2009 Conference of Bishops

By Daniel J. Lehmann

Rockets fired into northern Israel Thursday wrecked plans by ELCA bishops and others to meet with some Israeli officials in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.

Still, bishops of the ELCA and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada pressed on with their visit, laying a wreath at the Israeli memorial to Holocaust victims and conferring with the Jewish state’s two chief rabbis.

The rocket attack in the early hours of Thursday threw the day off course. Several high-ranking Israeli leaders, including the president and foreign minister, canceled their time with the bishop. As events settled down, private consultations with the ministers of the Interior and Tourism were held as planned.

After being given a special tour of the Yad Vashem memorial, Presiding Bishop Mark S. Hanson of the ELCA, National Bishop Susan C. Johnson of the ELCIC and Bishop Munib A. Younan of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and Holy Land placed the flowers at the memorial for the 6 million Jews killed by the Nazis in World War II.

From there they held an abbreviated meeting with Israel’s top rabbis, Yona Metzger of the Ashkenazi and Shlomo Amar of the Sephardi branches of Judaism. Both rabbis devoted much of their address to explaining Israel’s incursion into the Gaza strip as necessary to stop rocket attacks on civilians in the southern portion of the country. They mourned civilian deaths in Gaza, but said military leaders showed them evidence Hamas fighters were positioned in schools and other public institutions.

Hanson stressed the two North American church’s “rejection of violence.” He said the current conduct of the campaign by Israel raised just war theory questions, especially “proportionality and killing of innocents.”

“If we can’t have this kind of exchange,” Hanson said, “. . . then fanatics will win.”

Johnson urged the rabbis to “stay at the table” in discussions with other faiths over moral and ethical issues arising from the violence. She promised “our prayers for you at this very difficult time and our pledge of accompaniment.”

Neither rabbi responded. They left immediately for another meeting.

The trip is to stress accompaniment with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land, raise awareness of regional issues and boost advocacy for peace. It runs through Jan. 13.

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a montage from January 6-8

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By Daniel J. Lehmann

Bishops visiting Jerusalem learned firsthand the ups and downs of life in Jerusalem Wednesday.

Leading clergy from the ELCA and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada started their day with a Eucharist in the starkly handsome Lutheran Church of the Redeemer in the center of the Old City.

Acoustics in the 1898 sanctuary built by the German kaiser are exceptional. The bishops and staff did not hold back in their singing as part of their second day of a seven-day meeting in Jerusalem and the West Bank.

The obvious joy from the service would soon dissipate as the group walked through the narrow, covered streets of the Old City for a rare tour by Christians of the al-Aqsa Mosque, one of Islam’s most revered worship sites that rests atop the Temple Mount. The visit was arranged by Grand Mufti Muhammad Ahmad Hussein.

The group was turned away at the mosque by Israeli authorities after a short and frank verbal exchange. Israeli officials contacted group leaders to say the visit could occur later in the day. The deed was done, however, and the bishops moved on with their day.

Clerical leaders of the two North American churches are on a mission of accompaniment, awareness and advocacy for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land and peace efforts between Israelis and Palestinians.

After lunch Redeemer’s courtyard buildings, parts of which date from the 12th century, the bishops divided into groups for walking tours of the Old City. They visited churches and former mosques and synagogues of various kinds, witnessing the street life where Israelis, Palestinians and tourists mingle on streets some 2,000-plus years old.

The life in Israel and the West Bank and Gaza confronted them again in the evening during a presentation by a United Nations official on the walls surrounding the Palestinian areas and the Israeli settlements on the West Bank.

Then came testimony for peace and mutual understanding — not revenge — between the two sides from an Israeli whose 14-year-old daughter was killed by two Palestinian suicide bombers and a Palestinian whose 62-year-old father was shot and killed by Israeli soldiers. The bishops supported the pair with a long ovation and prayer with the laying on of hands.

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