The BYU Jerusalem Center

 A few days ago, my son Everett got engaged! He's been dating this girl Caroline since they met at the BYU Jerusalem Center more than a year ago and he finally popped the question *officially*. Congratulations Everett and Caroline! We're excited for your wedding in August!

I have never been to the BYU Jerusalem Center although someday I hope to get there. Just today I read an inspiring talk from 2019 that was given at the occasion of the 30-year anniversary of the Center.  The talk was given by Elder Jeffrey R. Holland who talked about the miracles involved in getting the BYU Jerusalem Center built. He was closely involved with the project as the president of BYU at the time. Here's the text of the whole talk--which I highly recommend--but I'll try summarizing it. I include some pictures of Everett's Jerusalem trip among the text.

First you need to understand that Israel is a contentious place with not so much religious freedom as you might hope for.  There seems to be a lot of tension about how Jewish Israel is going to require its citizens to be.  For example, the other day I read how people in Israel can only get married in that country if both of their mothers were born Jewish and have certificates to prove it.  If you don't meet the requirements then you have to leave the country to get married so that the state of Israel recognizes it. That gives some context for this story.

The Center was many years in the making starting about 1966 when President David O. McKay approved a BYU study-abroad program in the Holy Land with the provision that studies be equally divided between Arab and Israeli histories so that the program was impartial. That seems like a really wise decision. In 1972, Pres. Harold B. Lee came to Jerusalem to organize the Jerusalem Branch of the church there. While he was there, David Galbraith--an employee of BYU in Jerusalem--and the mayor of Jerusalem, Teddy Kollek, suggested the church build a memorial garden for Orson Hyde on the Mount of Olives.  Some 7 years later, in October, 1979, the garden was dedicated with President Kimball praying for the welfare of all of Abraham's children. 

A "Jerusalem Center" project had been authorized by the church earlier that year. So at the time of the dedication, BYU employees in Jerusalem took Pres. Tanner around to various sites and he rejected all of them--Elder Holland said none of the sites were very good. After President Tanner rejected the last site which was at the base of Mount Scopus, he began walking up the hill which has an amazing view of Jerusalem. He and President Kimball looked around and said, "Get this site." The only problem was this site was completely, without any question, unavailable. The people with him started telling him all the obstacles to getting this property. President Tanner listened with a smile and then said, Don't tell me your troubles. Just get the property.

Somehow through a series of miracles, the Church was able to get a lease for the property. On April 2, 1984, a 5-year development lease was signed and in August, 1984, they started to dig. Initially people didn't pay much attention but when the walls started going up, they started asking questions and getting outraged. The ultra-Orthodox leaders were determined that the church was ABSOLUTELY NOT going to stay on that site and they started creating an international incident to kick them out. The church had to do something. Technically, in Israel all three major world religions (Christian, Judaism, and Muslim) have freedom of religion and freedom to proselyte in Israel according to the Israeli constitution. But, the only way the church was going to be able to build the center was if they signed an agreement not to proselyte. 

The church had never signed such an agreement before. There are places the church doesn't proselyte but they had never signed anything. So the Quorum of the Twelve and the First Presidency called a special meeting to discuss and pray about it which President Holland attended--he said he had never been in a meeting like that before and hasn't been in many like it since. They spent a lot of time reviewing the history of the church in Jerusalem and thinking about the implications of this agreement. If the church was going to sign this agreement, they were going to live by it and not compromise their integrity by trying to go around it. More discussion and prayer happened. Quoting Elder Holland:

Finally, one of the brethren said, "Brethren, this is Jerusalem. This is the land of prophets and apostles and the Son of the living God. Who knows when we will ever have another chance to obtain property in such a contentious land. Furthermore, we've had to face these kinds of dilemmas before." With that comment, everyone looked up. No one could remember when we had ever faced something like this. Then this brother read Mormon 1:16-17: "I did endeavor to preach unto this people, but my mouth was shut, and I was forbidden...to preach unto them...because of the hardness of their hearts. Then he read Mormon 3:16: I did even as the Lord had commanded me; and I did stand as an idle witness to witness...unto the world the things which I saw."

"A tremendous Spirit came into the room. It was the answer to a lot of prayer and a lot of appropriate caution." In the end, the church signed the agreement. When then-President Holland flew back to Israel with the agreement in hand, he was greeted by 500 Yeshiva students with signs outside the airport protesting the center. There continued to be many very visible protests despite the agreement being signed. The next several months a lot of work was done to try to persuade the opposition that the church was not trying to build a missionary center but President Holland wasn't sure it did any good.

Then on November 13 and 14, 1985, things came to a head and President Holland was afraid they were going to be the cause of World War III. 

At that time, the Israeli government was in a deadlock between their two major parties--neither party could get a majority coalition together to decide on the prime minister--each coalition had 60 seats in the parliament. They had eventually come to an agreement that they would take turns between the parties with the leader of each coalition being the prime minister for a certain period of time. The Likud party had just finished their turn and now it was the other party's turn, their leader being Shimon Peres. This was a time of great controversy and there was talk of war with Jordan or Syria. The defense minister of the Likud party was Ariel Sharon who Elder Holland described as, "one of the most volatile men on the planet at that time...it seemed he was itching for war. Mr. Peres was quite determined to keep Israel out of another war." The leaders were screaming at each other. In the middle of this, a little party called Shas who was part of the Likud party's coalition said they would give their four seats (votes) "to the prime minister who will move the Mormons off Mount Scopus. Whoever will do that gets our four votes."

That started a series of phone calls that went on all night. Elder Holland (then president of BYU) didn't know what to do--were the Mormons going to be the cause of a war? Finally, he determined he needed to call President Hinckley who was on his way to the Thursday morning meeting that happens every week at the temple. Pres. Hinckley said he would take it to the temple and get back to him.

I quote Elder Holland:

"The First Presidency and Twelve discussed the situation and said, "The Lord has to help us with this. We need to pray."...President Benson said, "May I be voice for our prayer today?" As the Brethren who were there have described that experience, President Benson prayed at length with increasing strength in that temple setting. Those who were there say that at the very end he was not really praying as much as he was testifying to the Lord of the need for this facility and for peace to accompany the building of it. That concluded the meeting. President Hinckley called Pres. Holland and said, 'We've done all we can do. You've done all you can do. Give the brethren in Jerusalem our love and tell them to keep praying...let's see what happens.'"

What happened, said Elder Holland, was two miracles. "One is that Ariel Sharon apologized, which he probably had never done in his life. I do not think he knew the meaning of the word nor actually knew how to do it. Nevertheless, he publicly apologized to Shimon Peres for jeopardizing the government and putting it in crisis. He asked for Peres's political forgiveness. The other miracle was that Shimon Peres accepted the apology. He [Peres] had been a very, very good friend of the Center and a very good friend to us personally. He accepted Sharon's apology and acknowledged that [his predecessor] had done a wonderful job...A little harmony came into the Knesset (Israel's parliament). The talk on the street was that a political miracle had happened. 

Elder Holland continued, "I agree that a miracle did happen, but it did not originate in Jerusalem. And it did not come from London, or Washington, D.C., or New York City. That miracle came from the fourth floor of the Salt Lake Temple where a prophet, a seer, and a revelator--older and getting a little feeble--had prayed down safety and protection onto a project the Lord wanted completed in that land."

I'm so thankful for prophets who see what the rest of us can't and who have the faith to ask for miracles.