 BYU Jerusalem Center - 1985-1989
History of BYU Students in Jerusalem
As Remembered and Recorded by
S. Kent Brown
1995
In the early days, BYU students who came to Jerusalem were housed in a variety of facilities. In my memory, the program began in earnest in 1968 when LaMar Berrett and Keith Meservy and Daniel Ludlow brought students here. They were preceded by Robert and Kathy Taylor who had visited Jerusalem before 1967, and had begun to dream about a study abroad program in this land. Robert Taylor was then the Chairman of the Department of Travel Study at BYU. It was actually under the sponsorship of Travel Study that the program began in Jerusalem, not as with other academic programs which grew under the banner of Study Abroad on campus.
Students first stayed in the City Hotel in East Jerusalem. After four years or so, the program moved to the Vienna Hotel in nearby Sheikh Jarrah. I first became involved with the program at the Vienna Hotel when my wife Gayle and I came with a group of sixty students in the winter of 1978. It was our student group that vacated the Vienna Hotel for good in March of 1978 and, after going to Galilee for a few weeks, returned to Jerusalem, and moved into dormitory facilities at Kibbutz Ramat Rachel.
At Ramat Rachel, students lived in small dorm rooms with bunk beds and a common shower for women and a common shower for men. The library was kept in very small room. There were only one or two rooms in the whole complex which would accommodate our classes. Even at that, it was a step up from the City Hotel and Vienna Hotel. Students remained at Ramat Rachel from 1978 to 1987 when students were moved from the Kibbutz to the present Center.
I can remember going with David Galbraith in 1978 (David had been Director of the Study Abroad Program in Jerusalem since 1973) to a number of places that he had been looking at, in an effort to find a place that the Church could purchase for a Center. He took me to a residential area in Jerusalem where a small apartment building was for sale. We looked over the facility. It was clear that there would be space for about eighty or so students, with a classroom and a modest area for a library.
There were other places for sale as well. One was the small Ariel Hotel on Hebron Road which runs from Jaffa Gate toward Bethlehem and beyond. Behind that hotel there was another piece of property that the Greek Orthodox Church was interested in selling. This property overlooked the Hinnom Valley towards Zion Gate. There was a third available piece of property close to where the new police station stands near the Hyatt Hotel. That property enjoyed a nice view down the Kidron Valley. As I recall, there were several other places for sale at that same time.
Matters came to a head after Brother Galbraith had located properties for sale and President Kimball and others of the brethren came to Jerusalem in 1979 for the dedication of the Orson Hyde Memorial Garden. In the party of people who came with President Kimball was a large number of Latter-day Saints. Of the brethren, President Nathan Eldon Tanner had come, along with six members of the Quorum of the Twelve.
On one particular day when most LDS visitors were touring other parts of the country, as the story was told to me, Sister Kathy Taylor, wife of Robert Taylor, took President Tanner to all the places that were for sale: to the small hotel, to the Greek Orthodox compound, to the property north of the Old City, and to the other spots.
One of the areas to which she took President Tanner was a spot on Mount Scopus, just southeast and a little bit higher up on the slope from where the Center presently sits. After President Tanner had visited all the places, he said that he wanted to take President Kimball to the spot on Mount Scopus last.
That is what they did. The next day, a large party of people, including the visiting brethren, went to the same places. When they had seen all the locations around the city, they then came to the site on the Mount of Olives. The various accounts agree that, when everyone was standing on the spot that was for sale, President Kimball began to walk. He walked further out on the brow of the hill, just below the property that belongs to the Lutheran World Federation, which owns and operates the Augusta Victoria Hospital on the top of the Mount of Olives. President Kimball stopped approximately where the Center now stands and said something like, "This is the place."
The story goes that President Tanner, not missing a beat, spoke up and said, "All in favor, raise your right hand." The members of the Quorum of Twelve, who were present on that occasion, raised their right hands in support of President Kimball's expression. Robert Taylor was part of this group, but I do not know if Fred Schwendiman was there.
At some later point, after all had returned home from the dedication of the Orson Hyde Garden, Robert Taylor and Fred Schwendiman were asked to write a proposal for a Center in Jerusalem that could be taken to Salt Lake City and presented to the First Presidency.
At first, Brother Taylor and Brother Schwendiman did very little about the suggested proposal until President Tanner called and asked what had been planned, and would they be willing to take something to Salt Lake City by a certain date. The two of them, and others, had to scramble quickly in order to put together a recommendation to present to President Tanner.
When they brought the proposal to President Tanner, others who were present included President Oaks and Elder Maxwell. Robert Taylor said that at the beginning of the meeting President Tanner turned to him and said, "Bob, why do you want this Center?" Brother Taylor said that he felt himself to be the least among those who were there, but he took courage with President Tanner looking at him and said, "I believe that the Lord wants a Center in Jerusalem." That's all he said in that meeting. President Tanner then turned and went about other matters.
It was soon after this that the project became known as the "First Presidency's Project" with the University to be the chief beneficiary by sharing in whatever was done in Jerusalem. Of course, at that point no one knew how difficult it would be to acquire land in Jerusalem. The land itself, under Jordanian law, belonged to a family trust. But since 1967, the land had been generally under the umbrella of the Jerusalem Municipality, and the Israelis had put it under the control of the Israel Lands Authority.
It was with the Israel Lands Authority that the Church had to deal. In those days the Church became interested in finding members of the Palestinian family and paying family members for the property, even though the rights to the land had been superseded by the actions of the Israel Lands Authority. The University was advised by its legal counsel, which it hired from the Palestinian Community, not to try to pay off the family. The man whom the Church had retained, Mr. Fuad Shihadeh, advised that, if the Church began to pay off members of the family, there would be an unending stream of people coming to the door of the Center asking for payment and claiming that they were members of the family. Instead, Mr. Shihadeh and Jeffery R. Holland, then President of Brigham Young University, conceived an idea of scholarships. Subsequently, the Church created ten scholarships to be administered by BYU for Palestinian students. These are full time scholarships for both under-graduate and master's degree candidates. In a very real sense the scholarships for study at BYU are a gift to the Palestinian people as a whole, intended to offer opportunities to young Palestinians to be educated in a healthy setting where they can obtain a good education with the objective of returning to their country in order to make positive contributions to their people.
At one point in the acquisition of the land, a man named Robert Thorne, who had extensive experience in real estate, was asked by the Church to come to Jerusalem to tie up the property. Brother Thorne came to Jerusalem thinking he would be here a matter of weeks. But he was in Jerusalem for a year and one- half. The complexities of bureaucracy, both on a national level and on a city level, were bewildering. It took Brother Thorne's best effort and his deepest patience in order finally to gain the approval of every organization, every committee, and every individual who had to sign off on the construction permit.
In this connection, I can still remember Robert Taylor telling me about an advertisement placed in a local paper by the Church which spelled out the fact that the Church and the University intended to build on the Mount on Olives. The question was, are there any objections? As I recall, the only people to object were the people of the Lutheran World Federation who are located on the hill just above the spot where the Center was to be built. They expressed the concern that the planned building would block their view of the city.
Representatives of the University met with the representatives from the World Lutheran Federation and showed them diagrams and a model of the Center, portraying how it would look. The meeting satisfied the Lutheran group that the Center itself would have a low profile and would not block the view from above.
In August, 1984, the construction began. With the appearance of the first scar produced by a caterpillar tractor, there was immediate curiosity about who was building what on that spot of ground. When people learned it was the Mormons who were going to build a center, an enormous amount of opposition was generated. Of course, there was no way to hide things, because two giant sky cranes rose into the sky, set up to assist in the construction.
The pressure became intense. Ink stamps fashioned in Hebrew and in English were put on Israeli currency, which told the Mormons to go home. There were demonstrations. Concerts were held to raise money in order to buy out the Mormons. Over time, every sort of pressure that could be brought against the Church and the University was brought to bear. Editorials were written in Jewish publications in the United States. People wrote to the New York Times, the Baltimore Sun and other important newspapers in the United States, opposing the building of the Center.
At one point, a delegation of Jewish notables from New York City visited the office of the First Presidency and said that they knew what we were doing, that there were missionary couples in Israel, and that, if we expected to be able to continue to work on the project in order to complete it, those missionary couples had to leave. The short story is that they left.
Pressure was brought to bear on the Israeli and Jerusalem governments. There were demonstrations almost every day outside the office of Mayor Teddy Kolleck. The matter of the construction was discussed on the floor of the Knesset. The Attorney General of the State of Israel made a promise to the Knesset that he would look at all the documents that the Mormons had signed with the city and with the national government and, if there were anything wrong with any of the documents, the project would be stopped immediately. After thorough investigation, he determined that everything was in place. Not a thing was missing. Everything had been done right. The building permit was fully legal.
At first, leaders in the Church believed that the furor would blow over and that it would be a matter of a few days or weeks and people would stop talking about the construction. But the anger never did subside. President Jeffery R. Holland was dispatched to Israel in his role as University President to discuss matters with civic and religious leaders. He did so, but his visit did not seem to convince very many people. He brought a signed pledge from President Ezra Taft Benson that the Church would not proselyte and that the Church and University would not use the Center as a base for missionary work. It was that issue which was the primary focus of the opposition that the Church and the University encountered. Knowing that Mormons are missionary-minded, people feared that the Center would be used for missionary purposes. The fact that people struggled hard against the Center indicates that they knew that our young people could make headway among their people.
The opposition to the Center also became personal and nasty. Members of the Jerusalem Branch of the Church received telephone calls that threatened their lives, threatened the well-being of their children, threatened their homes. Opponents called in the middle of the night. Opponents called feigning interest in the Church. Members of the Church were instructed to tell people who expressed interest in the Church and its teachings that their Rabbi had a message for them.
It became clear through all of this that one of the original purposes of the building, to use part of it as a Visitors' Center, would have to be discarded. And indeed it was! Much of the area on Level 8, the top level of the building, was to have been used for such a purpose. Although the Center does not currently house a Visitors' Center, public interest in the beauty of the building has required an increase in the number of Service Couples who help in hosting visitors to the Center.
At one point there was a television program about the Center and about people associated with it. Television cameras were said to have caught a group of protesters outside the entrance to the home of David Galbraith, shouting and yelling, telling the Mormons to go home. Then another camera panned a view inside their home with family members sitting down to a family home evening, with peaceful music, quiet tones, and a display of love at home. Then the scene shifted back outside and caught people yelling and screaming, threatening the Galbraiths and others. The camera returned to the inside - quiet tones, peaceful music, love at home again. The contrast could not have been more striking.
Many of those involved in Center activities in those days said that, even though most of the publicity was negative about the building of the Center, the Church could not have bought enough advertising space in order to raise the level of curiosity that was generated during the time that the Center was a media event. The Church and the University hired a public relations firm in Tel Aviv to handle contacts with the media so that their story could be publicized. It was by this means that the Church and the University were finally able to get some clear understanding with the press and other media outlets in the country. Moreover, when the time came for the students to move into the Center, it was the public relations company that told Center leaders that they should ask the students simply to pack up and move into the Center unannounced, knowing that, in this country if a person inhabits a place and is forced out, it creates a big scandal. In a sense, possession is nine-tenths of the law.
Early one morning, only the students and faculty knowing about it, the aggregate moved out of Ramat Rachel, climbed on the buses with all of their bags, and moved into the new Center. The Center was not yet completely ready. A number of things were unfinished. There was no heat in the building. It was March, and the weather was still cool. Many of the bathroom fixtures did not work properly. But the students and faculty moved into the building. It was ours, even though we did not yet have a signed lease. The signing of the lease would not occur for more than a year.
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Robert Smith and Fred Schwendiman, two vicepresidents of BYU,
who were about to retire, were sent to Jerusalem to assist in the construction. Brother Schwendiman was a construction specialist. Brother Smith was an accountant who had served as VicePresident of Financial Services at BYU. It was they who oversaw matters for the University and the Church during the two and one-half years that the construction went on. They oversaw things for the University and the Church. The building was built on a "fast track" construction plan. That is, after the overall design was in place, the small details were simply drawn in just a matter of weeks before they were actually incorporated into the building. It meant that construction moved at a much more rapid pace once it was begun. The success of that approach in Israel is seen in the fact that a number of important civic buildings have subsequently been built in the same style.
The man who was the over-all construction engineer, Mr. Eli Rahat, was told after he began to work on the site that, if he continued with the Mormons he would never again build in Israel. Eli decided to stay with the Mormons and continue the work. He is now one of the most sought-after building engineers in the country. His associate, a man named Ariel Goldenberg, is now doing the renovation for the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv. Eli Rahat recently finished, as construction engineer, the Israeli Supreme Court building, which has won a number of architectural and construction awards. The Center was simply a monument to the fine work of these men. After people saw what they had built, construction and architectural firms flocked to their doors, asking them to become partners in their building projects. Mr. Rahat will build the Prime Minister's office building, along with that of the foreign ministry, within the next three or four years.
All of the stone work in the building is chipped Jerusalem limestone. Each piece of stone inside and out was hand chipped. The dominant architectural feature of the building is the arch. Everywhere you look there are arches (117 of them). The arch effect forms a very soft line and makes the Center all the more appealing. (The architect has stated that he feels the arches give an open feeling and raise our eyes and our souls toward Heaven.) Adding to the feeling of openness, are the many windows; approximately 30,000 panes of glass are in the Center. This feature allows a lot of light into the building. One of the designs of the architects was to allow light into the building as well as to invite the city into the building visually. In a sense the city is the chief adornment of the building.
The chief architects were David Reznik in Jerusalem and Frank Ferguson in Salt Lake City. Frank Ferguson was also the architect for the Delta Center and Symphony Hall in Salt Lake City. These two men have won a number of awards; among them is the Israel Prize which was just awarded a few months ago to Mr. David Reznik. An article in the Hebrew press, citing Mr. Reznik's receiving of this award stated that the Center is the principal architectural achievement of Mr. Reznik's lifetime.
After the students moved into the Center in 1987, certain parts of the building continued to be worked on, such as the office area which was not yet complete. The kitchen was not operational when the students moved in, so they had to go down the hill and across the street to what is known as the Commodore Hotel for meals for the first few months. No one seemed to mind. We were in our own building, in our own place. The lease agreement was signed in May of 1988. The Jerusalem Center is the only building that I know of to be constructed by the Church without having all permits in place. The Church had acquired a building permit, but it did not have a permit to occupy the building. That was a matter of negotiation, and required about two and one-half years.
A man named Arthur Nielsen, an attorney from Salt Lake City, was asked by the Church to come to Jerusalem to negotiate the terms of the lease. Negotiations were not easy by any means. One of the early sticking points was a proposal that a committee be formed which would oversee the public activities of the Center. The Church felt uncomfortable about anyone looking over its shoulder, whether on an academic level, on a public level, or on a religious level.
Finally, the Church signaled its willingness to allow a public activities committee to be formed as long as its life would be only a matter of a few years -- say three or so. The Israelis countered that they wanted something for at least five years, and then they said that they wanted an activities committee to be constituted for the first ten years of the Center's life.
The Church resisted strongly but in the end it acceded to the Israeli demand. The public committee has been in existence for more than seven years now, and relationships with it have been happy. In fact, that committee has saved the Center some difficulties, bad steps that we might have taken otherwise.
President Hunter arrived from Hong Kong for the signing of the lease in May of 1988. He was traveling with his son, having been in Hong Kong on a Church assignment. At the same time, Elder James E. Faust and President Holland, then President of BYU, came to Jerusalem. They were to go to the office of the head of the Israel Lands Authority to sign the lease agreement. On the morning they were to meet with the Israeli authority, Mr.
Joseph Kokia, called the Center to say that the Director of the Lands Authority wanted two of his deputies, who were out of town that day, to review the documents. The problem with that was that President Hunter and President Holland were leaving the next day. Martin Hickman, then the Director of the Center, said in a loud voice, "That is unacceptable."
Mr. Kokia said that he would call back. He apparently reached people in the Lands Authority and told them that no one else needed to see the document and that it should be ready to be signed. So the signing time was set for that afternoon at 2:00 p.m. As everyone was assembling to leave the Center for the office of the
Lands Authority, no one could find President Hunter. It turned out that he was stuck between the fifth and sixth floors in the elevator. After he was extricated, with some difficulty, the group left the building.
After they arrived at the Lands Authority office to sign the documents, the Director of the Lands Authority said, "There's one thing we need..."... It was a certain form. Jeffery Holland blanched and then said, "You told us that we should take that form to the University and leave it there on deposit in our file." "No," said the man, "In order to finish this thing we need that document."
Robert Smith, accountant extraordinaire, former vice-president of BYU, and the project's financial manager, not missing a beat, opened up his brief case, reached into it and pulled out a copy of the needed document. The Director of the Lands Authority said, "That will do." They went ahead and signed the document.
Judging from the way that everyone came back and talked, it was clear that they were much relieved that it was over. That night we heard a fireside featuring President Hunter, Elder Faust, and President Holland; it was a wonderful evening. They talked about the Center and its purposes and their dreams for this Center as a place for students to study and the Saints to meet.
It was some months later that President Hunter returned to the Holy Land. This time President Thomas S. Monson and Elder Boyd K. Packer were with him. On Wednesday, May 16, 1989, President Hunter offered a brief dedicatory prayer in a service in the upper auditorium to dedicate the building. There was no press. The students were in Galilee. It was a quiet moment. The Center became a dedicated building, and those who enter (member and non-member) can sense it. A transcript of President Hunter's prayer follows:
PRESIDENT HOWARD W. HUNTER'S
PRAYER OF DEDICATION
BRIGHAM YOUNG UNIVERSITY
JERUSALEM CENTER FOR NEAR EASTERN STUDIES
WEDNESDAY, MAY 16, 1989
Our beloved Heavenly Father. Humbly we come into Thy presence with bowed heads on this solemn occasion of thanksgiving. We express appreciation to Thee, our Father, for the many good things we receive at Thy hand, for life itself, for being born in the dispensation of the fullness of times.
We thank Thee for the gift of Thy son and for His atoning sacrifice by which we will have life everlasting, and we thank Thee that we have been permitted to enter the waters of baptism, receive the Holy Ghost, and be confirmed members of the Church of Thy Son. Father, we express gratitude for the restoration of the Gospel in these latter days, and that we have been endowed with an understanding and a knowledge of its truthfulness.
We thank Thee, Father, for the privilege of being Thy children, and for the sacred privilege that is ours of conversing with Thee in prayer, and of having our petitions heard and answered. We are thankful that we can call Thee Father. We thank Thee for a prophet, his counselors, and the Council of the Twelve Apostles and other Church officers who give us leadership.
We thank Thee, Father, for the establishment of Brigham Young University as a subsidiary institution of the Church of Thy Son, where many of Thy sons and daughters receive learning coupled with spirituality and a knowledge of Thee. Bless, we pray Thee, its officers, its faculty, and the students who attend, with a knowledge of Thy ways and a desire to follow.
This building wherein we are seated has been constructed for the housing of those who love Thee and seek to learn of Thee and follow in the footsteps of Thy Son, our Savior and Redeemer. It is beautiful in every respect, exemplifying the beauty of what it represents. Oh, Father, we thank thee for the privilege of building this house to Thee for the benefit and learning of Thy sons and daughters.
We pray, Father, that Thou wilt bless this house in every way. Bless the land on which it rests, and the beautiful grounds that surround it. Bless its foundations, the walls, the roof, and all of its details. We pray that it will be kept from damage or destruction from the hands of men or from the ravages of nature, and that it will remain beautiful and representative of that which is sacred and pertains to Thee.
We Thy children, therefore, dedicate to Thee, Father, that which we have built with our hands in love, this beautiful building, the Jerusalem Center For Near Eastern Studies, with all of its appurtenances, praying that it will be acceptable in every respect to Thee. May all who enter herein to teach, to learn, or for whatever purpose, be blessed of Thee and feel Thy spirit. This is our prayer in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
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The Center has now been occupied for almost eight years. Visitors who come exclaim over the cleanliness and the brightness of the building. Those who work here obviously take pride in their work. The Center has become a model in the community for cooperative working between the Palestinians and the Israelis. For instance, our security staff is integrated with Palestinians and Israelis.
Now the Center has become a place that persons "must see." From time to time articles appear in the press about the beauty and the tranquillity that one finds in the building. In addition to almost 70,000 people visiting the Center last year, and 71,000 the year before, the Center hosts a regular series of concerts on Sunday evenings. The best artists in Israel perform in these concerts. The Upper Auditorium, which seats about 350 people becomes a magic music box for a night. Those who perform on our stage say that it is the best place to play in the country. Because of these concerts, the Center has now become an important part of the cultural life of the city.
From its controversial beginnings to its current state, the Center has moved from being an issue of discussion and argument to being a contributor to the cultural, social, and economic climate of the city. It has helped to build education bridges into the city. I hope that this will continue into the future.
Source Ref: S. Kent Brown - BYU - Provo - Utah
Pres Hunter and Sister Hunter at the new Jerusalem Center - 1989
Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles
Ephraim's Lone LDS Outpost in the Samarian Mountains - Judaea and Samaria - Holy Land - Near / Middle Eastern Frontier - Sebastia 5732 - 1972
