Why is Israel threatening Christian churches in Jerusalem?

Osama Al-Sharif

 

Two controversial and almost certainly illegal measures targeting churches in occupied East Jerusalem have been suspended by the Israeli government following a historic three-day closure last month of Christianity’s holiest site; the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. In a rare show of unity the heads of the three churches running the site; Catholic, Greek Orthodox and Armenian, agreed to shutter the centuries-old gates of the church in the heart of the Old City in protest of the two Israeli moves.

Armenian ceramics artist keeps ancient craft alive in Jerusalem

Ali Dolah

 

In his shop in the middle of the Old City market in Jerusalem, Hagop Antreassian sits among an array of colorful ceramic pottery and tiles, a craft that has been practiced by Armenians for 100 years in Jerusalem.

Antreassian, 73, is Armenian-Palestinian and lives in the Armenian Quarter in the Old City of Jerusalem. For 40 years, he has taken great pride in the craft he learned from his elders while still a child, although he fears that the ceramics and tile making, the mark of the Armenian presence in Jerusalem, may now be disappearing.