusalem..." ...THEIR city??  I guess I always thought of Jerusalem as having been the Israelites.  And I really have wondered why the claim of the Jewish people couldn't stand intact, since it was 'always' theirs.  Now I find out it wasn't!  It was the Jebusites???  And David conquered it around 1000 BCE?  This puzzles me...is this why each conqueror can claim Jerusalem as their own?  David conquered it and claimed it 'The City of David,' so each conqueror can claim it, build upon it, and it becomes theirs?  No wonder Jerusalem is such a disputed territory: she has had so many different conquerors over her vast history....how can it ever be sorted out? 

I agree that Karen Armstrong's book offers a balanced look at Jerusalem's history.  She has found and recorded these various conquerors and approaches their conquests fairly and without bias.  I especially like her story-like approach of the time period during the Bible.  For example, in the second chapter during her 'history' of the Israelites, she writes of Abraham. She relates the story of when he is sitting outside his tent at Mamre and the three strangers approach.  It is so smooth it sounds as if she is reading a bedtime story or just relating some gathered facts.  Yet it is taken from the Bible.  And, within that writing (the bottom of page 27 in her book) she mentions, in reference to Abraham's kindness to the strangers: "With typical Near Eastern courtesy."  Wow!  Is she comparing Abraham to today's typical Near Eastern courtesy or to others around him during his time period?  Just wondering there.  Though it seems such a small point, imagine the work that went into being able to make that claim.

Reflections on the movie

Just wanted to share that I loved the movie we saw in class.  From the very beginning it drew me in and I was captured.  As the movie offered, "You can enter Jerusalem through the people there."  I felt a part of the city and it's people, like I was there walking the streets myself.  I had to laugh at the comment "I enjoy going to the market-I enjoy talking to people there...they hear my stories and I hear theirs."  What a laid-back relaxing concept...and these are the stories others, including myself, love to hear.  This is how we enter the city.  I wondered though, why they said, "According to Torah, it is a great sin to join the army."  How can it be a great sin when God Himself gave commands of military attacks by the men of Israel.  And I also wondered about the bird in the cage...at first I thought, "wow...wonder how that bird doesn't get sick carrying it around without the cage being covered..." but then it dawned on me....my gosh Barb.  You're wondering about the health of the bird, when the real question is why in the world is the guy even carrying the bird around!  Could that be an analogy  to any of the questions of Jerusalem?  Are we questioning superficial happenings and overlooking the obvious?  Guess we could do this through life...maybe I need to back out and look at the bigger picture sometimes.....then I would notice men carrying birds around in a cage, among other things.....

Weblog Journal Assignment 1

I can't say I came to class with expectations for the first week, but maybe I harbored some stereotypical expectations without knowing it.  For example, the relaxed atmosphere made me breathe a little deeper and a whole lot easier.  I love relaxed and semi-spontaneous, and that is what I felt when I walked in the door. I am accustomed to more rigid classrooms, with syllabuses that seem fixed, with words like 'quiz, exam, FINAL...' plastered in bold throughout the pages.  Just hearing that those words didn't fit into our class brought a quick smile, along with the question of what is going to replace those things. I have a better understanding after the first week of what those things are, and I am excited.  Now, excited doesn't mean I have a handle on all the expectations, or even part of them.  Rather, it means our class is going to be moving with a beat all its own and I need to try to keep pace with it, and try I will.  It reminds me of Jerusalem herself: fluid, changing, questioning.....

I can't help but wonder if our 'experimental' class, with its individual beat and its relaxed atmosphere, might be a perfect way to be able to shed the formality of apprehension I associate with a class and be more myself in thought and writing.  After all, unusual as it may seem, it's not able being right or wrong; rather about reflecting and getting involved.  That's how I perceive our class anyway.  And I think that means I can focus more on what is said-as opinions, as facts-and consider in my own head and heart how it seems to fit into a bigger picture, or if it even does.  This is so refreshing.  I am looking forward to learning in this style and environment.  And, in being able to reflect on our class (yep, I can truly take the time to do this because this is part of our class work) I can't help but realize: though fluid, changing, and questioning, like Jerusalem, it is complex...and deep....and questions can have no real answers, only more questions.....

Reading Response #2

Mike Dumper's article 'Jerusalem Then and Now' does an amazingly thorough job of dissecting and explaining Jerusalemin her changes throughout time.  I really appreciate the timeline he included.  This helps me visualize the many challengers and conquerors of the city, giving a flat-line to follow while his article builds the flesh and form of the city's history.  I may be looking at this through odd lenses, but looking at this timeline and reviewing Dumper's article, I can't help but feel that the 'frenetic pace' he alludes to is the result of Jerusalem beating either with more than one heart, or one heart out of synch.  I don't know which.....more than one heart can only result in continued divisions within the city, although they could beat together while maintaining independence.  If Jerusalem has one heart, it's irradic and unsynchronized rhythm is not healthy, and I don't see how healing can begin until the beat is steady.  Dumper says that international pressure is the only way to shift Israeli position toward change, or expect the same frenetice pace.  I think he offers that Jerusalem has only one heart, and the Israeli beat needs to get in synch.  Could it be that we expect Jerusalem to exist as one and that the various peoples within learn to exist as one?  Is it possible to expect three hearts within one city, with each beating independently yet strengthing the whole?....I suppose that is the question.....

Rashid Khalidi's 'History of Jerusalem' started out solidly from an historical approach.  I understand the importance of archeological and textual evidence.  Yet he quickly offered aspects that do not follow this approach "(Palestinians generally believe...what scholar's generally hold to be true....Muslims regard Jerusalem....").  I felt that Khalidi leaned heavily on sentiment (acquired and present) while presenting his article, though standing on the premise of history.  His conclusion of East Jerusalem being the Palestinian capital with "religious freedom for everyone at the holy sites sacred to the three Abrahamic faiths" seemed the driven purpose of this.  Well written, but I don't think he presented his argument from an historical slant.

I loved Reva Rubin's 'Jerusalem: The Holy City Through the Ages.  Smooth, flowing and positive, it left me feeling like there actually could be a 'happily ever after ending' to the story of Jerusalem: "...and Jerusalem, with all its municipal and political complexities, where Jews and Muslims, some secular and others religious, could live side by side..."  Oh how peaceful.  And the gentle offering of togetherness: "Archeological digs carried out around the city each revealed something about Jerusalem's unique history, providing rich insights into Jerusalem's role as a sacred city to Judaism, Christianity, and Islam."  There is hope, there is hope.  Why can not the rich history recounted provide a basis of understanding so all could live side by side, soft eyes and  sincere smiles of the youth able to live happily ever after?

I want to mention that there is much that interests me in regards to our final project.  I enjoy people and would love to work with ideas about how the youth perceive their neighbors and their future, and how the older ones might have felt as youth regarding the same information; how they might have felt and how they feel now about their people, their city, their culture, etc...  I would be happy to work with any ideas.  Also, I must add that I commute almost two hours each day to attend IU and do not have the luxury of spending evenings on campus.  So, if that might seem to infringe on working with any of you on our project, I have no problem just writing a final paper.  Either way, project or paper, works for me. 

Reading response for Suad Amiry's 'Researching East Jerusalem.'

I just finished reading Suad Amiry's 'Researching East Jerusalem' and was totally drawn into her writing.  I loved how she opened with the Talmudic proverb, adding her own words of wisdom to it: "When God created the world, He created 10 problems, giving 9 to Jerusalem and 1 to the world."  This is an amazing summation of the situation that has always seemed to reflect Jerusalem and the world.

I also was touched when she wrote "...see the human face of the Palestinians."  Too often I have heard of the Palestinians as a whole.  She helped to break the box Palestinians seem to be placed in and allowed eyes of individuals to be visible rather than a mass of humanity as a whole.  Also her description of Albert Aghanzarian saluting each shopkeeper along the winding streets of Jerusalem as his joy and love of Jerusalem was broadcast to all was well written.  She allowed me to feel the passion and pride he has for Jerusalem.  This is important.  She showed that Albert Aghanzarian is an individual proud of his home.  Regardless of our religion, ethnicity, nationality, or political stance, there are many who share this love, passion, and pride of Jerusalem.  Oh if we could truly consider her as the awesome and awe-inspiring city she is with the support she deserves.....

Also, her interview in 'Representing Jerusalem' seemed to recount some of what we learned in class yesterday.  But it also made me think of the word parallel.  As she dictated that East Jerusalem is Arab and West is not, and the stance that it is viewed (by Smithsonian) as neither divided or united, it reminded me of two lines running parallel.  And it is whether these two lines can ever come together that seems to be a valid question.....

Galit Hasan-Rokem's article 'Dialogue as Ethical Conduct: The Folk Festival That Was Not' spent a great deal of time on the concept of a sukka.  I was surprised at the various ways to embrace the concept of Sukkot and the sukka.  It seems so much of it centered around a secular concept; I was surprised at the depth of explanation regarding its construction.  Even the different opinions on the meanings of the colors, and the fact that when people used black you could tell they were recent to the area, where they use white.  The detail with which Rokem explains the sukka lets me know that Sukkot and its sukka is a much broader arena than I ever dreamed.  Such variation, such opinions, such diversity, amazes me.  And it is interesting that is seems disjointed so much from its religious origins; rather it serves as an identity marker for a people.

Truly it is a neat thing that the fascinating teacher of my new class is also the author of the reading assignment 'Living Jerusalem: Cultures and Communities in Conflict.'  With the work involved between the three cultures and the willingness to work toward a common goal, it does make me wonder if they have the right people negotiating the peace process.  Maybe they should utilize the same individuals that worked on the inception of this project.  Like the poem at the beginning of her article, maybe it is not the Roman arch that need to determine this; rather the man sitting with his fruit and vegetables for his family that can help solve the problems of Jerusalem.....

just thoughts.....

Hello there Living Jerusalem!

Hello there!

My name is Barb McGinness and I am easy to spot in our IU Living Jerusalem class: I'm the old-er one.  But though I may be old enough to be your mom or grandma, I am young at heart, and happy to be in this class.  When I walked through the door I was excited.  But as I sat and listened to the class introduction and details, excited no longer was enough to describe my enthusiasm.  I have become part of Living Jerusalem; not by blood or religion or nationality, but by choice.  I am joined to this fantastic opportunity to not only learn more about Jerusalem but, together with all of you, to have become a part of the life-blood beating for Jerusalem.  And I am especially excited to become aware of the many people who also are a part of Jerusalem, people I don't know yet but will come to know through this class.  It will be awesome!