Israel - Day One - Bethlehem

Yesterday we left a cold, grey and drizzly London and, five hours later – after some severe turbulence over the Alps – descended into the warm 24 degree night of Tel Aviv. Israeli Immigration did not stamp my passport, instead I was presented with a slip of paper showing my entry and passport details, together with a small photo of my face copied from the passport – very nifty!

Luggage recovered, we assembled outside the terminal, 15 pilgrims and two priests, ready for the one-hour ride to Bethlehem. As our small coach sped through the darkness along smooth three-lane highways I peered eagerly into the darkness, eager to form a first impression of Israel.  And the first impression was that the countryside was composed entirely of rocky soil and sandy patches with occasional stunted trees and many low-rise buildings surrounded by barbed wire fences, watchtowers and pillboxes. This is clearly not a country at peace or blessed with much in the way of natural resources.

Forty-five minutes later we threaded our way past Jerusalem’s ancient walls and after ten more minutes we passed a couple of checkpoints with sleeping policemen and very alert, rifle-toting soldiers, and arrived in Bethlehem just before midnight. Our hotel, the Manger Square, was new and the staff had laid on welcome fruit drinks and a cold meal in our rooms. We were excited to have finally arrived and, after unpacking, fell soundly asleep about 1.30am.

And were woken three hours later at 4.30am by the piercing wail of the loudspeaker from the minaret barely two hundred yards away. The muzzein was calling the faithful to prayer. He went on calling them for the next 25 minutes or so. There were gaps of several minutes between each call, so, on the point of falling asleep again, one was rudely dragged back into consciousness each time.

Our bleary-eyed group of pilgrims formed up in the lobby at 9.00am for our first visit of the day. We went to St Martha’s House, a charity providing day care for elderly Christian Arab ladies. Since there is no state pension, no welfare benefits and many of their relatives and family have emigrated in search of work, they are often badly off, isolated and lonely.

As requested by the tour organisers, we had brought with us pain killers for minor ailments; the missus and I had brought about 50 boxes of Paracetamol, Ibuprofen etc and Father Mark, priest in charge of the tour, presented these, together with a financial collection to the charity. We drank tea with the ladies, ate some biscuits and (the more energetic and adventurous of us) danced with them.  

Then on to the Church of the Nativity, built over the cave where Jesus is said to have been born. The place was incredibly busy and our little group was squeezed between two other groups; in front, a large group of Russian Orthodox who rushed about kissing every icon and painting in sight, behind an even larger group of Chinese who photographed everything in sight. The Church is one of the oldest in Israel and, while it has been much remodelled, you can still see parts of the fourth century mosaic floor.

 

 

 

We queued for about 45 minutes before we entered the Grotto of the Nativity, a small cave containing the silver star that marked the place where tradition says Jesus was born. I’d like to say it was a heart-stoppingly emotional event but all I recall was kneeling down, avoiding the rump of the large Russian lady in front of me, momentarily kissing the star and then being unceremoniously nudged on by the person in the queue behind me.

Afterwards we visited other underground caves in the complex and drew breath. Some of the caves had been in use since very early times, contained first-century Christian burials and were an oasis of peace in what was a busy tourist complex.

Tradition identifies one of the caves as the one St Jerome worked in while translating the Hebrew and  Greek into the Vulgate Latin version of the Bible about 1,600 years ago.

Before leaving, we visited the modern Catholic Church of St Catherine, very simple compared to the ostentation of the Orthodox and Armenian interior of the Basilica of the Nativity with its many hanging oil lamps, iconostasis and rich tapestries. This is where the Christmas service from Bethlehem is broadcast from each year.

As we exited we passed large parties of Moslem schoolgirls who were visiting on a school trip (as Jesus is a prophet for the Moslems). I’m afraid we may have scandalised them as they giggled, nudged each other and pointed at us. Clearly the spectacle of the missus and I walking past, arm in arm, outraged public decency. Oops.

Lunch was had at St Martha’s House, the charity home for elderly ladies. A mixed salad and a vegetable soup (from vegetables grown in their own garden) was accompanies by home-baked bread buns with minced meat in a tomato sauce – scrumptious!

 

Next was a trip to what is believed to have been the location of the fields in which the shepherds were visited by the angels announcing the birth of Jesus. It was a couple of kilometres outside Bethlehem and we celebrated Mass in one of the outdoor areas. The air was warm and we could clearly see Bethlehem on a hill in the distance. It wasn’t hard to imagine darkness all around and then a bright star over the little town on the hill. We sang ‘Silent Night, Holy Night’ and ‘O Little Town of Bethlehem’ and Father Mark suggested - correctly I suspect - that we may sing it again but never with the same sense of place and immediacy.  

Unfortunately, this wonderful experience was followed by a less pleasurable one. As too often happens on tours, the coach was stopped outside an olive wood souvenir shop and we were asked to go and ‘support’ the local Palestinian Christian merchants. This was supplemented by the heavy hint that we were expected to take half an hour to shop (‘the coach will be ready to depart in half an hour’). Inside, the merchants made the usual play of ostentatious friendship; we were served cups of mint tea, offered a 15% discount and the priest was presented with a gift of an olive wood cross. The staff then pressed trays on us (to hold all the items we would surely purchase). It wasn’t cheap - the opposite in fact; most of the wood carvings that I looked at were priced well over US$100, many in multiples of it. I would happily have given a donation to relieve the hardships of the Palestinian Christians – of even more than I spent in the shop – but I object to the procedure employed. The tea was pleasant but the visit left a bad taste in my mouth.      

We were wilting by now, so a couple of hours rest were allowed – blog update time – before dinner in a local restaurant: more salads; more bread with couscous, hummus, chick peas, cheese, etc etc; various meats on skewers; a cloyingly sweet desert; Arabic coffee and a hubble-bubble pipe (or whatever they’re called) to smoke for those who wished.

And so to bed.