April 28, 1999
Common lineage key to project
___By Elaine Ruth Fletcher
___Religion News Service
___JERUSALEM (RNS)--Seen through the prism of biblical history, the whole Israel-Arab conflict can be blamed on an ancient story of sibling rivalry.
___For centuries, Jews have traced their lineage--and their claims to the Promised Land--through Isaac, son of the biblical patriarch Abraham and his first wife, Sarah. Arabs, meanwhile, claim the lineage of Ishmael, son of Abraham and his second wife, or concubine, Hagar.
___Now, Israeli educators are trying to use the Abraham story to generate a new kind of dialogue between Muslim and Jewish children about their common religious heritage in a new project titled "In the Image of Abraham."
___"Abraham is someone that both religions honor and claim. But usually, it is the different Muslim and Jewish interpretations of the story that are stressed. We're trying to show the similarities," said Rachel Shilo, executive director of the Abraham Fund, co-sponsor of the project along with Jerusalem's new Bible Lands Museum.
___The pilot project brings primary school-aged Jewish and Muslim Arab children to the museum's expansive campus to study ancient artifacts that hopefully will provide them with insight into the Abrahamic saga from the perspectives of biblical and their own family history.
___"The basic idea is that the two peoples have a common father, and by stressing that common legacy we learn that we must be partners in the land and live together in coexistence," said Ummaya Al Khatib, an Arab educator who helped design the project.
___"We stress values that are spoken about in both traditions, such as Abraham's hospitality, his good heart, good nature and his patience," said Shilo.
___Children learn about the dilemmas of childbearing, marriage and inheritance in ancient families and compare those families to their own. And they learn about the differing Muslim and Jewish interpretations of the Abraham story--the Muslim version that regards Ishmael as Abraham's true heir and the Jewish version that accords that honor to Isaac.
___ The painful story of Hagar and Ishmael's expulsion from Abraham's family tent due to Sarah's jealousy is examined in the light of similar modern-daydilemmas, noted Nurit Gerstein, a museum guide working with the project.
___"Today, after all, we have problems of divorce and single- parent families,"she said. "The story is not so remote."
___ Those who examine both Jewish and Islamic traditions also find that the differing Muslim and Jewish interpretations of the biblical story are not as diametrically opposed as might be assumed.
___Muslims, for instance, still revere Isaac as a prophet even if they regard Ishmael as the key heir to Abraham.Frontpage / Contents/ Masthead / Why We're Here / Links / Archive / E-mail us/ SUBSCRIBE!