About JUC

Many people have asked just what exactly MB and I are doing over here. Summer school…right? That’s actually about all we knew when we hopped on the plane. Now, being here over a week, I figure it’s about time I share a little about the school’s history and the point of our studies (some of which MB has elaborated on).

Established by Dr. Doug Young in 1958, Jerusalem University College is a remarkable Christian establishment, surviving all of the turmoil of pre-1967 Jerusalem. In October of 1967 JUC moved to its current location, about 100 yards from the 1948 green line. JUC doesn’t really have a “campus.” The series of connected buildings is more like a fortress. This place IS history. I’ll explain...trust me it’s fascinating.

Let’s start with the foundation. The visible bedrock scarp that makes the building’s foundation is the edge of the Hinnom Valley. The scarp recognizably dates back to the time of Herod. Close to the area he build a lookout and wall. Most likely this is the very scarp that Jesus walked across when He lectured on Ghenna (the Hinnom Valley), which used to be Jerusalem’s perpetually burning landfill.

Now, the actual building…dating back to the 1850s, it’s one of the oldest under the British influence. Most of the visible stones date back to that time. Since that time the building has served a number of purposes. At one point it was an Arab school. Most fascinating in my mind…the buildings served as an Israeli military outpost between 1948 and 1967 when Jews were denied entrance to the Old City. About 25 feet down from our window is a cable that stretches out from the brick wall across the valley to some unknown by us destination. Soldiers used the cable line as a makeshift carrier system to transport supplies and people to the Jews holed up in the fort.

Dr. Young found the property in shambles, walls broken down, windows busted out, bullet holes everywhere. Since that time JUC has been a place for international students to come and take history, geography, culture, and religion classes related to Israel.

The campus has a couple of other interesting features. First, it has a small biblically based garden, containing pomegranates, a grape arbor, and various species of roses. Second, the school has access to a large Protestant cemetery behind the garden. It has some rather famous residents including associates of Oscar Schindler, bomb victims from the King David’s Hotel bombing in 1947, Flinders Petrie, the father of modern archeology, and Horatio Spafford, the writer of “It Is Well with My Soul.”

Ok, so what we’re doing? We are part of one summer school group which studies primarily the geography of the land and how it has impacted history (much of what MB has shared already). The school does have resident professors, but quite often, adjunct faculty, all experts in their fields, lead these short-term programs. Our professor, Dr. Carl Rathmussen, is a professor at Bethel University, but has spent at least 20 years in Israel. He and his wife Mary were here for both the 1967 and 1973 conflicts as well as the Intifada in the 2000s. In three weeks, MB and I will earn 4 credits in this program.

So, there you have it. We had our first test today over OT/NT Jerusalem as well as our field studies. We think we did pretty well…and tomorrow it all starts up again.

--Jenni

P.S. Tomorrow morning we leave on a 3 day field study. I’ll be taking the computer, but no promises on having the internet. So we’ll look forward to sharing more on Thursday night if not before.