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Written by The Presbyterian Outlook
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Sunday, 05 September 2010 17:27 |
JERUSALEM — (ENI) Health concerns relating to water quality have triggered an environmental advocacy group to call for the banning of baptisms in the lower Jordan River, where the Bible says Jesus was baptized.
“For reasons of public health as well as religious integrity, baptism should be banned from taking place in the river,” said Gidon Bromberg, the Israel director of EcoPeace/Friends of the Earth Middle East (FoEME), which has offices in Tel Aviv, Bethlehem, and Amman.
Israeli authorities claim that tests done on the water of the lower Jordan River show the popular site for baptismal ceremonies at Qasr el Yahud on the West Bank meets health ministry standards. Bromberg said, however, they should not take place until pollutants are removed from the water.
Bromberg also urged the Christian religious community to become involved in the issue. “If the same thing were happening to a Jewish or Muslim holy site there would be a public outcry,” he said. Bromberg said he has brought local Christian leaders to the site. Although they expressed disappointment at the quality of the water, he said the matter has not been brought to a governmental level.
FoEME said the lower Jordan River has long suffered from “severe mismanagement” and it is affected by the diversion of 98 percent of its fresh water by Israel, Syria, and Jordan, as well as the discharge of untreated sewage, agricultural run-off, saline water, and fish pond effluent.
In a May 2010 report, FoEME noted that while new waste water treatment plants built in Israel and Jordan would remove the sewage and saline waters for treatment and for use in agriculture, the river could run dry at the end of 2011.
— Judith Sudilovsky
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