YWCA Tribute to a National and Social Icon: Doris Salaa, Daughter of Jerusalem
By: Joseph Cornelius Sheehan Donnelly
Doris rushed into the fullness of a thoroughly local life: family, friends, streets, studies, prayers, scholars, neighbors—exceedingly attentive to all, absolutely absorbing every person, every place, every faith, every new version of an old story, respectfully listening while always discerning the truth of all then and now.
This lively, lovely, young girl generated parental pride for Alice and Joseph and established lifelong links with her two sisters, countless cousins, aunts, uncles, and more.
When everything predictable was transformed into a shockingly sad uncertainty, Doris instinctively rose in the moment. She bloomed beautifully amidst suffering, steadfast in her caring, compassionate commitment to church and community.
Sacred scriptures through the ages, cultures, crises, and opportunities highlight ordinary people with compelling extraordinary narratives.
That’s our Doris—leaping through adversities’ disappointing dilemmas, from last century’s callous World Wars into our 21st Century.
That’s our Doris—pious pilgrim already fully on her way to where God would have her now, interceding as an ardent advocate; she has always been demanding the right attention.
That’s our Doris—readily recognizing that Presence matters: being authentically engaged with sisters, brothers, and children, while navigating the Old City’s winding stony roads or the unfolding political shoals of East vs. West Jerusalem, of South vs. North, of keeping all the Holy Land distinctly clear in every timely consideration.
From her earliest active years, Doris took up the inspired challenges underscored by her parents’ powerful example of witnessing God’s love for neighbors. Indeed, no strangers – only brothers and sisters, younger and older, are to be included; from the dinner table to the negotiating platform, from today until tomorrow.
Long before the UN adopted the slogan “Leave no one behind,” as a central principle of its Sustainable Development Goals, Doris was living out this slogan every day.
Thus, it is hard to carefully characterize such a woman, such a friend, such a colleague of enormous distinction who led and inspired young Jerusalem women, noting for parents and politicians alike their God-given gifts of life, promise, and talent; she underscored the very same for Patriarchs, Archbishops, and Catholic Christians. Ecumenical and interreligious women and men met and gathered around fellowship forums from the city, the region, and the world, building bridges and tearing down walls.
Never donning an engineer’s helmet, well-dressed, respectful, professional Doris made a unique career, building essential bridges—humane pathways for people to cross borders as prejudices, assumptions, and oppressive arbitrary restrictions imposed by the occupation limited people’s opportunities. With her sharp mind and tenacious attachments to truth and justice, through pursuing alternative ways forward, Doris cut through impediments and helped bring forth hope. She was determined to ensure that her beloved nephews and niece—Joe, Selim, Rana, and Rami—attached themselves to the enduring family vision of service.
When we view the landscape of Doris’ life, there are memorable moments and specific seasons, each writing chapters of her lessons learned and her soul’s strategic investments in our one human family.
While holding high positions of authority and responsibility, she never lingered long on titles or privileges bestowed upon her. Instead, like Gospel narratives and Jesus’ parables, Doris, ever paying careful attention to who and what matters, developed wisdom of the ages which gave her an elegance in both traditional and changing times.
She was uniquely intelligent and had an uncanny ability to laugh in the face of nonsense. She prized existence, her own and others, all while maintaining a restoring resilience that kept her winning from within.
Doris herself was a resourceful school of sustainability—to love, to grow, to change, to be as fully alive as each moment beckoned for more from her. Doris could ceaselessly be more for others than herself because her past with its treasury of tears rooted her more and more in the lives of others.
Doris attended to all kinds of personal and domestic needs, as well as helped different countries and communities search for their freedoms and inalienable rights—whether across the street or a desert wasteland being deprived of its necessities.
Doris’ past as a mentor and educator instigated her truly unique identity as a stakeholder for others as she understood Christ’s calling to let the children come forward. Further, she understood His remarkably inviting challenge: be like children. Growing up in the daily light of the Gospel itself, Doris started like a modern psalmist writing basic beatitudes—for living, for blessing, for being, for belonging—as she took up the assorted crosses that came into her days.
As such, she developed a rare resilience to keep steadfast, to hold it all together in good times and bad, to celebrate life and grace in others, with others while never seeking more for herself than to live free and to die free with the dignity of a child of God, and at that, a Daughter of Jerusalem. It was only natural then that she needed no diplomatic decree to be an ambassador for Christ, the world over to Christians, Jews, and Muslims, and to all peoples of faith everywhere.
Whether sharing an ice cream soda on Notre Dame’s Jerusalem terrace with joyful cousins, Laila and Munir, whether conversing in UN Delegates Dining Rooms on the East River with family, friends, or colleagues, whether crossing that Allenby Bridge back to her treasured family in Jordan, whether assisting in endless crises in Africa or Asia with Rima or years before with Gisele in Gaza at UNRWA schools and women’s projects, Doris rose to every occasion with grace and style.
At UN and NGO meetings pressing for peace, justice, rights, and truth-telling, Doris bore constant witness to interns, staff, scholars, clergy, and humanitarians, being one with all. People listened. People heard her. People sought her insights and often enough demanded instructions to do the right thing, the necessary thing.
Still, she had her share of questions, unabashedly asking, and sharing them with experts and novices alike. She listened with respect and dignity, sincerely encouraging others to speak.
She surely suffered aching with deep loss and heavy burdens. We often sat long and spoke much, pained tears falling, but she always rose up to stand tall. As her 90 years spoke for themselves, she was bent over like a question mark, ready to see the face of God bearing her heartbreak wrapped with hopes beyond hope.
At this ultimately inevitable moment of Doris’ journey home to God in Eternity: Dare we seize the dream she held out for herself and all of us! Her legacy spells out vast commitments and accomplishments from steadfast lifelong accompaniments with family, with YWCA, with Ecumenical Women, with Jerusalem’s Justice and Peace Commission, and with her urban neighbors from Turtle Bay in NYC to Foster City in California.
Her exemplary example moved seamlessly through the generations. So that Peter and John, Franco and Gi Gi could naturally encounter her undying goodness and quiet greatness. How she loved each of them as gifts of God!
Doris was a true nonviolent “warrior” for peace in the land that planted deep seeds in her—watering them day after day, year after year: Blessed are the peacemakers!
May we each, in our own ways, honor her amazing legacy full of grace and hope with our lives, works, and humble prayers. Make her proud! See her smiling back!
Inshallah.
Doris Salaa with Archbishop Tutu visiting Jerusalem.
About the Author: Joseph befriended Doris in Jerusalem, amidst the First Intifada in 1987. They accompanied each other as 20th century Nakba endured into the 21st century. Then finding/sustaining sense of HOME as diaspora persons in New York City until loved ones welcomed her fully back in foster city before God called her to Eternity.
Please note any views or opinions contained in this devotional series are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of Churches for Middle East Peace (CMEP).