Episcopal Bishop's Committee on Israel/Palestine - Upcoming Events
The Rev. Fadi Diab and Rev. Samir Esaid visited the Diocese of Olympia in August 2008. If you'd like more information related to their visit please contact Mary Pneuman .
Reverend Fadi B. Diab
Rector, St. Matthew's Episcopal Church
Zababdeh, West Bank
Born and educated in the West Bank, Fr. Diab received his theological degree at the Near East School for Theology in Beirut, Lebanon in 1997. He was ordained deacon in the Episcopal Church of Jerusalem in 1998 and served at St. Luke's Episcopal Church and Christ Episcopal Church in Amman, Jordan, from 1999 - 2001. Ordained as priest in the Episcopal Church of Jerusalem in 2001, Fr. Diab was rector of St. Andrew's Episcopal Church in Ramallah and St. Peter's, Berzeit, in the West Bank from 2002-2005. Since then, he has served as rector of St. Matthew's in Zababdeh, a West Bank community with a large number of Christians.
In 2005, Fr. Diab became a member of the Standing Committee of the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem and in 2007, a judge of the Ecclesiastical Court. He is founder of the Youth Connection for Peace Program, leading a youth delegation to Ireland for the past two years, and he is a member of the Palestinian/Israeli Theologians Forum.
Fr. Diab and his wife, Ruba, have two young sons, Phillip (5) and Andrew, who will be 2 in September. After almost seven years of intermittent separations, Ruba, a Jordanian citizen, has only recently been given permission by the government of Israel to live in their home in Zababdeh as a permanent resident in the West Bank.
Reverend Samir Esaid
Rector, St. John the Baptist Episcopal Church, Husun,
& Episcopal Community, Irbid, Jordan
Fr. Esaid was born in Jordan soon after family left their village in Palestine as refugees during the 6-Day War in 1967. After completing high school and military service in Jordan, he received a Bachelor of Theology from the Presbyterian Seminary in Cairo, Egypt. Sent by the church to continue his theological studies in Germany, Fr. Esaid was ordained deacon, then priest, in the Diocese of Jerusalem in 1995.
After two years as chaplain at a school for orphaned children, Fr. Esaid became rector at St. Andrew's Church in Ramallah, West Bank, where he served from 1997-2001. He was then assigned to Al-Husun and Irbid, Jordan, where he serves two congregations, St. John the Baptist, a parish with over 300 communicants, and a small but growing Episcopal community developing around the Integrated School for the Blind in Irbid, a northern Jordanian city with a population of over a million.
Recognizing the need for early childhood education for the blind, Fr. Samir and his wife Sabah Zirikat, headmistress, began an integrated kindergarten with 13 students in 2001. The school now serves 90 students from K to Grade 4, 20 of whom are blind or visually impaired, and there are plans to extend the program through sixth grade.
The Esaids have two young daughters, Farah and Maran.
Register now for the Sabeel North American Conference
Register now for the Sabeel North American Conference which will be held September 25-27, 2008 in Birmingham (Detroit), Michigan. The conference topic is "Peace, Palestine & US Policy 1948-2008" and is sponsored by the Detroit/Ann Arbor Friends of Sabeel.
The conference will feature Sabeel Founder Naim Ateek, Israel's Foremost Revisionist Historian Ilan Pappe, Pulitzer Prize Winner Chris Hedges and Author-Activist Joel Kovel.
A conference brochure is available here.
Sabeel's 7th International Conference
November 12-19, 2008, Jerusalem and Nazareth
A Time to Remember, a Time for Truth:
The Nabka, Memory, Reality and Beyond
The conference will focus on the commemoration of years since the Nakba and the complex issues of ,memory, narrative, and identity raised by the events of 1948. Pre and post visits to the Galilee and Bethlehem are optional.
