First Impressions

10 o’clock in the evening. I’m sitting in the dining room of an East Jerusalem hotel. The guests are gone to sleep. the waiter Khaled, the hotel owner and a friend are playing cards in the corner. Wireless internet works.

Arrived late this afternoon. Tel Aviv from the air....a modern city of apartment blocks and industrial facilities. Modern, well designed. It felt good to be there. It felt strangely homely. Israel the state, a huge achievement. A secure home for the Jews. Their ancient language revived. Their people comfortable whether in religious or everyday clothes.

Got through the airport without a problem.
Our taxi driver stood with his sign in Arrivals. We got in his taxi and he brought us to Jerusalem.
He pointed out Lifta village on the way into Jerusalem where his grandmother was from. Emptied of it’s people in 1948, it now lies a relic of old Palestine, in modern Israel.
“I own a house there, with some land, but i can’t do anything with it.”

Met with A, a former human rights observer with EAPPI, called up after another person had to pull out due to family illness. She’d spent a year in Colombia with Peace Brigades, the organisation which pioneered the practice of human rights accompaniment/civilian protective presence in the 1980s in Central and South America.

Later after a meal of hummus, fish and rice at the Hotel A, she brought us on walk through part of East Jerusalem. We stopped into the Jerusalem Hotel, where a large crowd was gathered. There we ran into the entire EAPPI Jerusalem office.

Jerusalem seems calm. At the moment we are like tourists, and this could be one of many ancient walled Mediterranean cities.

Our journey here has just begun. I hope to record here as honestly as I can my impressions from my experiences here, without biais, without rancour or falsehood.


Disclaimer

I work for the World Council of Churches (WCC) as an Ecumenical Accompanier serving on the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI). The views contained (in this mail) are personal and do not necessarily reflect those of the EAPPI or the WCC. If you would like to publish the information contained here or disseminate it further under consideration of the official position of the organizations, please first contact the EAPPI Communication Officer and Managing Editor (eappi-co@jrol.com) for permission. Thank you.