Armstrong, last chapters

Although there are many things that can be talked about in these last chapters in relation to the book as a whole, there is one phrase is particular that stood out to me. "...attitudes harden after an atrocity..." From the beginning of this book which chronicles Jerusalem's history, we have seen one atrocity after another concerning one or multiple groups of people. And as the final chapters and current news sources show, the atrocities continue. As such, it is much more understandable, given the immense spread of history leading up to the Jerusalem that is today, why there are such hardened attitudes on multiple fronts. It seems that at any given point in time, one or multiple groups of people within the city are being oppressed, disadvantaged, or outright persecuted. And as a result, attitudes of each group and groups within broader religious or ethnic groups have been hardened, leading to building walls and pointing fingers further diminishing hope for peace.
In this sense, Jerusalem seems to be a city painted of dark and bleak colors. However, I can't help but think of the vivid and colorful images from the video we watched in class at this point. Karen Armstrong does an amazing job in laying out a framework of the history of Jerusalem in a largely unbiased and complete manner. However, as is often the case in written history, the human aspect becomes hard to distinguish. I realized as I started writing this post that the entire time I read this book, I pictured the events in black and white. However, when I think about the video depicting life in East and West Jerusalem, the first thing that strikes me is the color. I like to think of color as the human aspect. Beyond religion, people share music, clothes, literature, customs, and culture. Many of these aspects of life are interconnected, but many also overlap across religious and secular divides.
Although history shows us how difficult peace in Jerusalem was, is, and will be, the present life in Jerusalem where the people of three distinct faiths and countless ethnic and racial backgrounds have lived for so long shows us that people are resilient and despite hardships and conflict have nonetheless managed to coexist in one holy city. Armstrong's book has provided a solid foundation for understanding why attitudes have been hardened and each group feels entitled to lay claim to the city. However, I think it's important to keep in mind that Jerusalem is as much a binding thread as it is a dividing factor and that people are multidimensional and by nature desire a peaceful existence.

Ch. 14 and 15

In these chapters, we see a shift in the Jerusalem's history. Although I can't find the exact words to describe this shift, I think saying it illustrates the era of modern history in Jerusalem to some extent conveys this shift. There are two points in particular that stood out to me. The first is the Lurianic Kabbalah, "a spiritualized version of the old mythology. There was no need to make the physical aliyah to Jerusalem." It seems that so much of the past history of Jerusalem in based on the physical connection with the city. This new school of thought marks a rather prominent shift in ideology that changes how the city itself is viewed. Although many people today still feel a physical connection to Jerusalem, this idea that the religion can be within ones home and self seems to have a much stronger hold and is probably what enabled such a spread of the religion across the globe.
The second point that caught my attention was Napoleon's attempt to conquer Jerusalem. Most of the conquerors before Napoleon had some form of a religious connection to Jerusalem and as such felt a need to conquer the Holy land. Napoleon therefore again presents a definite shift in the history by wanting to conquer the city for the sole purpose of possessing an "eastern empire." Although politics always had a role in who ruled Jerusalem, so did sacred geography. It seems in these chapters however that the balance between politics and sacred geography had been tipped more on the side of politics.

Ch. 10-13

Within these chapters, we have seen the people of each of the three religions occupy the role of the ruler and the persecuted at some point in time. It surprises me that although each of the groups knows what it feels like to be the oppressed people, they still play the role of oppressor to other groups. Although not all the rulers or groups in power displayed the same levels of oppressive behavior, almost all of them did so to a certain extent. This is a recurring theme throughout history all over the world that seems to scream that we don't in fact learn from our past.
Karen Armstrong makes the statement somewhere in chapter 10 or 11 that it wasn't until the monotheistic faiths started viewing themselves as the only true religion that there started to be intense conflicts. I was surprised to find out that there was a point in time that the three religions were seen as different revelations of the religion of the same God. It is frustrating to see that as socio-economic and political aspects started playing into the picture, then each group asserted themselves as the only true religion wiping away any hope of peaceful co-existence.

Here is a link to a youtube video a friend showed me as we were discussing this topic. It's a comic commentary on religions in general by the comedian Patton Oswalt. Just a disclaimer that he does use quite a bit of profanity.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55h1FO8V_3w&feature=PlayList&p=3E65FD41F73B2971&playnext_from=PL&playnext=1&index=38

Chapter 8

"Monotheists have always had to come to terms with the fact that previous occupants of Jerusalem venerated it as a holy city, and the integrity of their own tenure often depends upon their response to this fact."
This preface sets the stage for the entrance of the other two faiths that will eventually play a crucial role in this one city. In the past chapters, we saw the convergence of various deities and the evolution of religions. At the end of this chapter however, it seems that there is a distinct change in the course of events that shape Jerusalem. The introduction of Christianity, brings into play the second monotheistic faith in her story. We already know that as new rulers came into Jerusalem, they destroyed what existed before to create their new vision of the holy city. Yet, we also know that in present day, Jerusalem is one city with three monotheistic faiths. Therefore, with the introduction Christianity in this chapter and the eventual introduction of Islam, it will be interesting to see how the city adapted and the people of each faith responded to the fact that Jerusalem was venerated as a holy city by a different group of people before them to allow for the existence of all three faiths to some extent in the same city.

Armstrong ch. 5-8

The thing that caught my attention about these four chapters was Karen Armstrong's ability to make the story, per se, flow. Having grown up in a fairly religious household, many of the biblical stories and characters in these chapters are events and names that sound very familiar to me. But they are not events that I necessarily connected with one another, or even placed in a particular geographic location. For me, religious stories always seemed somehow removed from concrete spatial dimensions. This is not to discredit any religious stories. Rather, it is the sense of mysticism that was attached to it. Within these four chapters however, Karen Armstrong connects all these stories, times, people, and places that for some reason I always pictured as separate. In addition, she adds the element of concrete history by blending biblical stories with historical accounts that we learned in history class. The one particular section that really illustrates this is when she talks about Julius Caesar and his subsequent downfall. These four chapters for me were a combination of old biblical stories I learned growing up, specific chunks of various history class, and a good amount of new information all presented in a completely new and rearranged way.

Armstrong Reading 1

I must admit that before I started reading this book, I was a little worried about how dense the material would be considering how much there is to cover. I imagined that it would have a very history textbook sort of approach. But Karen Armstrong does a wonderful job of conveying the material in a very accessible manner. I particularly enjoyed the introduction section in which she outlines the relationship between religion and the human experience and the role of mythology. By establishing this great framework of the human connection to the sacred, the holy city, mythology, symbolism, and artwork, Karen Armstrong provides a better way to understand the various strands of religious history that shaped Jerusalem.
Having grown up in the household of a theologian, I am more or less familiar with most of the biblical stories that are covered in the first chapters. However, reading these chapters made me realize how vaguely and out of context I knew them. The thing that struck me the most throughout the readings were the connections I was making through the smallest details such as the roots of words.
For example, completely unrelated from the biblical aspect, the thing that first caught my attention was the way Karen Armstrong wrote the word "disease" in the intro. She phrased it as "dis-ease." Although I probably should have made that connection years ago, I never did, and the word makes so much more sense now.
Also, the word "bethel." I actually know a building named bethel, owned by a very religious person. The fact that it means beth-house and El-God, hence house of God, makes so much more sense now as well.
And lastly, the fact that El, El Shaddai, and El Elyon were initially terms for different Gods is something that shocked me. I have heard all these terms used in reference to the same God and just assumed that it was always so. I find the merging of the various Gods into one larger identity on some level very beautiful.

Reading Set 2 and Video Response

The Readings:
The second set of readings really shows the immense diversity in Jerusalem's history. In all honesty, I can't say I retained much of the specifics of all the events that went into shaping Jerusalem as she is today. But I definitely got a sense of why she represents a holy site for three religions and is one of the most disputed territories. Just the three articles we read was an overwhelming amount of information, and I imagine that it is only a very brief summary of both reality and perceptions of history. Although it is easy to see why three distinct religious groups lay claim to the same piece of land, I wonder if understanding these intricacies is going to make me more hopeful or less so about the peace process.

The Video:
The first thing that struck me about the video was the music. I absolutely loved the song played during the intro. and thought it was a very powerful piece. It turns out that it is an instrumental Palestinian nationalism piece that would only be recognized by those who know it.
Perceptions are extremely interesting. The way the video was set up, especially in the second half depicting the Palestinian side of Jerusalem, I thought that most of the sequential events were in some way connected. Especially the scenes cutting from a terrorist attack to a woman singing a mournful song to a graveyard scene (I don't remember the exact order). However, as we were discussing the video after class, I learned that those three scenes and many of the others were in no particular way connected to each other. This made me think about how interesting representation is in media from both the producers' and viewers' perspectives.

My Identity

This is a picture I took while doing some volunteer work in Honduras. Although two separate trees, the close proximity and the intertwining branches make it look like one unified tree, especially from a slightly different angle. This is an image that represents my identity on many levels.

I was born in India and spent a little less than half my life there. As such, my Indian background is a large part of my identity. Most of the objects and images found in my room and house reflect an Indian influence in my present life here.
Here are four distinct examples:
1.
Along with the mac and cheese in my kitchen cupboard, there is always some rice and Indian spices. Although my cooking skills are very limited, everything I attempt to make inevitably has a hint of Indian flavoring to it, intentionally or not.
2.
The only religious artifact in my room is a small Bible dedicated to me by my grandparents and gifted to me by my parents. As such, it illustrates the strong religious setting I was brought up in, not only through my parents, but also my extended family.
3.
Most of the images on my walls have a more international theme to them. Ranging from the Ugandan flag to a Laotian fabric. I love traveling. Although not everything on my walls are from my personal trips, they represent places that people in my life have been to. The two most prominent pieces on my walls are batik fabrics of two different types of dancers. This illustrates my love for dance. Although I am formally only trained in one form, I have a passion for learning new types.
4.
My books range from Jane Austen to International Development textbooks. Each book however is a little piece of who I am. I have an odd relationship with books in which I only own and keep books that I have read (fully or partially) and really like or intend to read because I know I will really like it.

I look forward to getting a glimpse into everyone else's identities :)

The Palestine/Israel conflict is an issues that I was not particularly interested in before my college career. In my past four years here however, because of people I've met, my increasing awareness through the media, and my desire to work in the international development field, my interest has been steadily growing. To me, the humanitarian aspect of the conflict is the most important. However, I realize hat religious, political, and economic factors are intricately intertwine, and must be better understood in order to have a sustainable humanitarian impact. As such, I am very excited about this class. Given the nature of the Palestine/Israel conflict, it is very difficult to find unbiased information unless you actively seek it out. This class however offers the perfect opportunity to learn about both sides and the community as a whole. I think this is an extremely rare opportunity. As such, I am very excited to be a part of this class and larger project.
As is probably evident at this point, I am completely new to blogging. Writing about my reflections and feelings are also something I don't do very often. In fact I've never been able to keep a diary. As such, most of the writing I've done has been formal academic papers. I think it may take some time, but I'll try to make this sound more free flowing. Additionally, as many of the other mentioned, I am also technologically quite challenged. I am still amazed that we are going to be able to video conference with two separate communities and be able to gain a whole new real of knowledge through it.
As for the readings, I am actually very surprised that the Jerusalem festival was even attempted at the point here. Although it is very disappointing that is was not able to be put into action, I think it is extremely important that it was even attempted. Hopefully, the fact that it didn't happen once does not mean that it cannot happen again. Although the budget seems to be only one of the factors deterring the festival from happening, the fact that there are many layers to Jerusalem and her people is more widely understood. Even though the complexity of Jerusalem can never be conveyed through a display alone, the effort to do so, I think, was a relationship building process that I hope has and will continue to send ripples in the right direction.
I personally have no problem with leaving the blogs open. I think the discussions we will have are a microcosm of a global discussion, as such, I think leaving the blog open makes sense. However, I completely understand if others object to doing so.