By the Rev. Diane Dulin
Orchard Ridge UCC in Madison recently offered two Sunday school sessions on Palestine to its middle and senior high youth. I was entrusted with this assignment as leader. Our time was limited to two 40-minute sessions, and in consultation with our pastors we arrived at the two curriculum sessions described just below. Through these sessions, our youth gained a deeper sense of what life is like for Palestinians living under occupation. This exposure provided a grounding for further study of the situation in Palestine-Israel, and generated interest in the ministry of the United Church of Christ in the Holy Land.
In the first session we viewed the 27-minute film “My Neighbourhood,” produced by Just Vision. In this film we meet an early teenage youth Mohammed El-Kurd, living in the Sheik Jarrah neighborhood of East Jerusalem. We see Israeli settlers expelling his family permanently from half of their home, taking possession for themselves. Mohammed explains that his family was granted tenancy in this home after being made refugees through expulsion from their home in Haifa during the 1948 War (the Nakba – “catastrophe” – in Arabic). In the film we see Zionist Israeli settlers proclaim the land was given to them by God. We witness that it is the armed settlers, not the unarmed family whose home is stolen, who are protected by Israeli soldiers.
The film also shows how Jewish Israelis began gathering regularly to protest the actions of the settlers, demonstrating that not all Jewish Israelis consider settler land theft and home expulsions justified or legal.
Mohammed’s story is a powerful, first person account which introduces and illustrates dispossession of Palestinians from their homes and land in 1948, the continuing dispossession which takes place routinely today, and the dual system of Israeli “justice” which undergirds illegal and violent behavior by armed Israeli settlers. Youth can relate to Mohammed, in their own age group.
In the second session we focused on the “Disappearing Palestine” series of four maps, which sequentially document the ongoing loss of land by Palestinians since 1947, and the circumscribed lives of Palestinians. This visual series of maps is worth a thousand words.
As well, we contrasted some Old Testament passages promising the land to the Hebrew people and endorsing extermination of the residents already living in that land, to New Testament teachings about God’s universal love for all, and the example of Jesus and the early church in reaching out to everyone as created in the image of God. (Genesis 12:1-3, Deuteronomy 7:1-2, Joshua 11:21-23 versus Galatians 3:28-29, Matthew 3:9, Luke 4:18-30, Matthew 22:37-40).
Finally, we introduced students to the 2009 statement, “Kairos Palestine, A Moment of Truth” by Christian Palestinians. We highlighted the concept (Section 4.2.3) that it is the duty of Christians to resist evil through nonviolent means, and to engage in resistance “with love as its logic”. We looked at Section 2.3, which says the land of the Bible has a universal mission in which the Biblical promises of the land open up to include all of humanity, and Section 5, which declares God’s love is for all, and that diverse people can and must live in peace together.
In conclusion, we had guessed that two sessions would not be sufficient, that there would be more questions and desire for discussion than we had time for. And so it proved. In the future, we look forward to spending more time on Biblical claims to the land, and the conditions of Palestinians living in Gaza, the West Bank and Occupied East Jerusalem.
For additional curricular resources in working with children and youth on issues of Palestine justice, see this bibliography compiled by the Palestine Justice Mission Team of Orchard Ridge UCC in Madison. Also available is this recommended list of study resources by the Wisconsin Conference Palestine Justice Working Group.
The Rev. Diane Dulin is a retired UCC pastor and member of Orchard Ridge UCC in Madison. Email her.