Bethlehem israel jesus birthplace pictures

This is the oldest complete church in the Christian world. Hostilities led to thousands of displaced Palestinians living in official refugee camps nearby. In Bethlehem came under the administration of the Palestinian Authority, though Israel retained control of entrances and exits.

During times of Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the city has seen many confrontations. The Mosque of Omar is a prominent landmark. Olive wood products in a Bethlehem souvenir shop Seetheholyland. About 2, years ago, they built a reservoir. The British artist Banksy opened the Walled Off hotel in Bethlehem next to the wall that encloses much of the town.

I was fascinated to discover that Bethlehem was made famous as a site of Christian pilgrimage, not by churchmen, but by a succession of Roman women. Tell us about St. Helena —and her architectural legacy. In her late teens, she was a barmaid somewhere near Isthmia or Smyrna.

She married a very ambitious Roman general, who had divorced his first wife, and they had a son, who became the emperor Constantine. At a great age, his mother became the most powerful woman in the empire and a very influential Christian. Christianity seemed to appeal to wealthy Roman women because many of them had built up large inherited fortunes, either through divorce or death. Christianity became a roundabout way in which they could have influence. Helena was one of these women, and the most powerful of them.

The church she built in Bethlehem is unlike any other. She picked the spot because the Roman bishop of Caesarea took her there, and the locals pointed out the spot that had, for the previous years, been where pilgrims had celebrated. She saw this little cave and this ceramic manger or trough where people worshipped Christ. She was celebrating a site that already existed. The church she built is unlike any other. She basically burrowed into the cave, opened up the top of it, put a roof on and built a rotunda with a balcony, so you could look down into the cave.

It was St. Helena who created the famous little town of Bethlehem. She put the place on the map as the center of pilgrimage. She was followed by other very wealthy Roman women, the most prominent among them being St. The Samaritans burnt it down in a revolt. Two churches following the same design also no longer exist. Bethlehem is today a hostage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. You had a frontline view when you worked with paramedics in Bethlehem during the intifada.

Tell us about that experience—and how it shaped your view of the conflict. In late , the violence between Israel and Palestine escalated. My mother-in-law, who was by then a widow, was living there. And the building opposite her house was blown up and the roof ripped off our house. Things got worse and worse. We were in the house as helicopters flew overhead, all very scared.

The Israeli army eventually moved into the old souk area and surrounded the Church of the Nativity. I was working with paramedics. There was an idea that ambulances would be able to drive around in the curfew if there were Europeans with them. By that point I felt very Palestinian. There was an attempt by militants to meet Israeli violence with violence but Palestinian cities got hammered. For ten years after the second intifada, in , tourism to Bethlehem struggled, although today the number of visitors has increased again.

To live through that, you feel you are living as one of the defeated. In , the Israelis took control of a pumping station near Kfar Etzion in the Bethlehem governorate, which later became the site of a settlement and today dispenses water to the Palestinians in the Hebron and Bethlehem area. Now there are 42 settlements surrounding the town. It is an open-air prison. Banksy arrived in about We were there over Christmas, and people started saying that an English graffiti artist was here.

Then I realized there were Banksy paintings springing up all over town. Palestinians have a great sense of humor.

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