Mitri Raheb

A Palestinian Christian in Bethlehem, Dr. Mitri Raheb is President of Diyar Consortium and of Dar al-Kalima University College in Bethlehem, and also serves as president of the Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land, and Senior Pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church in Bethlehem, Palestine. Dr. Raheb is the author of 16 books including, I Am a Palestinian Christian, Bethlehem Besieged, and Faith in the Face of Empire. He is the Chief Editor of the Contextual Theology Series at Diyar Publishing including: The Invention of History: A Century of Interplay between Theology and Politics in Palestine; The Biblical Text in the Context of Occupation: Towards a New Hermeneutics of Liberation. His writings have been translated into eleven languages.

In 2003 Dr. Raheb received the prestigious Wittenberg Award from the Luther Center in Washington, DC, for his ‘distinguished service to church and society.’ Other awards include the International Mohammad Nafi Tschelebi Peace Award of the Central Islam Archive, as well as the German Peace Award of Aachen. In 2012 the German Media Prize, generally granted to heads of state, was awarded to Dr. Raheb for his “tireless work in creating room for hope for his people, who are living under Israeli Occupation, through founding and building institutions of excellence in education, culture and health.”

The work of Dr. Raheb has received wide media attention from major international media outlets and networks including CNN, ABC, CBS, 60 Minutes, BBC, ARD, ZDF, DW, BR, Premiere, Raiuno, Stern, The Economist, Newsweek, and Vanity Fair.

Dr. Raheb holds a Doctorate in Theology from the Philipps University at Marburg, Germany, and received an honorary doctorate from Concordia University in Chicago in 2003. He is married to Najwa Khoury and has two daughters, Dana & Tala. For more information see his website www.mitriraheb.org.