The East Jerusalem YMCA: Serving the Palestinian Community since 1948

You’ll find East Jerusalem’s YMCA on Nablus Road, past the Balian Armenian pottery shop and right next to the Legacy Hotel. The familiar logo is painted like a huge mural on the wall of the building, and next to it, in smaller letters, is a quotation from John 10:10 that reads: “A thief comes only to kill and destroy. I have come so that they may have life and have it in abundance.”

Peter Nasir greets me at the gate. He’s the secretary general of the YMCA East Jerusalem and the third person in his family to fill that role. His grandfather, Labib Nasir, was the first secretary general; his father, Kameel Nasir, was the second; and Peter is the fifth. In fact, Peter grew up in a small apartment on the third floor of this building, so to say the YMCA runs in his family is no exaggeration.

The YMCA was first established in Jerusalem in 1878. After the 1948 War, Jerusalem was divided, and that YMCA fell into the area that Israel took for the capital of its state and renamed West Jerusalem. Palestinians in East Jerusalem therefore lost access to it. But five passionate and dedicated young men, one of whom was Labib Nasir, saw that the need was great for such an institution, and so they established a YMCA in a tent in ‘Aqabat Jabr refugee camp in Jericho. It focused on serving thousands of uprooted and displaced Palestinians by providing a holistic youth development program based on Christian ethics and values.

Soon a vocational training center was set up to teach skills that met the needs of the community, while giving motivation and purpose to the disenfranchised youth.

The YMCA moved from Jericho to East Jerusalem in 1952 and quickly established itself as a key social pillar for youth and sports. The programs and activities serve four main areas—East Jerusalem, Beit Sahur, Jericho, and Ramallah—and the organization has program offices established in most Palestinian governorates across the rest of the West Bank. Today, the East Jerusalem “Y” has 20 staff and around 300 members.1

The East Jerusalem YMCA is in a beautiful white sandstone building framed by flowering cherry blossom trees. Inside, the stained glass windows cast soft lighting over the staircase and the afternoon sun lights up the fitness rooms, squash court, and basketball court. “This building used to be a hotel,” Peter says, as he shows me the multipurpose training facility. “This used to be the area where our volunteers stayed, and I even remember all the room numbers.”2

Peter shows me what used to be a chapel and is now a rehabilitation center for teenagers who have been traumatized in Israeli detention centers. The YMCA aims to be a safe haven for these children, providing activities and community for those who need it most. Here, you can play just about every sport. There’s ping pong, teqball, badminton. Outside, there’s a tennis and soccer court, and downstairs there’s a swimming pool, the only one with a diving depth in Jerusalem. Peter shows me the gym where men and women work out in a fully equipped studio in a family-like atmosphere. Everyone seems to know one another. Peter can’t walk two feet without saying a friendly hello to someone. He tells me this YMCA contributes massively to the social fabric of East Jerusalem, and he loves to see kids in here because it means they aren’t on the streets.

“This is a career advancement center,” Peter says, leading me into a large classroom. “We’re trying to be a stepping stone for young Palestinians to have a good career without getting pushed into cheap labor. We believe in the dignity of the individual. We give them marketing, project management, and customer service skills, and little by little, we can overcome the horrible cloud over our heads.”

One of Peter’s key aims is to boost the overall confidence of the Palestinian Jerusalemite community, to teach them skills and provide education that guides them to fulfilling careers. “They are given horrible opportunities in life,” Peter says. “And they need somebody to care for them, to nurture them and show them they are smart and can do whatever they want to do.”

Outside, on the terrace, a group of senior men play cards. “We’ve been members for a very long time,” says a man wearing a crisp white shirt and sunglasses. “Since 1970!”

“We were the best volleyball team in Palestine,” says his friend as he deals some cards.

“And we’re Scrabble players!” says his neighbor.

The man sitting next to him says: “Can you make sure you write down that I won this game?”

Peter’s office is full of memorabilia from his long history with the Y—awards, postcards, plaques, and gifts brought by visitors from Sri Lanka, Dominican Republic, and the Philippines. One cabinet shelf holds bunches of keys from old rooms that are no longer in use. There’s a Palestinian flag next to a sofa, and Peter says he thinks about removing it almost every day, because he’s concerned Israeli authorities will come into the office and confiscate it.

Peter’s always been interested in personal development for the greater good. He studied computer science at Emory University in Atlanta and completed an Executive MBA at Northwestern University. He returned to Palestine in 2003 for “a front-row seat to the Gulf War,” where he volunteered at the United Nations (UN), worked at the World Bank, and then took a role at the Welfare Association. He worked for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) for a year, then moved to UN-OCHA to manage and document reports on checkpoints and closures. Peter left the UN in 2006 and then opened a hotel and restaurant in Ramallah. During this time, he served on the board of the YMCA, was treasurer and secretary, and was on the Executive Committee of the World Alliance of the YMCA. In 2019, he left his business in Ramallah to take the role of secretary general, which entails managing the directors of the YMCAs in Jericho, Ramallah, Beit Sahur, and East Jerusalem.

“This is a special and unique place,” he says. “This is a place that functioned in Jerusalem as a Ministry of Youth and Sport in the absence of any government. It is a place where people come to play and run and be happy and be away from the ugliness, the politics, and all the stresses of everyday life.”

The YMCA’s aim is to keep kids off the streets, so all of their programs are designed for that purpose. Offering alternatives to children to keep them off the streets is important because of the rise in crime rates, a result of social pressures, and lack of opportunities. It’s the same reason crime rates are high among underserved populations in the United States—unemployment, underfunding, and lack of opportunities—and the extraordinary pressure of living under occupation on top of all that. Peter says home raids are becoming increasingly common in East Jerusalem and the rest of the West Bank, and children are arrested and tried like adults.

“A 16-year-old was arrested for 3 months,” Peter says. “We worked really hard to get him to go back to school, which is very difficult to do. He loves football, so we brought him here and we helped him be a kid again. Now he smiles and laughs and he’s sweet. But he still wears a brace on his back from the beating he got when he was arrested.”

All of this adds to increased tension within the Palestinian community of Jerusalem, with young traumatized people having nowhere to channel their anger. “The checkpoints are humiliating and you have to sit in traffic, but that’s not the main problem,” Peter says. “The problem is no one cares. And then you wonder why these kids go crazy.”

Peter has noticed increased fear and anxiety among children since the al-Aqsa Flood operation erupted on October 7, 2023, followed by Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza that is still ongoing. “They keep their heads down and try not to attract attention,” Peter says. “Even here—the authorities can come any time because we’re Palestinian, and that’s enough of a reason.”

The YMCA doesn’t take political positions, but it is nevertheless very aware of the growing limitations on speech and dissent in recent months and is determined to maintain a safe space for young Palestinians.

Despite all of these challenges, the YMCA continues in its mission. Staff are committed to building autonomous communities in villages across the West Bank by holding workshops to discuss their needs and creating structures to ensure they meet them. These programs teach women debating and presentation skills so they can work in offices, and the YMCA connects them with donors and mentors who can support and empower them. The women then pass that knowledge on to other members of the community, to create what they call a “community-led approach.”

“The idea is that development work with no political horizons is futile,” Peter says. “You build a school, they demolish it. You rebuild Gaza, they destroy it. It’s useless—it makes people dependent on aid and takes away their drive and initiative, so we decided to create these advocacy programs.”

Another example is the Olive Tree campaign. The YMCA helps farmers plant olive trees on their land, fundraise all over the world, and highlight the story of the farmer. The olive trees are a good source of livelihood, a symbol of resilience, and ensure the farmers keep hold of their own land. If the trees get uprooted by settlers, the community simply plants them again. “We’ve planted close to 50,000 trees,” Peter says. “We’re proud of this program, because it really does so much good.”

Peter gave up a lot to take on this role—including his popular restaurant in Ramallah called Azure. “I torpedoed my future when I left it to come here,” he says. “But I’m happy, and I’m proud, and I’d do it a hundred times over. I have never found more purpose in my life than I find right now, because I’m doing what’s right for people here.”