A multi-interfaith-feast next week
December 11th, 2006Next week there are a ton of things to do in Jerusalem if you are into the Interfaith thing. I hope my mind is more settled and I can focus on the important stuff like this, instead of focusing on stuff like where to live and move, etc. and worrying if our present landlord will allow us to stay an extra month or will he force us out into the street.
So if I’m not living in the streets next week or even if I am, there will be plenty of activities to take my mind off my sorry-ass-predicament.
December 19th – we will light the fifth candle of Chanukah with blessings for peace by Jewish, Christian, Muslim and Druze religious leaders from the Abrahamic reunion and special guests (could it be, perhaps….Ahmadinejad??? – well if he shows up, I’ll certainly believe that the messiah/mahdi is coming). And my friend Eliyahu is having a Shabbat weekend at his home on December 22-23rd. I know there are Israelis out there reading this. I urge you to go to this weekend if you aren’t as stressed as I am in life and can travel to Jerusalem. I’m sure it’ll be wonderful (I can email you details). There will be a peace concert with Yair Delal, RebbeSoul (whom I’ve never heard of) and Sufi singers at the Reform synagogue – Kol Haneshama on December 23rd. And if I can sneak into Bethlehem with my Canadian passport on Christmas Eve, I’ll do that do.
Speaking of Bethlehem, funny thing happened to my German friend Jennifer last week. She went with Ofer Golani, an Israeli singer and his two Arab musician/singer colleagues from Nazareth. He took his Dutch passport and Jennifer had her German one, but the Arabs only had their Israeli passports. They couldn’t get in. Funny, the Jewish guy can get in and the Arabs can’t get into Bethlehem. Ofer and Jennifer pleaded with the checkpoint soldiers that they had a concert in Bethlehem and what could they do?
“Go through the Beit Jala entrance” they were told. Fine.
On the way back, they went through the regular way back into Jerusalem. But Ofer was recognized as an Israeli because he answered the soldiers in Hebrew. He could have been arrested for entering a Palestinian area as an Israeli.
“How on earth did you get into Bethlehem, in the first place?”
He answered – “I just prayed to God, and the gates opened up for me …”
And with that, they passed peacefully back into Jerusalem
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[...] “Next week there are a ton of things to do in Jerusalem if you are into the Interfaith thing,” Leah said. Haitham Sabbah [...]