[Jerusalem] Christmas is normally a time when the tiny Christian minority in the Holy Land shines.
Cities with Christian populations, including Jerusalem, Nazareth, and, of course, Bethlehem, are decked out with extravagant decorations and holiday markets. Scouts playing drums and bagpipes parade through the streets. Christmas tree lightings attract large crowds, including Muslims and Jews, who enjoy the glitzy holiday.
This year, however, there is no holiday spirit in the Holy Land.
Local patriarchs and heads of churches called on the Holy Land’s Christians to stand with the “thousands of innocent civilians” killed and displaced in the Israel-Hamas war. In their statement, the leaders urged Christians to avoid “unnecessarily festive activities,” “focus more on the spiritual meaning of Christmas,” and pray for “a just and lasting peace for our beloved Holy Land.”
We are appalled that this war is still going on in Gaza. We are horrified by the magnitude of destruction and death.
Rev. Munther Isaac, pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church, said most Palestinian Christians have relatives in Gaza where some two dozen Christians have been killed in the war—and they fear tragic news every time the phone rings.
The nativity set at the Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church in Bethlehem this year features baby Jesus in a pile of rubble, symbolic of the situation in Gaza. (Courtesy)
“We are in agreement (with the church leaders), but to be honest, no one is in a mood to celebrate anyway,” he told The Media Line. “Speaking now from Bethlehem, we are appalled that this war is still going on in Gaza. We are horrified by the magnitude of destruction and death, especially of children.”
This holiday season, Israel’s small Christian minority, which comprises 2% of the population in Israel and just 1% of Palestinians, faces a further threat to its already fragile position.
After this war, no Christians will be left. … I don’t want to turn the Nativity Church into a museum. My goal is to keep the Christians here in Bethlehem because this is the place where Christianity started.
“After this war, no Christians will be left,” Father Issa Thaljieh, the Greek Orthodox parish priest of Bethlehem’s Nativity Church, said in an interview with The Media Line.
Thaljieh said he is struggling to keep “the living stones” of the Christian community in Bethlehem, but “many people are emigrating, and some are waiting to finish high school until they go.”
“I don’t want to turn the Nativity Church into a museum,” he said. “My goal is to keep the Christians here in Bethlehem because this is the place where Christianity started.”
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Bethlehem’s tourism industry makes some 50% of its revenue during this month, but this year, even local Palestinian Christians will likely have trouble getting into the city. Currently, Thaljieh said, “Bethlehem is like a ghost area.”
More dire, this might be the last Christmas in Gaza, where a mere 1,000 of Gaza’s two million residents are Christian. Isaac said that many Gazans with dual citizenship have already left.
Isaac, whose church this year features a nativity scene of baby Jesus wrapped in a Palestinian headscarf, or keffiyeh, and lying amid the rubble, sees a parallel between Gazans today and Christ’s birth under Roman occupation: the killing of male babies under Herod’s orders and Jesus’ own family, who “became refugees themselves to, of all places, Egypt,” according to the gospels.
“We see in that our own story as Palestinians, and it provides us with a moment that we see God in solidarity with us,” he said.
David Parsons, vice president and spokesman for the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem—an Evangelical, pro-Israel organization—asserted that the Palestinian Authority traditionally uses the “Christmas spotlight” to promote “anti-Israel propaganda.”
Parsons said that some Christians have been threatened by Muslims for putting up decorations, and the decision to cancel Christmas in Bethlehem was initially made by the municipality. However, “over the weeks, there has been less incentive to celebrate,” he told The Media Line.
“This time, it’s a real subdued mood on both sides,” Parsons said. “There’s been a lot of death, a lot of tragedy. Even Hanukkah, it just wasn’t the same.”
He also noted the wave of pro-Palestinian protestors disrupting Christmas celebrations around the world.
“You can’t really separate what’s happening in the Holy Land,” he said.
David Pileggi, rector of the Anglican Christ Church in Jerusalem, addressed that as well.
“To be an antisemite, or to tolerate antisemitism, is not only a sin against Christmas, but it actually is a sin against Jesus himself,” Pileggi told The Media Line.
“We need to keep in mind the Jewishness of Jesus—not that he was Jewish, but he still maintains a Jewish identity.” Christmas, Pileggi added, has been “swept up in European Christmas customs, which overlays what is fundamentally a Jewish story.”
My message this year is hope, love, and peace from the heart of the world, Jerusalem
One local Christian who hasn’t canceled Christmas is Jerusalem Santa—known as Issa Kassissieh during the rest of the year—who is receiving visitors at his Old City home, which he transformed into a replica of the North Pole.
“My message this year is hope, love, and peace from the heart of the world, Jerusalem. If we have peace in Jerusalem, we will have peace all throughout the world,” Kassissieh told The Media Line.
Asked if he got pushback for opening this year, Kassissieh said his focus is on the children.
“Jerusalem and the Holy Land are not easy. As a Santa, it’s not an easy place because you have different religions, different governments, different nationalities,” he said. “And for me to give this message, it isn’t easy, but I do my best, and God helps me do all I can do for the children of the Holy Land.”
Many local Christians feel torn amid tragedy.
“We are so sad because we are not celebrating Christmas,” Jerusalemite Amy Rafidia told The Media Line. “We are all looking for peace because Jesus came for peace. We are looking for the government to open Bethlehem for us to go for prayers.”
Meanwhile, Isaac wants a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas for Christmas. He brought this request directly to US President Joe Biden at the White House earlier this month.
“It is shocking to us to see that many Christians are even against the cease-fire or that churches give general statements” about the war, he said. “We need strong, serious efforts. This war must stop. It is about eliminating life in Gaza. This is a genocide.”
In the Holy Land, Christmas is observed on Dec. 25 by Catholics and Protestants, on Jan. 7 by Orthodox Christians, and, only in Jerusalem, on Jan. 19 by Armenian Orthodox.