page_title: BYU Jerusalem Center
section_title: Mission
hierarchical_section_title: BYU Jerusalem Center / Mission
caption_attribution_description: Brigham Young University Jerusalem Center
context_page_description: The Brigham Young University Jerusalem Center for Near Eastern Studies, situated on Mount of Olives in East Jerusalem, is a satellite campus of Brigham Young University, the largest religious university in the United States. Owned by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the center provides a curriculum that focuses on Old and New Testament, ancient and modern Near Eastern studies, and language. Classroom study is built around field trips that cover the Holy Land, and the program is open to qualifying full-time undergraduate students at either BYU, BYU-Idaho, or BYU-Hawaii.
  Plans to build a center for students were announced by LDS Church president Spencer W. Kimball in 1979. By 1984, the church had obtained a 49-year lease on the land and had begun construction. The center's prominent position on the Jerusalem skyline quickly brought it notice by the Ultra-Orthodox Jews, or Haredim, of Israel. Protests and opposition to the building of the center springing from the Haredim made the issue of building the center a national and even international issue.
context_section_description: Members of the LDS Church believe that Jesus Christ will return in glory in his Second Coming. Howard W. Hunter, who was president of the church's Quorum of the Twelve at the time of the center's construction, pointed out that although there would be no proselytizing from the center, it still served a valuable purpose. One church member quoted him this way: "Elder Hunter said that our mission was not to harvest, probably not even to plant, but to clear away a few more stones." Latter-day Saints often see the center as a way for them to show local Jews what the church is about by example, rather than by proselyting. This is done by the way students and faculty at the center live their lives, as well as through the hiring of both Israeli and Palestinian workers, as an example of what can be done through cooperation. During construction of the center, for example, the church hired as many as 300 workers at one time, with about 60% of them being Arab and the other 40% being Jewish. Similar cooperation continues today.
  The center also strives to meet the goals of the BYU Mission statement, "to assist individuals in their quest for perfection and eternal life" as well as in their educational endeavors. The center aims to give students not only an educational experience by experiencing cultures and languages firsthand, but a spiritual experience by taking them to the sites of biblical events and encouraging them to live their lives in a Christian way.
caption: The pipe organ inside the center
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