Jewish woman joins Israel/Palestine accompaniers

by Michele Green
Ecumenical News International

JERUSALEM — Joining the latest group of 15 ecumenical accompaniers sent to Israel and Palestine by the World Council of Churches is a Jewish woman from Britain, organizers said on Dec. 13. 

      The ecumenical accompaniers will spend the next three months working with Palestinian communities as well as Israeli organizations sympathetic to the plight of Palestinians. 

        “Our people get a deep understanding of the situation and when they go back they have credibility and are able to offer a unique perspective,” said Larry Fatah, the local spokesperson for the Ecumenical Accompaniment Program in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI).       

      Participants in the latest group come from Germany, Sweden, Norway, Switzerland and Britain. They are selected by their church groups to take part in the program. But the presence of a Jewish volunteer from Britain shows that the program is open to people of all backgrounds, Fatah said. 

      Greeting the group, the Lutheran bishop in Jerusalem, Munib Younan, said he was particularly pleased to have “a Jewish participant in the EAPPI who joins in the human chain working for peace and justice in the Holy Land.” 

      The Jewish volunteer would be living among Palestinians in the village of Younen, where there is a permanent international presence to protect residents from attacks by militant Jewish settlers. 

      “She will live in the village, be with the people and help with things like the sheep herding,” Fatah said.  

      Other volunteers would be working with the Christian communities in Bethlehem, Ramallah and Nablus as well as in Palestinian refugee camps in the cities. 

      The ecumenical participation program was established two years ago at the request of local churches in the Holy Land.  

      Sometimes volunteers take part in anti‑Israeli demonstrations initiated by Palestinians, Fatah said, although they are not involved in planning such protests. 

      Fatah said that last year volunteers dressed as the Virgin Mary and Joseph tried to go through a military checkpoint near Bethlehem, to highlight the difficulties Palestinians face moving through the West Bank. 

     Israel says the checkpoints are to keep out Palestinian suicide bombers who have killed hundreds of Israelis since a Palestinian uprising began four years ago.