Protesting against techno: How a concert revealed the state of Palestinian society
January 14, 2021 Share
Until December 26, 2020, techno music was not a common topic of conversation in Palestine. That changed when Sama Abdulhadi, a famous techno DJ, gave a concert at Maqam Nabi Musa that provoked a backlash from religious conservatives.
Abdulhadi, who is a Palestinian living abroad, decided to return to her homeland to perform three concerts that would be streamed on Beatport, a website specializing in techno music. She reached an agreement with the Ministry of Tourism to perform at Maqam Nabi Musa for a crowd of about 30.
Halfway through the event, a large group of Palestinian men from Jerusalem interrupted the concert. Social media was quickly abuzz with a short video clip showing Abdulhadi mobbed by a crowd claiming that Christians were defiling a Muslim site with alcohol, drugs, and immorality. A Muslim sheikh added fuel to the fire with the outlandish claim that t
Armenian Christian Community Caught Between Israelis & Palestinians
(RNS) Jerusalem’s Armenian Christian quarter dates back to the fourth century, when a small band of pilgrims and monks from the newly Christianized Armenia 800 miles away on the far side of Turkey settled in the neighborhood around the Upper Room, the building thought to be the site of the Last Supper. Today, Armenians still occupy a large part of the Old City where the Armenian Apostolic Church, under the independent Armenian Patriarch of Jerusalem, maintain its own chapels and a school.
Simon Azazian, a communications director at the Palestinian Bible Society whose father is Armenian and mother Palestinian Arab, says that positive relations between Armenians and their Palestinian neighbors, like much in Jerusalem, have a long history.
Armenian Christian community caught between Israelis and Palestinians
The controversy has taken on added significance because of a recent rise in anti-Christian sentiment among Palestinians. Armenian clergymen with face masks and gloves walk toward the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, traditionally believed by many Christians to be the site of the crucifixion and burial of Jesus Christ, in Jerusalem’s Old City, after the traditional Holy Fire ceremony was called off due to coronavirus restrictions, April 18, 2020. A few clergymen marked the Holy Fire ceremony as the coronavirus pandemic prevented thousands of Orthodox Christians from participating in one of their most ancient and mysterious rituals at the Jerusalem church marking the site of Jesus’ tomb. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)