Bethlehem
“O little town of Bethlehem, you are not just an important Judean village, for a governor, shall rise from you to rule my people Israel.
Bethlehem was not exactly on my list of places to see. But after walking four days in the old city of Jerusalem I was tired and when a friend suggested a visit to “ the birthplace of Christ” I said yes.
From Damascus gate in Jerusalem there is a mini bus service to Bethlehem. Like any mini bus service, it waits to fill. But today being sabbath it fills quickly: For the next twenty minutes we drive through fertile terraces and valleys of olives and grapes. Then someone said checkpoint and we got off in Bet Jala at the edge of Bethlehem. From here there is a taxi service that takes you to the city. On the way the driver keeps up chatter about the spots of tourist interest, but when I point to the fortress like walls in the distance he falls silent. Five minutes later we are in manger square, the center of attraction in Jerusalem.
The church of nativity is the birthplace of Jesus Christ. It was built in the 4th century by Queen Helena, the mother of the Roman emperor Constantine, when she visited the holy land in her search for Christian sites. Later it was enlarged and restored by the emperor Justinian in the 6th century, and still later, modified by the crusaders.
The church looks as old as history records it to be. Plaster has peeled of its facades; a large scaffolding at the entrance hides crumbling masonry and suggests major repair. Inside it isn’t any better. There is a musty smell in the nave and great ‘trampolines’ of cobwebs hang from the corners. This run -down look is completed by the lamps above the altar which look as though they haven’t been wiped since they were installed.
The altar stands above the grotto of nativity which is the place of Jesus’ birth. It is reached by a flight of stairs. Inside is a small room, where a fourteen pointed silver star embedded in white marble marked the exact spot of Jesus birth. The star bears an inscription: ‘Hic de virgine maria jesus christus est.’ Here Jesus was born to the Virgin Mary. Behind the marble a doll of Jesus reposes on a bed of straw.
A sight seeing trip of Jerusalem as the birthplace of Christ is ’ is complete only when you visit, the milk grotto church close to the church of nativity. Here in one version of the story of the origin of the church, the holy family is supposed to have hid from Herod’s persecution. In another version, they made a hurried stop here during the flight to Egypt. Either way, in their haste, Mary let a drop of milk fall from her breast, while nursing the baby Jesus, so turning the rock from red to chalky white.
The interior was dominated by a golden statuette of the Virgin Mary. Next to it to one corner was the rock itself. It was a large black lump which was heavily chipped to one corner. I went closer, to take a look. Small flakes had been broken off, leaving a white patch the size of a bowl, to one corner. From the seventh century women pilgrims had been chipping tiny pieces and taking it home. A notice next to the rock explained why.
‘Take a small flake and grind it to a fine powder, then add some water to it to make a milky solution.’ — It was a recipe for infertility.
I sat down on one of the pews and started jotting these lines into my notebook when a voice from a corner, said
You can read about this church in the notices on the wall, it is written in all languages. It was the priest of the grotto. He pointed to a notice on the wall behind me, on which were a number of thank you notes and letters. Most of them were from women who had miraculously conceived after drinking the mixture.
One from an Ecuadorian woman, who seemed to have had a particularly strong dose, made interesting reading. . ‘Praise the lord, she wrote within weeks of my drinking the milk of the rock I felt a stirring in my womb. The lord is miraculous in his ways——. I have got three beautiful children after visiting this chapel.’
Back on milk grotto street a salesman had tempted me on the way up, by offering “an excellent view of Bethlehem “ from the roof of his factory. I knew there was a catch to this but couldn’t resist. I went into his shop, bought a wall plaque and then asked about the view. A minute later I was on the roof, looking at the town spread below me in a jumble of spires domes, and churches
Close by was the bell -tower of the church of nativity. Next to this were Catherine’s church and the Armenian monastery. Further away I could see the spires of the Syrian orthodox and Lutheran churches. Manger square itself was in the centre, a large parking lot ringed by streets with Christian names, St Paul VI street, King David street, Milk Grotto street, Manger street.
I had been in Bethlehem for four hours now and seen only the Christian spots. Bethlehem however (as my guidebook pointed out) was mainly Palestinian. Most of them had come here during the influx in 1948 and together with their descendants they formed 60% of the town’s population. It was to see them that I was now walking to the northern edge of manger square. From here the streets rose steeply away and looped through a bazaar lined with food stalls and shops selling kitchen utensils and mattresses. Outside the utensil stalls, young Palestinian women stood, bargaining over prices. As I stood at the entrance writing my notes one of them brushed me, leaving a whiff of Attar and roses. Old Palestinian men, in their Thobas shuffled by greeting fellows as they passed. ‘Asalaam aaleykum, then a shuffle, then Asalaam Aaleykum again’
In the food stalls, Shawarma was being trimmed in readiness for lunch. Arab men, sat at small trestle tables on the sidewalk, sipping mint tea. At the corner of the street, a young boy was, selling sticky confection out of a large plate. The street then dissolved into steps leading towards the main thoroughfare. At the end of it, was a taxi rank, with a row of battered Mercedes Benz taxis. One of the owners spotted me and the next thing I knew was I was being driven to “checkpoint”, the place from where I could get a bus back to Jerusalem. The driver stopped in front of a massive concrete wall .It was the same wall I had seen from the taxi on the way into Bethlehem: Tall grey slabs of concrete bolted to each other in a line that followed the contour of the valley.
From where I was standing there didn’t seem to be a break. I looked at my driver puzzled.
Where do we get the bus?
He pointed to the corner and whispered ‘gate.’
‘I remember the next few minutes clearly and wrote them in my diary. I am walking through a long steel tunnel. Heavily armed Israeli guards in ray ban glasses are checking passports, a pregnant Palestinian woman is being frisked .The guard tells her to remove her shoes. She struggles to bend, and winces— this is very sad. ‘
The wall, I read later, had been built recently by the Israelis, to cordon off the Palestinians in the west bank. .They had, so to speak, carved out a pocket in their own country, into to which they had cooped the Palestinians. This in turn had created a haven from where the Palestinians regularly sent suicide bombers, to trouble the Israelis in Jerusalem. I understood now why the taxi driver had been silent on the way in, when I had asked him about the walls: he was Palestinian, any talk could be dangerous.
Later that evening as I sat in my hotel garden, looking through my notes, I thought of what I had seen at the church of nativity, and tried to imagine the peaceful scenes of the baby in a manger. But the image that kept flashing before me was of the woman at the checkpoint, and the expression of pain on her face.
It was my last impression of Bethlehem and it was disturbing.
I wrote in my notebook: Bethlehem is the birthplace of Christ. But 2000 Years after his death, the place desperately needs another messiah.
