Ramallah, Palestine, Friends Meeting

Entrance to Meeting House

Friends (Quaker) Meeting, Ramallah, Palestine

Friends International Center in Ramallah

Pictures of the Restoration of the Meetinghouse

First meeting for worship in restored meetinghouse, November 21, 2004

Re-dedication Service for the Ramallah Meetinghouse on March 6, 2005

The Friends meetinghouse in Ramallah (on the West Bank of Palestine) is a historical landmark symbolizing more than a century of Quaker presence and service. Built in 1908, the meetinghouse is a superb example of the blending of local and Quaker architectural styles. The meetinghouse is situated on a tree adorned plot of land in the center of Ramallah, on the main commercial street. It provides a compelling counter-point of reflective calm in the otherwise crowded, heavily built up business district.

Unprogrammed meeting for worship takes place every First Day (Sunday) at 10:30 a.m. The meetinghouse is on Main Street in downtown Ramallah.

The Vision

The Friends Center in Ramallah exists to unite in one place:

(1) a space for sacred worship after the manner of Friends to which all are welcome;

(2) a safe and supportive environment in which residents of Ramallah can come together to work toward a better future in an atmosphere of faith and hope; and,

(3) a vehicle through which Friends and other people of goodwill from outside Ramallah can connect with and provide support to those in the region who are striving to build a future of peace and justice.

To these ends, the Friends International Center in Ramallah will offer a ministry of hospitality; create an atmosphere of care and respect in which positive, civic and civil discourse can be pursued; and be a witness to hope and reconciliation in a region where despair and violence have too often reigned. In all this we seek to express the deepest values and highest aspirations of the Quaker faith.

Kathy Kathy Bergan Becomes Program Coordinator

As of April 2006 Kathy Bergen has taken up residency in the annex of the Ramallah Meeting House as Program Coordinator of the Friends International Center in Ramallah (FICR). Kathy has just completed eleven years of service as the national coordinator of the Middle East Program of the Peace building Unit in the national office of the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Kathy lived and worked in Jerusalem from 1982 to 1991 including seven years with the Mennonite Central Committee based in East Jerusalem. Subsequently she was the Director of the International Coordinating Committee for NGOs on the question of Palestine in Geneva, Switzerland. Full Bio