West Bank City’s Christian Residents Face Uncertain Future As Emigration Takes Toll

Bagpipers of Beit Sahour march and play in the West Bank town’s annual Christmas tree lighting event on Dec. 8. Photo by Gil Zohar.

BEIT SAHOUR, West Bank — Thousands of Christian residents of Beit Sahour — the traditional site in the West Bank of Shepherds Field to which the Magi followed the Christmas Star to greet the newborn Jesus — gathered Dec. 8 for a festive lighting of their town’s central Christmas tree.

Nearly every child over the age of 4 in the town of 15,000 marched in the raucous parade of bagpipe-, trombone- and drum-playing Boy and Girl Scouts that preceded the ceremony. Proud parents and grandparents cheered on their loved ones.

The celebration gave Beit Sahour’s Greek Orthodox residents — who constitute one-quarter of the beleaguered Christian community in the Palestinian territory — a reprieve from their existential crisis of emigration. Speaker after speaker told the media present about family members who have moved abroad, mostly to the United States, South America and Europe, leaving behind an ever-shrinking and aging community.

Most poignant were the words of Helen Jarayseh, who spoke about the 2014 kidnapping of her son Khaled. Held for 40 days by his Muslim business partner while the police did nothing to secure his release, she said, the traumatized man fled to Germany after he was finally let go.

Anecdotal accounts attest to the anti-Christian bias and Muslim cronyism that characterize the Palestinian Authority. The Beit Sahour-based owner of a marble and granite factory in the adjoining city of Bethlehem told ReligionUnplugged.com that after Israel withdrew in 2003, he sold $90,000 of stone floor tiles and countertops to a Muslim client. When the check bounced, the client taunted him to go complain to the police. Religion Unplugged is withholding his name to protect his safety.

Palestinian Authority tour guides whisper to their Israeli colleagues who have permission to work in PA-ruled Bethlehem that they wish Israel would return.

Compounding the Christians’ second-class status under the PA, they are also caught in the wider conflict between Muslim Palestinians and Israeli Jews. Jarayseh’s husband, Jamil, said that members of the Jarayseh clan — which since the 13th century has been divided between Beit Sahour and Nazareth, today in Israel — used to routinely attend each other’s weddings. Today the Israel Defense Forces’ military rule over the West Bank — euphemistically called the Civil Administration — rarely issues permits to travel to Galilee or Jerusalem, he said. As a senior citizen with a clean record with Israel’s General Security Service, Jamil may make the 150-kilometer (93.2-mile) long trip to Nazareth. Younger members of his family aren’t so fortunate.

Yasir Barham works in his olive wood handicrafts factory spraying crosses in Beit Sahour, governed by the Palestinian Authority. Photo by Gil Zohar.

Many of those interviewed for this article placed the blame for the continued emigration on what they called the Israeli occupation that resulted from the 1967 Six-Day War. Yasir Barham, who studied business administration and opened his souvenir and olive wood handicrafts factory in 2004, told ReligionUnplugged.com that Yasir Arafat, the former president of the Palestinian Authority, was “good for every Palestinian.” An image of Arafat is conspicuously displayed in his workshop.

While COVID-19 severely impacted tourism and its ancillary businesses, including hotels, restaurants and gift shops, Barham was adamant the “Israeli occupation” is the main problem facing Beit Sahour’s Christians today.

His factory uses laser computerized saws to cut out Christmas trinkets from panels of medium-density fiberboard and sells its products in shopping mall kiosks across the United States. The workshop is located across the street from the Greek Orthodox Shepherds Field site known as “Kaniset el-Ruat” (Church of the Shepherds). This site is identified with the biblical “Migdal Edar” (Tower of the Flock) where Jacob settled after his wife Rachel died in childbirth in Bethlehem. The ancient church historian Eusebius of the third century said the tower, 1,000 paces east of Bethlehem, marked the place where the shepherds received the angel’s message.

The Chapel of Angels in Beit Sahour. Photo by Gil Zohar.

The more popular Franciscan shrine 400 meters (1,312 feet) to the north — with its landmark Chapel of the Angels built in 1953 by Italian ecclesiastical architect Antonio Barluzzi — received 2 million visitors annually in pre-pandemic times. Both the Greek Orthodox and Roman Catholic sites were developed with donations from the faithful in Canada. The twin sites also mark where Ruth gleaned wheat in the fields of Boaz (Ruth 2:1-3).

Apart from the Greek and Catholic churches is the Protestant pine tree-filled Shepherds’ Field. Run by the YMCA, the site contains several large caves with remains of ancient pottery.

Hani al-Hayek, an accountant by profession who has served as Beit Sahour’s mayor since 2005, gave a wider perspective of the problems facing his city and its Greek Orthodox community. Interviewed outside the municipality building, he explained the first Christian emigrants left for Chile in 1890, when Beit Sahour was a backwater village in the Ottoman Empire. Today some 500,000 Palestinian Christians live in Santiago, where they benefit from greater economic opportunity. Their Palestino Sport Club was founded in 1916, one year before Britain issued the Balfour Declaration promising to support the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine. The rival Club Deportivo Palestino was founded in 1920. After several generations of assimilation, many proud members of the Palestinian diaspora no longer speak Arabic.

As a board member of the Palestinian-run Jerusalem District Electricity Company, al-Hayek has permission to travel to Israel, but the average Beit Sahour resident does not.

Asked if in 30 years any Christians will be left in Beit Sahour, the mayor shrugged and said, “I don’t know.”

Gil Zohar was born in Toronto, Canada and moved to Jerusalem, Israel in 1982. He is a journalist writing for The Jerusalem Post, Segula magazine, and other publications. He’s also a professional tour guide who likes to weave together the Holy Land’s multiple narratives.