Bethlehem

I’m writing this from the Ben Gurion airport, where duty-free prices are in dollars, almost everyone speaks to me in English, and (except for a disproportionate number of seminary girls), it already feels like I’m not in Israel any more.

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Yesterday, my friend Yael and I went to Bethlehem. I’d been there when my dad visited a few weeks ago and wanted some more time to explore; Yael wanted a chance to visit Bethlehem before she makes aliyah (becomes an Israeli citizen) and is prohibited from entering Palestinian areas of the West Bank.

We took a Palestinian bus ten minutes south from my apartment, where we got off and walked through the checkpoint into Bethlehem. Immediately on the other side, it feels like another country—cab drivers accosted us and vendors shouted about their wares in Arabic. We stop to ask directions and are greeted with, “Welcome to Palestine.”

First, we walk along the separation/security/apartheid wall/fence/barrier (pick your choice of words, though here it was most definitely a concrete wall). The checkpoint where we entered Bethlehem is right next to Rachel (the matriarch)’s Tomb, a Jewish holy site, so the wall here makes an indented bubble into the city in order that Jews can visit the tomb and still be on the Israeli side. We walk along the Bethlehem side, which is covered graffiti—some of it beautiful, some of it mundane, some of it profound and moving. One restaurant directly across from the wall has taken advantage of its location by spraypainting its menu on the wall. I observe how that the wall goes right up against Palestinian homes, but not against the Israeli settlements we see in the distance. A man driving by with his daughter sees us photographing the wall, and asks us what we think of it and where we’re from. He responds, “I’m from here, from Bethlehem. We are caged; they caged us with this wall.”

We made our way to the Old City of Bethlehem, next to the Church of the Nativity, where we wandered around for a bit before entering the church. We pushed our way into the hot and crowded underground grotto where Jesus was born in a manger. I am struck by the peaceful quiet inside the church—even in the crowded grotto, people are quiet and respectful of one another and of the space.

Back outside, we see several posters of militant-looking men holding guns. They remind me of the photographs I’ve heard that suicide bombers take (though I haven’t verified that this is actually done) before they go blow themselves up. We ask a few people about them—and are told that they are pictures of Bethlehem residents who were killed when Israeli troops entered Bethlehem. After they were killed, posters were put up of them looking militant to raise public opinion that they were martyrs who were fighting for the Palestinian people. I’m not sure what to think.

We take a cab back to the checkpoint, where this time we wait in line for probably a half an hour before being ushered through with our American passports. Back on the Israeli side, we decide to visit Rachel’s tomb. We're not allowed in on foot, but catch a tremp (hitchhike) with an ultra-orthodox couple. After passing through the gate, we drive for a few minutes on a road that is surrounded on both sides by concrete walls (no graffiti on this side); I feel incredibly uncomfortable. Inside the tomb building, Yael points out that women are praying facing the grave, despite the clear marker on the wall indicating the direction to Jerusalem. I decide to pray, and take out my siddur (prayerbook), but I stare at the words without reading them. I think about the concrete wall on either side of me and the people who live on the other side of it; about the women who seem (to me) to be praying directly to Rachel herself. The tradition tells us that Rachel is crying because her children (the Jews) have been expelled from Israel; I wonder if now she is crying because of how her children and their neighbors have failed to get along. This doesn’t feel like a place in which to pray. I stare blankly at my siddur again and then put it back in my bag.

Throughout the afternoon, Yael and I discussed how close Bethlehem is to Jerusalem (less than 2 miles, or about twice as far from my apartment as I am from Yael’s), and how far away it feels. A combination of factors—that there’s a concrete wall in between, that separate Arab buses go there, and that Israelis don’t and can’t visit there—set up a mental barrier in addition to the physical one that makes Bethlehem seem much further away than it really is.