Emma O’Donnell Polyakov. Israel Studies. Volume 23, Issue 1, Spring 2018.
A dense network of interrelatedness exists between the formation of identities and concepts of sacred place in Jerusalem. The article explores this dynamic through examining the link between Christian constructions of identity and the idea of the Holy Land. It argues that the Holy Land is a concept developed uniquely in each context, and intertwined with the negotiation of religious and cultural identity. This theoretical framework is contextualized in the second half of the article, which draws on recent field-work within a number of the diverse Christian communities in Jerusalem and the surrounding area. The subjects of the ethnographic component of the study reflect upon their own understandings of their religious and cultural identities, and concepts of the holiness of the land, expressing a reciprocal relationship between constructions of identity and the idea of the Holy Land, in which each informs the other.
Introduction
Much has been made in recent years over the concept of identity, which is now recognized as being constructed dialogically, in relation to the other, and continually in flux as it negotiates this encounter with the other. The relational construction of identity involves encounters with a wide range of elements and circumstances, including encounters with place, and this can be seen in high resolution in the context of the place known as the Holy Land. Here, an intricate network of interrelatedness exists between religious identities and concepts of sacred place, and for Christian communities this is enunciated in relation to the idea of Jerusalem as a holy city within a holy land. In this context, religious experience and self-understanding are formed in relation to a place whose symbolic meanings and associations exceed its geographical substance.
Although the religious concept of the Holy Land has been reinforced through centuries and millennia of textual traditions and histories of pilgrimage and conquest, I argue here that the Holy Land is, first and foremost, an idea. This idea, furthermore, is as contextually constructed as identity, developed uniquely in each context and each community. The idea of the Holy Land is intertwined with the negotiation of religious and cultural identity, and in today’s world, this idea cannot stand alone as a religious concept removed from political and social contingencies, but is entangled in these conflicted contemporary realities.
I propose that sacred place and identity are constructed reciprocally, each informing the other. I begin by discussing the distinction between space and place, determining place to be constructed in relation to the self. I explore how this dynamic occurs in the idea of sacred place as well, and following this, I consider the similarly relational process of the construction of identity. The traditions of sacred place have the capacity to influence the construction of identity, and yet, this relationship is also reciprocal, for the way that a place is known as sacred is shaped in part by the identities of the communities and individuals who hold it to be sacred.
The second part of the article applies this theoretical basis contextually. This section explores this reciprocal construction of identity and sacred place through sharing interview excerpts from recent fieldwork. These interview excerpts share the first-person narratives of nuns, monks, and priests from a variety of Christian denominations living in the place known as the Holy Land, revealing diverse understandings of the idea of the Holy Land, and shedding light on how these concepts influence each person’s identity.
The Concept of the Holy Land
The idea of the sanctity of Jerusalem and the surrounding land is found in Jewish, Christian, and Muslim traditions, although each tradition places emphasis on different places, and each understands the holiness in distinct ways. Yet despite the differences, in each of these three religions the land lays a powerful claim on the imagination, and is the site of a convergence of geography and religious identity. Sacred place here is the norm rather than the exception; almost every meter of land has been linked to a religious narrative, or multiple religious narratives, particularly within Jerusalem. The Holy Land, in this sense, is quite crowded, for it witnesses a concatenation of many meanings intersecting across the same land, and the same sites. And, if place is constructed reciprocally with identity, as the following pages argue, then perhaps it is more correct to say that the Holy Land, so dense with traditions of sacred place, is many places in the same place.
In Jewish tradition, the land of Israel was given by God to the Jewish people, according to biblical literature, and reinforced and developed in rabbinic literature, which emphasizes the great religious significance of living in the land. Within the land of Israel, Jerusalem holds special significance in many ways, and as Zwi Werblowsky claims, for the Jewish people “Jerusalem is not a city containing holy places or commemorating holy events.” “The city as such is holy,” he continues, and has “served as the symbol of the historic existence of a people.” Jerusalem is known as the location of the eben shetiya, or foundation stone, believed to be the place where creation began; it is where Abraham is believed to have offered Isaac as a sacrifice; it is where King David is believed to have brought the ark of the covenant to rest; and where the First and Second Temples once stood; to name just a few aspects of the complex significance of Jerusalem and the land of Israel in Judaism. In Muslim tradition, Jerusalem is the site from where the Prophet Muhammad is believed to have mystically ascended to heaven during his night journey. The city is referred to as Al-Quds, “The Holy One” in Arabic, and in the earliest years of the establishment of Islam, Jerusalem was also the gibla, the place of prayer direction.
As Christianity arose out of the context of Second Temple Judaism, it also developed traditions of the Holy Land derived from interpretations of the Hebrew Bible, but which revolved primarily around narratives of the events in the life of Jesus. This resulted in a Christian understanding of the Holy Land as the place where Jesus Christ was born, lived, and preached, and Jerusalem as the city where he was crucified and resurrected, all of which, according to Christian tradition, is in continuity with the Hebrew Bible.
The Christian idea of the Holy Land—that is, the idea that the land of the biblical narrative is inherently a holy land, and indeed the Holy Land—is engrained into many Christian traditions. However, the idea of the particular sanctity of the land holds no established place in most traditions of systematic Christian theology. To the contrary, most strands of Christian thought hold that holiness is universal, and one place cannot be more holy than another. As early Christianity developed, often defining itself in contradistinction to the Jewish traditions to which it was so closely related, it began to distance itself from a religious attachment to the land. This also resulted in the spiritualization of Jerusalem, in which “Jerusalem was a spiritual entity which the Christian could experience anywhere. Other great cities… could become ‘Jerusalem’.” Nowhere within mainstream Christian tradition is the Holy Land unequivocally recognized as decidedly holy. However, the idea of the Holy Land has a strong pull on the popular imagination, and continues to inspire rich traditions of pilgrimage and spirituality.
Christians in the land known as the Holy Land are in a unique position. Although Christians comprise a religious majority in worldwide statistics, and in many countries are accustomed to being a majority population holding power, within Israel and the Palestinian territories they comprise less than two percent of the overall population; in the state of Israel, Christians are a small religious minority within a Jewish majority, and in the Palestinian territories, a minority within a Muslim majority. The Christian communities of Israel and the Palestinian territories are extremely diverse, representing a complex array of denominations. These diverse denominations can be divided into four main groups: 1) Oriental Orthodox, non-Chalcedonian (including Armenian, Syriac, Coptic, and Ethiopian); 2) Eastern Orthodox, Chalcedonian (Greek Orthodox); 3) the Catholic family; 4) the Evangelical and Episcopal family, which includes all Protestant denominations.
These diverse Christian denominations are comprised primarily of Arab Christian communities native to the land, who generally self-identify as Palestinian Christian, the majority of whom belong to the Greek Orthodox Church. For many Palestinian Christians, in particular, the religious significance of the Holy Land cannot be separated from the political, and many associate the religious significance of the land with Jewish religious nationalism, which is generally perceived as a threat. In addition, the division of land between Israel and the Palestinian territories cuts between many of the Christian holy sites, most notably dividing Jerusalem from Bethlehem, which heightens the connection between the religious and political issues at play in the idea of the Holy Land.
In addition to the Palestinian Christian communities, there are also many other Christian communities from around the world who have established long-standing presences in Jerusalem and across the Holy Land. The Armenian community is a notable example, having maintained a presence in Jerusalem since the fifth century. A number of international religious orders have also established themselves in the Holy Land, and although most of them practice celibacy and therefore have not established family networks and a biological heritage in the land, many have maintained an ongoing presence, such as the Franciscan friars who have held the office of the Custody of the Holy Land since the thirteenth century. In recent years there has also been an increase in non-Arab Christians, primarily comprised of migrants seeking employment in Israel.
Each Christian community formulates its own theological understandings of the way in which the Holy Land is, or is not, a holy land, and the idea of the Holy Land is constructed anew and distinctly in each person’s and community’s experience, and in conversation with self-understandings of identity. These ideas of the Holy Land are not insular and abstract theologies, but are interwoven with the social fabric, reflecting diverse experiences and interpretations of religious narratives, ethnic and national identities, interpersonal relationships, and socio-political contexts.
Place and the Self
Before proceeding further, the idea of “sacred place” requires some clarification. While a satisfactory definition of the phrase is not easily reached, we can begin by clarifying that, in this reading, it does not refer to a notion of sacredness inherent in certain places. Whether a place is or can be sacred in and of itself is not the concern of this study. Rather, the term “sacred place” here implies a relationship between a particular geographic designation and a network of religious beliefs, traditions, socially-maintained memories, and customs. This relationship, furthermore, is fluid, taking a unique shape in each context. As Jonathan Z. Smith observes, describing the continually shifting nature of this relationship, “[Sacred and profane] are not substantive categories, but rather situational or relational categories, mobile boundaries which shift according to the map being employed. There is nothing that is sacred in itself, only sacred things in relation.”
In discourse on religiously significant land and sites, the term “sacred space” is often used as a general term. Here, however, the term “sacred place” is used instead, reflecting an understanding of place as determined in relation to the self. This follows the distinction between space and place enunciated by Edward Casey, in which space is “the encompassing volumetric void in which things (including human beings) are positioned”, and in contrast, place is “the immediate environment of my lived body—an arena of action that is at once physical and historical, social and cultural”.
This choice also reflects the meanings that the concept of space has carried through history, beginning with the older, traditional view of “space”, indicating a pure, infinite, and empty realm, prior to all specific places. This view assumes that space is a fundamental, natural given reality, existing in an unaltered state unrelated to our perception or interpretation of it. Contemporary thought in fields as diverse as physics, philosophy, and psychology have now diverged from this understanding, and no longer see place as secondary to absolute, natural space; rather, “We ‘come to know’ in terms of our knowledge of specific places before we ‘come to know’ space as a whole or in the abstract.” In this understanding, place is “space that has the capacity to be remembered and to evoke what is most precious”.
As Casey observes, “It is a mark of contemporary philosophical thought, especially phenomenology, to contest the dichotomies that hold the self apart from body and place. Contra Descartes, the body is recognized as integral to selfhood, with the result that we can no longer distinguish neatly between physical and personal identity.” Place is now seen not as a subdivision of absolute space, or as a unit of space that can be objectively determined, but as a part of our perception of the physical world. We experience place through our relationship with the world around us, and as Casey concludes, “In effect, there is no place without self and no self without place!”
In this theoretical framework, the term “sacred space” is a misnomer, for the concept of space is disembodied, leaving out the humanity and intimacy of the human experience. Sacred place, then, is a location where the physical environment intersects with a religious narrative, creating a place that is known and revered as part of that narrative. Or conversely, sacred place can be understood not only as a location that is imbued with religious meaning, but also as a religious narrative that becomes embodied or grounded in a place. Either way, sacred place resides at the intersection of faith and environment, and each intersection is unique, particular to a specific place, community, and context.
This sense of place as intimately related to the human subject is reminiscent of what Gaston Bachelard calls “topophilia” in his Poetics of Space, which addresses “the human value of the sorts of space that may be grasped, that may be defended against adverse forces, the space we love”. Bachelard refers to this kind of place as “eulogized”, and continues, “Space that has been seized upon by the imagination cannot remain indifferent space subject to the measures and estimates of the surveyor. It has been lived in, not in its positivity, but with all the partiality of the imagination.”
As the following pages demonstrate, Jerusalem and the Holy Land are examples par excellence of eulogized space, densely inhabited by the imagination. In the contrast between “space” and “place” outlined here, these are certainly “places”, rich in imaginative, symbolic, and emotional associations. They are places known as sacred, imagined and remembered, and created in the midst of the relationship between the physical environment, human experiences, and religious narratives. The idea of the Holy Land speaks of a place that indeed has been “seized by the imagination”; its patterns of physical inhabitation over the centuries have been dense and complex, and its inhabitation by the imagination has been even more so.
The Relational Construction of Identity
A cartoon published in the New Yorker a few years ago shows a group of penguins standing together, each indistinguishable from the other. No individual penguin can be identified as the speaker, and caption reads simply “Which one of us is me?”. The humor in this cartoon is absurd, and yet it reflects an aspect of the process of self-identification. It is not simply asking the reader to identify which penguin is speaking in the first person; rather, the first person voice addresses the question to itself. The assumption that the penguin should be able to identify itself simply by the experience of being present and embodied is shown to be in error. In this sea of sameness, the distinction between self and other has been lost, and the penguin’s identity disappears.
A central theory on the process of identity construction holds that identity is formulated in relation to what it is not. As Stuart Hall proposes, “Identities are constructed through, not outside, difference. This entails the radically disturbing recognition that it is only through the relation to the Other, the relation to what it is not, to precisely what it lacks… that the ‘positive’ meaning of any term—and thus its ‘identity’—can be constructed.” This process also reflects the way one understands the other; i.e., by defining one’s identity in relation to the other, one also defines the otherness of the other. In this way, the construction of one’s own identity also involves constructing the way the other is perceived. Although this is often a process of distancing or “othering”, it can also function as a way of drawing closer, and reinforcing connections. In this way, identity is relational, “conceived not as a boundary to be maintained but as a nexus of relations and transactions actively engaging a subject.”
If identity is constructed in relation to all the diverse influences and intersections that form the web of its context, then the relation to place is a crucial part of its construction. A human being is always grounded and embodied in place, but the ways in which identity can be constructed in relation to place far exceed the physical location of the body. In the context of a place held as sacred, identity and place are linked with religious tradition, and with the yearning for the transcendent object of religious faith, or for that which is symbolized by the sacred place. The longing for a sacred place, or for the symbolic or ideological associations attached to a place held as sacred, can be a powerful influence in the construction of identity.
Personal Narratives
The following pages offer a contextual study on the relationship between identity and the idea of the Holy Land, arising from fieldwork I conducted in 2015 and 2016, based on a series of interviews with Christians who live in the greater Jerusalem area, the West Bank, and the Galilee. All of the following personal statements, unless otherwise noted, were spoken to me in the context of these one-on-one interviews. The interviews were conducted with ordained clergy or vowed members of religious orders and congregations, in a research parameter intended to ensure that the participants are all religious “professionals”, for whom theology and the practice of faith is of paramount concern, and for whom the idea of the Holy Land is a central part of their understandings of their vocations and identities.
This research does not attempt a systematic survey of the range of Christian communities in Jerusalem; to the contrary, it offers a close-range, very particular exploration of a few individuals and Christian communities, and shares personal voices that reflect each person’s individual context. The use of personal narrative in this study is not intended to draw large-scale conclusions inductively, but rather, to examine the diversity and particularity of each person’s experience, and of each intersection of personal identity with ideas of the Holy Land. Each person’s enunciation of his or her identity reflects the theological and cultural contexts in which it is developed and negotiated. Following from this, self-understandings of identity, and the way they are defined in personal narrative, are given greater legitimacy.
We begin with the reflections of the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of the Holy Land, His Beatitude Patriarch Theophilus III. He was born in Greece, and came to Jerusalem as a boy, to study theology. However, despite his Greek birth, and the centrality of Greek identity in his very public and authoritarian position as the Patriarch of the Greek Orthodox Church, he portrays Jerusalem as the source of his identity: “For me Jerusalem is my identity; cultural, religious, spiritual, however you define it. We wholeheartedly belong here. We grew up in here, I am a Jerusalemite. And therefore, I am very much associated with the culture here, the holiness, the history, the recent history, and what is going on in here.” With this claim, he presents himself as one native to Jerusalem, linking his identity as the Patriarch, as well as the collective identity of the Greek Orthodox Church, with the Christian narrative rooted in the land, as well as with the contemporary reality of Jerusalem.
The Greek Orthodox Patriarch’s reflections illustrate a unique trait of the Holy Land in Christian experience. Because it is seen as a homeland of the Christian faith, it functions as a homeland for Christians from all places in the world. Therefore, experiences of exile, diaspora, and homeland take on a unique character in the context of Christians living in the Holy Land. As Steven Kaplan and Merav Mack observe,
However far they may be from their individual birthplaces, or even those places where their churches took root and flourished, in the Holy Land they are located in proximity to the birthplace of their faith. Whatever difficulties are posed and adjustments required because of their absence from home, their religious experience is unlike that of other diaspora populations in a crucial manner: they have the option of visiting holy sites on a regular basis and participating directly in the central religious holidays of their faith.
However, exile is still a powerful experience defining many enunciations of Christian identity in the Holy Land. Exploring this, we turn now to the experience of Abuna Shimun, a Syriac Orthodox priest who belongs to a small and tightly-knit community of Syriac Christians in Jerusalem. He links the idea of the sacredness of place in the Holy Land with a sacred place in his own homeland of Tur Abdin, in southeastern Turkey, near the Syrian border. In his narrative, he speaks in the first-person plural, identifying himself with his Syriac Orthodox community as a collectivity. He defines his identity in communal terms, as a member of a small community which has suffered though much violence and exile. Referring to the sacredness of his homeland, he explains, “We call Tur Abdin the mountain of the service of God. Tur Abdin is the second holiest land after Jerusalem. It is the second Mount of Olives.” Here, he conceptualizes the sacredness of the Holy Land in relation to the tradition of sacred place with which he was raised. This sentiment is shared by other members of his community, as expressed by two other Syriac Christians who participated in the interview with him, who vigorously nodded in assent as he spoke. This formulation of sacred place is unique to this community, which understands the holiness of Jerusalem as seen in relation to the holiness of another sacred place.
Another expression of communal identity from within a different community is expressed by an Armenian Orthodox priest, a member of the Armenian Brotherhood responsible for the Armenian presence in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. This brotherhood oversees the Armenian liturgies in this major pilgrimage site, and they also maintain the Armenian holdings within the status quo agreement. Here, he reflects on this role:
It is obvious that being a small nation and a small church, and at the same time having these rights in all the holy places have greatly affected the identity of the Armenians living here… We have very important rights in the holy places. It really generates the feeling that it is a kind of a blessing from God, a blessing from God to the Armenian people that has shed so much blood for her religion and faith, and has fought numerous battles and wars against non-Christians who tried to impose their religion on the Armenian nation. For the Armenians it’s a kind of a blessing from God, a compensation for all the hardships that Armenians have suffered in order to protect their faith and for their determination to stay Christian. This really affects one’s identity.
He explains that the Armenian genocide deeply shapes his identity and faith, and he understands these elements to be a part of a cohesive whole. Here, he describes the connection between the various elements of in his identity, as he understands it: “I write ‘national-cultural-religious identity’. I never say ‘national, cultural, or religious identity’. I never separate them. I write these three adjectives together.” He links this identity and history of violence with the usage of sacred sites in Jerusalem, understanding the rights to these places that his community holds to be a blessing for the suffering it has experienced. He understands his identity, furthermore, to be shaped by that authority over the sacred places. Like the Syriac Orthodox priest in the previous passage, the Armenian Orthodox priest identifies himself strongly with his ethnic-religious community. He also shares with the Syriac priest an identity strongly shaped by a history of violence and exile; both of them choose to define their identities by describing the violence that their communities have suffered.
A similar identification with a history of exile and violence is expressed by many of the Palestinian Christians interviewed in the course of this research, many of whom identify themselves in reference to the troubled history of exile that their community has experienced. For Palestinian Christians, the Holy Land is not only the homeland of the Christian faith, but it is also identified as a historical homeland. This contributes to the dense network of relationship between identity and sacred place in this community.
In a study of Palestinian identity, Ahmad Sa’di notes that “Social scientists have begun locating identity in the inter-subjective realm, where belonging to an imagined community is constantly reproduced and bolstered through invented traditions, commemorations, the construction of national museums, and the creation of national cultural canons and national heroes.” Sa’di argues, however, that “In addition to these top-down processes, which aim at the nationalization of the mass of a population, there are bottom-up processes, which are generated through localized experiences and sentiments.” Although religious traditions of sacred place are often co-opted for political agendas, and the religious attachment to sacred place is often used to bolster national identities, these traditions also contribute to the creation of identity in an intimate, “bottom-up” process. This latter process occurs through traditions that are contextually developed and passed down within communities, and from the construction and negotiation of individual identity in relation to sacred place, whether it is the place where the body resides, or an idealized, yearned-for symbolic place.
A bottom-up process of identity construction is expressed by Rev. Elias Chacour, the Archbishop Emeritus of the Melkite Catholic Church. Chacour speaks of his identity by recalling childhood memories of his hometown, and by connecting biblical narratives to his experiences of the land. Speaking of his childhood hometown in the Galilee, from which he and his family were exiled in 1948, he exclaims, “My village is more precious than all of the Arab states. It is far more precious than America or than Europe. Because, in my village, I relate to my story, to my history. When I walk, it’s like walking on the ashes of my forefathers. It has such a deep, important, vital, unequal meaning.” For Chacour, his homeland is two things at once: as a Christian, he recognizes it as the Christian Holy Land, and as a Palestinian, he recognizes the same place as his family home, from which his family was exiled. Recalling the religious narratives associated with his homeland, he reflects, “The land for me is holy, for example, when I sit under the fig tree. I remember my compatriot—my compatriot Jesus—and I think of Jesus speaking about the fruitful tree and about the sterile one. When I drink from the sources somewhere in the mountains, and put water in my hand and drink, I remember him speaking about the living water.” The Holy Land, as Chacour understands it, shapes his identity, for it binds him to heritage, both ancestral and religious: the land gives him a sense of being connected to his ancestors, as well as to the narratives and history of his religious tradition, each of which shape his identity.
A similar experience is expressed by Msgr. Rafiq Khoury, a Palestinian Catholic priest of the Latin Patriarchate in Jerusalem. He sees the land as both a homeland and a religiously sacred place, and here he explicitly discusses the contribution of the land in shaping his identity: “Through the ages we accumulated a huge memory of this land in ourselves, and we inherit it. I inherited a love of the land from my father. My father inherited it from his parents, and so on. This is a memory that is going through history. And, this memory makes us who we are. It is a part of our identity.” He expresses this in the first-person plural, referring to a communal identity, when he says that it “makes us who we are”. He continues, “There is a deep link between the Palestinians and the land. We are a part of the identity of this land. That means this land cannot be understood without the presence of the Palestinian people in this land.” Here, Khoury turns the concept around: not only does the land shape his identity and the identity of his community, as he explained in the first quote; in addition, his community, which he defines as the Palestinian people, shapes the identity of the land. He points to a reciprocal relationship between the people and the land, and between identity and sacred place.
The construction of Palestinian identity, Rashid Khalidi argues, emerged out of a complex network of influences, including not only a number of international and national political conflicts, but also “out of the disparate strands of religious and local attachments to Palestine, commitment to Arabism, and resistance to what Palestinians perceived was the creeping encroachment of the Zionist movement in their homeland.” He continues, “Thus the assertion that Palestinian nationalism developed in response to the challenge of Zionism embodies a kernel of a much older truth: this modern nationalism was rooted in long-standing attitudes of concern for the city of Jerusalem and for Palestine as a sacred entity which were a response to perceived external threats.” For Palestinian Christians in particular, then, the negotiation of identity is intimately tied up with territory and religious tradition. This is illustrated by the Evangelical Lutheran theologian Mitri Raheb, who reflects,
My self-understanding as a Christian Palestinian has a territorial dimension. I feel that I am living in a continuity of locale with these biblical figures, sharing the same landscape, culture, and environment with them. One need not make a pilgrimage, since one is already at the source itself, at the point of origin. That is why this city of Bethlehem and this land of Palestine are enormously important to me. They do not merely help me live, they are a part of my identity.
In Jerusalem, there are countless claims to territory and religious tradition pressed into one physical environment. Indeed, “territory has played a major role in the reconstruction of national, cultural, social and ecological identities in Jerusalem,” and these identities are “inseparably linked to holding on to the land and [are] manifested in conflicting claims to the same territory.” The attachment to places revered as sacred holds powerful sway in the religious imagination, and has also been utilized to construct and reinforce national identities.
In the intensely plural environment of Jerusalem, one’s idea of the holy land is also linked to how one thinks about the religious other. This can be seen in the construction of Palestinian Christian identities in contradistinction to Jewish Israelis, or to their Muslim neighbors, as well as in relations between members of different Christian denominations. Intra-Christian tensions have risen to the forefront particularly in the struggles between the three denominations that oversee and maintain territorial claims within the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, namely, the Greek Orthodox, the Armenian Orthodox, and the Franciscans. Claims to sacred sites, ritual usage of sacred places, narratives of homeland, and other modes of relating to sacred place shape the way that religious communities shape their understandings of their own identities and those of other religious communities vying for other sacred places, or in some cases, for the same places.
Whereas many Christians in the Holy Land see Jewish religious attachment to the land of Israel as threatening, this sentiment is not shared by all Christians maintaining presences in the Holy Land. The trend in Evangelical Christian support for Israel, for instance, also known as Christian Zionism, has become a well-known phenomenon. These Christian Zionists are primarily Protestant Evangelicals from the United States, associated with organizations such as the International Christian Embassy of Jerusalem. Their theologies are shaped by literal interpretations of biblical literature, and most Christian Zionists see the return of the Jewish people to the land of Israel to be a significant part of a Christian eschatological vision, and express staunch political support for the State of Israel.
However, there are also a number of Christians permanently residing in Israel, entirely unaffiliated with Christian Zionist movements, who also express understanding of or support for the Jewish religious attachment to the land of Israel, although in less overtly political tones than do many Christian Zionists, and without the eschatological focus. The next two voices serve as examples of this. Both are Catholic nuns, theologically and socially far removed from the views and aims of Evangelical Christian Zionists. Despite their vocations as members of Catholic religious orders, they each express an understanding of the holiness of the land that draws directly from Jewish perceptions of the land, and their spirituality has been strongly influenced by the study of Jewish texts and traditions.
Both of these nuns are of North American origin, and have been living in Jerusalem for many years. These two women, although members of different religious congregations, share an intense sense of connection to Judaism, and each understands the sacredness of place in the Holy Land in relation to Jewish traditions of the land. The first, Sr. Michaela, is a North American Benedictine nun who has been living in a monastery close to Jerusalem for thirty-four years. As a contemplative nun, practicing the Benedictine daily discipline of ora et labora, her religious vocation shapes every hour of her day. The way that she defines the specific nature of her religious call, then, is inextricable from the way that she defines her identity. Thus, she makes a bold statement about her religious vocation and identity when she states, “My love for the land is the same thing as my monastic vocation; it’s a call within a call.” She then clarifies that when she uses the word “land”, she is referring to the land of Israel. She understands her vocation to be dedicated to love for the Jewish people, and her use of the word “land” refers also to the land of Israel as a Jewish homeland. In this way, her religious vocation and her identity are defined by a love for a sacred place, and united with this, in her understanding, is her love for the Jewish people.
Sr. Michaela recalls that this love for the Jewish people began for her when she was a student: “[I learned about] the whole history of Christian persecution of the Jews, and I took that very, very personally. I took this so much to heart at that age, and I really felt a personal call.” The call that she describes here later became a motivating factor in her decision to become a nun. She continues, “I’ve never really known how to describe it properly, but it was a call to give my life for the sins of Christians of the past, and that we would change that, that the Church would change that, that Christians would change that, and that we would learn to love the Jews, and love Israel, and recognize our sin, and repent, and reconcile.”
A similar sentiment is expressed by Sr. Katherine, an American nun who lives in a hermitage close to Jerusalem. Like Sr. Michaela, she feels that her religious vocation is linked to a sense of solidarity with the Jewish people, but they differ in the way that they formulate their own identities in relation to this sense of solidarity. Although Sr. Michaela approaches it as a Western Christian who wishes to atone for the history of Christian anti-Semitism, Sr. Katherine feels this sense of solidarity primarily through her own Jewish heritage. She is the child of a Jewish parent, and although she lives as a nun, she identifies herself as both Christian and Jewish. She also expresses a love for the Holy Land as a sacred place, and here she describes the specific way in which she feels a spiritual call to live in Israel.
For me, Israel is not first of all the land of Jesus. Of course it’s the land of Jesus, and it’s the land of the Incarnation, and that’s extremely important… But it’s the land of the people of Israel. And, that’s with all of the political complications that it contains today… So for me, the primary reason why I felt called to live here in Israel is not because it’s the land of Jesus, but because it’s the land of Israel, of the people of Israel.
As she explains, her Jewish identity shapes her understanding of the land as a sacred place, and at the same time, living in Israel also strengthens her Jewish identity. So in this way, it’s a reciprocal relationship, in which her identity shapes the way she understands the sacredness of place, and her understanding of the meaning and identity of the place of Israel shapes the way she understands her identity.
The last voice comes from Rev. Emile Shoufani, a Melkite priest in Nazareth. He expresses his complex identity in a series of designations, placing them in a descending order of importance. He declares that he is, “in order: Arab, Christian, Israeli citizen, historical Palestinian, and from the Oriental Catholic Church.” In his work as a priest and community leader he is dedicated to working towards interreligious and intercultural reconciliation and peacemaking, and he feels that the way that one conceptualizes one’s identity is a crucial part of this process.
This is very important: that you can enter, and you can be a part [of the other culture]. In my experience, it’s not only about participating in the other culture. With time, you will be the other. You will take him with you. If we want to live together, in equality, this is the way. It is not to say I am a Jew, or I am a Palestinian. That’s part of the truth, but not all the truth. Common life is the real truth between people, in this world.
Shoufani understands this within the context of Christian theological thought, which, as he sees it, envisions a unity of all humanity: “The idea of Jerusalem is to remind mankind that we are one in God, not peoples and groups. And to feel this everywhere, that we are one with all human beings, and with the cosmos and with creation, and with God. We are one.” Here, Shoufani links his vision of an open model of identity and of universal communion with his idea of sacred place. He believes that this unity of humankind is the purpose of the “idea of Jerusalem”. In his understanding, the idea of Jerusalem as a sacred place, or the idea of the Holy Land, is intended as a symbol of the nature of human identity, which is open to the other, and ultimately in unity with all.
Shoufani promotes a concept of identity as permeable and relational, in which one becomes so open to the other that he or she partakes in the identity of the other. Drawing from his experience, he observes that strong assertions of identity that emphasize difference and distance often lead to conflict, and so he advocates a model of identity that emphasizes openness and relatedness. His reflections illustrate the relational construction of identity, in which identity is developed through the interaction with otherness. However, rather than building identity in opposition to otherness, he advocates building an open model of identity that shares in the experience of the other, and partakes in otherness.
Conclusion
The longing for a sacred place, as these first-person voices reflect, can hold a powerful sway over the construction of identity. Identity can also be constructed in relation to a desired place, or a remembered place, or a place that holds a symbolic meaning whose significance outstrips that of its physical location. Places in which the body does not reside can be just as instrumental in the construction of identity as a place in which the body is customarily located. The relationship between self and place is not just physiological, but also ideological; that is, the idea of a place can be as powerful, or more so, than one’s current location.
This can occur in relation to an absent or distant sacred place, but it can also occur when a sacred place is present, for the symbolic meaning attached to the place may remain always out of reach, an ideal for which one must continually yearn. In Jerusalem, for example, this can be seen in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. There, Christians line up to enter the tomb of Christ, and although for many pilgrims this location is the summit of their pilgrimage across the world to a place known as holy, here they face the emptiness of the tomb, and are reminded that what they long for is not there. Through standing in a place believed to be sacred, they experience an intensified longing for a “place” beyond place; i.e., for a religious ideal or religious goal symbolized in a sacred place. The strength of this longing for an absent place speaks in the popularity of these lines from Psalm 137: “By the rivers of Babylon—there we sat down and there we wept when we remembered Zion… If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand wither! Let my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth, if I do not remember you, if I do not set Jerusalem above my highest joy.” The absent place can remain as a deseridata, as a yearned-for ideal symbolized by a geographical location, such as the imagined Zion of mythical significance that seems to hover above the real city of Jerusalem.
Each of the voices that speak here expresses a unique understanding of the idea of the Holy Land, whether it is an ancestral homeland, a religious homeland, or a symbolic concept. These understandings arise from each person’s particular context and self-understanding of identity. In each case, the patterns of influence between constructions of identity and the idea of sacred place are not mono-directional, but multi-directional; each contributes to the construction of the other, in a reciprocal relationship that shows, in a multitude of forms, the deeply contextual nature of the idea of the Holy Land, continually negotiated and reinvented in each context.