Make Hummus, Not Walls

The past couple weeks have proved to be quite the holiday season for the Jewish calendar. It started with the Jewish New Year celebration of Rosh Hashanah, continued with the day of atonement Yom Kippur, and finished with the weeklong agricultural thanksgiving celebration of Sukkot.

On the weekend of Rosh Hashanah, I took advantage of one of the best parts of volunteering in Tabgha. The organizations that stay at Beit Noah in Tabgha often invite us to visit their centers as a thank you, so the three of us who had worked with them most closely before made the trip to see them in Bethlehem. They welcomed us with open arms, giving us a tour of their wool-working shop and even inviting us to help them with making slippers and little woolen Nativity sets:

It was really great to see our friends again, especially the girl who had liked to push me in the pool for not speaking in Arabic. About twenty minutes after my forearms began to cramp, we were called out to the hallway to celebrate the birthday of one of the members. After cake and singing “Happy birthday you you” (they almost got the English right), everyone took a turn telling the birthday boy a personal birthday message. Good vibes.

Following our visit with the organization, the son of the owner gave us a tour of the city. We checked out the Church of the Nativity, which built on the site of Jesus’ birth. Calling it a church is not exactly true, since it’s really two churches next door to each other, one Greek Orthodox and one Catholic.

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The enormous crowd of tourists made it difficult to appreciate the importance of the site, but we did get to skip the crowds see the grotto under the altar in the Orthodox church after our friend asked the Palestinian guard to let us in the back door. I found it odd that people would wait hours for less than a minute down in a cave that doesn’t resemble a stable at the back of an inn at all, under a church that was built hundreds of years after Jesus’ birth. Still, the church is over a thousand years old with lots of interesting history, and it is a beautiful thing to see so many people gather to celebrate Jesus’ birth.

Once we finished at the church, we shifted gears to the present and crossed to the other side of town, where the intimidating cement wall that separates the West Bank from the rest of Israel resides. Coated from top to bottom with politicized pop culture references, small signs dictating stories of the hardships that the Palestinian people live, and even work by Banksy, it was really a sight to see. “Make Hummus, Not Walls” was a memorable tag-line from the wall, as well as references to Mario and Rick and Morty:

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The relationship between Israel and the West Bank/Palestine is quite difficult to understand even from inside the country, so it was important to me to pay the site a visit, since I live on the other side of the wall. I tended to hear more of the Israeli side of things back in the U.S., so I hope this is an interesting glimpse into the Palestinian side for all of you.

We took a bus to Jerusalem to finish out the weekend with a visit to the Temple Mount and the stunning Dome of the Rock with a friend of ours. Sadly, they didn’t let us enter the mosque, as they could somehow tell that some of us were not Muslim.

Before I finish this post, here’s a quick update on what’s new at the monastery in Tabgha. A few weeks ago, we spent several days picking olives. It might sound like a peaceful activity, but it was surprisingly violent, as the most effective harvesting method is to whack the living hell out of the tree with a broomstick.

We also spent last week hosting a pair of large groups of disabled people, one from the West Bank, and one from a town on the northwest side of Israel. This meeting of two cultures from within Israel is an awesome step towards dialogue and peace between two sides of the touchy conflict between Jews and Muslims, Hebrew and Arabic. The leaders of the two groups coordinated on meals, activities, and the building of a sukkah out of palm leaves to celebrate the Jewish holiday of Sukkot. It was really something special to observe and facilitate the growth of trust and friendship between the two groups, despite the language barrier and fears that they had had about each other before.

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Thanks for reading! I am having a wonderful time here and have already learned a lot about myself, the German language, and especially irrigation systems. I’ll try to post a little more from now on, Mom. 🙂 Take care, and God bless.