This brumal Christmas Eve, I arrived in the Holy Land. Upon walking the normally teeming streets of the animated Christian quarter, I found all shops virtually deserted. Against the biting wind, I briskly walked into the only shop open and bought a mantilla, hoping to find a Tridentine Mass that evening. Three journalists stood across and explained that they had been standing in front of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre for two hours, desperately wanting to find a Christian. The vicinity was empty, and there was no sound of anything astir, save for the outbreaks of rain and drizzle. Most churches shut their doors that evening, urging local Christians to pray in their homes instead.
Then I sought to catch the midnight Mass in Bethlehem. On my way to Damascus Gate, two elderly women stopped me from getting on the bus. Their eyes were replete with disquiet, seeing me, a young Christian woman, travelling alone at night during the apex of a war.
I headed to the city of David on Christmas morning, where Christians hold Jesus Christ to have been born more than 2,000 years ago. Its streets were even more somber than those of Jerusalem. The vibrant ambience of the biblical city is often unparalleled. Usually festooned with bright lights, a towering Christmas tree, and decorations during the holiday season, this time it was shrouded in melancholy and inclement weather. In this unprecedented season, only the moon was lucent in the background. The Israel-Hamas war cast a pall, and at the behest of the churches in Jerusalem, the city of the Prince of Peace opted to pare down holiday celebrations in the shadow of the escalating violence in Gaza after Hamas terrorists murdered more than a thousand Israeli civilians and took 240 as hostages in October.
With no hotel reservations in sight on Christmas Day, I was driven by a seemingly overweening urge to act like Mary and Joseph—to saunter down Bethlehem’s desolate streets and find shelter. As I engaged in my first coffee klatch in what locals call the ‘Starbucks of Manger Square,’ Eschlas, a disabled Palestinian woman who taught Arabic to foreigners, told me that I was welcome to stay in her home, which was also a refugee center, for free. She had not been able to host students since the outbreak of the war, so she had been growing increasingly despondent and lonely. A charitable Muslim barista named Hossam had also contacted a Christian host who, despite the mothballed economic situation, offered to have one of his properties rented for half the price.
Adjacent to the Basilica of the Nativity, the square was hemmed in by security force vehicles instead of the taxis, cars, and tour buses that usually line up in traffic jams. Behind barbed wire, gray statues of Mary and Joseph stood amid a jumble of debris and sheet metal. This unorthodox and politically charged work of art by Tariq Salska evokes the tragedy experienced by the civilians of Gaza under Israeli bombs after the harrowing attack by Hamas on Israeli soil. It replaced the Nativity scene, which is usually on full display in the town where Jesus was born.
Both Christian and Muslim locals prayed in front of the gunmetal holy family amid a gauntlet of photographers and journalists. A Muslim woman who had fled Gaza two weeks before the war stood alongside her two children in front of the baby Jesus in an incubator created by Palestinian artist Rana Bishara. “I feel safer in Bethlehem, but we will go back to Gaza when the war stops,” she said. She didn’t mind publicly venerating the divine infant, as she viewed Christians and Muslims as belonging to one family. Both religious groups “died in the war in Gaza,” she added, and she deeply appreciated how the Christian community shared Muslim’s pain acutely by “supporting Muslims during these difficult times.”
Similarly, upon attending the Roman Catholic Christmas Day Mass in the Grotto of the Nativity, I found no more than thirty, mostly local, participants. While only baptized Christians received the Holy Eucharist, Muslims also attended the liturgical service. Right outside the church, a 23-year-old Greek Orthodox woman, Laila*, stated that this was a microcosm of the West Bank at large. At a time when the cleavage between Christians and Muslims was especially salient in other parts of the world, Bethlehem proved to be different. “Didn’t you see Muslims attending Mass? We all celebrate with each other … We just let Muslims in … Greek Orthodox Christians also celebrate Ramadan.”
Despite the fact that Palestinian Christians constitute a mere 2% of the population of the West Bank, Laila claimed that the government has never attempted to impose Sharia law. “The concept of radical Islam doesn’t exist here … [For] decades … it has always been a place of coexistence … This is the Holy Land. It is supposed to be holy. It is not supposed to be about killing and torturing.” She stated this just as the mosque right across the church was blaring the Maghrib prayer. “Look at the beauty of Bethlehem. You have a church, and right in front of it, a mosque … Before the war, Muslims outnumbered Christians during the tree lighting event.”
Although most of the Palestinian Christians whom I interviewed expressed a similar view on daily coexistence, most older men did not fully view the situation with rose-tinted glasses. Amjed, a 37-year-old Orthodox man, glowered at the mosque upon hearing the loud Muslim prayers and chants that pervaded the public space. “Why do you need ten speakers? Do you want people in Jerusalem to hear you? When people argue about religion, Christians don’t need to defend Jesus because we are strong on our own … We’re not celebrating [Christmas] because, in our hearts, it is difficult to have a parade when kids and families are being wiped out, but let’s see when Ramadan comes around … It’s unfair. They’re going to decorate, and nobody’s going to stop them.”
Many journalists left the holy city after Christmas Day. On December 27th, as I walked the empty streets that are usually astir with throngs of pilgrims, many street vendors exclaimed, “You’re the only tourist here this season, unless you’re a journalist too.”
In just two days, the already somber Bethlehem shifted its tone yet again. The Christian community found the statues to be a specious and opprobrious excuse to politicize the Nativity and pleaded to have them removed on December 27th. Ala’a Salameh, one of the Greek Orthodox owners of Afteem, a falafel restaurant that has been in Bethlehem since 1948, bolstered this decision despite being against the civilian deaths in Gaza. He stated that politics and religion should not be conflated. “If you want to send a message to the people, do not celebrate … The artist did not think about the effect of his art on the Christian community … Jesus sent a message for peace and love … I felt bad for using his birth politically. Christians and Muslims are one here. Even the PA made Christmas a national holiday in 1994, but that doesn’t mean [the Nativity] should be politicized.”
Similarly, another Greek Orthodox man named Amjad added, “They wanted to make a political statement, but do you think the rest of the world cares? Are they going to do something about it? It didn’t feel right to represent the baby Jesus like that. For me, forget about Christian or Muslim; it is a religious holiday … We shouldn’t mix it with political statements.”
Finally, the economic consequences in the sacred city are especially large. Rony Tabash, a third-generation businessman whose family’s Nativity shop has been in Bethlehem since 1927, said that this situation has been unrivaled. As the war continues to strangle the Israeli and Palestinian economies, Tabash’s family has been treading a tightrope. They usually pin their hopes on sales from tourists during Advent and Lent and claim that the dearth of pilgrims since October has been worse than the brunt of the COVID pandemic. “In three months, we haven’t had a single sale … Many journalists came, but I did not encounter any pilgrims or tourists.” While I insisted that I was one myself, he contended that I was a journalist in his eyes since I had asked him a host of questions.
Khader, a 59-year-old man who has been driving in the biblical city for 34 years, labeled himself the “oldest Christian taxi driver in Bethlehem” and recounted that tourists have stopped flocking to Bethlehem since October, compelling his daughter, her family, and the sister of his wife to all live under his roof to save money. Living in a war-torn country, he said Christians have especially learned how to protect themselves: “You must be ready. Maybe work will stop one day.” Compared to other shopkeepers, he did not lose a lot of profit as he had built a local and loyal clientele for decades. Similarly, other Palestinian Christians expressed arguably politicized statements on economic readiness and earnings and even suggested that their attitude separates them from the Muslim majority.
Two weeks later, the Eastern Orthodox Church celebrated the Nativity, while Roman Catholics commemorated the Epiphany. When the Gregorian calendar was imposed on the Christian world in the 16th century, the Orthodox Church refused to apply it, thereby retaining the Julian calendar. However, it bears noting that Greek Orthodox outnumber Roman Catholics in Palestinian territories. Orthodox Christmas is arguably more religious than its Roman counterpart with its highly codified traditions, such as the rigid Nativity Fast, dearth of presents, and absence of Santa Claus. The enervating horrors of the war 70 kilometers east of the West Bank further darkened celebrations in the ‘House of Bread.’ Palestinian Christian Samir Qumseyeh, the founder of the Christian television channel Nativity TV, commented that compared to the apex of the second intifada, Orthodox Christmas this year was even more palpably subdued.
Amjad, who has lived in Bethlehem all his life and manages the boy scouts, said, “Normally, we have ten bands. Every year, we walk with the archbishop of Jerusalem to the Church of Nativity for about ten minutes with other Orthodox Christians, Catholics, and even Muslims. This year, however, there was hardly anyone, not even practicing locals. The war did not make it ideal to celebrate Christmas with loud music, but as Orthodox, we wanted to maintain the tradition, so instead of a parade, we just silently marched.”
A Palestinian Christian and a Muslim walk into Manger Square. Immense grief permeates the public space, and there is an uneasy, unfamiliar, harrowing silence from the mayhem of the war. As Pope Urban II’s legacy wanes, Pope Francis’ Urbi et Orbi from his central balcony at St. Peter’s Basilica earnestly resonates in the birthplace of the Prince of Peace. Although realistically speaking, it would require a Christmas miracle, the Star of Bethlehem that guided the three wise men could perhaps be the very beacon of light that the not-so-wise, bellicose men today desperately need.
*Most names of interviewees were modified as a result of fear from their governments.
