Nazareth

A resurrection in Nazareth

jdewyze2 Comments

One thing I have to say about the Promised Land (or the Holy Land or Palestine, or whatever you call the area we just explored): story-telling matters there. The stories about the events involving Abraham and his descendants, Christ and his followers, and Mohammed spread so widely and so inspired their audiences that they altered the course of human history. They’re still shaping it. Steve and I acquired a bunch of our own (humble) stories in the course of the trip, but my favorite, the one I’ll wrap up with, is unfolding in Nazareth.

I wasn’t even sure we should go there. It has an important church, commemorating the Angel Gabriel’s announcement to Mary that the young woman soon would be giving birth to a Very Important Baby (while still remaining virginal.) But I’d read comments from travelers who were unimpressed with the city. On the other hand, I was intrigued by the fact that Nazareth is the most important center for the relative handful of Palestinians who didn’t flee their homes because they were afraid of getting massacred (back in 1948) and eventually became Israeli citizens with full rights. About 85,000 Palestinian Israelis today live in Nazareth. Roughly 30% are Christians (Greek Orthodox and other flavors), while the other 70% are Muslims.

I also read about an intriguing guesthouse when I was researching where to stay. Deep within the Old City, the Fauzi Azar Inn was once an elegant private home. I splurged and booked us one night there. (At $132, including breakfast, it was our most expensive lodging of the trip.) Although it’s a bit tricky to find, we reached it without too much stress, and when we opened the low metal door and ducked into the beautiful stone courtyard, we felt we had made the right choice.

Our room was large and comfortable too, so the announcement that there would be a free tour of the Old City at 9:30 the next morning seemed almost gratuitous. But we had no better plan for scoping out the place. Steve and I showed up at the appointed time in the lobby, where an attractive woman in her early 40s greeted us. Suraida Shomar Nasser explained that she was one of the great-granddaughters of Fauzi Azar, the Palestinian Christian who built the mansion in 1830.


Suraida, standing, near a photo of her great-grandfather featured prominently on the wall
With the creation of Israel in 1948 and the outbreak of the war, most of Suraida’s relatives had sought refuge in Syria, but her grandparents remained. Although they gained Israeli citizenship, they lost their extensive agricultural holdings, refusing to take the token compensation offered for the properties, according to Suraida, because they didn’t ever want it said that they had given up their land voluntarily. The family’s woes were compounded in 1980, when an accidental fire started in the house. Her grandfather was alone that morning, and while he managed to save the manor’s three magnificent painted wooden cailings, in battling the blaze he was mortally burned. Her grandmother continued to live in the house until her death in 1989. By then the Old City was in steep decline, trashed by drug dealers, squatters, and transients. The family boarded up the mansion.

Suraida told us it came as a shock when, one day in 2005, a young Israeli Jew approached her. He was a hiker and backpacker, he said, and while traveling the world, he had noted the growing popularity of guesthouses. He thought Nazareth’s Old City could be a great place for one, and he’d heard that the lovely old Azar family home was unoccupied. He wondered if the family would be amenable to forming a partnership to renovate and open it to the public.

“Who sent you?” Suraida demanded. The Israeli secret service? The CIA? He denied this, but she pointed out the obvious. He was a Jew. She was a Palestinian. She didn’t hate him personally. But she could never, ever trust him.

Undeterred, he tracked down her mother, and chipped away at the older woman’s suspicion and distrust. Suraida describes being stupefied when her mother announced that she thought the family should work with him. “We have to rescue the house,” she said, “and this is the only way to do it.”

Suraida says she was still so appalled she refused even to visit the Inn when it first opened. (The young Jew had no money; instead he did the work to rehabilitate the building.) Months later, when Suraida finally made a call, the sight of strangers in her family’s home felt like an invasion. At the same time, she grudgingly acknowledged the transformation. In spite of herself, she had to admire it. In 2007 she began working as the inn’s manager. In the 8 years since, more sections of the house have been restored; today 13 guest rooms are available. The Jewish partner relentlessly pestered the city to begin collecting the trash that made the quarter look like a slum; today the streets are clean. Many storefronts are still shuttered, but more and more businesses have been moving back. Ten other guesthouses have opened within the past four years. “Today the Old City is flourishing,” Suraida declared.

Sections of the souq in Nazareth's Old City

It’s still vulnerable. We got some insight into just how fragile the renaissance is from Linda Hallel, the volunteer who leads the inn’s daily free tour (after Suraida recounts the history).

Linda Hallel

Born in Michigan, Hallel arrived in the Galillee six years ago and worked for some months as a guide on the Jesus Trail. But she’d fallen in love with the Inn and its principals and was willing to develop a non-political tour that would steer clear of conventional sights. Instead she wanted to give the inn’s guests a peek into the inner life of the community. It’s been a big success, but during the Gaza war last summer, tourism in Nazareth plunged so sharply almost all the staff was laid off. In addition to keeping up the tour-leading, Linda had worked for free as the Inn’s receptionist seven days a week for months. Now tourists finally were returning. The upturn in the Old City’s fortunes seemed evident as Hallel led us through the stone-lined passages for more than 2 hours. We spent time in the 100-plus-year-old spice shop that’s reputed to make the best zaa’atar (a Middle Eastern spice mix) in the world.


The fabulous El Babour Spice Shop operates out of a 250-year-old building.
We toured the cemetery and sipped tea in a cozy storefront. We visited a carpenter’s shop.
Carpenters in Nazareth work the old-fashioned way.
So do tailors.
Down the street from it, we sampled excellent falafel. At the end, Linda suggested that if we wanted to donate any money, she wouldn’t take it herself but would pass it on to the local orphanage where she also volunteers.

Throughout our stay in Israel, Steve and I spent a lot of time discussing the country’s future. There’s so much to be pessimistic about — the entrenched positions, the poisonous distrust, the burgeoning barriers. What we saw in Nazareth gave me a tiny sliver of hope. It reminded me that, once in a while, extraordinary people can develop visions of new ways to act. If their ideas became contagious, if they circulate far enough, things change.

 

 

Scenes of Wonder and Miracles

jdewyze5 Comments
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So here are our three favorite miracles from yesterday (April 29):

— The Church of the Wedding Feast in Cana: As Christian miracles go, I have to love the one described in John 2:1-2:9. Jesus and Mary are at a wedding party in Cana, and she whispers to him that the guests are itchy for some wine, but the hosts don’t have any. Jesus finds this annoying (his mom bugging him to do something he’s not ready to do, namely reveal his awesome power), but he gives in and miraculously changes 6 pots of water into wine. As wine lovers, Steve and I had to see the place in Cana to which the pilgrims flock. Off one of the main thoroughfares, we spotted Church Street, snagged a parking spot on the street and made our way up the narrow stone-lined street through which obvious bus-loads of pilgrims were tramping. The gift shops (with names like the Waterpots, The First Miracle, Cana Wedding Wine) also confirmed that we had found the right place. The entire Bible passage is also installed in the wall outside.

The church that was built and named after the miracle is a pretty little thing, as is the garden surrounding it, but the pilgrims don’t spend much time on either; they tromp down a set of stairs, to a basement room housing a huge stone urn.

In 1879, some folks unearthed some ancient stone jars, decided they were probably the miraculous urns from the BIble, and built the Franciscan church in response. When Steve later googled the church and the miracle, we read there’s controversy over this claim. But it obviously isn’t bothering the pilgrims. We arrived around 4 p.m. and must have seen 10 busloads pass through, bearing passengers from all over the globe: Japanese, Brits, Italians, Germans, Filipinos, and more.

— The Church of the Loaves and Fishes miracle

You find this one at Tabgha, on the Sea of Galilee shore, just up the road from Tiberius (where we stayed). Another beautiful little church has been built on the site where folks believe Jesus multiplied a handful of loaves and fishes to feed the crowd of 5000 that turned out to hear him preach. Again, the evidence (why THIS spot?) is probably shaky; we found no posted explanations. But the alter of the church is built over a cool looking rock on which he supposedly worked his magic. Once again, I have to love any miracle that focuses on successfully feeding an unexpected crowd.

–– The Ancient Boat

Though it’s an obvious stop on the Jesus Circuit around the Sea of Galilee, this astonishing site is only Jesus-related, rather than BIblically inspired. In 1986, a drought year when the lake was extremely low, two local kibbutznik fishermen found a fragment of wood and started digging in the muck. They soon realized it was the remains of a very old wooden boat. They called in experts, who quickly confirmed that it was VERY old, and a massively complicated rescue and restoration effort ensued. It took years but eventually succeeded, and tests eventually concluded that the 12 types of wood used to build and patch the boat dated back to the first century. In other words, this boat may well have been sailing on the lake when Jesus and his disciples were fishing on it. They could have passed it; even worked in it. Today the boat is housed in an ultra-modern facility that tells the story in a very thorough and sophisticated way. We walked away deeply impressed.

Now we’re in the Old City in Nazareth, where we spent the night in an old Arab mansion that’s been converted into a guesthouse. (Most of the folks who live in Nazareth today are Arab Israelis.) We’re planning to take a 2-3-hour walking tour of the city at 9:30, then drive through the West Bank (along the Jordan River) to Jerusalem. The only miracle that would surprise me is if it turns out to be boring.