While it is devastating to witness behavior that so contradicts one’s moral convictions, I feel a renewed commitment and devotion to supporting Mar Elias and those partner organizations who are quite desperately needed to foster a just peace in a fraught land.

I hope you will join me in this effort with your gift this year. In fact, you’ll see this year’s Giving Tuesday campaign will center around honoring Abuna Chacour for his lifetime of service to bring about peace and justice for all, in the next section.

Blessings and gratitude —

Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours,

Essrea Cherin

Executive Director

Giving Tuesday this year coincides with Archbishop Emeritus Abuna Elias Chacour’s birthday — Tuesday, November 29.

Let us show Abuna how much we love and support his life-long dedication to building peace and educating thousands more peacemakers, with your generous gift this year.

Make your gift in honor of Abuna and his legacy of Building Peace on Desktops for over five decades!

Happy Birthday, Abuna!

PS: Please forgive me in advance for I will send a series of emailed newsletters requesting your Giving Tuesday gifts this year.

Prof. Mouna Maroun of the Sagol Department of Neurobiology can stake a claim to a lot of ‘firsts’ – she is a first generation university graduate, the first woman from her hometown of Isfiya to earn a PhD, and is the first Arab woman in Israel to hold a senior faculty position in neuroscience as a University Department Head.

She was recently featured in TheMarker, an Israeli business newspaper, as one of the top 20 female scientists in Israel changing the face of medicine.

As an Arab woman, my belief is that the revolution towards gender and ethnic equality starts top-down at academic institutions,” shares Prof. Maroun.

“Recruiting outstanding women as faculty members – Jewish, Arab, Ethiopian and Haredi – especially in sciences and STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) subjects is one of the first steps to ensure the representation of women in higher education and to convey a clear message to the younger generation that there is no glass ceiling for girls.”

Prof. Maroun’s pioneering research that explores stress and fear responses in lab animals has led to a breakthrough in the way mental health professionals treat trauma patients. Her findings, illuminating the special needs of child trauma victims, have spearheaded the development of new treatments that focus exclusively on children and adolescents.

Prof. Maroun serves as a member of the Planning and Budgeting Committee (PBC) of Israel’s Council for Higher Education and as Chair of the Steering Committee for Accessing the Arab Population to Higher Education. She is also a member of the Al-Maram Association promoting science education in Arab schools.

Maroun, who is seen as a role model by young women across the country and especially by Arab students of both genders, works hard to expand professional opportunities of neuroscience scholars from underrepresented minority groups.

Our hearty welcome to

Professor Maroun as a new member

of the Amuta of Mar Elias.

A delegation from the French institute in Tel Aviv, Thierry Peltreau and Guilhem Clermont, visited father Chacour to discuss further ways of integrating French language and culture into the Mar Elias curriculum. With their support, next may be adding more French language courses into the Junior High and possibly Elementary school offerings.

The French Institute is particularly impressed with the dedication at Mar Elias to include students from dozens of villages representing a full array of religious identities and perspectives, in an effort to cultivate a just peace for all in the Holy Land.

The girls high school football team won the first place today in a tournament against other schools from Galilee!! Congratulations to MEEI Girls’ Team!!

I hope you had a chance to live vicariously along with our Living Stones Pilgrims in October. If you haven’t already, have a look at their daily blog entries and perhaps you may feel the tug to join the next Pilgrimage in 2023 (dates to be announced shortly)! 

Let us know you are considering joining our next pilgrimage by clicking on the

Living Stones Blog and completing the form at the bottom of this web page.

Cloaked women quietly vending fruit

Little Palestinians on their bikes

Weaving through the crowds of tourists

And their lives

Carrying heavy weights from childhood.

But the Light has not let go.

The Tent of Nations farming under constant drone surveillance.

Wi’Am engaging who they can in working towards conflict resolution and transformation.

Villages in rubble,

Refugee camps,

Checkpoints and never ending harassment

Walls that keep extending

And truly wail.

Young soldiers armed in obedience

Parents’ Circle reaching across the chasm of tragedies to heal together as they share their grief and work together for peace.

Hope School rescuing children and growing them in skills for self sustainability.

Al Rowwad offering the gifts of the arts to nourish the spirit and encourage the creative soul.

Mar Elias excelling their students in academics while nurturing their identities for the good.

All these. Truly Living Stones.

Giving us Hope for Peace and Reconciliation in the true spirit of Wi’Am,

Agape, Unconditional Love.

“And now abide Faith, Hope and Love,

But the greatest of these is Love”

I Cor 13:13

Thank you, Living Stones, for feeding us and indulging us with your amazing dates, delicious fresh pomegranates, and mint lemonade. Thank you for your upside down chicken (Maqluba), and local specialities like the sweet dessert Knafeh. And thank you especially for teaching us through your examples of living a life that embraces resilience, strength, and hope, as you care for the ancient stones, all those around you, and the ones yet to be born.