Personal Info
- Country of residence: Palestine
Information
Rev. Shehadeh Shehadeh (Hebrew: שחאדה שחאדה) (Shehadeh Shehadeh, 1930, Kfar Yasif - 2010) was an Evangelical Episcopal priest, Palestinian 48, political activist and head of the National Committee for the Protection of Lands. His wife is Doris Shehadeh (Umm Samir). In 1975 he was one of the founders of the National Committee for the Protection of Lands formed by the new Communist List to move against the government's decision to expropriate land to expand the large cities of the Galilee, Carmel and Upper Nazareth. Shehadeh was the president of the organization and was among the initiators of the first Earth Day in 1976. In 1988 he and Rabbi Jeremy Milgram founded Clergy For Peace, an organization that aims to promote peace with the help of religious Jews, Christians and Muslims. Until his death, he was Vice President of the Democratic Front for Peace and Equality and also served as Pastor of St. John in Haifa and Chairman of the Board of Directors of St. John's School in Haifa.
his life
From 1948 until 1966 the Palestinians were under military rule. He was 17 years old, and had not yet decided what he would do after high school. He went to the military governor in Kafr Yasif, asking for a permit so that he could go down to Haifa, but they refused to give him a permit, so he came home angry and talks about the military governor’s bad treatment of him, his mother put her hand on his mouth and said: Shut up, Yama, the walls have ears that hear, your brother is a teacher and your sister is a teacher, Tomorrow they cut off our livelihood. The Palestinian Arabs were living under the factor of threat and fear, and threatened for their livelihood. Hence the transformation of the pastor began. That life should change and it should not be like this. As a young man, he believed in peaceful coexistence, so he chose at the time to join the ranks of the Mapam youth party. Mapam (United Workers' Party), a left-wing social party that relied on the backbone of the "Qatari kibbutz". After the establishment of the unity government in 1984, Mapam separated from the Alignment and succeeded in obtaining only three members of Knesset in the 1988 elections, and was forced to join the Meretz movement in 1992 in order to survive.
As a clergyman, I can speak of truth, justice and peace more forcefully than politicians
He completed secondary school in Kfar Yasif. Then he worked as a teacher, a blacksmith, and worked in agriculture. And he began to think of being a clergyman in the church, and the fields were enormously open. He saw that through the church he could practice his convictions and principles. Think of this path because it involves social reform, and think that as a man of religion he can be fit in issues of marriage and divorce, in people's social life and in many other matters.
I am not a politician and to this day I do not believe in politics. But as a cleric, I can speak of truth and justice and peace more forcefully than politicians.
Pastor Shehadeh has a rich experience that surpasses the experiences of many. He served as a priest in St. John's Episcopal Church, headed St. John's School in Haifa, and served as Vice-President of the Council of the Democratic Front for Peace and Equality. Reverend Dr. Shehadeh Shehadeh has a rich history that combines his pastoral responsibilities with political work. About thirty years ago, Reverend Shehadeh, who headed the Committee for the Defense of the Lands, was one of the leaders of the first organized mass protest of the Palestinian minority in Israel against the way the state treats its Arab citizens.
his study
He traveled for four years to India to study theology. He returned in 1968 after the occupation directly and worked for two years in the Episcopal Church in Ramallah and Nablus, and worked for two years in the Church in Jerusalem. Then he left Nablus and traveled to England to complete the study of theology. He returned in 1973 and lived in Shefa Amr from 1972 to 1980 and was responsible for it until 1986. Until 1990, he was the priest of Kafr Yasif and Shefa Amr together. Shefaa Amr and I are friends until today.
The role of the church
The Zionist movement offered to an individual in the Episcopal Church to sell property belonging to the Church and to immigrate to Brazil, and there they would buy them a large plot of land in which they would build a Palestinian village and work there and live there. This offer is outright rejected.
This migration is taking place today and there is a group of (Abu Sinan) who migrated to Brazil. He mentions that before he traveled to India in the late fifties, he used to live in a very large church building in Haifa, in an area called Saint Lux on the edge of Wadi Nisnas. In every room or two there was an Armenian family. It was noticed that the number of the Armenian population decreased until they disappeared, which turned out that an Armenian woman was living in Canada, her husband is believed to be a Jew, and they withdrew all the Armenian families from Haifa to Canada. They would pay them the travel fare, and give them a house to live in, and a job to work. Today these families live in Canada except for one family who has remained in the building in Haifa to this day.
This is the Zionist movement’s deportation scheme, and more than that, the land has been confiscated since the first World Zionist Congress held in Basel, Switzerland in 1897. There, Herzl declared that the Jewish people are a people without a homeland and land, and there is a land in Palestine without a people. From here the conspiracy against Palestine began, and this is very clear.
On this basis, the Church contributed to establishing roots in the homeland against the conspiracy of deportation. When Reverend Shehadeh was in his thirties, he used to live in a house belonging to the church, because it was necessary for the church to provide a house for the priest to live in in his service area.. He was upset with the military rule and the harsh treatment of the army with our Palestinian people. On one occasion, the weather was winter, and when the door was knocking at night, I opened the door, and there were two Jewish soldiers in front of the house. One of the officers entered the house and asked the priest how to go up to the roof. The priest said to him: Wait! And who told you that I would allow you to go up to the roof?! The officer said to him: The officer is the one who asked me. The priest replied: The officer asked you! And I don't want to go up to my rooftop. The soldier said: But I have to go up to the roof to guard from above. And the priest said to him: Go down to the street and guard under! Why are you guarding my rooftop?? The soldier returned to say: The officer asked me.. The priest said to him: The officer is your boss, not my boss. This is a church area and I don't allow you to enter from here... So the officer came back and said: Why don't you allow the soldier to go up on the roof of the house? We want to guard him. The priest replied: I did not ask anyone to guard it.
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