(A version of this essay was recently published in The Jerusalem Report.)
Across the world in the last 40 years politically organized religious forces have played an increasingly important role in national politics. From India to Indonesia, from Lebanon to Israel, from the United States to Russia, organized religion has increased its impact on politics.
We are also aware of the frightening rise of very violent religion, expressed through terror groups. For this reason, it is easy to misunderstand the relationship between religion on the one hand and between states and ethnic groups and their very secular interests, on the other hand.
Precisely because so many millions of people care about religion, religion has become an essential
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The hardest part of building peace for the future is freeing oneself from the wounds of war, the mutual recriminations of the present, the painful memories of a lost past, and the unreasonable fantasies of a world where one’s enemies magically disappear. Sometimes the way forward is to free the mind to build a different world, a world of practical possibilities should peace be achieved.
Let’s imagine the following: a full peace treaty between Israel and Palestine, official creation of a state of Palestine on the West Bank and Gaza, with East Jerusalem as its capital, a shared civil regime for the quarter mile of the Holy Basin in the Old City of Jerusalem that is overseen by…
In Jerusalem’s Mamilla cemetery, Rawan Dajani stands before a mausoleum where her ancestor Sheikh Ahmed Dajani was buried nearly 450 years ago.
By Omar Kasrawi
Standing outside a mausoleum in Jerusalem’s Mamilla cemetery, Rawan Dajani bows her head and cups her hands upward in prayer for her ancestor Sheikh Ahmed Dajani. He was buried in Mamilla, the oldest Muslim burial ground in Jerusalem, nearly half a millennium ago.
About 200 meters away, a fenced-off construction zone marks the future site of the Center for Human Dignity – Museum of Tolerance, a project overseen by…
This is the day in the Jewish calendar that is the eve of destruction, commemorating all the catastrophes of the last 2500 years, the forced exiles, the crusades, the massacres, the pogroms, an authentically religious national day of mourning for millions of jewish innocents over the ages. Only what is different from profane forms of Jewish mourning, is that religious mourning looks inward, introspectively, not outward for scapegoats. And this is the difference between heaven and hell, the hell created by profane nationalism, and the heaven created by spiritual identity.
I heard a homily in a synagogue yesterday that turned my stomach so badly that I had to leave. It was a celebration of conquest, precisely at this…
Professional Development Seminar in Citizen Diplomacy
Based in Jerusalem with day trips to neighboring cities and Holy sites
REGISTER TODAY – LIMITED SPACE
- Contact: Scott Cooper or Becca Grimm at ‘crdc@gmu.edu‘ or 1-703-993-4473 (USA)
This seminar will be a combination of theory exploration, training, and concrete practice in the field. Based on Dr. Gopin’s most recent theories
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Here’s an excerpt from Michael Felsen’s article for the Jerusalem Post:
One of the stops on her Going Rogue book promotional tour last week was ABC’s Good Morning America. Noting that the Obama administration doesn’t want Israel to build any more settlements on what it considers Palestinian territory, interviewer Barbara Walters asked the former Alaska governor/vice presidential candidate for her view.
Palin’s response: “I disagree with the Obama administration on that. I believe that the Jewish settlements should be allowed to be expanded upon because the population of Israel is going to grow. More and more Jewish people will be flocking to Israel in the days and weeks and months ahead. And I don’t think that the Obama
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By Aziz Abu Sarah
Israel’s approval of hundreds of new housing units in East Jerusalem is currently generating uproar in the international community, as it should. However, as the media has clamored to cover the government decision, many missed yesterday’s demolition of two Arab houses in the Jerusalem neighborhoods of Issawiyah and Silwan.
I was visiting my parents’ home in Issawiyah yesterday when the trouble started. I walked outside, only to encounter hundreds of Israeli police and soldiers on every corner and roof in the neighborhood. It didn’t take me long to realize that a house was about to be demolished.
The soldiers had closed the entrances to the neighborhood to prevent media and protesters from accessing…
Dear friends,
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MEJDI LLC is a socially responsible corporation that supports economic justice and equality through wealth creation as an effective response to violence and war.
Our mission at MEJDI is to innovate conflict-sensitive approaches to wealth creation in the Middle East, in order that opportunities for peace and economic justice may flourish.
MEJDI’s Products and Services include:
1. MEJDI’s unique mix of business and conflict resolution experts creates professional tours to Palestine, Israel, and other regional destinations, in full collaboration…
‘Jews who sell to Arabs are enemies’
By Matthew Wagner
A Jew who sells land to an Arab in Israel should not be allowed to lead prayers in synagogue, should not be given the right to make a blessing during the Torah reading, should not be counted among the quorum needed for public prayers and is considered an abettor to the enemies of Israel, according to a halachic decision issued on Monday night by a group of rabbis calling themselves “The New Sanhedrin.”
What astonishes are the last lines of this piece:
Eliyahu said that in his own city of Safed, a Jew who sold to an Arab was boycotted by the community. “He owned a grocery store and
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Going Rogue on the West Bank
by mgopin on December 5, 2009 · 2 comments
Here’s an excerpt from Michael Felsen’s article for the Jerusalem Post:
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