Welcome to Nazareth’s Old City

NAZARETH, Israel — The Maronite Church in Nazareth’s Old City is chained and locked; most parishioners have joined the flight of residents out of the Old City in search of better housing in newer neighborhoods.

But a group of hardy young Nazarenes — and one Israeli Jew — believe in the potential of the city and refuse to abandon it. The group of young business-minded Nazarenes are taking over their family’s shops or renting abandoned properties and revamping them, offering new restaurants and cafes for tourists, simply because they love their city and want to make it better.

They want tourists to stay longer than the traditional one-hour dash through the city to see the Basilica of the Annunciation and across the city to the church where the Greek Orthodox say the angel Gabriel appeared to Mary.

Three years ago, Maoz Inon, a 32-year-old Israeli Jew, rented and renovated an abandoned house, retained the name of the original owner and opened the Fauzi Azar Inn in the heart of the Old City for pilgrims and travelers who like to take the unbeaten path. Together with his friend David Landis, Inon has also mapped out a pilgrimage trail along the footsteps of Jesus in the Galilee — starting, of course, from Nazareth.

Nearby, Wissam Abu Saleem, 31, offers thick Arabic coffee in a shop his family has run for three generations. Just on the outskirts of the Old City, Amin Zayyad will soon open a restaurant he says will offer “Middle Eastern fusion” cuisine.

If traditional fare is what a visitor craves, there is a choice of traditional restaurants, including the landmark Diana, where the salads are endless and the meats legendary.

But lunch can also be a simple warm pita-pizza with melted cheese and a slightly sweet tomato sauce at a little hole-in-the-wall place near White Mosque Square in the middle of the open-air vegetable market.

Nazareth is not only about food and in addition to the charming outdoor market, Nazareth Village, located near the French Hospital, will transplant a visitor to Nazareth as it was in biblical times.

“Ahaallaan Waasaalan” (Welcome),  says Abu Saleem. Old, new, traditional, fusion, Jew, Muslim, Christian, pilgrim, tourist, trekker – everything and everyone is welcome in Nazareth.

Jerusalem, at Easter, as it should be

As soon as I entered the Old City of Jerusalem through Jaffa Gate on Easter morning, I knew something was amiss. It was as if, with those few steps into the walled city, I had walked into another reality.

Jewish children dressed up as chefs and pirates clung to their mothers’ who were pushing baby carriages as they walked briskly to their destination to celebrate the festive Jewish holiday of Purim, where children wear costumes and adults exchange gifts of sweets and pastries.

A few early-rising backpackers walked out the doors of nearby hostels, blinking in the bright sunshine.

A group of local Muslim women, covered from head to foot, headed down the ancient roads, perhaps to get in some early morning shopping at the vegetables stalls, or maybe they were going back home after their morning prayers at a nearby mosque.

Pilgrims from the Philippines picked their way over the large protruding stones of the remnants of the ancient Roman road on their way to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher on this beautiful, sunny morning.

Along the way, the few shopkeepers who had opened their stores early called out to them genially to look at their wares. Some of the pilgrims stopped and examined the exotic-looking dresses, the colorful ceramics and olive-wood carvings. But there was no time to shop as they were on their way to Easter Mass — the highlight of their eight-day pilgrimage.

The muted thudding of the wheels of the special green carts merchants use to get their wares from one place to the other in the Old City echoed through the stone-paved roads as messenger boys pushed the carts down the steps descending deeper into the shuk, the Arab market. Somewhere along the metal awnings above, the shops birds were singing their morning songs.

My eyes consciously blocked out the site of the heavily armed Israeli soldiers along the roads — on high alert following the shooting attack on a Jerusalem seminary which left eight students dead earlier in the month.

And for one brief warm spring day, Jerusalem was as it should be.

PHOTO: A Christian pilgrim prays after an Easter Mass at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem March 23. (CNS/Yannis Behrakis, Reuters)

In Jerusalem, sirens warn of bloodshed

Our two young boys had finally fallen asleep when we saw the news trailer on the television announcing a special broadcast. Then almost simultaneously we heard the ambulances, and we knew there had been an attack. During the five years of the intifada the sounds of ambulances rushing through our neighborhood toward the nearby hospitals was a sure sign of a terrorist attack in Jerusalem. Even now I still react instinctively to the sound of sirens, and once again they were a warning of bloodshed somewhere in the city.

This time the attack took place in a Jewish seminary, a 15-minute drive from where we live. I made sure our doors were locked. But it was not the closest call we have had. Six years ago, when our oldest son was only 3 months old, a young Palestinian woman blew herself up at the entrance of our neighborhood supermarket, only 10 minutes after we finished our shopping.

The morning after the seminary attack, residents of the religious neighborhood where it took place were busy doing their Sabbath shopping. Billboards were plastered with death notices for the eight students killed, and thousands gathered for the funeral before each body was taken to be buried by their families.

In their mourning, the families will join, among others, the Palestinian Abu Shabak family of Gaza, whose two children were killed March 2, and the Yihye children of the Israeli town of Btecha, who buried their father Feb. 29 — some of the newest casualties in the latest renewal of the vicious cycle which endlessly entangles Israelis and Palestinians.

PHOTO: Israeli Jewish religious students mourn for fellow students during a memorial service for eight victims killed by a Palestinian gunman at the Merkaz Harav seminary in Jerusalem March 6. (CNS/Reuters)

Inside the latest Israeli-Vatican meeting

The papal nuncio to Israel, Archbishop Antonio Franco,  has shed more light on the Vatican-Israeli meeting last December, which examined taxation and legal issues for the church in the Holy Land.

In his interview with the online edition of Terra Santa magazine, Archbishop Franco sounded optimistic about reaching an agreement with Israel — someday — but let it be known the church cannot lock the minority Christian community into an untenable position.

He also cautioned that a papal trip to Israel is unlikely before there is some progress on these questions and at least some movement in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.

Terra Santa, a Italian-based publication of the Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land, is now running an English-language page with translations of some of its articles.

PHOTO: Archbishop Antonio Franco, center, the Vatican’s ambassador to Israel, attends the opening ceremony of the annual Holocaust Remembrance Day at the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem last April. (CNS/Reuters)

Christians in Gaza face difficult period

For security reasons I have not been to the Gaza Strip for quite some time now. But I do keep in touch with Holy Family Parish pastor Msgr. Manuel Musallam and other representatives of Christian organizations and other sources I have come to know there on a fairly regular basis — especially now with the situation in Gaza so tenuous.

Before when I interviewed them they were conciliatory in the way they described the general conditions in Gaza and the situation for the Christians in specific. They were going through the same difficult experiences as the 1.2 million Muslim Palestinians living in Gaza — suffering through the Israeli military attacks and incursions, with the international blockade affecting Muslims and Christians alike.

Even when the attacks against their community began — the Greek Orthodox church was attacked following a speech by the pope viewed as insulting to Islam, the compound of the Rosary Sisters’ school and church was ransacked and looted last summer as Hamas took control of the strip from Fatah, and, most recently, Rami Ayyad, owner of a Christian bookstore was kidnapped and killed — Christians tried to maintain their assuaging outlook.

The militant Islamic group Hamas did condemn the attacks and did beef up its patrol around Christian institutions following the attacks. Moderate Muslims also were outraged about the increasing extremism, but everybody was careful not to speak about specific “anti-Christian” sentiments.

But over the past months the tone has changed, especially noticeable this week after the bombing of the Gaza YMCA. Christians said outright that there were increasing anti-Christian feelings. They admitted to being afraid as Christians but they also were reluctant about leaving their homes. They bemoaned the oppressive religious conservatism under which they are now forced to live.

It frightened me to hear my sources whispering nervously into their phones as they told me about another attack on a Christian youth who was taking a female former classmate home. Granted, he was not attacked because he was a Christian, but because the social norms of the society have changed drastically and he had innocently not yet internalized them.

Even Msgr. Musallam, who generally never before spoke about the specific difficulties Christians have in Gaza but rather liked to emphasize their joint destiny with their Palestinian Muslim brothers, suddenly spoke about a new reality in Gaza.

Everything is an unknown, he said, and the Christians of Gaza along with other moderates are passing through a very difficult period, unsure about their future.

Bethlehem ‘Milk Grotto’ article touches readers

Writing about Bethlehem’s Milk Grotto, where Mary is said to have nursed Jesus as they fled to Egypt, sounded like a nice Christmas feature story.

The grounds had been renovated, the grotto was small and intimate and there were signs of centuries of faithful devotion by women unable to have children scratching away at the cave walls to take home some of the miraculous “milk powder.” They, like many women today, believed this powder combined with faithful prayer would bless them with a baby.

I like writing these types of feel-good stories, since often the news coming out of this region is mainly of bloodshed and an increasing struggle.

What I had not been prepared for was how this article would personally touch so many Catholic News Service readers. My editors in Washington received a slew of inquiries about how to obtain the milk powder, asking why no contact details had been posted.

The answer is simple: The milk powder can be obtained only in person. Franciscan Brother Lawrence, who oversees the shrine for the Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land, realized early on that if the milk powder were to be available through mail order or via the Internet, he would be inundated with requests impossible to fill.

I knew that for most of the women who contacted CNS, coming to Bethlehem was out of the question. But many women with strong faith believed in the power of the milk powder combined with the intercession of Mary.

Brother Lawrence was not surprised to see me again about a month ago when I came to buy packets of the powder for the women.

Just this morning one of the women e-mailed me to let me know she had received the packet I sent her. All of the women’s gratitude upon receiving the powder was quite overwhelming for me. I had never imagined the impact the article would have, or the role I could play in boosting these women’s hopes.

PHOTO: Local resident Hilda Berkley prays near a painting of Mary breast-feeding the infant Jesus at the Milk Grotto chapel in Bethlehem, West Bank, Dec. 5. (CNS/Debbie Hill)