In the fall of 2011 while I criss-crossed the United States in my Subaru, I listened to 36 hours of the MIT 900 Cognitive Psychology lectures. While a number of facts and figures astounded me, what captured my attention most was the repeating pattern of the innate human desire to be defined by shared beliefs, practices, and aspirations.

The lectures covered the standard, historic review of psychology breakthroughs, from behaviourist B.F. Skinner’s Operant Conditioning Chamber (the “Skinner Box”) to the startling conclusions of volunteer invoked shock therapy under the subtle suggestion by an authority.

In a controlled study people were randomly divided into two groups, the red and the blue. They were told the colour to which they were assigned was their group identity. A small reward system of nominal monetary value (if I recall correctly) was applied, to instill real-world value. Then they were moved to debate, to defend their colour identity.

In very little time at all, two newly formed groups went from relatively light, playful interaction to a very real, intense exchange which resulted in group pride and subsequent defence, raised voices, and aggression. Humanity found its way to the surface and defended something as basic as a colour which would have otherwise invoked no more than a response to aesthetics.

It takes only a small cognitive leap to ask the bigger questions. When families are forced from their homes, uprooted for generations as they move across the land (I speak of any people who have been forced from their homes, Ancient Hebrews, Palestinians, Christians, Muslims, and Jews) in search of safety, what happens to their sense of identity and associated defence? Does it not speak volumes to see it as completely human for those oppressed to defend themselves with their lives, for the oppressed to become the oppressor, and for any number of incredibly challenging interactions to ripple for decades, even generations after the initial tragedy unfolds?

What’s more, How do we hold ourselves together when our identity is challenged for generations?

Finding Comfort in the Familiar
When hiking with Daniel and Haim, we discussed the laws and rituals by which one’s religion asks us to live—from clothing to food preparation to prayer. As I had come to understand, some of the Biblical rules were applied as a means by which the ancients could be encouraged to maintain healthy habits, from food preparation to social norms.

Haim jumped in quickly to state it was much more than this. Ritual, he suggested, is a means of creating comfort, of embodying same-ness. In following the traditions of clothing, food preparation, and prayer, ritual gives us comfort in knowing we belong to others like us. “If you want to know your daughter will marry into a family, a home and traditions familiar to you, those rituals say to both families, ‘This is safe. We are like you.‘”

But something happens along the way, as pride in red becomes defence against blue. Those definitions of sameness become a barrier to ethnicity, beliefs, and social norms which cause us to not feel welcomed by them. Xenophobia is again portrayed as fundamental to humanity and we are confronted with fear expressed as anger between the Jews, Christians, and Muslims, the Democrats and the Republicans, the East and the West, the Developed and Developing, the Crypts and the Bloods—the red and the blue.

While this is a deliberate understatement of the complexity of the human experience, to understand some basic concepts, how our behaviour is rooted (and how easily it is invoked) helps me to recognize my own behaviour as I move through the world and to have greater tolerance for others. I am trying to take into account the historical context of where I now live, and how both “sides” of a conflict are at some, basic level defending red in fear of blue.

Set apart
The Haredim in Israel
Dec 13, 2010 by Mordechai Beck in The Christian Century

No week passes in Israel without an article being published—usually negative in tone—about the Haredi community. According to the Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics, the Haredim, or ultra-Orthodox Jews, constitute about 8 percent of Israel’s population, or some 600,000 to 700,000 people. It is the fastest-growing segment in Israel.

What worries many Israelis, religious as well as secular, about 
the growth of the Haredim is that they reject political Zionism, the enterprise that established the state of Israel in 1948. Their first loyalty is to their spiritual leaders, not the state.

Read the rest of this informative article …

I spent yesterday and today with my assistant Farid Karreh, film student and nephew of Bishop Younan, with the Director Prof. Dr. Dieter Vieweger, Archaeologist Katja Soennecken and Museum Curator Dominic Pruessner of the German Protestant Institute of Archaeology in the Holy Land, the Research Unit of the renowned German Archaeological Institute (DEI) with a long history of work in the Middle East.

I am producing a short, educational film for the Institute, working to capture some of the knowledge and passion of those who have worked at this site, beneath the Church of the Redeemer in the Old City Jerusalem for more than three years.

The first excavation was conducted in 1893 in conjunction with the construction of this church, and again between 1970 and 1974, during the renovation of the church foundation and floor in order to improve its odds at surviving an earthquake. At this time a seven meter “deep sounding” (cut) was taken to the level of a Roman quarry, dating from 100 B.C. In the past three years, Dieter and his team cleaned this lower level and made significant, unexpected discoveries through the rest of the site, removing more than a meter of soil and rubble to expose a market street, cistern and drain, guard house, mosaic, and retaining wall originally constructed in the 4th century A.D. to hold back an elevated terrace.

Built between 1893 and 1898, the modern Church included a “time capsule” installed in the cornerstone. This was located and reopened, revealing several items which will eventually be replaced, along with some references to our modern day.

By the time of Jesus birth, the quarry on which I stand in these photos was already beneath 2-3 meters sediment. Today, Muristan Street (just outside the front door of the Church) is 14 meters above the Roman quarry, the layers comprised of both natural and human maneuvered sediment, rubble, and infill. It is often difficult to think in geologic terms, to consider the movement of this much earth in such a short period of time, let alone to consider that every block of limestone used to construct nearly every building in Israel and Palestine came from the deposition of once living plant and animal material and chemical precipitation, pressed down, heated, transformed, and lifted up again as stone.

Standing in that cut made it more tangible for me, not unlike walking down into the Grand Canyon, taking in the visible layers of sandstone, limestone, schist, shale, various igneous flows, granite, and eventually bedrock. I regained a strong sense of how quickly the earth does shift, move, and churn. In just one century the precise work of laborers was completely buried. Two millennia and one requires a concerted effort to locate the quarry whose stones defined the walls and gardens and thrones of more than a few infamous kings. One hundred millions years and entire mountains are disassembled and tumbled to the sea.

A Photo Essay of a Funeral Service
The World Council of Churches (WCC) general secretary expressed deep sorrow over the death of Armenian Apostolic Patriarch Torkom II Manoogian, primate of the Armenian Patriarchate of Jerusalem. Torkom II passed October 12 at the age of 96.

Read the full story.

Today, I was given the honor of joining Bishop Munib Younan as his photographer, at a round table discussion with the Elders, an independent group of respected leaders who work together for peace and human rights. Founded by Nelson Mandela in 2007 and chaired by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the Elders work to find solutions to some of the world’s most challenging geo- and socio-political issues.

This event was assembled in order to update the Elders organization with a current state of affairs concerning the Israeli occupation of Palestine. A number of individuals from a diverse background were present, from a former Prime Minister to representatives from the Carter Center, Just Vision, al Quds University, and Bishop Munib Younan, President of the Lutheran World Federation.

Each person who spoke of the Palestinian experience brought to the discussion a facet of living under Israeli occupation: from the challenge of simple, daily tasks, to the morbid statistics of education, low salaries and education, and the growing number of refugees, people displaced through forced removal or complete destruction of their homes.

Without Proof of Birth
One woman described how she had a number of years ago moved back to her home land from a good life in Dubai in order to grant her son an Israeli birth, only to learn after his birth he would be denied a certificate because she was married to a Palestinian man. The Israeli government explained she would need to divorce her Palestinian husband in order for her son to have an Israeli birth certificate.

She had to choose between leaving her homeland forever, or playing the game for she was already in Israel, her son without a birth certificate. She divorced her husband (on paper, not in her heart, from what I understood). But instead of being granted a birth certificate as was promised, she was denied for six and a half years. Without a birth certificate, her son was not allowed to attend school in Israel or Palestine. Her family was torn apart as she was caught in a no-win situation.

A Home Invasion
Fourteen year old Ibrihim (a name used to protect his identity) described something completely inconceivable to me, and to most who hear his story. It is so bizarre that it simply does not seem possible. If I had not already heard similar stories from an Israeli friend, I would find it difficult to immediately believe.

The Israeli government has since 1967 encouraged and supported “settlements”—illegal (according to the geo-political boundaries set in 1947 by the United Nations General Assembly) acquisition of land in the Palestinian territories. Sometimes through relatively subtle, gradual take-over, but in many instances, the overt bulldozing of entire housing complexes and family homes. In all, more than 750,000 Palestinians have been documented as fled or forced from their homes. While on paper many yet own land in the occupied territories, or even in Israel proper, they have nothing to return to or are not allowed to return at all.

In attempt to counter the Israeli occupation, there are NGOs whose function is to support the rapid reconstruction of Palestinian homes after they are knocked down, keeping the Israeli’s from claiming the land once unoccupied. They knock them down and they are rebuilt again … and again … and again.

But what is even more unbelievable is the occupation of family homes while the Palestinians yet remain there, the Israeli Settler family literally takes over a few rooms, even half the house. Sometimes, as is the case with a home in the Old City, they leave the Palestinians with but a single room or court yard, using the ancient laws of division of property by sons and then daughters to their favor, as the Palestinian family is split and no longer fully accounted for at that location.

Ibrihim describes how one half of his family home was forcibly taken over, a young couple (likely in their late twenties) moving in. At threat of police or military intervention, they are forced to share their home with unwanted, permanent guests.

The Settlers often do not work, rather, they are paid by the Israeli government to occupy this space. They make reports about the coming and going of the Palestinians, verbally accosting them and even spitting on Ibrihim’s grandmother whenever they pass. There is but one front door to enter, and a shared court yard.

Ibrihim and his parents have left, as they simply cannot live in this condition. But their grandmother remains, steadfast so as to not lose the family home.

This is not an isolated incident, rather, there are 28 such examples in Ibrihim’s home town alone. Why do they do this? Slowly, one house at a time, it is the intent of the Zionist movement to claim all of occupied Palestine for Israel, an assumed biblical heritage which ignores the Palestinians 4,000 years history on this land. After centuries of hostile take-over and more than twenty five invasions, the mandate by the U.N. is ignored and the request for State just last year denied, in part, by the United States.

Ibrihim’s own words were incredible to hear, given what he has experienced. Holding back tears, he shared with all those present at the Round Table discussion, “I do not hate the Israeli people. I do not hate the Jews. I have many Jewish friends. I do not hate them. But what these people do, I do not understand. They come into my home. My family’s home, and they yell at us every day, saying horrible, mean things. They spit on my grandmother when they pass and they tell us we do not belong. I do not–I will not hate them, but what they do is wrong.”

What I don’t understand …
On a personal note, I struggle with this at several levels. I am baffled as to how this unfolds, how this can happen. It is bizarre, surreal even. And yet, it is true, documented, time and time again, not some urban legend.

Yes, governments have for millennia committed far worse, in both historic and modern times, coordinating the destruction of properly, rape and murder of their own people. In those circumstances as with this, I ask not how a government can intentionally force strangers into a family home, but what is the psychology of those who are the ones to move in, to live there every day? How can a couple in their twenties, a time in one’s life when the world should be open to opportunity, be so filled with hatred and violent tendency that they feel ok, inside, about what they do?

In the military, young men are taught to defend at any cost, to kill without hesitation. But what kind of training did these young couples receive? What were they taught, when, and where? How were they programmed to disable that natural human tendency for compassion (even if their empathy gene is switched off ), to lose differentiation of ok versus not ok?

Peled-Elhanan, a professor of language and education at Hebrew University of Jerusalem has studied the content of Israeli school books for the past five years. Her account, “Palestine in Israeli School Books: Ideology and Propaganda in Education” describes … a racism that prepares young Israelis for their compulsory military service.

Peled-Elhanna states “One question that bothers many people is how do you explain the cruel behaviour of Israeli soldiers towards Palestinians, an indifference to human suffering, the inflicting of suffering. People ask how can these nice Jewish boys and girls become monsters once they put on a uniform. I think the major reason for that is education.”

This is not unlike the U.S. Border Patrol turning on the A/C in the dog catcher trucks in the cold winter or the heat in the dead of an Arizona summer while depriving migrant workers of water, a change of clothes, or return of their belongings. Something snaps. It simply must. At some point, humans are no longer seen as human, rather some kind of lower animal and the action is justified. This has been happening for centuries, not just here in Israel and Palestine, but on a global scale in countless thousands of conflicts and issues of imbalance throughout history: caste systems, slave trade, and apartheid to name a few.

Xenophobia is very, very real.

The conclusion I have arrived to is that in time of war, it would be far easier for me to fire a rifle than to sit in someone’s home, verbally abusing the owners and spitting in their faces. I cannot imagine what someone would have to tell me, how I would need to be programmed to do this not once, but every day for months, even years on end. It seems the power of religion can work to both heal and divide equally.

At the same time, he exemplifies the most powerful aspect of humanity while his adversaries display the worst, for even at fourteen years of age, he refuses to give into hate. He simply desires for his grandmother to be safe, to return to his home, and for his people to have a nation they can call their own.

Where does this go?
I want to be clear in stating that Jewish Setters do not in any way represent all Israelis. In fact, they are in the small minority. But they have been granted incredible power through funding (much of which comes from American citizens) and Israeli law which supports their actions.

I do not have ample understanding of what transpires here to make any sort of statement about what should or will unfold to bring this conflict to an end. I hear talk among my associates here in Palestine that without economic sanctions, a unanimous decision by the United Nations, or a third intafada—this will continue to unfold for decades more. In recent news the Christian churches in North America are calling upon Congress to investigate how U.S. military aid is used in conjunction with Israel’s occupation of Palestine. The official Jewish response was harsh and unyielding.

As the opening presenter made clear, a tourist can visit the Holy Land and unless he or she ventures into the Islamic quarter and observes Jewish children escorted under armed guard to and from school, or ventures into Hebron and other heavily occupied cities, it is not obvious what is transpiring. The cameras, the military preparedness, the tension right under the surface is not something one gathers from a few days in Jerusalem, and certainly not in Western Israel.

The relative subtlety of the Israeli effort on a daily basis is interrupted only by those seemingly “news worthy” events—rock throwing returned by gun fire, outbreaks at checkpoints, and the occasional story of a United States manufactured bulldozer destroying Palestinian homes—makes for the perpetuation of a methodical ethnic cleansing from an ancient Palestinian land.

There are thousands of individuals here from around the world, working through the United Nations, NGOs, schools, churches, and a variety of volunteer and humanitarian aide organizations—all trying to make a difference. It is my hope that while any one organization is not likely to change history, together, gradual, slow change will occur.

Suspended from a static repel line, I lowered myself over the lip of the last of a half dozen dry water falls, this one the tallest at sixty meters. It had been a while since I had been on rope, most of my interactions with rock as a boulderer and less than ten meters off the deck. But what made this excursion with my new friend Haim and his uncle Daniel unique is we were below sea level, by a few hundred meters, baking in what must have been more than 35 degrees Centigrade in the Middle Eastern sun.

The Dead Sea lay but a few kilometers to the front of the opening of this drainage system, just one slot West from Masada, where in 66 A.D. the first Jewish-Roman war took place. The Romans built a massive ramp in order to overtake the defenses, to recapture what is believed to have been a fortress built by Herod the Great.

I feel fortunate, lucky to have met such an amazing young man in the climbing gym. Haim is fluent in French, Hebrew, English and Japanese. He is now studying at Hebrew University for his Masters in Philosophy. But climbers are like that, open, accepting, not shy. They welcome complete strangers into their homes to “crash” for the night. It’s part of the culture that I do my best to uphold in return.

At Wednesday night volleyball and potluck, here on Mount of Olives, some of the volunteers and humanitarian aid workers spoke of times when they were walking home from class or work, on either the Israeli or Palestinian side of Jerusalem, and were invited into the home of a stranger for tea, coffee, even dinner. Sometimes old women would come out to meet them on the sidewalk and press bread and cheese into their hands, telling them they didn’t look like they had enough to eat.

My former employee and friend Amjad, who now lives in Dubai, recently spoke to me of the ancient times when the homes of desert dwellers had guest rooms always available for strangers. It was then customary, and in some places remains so, that at any time of the day or night a traveler could knock on the door and ask for shelter. There was perhaps less fear of the unknown then, of the stranger. Despite all the advances in technology, science, and knowledge, we are in some ways more afraid than ever before.

In those ancient days, when the world was the distance one could walk or sail in a few days, people had to embrace an interconnected life if they were to survive. Facebook, Google+, Skype, social networking will never replace the very basic interaction of two people meeting, face to face for the first time, the visceral exchange of words, body language, and pheromones engaging all our senses.

In this way, I was not surprised (but very pleased) when Haim invited me to an all-day canyoneering adventure with him and his uncle. This is what climbers do, everywhere in the world. But in this place of political and religious tension, where the throwing of stones is met with tear gas, helicopters, and machine gun fire, there is an extra emphasis on the trust, some would say the faith required to invite a complete stranger into your home.

We walked the broken limestone trail back to Haim’s grandmother’s Mazda which Daniel, her son drove and returned to Haim’s home. We unpacked the car, fed the dog, and then headed down into the Wadi Qelt valley which connects Jerusalem to Jericho through the Judean desert in the West Bank.

At first, I was reluctant to venture out into sun again, surprised by the apparent distance we had to drop and later return. But I trusted Haim and Daniel to treat me well, and as promised, it was more than worth the effort. A very real oasis greeted us at the bottom of the hot, dusty trail. We removed our shirts and shoes, waited for the visitors to thin, and then enjoyed the cool water in two pools, one with a substantial water fall. Small fish nibbled on legs and toes, if we sat still long enough.

It was a day without discussion of politics or religion. It was a day in which three people simply came together to enjoy the outdoors. On this day, I am grateful for new friends, who invited me to join their adventure in an ancient place, high above the Dead Sea yet far below the Mediterranean and oceans of the world.

Having just returned from the local market to my new home on Mount of Olives in East Jerusalem, I am sitting in the reading room of the Augusta-Victoria Guest House where I enjoy the company of an eclectic, international contingency of volunteers and aid workers. I am here on a four month contract, working with the Lutheran Church of Jordan & the Holy Land to rebuild their website and produce several short, documentary style films about life in Palestine.

I have not been to this place for more than fifteen years. While it feels familiar (the few photos I scanned from 35mm positives stimulating memories) I am of course experiencing it in an entirely new way. Having just finished eating fresh plums and grapes, I am enjoying a cold Taybey beer, a world-famous micro-brew mentioned in the New York Times as “A Niche Beer, made, you might say, to toast peace.” According to biblical scholars, Taybeh is near the place where Jesus submitted himself to forty days fasting. If this delicious local brew had been available then, it would surely have been one of the more challenging temptations.

Today was my first day in the office at the Church of the Redeemer in the center of the Old City Jerusalem, Christian Quarter. Having walked from Mount of Olives through the Damascus Gate, I returned in the early evening by the number 75 bus. My associate, historian, published author and Pastor Fred Strickert was an excellent guide, sharing his depth of knowledge and passion for this ancient place.

The church was constructed in the 1890s, built upon a foundation of stone first established some 2000 years prior. While my office is average in most respects, four walls, desks, book shelves, computers and air conditioning, I need only walk down the hall and look into the subterrainean court yard to be reminded of the historic import of where I now work and live.

Oddly enough, at the heart of the Old City with shops packed in so tight one cannot turn in any direction without bumping into something, or someone, it is far more peaceful than outside the Old City walls where traffic is comprised of buses, tractors, taxis, trucks, and cars, the daily Muslim calls to prayer, and at night, fireworks from a nearby football match (or neighborhood rivalry).

I again moved to embrace the diversity we embody, the very reasons each of us wakes in the morning as different as the color of our skin and eyes, texture of our hair, and style of our clothing. Some of us fight for what we hold to be true while others want nothing more than a safe place to work, play, and raise children. While the U.S. news tells only of failed peace accords, suicide bombers and shootings, daily life is far more complex, a mixture of the normal and the unsettling.

Muslim shopkeepers sell wares to Russian Jews. Korean pilgrims walk in tight bundles, shoulder to shoulder, chanting as they move through holy places in the Old City streets. A ten year old boy with red-blond hair presses his BMX bike into the back of women’s full length gowns, fingering the battery powered laser blaster mounted on the handlebar, hoping they will vaporize or at least step out of the way in order that he may pass. Vendors sell fresh baked bread, pastries, and falafel balls. Prices vary according to who is paying and what value (or experience) they attribute to the barter.

“You are very welcome here!” is heard over and over again as shop keepers hope to gain the interest and trust of passers by. Street names assigned to corridors no wider than my car and gates, each with an ancient story remind me how many hundred of generations have called this place home. The city itself is a type of tel, layers upon layers of buried history which may never again be viewed by human eyes or given form in anything more than oral histories passed along for countless centuries before ascribed to the pages of books, both ancient and new.

I am finding my comfort zone. For now, I seek those safe places which feel right at different times of the day, the shared kitchen and common reading room, the hillside overlooking Jerusalem in silhouette against the slow setting sun. I fight the urge to call family and friends via Skype just to feel connected again, for if I do this, I know, I will pass too many nights talking instead of being here in order that I may truly experience it. I look back to my three times in Kenya and know this to be true.

I spent last night and this morning writing, for me, again stimulating that part of my brain which enables me to see, events easily described in intimate detail hours, even days later. My eyes blink, the shutter of my original camera, and the moment is frozen in time.

As Ray Bradbury endeavored to write one thousand words each day, I now open that part of me that sees the world through words, photos, and film. I hope that as the days and weeks pass, I will look back and feel I truly lived here, present and accounted for in my mind and body as I built these memories.