Strata: In the Image of Abraham

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The fourth graders at Jerusalem’s Bible Lands Museum and their parents—both Arabs and Jews—were far away from the fighting taking place elsewhere in Israel, Gaza and the West Bank in late June. They had come together to celebrate the completion of a year-long coexistence project sponsored by the museum that uses its many artifacts to trace the history of the ancient Near East to help the children discover their common roots through the journey of patriarch Abraham/Ibrahim from Ur to Canaan.

The children were eager to demonstrate to their parents what they had learned, jumping to answer questions about the various exhibits they studied over the course of the program, such as the topographical map at the entrance of the museum and the model of the Sumerian Ziggurat of Nanna—a tower that the Sumerians believed their gods inhabited when they ascended to the earthly world. There was also plenty of picture-taking and an impressive display of the children’s joint artwork documenting Abraham’s journey.

The “Image of Abraham” project is in its sixth year. Students from three schools—200 children in all—met for four 4-hour meetings over the school year, during which they participated in a series of creative art workshops, interactive tours, and games guided by both Arabic and Hebrew-speaking museum staff. Groundwork was also done beforehand in the classroom to prepare the students for the project.