by Connie DePond

In July, during the 220th General Assembly in Pittsburgh, I spent time selling crafts and needlework at the Pal Craftaid booth, which is always an interesting experience. This year, with all of the controversy surrounding the proposed divestment issue, many people sought out the booth. It was a great time to tell the Palestinian story.

We had a new sculpture to offer, a nativity.

It is the usual scene. But there is a wall between the wise men on camels attempting to enter the city of Bethlehem and the stable. The olive wood carving provoked even more conversation. It was an introduction to the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land and the difficulties created by the Separation Wall for Palestinians traveling virtually anywhere in the West Bank.

One comment startled me. A customer said: "I don't know if I would like that displayed in my home at Christmastime."

I spent some time meditating on that statement, wondering: Do we expect Christmas to be joy and delight only? Do we forget that the birth of the Savior in Bethlehem is followed by the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ? Should the suffering of present-day Christians not be remembered as part of our Christmas observations?

The Church of the Nativity sits behind the Wall, tucked in the heart of the ancient town of Bethlehem.

To visit the church, you have to wait in a line outside the barrier around Bethlehem to enter as a pilgrim or a tourist. You show Israeli soldiers your credentials and passport. You may be asked questions when you enter or leave the city. An American passport makes it easy.

The wise men on camels are separated from the stable and baby Jesus' family.

However, if you are Palestinian, this can be a time-consuming effort, even if you cross daily to go to Jerusalem to work. You must return to Bethlehem the same day as you leave. You may only re-enter through the same checkpoint you passed through in the morning. Clearing a checkpoint may take one hour, two hours, or, half a day. Because of the time delays, some workers would choose to leave on Sunday mornings and return Thursday night, staying with relatives or friends during the week. But that is not possible as the passes for entry cover only the day. So each morning is a test of whether they can get to work on time, and, doing so, may mean lining up as early as 3-4 a.m., knowing that passing may be delayed on the whim of a soldier.

So, as Christmas approaches, remember the realities of Bethlehem. Reflect on the lives of your sisters and brothers in Palestine. Pray for their freedom. Pray that justice comes soon. Pray that the Wall comes down peacefully and that wise men and shepherds may once again have free access to the stable.

YWCA Offers Job Training
for Refugee Camp Women

Fund-Raising Campaign Gets Under Way

by Alexa Smith

Mira Rizeq says that the difference between the work wrought by the Young Women's Christian Association of Palestine (YWCA) and work done by other agencies and non-governmental organizations is that the women themselves determine the priorities - giving women ownership of the process.

Right now, the YWCA is providing job skills training, and then, securing care for children while their mothers work, which is not the cultural norm for families. But after 40 years of occupation, it isn't so clear what normal is anymore.

"They need jobs. They need income. That's the most devastating thing," says Rizeq, referring to society-at-large, but, specifically to the refugee population in camps near Jericho and Ramallah. The YWCA was the first non-governmental organization that set to work with Palestinians displaced in the 1948 war, according to Rizeq, the national general secretary for the YWCA.

"Most of the households are poor and it is not easy to access urban centers," Rizeq says, noting that men once provided labor in the Israeli economy, but no more since the second Intifada erupted in the early 2000's and the Israeli borders were consequently closed to many former workers.

So, the YWCA's priorities are:

• Training women to improve household gardening in order to better feed families living on limited budgets.
• Providing courses in food processing so that women may work in the YWCA's facilities, or, operate home-based businesses through micro-credit loans.
• Educating women in traditional crafts to create marketable goods for sale locally and abroad.
• Helping working mothers by operating kindergartens in the refugee camps that offer creative teaching in a safe environment.

"It is safe space," Rizeq says, speaking of the facilities that are set up to enable women to have some stability in a political climate that is anything but stable.

Think military checkpoints. Armed soldiers. Unemployed husbands. Little political progress. A collapsed economy. "Women feel quite vulnerable," she says. "And the way they feel they can survive is to earn an income. It gives them a sense of security."

Pal Craftaid's major fund-raising campaign this year is focused on support for the YWCA refugee programs. Checks may be sent to Treasurer, Virginia Priest, 3520 North 30th St., Tacoma, WA 98407.

The Holy Family In Art 

Check Out Christmas Items 

by Alexa Smith

Pal Craftaid President Carol Hylkema and Ibrahim Giacaman.

Ibrahim Giacaman puts forward a new Holy Family design in dark-grained local olive wood nearly every year, one of his latest being the family nestled under a star (See www.palcraftaid.org, Nativities.). All of it is carved from one block of wood and drawn from his imagination.

He doesn't have to look far to think about nativities.

From the porch of his family's shop, Il Bambino in Bethlehem, you can see the Church of the Nativity, where tradition holds that Christ was born in a cave underneath the bascilica's ancient, stone walls. On Giacaman's store shelves are, literally, thousands of sculptures depicting that moment. With shepherds. Sheep. Wise men. Cattle. Angels. The mother. The baby. The man, Joseph, who scripture says, was told by an angelic messenger in a dream to care for the boy.

Today, he's talking about the most intimate portrait: The family itself.

"Always, always Joseph was with her in the cave," says Giacaman. "Mary gave birth in Bethlehem... in the manger, in the grotto. And the nativity is the symbol of Bethlehem."

But the depiction of the Holy Family itself has changed with time and with theological wrangling.

The earliest carvings of the nativity are found on tombs and in catacombs - and much of the emphasis is placed on the Wise Men, identical figures who convey the wider witness of this newborn child beyond the Jewish world. While the presence of the mother and child are givens, the depiction of Joseph changes both in its importance to the religious imagery and the narrative itself.

He's visible, but he is often older, scuttled to the side. At times, he looks disgruntled. Or, he may be making soup, or doing something extraneous to the unfolding drama around him.

Which, according to historian Robin Jensen of Vanderbilt University, is exactly the problem. Artists, theologians and other religious often found him to be extraneous since he's not the father of Jesus, and, is unrelated to the story of redemption, although he does lead the donkeys that carry Mary to Bethlehem, and, deliver the mother and baby to the safety of Egypt just before Herod begins murdering Bethlehem's baby boys to eliminate any risks to his throne.

"Very often in the earliest art, Mary is seated in a chair, holding the baby. There is somebody standing behind her chair, and, it appears to be the Holy Spirit," says Jensen, noting that, theologically, the Holy Spirit is the infant's actual father. "That's part of the complication." The elevated place of Mary in the early church - and especially in the late Medieval period - was undisputed both in doctrine and in popular piety.

It is in the 15th and 16th centuries, Jensen says, that Joseph re-appears, often as a younger, stalwart figure. And by the 17th Century, Joseph has an established place within the first Christian family, perhaps a response to Protestantism, balancing out the devotion to Mary, and, creating a domestic scene for Christian families to model.

Giacaman agrees that both carvings of the Holy Family and the Madonna and Child are classics for Catholic pilgrims, which is why he keeps developing new expressions of both. When his workload is down, he sits with a pencil, some paper, a single block of wood and his carving tools. Some days, he says, nothing comes to life in the wood.

But other days, it does. He's able to see something new in the grain, another facet of this story that is so distinctive to Bethlehem.

His latest sculptures are modern, with the family almost cuddled against one another, bound together by sweeping curves and graceful limbs. Seldom does he bother to carve a face, but rather, leaves it to the individual imagination to see the mother and father as sad, happy, worried, searching, all aspects of the journey of faith.

Like most faithful folks, he turns to the familiar story to see something fresh and alive. "Each time," he says, "I try to make something new."