A Bomb or a Bible

American minister sees salvation and transformation in Jericho

JERICHO – This Arab town may look like a rocky, barren desert, but after five years of laboring in obscurity, American Karen Dunham has seen it become an oasis of hope and salvation in the Palestinian territories.

“Now Jericho is given into the hands of the Lord,” Dunham said. “There isn’t anywhere you can’t talk about Jesus.”

While most Palestinian towns—and Israel for that matter—are closed off to evangelism, Jericho has been plied open by Dunham’s ministry. She lived, with her teenage son, in a refugee camp, distributing humanitarian aid, killing scorpions and suffering water shortages and blackouts with the people while some Moslems tried to run her out of town.
 
She runs a church attended by up to 300 Palestinians. No one leaves empty-handed—but no one gets humanitarian aid without also getting a tract and a Bible.
 
Despite enduring two car bombings and fires set at her home and office, Dunham stayed on and organized even more aid programs. Her persistence and humility gained favor with Palestinian officials and Jericho’s elders, and she expanded her ministry. As one Moslem leader told her, “If this whole city goes with your faith then all I can say is, ‘Cheers!’”
 
While Hamas was gaining a foothold in Gaza and Christians in Judea and Samaria (the so-called “West Bank”) were timidly tolerated in their towns, Jericho, a Moslem farming community of 25,000, was becoming a model of transformation. Dunham estimates that about 200 residents have accepted the Lord. Openness among Moslems is high and the gospel is allowed. Dunham said the city council voted, specifically for her, that handing out a tract or a Bible is no longer considered evangelism.
 
The results of Dunham’s outreach stem from a simple yet profound strategy: a Bible or a bomb. She provides the gospel, and hopes the results are that people turn to God instead of violence to meet their needs.
 
Noted Christian speakers and authors Jill Austin of Master Potters Ministry and Cindy Jacobs, who traveled to Israel during the Feast of Tabernacles, joined Dunham for two days of ministry. They spent time on both sides of the border and led a humanitarian outreach in Jericho with Dunham.
 
The Jericho Municipality insisted that its official policy has always been to accept all religions without prejudice and that the city supports Dunham by not requiring her to pay certain city bills. Mayor Hassan Saleh, a moderate Moslem and member of Fatah, said the town welcomes “Christians in Jericho because it is a holy place that joins all religions.”
 
“There is no policy to prevent them from expressing their religious background,” he said. “If you see the people here, how Christians and Moslems relate, they’re free to express what they believe.”
 
Sami Musallam, a former governor of Jericho, said Dunham’s actions speak louder than words. “Her purpose is to extend help to needy people,” he said. “She does some good work and provides support for them.”
 
A wealth of energy and strong faith, Dunham was a pariah among Christian organizations in the Land because her work in the Palestinian camps was seen as anti-Zionist. But her efforts were not lost on a key Zionist group: the Israeli army. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has not only facilitated Dunham’s border crossings but also helped her get NGO (non-governmental organization) status.
 
The army even asked her to continue her work in the 28 other Palestinian refugee camps where it sees a need. Next on the list is southern Hebron where the IDF told her some Arabs live in caves and have no running water. Dunham will raise money and get supplies, and the military will allow her into territories where no Christian organization, no Israeli and not even the United Nations has ventured.
 
An IDF officer, speaking on background, said soldiers at the Israeli civil administration in Jericho were impressed by Dunham and don’t mind her spreading the gospel. “She’s less interested in a political message and doesn’t complain about what the Israeli army is doing,” he said.
 
Her work, he said, has a greater impact on the Palestinians than the bigger organizations because “she has less internal bureaucracy and comes with honesty to the people. Because of Karen’s activities, their lives are improved and they have a more positive attitude toward the IDF because they realize we are supporting her.”
 
Dunham is not intimidated by Christian leaders, Moslem extremists or her lack of knowledge of either Hebrew or Arabic. Her team includes several teenagers who share her fearlessness going into the tough places, like her son Blake.
 
Dunham initially came to Israel simply to pray. She met a Catholic priest who told her, “If you can feed Jericho, you can win the city for Jesus.” The words burned in her heart, and soon after, she moved to a refugee camp there. News of her success began reaching Jerusalem in the last two years. Now volunteers join Dunham every week in Jericho for church services and tour groups from overseas include Jericho among their stops.
 
“Five years ago it wasn’t popular to be here at all,” she said.
 
Jericho was once a destination for Israelis and tourists with some 3,000 Israelis spending their Sabbath at the city’s casino or visiting holy sites—before the second Palestinian uprising erupted in 2000.
 
Somehow Dunham has managed to walk a tightrope, maintaining favor with both Palestinian and Israeli army officials. Kamel Sinokrot, who runs the largest tourist attraction in the city—a cable car up to the Mount of Temptation with a restaurant and lookout point—is a devout Moslem, but he lent his facility to Dunham for her TV broadcast. He welcomes her overtly Christian gatherings, and, of course, the tourism she brings to the desert town.
 
“We’re not opposed to this at all,” Sinokrot said as 140 foreigners participated in a worship service at his restaurant. Even with Moslem women joining in the worship, he didn’t have a problem. “We are very happy,” he said. “We all worship the Lord.”

‘Shaheed’ for the Gospel

Rami Ayyad, a 29-year-old father of two with a pregnant wife, became the first martyr for the gospel in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip. His death underscores the mounting danger faced by evangelical Christians in Gaza.

Ayyad’s body was found some 12 hours after he was kidnapped, with two gunshot wounds including one to the back of the head, stab wounds and with a blow to the head.

When Hamas seized control of Gaza in a Palestinian civil war in June, its leaders announced that a new era of Islamic rule had arrived. For Christians, it amounted to an ultimatum: submit to Allah’s dictates or leave.

Some 3,000 Christians or fewer live among 1.5 million Palestinian Muslims in Gaza. Evangelical Christians number in the mere hundreds, and most are wary of speaking to outsiders about their trials for fear of retribution from their Muslim rulers. 

Pastor Hanna Massad of the Gaza Baptist Church spoke of Ayyad’s final hours. Two days prior to his kidnapping and brutal murder, he was followed home from work at Gaza’s only Christian bookstore by a car full of Islamic militants. Ayyad had been threatened by Muslim elements before, and his unwelcome entourage was seen as little more than an act of intimidation. But after closing the Bible Society bookshop on a Saturday afternoon, he was abducted, held for several hours and killed.

Massad said that Ayyad was one of his congregation’s most beloved and passionate members, and a man who fearlessly shared the gospel despite the threats that sought to silence him. “Rami was a very strong believer. He would not compromise with his faith,” said Massad. Even in the face of death threats, Ayyad “loved the Lord and was willing to pay the price for his faith.”

Massad said the dangers facing believers in Gaza are growing. “We never had anything like this,” said the pastor, noting that an increasing number of local Christians “are afraid and some have many questions.”

Nevertheless, most remain dedicated to their faith and  hold up Ayyad as “a shaheed (martyr) for the gospel.” It is an ironic twist because Palestinians use the Islamic (Arabic) word “shaheed” to describe suicide bombers.

Massad said that he has no doubt the Lord will use Ayyad’s death in a powerful way, and while Gaza believers wait for the next step to become clear, they will continue to pray for and encourage one another.

Echoing the propaganda of the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, the international media maintains that relations between Christians and Muslims in Gaza are generally good. But it is becoming clear that Christians are merely tolerated, and evangelical Christians even less so. Those who dare to share the gospel in Gaza truly lay their lives on the line.

Sabbatical Year, not so Restful

 
DALTON, northern Israel – It is supposed to be a year of rest for the land in accordance with the biblical command to refrain from working the ground every seventh year: “You shall sow your land for six years and gather in its yield, but on the seventh year you shall let it rest and lie fallow, so that the needy of your people may eat; and whatever they leave the beast of the field may eat.” (Exodus 23:10-11)
 
The sabbatical year (shmita in Hebrew) began on Rosh Hashanah (September 12th), but lawyers, rabbis and farmers are doing anything but resting as a war between synagogue and state is brewing.
 
Normally, the sabbatical year has a routine approved by the Chief Rabbinate: Jewish farmers “sell” their land to non-Jews during that year so that produce is considered kosher because it was not grown by Jews. This is known as heter mechira (consent of sale). With this practice, instituted in the late 1800s, the fruit and vegetable market generally stays the same.
 
This year, however, the ultra-Orthodox rabbinical authorities adopted a stricter approach. “From the point of view of the Rabbinate the heter mechira is acceptable,” said Avi Blumenthal, spokesman for Chief Rabbi Yonah Metzger. “But the local city rabbi has the right not to accept it.”
 
The decision put a wedge between the rabbinate and farmers, and even Zionist Orthodox Israelis are unhappy about it. The rift deepened when some local rabbis adopted the strict ultra-Orthodox view and warned that they would revoke kosher licenses to shops and restaurants if produce was bought from a farm that was symbolically sold. That means major losses for the nation’s farmers.
 
In the late 1880s, Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook came up with the idea of heter mechira so the Land may be cultivated at no loss to farmers. But many ultra-Orthodox Jews see this as a way to avoid religious obligations. During shmita years, they buy their produce from Arab farmers in Israel, the Palestinian territories, or import from abroad.
 
“This is a betrayal of religious Zionism and a betrayal of Jewish farmers,” Rabbi Shlomo Riskin, rabbi of the settlement of Efrat near Bethlehem, said. “Tragically, issues such as this are dividing even observant Jews.”
 
Riskin said his community never buys Arab produce even during a shmita year.
 
Tzohar, a group of younger Zionist rabbis, announced that they will issue heter mechira certificates of their own in cities where the local rabbi will not. “We believe it is important to strengthen Jewish farmers and provide reasonably priced produce to the Jewish nation,” said Tzohar chairman Rabbi Rafi Freuerstein.
 
Agriculture Minister Shalom Simchon accused the ultra-Orthodox, who represent only 5 to 7 per cent of the population, of “religious coercion” and announced that he will ban imports that compete with Israeli farmers. That could affect Palestinian farmers in Judea and Samaria, though produce is not likely to come from Gaza as it did seven years ago. Israel has stopped all exports from Gaza since the Hamas takeover in June.
 
The shmita feud was so bitter that it wound up in the Supreme Court, which responded to an appeal from the Israel Farmers’ Federation and the Plants Council.
 
“This is a clash between religion and state,” said the farmers’ lawyer Shaul Pelles. The court ruled in favor of the petitioners and ordered the Chief Rabbinate to force local rabbis to change their decision or replace them.
 
At the moment, refrigerated fruit and vegetables grown before the Jewish New Year are being sold. But planting will soon begin for winter vegetables such as peppers and lettuce, which take only two to three months to grow.
 
In Upper Galilee, the prestigious Dalton Winery is harvesting grapes and making wine, but producing only one kosher label this year while the rest will be marketed abroad.
 
“If you’re a wine fan, you’ll still have the Dalton label on the shelf,” Assaf Haviv told us. “But most will be sold outside the country. This year we will sell modestly in Israel.”

Palestinian Doctor Crosses Borders

Dr. Rula Awwad listened to the heartbeat of a Palestinian baby, checked his vital signs and read his chart as she prepared to tell his mother that her one-month old son had Downs Syndrome.
 
While these activities are normal for any doctor, Awwad’s journey to medicine and the Wolfson Medical Center in Holon near Tel Aviv was a long road, not just in the three-hour commute she made that morning, but as a working Arab woman in a high-profile career.
 
Awwad is an anomaly in Arab culture. She is 33, single and a Christian living in a predominantly Moslem town.
 
Every morning she gets up at 5:30 a.m. and leaves her home in Beit Sahour, a Bethlehem suburb, taking a taxi to the checkpoint into Jerusalem. There she waits with thousands of Palestinians who have permits to work in Israel, most of them construction workers. The wait to get through security can be up to an hour most days. Then she takes an Arab bus to the Old City, walks to a Jewish bus stop, gets a ride to the Tel Aviv Central Bus Station and finally grabs a taxi to Holon.
 
With a half-smile smirk and deep brown eyes, Rula lives with her feet on both sides of the border. She identifies herself first as a Palestinian. But she doesn’t deny the incalculable advantages of working as a doctor in Israel. “It’s worth it because I can be in contact with a team and I can stay up to date on medicine,” she said.
 
And while she still hesitates to express any optimism toward Israel, her three years at Wolfson highlight the possibility of Israelis and Palestinians working together seamlessly. “I lived through the intifada [Palestinian uprising]. I have bad scenes in my mind of shootings and demonstrations,” Awwad told Israel Today. “In my mind, Israelis were always the soldiers. To come and work in Israel was a very big issue to me. I was worried how they would treat me and how I would deal with the Israeli people.”
 
But her worries were quickly allayed by her team of doctors and staff at the hospital. ‘We’re trying to cross borders,” said Dr. Alona Raucher Sternfeld. “We talk about people, not politics. As women we talk about how to accommodate a career.”
 
Sternfeld, who like Awwad is a pediatric cardiologist, recognizes the immense challenges facing her Palestinian counterpart. “It’s amazing for an Arab woman who grew up in a conservative community to reach out like this,” she said. “Rula had to do things that for us were obvious. It was obvious to my parents I’d go to university; it was obvious to my community that I’d go to work; it was obvious to my husband that the household would be 50/50.”
 
Arab society is very different. Awwad fought on many fronts: as a Christian minority in a Moslem town, as a woman seeking higher education and as a Palestinian crossing the border every day to go to work.
 
In order for her to assimilate fully she had to become fluent in Hebrew, a language she didn’t know despite growing up five miles from Jerusalem. In just one month of study and work, she learned the language well enough to write medical charts and communicate with the nurses.
 
Her ambition stems from hard-working and successful parents who encouraged all of their five children in their educational and career pursuits. Awwad graduated high school as the top student in all of Judea and Samaria, earning her offers to universities in Germany, Greece and Jordan. She chose to study medicine at the University of Jordan.
 
From there she moved back to Beit Sahour to live with her family and worked at Mukassed, an Arab hospital in East Jerusalem. After a few years, the Israeli organization Save a Child’s Heart (SACH) and the European Union sponsored Awwad for a fellowship at the Wolfson Medical Center. SACH, which has enabled 1,584 children from 27 nations to receive life-saving heart surgeries since 1996, also brings in doctors from developing countries for training so they can perform these operations in their own land.
 
In one instance, Awwad identified the problem of a Palestinian child who visited the clinic in Bethlehem and, through her contacts, scheduled him at Wolfson for open heart surgery.
 
“This is how we see the fruit of the project,” said SACH executive director Simon Fisher. “She takes the knowledge and expertise with her to save the lives of children. Not only was a child’s life saved, but there was cooperation between Israelis and Palestinians.”

Tragedy Hits Home

KIRYAT SHMONA – Having grown up in this heavily bombarded city just one mile east of the Lebanese border, the Saadia family is no stranger to war. Since the 1960s, the city has been the frequent target of rockets launched from Lebanon. 

But a year ago it hit closer to home. Liran Saadia has the tragic distinction of being one of the first Israeli soldiers killed in combat during the Second Lebanon War. He was 21. 

“He was killed right over this mountain,” Liran’s father Zion said, pointing to the peak shadowing their home. “So he protected us and this city.”

Zion and his wife Michal were in Thailand when the tragic news reached them. When the war began on July 12, 2006, Liran insisted that his parents continue their vacation and not worry about him.

They spoke with Liran at 12:30 p.m. on July 20. He was killed less than three hours later.

“When I saw the Israeli ambassador coming toward us at the hotel, I ran toward her and said, ‘Please tell me my son is only injured, that he lost a leg or an arm,’” Zion recalled, knowing a visit from a government official can only mean bad news. “The ambassador said, ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry.’”

That began a long, sad journey back to Israel in disbelief. 

“I thought it had to be a mistake,” Michal said. “I had to return to Israel and see the body so I could tell them it was a mistake, that it wasn’t my son.”

The funeral took place under the threat of falling rockets, but the attacks eased for two hours enabling the family to bury their son under a pink and smoky sky. Then they sat shiva in a bomb shelter rather than at home so as not to endanger their guests. 

“For two weeks I had a bad feeling,” Michal said, referring to Liran’s transfer from a counseling position in the army to a combat unit three months before the completion of his mandatory service. With a mother’s intuition, she was wary about the move but kept silent. “Every mother in the country knows this feeling, but we all say nothing will happen to us.”

Now, family members are coping with the loss in their own way. The oldest daughter, Hadar, 21, is in the army and has recently been promoted to lieutenant.

“We’re always scared of war and that there will be another,” Hadar said. “But since our tragedy, it’s personal now. We identify. To us it’s no longer just another name announced on the news.”

Yarden, 16, talks about her brother all the time and made a video of him, but her school work is suffering. Aviv, the youngest at 12, doesn’t mention Liran at all, but is quietly mimicking his brother in basketball and drawing cartoons. He even picked up guitar, something Liran did in the last few months of his life.

The parents manage in their own ways.

“From the moment I heard Liran died, I chose life,” Zion said. “It is so difficult for us, but it is the right choice. The other choice is to give up, and then the whole family would collapse.”

Their grief still profoundly apparent, the family is focusing on Liran’s legacy rather than his death. They talk about a vibrant young man who, since his childhood, gave selflessly.

“In life we only knew this much of Liran,” Zion said holding up two fingers a couple inches apart. “After he died, we saw so much more of him through his friends and people who come to visit us.”

Liran gave away a hard-earned top-of-the-line computer when he was 15. When he was 12, he saw a classmate selling cheap toys to help his family makes ends meet. Liran bought one to help his friend. And in his army years, Liran would bring friends home with him every weekend —soldiers with no family in Israel and nowhere to go on Shabbat (the Sabbath). 

Building on this, the family established a scholarship fund in Liran’s name and is building a house for lone soldiers called Liran’s Home. The city of Kiryat Shmona donated a plot of land and a Christian ministry from Germany has taken up the cause, but the family is seeking additional sponsors. 

The cost of Liran’s generosity was high for the family.

“He gave too much in the end,” Michal said. “He gave his life.”

For more information or to donate to Liran’s Way, e-mail: bedarkeyliran@walla.com

Taking Matters into His Own Hands

Two years after the Gaza pullout, one man starts from scratch

AVNEI EITAN – Under the blazing Golan sun, dry wind and flies whipping through the moshav, Yuval Matzliah sits at a handmade wooden picnic table and talks about the last two challenging years since being expelled from Gaza along with 8,500 other Jewish residents of the Gush Katif settlement bloc.

“Life won’t return to what it was in Gush Katif,” he said. “But we will return there, hopefully in another year. I love this land more than I loved anything in my life.” 

Matzliah lives in a 90 square-meter (968 square-foot) temporary house, called a caravilla, on this collective farm near the Syrian border. He hasn’t found employment or received a permit to build a permanent home.

But Matzliah has taken matters into his own hands. The tables, ice cream hut and two wooden guesthouses on the moshav are his handiwork, an attempt to create jobs for both him and his neighbors. 

“I decided I had to put the past behind and take care of my children,” he said. “So I began to look for a way to make a living. The state wasn’t doing anything, so we had to look on our own and we were starting from zero.”

Avnei Eitan, a religious community, took in 22 families from Gush Katif. The government built two rows of square orange houses, one floor each with no insulation. They remain undecorated and bleak. Breaking up the monotony are the large containers in backyards holding the families’ belongings.

A year into his exile from Gaza, still living in a hotel with his wife and three daughters, Matzliah sank into depression. When their son was born—and nearly died due to complications—his wife urged him to snap out of his despair for the sake of the family.

“I’m 32, I’m still young,” Matzliah said, “Imagine someone who is 50 years old, or sick or handicapped. How does he start over? I’m living well compared to most.” 

According to a report by the Gush Katif Committee, Matzliah is right. Thirty seven percent of the settlers are still out of work, although Matzliah disputes that as too low a figure. Some 500 families are on welfare. And since many residents don’t have jobs, they are spending their compensation checks on daily needs rather than saving to build a home. Less than 1 percent of the settlers have started building permanent housing and most could be living in temporary housing for another five years.

The Ministry of Commerce says family income has decreased by 40 percent, with many receiving no income for two years. Young people face large gaps in their education, scarred from the trauma of eviction and switching schools several times.

Gaza’s Jewish communities once provided a high percentage of Israel’s agricultural produce, but of the 400 farms and other agricultural businesses that once operated in Gush Katif, only 33 have been compensated with land. 

Matzliah’s parents, immigrants from France, were some of the first people to settle in Netzer Hazani in Gush Katif 30 years ago. Matzliah worked on a cow farm there, running the milking machines. He is also an expert carpenter.

He refused his first compensation check of 50,000 shekels (about $12,000) and told the government to hold it until they are ready to give him the whole sum they owe him.

So Matzliah, which means “he succeeds” in Hebrew, built two tzimmers (popular guesthouses in the north), in order to start making a living. He employed his neighbors and their children to help him build so they could also have some work.

While the tzimmers are charming and can accommodate a family of eight, there is a glut of them in the north. Matzliah hopes people will come because they want not only a place to stay, but a fascinating story. He is shocked when Israelis tell him they wish they could trade places because of all the compensation he got from the government.

“What compensation?” he asked while soberly noting that the small falafel and ice cream business he established barely pays salaries and will do even worse when tourism hibernates in the winter.

“Think of a man who has everything—a house, money in the bank and work,” he said. “Then all of a sudden he has nothing. You can’t imagine.”

Golan Druze Live in ‘Syria’—and in Denial

MASAADE, Golan Heights – Though you didn’t cross a border or get your passport stamped, many people in this Druze village on the northern Golan Heights will insist you are in Syria, not Israel.

It takes awhile to get into their thinking, but the answers are simple: Why do you not take Israeli citizenship? Because we’re Syrian. Why do you not serve in the Israeli army or permit anyone from your community to do so? Because we’re Syrian. Why are the Druze in the Haifa area pro-Israel and you are opposed to the state? Because they are Israeli; we are Syrian.

The Druze, a tight-knit religious sect based on a form of Islam, populate many Middle Eastern countries and are loyal to the nation in which they live. The community is usually closed but friendly and the men fight on behalf of their nation. It gets a little confusing in Israel though. In such a young state, borders are not what they used to be; and the Golan was in Syrian hands until 1967 when Israel seized the strategic plateau in the Six Day War. Syria failed to regain control of the Golan during the Yom Kippur War in 1973.

Israel and Syria have no diplomatic relations, but instead a tenuous quiet on the border interrupted by occasional threats and military buildups, and now talks of trading the Golan for peace. Unlike with Jordan and Egypt, with whom Israel has peace treaties, Israelis and anyone with an Israeli stamp on his passport are prohibited from traveling to Syria.

Many Druze in the northern Golan were born in Syria, held Syrian passports and all of them have family on the other side of the border. The culture is extremely land-oriented, however, and therefore the questions get confusing.

“All of the air of the Golan Heights is Syria,” said Ghassan Sabra, who owns a shop in the town. “The residents of the Golan Heights are Syrian. That’s it. Maybe during the day you can be confused, but at night you remember where you live.”

Sabra, who moved with his family from Syria to present-day Israel when he was one, said he doesn’t encourage his five children to integrate into Israeli society because they don’t actually live in Israel—so they don’t need to.

These sentiments run wide in the community, enforced through religious rulings prohibiting taking Israeli citizenship and joining the army, the latter an offense punishable by death. Integration is not only unnecessary, but also amounts to treason. 

Israelis in the area are concerned about giving back the Golan, but the majority of the Druze look forward to the possibility and even expect it. 

“It is 1,000 percent certain that Syria will return,” Sabra said.

Despite their dislike of the Israeli government, the Druze here are friendly with Israelis and have no animosity toward anyone who visits their villages. Druze and Israelis attend each other’s weddings and funerals, play soccer and work together. There is no intermarriage but there is peace.

Peace on a wider scale, between Israel and Syria, is also expected one day. Sabra said he wants to travel freely between Damascus and Haifa. He insists Syria wants peace as much as Israel.

Hassan Jawad Batheesh, an imam and elder in the community, was more pragmatic. 

“Masaade is my homeland,” he said. Life was good under Syria, Batheesh insisted, and it is fine now under Israel, but, “As an Arab I would like Syria to come back to govern the Golan Heights.” 

And if there’s no peace between Syria and Israel? 

“That’s not my problem,” he said.