Caitlin in Jerusalem: Bethlehem

Sorry, this is crummy writing, but I am just scrambling to write down experiences without any thought for style because there are so many great experiences and so little time to record them!

I went to Bethlehem with George after Ulpan class. George is a 21 year old kid from Ohio/Virginia/Texas (?), very quiet and nice. After class we stopped by his apartment to drop off our stuff and his roommates told me that it was his birthday! It was someone else’s birthday in our class too and George didn’t speak up at all! We went to Damascus Gate and took the Arab bus 21 to Bethlehem where we then got off and walked 15 minutes to the Church of the Nativity. George speaks Arabic fluently too, which was extremely helpful because we really had no idea where we were going. We found a falafel shop that sold falafels for 4 shekels, an incredible deal, and George had his first falafel in Israel. I started taking a video and the guy working started yelling at me and I got scared and shut off the video camera. It turns out that he just wanted to know if we were going to post it on youtube because he wanted to be on youtube, haha. We continued on to the church and as we stood outside of it, George pulled out a long black robe from his bag. I asked him, “what is that?” and he said, “well, I am actually a lower level clergy for the Greek Orthodox church”. What!!! Haha, coolest thing ever. He put on his long black robe (called a cassock), and we entered. It also turns out that the Church of the Nativity was a Greek Orthodox church so George was able to tell me all about the things inside the church and Orthodox beliefs. So freaking cool. We talked about icons and how they act as symbols to help us picture who we are worshipping and we kiss them just as we would kiss a picture of someone we love who is far away. He told me about the liturgy and the two alternating choirs in Orthodox churches, and the lampada that represent prayers ascending to heaven. We talked briefly about differences in beliefs, that the Orthodox believe in a continuous line of authority and they can trace their authority back to the apostles, and the Orthodox church is run by a council system, with one kind of head patriarch. The break between the Catholics and the Orthodox was because the Catholics tried to make the one head patriarch infallible (the Pope). The Orthodox believe the Catholic church is in heresy.

When we got to the spot of Jesus’s birth, George made the sign of the cross several times and bowed down and kissed the ground in front of it. I asked him later if he believed that the sites like Church of the Holy Sepulcher were accurate and if it mattered to him. He said yes, he believed them to be the true sites because they date so far back, and he said it in kind of a matter of fact way, as if it was “well of course those are the real sites”. He told me that he was “set apart” as a subdeacon when he was 16 and he will be a subdeacon for life. He thought he was too young, but he wasn’t ordained, so he could marry and do other things. It was a type of lower clergy. He also talked about how the church was set up like the ancient temples with a curtain and a sort of holy of holies (where the sacrament was prepared), and how church design was patterned after heavenly worship. I of course could say very little about our beliefs because we are in Israel (oh curse this rule sometimes!). It was very interesting though and I thought it incredible to have my friend be Orthodox clergy and share the experience of the Church of the Nativity with him. I later told him a mormon joke pickup line about holding the priesthood, and he didn’t think it very funny, haha. Bummer. I suppose Orthodox humor and Mormon humor is a little bit different.

We then tried to go to Shepherd’s field (George talked to a police man to help us not get ripped off by the taxi driver) and for 15 shekels we got there to find out that it closes at 5.30, right when we arrived. The dumb taxi driver would have known this.. But we talked to the olive wood store owner Linda, and then took a taxi back. We then went to a restaurant and ordered Kanefe, a sweet cheesy honey Arab treat, and I tried really hard to get the restaurant workers to sing to him, which embarrassed him a lot. They didn’t sing, but came and shook his hand, and thought I was really funny. George told me as we walked out that they loved me and were calling me all sorts of pet names. I really do love Palestinian culture, they are so much more open and friendly and loving and generous than the Israelis, although I love them too.