February 8, 2002

We both headed down to Jerusalem today, borrowing Abuna Aktham's car. Given the shooting at Hamra, we decided to take another route to Jerusalem. It was 'aadi.

The Roman Catholic bishop of Nazareth and the Greek Catholic (Melkite) bishop of Haifa.

Marthame left Elizabeth at a shoppers' paradise in Hadera (Ace Hardware! Supermarkets with cheddar cheese and oatmeal! Oh, yes!) while he went to Jerusalem to try and work with the Melkite Church's hierarchy. There is a man in Zababdeh who has studied to be a Melkite priest. His sewing sweatshop work has disappeared across the Jordanian border, but now there is a glimmer of hope: the Bishopric of Haifa wants to talk with him. However, he cannot get to Haifa without proper travel documents. Nor can he get to Jerusalem to pick up said travel documents, thus Marthame's role. The Bishopric of Jerusalem was willing to vouch for him, but because he's from Zababdeh, he falls under the Bishopric of Haifa - and the Bishop was unavailable today. Hopefully, this will all be resolved soon. The Melkite Church here has fallen into severe disrepair after sixteen years of neglect, though the community remains and worships among Zababdeh's other parishes on Sunday mornings.

The return trip was also 'aadi, though there were several brutal traffic jams. We had several theories: the usual Shabbat traffic, some kind of attack, an impromptu checkpoint, a traffic accident. Each time, it was one of the latter two - twice as many Israelis have died in car accidents than have been killed during the Intifada. We got back home without a hitch - not even the usually tedious Jenin checkpoint was problematic. 'aadi.