Robert Ullian, 75, Peace Advocate Who Spray-Painted The Route Of The Green Line Across Jerusalem
JERUSALEM (JTA) — One dark evening in the 1990s, Robert Ullian snuck out of his home in the mixed Jewish and Arab neighborhood of Abu Tor and marked out the route of the Green Line, the boundary splitting pre-1967 Israel from the West Bank, with green spray paint.
A longtime advocate of Israeli-Palestinian coexistence, Ullian had grown alarmed by efforts to erase the boundary between Israel and what many hoped would become a future Palestinian state.
Ullian “was a protest child of the sixties,” said his friend Rabbi Andy Bachman. “When he saw in Jerusalem that those lines began to get blurred, for him it was a matter of principle. He wanted to make a statement. It was a symbolic gesture there are borders we can’t allow them to be erased so easily.”
Ullian, who died on April 29 of COVID-19 in Amherst, Massachusetts, was born in Long Island in 1944 and moved to Israel in the 1980s. He earned a living as an English teacher and authored a number of tourist guides.
Ullian knew all of the under-appreciated spots in Jerusalem, Bachman recalled, describing how his friend once brought him to a small Armenian restaurant in the Old City. Bachman asked what the strange topping on their pizza was, and Ullian replied with “a twinkle in his eyes” that it was lamb brains.
“He never made a lot of money, never had children and had his share of troubles, but he was always a symbol of peace and hope and justice, and that is a beautiful legacy to leave behind,” Bachman said.
In Jerusalem, Ullian lived in Abu Tor, the only Jew on the Arab side of the street, and he used his teaching position to establish a youth dialogue group to help promote coexistence and advance the cause of peace. One of his students, Sadek Shweiki, became almost a surrogate son and is now a Jerusalem social worker who works with inmates in Israeli jails.<section class=”post-embed”>
</section>
“His idea was that if people study and sit and learn together will be able to establish common ground for communication in which each will resolve differences through negotiation and talking,” Shweiki said. “He felt that the generation that would carry out this mission would be the coming generation, the teenagers then who are the adults of today.”
Ullian eventually returned to the United States and took a teaching position at Hampshire College. But he continued traveling to Israel as long as he was able, although a series of medical setbacks made that difficult.
“He is a soul we are really going to miss in this world,” Shweiki said. “The world wont be the same without him. He was so connected to everyone. I knew him 35 years I don’t think in 35 years I ever saw him upset or angry or yell at anyone.”
He is survived by his sister Jill Ullian.
The post Robert Ullian, 75, peace advocate who spray-painted the route of the Green Line across Jerusalem appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a gift today!
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Most Popular
- 1
Culture Trump wants to honor Hannah Arendt in a ‘Garden of American Heroes.’ Is this a joke?
- 2
Opinion The dangerous Nazi legend behind Trump’s ruthless grab for power
- 3
Fast Forward The invitation said, ‘No Jews.’ The response from campus officials, at least, was real.
- 4
Opinion A Holocaust perpetrator was just celebrated on US soil. I think I know why no one objected.
In Case You Missed It
-
Fast Forward AJC, USC Shoah Foundation announce partnership to document antisemitism since World War II
-
Yiddish יצחק באַשעװיסעס מיינונגען וועגן די אַמעריקאַנער ייִדןIsaac Bashevis’ opinion of American Jews
אין זײַנע „פֿאָרווערטס“־אַרטיקלען האָט ער קריטיקירט זייער צוגאַנג צום חורבן און צו ייִדישקײט.
-
Culture In a Haredi Jerusalem neighborhood, doctors’ visits are free, but the wait may cost you
-
Fast Forward Chicago mayor donned keffiyeh for Arab Heritage Month event, sparking outcry from Jewish groups
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.