With Ramadan events underway, Passover just around the corner, and Good Friday being celebrated this week leading up to Easter weekend, I have been thinking about the Holy Land. And I was thinking about all the violence that has befallen there with the war in Gaza. My colleague and our new publisher, Charles Sennott, has lived in the Holy Land for many years as a journalist and bureau chief for the Boston Globe, and has covered the Middle East for much of the past 30 years. He has written several books on religion, including The Body and The Blood: The Vanishing Christians of the Middle East and the Possibilities for Peace, published in 2001. Charlie was the first to say that he was just a reporter and not a reporter. Although he is a historian and by no means a religious scholar, he has much to share as a witness and observer of the Holy Land. He and I started a conversation about his three Abrahamic faiths: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. And I wanted to share our conversation.
Q: This Friday will be Good Friday for Christians. We are also in the middle of Ramadan according to the Islamic calendar, and heading towards Passover according to the Jewish calendar. What do these three faith traditions have in common?
CS: They occur at the same time of year, but each of these faith traditions has its own calendar, so in some years, like last year, the dates directly overlap. Although that is not the case this year, there are still common themes that unite them: sacrifice, rebirth, and spiritual liberation as a gift from God.
Friday in Jerusalem is a wonderful moment when three faiths are physically interwoven in one ancient cobbled path. It takes place just inside the Damascus Gate in the Old City of Jerusalem. We lived there for five years when I was Middle East bureau chief for the Boston Globe. I have two sons born in the Holy Land. So we often had the opportunity to witness this.
That moment occurs at noon on Friday as Christians walk down the Via Dolorosa, or “Way of Sorrows,” where Jesus carried his cross before he was crucified. There is usually a procession with a wooden cross, and prayers are said at each stop of the cross. This is the same event that occurs once a year for Christians on Good Friday, and as you pointed out, this week is when Christians read the Liturgy of the Cross and prepare for the hope and life that is the meaning of the Resurrection and Easter. .
At the same time on the same Friday, Jews wearing prayer shawls usually rush to the Western Wall for prayers ahead of the Sabbath. The Western Wall, with its gigantic Herod’s Stone, marks Judaism’s holiest land, and what remains after the destruction of the Second Temple are Jews who want to return to what they believe is the Promised Land. It was at the center of human longing. They arrived through the Exodus from Egypt after wandering through the desert led by Moses. This is the central meaning of Passover.
Also at noon on Friday, Muslims carrying prayer rugs rush to traditional Friday prayers at Al-Aqsa Mosque and Dome of the Rock, where Muslims believe the Prophet Muhammad ascended to heaven. Ramadan marks a time of fasting and spiritual rebirth, culminating in commemorating the time when Islam’s holy book, the Koran, was revealed to the Prophet Muhammad.
I am always amazed at how powerful this overlapping period of faith is for all three Abrahamic faiths. As violence appears to be escalating in the Middle East, it is truly tragic to see how this opportunity for connection is being ignored.
Violence at holy sites appears to have entered uncharted territory. Does it look like that?
Sadly, yes, I think this is an unprecedented moment in decades of violence between Israelis and Palestinians over holy sites. I’ve been covering this story since 1990. At the time, I was in the region covering the first Gulf War and witnessed some of the clashes between Israelis and Palestinians that led to the first intifada, or uprising, in East Jerusalem and the occupied territories in the West. Banks and Gaza. I was the Globe’s bureau chief when the Second Intifada broke out in the fall of 2000, and throughout the year that followed as violence escalated. At the time, the intifada smoldered until at least 2005, when Hamas clashes and a spate of bus bombings killed around 3,000 Palestinians and 1,000 Israelis. It was horribly gruesome and terrifying to live there while the violence was occurring, but there was always hope in the balance that the two countries might return to the historic Oslo Peace Accords signed in 1993. . Now, the peace process and its goal of two nations living peacefully side by side has been completely washed away.
I want you to think about the different levels of violence today. More than 35,000 Palestinians have been killed in just six months since a Hamas attack on October 7 killed 1,200 Israelis and took about 250 hostages, almost all Israelis. . They are completely incomparable on any level of violence. Even the Middle East wars in Israel (the 1948 War of Independence and the 1967 Six-Day War) did not claim as many lives as the indiscriminate bombing we are currently seeing in Gaza. Sadly, the history of the Middle East is measured in bloodshed, and we are facing a truly unprecedented tide.
Do you think the various spring festivals such as Ramadan, Easter, and Passover can help you in your quest for peace?
I believe that the inherent message of peace that exists in all three faiths, which are so connected to the Holy Land, is a solid foundation for trying to rebuild the peace process. President Jimmy Carter deeply understood this as an evangelical Christian who truly knows the Bible, and he led Egyptian leader Anwar Sadat and Israeli leader Menachem Begin to investigate the historic relationship between Egypt and Israel. signed the Camp David Accords, which continue to this day. Despite being hurt and strained by the recent violence. The difficulty these days is that extremists in all three religions have been the loudest and have succeeded in dividing us all and undermining interreligious dialogue. Interreligious trust has been shattered by Islamic extremist militants, heavily armed Jewish settlers, and a powerful Christian evangelical lobby. Religious forces deeply divide both Israel and Palestine, but the heart of the conflict is not really religion but land, and finding a way to share land that all three faiths claim as sacred. Sadly, the Christian presence is dwindling in the land where the faith was born. But Palestinian indigenous Christians in Bethlehem, Nazareth, and Jerusalem still make up about 2 percent of the total population, and even though their numbers are declining, they have a quiet but potentially resonant , you have a voice that deserves to be heard.
What do you think is the best way to end violence?
I believe that the only way forward is to try to return to certain requirements within the peace agreement. Its requirements require recognition of the legitimate right of both Israelis and Palestinians to share the land as two separate states. This will be very difficult and will certainly take a very long time, but it is possible and faith leaders, not just political leaders, will have people on both sides recognize that this is the only way forward. and lead them on that path. Christian leaders in the United States and around the world can and must play a role in this leadership, but only one can truly take the steps necessary to find a way back. , Palestinians and Israelis, and only people who are followers of all three religions. The road to peace.
