Elaine Fletcher
Elaine Fletcher is an author at Religion News Service.
All Stories by Elaine Fletcher
NEWS FEATURE: Ossuary Owner Says Artifact is No Fraud
By Elaine Fletcher — July 9, 2003
c. 2003 Religion News Service JERUSALEM _ When the so-called “James Ossuary,” was first unveiled last October, a number of prominent archaeologists, geologists and paleographers had already authenticated the artifact’s remarkable inscription of “James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus,” to the first century A.D. Scholars said the ossuary _ a ritual burial box in […]
NEWS STORY: As Talks Fall Apart, Prayers for Mideast Peace
By Elaine Fletcher — January 1, 2003
c. 200O Religion News Service JERUSALEM _ Only a few hours earlier they had met in a joint prayer for peace _ a few dozen Jews, Muslims and Christians invoking God’s name together with a group of visiting Japanese Shinto priests. But by Tuesday (July 25) afternoon, it became clear those prayers wouldn’t be answered […]
NEWS FEATURE: Israeli Collector Didn’t Recognize `James’ Inscription
By Elaine Fletcher — January 1, 2003
c. 2003 Religion News Service TEL AVIV, Israel _ Hundreds of clay figurines from the ancient Israelite and Canaanite era line the walls of Oded Golan’s apartment, neatly ordered by period and content, museum-style. On the floor of an enclosed balcony looking out onto the street below are several white limestone boxes from Roman times […]
NEWS FEATURE: Contemplating Easter From the Boyhood Home of Jesus
By Elaine Fletcher — January 1, 2003
c. 2003 Religion News Service NAZARETH, Galilee _ After a bumper season of winter rains, the streams and rivers of the Galilee are brimming with water for the first time in a decade. But there is one sacred and mysterious Galilee water source _ Mary’s Well in Nazareth _ whose waters today are a mere […]
NEWS STORY: Israel Visa Policies Hamper Religious, Peace Workers
By Elaine Fletcher — January 1, 2003
c. 2003 Religion News Service JERUSALEM _ The police van pulled up along the three foreign-born women, volunteers at the Christian charity Bridges for Peace, as they strolled along a quiet street on their way to work. Before they knew what was happening, the women _ from Papua New Guinea, Japan and South Africa _ […]
NEWS FEATURE: Who Are the Religious Volunteers, Workers?
By Elaine Fletcher — January 1, 2003
c. 2003 Religion News Service JERUSALEM _ They answer phones and field questions in English from tourists at holy sites like Jerusalem’s Garden Tomb, revered by many Protestants as Jesus’ burial site. They teach classes in religion to local Christians in church schools; at charity institutions like Bridges for Peace, they pack food bags for […]
NEWS FEATURE: Peacemaking Rite Struggles to Take Hold in Middle East
By Elaine Fletcher — January 1, 2003
c. 2003 Religion News Service JERUSALEM _ When Israeli and Palestinian officials shook hands recently in Aqaba, Jordan, over a new cease-fire accord _ dubbed a “hudna” by the media after the classical Arabic term _ Elias Jabbour was elated that an ancient Arab concept in conflict resolution had suddenly become part of the lingua […]
NEWS STORY: Aid Worker Dan Simmons Has Been Going to a Lot of Funerals Lately
By Elaine Fletcher — January 1, 2003
c. 2003 Religion News Service JERUSALEM _ Dan Simmons, director of World Vision in Israel and the Palestinian territories, has been visiting Israel, the West Bank and Gaza regularly for the last 23 years. But he says this current period is the worst he has experienced in terms of both the overall levels of violence […]
NEWS FEATURE: `James Ossuary’ Faces Uncertain Future
By Elaine Fletcher — January 1, 2003
c. 2003 Religion News Service JERUSALEM _ For the first time since its dramatic unveiling in November in Toronto, the stone casket that may have housed the bones of James, brother of Jesus, has returned home to be examined by experts in Israel’s Antiquities Authority. After the hoopla surrounding the initial exhibition at the Royal […]
NEWS STORY: A New and Different Kind of Tragedy for Israel
By Elaine Fletcher — January 1, 2003
c. 2003 Religion News Service JERUSALEM _ From the first minutes of the space shuttle’s launch on Jan. 16, Israelis had followed Columbia’s mission to the moon with the kind of national pride and awestruck fascination that was reminiscent of earlier chapters of American space exploration. After all, Israel’s first astronaut, Ilan Ramon, the son […]
Secularists Win Impressive Gains in Israeli Elections
By Elaine Fletcher — January 1, 2003
c. 2003 Religion News Service JERUSALEM _ His sharp tongue has earned him the nickname of the “Archie Bunker” of Israeli politics. But last week, the short, pudgy Tommy Lapid, a former newspaper editor and outspoken defender of Israel’s secular “silent majority” transformed his acerbic tongue into a new political power base, bringing his tiny […]
NEWS STORY: Israeli Authorities Probe Possible International Antiquities Forgery Ring
By Elaine Fletcher — January 1, 2003
c. 2003 Religion News Service JERUSALEM _ Israeli Antiquities Authority investigators are exploring the possibility that Tel Aviv antiquities dealer Oded Golan, now in police custody, was the leader of a ring of experts and specialists who may have collaborated in the alleged forgery of the purported first century A.D. inscription on the famous “James […]
NEWS STORY: Palestinian Christians, Muslims Gloomy Over Coalition’s Iraq Victory
By Elaine Fletcher — January 1, 2003
c. 2003 Religion News Service JERUSALEM _ People in Baghdad may have danced in the streets over the fall of Saddam Hussein, but here in another corner of the Middle East, Muslim and Christian Palestinians are gloomy and depressed over the rapid course of the U.S. victory over Iraq. Many Muslims still see the invasion […]
NEWS FEATURE: Growing Inequality Threatens Israel’s Founding Vision of Equality
By Elaine Fletcher — January 1, 2003
c. 2003 Religion News Service JERUSALEM _ Under a blazing afternoon sun earlier this summer, a rag-tag assortment of single mothers and children sat at the entrances to white canvas tents lining the sidewalk in front of Israel’s Finance Ministry. They were locked in a battle with the well-paid bureaucrats across the street for what […]
NEWS STORY: In Holy Land, Attitudes on Iraq War as Varied as the People
By Elaine Fletcher — January 1, 2003
c. 2003 Religion News Service JERUSALEM _ Some are still praying for a peaceful solution to the Iraqi-U.S. standoff. Some are praying for victory for U.S.-aligned forces, and others for the miraculous defeat of the U.S. monolith by a defiant Saddam Hussein. Here in the Holy Land, not so far from the Iraqi border, attitudes […]
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