to that little town of bet lechem

Hayley was to head home early Christmas morning, spending a week and a half in Texas for her mother’s wedding, so I spent the previous night at the Mayanot apartment, intending to help her pack but actually just sleeping through it all and waking up to a note from her shortly after she had left.
For the morning of Christmas day, I had arranged to go with Jess and some of her Pardes friends to Bet Lechem, since I could hardly pass up the chance to visit such a place on such a date. I met Jess by her apartment at 8:40, and we were to meet with the rest on derech Hevron at 9 to catch the bus. One of the guys, who seemed to be the coordinator of the expedition, told us of a free bus going to and from Bet Lechem from a nearby monastery and so we passed up the Palestinian mini-bus and set off for the church.
And we walked. And walked. After approximately 40 minutes (from Jerusalem to Bet Lechem is only about 9 kilometers to begin with) along which we could see the transition out of Jerusalem, we walked passed the eruv that surrounded the city, and even saw a shepherd herding his flock across the street, we found the right church, and after inquiring within, were informed that there was no free bus. But by this point, we were only about another 15 minutes from the checkpoint, so we continued on foot.
We got through with relative ease, just needing to show our passports, and then entered, for the first time, into Palestinian Authority controlled West Bank territory.
From the other side of the wall, it was another half an hour walk to Manger square, the first bit actually along the wall.

It was interesting, coming for the first time really into contact with the security wall. I am not even interested in hearing it compared with apartheid, or hearing it called a racist segregation—such comparisons are degrading to the histories and victims of actual apartheid. The reality is that the wall and the checkpoints, unfortunate as they are and as tragic as the effects have been to everyone, especially the Palestinian-Arabs, were built as a response to the multiple successful suicide attacks that took place nearly every week during the second intifada, and were not built to hurt people, but to protect people.

It is just further proof that the sins of a few will curse the many, the innocent who have done nothing wrong.
And this needed security, while succeeding in preventing further attacks, further angers and hurts the newer generations, making people become more radical and more upset, thus creating a cyclical curse of uncongeniality and hatred on both sides. What can be done. Perhaps more to come on this later, after I am all caught up to the date…

Back to the wall itself. In many ways, it physically reminded me of the Berliner Mauer, especially in graffiti to be found on it. In general, throughout the city and along the wall, the graffiti art was impressive, and inspiring.

Along the walk to Manger Square, we were constantly wished Merry Christmas, and invited into local shops and restaurants to see the ‘local offerings.’
True, there was a very great Palestinian military presence all around, but even still I felt perfectly at ease. Or at least, as at ease as possible when I don’t understand the language around me, which is more than I can say for my companions who were constantly concerned of any sort of separation between the four of us, even just a bit of distance if two lagged behind the others.

We first went directly to the Church of the Nativity. Within the site, there were two churches, an orthodox church, and a catholic, in which mass was in progress (the Orthodox church celebrates on January 6th). It was incredibly packed, and very international; in general, I was sad to see that there was an incredible lack of formality amongst the worshippers. It may seem shallow, but I have always thought that places of holiness deserved greater measure and effort than jeans and t-shirts. I also think it is weird when Jews not only know all the latin hymns and such, but think it appropriate to sing along with them, when I imagine they are talking about the holiness of Jesus and Mary and the church, etc….I have no problem being in a Church, but I wouldn’t recite prayers, or think it necessarily appropriate for a non-Jew to recite the Shema or something when sitting in Shul. Anyway.
After mass, we went into the Orthodox side, which was much darker and older looking, and had parts of which that looked like parts of a barn. Apparently you could see the actual manger in which Jesus was born, but the line for this was very long, and Shabbat was to come in eventually.
After we left the church, we stood in Manger Square for a bit, watching pilgrims sing and dance (and seeing the sale of things such as tourists would buy, including helium balloons, including army tank shaped helium balloons…) and then made our way to the Milk Grotto, where it is said that a drop of Mary’s breast milk hit the ground and turned everything white. It was also very crowded, not necessarily a place for someone who is claustrophobic.
It was getting later, and people were hungry, so we went to find some falafel before leaving. I was not too hungry, so Jess and I decided to forgo the 5 shek falafel sandwich, and order simply some pita and hummus. It was the worst hummus I had every eaten, even the pita was pathetic. And then we paid 30 shek for it. Lame.

The one negative thing that I have to comment on about the people in the city, which is also something that I saw in Hebron, was the very frequent use of toy guns by small children; and I do not mean neon colored nerf-type guns, but very realistic, noise making handgun and rifle and machine gun type toys. At one point I even watched a three year old standing on a wall behind his father/uncle whomever, who was leaning against a car. The child had a very large toy gun, which he had pointed into the back of the adult man.

Eventually we found our way to the stop where the minibus would leave and go back into Jerusalem along Derech Hebron toward Damascus Gate, boarded the bus, and went back across, stopping at the border to disembark from the bus, show our passports to the Israeli border police, and then reboard the bus. The man who looked at my passport thought my having a residency visa from Germany was exciting.