PBS Debuts New Series SACRED JOURNEYS WITH BRUCE FEILER Tonight

Join series host, Bruce Feiler - bestselling author, scholar, adventurer - on an unprecedented journey to some of the world's most meaningful landscapes and rigorous religious pilgrimages - all undertaken in one remarkable year. Viewers travel around the globe to walk with Bruce and contemporary sojourners on six journeys to sacred shrines, temples, or other holy sites visited annually by hundreds of millions of pilgrims (including Jerusalem, Mecca, Lourdes, Shikoku, Kumbh Mela, Osun in Nigeria). This special series (which launches tonight, December 16), epic in scope, spans continents to open a fascinating window on the human quest as it takes viewers through history and across the world on a faith exploration.

Today's seekers travel many of the same routes to visit sites and enact many of the same rituals that people have for hundreds of years. These are people from every walk of life, looking for meaning, trying to gain deeper understanding of life or to make a connection with their own religious history. These pilgrims will inspire viewers as they share why they've embarked on these journeys and what they experienced along the way. In the end, viewers will understand the powerful connection between the travelers who take these journeys today, and those who did so long before.

OFFICIAL EPISODE DESCRIPTIONS

SACRED JOURNEYS WITH BRUCE FEILER - TUESDAY, DECEMBER 23 AT 8:00 PM ET (check local listings)
JERUSALEM
Trailer/related content: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/sacredjourneys/content/jerusalem/

Sukkot, or the Feast of the Tabernacles, is one of three great festivals in the Jewish calendar when, in ancient times, Jews from across Israel were commanded to come to the Temple in Jerusalem on pilgrimage.

But although Jewish pilgrimage lessened in importance after the destruction of the Temple by the Romans in 70 AD, Christian pilgrims began coming to Jerusalem and the Holy Land within centuries of Jesus' death.
During the week of Sukkot, host Bruce Feiler travels to Israel with Jewish and Christian pilgrims. For many Christians, the road to Jerusalem begins in the Galilee along the Jesus Trail, a route that follows the path of Jesus' ministry. For a Jewish pilgrim from Philadelphia, spending Sukkot in Jerusalem not only honors ancient Jewish pilgrimage but also her personal time of decision, whether to remain in America or move to Jerusalem on permanent pilgrimage.

In coming to Jerusalem, Bruce returns to his own Jewish roots. Whether walking with Christian pilgrims on the Jesus Trail, celebrating Sukkot with American Jews in Jerusalem or exploring the past with scholars of the three faiths - Judaism, Christianity and Islam - who share Jerusalem, Bruce reveals a land where religious and historical divisions have made it the most contentious place on earth. But as the pilgrims from different faiths converge on the many sacred shrines that coexist within Jerusalem's ancient walls, Bruce also reveals why Jerusalem has been a center of pilgrimage for so long. In spite of its long and turbulent history, it remains a city of faith for all who worship the One God who is the God of Moses, of Jesus and of Muhammad.

SACRED JOURNEYS WITH BRUCE FEILER - TUESDAY, DECEMBER 23 AT 9:00 PM ET (check local listings)
THE HAJJ
Trailer/related content: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/sacredjourneys/content/jerusalem/

"The Hajj is the iconic pilgrimage on Earth," says host Bruce Feiler, as millions of pilgrims gather in the valleys outside the city of Mecca in today's Saudi Arabia to take part in the annual five-day pilgrimage every Muslim hopes to complete at least once. Since non-Muslims aren't permitted in Mecca, Bruce's surrogate is Anisa Mehdi, a veteran reporter of the Hajj, with whom Bruce will Skype at regular intervals. Anisa joins a group of Muslim pilgrims from Boston who begin their journey in Medina, the second of Islam's holy cities.

As the pilgrims visit sites in Medina associated with the life of the Prophet Muhammad, Bruce enlists the help of a historian and an eminent American Muslim scholar to explore the origins of the religion and its iconic pilgrimage.

In 622CE Muhammad fled his birthplace of Mecca after persecution by its pagan rulers who objected to him preaching a new monotheism. Muhammad and a small group of followers settled in Medina. Within ten years Islam was the dominant religion of Arabia and Muhammad returned to Mecca in triumph to clear idols from the holy sites and teach his followers the different stages of the Hajj pilgrimage.

The Boston pilgrims follow Muhammad's path from Medina to Mecca, beginning their Hajj by circling the Ka'aba, the ancient shrine at the center of Mecca's Great Mosque. Muslims believe the Ka'aba was first built by Abraham, patriarch of Islam, Judaism and Christianity. Stripping themselves of worldly possessions for the duration of the Hajj, the pilgrims enact the rituals laid out by Muhammad, experiencing exhaustion, injury and elation as they seek forgiveness and inner peace. They leave with a new sense of connection to humanity, and to the one-and-a-half billion people that make up the worldwide community of Muslims.

Episodes airing December 30 including pilgrimages to Kumbh Mela and Nigeria.