August 14, 2003
Marthame was woken by the telephone ringing. It was one of our fellow students asking about the status of the Surda closure. She was in Ramallah with hundreds of Birzeit students who were milling around, unable to find taxis to school - apparently it's closed again today. We made a few phone calls to see what was happening, and apparently there was some kind of checkpoint, but people were able to walk through. Marthame checked on-line to see if there was some regional news which would shed light. The Israeli daily Ha'aretz's headline blared almost ironically: "Israel agrees to ease Palestinian daily conditions" Clearly.
Fr. Ra’ed welcomes us to the Latin Church of Taybeh, Palestine.
The ruins of Al-Khader Church, with telltale signs of a recent sacrificial lamb.
After taking our final exams, we gathered for a lunch with our fellow students and then piled into taxis. We had arranged for a tour of the nearby village of Taybeh, the only fully Christian village in the West Bank. After driving through about fifteen other villages (due to road closures and checkpoints), we arrived at the Latin Convent of Taybeh. Fr. Ra'ed, a native of Zababdeh, welcomed us. He told us about the history of the village (which was called Ephraim in the gospels and which welcomed Jesus and the disciples - it has been Christian since that time) before showing us to the "House of Parables." We have visited it before, but he has added to it such that it can illuminate the stories of the gospels more fully. This includes everything from the parable of the storehouses to the paralytic being lowered through the roof.
From there, it was off to visit the ruins of Al-Khader, a church which Constantine's mother Helena had built atop a mountain crest in the middle of the village. No longer a regular place of worship, it is still used by Christians of the village today to give their thanksgiving offerings of a lamb, the meat of which is given to poor families. It is probably one of the few cases of Christian animal sacrifice today, based on the Jewish Temple sacrifices. The pools of blood indicated that it in in practice within at least a few days.
The Taybeh Brewery in Taybeh, Palestine.
Enjoying some fresh Taybeh beer.
Our friend Maria met up with us and took us to the highlight of the tour for many - the Taybeh Beer Brewery. It is one of a handful of breweries in the Middle East, the only one in the Palestinian Territories. Since the outbreak of the Intifada, distribution is back down to almost zero - restaurants and liquor stores in Jerusalem, Ramallah, and Bethlehem being the only exceptions. There is no interest in Israel, and it costs too much to send to Jordan. Nevertheless, we enjoyed samples of fresh brew before headed back to Birzeit - rumors of Israeli presence in Ramallah turned out not to be true, and we spent our last night together at an Italian restaurant. In many ways, it's been a good summer.