It’s been over two years since October 7th, 2023, and to say that the news about Gaza has been devastating does not begin to express what the last two years have brought to Gaza and the region in general.
I was slightly nervous to travel to a place so fraught with tension and a place that makes the news every day. However, as this is a place that I have been dreaming of visiting for many years, and when I had the opportunity to stay at the lovely STI, it was not an opportunity that I could pass up. So, my partner and I packed our bags and off I went to Jordan. From there we traveled via the Allenby/King Hussein Bridge from outside Amman to Jerusalem, a journey which could have taken most of a day, but luckily for us only took a few hours. We were then greeted at the STI by Anna and all the lovely staff, who happened to be having fika when we arrived.
We spent the whole first day in wonder of just being here. It was hard to reconcile reading the news of the Middle East and Jerusalem, which had just made the news for a shooting a week or so prior to our trip. Yet we sat downtown having a coffee on a bustling shopping street filled with a diversity of people. This felt very much at odds with what I had been expecting and came as a surprise, but as I would soon discover, this is a city full of surprises and contradictions.
We had the privilege of staying in the STI itself, where there are many rooms and a kitchen for use. We also enjoyed shopping in the local markets and cooking at the STI many evenings. We spent many an hour sitting in the garden and working with the good company of Bissa, the STI cat, who came to be our constant companion when we were on the grounds of the STI. It is a wonderfully situated building in West Jerusalem, with easy access to the Old City and a building full of history. A calm space in the middle of a busy city. Sitting in the peaceful STI, you would never know that once you step outside the door, the busy streets will be rushing around you. It offered us a quiet respite from the busy city and a place of solitude from my fieldwork, which at times can be overwhelming—an oasis, if you will.
I went to Jerusalem as part of my PhD fieldwork with the goal to be out and about in the city and further afield. To meet with women who make thobs (Palestinian heritage dresses), collectors, and archivists, and to make connections for further research.
Wandering the streets of the Old City is always an adventure, and there are many old thobs, parts of old thobs, and hand-made tatreez hanging outside shops. Seeing these always causes me to end up inside the shop talking to the proprietor, asking questions about where he got his items and explaining my research. This not only led to many connections but also endless cups of coffee – who needs sleep when you are always fed Arabic coffee and dates? It often felt like I would never sleep again.
Through connections from before and ones I made in our many wanderings, I was able to visit many private collections in Jerusalem and in Bethlehem. Bethlehem is just a short bus ride away from Jerusalem and, at least for the trips that we took, was very easy to access. I constantly overestimated the amount of time that it would take to travel there. The city is very nice, and we were able to go to the Church of the Nativity and to visit the campus of Bethlehem University. As we wandered around, you could clearly tell that there had been no tourists there in a very long time. However, the first trip we made to Bethlehem was on the day of the signing of a so-called ceasefire, and people were very happy and hopeful on that day.
Discussions and stories were many, both a more formal setup and interview and the spontaneous wander into a store that would lead to hours of conversation and hearing the many stories of not only the person I was talking to but talking through thobs and stories of the thobs, as each one is unique. While we may no longer be able to uncover the exact meaning of the person who made it, as they are no longer present to tell their stories, but we can hear from new stories, from how they were acquired to how the new owner has made use of them. Paths change and things are remade. While the use and meaning of thobs may change, their lives live on and continue to make meaning in various ways.
During a dinner hosted by the STI, Anna told us about the concept of Jerusalem Syndrome, where you will always wish to return to this city, which I can say I have most definitely fallen victim to and am already plotting my return.
It is not always easy to understand the complexities of a place from very far away, only following the news, and Jerusalem is a very complicated place. I would not have been able to gain such a nuanced understanding of Jerusalem without visiting and without staying at the STI.
While there was not much activity at the STI during my stay there, an effect of the situation in Gaza, I was privileged to meet people that we would not have otherwise met if we had not been staying at the STI, as Anna knows and makes sure that a diverse set of people are welcomed and come to the STI. This gave me a renewed chance to meet an even more diverse set of people than I would have been exposed to even while being in Jerusalem, and I am eternally grateful for the opportunity.
As I have mentioned previously, this for me was a city full of surprises and wonderful interactions to witness. While I have yet to explore this further in the academic sense, I was very intrigued by the idea of the “neighbor” – and the everyday lives of people in the city of Jerusalem are like no other. People live side by side despite religious differences, speak together, eat and drink together, and continue to co-exist together and form bonds, even in the face of the political and national rhetoric.
I will share an example that stuck out to me. I would also like to note that while it was a unique experience to me, it would appear to be everyday to the people who were interacting with each other. We were walking in the Old City and I, as usual, saw an old thob and ended up inside a store on a side street of one of the busier streets in the Old City. After a cup of tea and a chat with the owner, I was rifling through pieces of thobs that were on the floor – when a very typically dressed Orthodox Jewish man with his wife and grown son stopped to talk to the shop owner, an older Palestinian man. He greeted the shop owner with a big smile and stopped to chat for a little bit. Our host in the shop had just been in the hospital, and from what I could piece together of their conversation (a mix of Arabic and Hebrew), he was asking about his health and hoped that he was feeling better. From this interaction, it was clear that they walked the streets to their house every day and said hello to the shop owner. Perhaps the man had done it his whole life? Who knows? But it was clearly part of a well-established routine between them.
In an increasingly politicized world and having been in a region that makes the news daily, I wanted to highlight this. While it might seem small or a banal interaction, I felt that it showcased the really complex nature of Jerusalem and showed the often-forgotten nuances of life within the city walls, an experience that you would only be able to have or witness if you walk the streets of the Old City of Jerusalem.
It truly is a city full of surprises like no other.
This roundtable discusses how place (re)shapes scholarly practice, drawing on the experiences of four researchers at Lund University who were hosted in the last six months by the Swedish Theological Institute in Jerusalem.
The researchers who are at different career stages will reflect on how working in Jerusalem influenced their research questions, methods, ethics and everyday interactions, particularly in the politically and religiously tense environment. They will reflect on the challenges they faced such as positionality, access and emotional navigation, alongside opportunities for more nuanced contextual understanding and intellectual reflexivity. The aim of the discussion is to outline the various learning processes and the ways in which place actively (re)shapes how knowledge is produced.
Panel:
Cailin Kwoh (Lund University)
Magdalena Dziaczkowska (Lund University)
Wally Cirafesi (Lund University)
Yafa Shanneik (SOAS)
Respondent: Anna Hjälm (STI Jerusalem)
Moderator: Torsten Jansson (Lund University)
The Panel is followed by a reception. This event is funded by Mörthen and hosted at the Centre for Theology and Religious Studies at Lund University.
Sensing Jerusalem at the STI: October–November 2025
From 26 October to 20 November 2025, I had the privilege of spending nearly a month at the Swedish Theological Institute (STI) in Jerusalem. This visit came at a particularly fragile moment: the cease-fire in the Gaza war was only a couple of weeks old, and while life in West Jerusalem appeared to continue with its usual rhythms—cafés buzzing, buses trundling along Jaffa Street, students and tourists moving about—the shadow of the conflict was palpable everywhere. Memorials for Israeli fallen and banners urging the government to bring hostages home seemed to occupy every corner, which were constant reminders that the city’s calm was precarious. A short trip to Bethlehem offered a stark contrast: life for Palestinians was already, and is always, challenging under the “normal” circumstances of occupation, and the war had only intensified these difficulties. Increasing settler encroachments, more economic strain, and the ever-present tension of military occupation layered the everyday with additional hardship. Jerusalem, and its surrounding regions, are places heavy with history, memory, and ongoing conflict; even as an outsider, one cannot help but feel that weight. This month, that heaviness was sharper than usual.
Despite these tensions, the STI proved to be a remarkable haven. While I have been to Jerusalem many times, I had never stayed at the STI before. The staff—led by director Anna Hjälm—were extremely welcoming and made settling in effortless. The building itself is beautiful, elegantly combining historical charm with modern renovations, and its location is superb: just a short walk from Jaffa Street, one of the city’s main arteries leading directly to the Old City. During my stay, I lived in one of the older rooms, conveniently located beside and just below the institute’s library. The library was not fully operational––its main floor was being used primarily as a storage area—but the upstairs area was a quiet space, perfect for late-night reading and writing. It also has a window with a great view to date palm that occupies the central courtyard of the institute. The recently renovated rooms in other parts of the institute looked wonderful as well.
The weather throughout my visit was exceptional. Daily temperatures hovered in the low 20s, with bright sunshine that poured over the city’s stone streets. The climate was ideal for the work I had come to Jerusalem to do, providing not only physical comfort but a mental clarity that is sometimes hard to find amid colder or gloomier conditions like November in southern Sweden.
Two primary objectives occupied my time at the STI. First, I was to prepare and deliver an hour-long lecture at the Tantur Ecumenical Institute, which Anna kindly organized. The Tantur is a unique international centre for theological study located just outside of Jerusalem off Hebron Road. It is a Catholic institution associated with the University of Notre Dame (South Bend, USA), and it is run by an amazing staff: Fr “JP” John Paul (rector), Nizar Halloun (program director), and Sr Marie-Farouza Maximos (program office coordinator). The lecture focused on my recent book, Capernaum: Jews and Christians in the Ancient Village from the Time of Jesus to the Rise of Islam. It drew a diverse crowd of about 20 people—mostly academics, clergy, and tour guides—who insightfully engaged with the contents of the book, which mainly deals with the early history of Jewish – Christian relations. With its long-standing commitment to interfaith dialogue and academic exchange, the Tantur provided an excellent forum for discussion.
My time at the Tantur also provided the context for a couple other serendipitous encounters. Rev. Dr. Donald Binder (St. George’s Cathedral, East Jerusalem), whom I knew previously only from his scholarly work on ancient synagogues, attended the lecture. It was pleasure to meet him and talk about ways we might collaborate in the future.
My Tantur experience also allowed me to run into a good friend of mine, Dr. Michael Azar, who is both a Greek Orthodox priest and professor of theological studies at the University of Scranton (Pennsylvania, USA). Michael came to Lund for a workshop I organized in September 2024 and will be coming back again in June 2026. Our work on early Jewish – Christian relations and the Gospel of John is what has brought us together. He invited me to a vespers service, which I had never attended before, and which was one of the highlights of my trip.
Networking for the development of a new project was the second major focus of my visit. A central strand of my research these days centers on the cultural history of the senses, and, more specifically, how the five Aristotelian senses and beyond were activated and given meaning within the religious traditions of Late Antiquity, particularly Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. My hope is that this sensory perspective allows for a more nuanced and embodied understanding of inter-religious relations during this period. As part of this networking effort, I was fortunate to meet with several scholars, who are also good friends, including professors Zeev Weiss, Rina Talgam, and Uzi Leibner at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and professor Michal Bar-Asher Siegal at Ben Gurion University of the Negev. I also had dinner with some new friends at the W.F. Albright Institute for Archaeological Research, including the new(ish) director of the institute, Dr. Jamie Fraser. Jamie is doing phenomenal work for the Albright in developing its intellectual culture as well as its financial viability during a time when the US government is making life for the Humanities extremely difficult. I hope to get back to the Albright soon. In any case, we discussed potential collaborative projects, methodological approaches, and sources that could enrich my ongoing research.
In addition, I spent significant time at the Israel Museum, looking at objects related to ancient practices of sensoriality. To my delight, the Museum had recently curated an exhibition on the materiality of light in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—a resource that proved extraordinarily relevant for my work. These encounters, both formal and informal, reinforced my sense that Jerusalem, while always tricky to navigate on so many fronts, remains a special place for my scholarly work and development.
Jewish and Christian Lamps
Incense burners
Jerusalem, of course, is not merely a site for academic work—it is a city that overwhelms the senses. Walking its streets, one is confronted with an extraordinary mixture of smells, sounds, textures, and colours: the call to prayer echoing from minarets, church bells tolling, the scent of spices from stalls at “The Shuk” (marketplace at Machane Yehuda), the heat of the sun on limestone walls, and the constant hum of movement and negotiation in a densely layered urban space. The city itself becomes a kind of fieldwork, especially for someone invested in studying the role of the senses in religious life. Every step, every encounter, every market or street corner offers insight into how humans inhabit space deemed “sacred,” how rituals are performed, and how sensory experiences shape the contours of religious identity and community. In this sense, Jerusalem is not just a backdrop for study—it is an active participant, a living laboratory for exploring the questions that animate my research.
The Shuk
Reflecting on my month at the Swedish Theological Institute, I was struck once again how intertwined the scholarly and the experiential are in a city like Jerusalem. The fragility of the cease-fire, the heavy reminders of loss, and the ongoing difficulties faced by local communities lend an urgency to academic engagement: research is never abstract here, never divorced from the realities of life, history, and politics. Yet amid this complexity, spaces like the STI, as well as the Tantur and the Albright, offer moments of reflection, if not reprieve. They remind us that scholarship, particularly when it engages with history, religion, and human experience, is an embodied endeavour—one that thrives on place, encounter, and the subtle interplay of the senses.
I was afraid to go back to Jerusalem. Jerusalem for me is a world of its own, where I have spent almost 5 years already, and which made me into a person that I am today. No place was as transformative for me as Jerusalem, perhaps because of the weight it has historically, spiritually and politically. The weight of the glory, as a friend joked once, playing with Hebrew words glory (kavod)and heaviness (koved). It is a glorious place but also very heavy and pregnant with suffering, so if you are not prepared, its weight can smash you.
My previous research stay in Jerusalem ended in autumn 2022, amid rapidly intensifying political polarization and attempts to weaken Israeli democracy. Since Covid, aggressive security measures, a collapsing tourism sector, and increasing restrictions on Palestinians had severely weakened the economy. Many Palestinians lost their livelihoods. At the same time, religious right-wing groups gained strength, leading to greater boldness among West Bank settlers and sporadic violence against Arabs inside Israel. The tension was palpable. When I left in September 2022, I was angry, frustrated, and exhausted, expecting an escalation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict—perhaps another intifada. What followed, however, was unimaginable. October 7 changed everything. One of my former colleagues, Alex Dancyg, a pioneer of Polish-Jewish reconciliation, was taken hostage and killed in March 2024. My heart sank. The destruction of Gaza and messages from Church leaders and humanitarian colleagues were beyond despair. I dreaded the future.
I was supposed to return to Jerusalem in October 2023, and my bags stayed packed for another year as the situation failed to improve. When I finally had the opportunity to go this November, I was filled with apprehension. Ethical questions intertwined with emotional struggles: How are my friends and colleagues—Israelis and Palestinians, Jews, Christians, and Muslims—and how can I show up to their pain, mourning and anger? What can one say to those who have lost relatives and friends and are devastated? Is it acceptable to focus on my own research while so much suffering continues? Do I have the psychological resources to spend two months there? As always in life, there was only one way to find out: by going. And, as usual, the resources somehow emerged, sometimes in unexpected ways.
Despite the difficult general situation, Jerusalem was very calm. Given how crazy busy this city usually gets, I appreciated the silence, but I noted growing indifference or maybe numbness? I spent most of my days in the archives of Yad Vashem, silent and removed, with beautiful views over Ein Karem. Taking a tram from the stop Yafa Mercaz to Mount Herzl and then walking from there, with a view of beautiful hills and forests, provided some space and isolation from the city noise. It gave me time to think, breath fresh air, and clear my head before emerging myself into the historical records of the Holocaust.
Archive research is a lonely and slow business. You spend hours browsing through mysterious databases, sometimes built in an even more mysterious way. You try various spellings of the names, synonyms, various level of accuracy etc. And sometimes you find fascinating information. Some other days, you browse in vain, cursing the database. It is all part of the process.
Most of the days the archive was quite empty with only few other visitors, mostly coming to search for some information on their relatives who either survived or were murdered in the Holocaust. They spoke all the possible languages and came from diverse backgrounds. But they all were connected by the tragic past of their families. And sometimes the Yad Vashem archive is the only place where the memory of these people, both murdered victims and survivors, is kept.
Photo: The Hall of Names at Yad Vashem, December 2025.
The Yad Vashem archive includes references to many other archives and often holds copies of their collections, making it one of the most comprehensive Holocaust archives in the world. Unsurprisingly, I found extensive material on “my” Jewish-Catholic couples, ranging from testimonies and transport lists to family photographs and postwar addresses in Israel and elsewhere. Particularly valuable was the documentation concerning Catholic spouses recognized as Righteous Among the Nations, which was often very detailed and included accounts by both the rescuers and eyewitnesses, as well as reflections on the rescuers’ personal motivations. The second part of my archival research focused on Polish-Jewish survivors who came to Sweden in the so-called White Buses, whose testimonies are preserved in the Ravensbrück Archive at Lund University Library (recently included in UNESCO’s Memory of the World register). I found information on many of them, especially in transport lists and records of inhabitants of Polish ghettos under Nazi occupation. However, I was surprised to discover that Yad Vashem holds neither copies of nor references to “our” testimonies. After arranging a meeting with the archivist responsible for the relevant collections, and in collaboration with colleagues at Lund University Library, Tomasz Leśniak and Håkan Håkansson, we initiated the process of signing an agreement to exchange data and digital copies of the Ravensbrück testimonies. I was very proud and excited to be part of this important development.
Time outside the archives was divided between meeting old friends, attending relevant events, and sharing my research while developing collaborations with colleagues from Israel and Palestine. One highlight was a seminar marking 250 years of Jewish life in Sweden, organized by Sophie Becker, Consul General of Sweden in Jerusalem, with distinguished speakers including Rebecca Krus (Berättarministeriet), Katty Hauptman (Holocaust Museum in Stockholm), and former Paideia director, Barbara Spectre.
Another meaningful event was a conference on Nostra Aetate, where I encountered many familiar faces. I also greatly enjoyed sharing my current research on mixed marriages with colleagues and students at the Haifa Unit for Interdisciplinary Polish Studies.
Photo: A Catholic bishop of Nazareth, Rafiq Nahra, speaking at the conference Nostra Aetate in Their Age and in Ours, organized by the Notre Dame University at Tantur and Hebrew University of Jerusalem on 18-20 November 2025.
Photo: Guest lecture at HIUPS during Hanukah (therefore sufganiyot!).
Throughout my stay, the Swedish Theological Institute remained a safe haven, with its friendly and supportive staff and many inspiring guests and speakers, whom I was honored to meet. One particular highlight was learning songs for Luciadagen, then attending the performance and singing along.
Photo: Celebration of Lucia Day at STI.
Despite these moments of community and shared learning, the period was marked by deep cognitive dissonance. On the one hand, daily life continues; on the other, violence and indifference repeatedly rupture its fabric. I will always remember visits to my warmly hospitable colleagues at The Smart University College for Modern Education in Hebron and at Birzeit University in Ramallah. Just two weeks after my visit to the latter, Israeli forces raided the campus, injuring dozens of students. Another striking dissonance was the absence of news about Gaza: I realized that, if I chose, I could remain in Jerusalem without ever hearing about the fate of Gazans.
I had the privilege of receiving a Moerthen fellowship to spend July and August 2025 at the Swedish Theological Institute (STI) in Jerusalem. STI is located just a few minutes’ walk from Damascus Gate, one of the main entrances to the Old City of Jerusalem. Anna Hjälm, the Director of the Institute, and her staff members, were very welcoming and extremely helpful.
During my time at the STI, I met Swedish and other European visitors who were also resident there. We quickly formed a close group, often spending our evenings together in the Christian Quarter, where we met many other Europeans. These informal encounters were deeply enriching. We came from diverse backgrounds and life trajectories, yet shared a desire to understand the region in its complexity.
Few places in the world bring so many religious traditions into such close proximity, not only through sacred sites but through everyday communal life. Jerusalem reminds me of a widely circulated poem, often attributed to the Palestinian poet Sami Muhanna:
“When you are asked who you are, say: I am from the land of faith, from a country of all religions. I am from where I heard the bells of churches and the call to prayer.”
This understanding of Jerusalem as a place of multiple religious traditions became tangible when one of the people I spent time with showed me his arm, tattooed with symbols of different faiths. The tattoo had been done by a well-known Palestinian tattoo artist in the Christian quarter. He explained that the impact of Jerusalem would always remain with him, engraved quite literally into his body.
The Swedish Theological Institute is exactly the kind of place where such personal encounters can unfold. At the same time, it also offers a vibrant professional and intellectual environment. During my stay, STI hosted a reception in their beautiful garden, bringing together Swedish politicians and representatives from Human Rights Organisations, including the Augusta Victoria Hospital. This social gathering, gave me the opportunity to introduce my new European Research Council funded Consolidator Grant project, Governing Health, Family and Religion: The Biopolitics of Genetic Counselling and Religious Family Formations (RELI-GENE), based at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. The evening became an important moment for building connections with healthcare providers, policymakers and activists and for discussing how genetic counselling and marriage regulation are experienced across diverse religious minority communities in Jerusalem and in the wider region. This evening marked the beginning of conversations that will continue to shape my research.
I also joined Anna and her team on a visit to the house of Sally Azar, the Palestinian female pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Jordan and the Holy Land Jerusalem congregation, located within the Augusta Victoria compound on the northern side of the Mount of Olives in East Jerusalem.
The visit included a communal evening during which we observed the preparation of a distinctive Palestinian Christian bread for the Sunday service, made out of grape molasses. The evening developed into conversations about Palestinian heritage and the ways in which religious practices are shaped by place, material cultural and local traditions. As Sally explained, the use of grape molasses in the holy bread is deeply rooted in longstanding Palestinian Christian ritual practices and reflects the intimate connection between faith, land and communal oral traditions.
On the 8 September 2025, I organised a roundtable discussion at the STI on Reproductive Governance and Kinship in Minority Communities, in collaboration with Lund University and Moerthen. This informal gathering brought together academics, researchers, and health professionals working with different minority communities across the region. The aim was to create a shared space for dialogue, where participants could exchange perspectives and reflect on their experiences in both research and practice. The discussion explored how state systems and national health guidelines influences choices around marriage and reproduction and the strategies communities develop in response. Participants also reflected on the challenges faced by healthcare providers and policymakers as they navigate diverse religious and cultural understandings of family and kinship.
What distinguished the roundtable was the diversity of voices present. Participants included representatives of and scholars working on Muslim and Christian Palestinians, Palestinian Bedouin communities, Druze, Circassians, Samaritans, Ultra-Orthodox as well as Ethiopian Jews. I came to realise that organising a multi-faith event in Jerusalem, and at the STI in particular, requires specific sensitivity to religious boundaries. As the STI is an active church on consecrated grounds, some participants from other faith traditions did not feel able to attend in person. Members of the Ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities, in particular, expressed discomfort with physically being present at the venue and therefore requested that the roundtable takes place in a hybrid format. Accommodating these preferences allowed voices that might otherwise have been absent to take part in the conversation. All participants contributed multiple layers of knowledge that enriched current scholarship on the topic by drawing on their research, professional practice and direct engagement with communities. We highlighted the importance of cross-disciplinary and trans-religious exchange and of the need to understand how religion, health and social norms and everyday life of individuals are deeply interconnected.
This roundtable also marked the starting point of my RELI-GENE project. Over the next five years, these conversations will continue to develop across different sites and minority communities. My team and I look forward to returning to the Swedish Theological Institute and to deepening our collaboration through future research and shared reflections.
This is Torsten Janson’s report from his research stay in Jerusalem in the fall 2023:
The utter irony. Chased by a deadline, I spend my first days by the iPad. The occasional break for tea and dried prunes down Salah ad-Din Street. A quick stop to see Anna Hjälm and the STI staff. But mostly: frantic writing at the Albright Institute. Submitted. Pfeew. Tomorrow: a day in field. Finally, it begins!
Did it ever.
Just after daybreak in the freshness of the summer-warm morning. October 7. I find my way to the obscure monument over Palestinian and Jordanian soldiers fallen in the war of 1967, just north of the City Walls. An hour of photographing among weeds and plastic bottles in this remote lieu de memoir that no one seems to remember. Attempting to decipher the faint inscriptions on shattered, depilated gravestones. Who is remembered here? Who remembers? Whom does memory serve?
The little noticed monument over Palestinian and Jordanian soldiers of the Six-Day-War 1967, 7 October 2023.
Off again along the road beneath Mount Olive. Towards Silwan, one of many sites of conflicted space and memory in the city. An ancient Palestinian neighbourhood threatened by the incursion of the massive City of David excavations. Houses shattering from underground drillings. Evictions and house demolitions. The violence, contest, and clashes of space, memory and culture in an occupied city.
At that moment: blaring sirens.
I stop and gaze and listen. Eastern Jerusalem stretches out before me beyond the busy road. Sheikh Jarrah, Wadi al-Joz. The silhouette of Hebrew University on top of the ridge. An extended wail rolling down the hill sides. This is not the police. Nor fire brigades or a burglar alarm. Trouble in the settlements? On a Saturday morning? Yet all is quiet beyond the stream of traffic, in uncanny contrast with the sound of emergency. I make a quick recording and resolves to move on.
Video recording of the first rocket alert in the city, on Derekh Yerikokh, Eastern City, 7 October 2023.
I continue by the Jewish cemetery with eyes on the stupefying vista over the Kidron Valley, the Ottoman walls, the Dome glistening in the morning sun. Qubbat al-Sakra. The Temple Mount. Moria. The pure exhilaration of being here.
The day is already heating up. With pleasure I enter the shade of the narrow alleys of Silwan, aimlessly wandering up and down paths and stairways among Hajj-decorated walls. And a second blare of sirens shatters the morning stillness. What is happening?
‘Sabah al-kheir!’ The men quietly chatting outside a tiny food shack turn around to scrutinise me sceptically. Someone murmurs a reluctant good morning. ‘Are you lost?’ I have only begun a stuttering answer when he interrupts. ‘It is trouble today.’ ‘Trouble?’ ‘Yes, trouble in Gaza.’ ‘What is going on?’ Shrugs. ‘There will be police. Maybe not to go into the village.’ ‘No maybe not. Have a good day.’
The uncanny feeling is slowly turning into something else, something with a taste of metal. I should not be here. Determined to walk calmly, my heart beats harder than the stairs warrant. Something is happening. Again: blaring sirens. And now a ripping, cracking bang. Distant yet physical. A sound like textile violently torn. Like thunder in a clear blue sky. Like something very, very wrong.
Palestinian Silwan, Eastern City, with buildings adorned with Pilgrimage insignia, 7 October 2023.
Down the valley and up the Old City by the Western Wall, always patrolled by police. But today things are different. Groups of 8 or 10 uniformed youth punctuate street in intervals. Like units mobilized. Fences block the road down towards the City of David. A uniformed girl with her hands on the AK wave me off: that way! The road up along the Wall. My steps are faster now.
Outside Zion Gate. Sirens. Renewed explosions. And only now I see it: white streaks criss-crossing the southern sky, ending in puffs. Moments later: a sickening bang.
Thirty minutes later I am back by Albright on Salah al-Din. Here the atmosphere is different. People stand in groups in corners, outside the stores and cafés, eyes in the sky. There! Another one! Occasional cheers. I exchange words here and there. ‘It is Gaza. They are shooting back.’
The following week is a blur of memory fragments. Hours on end reading news, communicating with colleagues and friends, re-assuring the family. Yes, all is ok. I agree with my children to post a frog-emoji every morning to indicate I am safe. It somehow becomes a reassuring ritual of conjured control and routine. As rituals are prone to be.
But things are not ok. Gradually the extent of the horror of October 7 dawns upon us. Israeli media overflows with reports on the attack, with calls for retaliation and war. And with it comes the fear of what will be next, in Gaza, on the West Bank. How will Israel respond? How bad will it be? The answer is immediate as bombs begin to fall over Gaza.
The city comes to a stand-still, holding its breath. What now? Will the Palestinian neighbourhoods explode? Occasional rocket fire from Gaza prompts me to download a security alert app to my mobile. Albright Institute empties out. I spend largely sleepless nights in my make-shift shelter, away from windows. In the streets, the presence of military and police is suffocating. No rallies, no burning waste bins, no calls for intifada. Damascus Gate is sealed for Palestinians, blocking passage into the Old City for prayer and manifestations. A longstanding hotspot of gatherings and demonstrations becomes an assembly point for listless journalists.
Damascus Gate, half-an-hour before Friday prayer, 20 October 2023. In lieu of worshipers: press.
With gratitude I accept the invitation to move up to STI, where I remain for the following months. Here too visits and classes are cancelled. The charming Beit Tabor is empty – but not inactive. Under Anna’s coordination, STI becomes a sanctuary for local activism and deliberation between Israeli, Palestinian, Jewish, Muslim, Christian organisations. (Without my next-to-daily conversations with you, Anna, without your insight, care, unsentimental passion, humour and commitment, I doubt I would have stayed.)
Am I scared? Yes and no. I feel bizarrely secure in the centre of the city. And the security itself becomes sickening. Who can feel safe in a state of atrocity? I am torn between rage and relief. Between guilt and gratitude. Fear and fury incapsulates me, dissolving the line between the sanctuary of my room and the horror transpiring a mere 400 kilometres away. In the thick of it, yet worlds apart. Around us, violence is mounting. Gaza under daily heavy bombing. Settlers terrorise the West Bank with impunity. Palestinian school children and workers harassed in the city. The sound of fighter jets a constant, vile presence. Horrid scenes from the misfired Hamas rocket at Al Ahli hospital. The mendacious rhetoric of rooting out Hamas while sparing civilians, parroted by unknowing or uncaring governments worldwide. Only the first indications of an engulfing humanitarian abyss.
I never was much of a sleeper. But this is my first encounter with genuine insomnia. Only in hindsight do I understand the effects of extended sleep deprivation. The difference between sleep and dozing off, as the body and mind simply shuts down in irregular intervals. In lieu of repose, sleep invades my waking hours, dulling senses and emotions: a contour-less limbo of absent presence. The rooster crowing at 3 becomes a welcome herald of daylight, a release from futile efforts at nightly rest.
Left: ‘Safe’ and sleep-deprived in the STI garden, 12 October 2023. Right: Frog-emoji-safety-family-ritual. On 11 November I had dozed of and missed a posting.
Curiously, sleep deprivation affects distraction more than concentration: what becomes impossible is rest and respite. Any attempt at solace slips through my fingers, magnetically drawn to the next click on the next news flash, the next entry in the diary. Fiction, series, football games are defenceless against the foggy wandering of an insomniac mind. I find focus only in three activities: work, cooking and exercise. Ironically, I have seldom been more productive in writing, attentive to couscous and lentils, faster up and down the vicious slopes.
Perhaps the human mind is unable to stay in emergency. Agamben’s state of exception of the repressive state becomes a personal state of mind. Rage, fear, frustration and sorrow persist, but as accustomed everyday reality. Or perhaps I am just worn out? Whatever the reason, by the end of October my attention increasingly gravitates back to my project and fieldwork.
I roam a city strangely the same, only more so. More units are policing the perimeter of the Eastern city. All gatherings are banned. A group of elderly praying men outside the meat market are roughly shooed away. In the streets people are quiet, hurrying along with downcast gaze. More Palestinian store fronts are shut closed. Some in strike, other in economic desperation in a city bereft of tourist and pilgrims. The busy alleys of the Old City have transmuted into ghostly corridors of anxious inertia. A few steps away from the public paths, however, chat and laughter prevail. A visit to a barber engages the entire salon of middle-aged and elderly men in intense discussion around my chair. Not about bombings and suffering. About football. Wherever did Ibrahimovic go? About missing the Palestinian national team. Oh, and remember the airport?! The port! A barbershop conversation like any other, anywhere. And still not.
The Old City Bazaar, Eastern city, in a shut-down state of emergency, 9 November 2023.
The Western city, in contrast, slowly wakes up to bustling street life. Here too the atmosphere is alert, yet strikingly warm. Omnipresent officers are chatting with pedestrians, joking with children, mounting a toddler on a Police horse, allowing selfies. The coffee shop across Beit Tabor is closed. A note on the door: ‘Out for the day. Going to serve our brothers in the IDF’. On Zion Square, crowds gather around musicians playing Israeli evergreens, singing along. Stickers embellish storefronts: Yachad ninatze’ach, together we shall win. Buildings, benches, bus stops are plastered with Bring Them Home-posters. Safra Square by City Hall is staging manifestation after manifestation of frustration, anger, fear and solace for the hostages. Layers upon layers of urban memory created and recreated day by day. And everywhere blue-and-white flags. Flags covering buildings, flags in windows, flags projected on City Walls, flags flying from cars.
Bring Them Home-posters, 19 November 2023.Nightly animated projections of Israeli flags and the official Lion-city-emblem illumining the Old City Walls, 13 November 2023.
In the same vein, my work remains identical, still oddly transformed. More than conducting research I feel increasingly conducted by a field unfolding in front of me. Museums, monuments, places of memory move along familiar paths, yet ignited with new momentum, deepened layers of significance and affect. Spaces saturated with an ambiguous ambience of stillness and rupture, of comfort and violence.
I stroll around the Holy Sepulchre in solitude, a space normally thronged by endless queues, allowing but a fleeting glance. Uninterrupted, I stand alone in stillness by the grave, with a candle lit for dad. The Museum of Islamic Arts is closed. Of little surprise, perhaps. I am no less astounded to find its wall covered by an enormous billboard, displaying faces of the hostages. If this city ever had room for subtlety, it vanished utterly on October 7.
The Museum of Underground Prisoners, commemorating the Jewish para-military groups resisting the British Governate, is also closed. Still the helpful staff grant me a private visit and guided tour. I stand frozen in the workshop arranged for the crafts of visiting school children, instructed to engrave plaster plates with the insignia of para-military organisations. A messy assemblage of memory and material pottering, of sketches, plaster dust and symbols of Haganah, Palmach, Betar, Irgun, Lehi. No one has touched this room since Friday evening, October 6. A time capsule in double-exposure of innocence and violence.
Left: Exterior of The Museum of Underground Prisoners.Right: Traces of the last school-class on the eve of October 7, engraving plaster plates with the insignia of para-military organisations, 21 November 2023.
Mercifully, the Tower of David Museum remains open: the newly re-organised official city museum, one of my key-cases of Israeli local memory. Since my third visit, the receptionists have begun to engage me in conversation. Visitors remain sparse, but on the night of November 13 the courtyard fills up for a sing-along. Enthusiastically but shyly, visitors join the two-hour-collar of feelgood ballads from the Israeli song book: Ofra Haza, Haim Mosche, Zohar Argov, Gali Atari, Naomi Shemer… All concluding with the traditional Acheinu kol beit Yisrael: Our brothers, the whole House of Israel.
‘Do you do this often’ I ask in the reception. ‘Oh no. This is special. Only on Memorial Day…’
Song Night at Tower of David Museum, singing along in ‘Yakhad’(Together, 1995) by Gali Atari, who was part of Milk and Honey, the 1979 winners of Eurovision with ‘Hallelujah’. Video recording, 13 November 2023.
By Hanukkah, my time in the city draws to a close. I am tense: torn between relief and a menacing feeling of betrayal. Already dreading the ‘How was it?’ of friends and colleagues. Not only am I uneasy with the unavoidable question as such, its social nicety. I literally do not know. I have not even begun to ponder it. All know is that I am exploding with impressions. That I sit on a mountain of material. That I do not sleep. That it is a question I ultimately need to ask myself. I ask Anna how she does it. ‘I don’t’, she says. ‘And I talk with people who also don’t.’
The Tower of David Museum by a Hanukkah-decorated Jaffa Gate, soon before leaving, 13 December 2023. The love for the city has turned blue.
A journey to Al-Quds, Yerushalaim, Jerusalem never begins on the day of travel, nor ends with one’s return. Personal memories are pre-scribed by and inscribed with events unfolding around us, in Palestine, Israel, the Middle East, the world. The recollections of my autumn in the city are sifted through a spring of catastrophe, as the atrocities in Gaza has mounted to new extremes. Events in our immediate surroundings interconnect here and there, then and now. Exception presses upon us.
The Eurovision spectacle in Malmö becomes world politics, turning streets into a rallying point for humanitarian engagement, as well as an exceptional display of urban securitization under hovering police drones, helicopters and snipers. The student encampment of ‘Palestinagård’ transforms the Lund University campus into a space of resistance, until violently rooted out to make way for the hallowed doctoral conferment procession, with its cannon salutes…
It takes until March before I begin to look for words, attempting to articulate experience in memory and reflection. I find unexpected relief in teaching, when Andreas Westergren asks me to give a talk for the MA students of CTR. By framing the matter methodologically, by deliberately taking distance, formulating a series of problems rather than answers, I find a way in. I call my talk ‘Sleepless in al- Quds: four field paradoxes pre/post 7.10’. It becomes a template for eventually writing this text, guided by four acknowledgements:
nothing will ever be the same; everything is just the same (only more so)
in the thick of it; in a world apart
in an everyday state in a state of exception
the impossibilities of representation versus our commitment to representation.
‘Are you sleeping better now’, a student asks. I smile at this unexpected question. ‘Honestly? So-so’. ‘Will you go back?’ That one is easier. ‘As soon as I get the chance.’
For seven weeks in the spring of 2023, Karin (Zetterholm) and I had the privilege of serving as scholars in residence at STI within the framework of the so-called Mörthen project. We left a rainy and cold Lund on February 9 and arrived in an almost equally cold and rainy Jerusalem. I have been to Jerusalem many times but never this early in the year so freezing in the holy city was a new and unusual experience. Fortunately, the apartment that STI rented for us had an excellent air heating system.
Unlike Svante Lundgren, the first scholar in residence in the Mörthen project, we did not stay at the Albright Institute of Archaeological Research, but in an apartment on Ben Yehuda Street in central Jerusalem. This had definite advantages – STI is only a 5-minute walk away – but also some disadvantages, as Ben Yehuda Street is the most popular pedestrian street in Jerusalem. The description of the apartment as “a quiet rooftop apartment” turned out to be not entirely accurate. One could say that the Ben Yehuda Street pretty much reflects the soul of Jerusalem. Here, ultra-orthodox Jews mingle with tourists from all over the world, Christian pilgrims, Arab-Israeli businessmen, street musicians, preachers, the occasional madman, and at night, singing crowds of generally happy and (very) loud people. The Sabbath, which I might otherwise have considered mostly an inconvenience, with buses and trams not running and most shops and restaurants closed, came as a definite relief.
We worked mainly in STI’s library and thus had the opportunity to participate in the daily activities of the institute. Our task in Jerusalem included writing a major research proposal and much of the time was spent reading articles and trying to identify a research task that could be carried out by three to four researchers over a three-year period. In addition, we started writing on a book on the Jewish roots of Christianity, Christian origins and development during the first four centuries – a book that will summarize our research from the last twenty years.
Our stay at STI partly coincided with the international course held there each year with participants from all over the world and we had the privilege to interact with the course participants through a joint lecture on some of the recent trends in research on Paul and Jesus. At the end of March, Karin was invited to Professor Maren Niehoff’s (one of Karin’s former teachers) research seminar at the Hebrew University to present her current research project. Karin thought it was a pleasant experience to return to the place where she studied for a couple of years during the 90’s, but now as an internationally recognized scholar. After a fruitful discussion, we were able to discuss at lunch possible forms of cooperation, such as joint research seminars facilitated by digital technology.
We were also fortunate to meet several colleagues. Bill Campbell and Kathy Ehrensperger were visiting Jerusalem and we met them at STI, showed them the beautiful building and had the opportunity to tell them about the history of STI and the reason it was founded. We met our honorary doctor from 2017, Professor Paula Fredriksen, on a couple of occasions for fruitful discussions. Together with CTR’s PhD student, Daniel Leviathan, we met with Professors Rina Talgam and Yakir Paz on one occasion and one of the experts on modern synagogue architecture, Professor Vladimir Levin, on another. There are rich opportunities for various forms of future collaboration.
Together with CTR’s Andreas Westergren, we made a much-appreciated study trip to Jordan (a country that seems to have no traffic rules at all) where we visited ancient churches, Roman ruins, some synagogues and a variety of magnificent mosaics in Gadara (where I met a pack of quite decent dogs), Jarash, Madaba and Umm ar-Rasas.
It was very interesting to explore and discuss the architecture of ancient churches together with a skilled church historian. It was not least exciting to be reminded in a very tangible way that “cancel culture” has very old roots. Note how effectively human images have been erased from the mosaic floor of a church in Umm ar-Rasas.
The weather in Israel can be a bit unreliable temperature-wise in the spring. We had many nice days with temperatures above 20 degrees and one such day I finally got the opportunity to visit Masada, together with STI’s Jonny Nilsson and this year’s volunteer Maria Måneskär.
But the weather changes, so on March 30, we returned to Sweden under the same weather circumstances as when we arrived, actually even worse, whipping rain and biting wind. All in all, we must conclude that the stay was successful – we have revived old contacts, made some new ones, learned some new things and seen some places we had not seen before, something that may enrich future teaching.
Svante Lundgren, Associate Professor in Jewish Studies, writes about his research stay in Jerusalem:
Someone must be the first, and I was lucky to be the first person to enjoy a stay of about three months at the Swedish Theological Institute (STI) in Jerusalem within the so-called Mörthen program. Anna, the director of STI, called me den första mörten (the first roach). I arrived on October 2, and left on December 29. I have been in Israel/Palestine several times before, but never this long. And it was an incredible eight years since my latest visit. So, I was happy to be back.
For those who do not know, STI operates since 1951 in a wonderful building at the Street of the Prophets in Western Jerusalem. It is commonly regarded as one of the most beautiful houses in the city. It was a pleasure to sit in the garden for a fika break, looking at the beautiful 19th century house in classical Jerusalem stone, seeking shelter from the sun under the olive and fruit trees. The sun was, indeed, shining. When I arrived it was 30 degrees, and although it soon dropped to 25 it was nice and warm almost every day until mid-December.
STI has a staff consisting of three Swedes (director, manager, chaplain), a Swedish volunteer, and five locals (one Israeli and four Palestinians, of whom two are Christians and two Muslims). There was a good atmosphere between these. Later when my wife joined me in Jerusalem, she also felt very welcomed in this community at STI.
The author gives a speech at STI at the celebration when the former director, Maria Leppäkari, was thanked and the new director, Anna Hjälm, welcomed. Photo: Maria Wålsten
I did not live in the STI building, but in another institute, the Albright Institute of Archaeological Research. It is in the Eastern part of Jerusalem, so every day when moving between my two institutes I crossed the invisible border between Eastern (Arabic) and Western (Jewish) Jerusalem. I liked staying at Albright. I learnt to know some of the scholars there and was occasionally invited to join them in their events. For example, I took part in my first Thanksgiving celebration ever (Albright is an American institute).
On a normal day I would walk to STI – it took about 15 minutes – and then work there in the library until early (or sometimes late) afternoon. Some days I spent at one or another library at the Hebrew University on Mount Scopus. I also visited different persons whom I interviewed for my research project about identity constructions among Jews from Kurdistan. The interesting thing about these is that they – like many others – are so divided over their identity. Originally, they have been labelled “Kurdish Jews”, but this is now contested by many. Some even prefer to be seen as “Assyrian Jews”. As I have done research on both Jews and Assyrians, this was of utmost interest to me.
Being a visiting fellow at STI does not simply mean doing your own research, but also contributing to the work of the institute. I gave two lectures to visiting groups, and some short interviews to a group of secondary school students who visited Jerusalem and made short videos about different topics related to the city. I also represented STI at some events, e.g., one at the Swedish Embassy in Herzliya.
I was also able to make some contacts with the Armenian community in Jerusalem. One evening I gave a lecture at the library of the Armenian Patriarchate (it was an event co-organized by the Patriarchate and the Danish Church) and I also had the privilege to visit the Armenian school and talk to the students of the 11th and 12th grade.
Jerusalem is not far away and during my stay I met a lot of friends who visited the city. During the first weeks three colleagues from CTR (Torsten, Karin and Magnus) stayed at STI and later the director of the Centre for Advanced Middle Eastern Studies at Lund University, Karin Aggestam, dropped in at the institute for a chat. I also met two former colleagues from Åbo Akademi University who happened to be in Jerusalem (not at the same time).
STI is owned by the Church of Sweden and was during my stay visited by several representatives of the church. It has good contacts with the local churches, especially the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Jordan and the Holy Land. If you are interested in Middle Eastern Christianity – I am – and/or want to socialise with Bishops and other church leaders, this is a good place to be. Christmas Eve and Christmas day, my wife and I spent in Bethlehem. On Manger Square, I was interviewed by Maltese television and asked why I celebrated Christmas there. “Why not?”, I answered, “this is after all where it happened.”
Those who celebrate Christmas in Jerusalem do it with glitter. The Christmas tree in St. George’s Cathedral. Photo: Svante Lundgren
One thing people always ask about is security. 2022 was the bloodiest year in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for more than a decade. There was unrest and violence in some suburbs of Jerusalem, but nothing came close to me. At no time did I feel unsecure, but the political situation is indeed very difficult, more so now than for a long time.
All is not work and during my free time it was good to leave Jerusalem. I visited Bethlehem several times, and Jericho and the Dead See. Our weekend trip to the Galilee was one of the most memorable events during my stay. We visited the mainly Druze village of Peqi’in and learnt a lot about this fascinating religious minority.
In sum: it was a fruitful stay both when it comes to my research and otherwise. I hope that the cooperation between CTR and STI will continue and prosper. And for my own part – I hope to be back in Jerusalem soon.
Owing to a generous grant from Oscar och Signe Krooks stiftelse, the Centre for Theology and Religious Studies (CTR) at Lund University sends a scholar to the Swedish Theological Institute (STI) in Jerusalem each semester (https://www.svenskakyrkan.se/STI). This collaboration project between the CTR and the STI is called Mörthen in Swedish (Mellanösterns religiösa traditioner i historia och nutid), or the Trout (The Religious Traditions of the Middle East in History and the Present). On this blog, scholars will present experiences from their research stay.
The Swedish Theological Institute in Jerusalem (Photo: STI)
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