Nazareth

Jesus of Nazareth.

We are all familiar with this man and what he did, but Nazareth, besides being an 80's rock band, what/where is it? According to the Gospel of Luke, Nazareth was the city where Joseph and Mary were living when the Angel Gabriel came and told them that she would have the Christ child. However, in the Gospel of Matthew Nazareth is where Mary and Joseph resettle after leaving their home in Bethlehem and running away to Egypt. And today, some modern day scholars debate its existence at all during the period of Jesus' life. What ever you personal beliefs may be, there is no denying the religious draw to this city. Pilgrims come year around to visit the more than 23 churches and monasteries this city holds.

Nazareth today is the largest city in the northern region of Israel, with a population of 65,000 people. The majority of them being Arab Israeli, with 31% of them being Christian and 69% percent being Muslim. For the most part these two religious groups get along, however, over the years their have been flare up in tension between them.

I knew I wanted to go to Nazareth while I was here. I mean I couldn't be this close and not go, that would be silly. So over the week of Thanksgiving myself and a couple fellow volunteers set out to do a day trip Nazareth. Nablus is 45 miles south of Nazareth, so in all reality it should only take someone an hour to get there. However, traveling in the West Bank is never that simple or straight forward. We knew we had to make it back to Nablus that same day so we decided to set out early because with the road block and check points you are never sure when you'll make it to your destination or if you will at all. So first we took a taxi to the city of Jenin which is halfway between us and Nazareth and very close to the Israeli/West Bank border. Once in Jenin we looked for a taxi to take us to Nazareth. We were unable to do so because as we found out taxi's are not allowed to cross the border. So instead we took a taxi to the boarder/check point where he dropped us. And thus began one of the most terrifying experiences I've had thus far.

The Israeli checkpoints look similar to prisons. The one pictured to the right isn't of the actual one I am talking about but of a different on that looks similar. They are built to control/monitor/prevent the movement of Palestinian people. There are more than 80 in the West Bank alone. Approaching the structure another volunteer and I decide to take some pictures. It is such a scary and horrible thing to see that we wanted to be able to show others so that they could get an idea of what is going on here. There are no signs that say you can't take pictures. There was a sign that showed a big gun and an x through but nothing about cameras. My friend took a picture without a problem. I tried but was having problems with my camera so no picture was actually taken. To enter this checkpoint, one by one you go through two metal revolving door type thing which ultimately leads you to this room where another a woman was sitting on another side of a wall from us. We couldn't get close to her window but had to stand several feet away as she shouted in her microphone for us to show her our passports. Familiar with the routine we all had our passports ready to present. The woman asked me about the picture I had taken. For some reason they had seen me, but not my friend. I was honest with her when she asked me about it. I said that I hadn't seen anything like this before and found it interesting and wanted to take a picture of it. And since there was no sign saying I couldn't I did. She yelled at me and said that there was in fact a sign. I told her I had seen the sign that said no guns but nothing about a camera and that I was sorry. Had I seen the no camera sign I wouldn't have taken the picture. She let us pass through another turn table kinda thing that she controlled. This led us into a room where you put your stuff to go through an x-ray machine to be scanned and a metal detector for us. We all went through no problems. However, they did make me, after my bag had already gone through, take my camera out and send it back through separately. At this point I became separated from my friends. After I collected all my stuff from being scanned I was led into another room by myself. This room had no window and two doors, the one I came in through and one in front of me. I tried to open the door in front of me but it was locked. I started to become nervous about what to do. Finally someone over the loud speaker yelled for me to go, followed by a loud buzz that indicated that the door was now unlocked. In the next room another loud voice told me to go and put my things in the next room and to come right back out. So in this room I went and left my bag and jacket. In the room I saw my friends stuff on the floor as well. Leaving that room I was led into another room where my friends were waiting. In this room we stood for probably 10-15 minutes waiting as I assume the soldiers went through our belongings.

I want to add that when I say I was led to this room or that, I wasn't actually led by some person. There is virtually no human interaction during this. The only time you hear someone is through a loud voice shouting at you over an intercom speaker or you see someone on the other side of the wall of which you are standing. You are led by the fact that they put you in a room and your only option when leaving is going to the one door that will become unlocked with the soldiers say so. It is much like cattle being led though the slaughter house.

We are told we can collect our stuff and went to leave but there was one more person to go through before we could make it to the other side. We give our passports to this woman in a toll booth looking room and we wait. She gives our passports to these men, nothing unusual. Next thing I know someone is asking, which one of you is the American. Being the only American it had to be me. So I was pulled away from others and was questioned for like 20 minutes. I kept telling myself what's the worst they can do to me. They can't physically hurt me like they can a Palestinian. But they can kick me out of the country. They can question me for as long as they want. And they can ban me from coming back into Israel for 5 years. I can't remember all the questions they asked, where are you coming from, how long have you been here, where did you spend the night, where did you come in this country, the questions went on and on. They even asked to look through all the pictures on my camera. I said of course but I wonder what would have happened had I said no. You could justify all the questions as necessary for security reasons however considering they x-ray all our stuff and then someone takes it into another room and goes through it again they know that we don't have anything on us. We are going to a holy city and there is nothing on us or about us that says that we are threat, except because we are coming from Palestine they can treat us this way.

So after 20 minutes of questions they let me go and called over my two friends, who were then questioned together and for not as long as myself. I wonder why I received the special treatment. So anyway, after the released my friends they took our passports for awhile and we were forced to just sit and wait. Finally someone came and gave them back to us and allowed up to pass through the checkpoint so that we could find a taxi to take us to Nazareth. In total we were at the checkpoint for close to an hour. The experience scared the crap out of me. My hands were shaking so bad during the questioning and even after wards. It was partly our own fault for not preparing for such a thing. A lot of us have had to be questioned at one point or another and we should have been more prepared for it. But it was my first time through it so I think that's why it was particularly nerve wracking. In some ways I'm glad it happened to me though because I've heard so much about how hard it is for Palestinians to move around, the terror and humiliation that they IDF put them through. These checkpoints make life here difficult if not impossible for them and now getting a bit of a taste of what they have to go through on a daily basis was probably a good thing.

Freedom. I was so happy to be on the other side of that checkpoint. Once on the other side we weren't really sure on how to continue on to Nazareth. There weren't any taxis outside waiting so we looked around for someone to ask. Thankfully was spotted someone who looked like they were waiting too and he informed us that were was a taxi waiting for more people to arrive before it left. With us there now we could all leave.