Witness in Palestine and Israel

In the wake of World War I, the Mennonite Church’s Mennonite Relief Commission for War Sufferers sent money and volunteers to support the work of the American Committee for Armenian and Syrian Relief (now known as the Near East Foundation). Although hopes for a semi-independent Mennonite mission in the region failed to materialize, between 1919 and 1921 several Mennonites contributed to relief efforts in lands formerly under the rule of the Ottoman Empire.

Among those Mennonites was Orie O. Miller, future Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) worker and director. Miller assisted the director of relief in the “Syrian” area, which covered most of present-day Syria, Lebanon, Palestine-Israel, and the Sinai Peninsula. Another Mennonite volunteer, B. F. Stoltzfus, helped run an orphanage in Jerusalem. Although Mennonite attention would soon shift elsewhere, these years mark the beginning of Anabaptist witness in Palestine.

The essays in this issue of Anabaptist Witness pick up the story from 1948, after which Mennonites began to assist Palestinian refugees displaced during the First Arab-Israeli War. Mennonite presence in the region has been consistent since 1950 and has largely taken shape through various partnerships with Palestinians and Israelis. Meanwhile, Palestinians and the State of Israel have been locked in a devastating and asymmetric cycle of conflict that continues to unfold. Mennonites and their partners have repeatedly but vainly called for peace.

The first article in this issue of Anabaptist Witness is a sermonic reflection from Amy Yoder McGloughlin of Community Peacemaker Teams (CPT). The author narrates her harrowing departure after October 7, 2023, with a CPT delegation from the West Bank. As Palestinian friends were their “waymakers” out of danger, she hopes Mennonite allies will collaborate with Palestinians to help them find a way out of oppression. 

Some Mennonites in the United States have responded to recent events by creating Mennonite Action, an organization that seeks to mobilize Mennonite churches and individuals to demand a ceasefire and an end to the occupation of Palestine. Mennonite Action steering committee member and chair of the Mennonite Palestine Israel Network (MennoPIN) Robert Lee Aitchison discusses his participation in various attempts to convince US policymakers to bring about a ceasefire. Jonathan Smucker, Tim Nafziger, and Sarah Augustine place Mennonite Action’s work in light of calls since the 1960s for Mennonites to shed their historic “quiet in the land” posture and agitate for political transformation. From this perspective, the work of Mennonite Action can be seen as complementary to that of related organizations such as the Coalition to Dismantle the Doctrine of Discovery, led by Augustine. A sermon from Tim Seidel connects the prophet Isaiah’s vision of peace to the reality of Gaza and the work of Mennonite Action.

Seidel’s commitments emerged in part from his time serving with MCC in Palestine and Israel. Alain Epp Weaver, who also served there with MCC, provides considerable background on the organization’s work with Palestinians as he considers the necessarily slow and “fragmentary” character of Mennonite witness in the region. Examples of that witness take center place in the next set of articles. 

David Lapp-Jost recalls surprising dimensions of the legacy of his missionary aunts, Ada and Ida Stoltzfus, who ran an orphanage in Hebron from the 1950s. He includes the story of one of their students who became a prominent translator for the US military during the Iraq War. Loren Lybarger shares stories and poetry related to his MCC stint in the West Bank and Gaza in the 1980s and 1990s. Biblical scholar and professor Dorothy Jean Weaver reflects on regular teaching and research trips to Palestine, Israel, and Lebanon that began in the 1990s—trips from which she “has never recovered.” Wayne Speigel provides an overview of the work of Nazareth Hospital, which Mennonites have been involved with since 1950, and associated ministries such as Nazareth Village. 

Byron Rempel-Burkholder then asks what Anabaptists can learn from Palestinian liberation theology and experience. He concludes that Palestinians challenge Anabaptists to follow Jesus in solidarity with those “under the thumb of Empire.” A poem by Hannah Redekop amplifies a core theme of Rempel-Burkholder’s essay: Loving in the way of Jesus means liberation for both Palestinians and Israelis—and indeed for us all.

The final two articles of the issue discuss one attempt to outline such a broad Mennonite approach to liberating love—the 2017 document “Seeking Peace in Israel and Palestine: A Resolution for Mennonite Church USA.”7 Resolution co-author André Gingerich Stoner narrates the resolution’s genesis, aims, and ongoing relevance to peacemaking in Palestine and Israel. John Kampen offers a dissenting voice. He is not convinced that the resolution or the process surrounding it adequately took the concerns of Jews into account, especially with regard to the ongoing challenges of antisemitism and the importance of the State of Israel. Kampen suggests that peacemaking strategies that fail to accept the validity of these concerns are unlikely to gain much purchase.

Several of the authors in this issue agree on the need to grapple both with legacies of antisemitism and the dispossession and now genocide of Palestinians. Mennonite witness in Palestine and Israel, and in the United States and other countries bound up with that region, will have to continue to discern how best to grapple with these intertwined legacies. We will have to respond empathetically to the tears, to the needs and aspirations, of all the inhabitants of Palestine and Israel, even as we seek to take a clear look at the region’s history and present reality—and act for justice. May this collection of articles contribute to a form of Mennonite witness that is empathetic, clear-sighted, and bold.

—Jamie Pitts, Editor