Families at Shevet Achim. Michelle Bradburn, second from the left (Mariana Cristancho-Ahn/Journey to Jerusalem)

JERUSALEM – Um Parwa, the mother of six-year old Kurdish girl known as Parwa, was inconsolable. The mother, dressed in a tunic-style purple dress kept trying to contain herself by rubbing the tears from her eyes with both hands.

Mother and daughter had arrived in Israel in February for what the mother hoped would be life-saving heart surgery for Parwa’s heart. A month later, a delay in the procedure, as well as the separation anxiety from the rest of her children in northern Iraq, was making Um Parwa distressed. Next to her, two volunteers, Donna Taylor-West, 60, and Michelle Bradburn, 19, tried to comfort her. They reminded her that her sacrifice was the only hope to save her daughter’s life.

The opportunity to come to Israel for the surgery – and the support offered while waiting for the operation– was made possible by an organization called Shevet Achim, an Israeli-based Christian organization that helps bring children from Iraq and the Gaza Strip to Israeli hospitals for surgery.

Shevet Achim’s team of eight volunteers and three staff members make the necessary arrangements to bring the children and a parent and host them during the time of the treatment which could take from a couple of months to a year. The accompanying parent is usually the mother and she is so identified with her child that she inevitably becomes known as “um” or “mother of” her daughter rather than by her own name.

The surgeries are performed by Israeli doctors at the Wolfon Medical Center in Holon and at the Schneider Children Medical Center in Petach Tikvah, which hold down the costs to $5,000 to $7,000, a fraction of what they would otherwise cost. The funds are obtained through fundraising campaigns by the hospitals, Shevet Achim and NGOs.

According to the director, Jonathan Miles, 100 children have received heart surgeries and treatments since the organization was founded in 1994.

Taylor-West said that she was moved by the interfaith effort of Christians and Jews working together to save a Muslim life. “It gives me the opportunity to show them the love of Christ through strangers they always heard were their enemies,” she said.

By the middle of March 2010 four Kurdish and two Arab families – mother and child – were staying at Shevet Achim. In the cozy first floor living and dining room the families gather to eat and spend time together. Bradburn speaks some Kurdish and is able to hold basic conversations with them. She also helps translate. A seven-year-old boy named Barzan joined her in singing as the music of a Christian Kurdish song played in the background.

Up in the bedroom children were running amid the two rows of black metal-framed single size beds set side by side. Um Parwa had calmed down and was playing with her daughter. “Since I’ve been here God has given me a heart for the Kurdish people,” Bradburn said. She said she has witnessed amazing transformations.

“When they come here often times their fingers are blue and their lips are blue for having no oxygen,” said Bradburn. “And then you see them after the surgery, if all goes well, they are pink for the fist time, and they start playing.”

Located on Prophet Street, about 10 minutes away by car from Jerusalem’s Old City, Shevet Achim is based in the same historic building that once housed the first children’s hospital in Jerusalem. A plaque outside the stone-walled entrance states that this was the site of the Marienstift Children Hospital, which operated from 1872 to 1899.

Miles, 48, a former journalist and teacher from New York, founded Shevet Achim and moved it into the old hospital building. He took the name from the Hebrew words of Psalm 133, “Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brothers to dwell together in unity.”

“I though this passage spoke better about what we are really working at the end,” he said.

Miles, a Christian, has been involved in helping people in the region since 1991. By 1994 he started bringing children from Gaza to have heart surgeries at Israeli hospitals. He lived in the Gaza Strip with his family for five years. Now he lives in Amman where he makes the connections with Iraqi and Kurdish families to bring their children to Israel.

Taylor-West, Bradburn, Miles and other volunteers maintain blogs with updates of the children’s progress on Sheven Achim’s website. According to the blog about Barzan, he recovered and went back home to Iraq on March 26th. Parwa had a successful catheterization on April 7th and went back on April 16th. “I was surprised by the tears from both my coworkers and the traveling moms when it came time to say goodbye,” wrote Taylor-West in the Parwa’s blog under a picture that shows her, Um Parwa and Parwa smiling.

Bradburn says that she is motivated by her Christian faith to do what she does and, while not overtly trying to convert them to Christianity, she hopes the families could eventually get to experience the same understanding of God that she has.

“My greatest joy being here is to see them change physically and get healthier,” said Bradburn, “but most of all, to see them grow in hope, peace and knowledge that God is sovereign, and that he loves them.”

Um Parwa and her daughter (Mariana Cristancho-Ahn/Journey to Jerusalem)

Um Barzan and her son (Mariana Cristancho-Ahn/Journey to Jerusalem)

Yaniv Gliksman stands at the site of new housing project at Hanaton (Lim Wui Liang/Journey to Jerusalem)

Nazareth, Israel – Just four years after Kibbutz Hanaton’s population dwindled to 11 and the kibbutz faced bankruptcy, a most unexpected revival has occurred, symbolized by a small tractor clearing a verdant bluff overlooking the Lower Galilee for the construction of 34 houses.

Hanaton, Israel’s only Masorti kibbutz, is back from the brink and thriving, said Yaniv Gliksman, director of operations at Hanaton Educational Center, which offers programming and lodging to local Israelis and tourists. Spurred by the increase in recent years of likeminded native-born Masorti Jews and a shift away from the traditional socialist model, almost 20 new member families will relocate to Hanaton in the coming year.

More familiarly known as Conservative Judaism in North America, Masorti, which means “traditional” in Hebrew, was largely developed by American immigrants in the early 1960s. A pluralistic Jewish movement that emphasizes religious inclusion rather than difference, Masorti as of late has garnered popularity among a more homegrown crowd – at Hanaton, for example, around 75 percent of residents are native-born Israeli.

In a country divided by the religious Orthodox status quo and a vast secular population, the Masorti movement is a blip on a national religious grid that pushes non-Orthodox strains of Judaism to the margins. Even still, Masorti’s egalitarian brand of Judaism is alive and well at Hanaton, which began as an outpost for Conservative American Jews in 1983 and is currently becoming a so-called “renewed kibbutz” – meaning Hanaton is diverging from the kibbutz movement’s traditional economic model of collective subsistence toward a more privatized system.

Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Israel’s Kibbutz Movement tried and failed to keep Hanaton afloat under the collective model. By 2008, Masorti families began to buy into the kibbutz. Now, for example, Hanaton members own their homes and keep their salaries, but pay dues and collectively own public land and buildings. The kibbutz, once supported by raising sheep and a small rug business, now generates most income from its educational center.

Seventy people live at Hanaton, and while not all identify as Masorti, all alternative forms of Jewish practice are accepted. “When you build an institution like a Conservative kibbutz,” said Rabbi Jerome Epstein, chief Israel affairs officer for United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, “you help bring it away from the margins and into the center.” Mentioned in the Book of Joshua, Hanaton was one of the first cities encountered by the Israelites when they entered Canaan.

Gliksman moved his wife, a clothing designer, and two-year-old triplets to Hanaton from Jerusalem in June 2009. A brawny and deeply tanned 30 year old, Gliksman believes Hanaton can do its part to undermine what many progressive religious Jews consider to be Israel’s ongoing “Haredization” – basically defined as the shift toward stringent Orthodox religious doctrine.

“I think it’s the best place for a Masorti Jew in Israel,” Gliksman, who was born in Jerusalem, said of Hanaton in an email. “It’s important to have Conservative, Reform, and other ways of expressing Judaism, so this diversity will reach all the Jewish citizens of Israel.”

Unlike the United States, where the Conservative and Reform movements dominate the religious landscape, Israel’s rabbinical authority is dogmatically Orthodox. With little political or religious capital, the kibbutz, Epstein said, can be a place for Masorti Jews to foster their own identity.

“When I look at the more dynamic Conservative communities in North America,” he said, “I see communities where there is a nucleus of people living as Conservative Jews, and that nucleus is able to attract others. It’s the same concept with the kibbutz; it can serve as a nucleus that will draw other people in.”

After success throughout the 1980s, the kibbutz began to nosedive financially. With a dwindling population and unable to even sustain a daily minyan, the kibbutz was forced to outsource food production and lease out its fields. By 2006, Hanaton, bruised and broken, was home to only 11 members.

“About three years ago, a decision was made to try and revive it,” said Andrew Sacks, a Jewish Theological Seminary-ordained rabbi and director of the Rabbinical Assembly in Israel. In 2008, the United Kibbutz Movement “offered people the chance to buy homes on the kibbutz and become members for a low cost. All of a sudden, a bunch of committed Masorti Jews, who otherwise wouldn’t have enough money to buy beautiful homes, could try to create a Masorti community that won’t only serve our needs, but serve as a base. And that’s exactly what’s happening now.”

This year marks the 100th anniversary of Israel’s kibbutz movement, which historically was a bastion of secularism, and served as the linchpin of Israel’s early socialist-Zionist movement. Now, according to Haifa University’s Institute for the Research on the Kibbutz, Hanaton is one of 192 kibbutzim – of 256 – that have semi- or fully privatized; collectivized living is becoming a thing of the past.

While Hanaton might be a beacon for liberal-minded, progressive Israeli Jews, it likely won’t prove to be transformational. “I don’t think Hanaton will lead the movement anywhere,” said Sacks, who also writes a Jerusalem Post blog called “Masorti Matters,” “but I have little doubt it has the potential to become well known for its educational offerings and ritual offerings.”

Many in the Masorti movement, Sacks said, are “refugees” from the Orthodox world, meaning their openness is still informed by a strong sense of religious expression and identification. Epstein, on the other hand, suggested many Jews that join the Masorti movement aren’t religiously affiliated and want an experience less demanding than Orthodoxy.

“It is important to us to be accepting and open,” said Rabbi Haviva Ner-David, who moved to Hanaton with her family in July and defines herself as post-denominational, in an email. “We have people who come to shul each week and are very active in that aspect of the community, and we have those who come irregularly. We have people who drive on Shabbat, and people who don’t. Some couples use the mikveh [ritual bath] and some don’t. But everyone agrees on the egalitarian tefillot [prayers] and the open and accepting attitude.”

While the Hanaton closes its gates to traffic for the Sabbath, some residents park their cars outside the kibbutz; and while the kibbutz follows kashrut, not everyone keeps kosher. “It’s a mix,” Ner-David said. “This is a blessing and a challenge. Diversity is good in my opinion. But it does require more tolerance and flexibility on the part of the community members.”

While disparate forms of Jewish observance can co-exist at Hanaton, non-Orthodox strains have a tougher time in the national arena. For example, only 16 kibbutzim are officially considered religious. Hanaton isn’t one of them.

With roughly 50 Masorti congregations nationwide, opportunities for organized practice are few and far between. The Chief Rabbinate of Israel, which regulates aspects of Jewish life – marriage, burial, kashrut – and only recognizes Orthodox conversions and rabbinical ordinations, doesn’t allocate state funds for the Masorti movement. And with a budget that runs around a meager $3 million – most of which comes from the Jewish Agency and congregation dues – it’s difficult for consolidated Masorti communities to take root.

As a result, “it’s much more costly and much less convenient to be Conservative or Reform,” Epstein said. “You can associate with the Orthodox without any expense at all.”

Even still, that Israelis, not Americans, instigated Hanaton’s reincarnation encourages Gliksman. The 200-member strong Be’er Sheva congregation is 75 percent native-born, South American and Russian, according to Sacks, who believes the “overwhelming majority outside of Jerusalem is non-Anglo.” Sacks said he’s the only American-born individual working in the Rabbinical Assembly’s Israel offices.

As Hanaton gets ready to break ground to accommodate its new member families, there’s reason to hope the kibbutz augurs well for the Masorti movement at large. Participating with Yediot Aronoth, a national newspaper, the movement published a Masorti prayer book last December, which, after reaching number four on Israel’s nonfiction bestseller list, is in its second printing.

“I feel the future is bright,” Gliksman said. “The kids of the new immigrants that established the Masorti movement are adults; it’s easier because they are more accepted by Israeli society. It’s important when you hear someone on the news talking about the movement and he does not have an English accent. It may seem right.”

Protestors gather outside Sheikh Jarrah, East Jerusalem to oppose the eviction of Palestinian families. (Mamta Badkar/Journey to Jerusalem)

JERUSALEM – On a nippy Friday afternoon early this spring, about 200 protesters gather, as they have every Friday since August 2009, to loudly voice their anger over the  Israeli government’s eviction of several Palestinian families from their homes in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of East Jerusalem.

One demonstrator carries a sign that says “Stop the occupation” in green finger paint. Another sign reads: “Peace yes, Apartheid wall no.”

Nearby, a band of drummers and cymbalists lead a noisy song of protest over a gramophone while demonstrators pump their fists into the air, a physical echo of the music.

One protester has attended every protest since January and as a Jew, she is proud to participate in the protests every Friday. “This is a basic human injustice and it’s not just the Arabs that are against it, Israelis are against it too,” she said.

The group that gathers is predominantly secular and Jewish, although there are also a few Arabs and religious Jews, identified by their yarmulkes. The demonstrators include left-wing liberals and former ministers and members of the Knesset such as Avraham Burg, Yossi Sarid, Muhamad Bark’e and Uri Avneri.

Many local Arabs appreciate the support. “There are no problems with us and Jewish people,” said Nabil al-Kurd, 66, whose home in Sheikh Jarrah is the subject of dispute. “Jews come and protest outside. It’s the settlers. It’s not Jews against Muslims,” he said explaining where the conflict lies.

But the term “settler” has different connotations for Israelis and Arabs. For most Israelis, settlers are those who live in settlements in the occupied West Bank. But for Arabs, a settler is also an Israeli who lives in the parts of Jerusalem that were captured during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. The international community refuses to recognize Israel’s annexation of all of Jerusalem.

“There is no relationship between us and the settlers,” said al-Kurd.

For Arabs, settlers include those moving into the old Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood as well as those living in such new Jerusalem communities as Ramat Shlomo.

The recent announcement by the Israeli government that it was preparing to build 1,600 new units in Ramat Shlomo has put a strain on Israel’s relations with its long term ally, the United States. Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met the announcement with emphatic disapproval, both questioning the wisdom of such a move while the United States was trying to get peace talks going between Israelis and Palestinians.

The tensions in Sheikh Jarrah are another flash point that could derail the peace talks. The drama began in August 2009 when the Israeli high court cleared the way for the evacuation of 28 Palestinian homes in the neighborhood. Further court decrees forced 53 people from their homes in August, creating ripples that have escalated to weekly demonstrations outside the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood. Al-Kurd, surrendered the keys to the front section of his house, to the court on November 3, 2009. The Israeli courts gave the homes to Israelis who had competing claims to the properties.

Nabil al-Kurd has had to surrender the keys to the front section of his house to the Israeli High Court. He stands looking towards demonstrators that have gathered outside Sheikh Jarrah every Friday since August 2009. (Mamta Badkar/Journey to Jerusalem)

The eviction orders for the families in Sheikh Jarrah stem from the Sephardic Community Committee and Knesset Yisrael Association’s efforts to have the land registered to them by the Israel Lands Administration. They have since sold their claims to Nahalat Shimon International, a settler organization that plans on building 200 units for future Jewish settlers and park land on the grounds of Sheikh Jarrah.

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency, known as UNRWA, together with the Jordanian Ministry of Development gave Palestinian refugees these homes in 1956 with the proviso that they give up their refugee status and aid. The property rights to the land were to be transferred to the families at the end of three years, according to the UNWRA. The residents are still waiting.

According to the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, the Jordanian government resettled Arabs in Sheikh Jarrah after Jordan annexed East Jerusalem in 1950. Jewish groups have tried to acquire land in the area for settlers since the Six Day War of 1967 when Israel regained control of East Jerusalem.

Israel’s Central Bureau of statistics estimates that the settler population in 2008 excluding East Jerusalem grew at 4.7-percent compared to the general population which increased by 1.6-percent.

Those opposed to the evictions note that the Oslo Peace Accords of 1993 strictly prohibits both parties from engaging in action that might undermine future negotiations on Jerusalem. Furthermore, they note, the United Nations Security Council Resolution 446 forbids Israel from altering the Arab territories, including Jerusalem, and resettling its civilian population into territories that have been occupied since 1967. One Sheikh Jarrah resident, Suzanne Abid, 55, blames the Israeli government for expressly breaking the Oslo and U.N. conditions.

“We have four generations here. From 1973, they’ve said we have this land but they give houses to the settlers coming from outside of Israel,” she said striking her thigh repeatedly. “From the north to the south Palestine is Arab land. Not for Jewish people from Sweden, America, Poland and Germany. This is not their home.”

The hostilities between the Arab and Israeli residents of Sheikh Jarrah wax and wane. “They climbed on the roof and beat up my mother and children,” said al-Kurd of the settlers in his East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah. “She still can’t raise her arm properly,” he said mimicking his mother’s restricted movements, as his grandson ran over to tell him a settler had just spit on the boy’s grandmother.

According to the International Solidarity Movement, al-Kurd was arrested briefly on April 11, when settlers in the neighborhood tried to destroy the property. Both Al-Kurd and the settlers were eventually released without any charges.

The Jewish settlers in the conflicted area have also been privy to violent attacks by Arab residents and left-wing protesters. On April 5, a Jewish settler in Sheikh Jarrah was hurt after a Arab residents threw stones at haredi Jews near the tomb of Shimon Hatzadik. The attacks come a month after 250 protesters made up of both Arabs and Jews attempted to march to the settler homes, chanting anti-occupation slogans. Eight demonstraters were arrested in the clashes between police and the resisting mob of protesters.

Haren Veni and Paula Schwabel Jewish residents of Jerusalem come to Sheikh Jarrah to show their solidarity with the Palestinian families being evicted from their homes. (Mamta Badkar/Journey to Jerusalem)

Israelis in favor of the settlers moving into Sheikh Jarrah attest to their rights to return to Jewish homes which they say belonged to them before the 1948 war, when most Jewish residents fled the area. Those pushing for Jews to reclaim the land, argue that the very essense of zionism is the Jewish people’s assertion of land that has always belonged to them. The fear that other territories, neightborhoods, and even individual homes could face the same plight as Sheikh Jarrah is playing on the minds of protesters on both sides of the fence.

With the protests well under way, Haren Veni a Jewish resident of Jerusalem takes his place to the left of the singing protesters. Wearing a sweater stamped with “Free Sheikh Jarrah,” Veni, 48, leans against a parked car and crosses his arms nodding his head in the direction of the main checkpoint. “Injustice is carried out here. There is no way to justify taking innocent people out their home,” he said, voice raised over the drumming protesters. “We cannot accept this situation of one-sided hate.”

An Accompanying slide show of Mamilla Cemetery can be found here.

Rawan Dajani outside her ancestor's mausoleum in Mamilla. (Omar Kasrawi/Journey to Jerusalem)

JERUSALEM — Standing outside a mausoleum in Jerusalem’s Mamilla cemetery, Rawan Dajani bows her head and cups her hands upwards. Silently she mouths the words of the Quran’s first chapter, “In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful. Praise be to Allah, Lord of the worlds.” The prayer is for her ancestor Sheikh Ahmed Dajani, who was buried in Mamilla, the oldest Muslim burial ground in Jerusalem, nearly half a millennia ago.

Approximately 200 meters away, a fenced off construction zone marks the future site of the California-based Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Center for Human Dignity–Museum of Tolerance. In 2002 the City of Jerusalem allotted the Center land that is considered part of the cemetery, according to a 1936 governmental survey map. The Center will focus on “issues of global anti-Semitism, extremism and human dignity,” according to the Museum’s website.

The Center broke ground in 2004, and construction has displaced hundreds of Muslim graves dating as far back as the 7th century. The human remains were discovered during an archeological dig, referred to as a “salvage excavation,” before building began. Salvage excavations are conducted by the Israel Antiquities Authority to document and rescue antiquities prior to construction operations.

The controversy surrounding Mamilla cemetery is not unique in Israel. Protests have been held against many construction plans because of concerns that gravesites will be desecrated. Ultra-Orthodox Jewish groups have especially taken up this cause, like in the recent case of the Barzalai Medical Center in Ashkelon, where groups have protested the construction of an emergency ward on top of a Jewish cemetery.

Sometimes building plans are halted and diverted and sometimes they go ahead despite the protests, like in the case of Ashkelon. In a recent decision, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reversed plans to have the ward relocated, citing security and economic concerns.

What is unusual about Mamilla, however, is that because the controversy involves a Jewish organization and a Muslim gravesite in Jerusalem, it’s more an issue of foreign policy than domestic policy.

The Wiesenthal project is the latest among several that have encroached upon the Mamilla cemetery. It has provoked petitions from Palestinian descendants of the buried, as well as such groups as Rabbis for Human Rights and the Center for Jewish Pluralism. Dajani, whose family’s name is prominent in Palestine, is one of those petitioners.

“I feel like I have lots of energy to do something” about the construction, said Dajani, 26, who works at Al-Quds University. “But at the end I understand that this is very difficult. The Israelis will not let us do anything easily.”

Protest efforts include restoring headstones and circulating petitions designed to pressure the Israeli government and the Wiesenthal Center into halting construction. One such petition, sponsored by the Campaign to Preserve Mamilla Jerusalem Cemetery, has reached the United Nations Human Rights Council.

The council passed a resolution on March 24 that “expresses its grave concern at the excavation of ancient tombs” and “calls upon the government of Israel to immediately desist from such illegal activities.” The resolution passed 31 to 10 with six abstentions, and among the 10 naysayers were the U.S. and several European nations.

“This is a small victory, but it’s important to get this language on the books,” said Dima Khalidi, legal counsel for the families who signed the petition. “This shows that it’s a human rights violation not an isolated denial of Palestinian rights.”

However, Wiesenthal Center leaders believe that the UN Human Rights Council decision holds no legitimacy.

“The council is just a template for Israel bashing,” said Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean at the Simon Wiesenthal Center. “You have pretty much the kangaroo court. Israel is the only nation on the planet that is exclusively singled out by that august body.”

The cemetery’s controversial history can be traced to the building of the Palace Hotel in 1929. The Mufti of Jerusalem, who commissioned the hotel, kept secret the discovery of graves during construction, according to Israeli historian Tom Segev in his book One Palestine, Complete. Petitioners argue, however, that the Palace hotel was never within the cemetery boundaries defined during Ottoman rule in the 1860s.

Despite its designation as an antiquities site in 1944 by the British Mandate, several projects have continued to encroach upon the cemetery grounds located in western Jerusalem. These include Independence Park built in the 1960s, a parking lot built in 1964, the building of access roads and the laying of electric cables.

The fact that there have been other things built in the area is part of the Weisenthal Center’s rationale for building the Museum of Tolerance. Supporters of the center argue that Muslims in both Palestinian territories and the Arab world have built roads, commercial centers and public buildings on their own cemeteries.

“It is preposterous to hold the Center for Human Dignity to a higher standard than the Muslims adhere to themselves,” reads the Wiesenthal website.

The Wiesenthal Center also cites several additional factors in support of its construction plan: a lack of protests against the previous construction, the failure to file proper objections at city council meetings and the 1964 declaration by a Muslim judge that the cemetery was no longer sanctified. Additionally, the Center argues that the museum is not even being built on the cemetery, but rather on the adjacent municipal car park. Last December, the Israeli Supreme Court upheld the ruling that construction could continue.

In response, Palestinians say there have been protests since the 1960s. They also say that the Muslim judge’s ruling was invalid because evidence from recent excavations proves there were still bones under the parking lot, a conclusion supported by the Shariaa High Court of Appeals, which filed a letter outlining that defense to the Israel-Palestine Center for Research and Information sometime after February 2006.

Gideon Sulimani, chief archaeologist in charge of excavating the museum site, discovered more than 200 bodies during the dig in 2005. Sulimani was appointed by the Israel Antiquities Authority, a governmental body tasked with preserving the integrity of historical sites. Sulimani says they only excavated 10 percent of the area and estimates up to 1,000 bodies may remain buried. He recommended the site not be released for construction because of the discovery of those bodies. Regardless, he says in his affidavit, the Antiquities Authorities informed the Supreme Court “almost the entire area of excavation had been cleared for construction because it contains no further scientific data.”

“It’s part of the conflict about who owns the land,” Sulimani said. “It’s not archaeology. It’s not science. They want to move away the Muslim memory of the area to make it Jewish. So it’s totally politics.”

According to its website, the Israel Antiquities Authority could require a construction site to move, depending on an excavation’s findings, but that such a change is “quite rare.” In most cases “the IAA will permit work to continue, with the exception of the section destined for rebuilding, which will be completely excavated, documented and finds removed from the site prior to its destruction.”

The Antiquities Authority did not respond to repeated attempts for a comment specific to the Mamilla case.

Protest leaders say the cemetery is a clear example of the deep Palestinian roots in Jerusalem, and that construction on top of the cemetery is an attempt by the Israeli government to minimize the Palestinian identity. Jerusalemite families have been buried in the cemetery for the past 1,000 years, and archeological evidence supports the claim that the remains of soldiers and officials of the Muslim ruler Saladin are among the buried.

Some of the Palestinians involved believe that the planned construction cannot be stopped but are hopeful that even as the new museum rises, their efforts will bring some acknowledgment to the Muslim burial ground that once stood on the site. According to Diyala Husseini Dajani, an active protestor with family ties to Mamilla, nearly $18,000 was raised to support a memorial wall that will display the names of everyone buried in the cemetery.  At the very least, she maintains that such a wall will restore the Palestinian presence to the area.

“It’s not that I’m concerned about the graves as much as I’m concerned about the fact that we don’t exist” to the Israelis, Husseini said. “We are maybe just souls–like those in the graveyard.”

Rabbi Matisyahu Deutsch is one of Ramat Shlomo's religious leaders. (Jose Leyva/Covering Religion)

RAMAT SHLOMO, JERUSALEM –It’s nearly sundown Wednesday afternoon, and Edan Baruch’s produce stand here is crowded with Orthodox women in long denim skirts, scarves covering their hair, hurriedly buy groceries before dinner.

Baruch, 27, quickens his pace. With the help of a young boy with blond side curls, he unloads the vegetables in his truck and tends to his customers. Baruch looks forward to finishing work so he can drive home to Ramot, another Jerusalem neighborhood just a few miles away.

Baruch wishes that he too could live in Ramat Shlomo but, he explains, the demand for housing here is so high, he couldn’t find an affordable apartment to rent, let alone buy.
“I need a room here, and I don’t have,” Baruch said. “My father and my mother live here, my world is here, all my friends, all my family live here.”

Baruch thought his housing troubles were over when the Israeli Interior Ministry announced plans to add 1,600 new units to Ramat Shlomo. But the announcement coincided with Vice President Joe Biden’s visit to Israel flung the ultra-Orthodox neighborhood into international controversy.

Baruch’s fate still hangs in the balance.

The Obama Administration continues to demand a halt to the expansion, while, Netanyahu’s government said there has been no change in Jerusalem’s construction policy. But Israel’s district committee has stopped all new construction.

Baruch’s situation is typical. He, and many ultra-Orthodox twenty-somethings represent a population explosion that has been taking place for some time within Israel’s Haredi community. And Israeli officials say the expansion is a direct response to their need for housing.

In Ramat Shlomo, the demand for housing is particularly high both because of the Haredim’s high birth rates, and the religious zeal to be near Jerusalem.

Ramat Shlomo is located in an outlying area of East Jerusalem—on land that was annexed by Israel after the 1967 war. The Israeli government considers the neighborhood as part of a unified Israeli capital. However, the United Nations considers Ramat Shlomo an illegal settlement. Critics have condemned the expansion, claiming it is an attempt for Israel to build on contested land and prevent a future Palestinian capital in East Jerusalem.

In recent months, the Obama Administration has adopted a stronger stance on Jewish settlements, insisting that Israel impose a freeze on construction in order to move forward with negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians.

The news of the Ramat Shlomo expansion—especially during Biden’s visit to Israel—has created a crisis within the U.S.-Israeli relationship.

Ramat Shlomo expansion plan includes 1,600 new units. (Jose Leyva/Covering Religion)

But for Baruch and other residents in this tight-knit Haredi neighborhood, the expansion plans are strictly a local matter. Ruth, who preferred to not give her last name, was running errands on her way home. She wore a bright white blouse, and a black snood—a netlike cap covering her hair. Ruth has “married off” three daughters, none of who were able to afford housing in Ramat Shlomo.

“Obama shouldn’t stick his nose in our business.” she said in a clear American accent.

Ramat Shlomo is one of the settlements with the quickest population growth in the recent years. From 2003 to date, the population of the exclusively ultra-Orthodox neighborhood has grown almost 48 percent, more than any other settlement in East Jerusalem, according to the Central Bureau of Statistics. Currently, between 18,000 and 20,000 people live in the 2,000-unit neighborhood.

The settlement, located in the northeastern part of Jerusalem, was built in 1995, attracting ultra-Orthodox families due to a shortage of housing elsewhere in the city and the very low prices of houses in this new neighborhood. Initially, the Israeli government subsidized the 1,560 square feet apartments. The first settlers received the land for free, and just had to pay for the construction cost of the homes.

Haredi families living in Ramat Shlomo have an average of eight children per household, according to the Jerusalem Statistical Yearbook. The neighborhood’s rapid growth has pushed the demand for space and, in-turn, the price of the units. Now there are simply not enough apartments for younger couples who want to live in the observant Jewish neighborhood, close to their families and rabbis, and within the Haredi community.

Once cheap, the current price of the two to three bedroom apartments now range from $350,000 to $850,000 according to Eiferman Properties, the original developers of the neighborhood. And residents say the rent can go up to $1,000 a month.

“It’s expensive,” said an American journalist who lives in Ramat Shlomo and preferred not to disclose his name. “It is hard to live in these small apartments, but Jewish people are willing to sacrifice because there is something more important to them than just the physical setting. It’s the spiritual setting: you are living in the outskirts of Jerusalem.”

He was one of the first settlers in Ramat Shlomo. The man, a 63 year-old Chicago-native, lives with his wife, and five of his seven children. He now teaches Torah and studies part-time at the local yeshiva.

The Ramat Shlomo community has been pressing for the settlement expansion for the last five years, according to residents. In response, the government has been working on a plan to increase the units of the neighborhood located in this disputed land.

The project includes 1,600 new homes. Most of the units in Ramat Shlomo are 1,560 square feet, however, the expansion includes 1,100 units at 1,290 square feet, and the rest will be 1,022 square feet. The size is meant to specifically target young couples.

“There’s no reason why the neighborhood shouldn’t expand,” Ruth said. “Lots of young couples don’t need 145 meters [1,560 feet], they need 120 [1,290].” She hopes her daughters will be able to move back into the neighborhood.

A few blocks up Jolti Street, Rabbi Matisyahu Deutsche’s household was bustling. The rabbi just added an extra room to his home. His wife and four of their children—seven others have already married—were busy preparing the house for the Passover holidays. The smell of fresh paint and sanitizer filled the hallways.

The children restocked a newly remodeled kitchen, while the library—with its collection of hundreds of Hebrew texts—remained untouched. It was clear the sagging shelves, filled with books on Jewish practice and law, had been part of the Deutsche home for years.

For the rabbi, the expansion is not only a response to a desperate need for housing, but he says, the demand is driven by something far more simple: location.

“The reason why people start to come,” Rabbi Deutsche said. “Because it was a nice area, brand new apartments, and a view of old Jerusalem.”

Ramat Shlomo is located three miles outside the old city, or a twenty-minute drive. And from its hilltop, there is a clear view of old Jerusalem.

“All Israel is the holy land but Jerusalem itself, the most holy, is the old city where you have the Western Wall,” the rabbi said. Through a translator he explained that God led them to Jerusalem thousands of years ago.

For the Haredim, the Torah dictates that God gave them the holy land. And living in Jerusalem plays a central role in fulfilling their past, present and future.

“We have the right, the privilege, and the responsibility,” said the Chicago-born journalist. He said the ultra-Orthodox have a responsibility to move to Jerusalem, pave the way for the larger Jewish Diaspora to follow and, in so doing, hasten the coming of the Messiah and end the Jewish exile.

Many Ramat Shlomo residents referred to this process as the “beginning of redemption.” Deutsche said redemption underlies the very emphasis on creating an observant ultra-Orthodox community in Ramat Shlomo.

The settlement, located in East Jerusalem, has high birth rates. (Jose Leyva/Covering Religion)

“We believe that when all the Jews will be religious, will keep whatever the Torah tell us to keep then the Messiah will come,” the rabbi said. “Because of that, they [the residents] want to be here. When the Messiah will come, they want to be ready.”

The rabbi explained the Torah also says Jews must live in peace with everyone, and that includes the Palestinians. However, he has a hard time understanding the international outcry about Ramat Shlomo’s expansion plans. For him, this neighborhood has existed for 15 years, and there’s no difference between 2,000 and 4,000 apartments.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu echoed the local sentiment when he spoke at a conference of the Israel American Public Affairs Committee in Washington on March 23.

“The Jewish people were building Jerusalem 3,000 year ago,” said Netanyahu. “And the Jewish people are building Jerusalem today. Jerusalem is not a settlement. It is our capital.”

For the Palestinian Authority, Ramat Shlomo’s expansion represents a major blow to peace talks.

“The decision to build 1,600 units – settlement units in occupied Jerusalem – is a dangerous decision,” said Nabil Abu Rudeina, Palestinian Presidential Spokesperson. He said that such a move is “liable to torpedo negotiations” and cause U.S. efforts to renew talks “fail before they have even started.”

With men serving women, there's opportunity for inappropriate touching at Zisalek. (Yaffi Spodek/Journey to Jerusalem)

JERUSALEM – Zisalek, the first ice cream parlor in Jerusalem’s Haredi enclave of Geula, was jammed with rabidly enthusiastic customers on the day it opened early in the spring. They came by the thousands to the compact shop on Malchei Yisrael Street to sample the ice cream made on site, under strict rabbinical supervision.

Since opening day, business has thrived. Young couples lounge at the shop’s two tables, and men and women flock in and out of the store’s open glass doors. It was likely the first time many in the neighborhood had tasted gourmet ice cream. While packaged kosher ice cream is readily available, getting it fresh in a store that adheres to the appropriate kashrut regulations is a challenge for the ultra-Orthodox.

“There’s no place nearby that sells kosher ice cream,” said Avi Press, 19, a Geula resident and student at the Mir yeshiva, as he enjoyed a kiwi-flavored double scoop. “There is Katzefet on Ben-Yehuda Street; we would eat there, but not everyone relies on that hechsher,” a kosher certification label granted by a rabbi.

“Zisalek is better and tastier,” Press continued. “And it’s cheaper too.”

Orthodox Jews require a kosher certification on items like ice cream to ensure that the cream, sugar and butterfat are made of pure ingredients that contain no animal products. But the Zisalek hechsher goes a step further. It requires that the shop comport itself in a kosher way. A sign hangs on an inside wall of the shop, saying it’s “improper and undesirable” for customers to linger. This is a warning that no socializing between the sexes is permitted on the premises. In a society where men and women are discouraged from mingling in social situations, Zisalek’s close quarters almost welcome coed interaction.

But even the sign and the certification were not enough to satisfy everyone in Geula. According to a report on a popular Orthodox blog, The Yeshiva World, dozens of Haredi men – most from Eida Hareidit, a competing kashrut label – recently gathered outside Zisalek to protest what they perceived to be customers’ immodest behavior.

Zisalek, which means “sweet lick” in Yiddish, received its hechsher from Rabbi Avraham Rubin, whose Badatz certification endorses dozens of stores in the area, and requires an effort to preserve modesty.

In anticipation of a large crowd on opening day, hired security guards made sure that men and women passed through two separate entrances. Since then, some believe the rules have slackened. Indeed, the store now uses a single entrance.

“Besides the food and ingredients, we are very strict about modesty,” said Rabbi Menachem Gorlitz, Rubin’s primary mashgiach. “There shouldn’t be a mixture of men and women hanging out in an environment that is lacking in modesty. If we see or hear that there are problems in this area, I would definitely take away the kashrut certificate.”

Menachem Friedman, a sociologist and professor emeritus at Bar-Ilan University, said the opening of Zisalek reflects an entrepreneurial spirit in a historically poor community. But communal norms still prevail. He predicts it’s only a matter of time before Zisalek shuts down. “It only takes one incident where men and women establish relations and that’s it,” he said.

Rubin’s hechsher requires the store to use camera surveillance to monitor food preparation and a mashgiach to visit twice daily. “Regular customers will also call us to report problems,” Gorlitz added. Even still, the measures aren’t enough to appease the more widely accepted Eida Hareidit, which has existed for 60 years; Rabbi Rubin’s hechsher, by comparison, is only 14 years old.

“Everyone accepts the Eida Hareidit hechsher because it meets everyone’s standards, the Ashkenazim and the Sephardim,” said Yaakov Meir, who works at Uri’s Pizza, an Eida Hareidit-certified store down the block from Zisalek. Meir also claimed that local stores that lost the Eida Hareidit label for various infractions were granted Rubin’s hechsher, implying that the Rubin hechsher is inferior.

Gorlitz denies the allegation. “If a store lost its hechsher from a different organization, for whatever reason,” he said, “Rabbi Rubin would not certify them either.”

As far as food preparation goes, the differences between Eida Hareidit and Rubin’s hechsher are negligible. The prevailing concern for Eida Hareidit is over Rubin’s willingness to dole out certifications to stores outside Hareidi neighborhoods, where it’s more difficult to monitor coed interaction. While Rubin does issue certifications to mixed-seating stores like Zisalek, Gorelitz said he’s mindful of location, even when servicing stores in the same chain. Sam’s Bagels, for example, is under Rubin’s hechsher – but only the Geula franchise. The locations on Yaffo and Ben Yehuda Streets – both high-traffic hubs in downtown Jerusalem – are not certified.

The Zisalek flare-up wasn’t an isolated incident. In a community that places an immeasurable value on the stringency of its kashrut labels, there’s deep-rooted tension surrounding the legitimacy of different rabbis. After pressure by Eida Hareidit to drop Rubin’s hechsher and adopt its own, Yaakov Halperin, Zisalek’s owner and proprietor of an Israeli eyeglasses chain, agreed to a set of concessions, according to Matzav, an Orthodox news site.

Now, non-packaged ice cream won’t be sold after 1 p.m. on Fridays, coinciding with the dismissal time of the local high schools. “In past weeks, the young girls would come when school was over to buy ice cream and hang out,” Gorlitz explained. “Now, they can still get ice cream, but it won’t be eaten on the street.” The store will also close at 10:30 p.m. each night and not open on Saturdays after the Sabbath, to further prevent the area from becoming a hangout.

On a recent Friday afternoon before the concessions, Zisalek’s tables and counters were crowded with customers stopping for a snack while running their pre-Sabbath errands. Employees filled cones and cups with heaping scoops of ice cream – Zisalek features 36 flavors, split evenly between dairy and pareve. Despite the controversy, Gorlitz believes Zisalek has staying power – as long as it follows the rules. “Every time there is something new, there will always be people who don’t like it,” he said. “For now it’s new and people aren’t used to it. Soon they will become accustomed. They also want to be able to eat good ice cream, just like everyone else.”

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.

Reporter Tammy Mutasa films protesters at the Damascus Gate as Israeli law enforcement looks on.

Our day began with a visit to Yad Vashem, the Israeli Holocaust museum. Our guide, Ophir Yarden, told us that the museum was rebuilt after the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum opened in Washington, D.C. in 1993. “How would it look for anyone to have a bigger Holocaust museum than Israel?” Ophir asked. Before we entered the museum, Ophir gave us a brief overview of how the Holocaust has been viewed in Israeli culture from the earliest days of the state to today.

Our tour began inside a large shed called the Square of Remembrance, where a flame burned on a black marble floor inscribed with the names of concentration camps. Dodging several other tour groups as we entered the museum itself, we walked through, reading the printed information and looking at the artifacts, photos and text that accompanied the exhibits. The museum traced the fate of the Jews in different countries as the Nazis began expanding their control. Most went first to ghettos before being sent to concentration camps and gas chambers. It also featured smaller exhibits on the military history of World War II, tributes to non-Jewish heroes of the Holocaust like Oskar Schindler, and a huge wall with photos of the leaders of the Third Reich and their positions within the government.

The museum ended with the Hall of Names, where a deep concrete pit with water at the bottom was surrounded by photos and bookshelves with hundreds of black books, each containing the names of victims of the Holocaust. After departing the museum, Professor Goldman, Dean Huff and Mike Philipps, president of the Scripps Howard Foundation that is sponsoring the trip, continued on the planned itinerary to Mt. Herzl. The student members of the group, however, split off into several groups to pursue the breaking news of the day.

Half the group grabbed a taxi to the Old City, where about 100 Palestinian men were holding their noon prayers outside the Damascus Gate. The Israeli government currently prohibits men under 50 from entering the Old City to pray at Al-Aksa mosque on Fridays, so the men held their prayers just outside the city in a small plaza. The men were also praying en masse to protest the recent reopening of the Horva synagogue, which they felt was an encroachment on the sanctity of Al-Aksa.

Though it was primarily a religious, peaceful demonstration, the atmosphere was tense. Israeli law enforcement officials were stationed nearby, one group on horses and another in full riot gear. Some of the professional journalists had taken protective measures, including toting helmets marked “TV” in masking tape. Ready to practice what they’d been taught all year, the Covering Religion reporters didn’t hesitate to move in and begin photographing, filming and taking notes during the prayer service. The area was strangely quiet save the buzzing of a helicopter overhead and the occasional ringing of cell phones. “This is intense,” said Sam as the service was beginning to wind down. “I’m barely making sense of this.”

As the service began to disperse, the Covering Religion reporters jumped right in and began interviewing participants – some, like Sommer and Omar, who speak Arabic, were successful, but a man flicked a cigarette at Mamta while she attempted to take photographs. Life in the square seemed to quickly return to normal as two shish kebab vendors quickly set up shop in the now-empty square.

Just a few minutes later, the noon prayers ended at Al-Aksa mosque. Women (who were permitted to attend the service) began chanting a traditional Palestinian call for freedom as they exited the Damascus Gate, where they were held back by Israeli law enforcement. Following their journalistic instincts to run toward conflict than away from it, the Covering Religion group again ran toward the struggle.

After the Damascus Gate demonstration, the group split up to spend another few hours of unscheduled time before the Sabbath began. Most of those who had been at the Damascus gate protest went around to other gates of the Old City to see what they had missed earlier and then took a taxi to the outskirts of the city to the Shafat refugee camp where they had heard there would be more protests, but decided not to go in when the taxi driver warned that one member of the group might be denied entry because of his citizenship.

The group then headed to Sheikh Jarah, an East Jerusalem neighborhood where there was a peaceful demonstration of another type entirely. Israeli protesters joined Palestinians to demonstrate against a recent Israeli Supreme Court decision allowing Jewish settlers to take over homes where Palestinian families currently live, arguing that the homes had originally belonged to Jewish families several decades ago. Sanaz, who attended both protests, said that the Damascus gate event was an act of prayer en masse to protest a perceived injustice, but the other was more secular. “This was a very different event altogether,” she said.

The whole group reconvened later as the sun began to set and Sabbath began. Taking a bus just before travel by vehicle was prohibited by Sabbath laws, the group joined the Aleppo synagogue, a Sephardic Jewish synagogue, for the Friday Shabbat service, where we met our host and guide for the evening, Drori Yehoshua. Men and women separated for the service, with the women climbing stairs and filing into a tiny cramped space, shushed and ushered in by an elderly woman with a deeply wrinkled face. The synagogue had beautiful wood paneling with inlaid pearls and elaborate paintings of ancient scenes on the walls. During the service, worshippers recited the entire Song of Songs, which in the Ashkenazi tradition is only recited once a year.

Following the service, we walked to a different synagogue for Shabbat dinner. Yehoshua sang a Sabbath song in the Western Ashkenazi tradition and then another in the Eastern Sephardic one. Much of the Aleppo synagogue’s traditions were influenced by the faith’s existence in Arab and Muslim countries for many years. “It immediately reminded me of Islamic prayer,” said Sanaz of the Sephardic-melody blessing.

We ate a variety of Kurdish-Turkish dishes cooked by Rimon Ajami, who recently started her own catering business. The food – lots of cold salads, a traditional soup, and chicken and fish entrees – seemed to never stop appearing from the synagogue’s tiny kitchen. After some delicious desserts, the group gathered for a short talk with Yehoshua, who told us that many Eastern Jews are less likely to divide themselves among specific branches of Judaism, like Orthodox or Reform, than Western Jews, and that they are less likely to rely on rabbis for guidance.

After the talk, we ventured back out again in the cold to walk to the home of Oded Levinson, a Hasidic man who welcomed us for songs, desserts, schnapps and questions following Shabbat dinner. Levinson, his family and guests sang several Sabbath songs while the Covering Religion group sat on long benches and listened. Sunil asked him about the large circular fur hat he wore. After he explained that it originated in 19th century Poland, Levinson asked Sunil about his baseball hat. Sunil explained that it was from the San Diego Padres but added that he was not a Padres fan. “I just liked the hat,” he said. Levinson also gave us a long discourse on his views on Israeli politics.

Finally around 11:15 p.m., our exhausted but well-fed group packed up and walked back to the hotel, happy to have a good night’s rest as our trip winds down.