Join Us!

To help us turn the vision of the Abraham Path into a reality, please consider taking this moment to contribute to the opening of the Abraham Path!

Your 2007 year-end donation will help us in 2008:

• Engage with village leaders and women’s groups in rural areas in each nation along the route to determine how the Abraham Path can best serve their families, communities, and local economies, honoring their identity and rich culture.
  
  
• Map and way-mark “multi-kilometer segments” of the Abraham Path in Turkey, Jordan, Palestine and Israel.
  
  
• Develop the very first Abraham Path Guidebook – with resource materials covering the entire route from ancient Harran to Hebron/Al Khalil.
  
  
• Provide partial scholarships for youth in Jordan and Palestine to walk on the Path in 2008. Indeed these young leaders, representing our shared future, will open segments of the Path with service learning projects.
  
  
• Launch “voluntourism” initiatives in partnership with community-based organizations in Turkey, Jordan, Palestine and Israel.
  
  
• Promote responsible tourism for the region -- at a pace, and in a manner that preserves the extraordinary heritage of the people and communities along the Abraham Path – while generating recurring local economic resources.
  
  
• Generate positive media coverage highlighting the hospitable people of this region.
  
  

To make a contribution (tax-deductible for Americans), you can:

• Go to the donations page at our website and contribute with your credit card.
  
  
• Send a check made out to Abraham Path Initiative to Abraham Path Initiative, 1245 Pearl Street, Suite 208, Boulder, CO 80302 USA.

To learn more about our 2008 projects, make a recurring (monthly) donation, or talk with one of our senior staff about a “targeted gift” to one of the nations or projects along the Path, please send us an e-mail at info@abrahampath.org or call us at 303-447-0520.
 
Thank you for taking this moment to join us with your support.

With gratitude,

Tyler Norris

Executive Director
Abraham Path Initiative

Having recently returned from the Middle East, I’d like to give you a brief report about the Abraham Path. I am happy to say that, thanks to you, and especially to our local partners in the host countries, the Abraham Path Initiative continues to make remarkable progress – all the more impressive given the difficult political situation in the Middle East.

In early November, our partners in Turkey co-sponsored with us a major international conference in Sanliurfa, the starting point of the Abraham Path, on “Tourism and the Abraham Path.”  There were a hundred and seventy participants from sixteen nations – from Brazil to India, from Canada to Finland, and from Jordan to Pakistan.

High-level national and local government leaders gave their enthusiastic blessing to the project. We were also fortunate to receive a strong statement of support from the United Nations “Alliance of Civilizations” initiative. Scholars, tourism specialists, and business leaders expounded on the rich historical heritage of the area, the enormous tourism potential, and the considerable practical benefits of opening a cultural path in the footsteps of Abraham.

As you know, our motto is “Less Talk, More Walk.” The highlight of the conference was a 12K walk from the village of Parapara into the ancient Mesopotamian ruins of Harran, where Abraham heard the call to go forth on a journey into the unknown.  A hundred of us walked under a bright blue sky and brilliant sunshine, accompanied by some local children, for what was the first public trek along the Abraham Path. We paused twice to rest under Abrahamic goat tents, and reached the arch of Harran -- the site of one of the world’s oldest and greatest universities -- amidst the golden light of the setting sun.

Daniel Adamson, Director of Path Development, and friends

Both the conference and the trek drew a surprisingly large amount of attention from national and local media, with over a dozen newspaper articles in the national press, in addition to many more in the local press, and over a half dozen television pieces, reaching millions of people in Turkey.  A considerable number of international travel journalists also participated and the international press coverage we expect will reach many millions. I think it is fair to say that the conference and trek put the vision of the Abraham Path on the map in Turkey and introduced the extraordinarily rich cultural heritage of Sanliurfa and Harran to people around the world.

As the Abraham Path becomes global, it is also becoming very local, which is, of course, essential to its success. Encouraged by the conference and international recognition it brought, our Turkish partners, coordinated by our colleague Arzu Yilmaz, are busily planning next steps: from mapping out parts of the Abraham Path in Turkey to doing careful community outreach in the villages and towns along the way.

The same process is unfolding in Jordan, where our colleagues Daniel Adamson, Mahmoud Twaissi and Yousef Zreagat are meeting with village elders and leaders in the communities along the planned Abraham Path. It was heartening to hear from Yousef how they have helped the village of Baoun establish a cultural forum in honor of Aisha al Baouniya - a fifteenth century Islamic woman saint who came from this remote village to achieve fame as a scholar and poet in the great centers of Islamic learning, Cairo and Damascus. University students from across Jordan will be walking the Abraham Path over the coming months to help open segments of the path with service learning projects.

William Ury and friends on the Abraham Path just north of Harran, Turkey.

In Syria, building on extensive conversations with civic and religious leaders, our colleagues have been holding meetings at the highest levels of government and have received strong support. Conversations are ongoing to determine the practical next steps.

In Israel, we are fortunate to have engaged leading archaeologist Avner Goren as our new country director. Avner and his colleague Rami Haruvi are working collaboratively to advance the path through the Negev region with academic support from Ben Gurion University in Beersheva.

It is in Palestine that local ownership has taken greatest form thus far. With seed funds from donors to the Abraham Path, and the skillful facilitation of Frederic Masson -- our colleagues at Bethlehem University, Siraj, PACE and the Palestine Wildlife Society have spent the last six months conducting community engagement dialogues along the prospective routes, and making an inventory of site-based, infrastructural, and cultural resources. Further, the team is making plans for a Palestinian youth walk to occur this coming summer.  In a highly challenging situation, it is inspiring to see the leadership and the will emerge to make this happen.

And already our local partners are beginning to interact. Our Jordanian partners extended an invitation to our Palestinian partners to come walk the trail. As I write this letter, they have just returned from a two-day hiking expedition along the Abraham Path in Jordan. The two teams walked for almost 40 kilometers through the mountains under a glorious winter sun – a journey in which new friendships were made, a great team spirit emerged, and village communities were able to sit, eat, and talk with the first of many hiking groups which will walk this way in years to come. It is this kind of local initiative that gives us hope for the Abraham Path.

I have asked our executive director Tyler Norris to explain, in a separate note alongside this one, a few of our practical next steps and needs. I hope those who are able will consider joining me with your year-end financial contribution in order to realize this extraordinary opportunity to make a difference in the Middle East and in the world.

Let me conclude this letter with a story from Turkey that for me sums up what the Abraham Path is about.  I was sitting out under the stars at a cliffside café overlooking the birthplace of Abraham in Urfa with Dr. Mehmet Oymak, a scholar from Urfa, who has devoted the last forty years to understanding and writing about and protecting the cultural heritage of Abraham and Urfa.  I asked Mehmet how he got interested in the first place. And he told me how it all began with a passing conversation he had when he was eleven as he was walking through the nearby park which celebrates the life of Abraham. An elderly woman pilgrim, a traveler from far away, stopped him and told him how fortunate he was to live in the city where Abraham was born. He had never thought about it before, but now he grew curious and started asking questions about Abraham. Ever since, this has been his life’s passion and work.

Mehmet’s story illustrates the gift the Abraham Path can bring – the gift of recognizing what has always been there.  A conversation takes places along the Abraham Path that changes someone’s life forever.  It could be the life of a traveler or a local youth, a guest or a host. Mehmet, I am happy to say, has agreed to serve as the Abraham Path’s distinguished representative in Sanliurfa, and we hope the Path can help him inspire the curiosity and change the lives of many others from around the world.


Mehmet’s mention of the elderly pilgrim brings to mind an extraordinary travel diary I have just read from a Spanish/French pilgrim who visited Urfa and Harran in 384 AD, seventeen hundred years ago. Egeria was her name and she left a vivid account of how, even then in these places, people were remembering the story of Abraham and his family. People often ask me when the Abraham Path will open. The truth is, the Abraham Path exists and has existed for centuries. We are merely dusting off the footsteps and preparing the way for people around the world to have a living experience of Abraham’s spirit of hospitality.

While the Abraham Path has made a great deal of progress in the months since I last wrote you, my colleagues and I are mindful that we have years of work to do to truly bring the Abraham Path to its full potential. We can expect plenty of challenges, but that is part of the process – and the adventure. Any great journey is undertaken step by step and that is how the Abraham Path is unfolding.

I am truly grateful for your help and collaboration and I look forward to working with you and to seeing you on the Abraham Path in the years to come.

With gratitude,

William Ury

Chairman of the Board
Abraham Path Initiative