Read the full Covering Religion article on Mamilla here.

This slideshow shows pictures taken during a recent Al Quds University tour of Mamilla Cemetery.

Nine centuries ago, the Knights of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem defended the place where Jesus Christ was crucified and buried, fighting the Muslims with their swords, sometimes dying in the battle. Today, however, the order is engaged in a very different kind of effort: fighting to stem the flow of Christians out of Israel.

In the last two years, the society of the knights in New York City raised more than $15 million to support the few remaining Christian communities in the Holy Land. The money goes to monastic orders in Jerusalem such as the Franciscans or the Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word, as well as housing and schools for the Christian population in Israel, Jordan and the Palestinian territories.

“Some people envision that some day there will be no followers of Christ in the Holy Land,” said Joseph Spinnato, who is part of the Grand Magisterium, the highest governing body of the order in Rome, directly supervised by the Pope. “That is something that we just don’t want to see”.

The order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem was founded in the 12th Century during the Crusades to protect the Christian presence in Jerusalem, against Muslim attacks. The knights wore a uniform comprised of a white, woolen full cape and a black velvet hat while on duty. The cape had the Jerusalem cross –the group’s insignia– attached to the left breast, below the shoulder. Currently, the membership of the group has expanded to women and members only wear their uniforms during the investiture ceremony.

Every year, around 100 new members join the order in the New York region.

The Roman Catholic order, consisting of 10,000 knights and ladies worldwide, has been trying to reinterpret the ideals of the Crusades from which it originated. The group’s original mission of preserving the faith in the Middle East and defending the Catholic Church in the Holy Land remains the same, but they have changed their approach. Now, even Muslim communities are benefiting from their actions.

“It is very difficult for the Christians to live, to work in Israel.” said Spinnato in an interview in the headquarters of the Hotel Association of New York, where he serves as chief executive officer and president. “The young people leave, the old people stay. And you have families disrupted and separated.”

According to Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics, Christians constitute 2 percent of the population in the country, and over the past decade their communities have been slowly shrinking. Arab Christians have been migrating to Europe or the United States, plus they tend to have smaller families than other minorities.

On average, 3.5 persons compose Christian households. A Jewish household contains 3.1 people and the Muslim 5.2, according the Central Bureau of Statistics.

“Christian communities are getting smaller, specially the Catholic communities because most of them go to the west and don’t come back.” said Jacob Salami, the director of the Department of Non-Jewish Affairs at the Ministry of the Interior of Israel. “They get married later and don’t have a lot of children.”

Through fundraising events, pilgrimages, and a yearly $400 annual fee, the 1,200 knights and ladies of the Holy Sepulchre in the Eastern Lieutenancy (which includes New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Connecticut) bought a plot of land for 400 Catholic families that were relocating to a small town near Amman, Jordan’s capital.

The order also helped refurbishing the School of the Latin Convent, in Jaffa Nazareth, one of the 44 Catholic schools in Israel, located in a historically Christian enclave, but now predominantly populated by Muslims.

The School of the Latin Convent is about 8 miles from the Basilica of the Annunciation, in Nazareth, northern Israel. Nazareth is one of the holiest sites in the Roman Catholic tradition; Catholics believe that in this city the angel Gabriel told Mary that she would miraculously conceive Jesus, the Son of God.

“We speak the same language, we share the same past and the same future. We are the same people.” said Father Louis Hazboun, the director of the school, during an interview in his office, just across the main hallway of the Latin Convent.

The school has 620 Arab students from kindergarten through junior high school. Two thirds of the children are Muslims, and the rest are Protestant, Greek-Orthodox or Catholic.

“We live together, so we have to include them in our activities, and they also include us in theirs.” said Hazboun, who is also an active member of several interfaith dialogue groups in Israel.

A concrete soccer field serves as the school’s main plaza, separating the classrooms from the school’s church and a smaller chapel. The sounds of the church bells sometimes mix with the Muslim call of prayer while the kids eat lunch, run or play soccer in the main plaza during the noon break. It is impossible to differentiate the kids’ religions. Nevertheless, a crucifix hanging above every classroom’s blackboard, nuns in habits and priests wearing white neck shirts along the hallways and in the administrative offices are a reminder of the school’s origin.

“We know who is Muslim, who is Latin, who is Greek, but it doesn’t matter, we are together all the time, inside the school and outside the school also,” said Jonas, a 12- year-old Catholic student, living just a few blocks from the Latin Convent.

Although the students share most of the curricula, Christians only take the religion class, while the Muslims go to the library, which has a small collection of books and videos of Christian, Muslim and Jewish faiths.

For the Christian celebrations, such as Christmas and Eastern, the Muslims are invited, but not required, to attend the events.

“A lot of the kids participate with us. But the majority prefer to stay in the library or play soccer while we pray.” said Hazboun.

Spinnato and Hazboun agree that running a Catholic school where the majority of the students are Muslims will help to strengthen the ties between two communities, fostering interfaith dialogue and creating better living environment for Christians in Israel.

“It’s a good idea to take Muslim and Christian students together, because they live together,” said Salami, from the Ministry of Interior. “They build their cities, so this is a step of creating more inclusive communities.”

For Spinnato, being part of the order of the Holy Sepulchre gives the members an opportunity to strengthen their faith by being part of an organization with a specific mission, important for the Catholic Church and with clear impact in the Holy Land.

“We just don’t go parading around in fancy robes.” said Spinnato.

When a Jewish boy reaches 13 years of age, he becomes a bar mitzvah. Many choose to do it at the Western Wall, in Jerusalem, the holiest site in Judaism.

The highlights of our March 16, 2010 Daily Dispatch included visits to the Church of Annunciation, the proposed site of Shihab a-Din mosque and the Lights of Peace Sufi Center, all in Nazareth. More highlights included our  travel to Safed, one of the four holy cities in Israel and the center of Jewish mysticism and our visit Meron to see the Tomb of Shimon Bar Yohai.

JERUSALEM — In the morning, the Western Wall casts its huge shadow upon those who approach it – as it has been for some 2,000 years.

Men wearing the talit and the tefillin, religious garb worn by Jews, gather in this shade as the sun rises in the east. For them, this is the holiest in Judaism, the only remnant of the Second Temple in Jerusalem. They are joined by a handful of tourists, donning translucent white skullcaps or kipas that are distributed at the entrance.

Together, the men pray with their faces pressed to the cool limestone bricks, or by rocking gently as they read from Torahs placed on wooden tables.. By the end of each year, the Israeli Ministry of Tourism estimates that more than 3 million people would have stood at the Western Wall.

Occasionally, a voice shrill and clear punctuates their collective murmur. It comes from a man sitting among a sea of plastic chairs and wooden tables, outside the shadow of the Wall, and in the warmth of the morning sun.

He moves his fingers slowly across a holy book, as if caressing its words, and sings.

Every few minutes, he stops. His break is well deserved, for Baruch, 57, has been praying since 2 a.m.

And he has been doing so for 20 years.

“It’s over for me in two minutes,” he said. “Twenty years like one day and I get old so quickly.”Baruch, who would not give his last name, strokes the white beard that runs down his chest. When he turns, it brushes the label of his North Face jacket, which he unzipped to expose his belly. His face is tanned and when he laughs, the crow’s feet around his eyes further hint at the long hours out in the elements.

And perhaps, of his past.

Baruch used to work as an odd job laborer, doing construction work for homes where he “fixed everything.” He said that he is married and lives with his family in Jerusalem.

But 20 years ago, his father told him to go to the Western Wall to pray.

“Before he died, he told me, ‘You come here and see what happens to you’,” said Baruch. “And it’s come to me.”

And Baruch has been here everyday since, praying for eight hours each time. He does not work anymore.

“Because too much holy,” he said. “I cannot do nothing, so some people come and give me something.”

A man walks up to Baruch, and after exchanging greetings, passes him a bunch of herbs from a red plastic bag. Baruch thanks him, presses the herbs to his face, and smells them.

“I only need food from the Torah,” he said. “I drink the Torah.”

By 10 a.m., the Wall’s shadow has receded and the plaza is filled with tourists. An armed solider and a Hasidic Jew pray side by side at the Wall, and the tourists raise their cameras. A few of the men press on to their distributed kipas as a breeze picks up, as if fearful of unwittingly committing a religious faux pas. Soon after, a teacher leads a group of Hasidic school boys towards the Wall to pray, and their youthful voices reverberate out into the plaza.

Baruch puts his book into a backpack, walks towards the crowd, and disappears.

The Iraqi Invasion has created one of the world’s largest groups of refugees. Three million are displaced within the country and another two million have fled to neighboring countries like Jordan fearing religious and political persecution. Tammy Mutasa reports on one Iraqi refugee’s bittersweet tale for survival in Jordan.

Men line up to pray outside the Old City on Friday, March 19. (Sam Petulla/Journey to Jerusalem)

Police officers in Jerusalem form a line as they watch protesters. (Sommer Saadi/Journey to Jerusalem)

Muslim men pray during a protest in Jerusalem. (Sommer Saadi/Journey to Jerusalem)

Demonstrators hold signs in opposition of settlements in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of Jerusalem. (Sommer Saadi/Journey to Jerusalem)

A woman pleads with officers to be allowed through Damascus Gate on Friday, Jerusalem. (Mamta Badkar/Journey to Jerusalem)

Protestors stand talking in Jerusalem as police officers look on. (Mamta Badkar/Journey to Jerusalem)

Between prayers, a protestor watches police officers in Jerusalem. (Mamta Badkar/Journey to Jerusalem)