Oh Little Ghetto of Bethlehem

Did you know that in Arabic Bethlehem translates into “house of meat?” Well that is about all the jokes you will get out of me concerning the West Bank.

I’m not going to lie, I was very nervous crossing the border into Israel. I had heard horror stories of it taking 8 hours for some people on our program to cross. It took us two, but it was so complicated.

First, we hired a taxi to take us close to the bridge. Then we switched taxis to go the Jordanian checkpoint. We paid our exit fees and got in a chartered bus that only can go across the King Hussein Bridge. On the other side, we had to get a special charter taxi that could take us right to Jerusalem. Like I said, complicated.

Basically, all of CIEE went to Jerusalem this weekend. In fact, there was only 1 non-CIEE person in the hostel we stayed at. I liked what I saw in Jerusalem’s Old City right away. It was an endless maze of cobbled streets and yelling vendors selling everything, much like the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul.

Old City is divided into quarters. The Jewish quarter, the Christian quarter, the Arab quarter and the Armenian quarter. Hebrew, Arabic and a surprising amount of English was spoken. Our very cramped hostel was located in the Arab quarter.

The first night was a night for exploring. We wandered along the deserted corridors of the Old City and eventually found our way to a happening little night life spot. There were lots of people. Lots of Bars. Lots of everything. A gaggle of us settled into a bar along the street.

I forgot how entertaining drunk people can be. This one random Israeli guy, clearly well over intoxicated, sat down and started chatting with us. He was pretty funny, just had started up his mandatory inscription for the Israeli army. He sleeps with his gun, he told us, so he can be “ready to kill all them Palestinians.”

Clearly, the atmosphere changed. We all went from laughing along with this guy to smiling uneasily. There is obvious tension is the area. 

The next morning we headed out to the West Bank, Bethlehem to be exact. We drove along a sterile, concrete wall, at least two stories high, barbed wire dotting the top, separating the Israelis and the Palestinians. We crossed into over and were greeted with things not associated with Bethlehem. It wasn’t a cute, picturesque town from Christmas postcards. There was no snow; there was no manger, no wisemen. Instead, there was a ghetto, littered with trash. A people oppressed.

We walked along the wall, in silence. No one told us to be quiet, but it was one of those places where it made sense. The wall stretched on, into the distance, cutting through neighborhoods, fields, dividing a land.

The walls were covered in graffiti. “Merry Christmas from the Bethlehem Ghetto” read one. “The oppressed become the oppressor,” read another. The one that hit me the most was “Only free men can negotiate.” These people aren’t free.

Not when to even cross into Israel they must wait in an ungodly long line, get harped at by a man sitting in a bulletproof room yelling at them through a microphone, slide their hands into a finger print scanner, and carry around a piece of paper on them at all times saying it is OK for them to leave. There is human interaction with the Israeli guards, they sit behind bulletproof glass too, simply staring at those on the other side .

All I had to do was flash my American passport.

I didn’t even have to take off my bags before going through a metal detector, yet these people are marked simply because they are there. Most Palestinians can never leave the West Bank, and Israelis wouldn’t dare go in. I can see why they are frustrated; I can see why they are angry. I just don’t understand why suddenly, like the graffiti read, the oppressed became the oppressor. It was truly one of the saddest and most moving mornings of my life.

Yes, I saw the Church of the Nativity, where Jesus was allegedly born, but nothing could get the image of the wall out of my head.

That afternoon we walked around Jerusalem. We went to the Church of the Sepulcher, the alleged spot of Jesus’ crucifixion. They had the tablet where he was washed. Many people were crying and kissing it. I think that was when I realized that Jerusalem isn’t as much for tourists as it is a pilgrimage site. There was a long line for this one room. So I waited. In it was what appeared to be a prayer altar. I didn’t know what I was looking at. I looked at the people in there with me. None of us knew. And we all started laughing. Blasphemy. But hilarious.

Next was the Wailing Wall, which is located on the site of the old temple and on the site of the Dome of the Rock (which I wasn’t allowed to go to). We hit up the wall right before Shabbat, so there were a lot of Jews getting ready, which was a very cool sight to see.

From there we went to the Garden of Gethsemane, where Jesus was betrayed by Judas, and the Mt. of Olives. Mt. of Olives provided an amazing view of Jerusalem. I could have sat there for hours staring at all the history, staring at, essentially, where everything began. I had seen the Holy Land. 

Photos