PYM Epistle: "We are called to develop an ongoing spiritual partnership with Ramallah Meeting and to work collaboratively with them and, as way opens, with all others working nonviolently in the hope of contributing to a just and lasting peace in the Middle East."
September, 2002: From Thom Jeavons—This summer I gave considerable attention to our commitment to renovate the Ramallah Friends meetinghouse and develop a partnership with Friends there (and elsewhere) to sustain that Meeting. My work has focused primarily on fundraising, and service with the "International Committee" of that Meeting that is steering this project. I developed a case statement for this project to be used in the fundraising, we have raised approximately $20,000 (in addition to PYM's initial $50,000 stake), and we have begun to make plans to transfer the first set of funds to repair the meetinghouse roof. We now have reason to hope (with caution) that this work might be able to commence as early as next month.
April 2003: The roof of the Meetinghouse has been repaired, and the Ramallah community has reported many grateful responses to the Meeting for the work.
July 2003: The basic renovations to the meetinghouse, garden walls and grounds are almost complete. What comes next is renovation of the "Annex", a second building on the property that had the only working bathrooms and provided space for childrens programs and First Day School.Waleed Zaru (a Friend and manager of the project): "It is beyond a doubt that one takes pleasure in carrying out this work. It has been so long since I have felt good about anything...These feelings are shared by a great number from the community, Muslims and Christians alike. Everybody is grateful and happy that finally the Meetinghouse is being renovated. The Municipality, the elders in town, shop keeprs in the area are all happy and excited that in the middle of the surrounding tall buildings this wonderful historical building will start functioning again. I am actually looking forward tofinalizing this project, hoping that my two daughters will understand what it meant to all of us when we were young and hopefully start Sunday School once more...Dear Friends, we as Quakers are so grateful. The community is grateful for your continuous support on all levels. It has been so many years since anyone cared about this wonderful place and the people that share it. Thank you once more for all you have done."
PYM has raised $63,000 in addition to the original $50,000 grant, and has a way to go in fundraising to finish the job.
Reflections on Jean Zaru's talk by Margaret Wood, Towanda Meeting
How can your Meeting respond to this call to a partnership with Ramallah Friends?
Letter and Survey to Monthly Meeting from Thom Jeavons regarding Ramallah project.
Middle East Quaker Delegation — PYM Friends join this delegation
Christian Peacemaker Teams Webpage
An article on the West Bank, and Jean Zaru, by Jim Wallis
MIDDLE EAST (Includes Ramallah) : Quaker Delegation 7/25 - 8/6 of 2002
In Light of our Yearly Meeting Minute on 3/23/02, Saturday, that voices our sense of being a sister Meeting to Ramallah Monthly Meeting: Friends may apply to be in a small Delegation of Quakers to the Middle East, including Ramallah, July 25 - August 6, 2002.
Friends will act as independent international observers, meet and work with Israeli and Palestinian Peace and Justice groups, meet and hear the stories of Palestinians living under Israeli Occupation, and engage in public witness on behalf of lasting peace in the region. The delegation will divide its time between Ramallah and Hebron where the permanent CPT presence is established, with visits to Jerusalem and Bethlehem. Recommended schedule for applications is by June 1.
The Delegation will be led by Bill and Genie Durland, of Intermountain Yearly Meeting, who acted as peace presences in an interfaith Christian Peacemakers Team mission to the West Bank last summer. At that time they were blessed with an opportunity to share Meeting for Worship with Ramallah Friends Meeting, and to meet with Jean Zaru and her sister-in-law, Violet. Bill and Genie are now trained "reservists" in CPT. Bill and Genie expect be in the West Bank area beginning July 10.
Mustafa Barghouthi, President of the Palestinian Medical Relief Committees and Director of the Health, Development, Information and Policy Institute in Ramallah, says, "Palestinians have been asking for an international protection force to monitor events in the region for months. The U. S. has twice vetoed a United Nations resolution asking for this. Ten months ago, Palestinians began their own grassroots movement of international protection. Since then, delegations from a number of European countires, as well as Canada and the United States, have witnessed to and monitored the situation on the ground reporting the reality to their home countries."
For information and applications: Bill and Genie Durland, bgdryland@activematrix.net, phone 719-846-7480. (Locally: PYM representative Gail Newbold, address below; also reps. Mary Arnett and Peter Yeomans.)
Gail Newbold,PYM Representative to Friends Peace Teams
162 Hilton Road, Cochranville, PA 19330
gnewbold@kennett.net 610-869-3455
Sharon Mullalley, a member of Green St. Meeting, and she was a producer on the Video on Rufus Jones, sent this letter recently to various interested PYM Friends.
Dear Friends,
My partner, Linda Hanna, and I have applied to join a Christian Peacemaker Team Delegation to the Middle East this summer. We would be on the West Bank from July 25th to August 6th.
Both of us have been very concerned about the situation in the Middle East for quite a while. Linda is Arab-American and traveled in that area about 30 years ago. We were deeply moved by the words of Jean Zaru at Yearly Meeting and by her call for an international force of observers and peacekeepers. Linda has wanted to be part of such an action for several years and we have decided that it's now time for us to "lend hands to God" in this way.
I have begun the process of seeking clearness and spiritual support from my Meeting, Green Street. Linda grew up in the Syrian Orthodox Church and is not a Friend, but has been an attender at Green Street and is known to the Meeting.
We would like to make our experience useful and meaningful to the Yearly Meeting. The commitment that our Yearly Meeting has made to Ramallah Friends Meeting makes this trip even more meaningful. The leaders of the delegation we've applied for, Genie and Bill Durland, have planned for the delegation to visit Ramallah Friends Meeting during our time there. Of course, no one knows what will be happening in the Middle East in July and August, so plans will have to be flexible. But once Linda and I are accepted into the delegation, we would like to explore ways that we can share our experience in the Yearly Meeting and strengthen our ties with Ramallah Yearly Meeting.
We are looking for guidance from and collaboration with you as we approach this journey. We welcome your responses now, but would also be happy to wait for further communication until we receive word from CPT on our applications.
We will let you know when we hear from them.
In peace,
Sharon
Sharon M. Mullally
Shared Vision Productions
424 W. School House Lane
Philadelphia, PA 19144
215-438-2501
Christian Peacemaker Teams
To find out more about Peace Teams in action, go to the Christian Peacemaker Teams website.
Here is an introduction:
Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) offers an organized, nonviolent alternative to war and other forms of lethal inter-group conflict. CPT provides organizational support to persons committed to faith-based nonviolent alternatives in situations where lethal conflict is an immediate reality or is supported by public policy.
CPT seeks to enlist the response of the whole church in conscientious objection to war, and the development of nonviolent institutions, skills and training for intervention in conflict situations. CPT projects connect intimately with the spiritual lives of its constituent congregations. Gifts of prayer, money and time from these churches undergird CPT peacemaking ministries.
How can you participate in the partnership between Ramallah Friends and PYM?
Some initial ideas:
1. Pray daily for Ramallah Friends, for Palestininans and Israelis and for peace in the region.
2. Check in with this website. We hope to have personal reports from Jean Zaru and Ramallah Friends Meeting, keeping us abreast of what they are doing.
3. Decide as a Meeting to join in the partership, minute this decision and forward it to Ed Solenberger, clerk of our Quarter.
4. Collect funds to help creation of the Ramallah Peace Center. Send the funds to Thom Jeavons, PYM, 1515 Cherry Street, Philadelphia, PA 19102, earmarked for Ramallah Friends.
5. Consider travelling to the region as a peace presence.
6. Wait patiently and actively as way opens to discern what to do.
Reflections on Jean Zaru's talk to open the PYM 2002 Annual Sessions
—Margaret Wood of Towanda Meeting
Listening to Jean Zaru's opening address was a very moving experience. She has a soft voice and shared the realities of a lifetime spent in Ramallah, describing the West Bank sadly as a "gigantic prison and cemetery." She is Palestinian and Quaker. Thursday, the night of her address was Mother's Day in Palestine and a difficult time to be away, both from her mother who is ill in Jordan and her own children and grandchildren. Overall her message was life affirming and truly without anger. She talked of the necessity of sharing grief in order to find a path of newness. She quoted a prophet who said "The world grows stronger as each story is told." She spoke of the importance of telling, daily, real stories to counteract the "authoritative voice" that drowns out the complexities within issues, simplifying and reducing the urgency and intensity of the real picture. Telling the truth in stories, sharing griefs is incompatible with violence. Affirming life and everyday truths combats the numbness of history.
She told a story of Palestinian refugees who were trying to make bread to feed their children. They made a fire out of garbage to bake and stood up to Israeli soldiers who tried to put the fire out. She told of how, while she has been in the US, her house was surrounded by tanks. She told of how, on her way here to the US she crossed the ancient river Jordan and I can't tell you how that reference, and her circumstances, brought a new edge to every spiritual and Bible reference I have ever heard. The trip to her mother's in Jordan would normally take one hour. Because of road blocks, humiliating pass laws in her own country, and closed roads it took her 8 hours and it was necessary to take 3 cars and 2 buses. She confirmed the many news stories we have heard of medical emergencies and check point flare ups unnecessarily taking lives of the sick, newborn, and pregnant women. She spoke of the myth of the "purity of arms" masking war crimes. To me, she managed to convey a vulnerability that was strength. She deconstructed the "numbness of history" - ugliness and violence, into a clear skeletal structure of a path not used enough, that of non violence.
She quoted from "The Wounded Healer" "The great falsity of leadership is that humankind can be led out of the desert by someone who has never been there."
She emphasized the need for action, "Jesus did not have a passive attitude towards the circumstances that surrounded him." She has lived under the accusation that Christians have "collaborated" by encouraging the existence of the poor and oppressed to claim an afterlife. She emphasized the need to move from neutrality and objectivity to action. She quoted Cardinal swain "To hope is a duty not a luxury. Dream dreams and be ready to pay the price to make them come true."
You can buy tapes of her address from PYM.
Ramallah Friends Meeting, of Mid Eastern Yearly Meeting, until five years ago met at Ramallah Friends Meetinghouse, an oasis of quiet and peaceful serenity in the heart of busy downtown Ramallah. The recent years have been hard, both on the Meeting and their meetinghouse. Many Friends have emigrated out of this war-torn region. Many others have had a difficult time travelling due to Israeli-imposed restrictions. The Meetinghouse roof became damaged and for five years Friends have been forced to worship at Ramallah Friends school.
In the past, the Meetinghouse has been a trusted place where folks from many different religious, cultural and political traditions knew they could gather and work together. It has been the hope of the Meeting community that the building could be repaired and that it could become a center for peace and reconciliation, and community organizing. A place where visitors from all over the world could come and share hospitality while they supported efforts for peace in the region.
The Meetinghouse itself is a combination of middle eastern architecture and Quaker simplicity. It has a red tile roof, and soft stone walls. The damage to the roof has put the future of the building at risk, and there is pressure to tear it down.
Philadelphia Yearly Meeting in its 2002 Annual Sessions united in its desire to join with Ramallah Friends Meeting's dreams and hopes. We pledged to send $50,000 home with Jean Zaru, clerk of Ramallah Meeting to begin the restoration work. We intend to join with other Friends organiztions to raise and additional $100,000 to bring the vision of a peace center to fruition. We intend to unite our monthly meetings in action to support this project, with personal presence and service. The way has opened! From PYM's 2002 outgoing epistle:
"There was a constant awareness of the ramifications of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, and of the escalating violence in the world. At the opening session, Jean Zaru, a Palestinian Quaker and Clerk of Ramallah Monthly Meeting, electrified the meeting as she shared her story of grief, sufferings, Christian witness, and hope as a citizen in an occupied country. Friends recognized that there was an exciting opportunity inherent in the combination of Ramallah Meeting's need for help in repairing their historic meetinghouse, their dream of establishing an international peace center in that meetinghouse, and our longing to take action to nurture peace efforts in the Middle East.
In exploring our options, we quickly became clear that we are called to develop an ongoing spiritual partnership with Ramallah Meeting and to work collaboratively with them and, as way opens, with all others working nonviolently in the hope of contributing to a just and lasting peace in the Middle East."