We made the trek to Bethlehem yesterday for a drink and—for R. and me—a cigar. R. once operated a hotel with a great garden restaurant on the edge of Manger Square, and the Palace remains one of our favorite places for a family-and-friends evening. What made it special yesterday was that it was the second day of the Eid ul-Fitr, the Moslem holiday marking the end of Ramadan. While the family is all Christian to the core, the evening provoked important memories for me: my introduction to the Middle East was on the eve of the Eid many years ago.
Bethlehem is an example of Christian and Moslem commonality. A few decades ago it was entirely a Christian city—today the faith is in the minority, primarily due to the migration of Christians to more comfortable climes in concern for their families' future, and the phenomenal birthrate of the Moslem population. This decline in influence has not been received without some bitterness on the Christian side, but everyone lives in Greater Bethlehem inside their own communities with no more acrimony than you would find in Gainesville, Florida. I think the Christians are reconciled to becoming a small minority in Palestine, and most political issues dealing with Israel inevitably reduce to Islam/Jewish frictions. If there is irony in this, it is that among the three religions, the Jews and Moslems rituals and fundamentals have the most in common—the Christians are the odd-man out from a religious perspective, so to speak. And that's a pity, in a sense, as the Christians have the upper-hand in reconciliation, compromise and turning-the-other-cheek. It makes you realize how different New Testament Christianity really is from Old Testament Judaism and Islam.
Be that as it may, the evening turned cool as it got dark and conversation quickly turned to the upcoming wedding of our niece in a couple of weeks. R. and I set fire to about fifty dollars worth of tobacco, while I slumped in my chair, sipped wine, listened to the buzz about me and felt greatly content. A few meters away, in Manger Square, cars churned and honked, people promenaded, and the city came alive in celebration of the end of the fast. There were a lot of Christmas lights set out to celebrate the Eid (there is an immense amount of irony in Palestine), and, later in the evening, it took us some time to weave our way through the crowds, out of town and back to Jerusalem. There was a substantial presence of PA police, but their interaction with the population was more jovial than remonstrative.
Bethlehem is difficult to describe. In some sense it's a big city, spread out over several mountains and encompassing a number of very large communities. Readers may recall my blog on Beit Jallah, a mostly Christian community adjacent to Bethlehem. In other ways Greater Bethlehem is simply a collection of small Arab towns with adjacent borders, possessing an older core, but just as dispersed as you find modern urban centers in the U.S. The Old City is fairly small and compact, and the road system—upgraded substantially by an EU investment years ago, then severely degraded by a subsequent Israeli military incursion—while greatly improved over that of a few decades ago is still narrow and hazardous. Traffic rules either don't exist, or have long been forgotten, but with a liberal application of invective and bravado, everyone seems to get where they want to go eventually.
Unlike Jerusalem, Bethlehem is unique in that there is no Israeli presence or occupation. It is an city with an Arab character through and through, and, for bad or for good, it is exceedingly pleasant place to visit.
No comments:
Post a Comment