Bethlehem was built specifically to sit on top of the aquifer and be the defensive military installation guarding the whole infrastructure.
About 2, years ago, they built a reservoir. In her late teens, she was a barmaid somewhere near Isthmia or Smyrna.
She married a very ambitious Roman general, who had divorced his first wife, and they had a son, who became the emperor Constantine. At a great age, his mother became the most powerful woman in the empire and a very influential Christian.
Christianity seemed to appeal to wealthy Roman women because many of them had built up large inherited fortunes, either through divorce or death. Christianity became a roundabout way in which they could have influence. Helena was one of these women, and the most powerful of them. The church she built in Bethlehem is unlike any other. She picked the spot because the Roman bishop of Caesarea took her there, and the locals pointed out the spot that had, for the previous years, been where pilgrims had celebrated.
She saw this little cave and this ceramic manger or trough where people worshipped Christ. She was celebrating a site that already existed. The church she built is unlike any other. She basically burrowed into the cave, opened up the top of it, put a roof on and built a rotunda with a balcony, so you could look down into the cave. It was St. Helena who created the famous little town of Bethlehem.
She put the place on the map as the center of pilgrimage. She was followed by other very wealthy Roman women, the most prominent among them being St. The Samaritans burnt it down in a revolt. Two churches following the same design also no longer exist.
In late , the violence between Israel and Palestine escalated. My mother-in-law, who was by then a widow, was living there. And the building opposite her house was blown up and the roof ripped off our house.
Things got worse and worse. We were in the house as helicopters flew overhead, all very scared. The Israeli army eventually moved into the old souk area and surrounded the Church of the Nativity. I was working with paramedics. There was an idea that ambulances would be able to drive around in the curfew if there were Europeans with them. By that point I felt very Palestinian. There was an attempt by militants to meet Israeli violence with violence but Palestinian cities got hammered.
For ten years after the second intifada, in , tourism to Bethlehem struggled, although today the number of visitors has increased again. To live through that, you feel you are living as one of the defeated. In , the Israelis took control of a pumping station near Kfar Etzion in the Bethlehem governorate, which later became the site of a settlement and today dispenses water to the Palestinians in the Hebron and Bethlehem area.
Now there are 42 settlements surrounding the town. It is an open-air prison. Banksy arrived in about Tyre, called by the Turks Sour, is about twenty miles to the South of Sidon. It was once very famous for its purple, called the Tyrian dye, produced from a shell-fish. This city was, in ancient times, the centre of an immense commerce and navigation; and the nurse of arts and sciences. The ancient city stood, originally, on an island, joined to the mainland by a mole; the remains of which appear at present.
It has two harbours; that on the north side is very good, but the other is choaked up with ruins. The present inhabitants are only a few poor fishermen, who live in vaults and caves. This city was divided into two parts by a little hill, whereon was erected a temple dedicated to Cesar. Jericho is situated in a large plain about twenty miles long, and ten broad, bounded by different mountains on the southwest, west, and north; at present it is inhabited by a few miserable Arabs.
The Mount of Forty Days is situated on the North side of the plain of Jericho: the summit of it is covered neither with shrubs, trees, nor earth; it consists of a solid mass of white marble: it is very difficult and dangerous to ascend, the path leading, by a winding course, between two dismal abysses.
This mountain is one of the highest on the province, and one of its most sacred places. It takes its name from the rigorous fast which Christ observed here. This mountain overlooks the mountains of Arabia, the country of Gilead, the country of the Ammonites, the plains of Moab, the plains of Jericho, the river Jordan, and the whole extent of the Dead Sea. Opposite to Jericho, beyond Jordan, rises the mountain of Nebo.
Mount Carmel, on the south side of the bay of Acre, projects, at one part, into the sea, forming a great promontory, called, the point of Carmel. There are a number of grottos, gardens, and convents, on this mount; as also many cisterns for receiving the rain water. On this mountain was a fortress, called Ecbatane. Mount Tabor is most delightfully situated, rising amidst the plains of Galilee, distant about twelve miles from the city of Tiberias; it is distinguished by different names, as Itabyrion, Taburium.
And by the Arabs Gibel-el-Tor. It is in appearance, like a sugar loaf and is covered from the top to the bottom, with small trees. The present masters exercise their unlimited and tyrannical authority over their slaves, in Palestine, keeping the miserable inhabitants in the utmost subjection; governing them by Caliphs and Bashas, with rods of iron; and holding them in the most deplorable ignorance and superstition. Nazareth is now a small village, on the top of a high hill.
Tuition and Aid. Request Information. Visit Campus. Apply Now. See Also. Archie W. The Walled Off also hosts a gallery of local artists , runs a museum dedicated to the history of the wall and conducts twice-daily tours of the nearby Aida Palestinian refugee camp. Its profits go to local projects. We can live out of nothing, make out of nothing.
Now it looks like Havana. That is the power of art — not just beauty, but also strength. It cuts to your humanity, to our shared humanity. No thanks! In all these cases, Bethlehemites have rewritten their narrative by reappropriating and reclaiming their uncertain, uneasy lives. Surveillance cameras mounted like hunting trophies line the lobby of The Walled Off hotel Richard Morgan. The driving principle of this renaissance is sumud, a Palestinian concept of solidarity by way of proud, persevering existence.
Sumud is the recent dramatic facelift given to Star Street , the pilgrimage path of Mary and Joseph as they searched for room at an inn, which has given the centuries-old street new life and relevance, including a spate of new festivals. In the annals of non-violent protest, Gandhi famously urged people to be the change they wanted to see in the world. Sumud, by contrast, is about changing the world just by being seen.
Political artwork decks the walls at The Singer Cafe, a crossroads of artists, activists and tourists Richard Morgan. This kind of counterintuitive renaissance is surprisingly commonplace where people feel their human rights are under intense restrictions. At Melinka, a former Chilean prison camp, prisoners ran a weekly circus. There is indeed a circus at the Aida refugee camp, but Bethlehem also has a formal arts college, Dar al-Kalima University, which debuted in as a community college and was inaugurated as a university in
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