New York Metropolis, United States – A metallic blur streaked previous Khader Khalilia’s ear. The bullet, so shut he might hear it, smashed right into a portray of Romeo and Juliet on the wall behind him.
As extra pictures rang out, Khalilia and his household fell to the ground of their home in Beit Jala, simply exterior Bethlehem within the occupied West Financial institution. Khalilia draped his physique over his youthful brother Elios to defend him. They had been caught within the crossfire between the Israeli army and a Palestinian resistance group.
“I used to be cursing, praying on the identical time,” mentioned Khalilia, recalling that afternoon in 2003, when he was 23 and nonetheless a school pupil. “Then I mentioned to myself, if we ever survive, I’ll go and serve you, Lord.”
It was a vow he would observe by way of with. Final yr, pastor Khalilia marked one decade main Redeemer-St John’s Lutheran Church in Dyker Heights, a neighbourhood in Brooklyn, New York.
However during the last 9 months, Israel’s war on Gaza has thrown into aid Khalilia’s identification as a Palestinian pastor. He is likely one of the few Palestinian religion leaders in New York Metropolis — and so far as he is aware of, the one one to guide a Christian church.
That visibility has demanded Khalilia grow to be an envoy of kinds, dispelling misconceptions and educating New Yorkers about what it means to be Palestinian.
Among the folks he meets view his very identification — as a Palestinian Christian — to be a contradiction: They suppose all Palestinians are Muslim.
“Once I inform them I am a Palestinian American, Christian Lutheran pastor, they get so confused. However really, it isn’t complicated,” Khalilia mentioned.
An inherent a part of his life and job is dislodging hurtful concepts about Palestinian folks, an Arab ethnic group that spans a number of religions, together with Christianity, Islam and the Druze religion.
Khalilia is typically requested, “When did you change to Christianity?” His reply is similar each time.
“I all the time inform them, ‘On the day of Pentecost, 2,000 years in the past.’ Two thousand years in the past, Jesus was born in Bethlehem, Palestine.” Christianity, as he factors out, has its roots in his homeland.