The Jordan River The Site Of Jesus Baptism Is Now Almost A Trickle

18 August 2022 GMT https://apnews.com/article/sacred-rivers-travel-religion-jordan-river-fcd0bf8345bae85aa5f92b28b194923e ACROSS THE JORDAN RIVER (AP) — Kristen Burckhartt felt overwhelmed. She needed time to think, to let it sink in, as she had just dipped her feet into the water where Jesus was said to have been baptized, in the Jordan River. “It’s very deep,” said the 53-year-old visitor from Indiana. “I’ve never walked where Jesus walked, for one thing.” Tourists and pilgrims come to the site from near and far, many driven by faith, to follow in the footsteps of Christ, to touch the water of the river, to connect with biblical events. Symbolically and spiritually, the river holds enormous significance for many. Of course, today’s Lower Jordan River is much more meager than strong. By the time it reaches the baptismal font, its dwindling water appears sluggish, a dull brownish-green hue. Its decline, due to a confluence of factors, is intertwined with the entanglements of the decades-long Arab-Israeli conflict and competition for precious water in a valley where so much is contested. Championing the revival of cross-border Jordan without diving into the thick of the disputes that have fueled its deterioration can be a challenge. One stretch of the river, for example, was a hostile border between the once warring Israel and Jordan. The river’s water also separates Jordan on its east bank from the Israeli-occupied West Bank, which Israel seized in a 1967 war and is sought by the Palestinians for a state. “He’s a victim of the conflict, for sure. It’s a victim of humans, because that’s what we did as humans in the river, basically, and now adding to all of that it’s a victim of climate change,” said Yana Abu Taleb, the Jordanian director of EcoPeace Middle East, which brings together Jordanians. , Palestinian and Israeli environmentalists and lobbies for regional cooperation to save the river. “So he’s a victim in every way.” EcoPeace has said for years that the Lower Jordan River, which stretches south from the Sea of Galilee, is particularly threatened by decades of water diversions for agriculture and domestic use and by pollution. Only a small fraction of the historic flow of water now reaches its end in the Dead Sea, not far south of the baptismal site that Burckhart visited. This is one reason the Dead Sea has shrunk. Standing at the Bethany Beyond the Jordan baptismal site, Burckhartt, a Presbyterian, said the river water felt cool on her skin, offering a respite from the sweltering heat around her. Amidst the jumble of emotions he was dealing with, he could also feel sadness at the shrinking of the river. “I’m sure God above is sad too.”

The Bible says that Jesus was baptized in the Jordan River. The east bank of the river, today’s Jordan, and its west house both baptismal sites, where rites of faith unfold, a reflection of the river’s enduring religious, historical and cultural allure. The river has further significance as a scene of miracles in the Old Testament. After years of wandering in the desert, the ancient Israelites are said to have crossed the Jordan on dry ground after stopping the water to cross. At the Jordanian baptismal site in the East Bank recently, a woman dipped her feet in the water and then cupped some with her hands, rubbing them on her face and head. Others touched the river and crossed themselves or bent down to fill empty bottles. Charlie Watts, a tourist from England, dipped a wooden cross — a gift and a blessing for his Christian mother back home. “I took a video … to show her it was true,” Watts said. Although he is not as religious as his mother, the 24-year-old still considered his visit to the Jordanian site special: “What made it surreal is to think that this is where the world movement of Christianity started.” In an interview, Rustom Mkhjian, director general of the Baptism Site Committee in Jordan, spoke passionately about the Jordanian site’s claim to authenticity and its preservation as it was in the time of Christ and John the Baptist. UNESCO has declared it a World Heritage Site “of immense religious importance to the majority of denominations of the Christian faith, who have accepted this site as the site where Jesus was baptized”. “Every year we celebrate interfaith harmony, and some of the happiest days in my life are days when I see Jews, Christians and Muslims visiting the site and all three of them cry,” Mkhjian said. “The present point where we are is a site with a great message that is needed: Let us build human bridges of love and peace.” The Jordan and West Bank sites give visitors access to the river, where they come face-to-face, a narrow stretch of water between them. An Israeli flag at Qasr al-Yahud in the West Bank serves as a reminder to those in Jordan that the river is a border that separates the two worlds. This location is also billed as where, according to tradition, Jesus was baptized. Jordan and Israel compete for these people’s tourism dollars. Several people in white robes recently entered from the West Bank, posing in a semicircle for photographs. Another group of visitors stood on the steps of the river bank or in the water itself as two men in black, apparently picturesque clothing poured river water over their heads. In the background some were singing, their voices heard from the Jordan side: “Oh, brothers, let’s go down. … Down to the river to pray.”

Such peaceful moments contrast with the military hostilities that have taken place on the banks of the river as part of the Arab-Israeli conflict. The history of the river and its water has been as fraught with politics as it is sacred, and for decades landmines lurked menacingly along the banks of what was once a war zone. In the East Bank, the demining of the area where the Jordanian baptistry is now located began after a 1994 peace treaty between Jordan and Israel. In the West Bank, a team from The HALO Trust, a British-American charity, has cleared landmines from areas housing churches near the Qasr al-Yahud site as recently as 2020. The site itself had been opened to the public years ago after Israel cleared a narrow road to the river, while the area of churches remained off-limits and frozen in time for decades. Work to clear those mines began in 2018, but only after three years of building trust and involving everyone from the Israeli and Palestinian authorities to the many Christian denominations that own the churches and lands, said Ronen Shimoni, who was part of the HALO effort. “Nothing is simple here in the West Bank,” Simoni said.

People spend the day at the Jordan River near Kibbutz Kinneret in northern Israel. (AP Video/Oded Balilty) It is against this tumultuous backdrop that EcoPeace Middle East is urging regional cooperation in Jordan between rivals who have long had every incentive to extract as much water as possible from the river or its tributaries. “Any fresh water left in the river would have been seen in the past as strengthening the enemy. … You take what you can,” said Guidon Bromberg, the group’s Israeli director. “There is a legitimate need for water. … Water is scarce,” he said. “But conflict creates an incentive to take everything.” (AP Video/Omar Akur, Alon Bernstein, Moshe Edry) The result is that the annual discharge of the Lower Jordan into the Dead Sea was estimated at 20 million to 200 million cubic meters compared to a historical amount of 1.3 billion cubic meters, according to a report published in 2013 by a UN commission and a German federal institute. . Bromberg estimates that the current rate does not exceed 70 million cubic meters. “Israel, historically, has taken about half the water, and Syria and Jordan have taken the other half,” Bromberg said. “The pollution coming into the river comes from the Jordanian, Palestinian and Israeli sides and a little bit from Syria as well.” Water use in the Jordan River Basin is unevenly developed, the UN-Germany report says, adding that Palestinians can no longer access or use water from the Jordan itself. Syria does not have access to the river but has built dams in the Yarmouk River sub-basin, which is part of the Jordan River basin, it said. For Palestinians in the West Bank, the only way to see the Jordan River is to visit the Israeli baptism site there, said Nada Majdalani, the Palestinian director of EcoPeace. “The Jordan River in the past, for the Palestinians, meant livelihood and economic stability and development,” he said. Now, he added, it has been reduced to “ambition for statehood and sovereignty over water resources.” The river’s decline, he said, is particularly disappointing for older Palestinians “who remember what the river was like… and how they used to go fishing, how they used to dive in the river.” Bromberg said EcoPeace has documented the lose-lose nature of river degradation for all parties. “From a Jewish tradition, you know, the river and its banks are a place of miracles,” he said. “Well, it doesn’t reflect a wonderland in its current exhaustion.”

In late July, the Israeli government approved plans to restore part of the Lower Jordan, a decision described by Environmental Protection Minister Tamar Zandberg as “historic” and the beginning of a fix. “For decades it was neglected and most of its waters were impounded, and it was essentially turned into a sewage canal,” Zandberg said in a statement. “In a time of climate crisis and severe ecological crisis, restoring the Jordan River and returning it to nature, the public and hikers is of double importance.” Speaking by phone, Zandberg said the plan focuses on an area that stretches across Israeli territory and reflects the improved state of Israel’s waters…

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