Khader El-Yateem

Khader El-Yateem
خضر اليتيم
Born	(1968-10-20) October 20, 1968 Bethlehem, Palestine
Alma mater	Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia

Khader El-Yateem (Arabic: خضر اليتيم ; born October 20, 1968) is a Palestinian-American community organizer and Lutheran pastor. He is the Executive Director for Service and Justice at the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). El-Yateem was a candidate for New York City Council in 2017.

Early life and education

El-Yateem was born in Beit Jala in the Bethlehem Governorate in 1968, and emigrated to the United States in 1992. He received a Bachelor of Theology degree from Bethlehem Bible College in 1989, a Bachelor of Theology and World Religions degree from the Evangelical Theological Seminary in Cairo in 1991, and a Master of Divinity from the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia in 1996.

Career

As a mission developer in 1995, El-Yateem founded Salam Arabic Lutheran Church in the Bay Ridge neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York City. The congregation primarily consists of recent immigrant Arab Christians of many denominations and nationalities, many of whom fled unrest in the Middle East — including Coptic Orthodox, Melkite Greek Catholics, Greek Orthodox, Chaldean Catholics, Maronites, Roman Catholics, and Presbyterians originally from Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine, and Syria. El-Yateem's work at the congregation was praised by a fellow clerics like Bishop Gregory John Mansour, who described him as "a great bridge builder", and featured in local media.

In the wider community, El-Yateem was a co-founder of the Bay Ridge Unity Task Force — formed in 2000 by civic activists, business leaders, and Muslim, Christian, and Jewish religious leaders to combat bigotry. In 2012, the Bay Ridge Community Council presented the Civic Award to El-Yateem for his work at Salam Arabic Lutheran Church and the Bay Ridge Unity Task Force. Additionally, El-Yateem served as a board member of Community Board 10 and the Arab American Association of New York along with being longtime leader in voter registration efforts in Bay Ridge's Arab community. He also worked in patient relations at Maimonides Medical Center from 2010 to 2017 before leaving to run for City Council.

In August 2017, El-Yateem played a key role in getting the Episcopal Diocese of Long Island to remove a plaque commemorating Confederate General Robert E. Lee from a cemetery in Fort Hamilton, placed there by the United Daughters of the Confederacy, in the wake of the violence surrounding the Unite the Right rally to protest a similar memorial's removal in Charlottesville, Virginia.

In May 2018, El-Yateem announced that he would be moving to Florida. He would serve as assistant to the bishop and director for evangelical mission with the ELCA Florida-Bahamas Synod until 2024 when he was appointed ELCA Executive Director for Service and Justice. In addition to these roles, El-Yateem is the President of the ELCA Association of Lutherans of Arab and Middle Eastern Heritage along with serving on several ELCA boards and committees.

City Council campaign

El-Yateem ran in the Democratic primary for New York City Council, District 43, covering Bay Ridge, Dyker Heights, Bensonhurst and Bath Beach. His campaign had been endorsed by organizations such as the New York State Immigrant Action Fund, the New Kings Democrats and the Democratic Socialists of America, of which he is a member. El-Yateem finished second in the primary with 31% of the vote to Justin Brannan's 39% in a five-way race.