My (One) Time as a Foreign Correspondent

Found this dispatch among some old papers in my office at home ... published in my college newspaper back in January of 1976.

Middle East contrast: faith breads violence 

BY AL RISKE

JERUSALEM - Everyone was silent when Dr. Gordon Frazee’s “New Testament Land Seminar” drove to Portland Airport, Jan. 7. We were like reservoirs waiting to receive the flow. Besides, it was 5 a.m. and no one is talkative at that hour.

Our bird’s-eye view of the continental United States is mostly undercast. Clouds or snow, all we is white. The Minnesota farmland looks like a white quilt; cities look more like maps than the real thing—those black-and-white things on gas station walls.

We fly out of New York without seeing anything outside of Kennedy Airport. Six hours later, the sun poking its Kilroy nose over the Atlantic horizon means we’re nearing London. I’d like to come back when I can see more than the airport lounge.

The first I see of the Promised Land is a stand of cypress trees on the plains of Israel’s only airport, Ben Gurion. From there, our tour group boards a bus for the hour and a half drive to Jerusalem. The driver is introduced as “Moses.” Dan Rasmussen pipes up, “Okay, Moses, let’s see you part traffic.” And so it begins.

Night blankets the city and we bed down at the Eyal Hotel without much idea where we are, having been shuffled from airport to airport to bus. In the morning I walk into Zion Square with the feeling I could hop in a VW and drive to McMinnville. The weather is Southern California.

Alex, the tour guide, leads his disciples through the Old City. Everything looks older than it is, made of desert-colored stone. Rebuilding is underway around every corner of the narrow streets. Alex says the new is being blended with the old. What can be restored, will be. New buildings combine modern touches with the basic style of the past. (“There is some religious symbolism in there somewhere,” says one of the students.)

Jerusalem looks war torn. All kinds of buildings, from banks to hospitals, are bullet-riddled, fallen bricks clutter the street, here and there green-clad men carry machine guns. At various gates, our bags are checked. Put it all together and the visitor can see why the Jewish idea of heaven is “Shalom” or peace.

At the end of the day, tour members have a hard time listing all the places visited. Some stand out. At the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, we see the traditional site of Christ’s burial. Dan Rasmussen says it can’t be the real site—not enough headroom. “Imagine Jesus rising from the dead,” he says, “and bumping his head.”

Alex is careful to point out that no one can be sure of exact locations, only approximate ones. Even then, some are based on misinformation. “But religiously it makes little difference,” says the young Jew with the English accent. “It’s a symbol.”

In a land rich with religious history and symbolism, the seminar students can hardly assimilate all the information. Even so, some time is left for “personal exploration and discovery,” as the itinerary puts it. The time is spent wisely … shopping at the Arab markets. Or not so wisely, depending on your skill at bartering.

Packing souvenirs in her backpack, Debbie Watson pulls out a beautiful, patterned brown scarf. 

“Where did you get that?” asks Dave Massey, thinking of getting one as a gift.

“Nordstrom’s in Portland,” she laughs.