(Nazareth) On the Christmas market in Nazareth, many Israeli Jews admire a huge Christmas tree and the many light decorations, a little taste of the exotic at a time when travel abroad is strongly discouraged, or even banned due to coronavirus.
The largest Arab city in Israel and the center of Christianity, Nazareth usually welcomes crowds of pilgrims at the approach of the end of the year celebrations who visit in particular the Basilica of the Annunciation where, according to Christian tradition, the Archangel Gabriel announced to Mary that she would give birth to Jesus.
But the Hebrew state promptly closed its borders to tourists in November to curb the circulation of the Omicron variant. At the same time, he banned citizens from going to around 50 countries.
“We are not traveling at the moment because of the coronavirus”, explains Roni Harari, while glancing fondly at his children who are enjoying a Belgian waffle on the Christmas market. “Here we feel a bit like being abroad! », Continues the psychologist from Haifa, another large city in the north.
For Aziz Banna, a tourist guide from Nazareth, “it’s not the Christmas we hope for”.
“But the atmosphere is great, a lot of Jewish Israelis are coming,” he says happily. “We are happy, even if there is no foreign tourism”.
Communication
PHOTO AHMAD GHARABLI, FRANCE-PRESS AGENCY
For Aziz Banna, a tourist guide from Nazareth, “it’s not the Christmas we hope for”. “But the atmosphere is great, a lot of Jewish Israelis are coming,” he says happily.
After being under the radar of Israeli tourism promoters for a long time, the city of Nazareth, which has 78,000 inhabitants – a majority of Muslims and a quarter of Christians – is at the heart of a promotional campaign, explains Sharon Ben Ari, director of the tourism at the town hall.
The municipality and the government have mainly invested in communication in the run-up to Christmas by publishing a guide of more than 100 pages in Hebrew and by launching a website aimed at Israeli Jews.
With 10,000 visitors a day and tourism receipts estimated at 50 million shekels (around $ 20 million), it’s a “particularly successful” Christmas, says Sharon Ben Ari, noting however that this would not nearly cover two years of losses due to the coronavirus.
Bassam Hakim, who in 2015 opened a luxury hotel in the house his family has owned for three generations, notes that Israeli Jews have always had an attraction for Christmas celebrations, but this year is special.
A week before Christmas weekend, six of its ten rooms were occupied, a blessing in times of a pandemic.
The only downside: local tourists “only come at weekends. We are unemployed the other five days, ”regrets the 36-year-old hotelier.
Log in
PHOTO AHMAD GHARABLI, FRANCE-PRESS AGENCY
With 10,000 visitors per day and tourism receipts estimated at 50 million shekels (about $ 20 million), it is a “particularly successful” Christmas, said Sharon Ben Ari, director of tourism at the town hall.
A stone’s throw from the old town, where pro-Palestinian graffiti reminds us that the local Arab-Israeli population is made up of the descendants of the Palestinians who remained on their land when Israel was created in 1948, his uncle Bishara Hakim also saw the influx of people. Israelis.
Guardian of the Greek Orthodox Church of the Annunciation, he estimates that 90% of visitors in December were Jewish and regrets that “the majority of them” do not “feel connected to the church”.
“They come, they visit, and they go,” he explains.
In the Baqees gallery, opened in 2020 to “promote and help Arab artists”, the painter Fatima Abou Roumi regrets that all these visitors do not pass the door of her shop, yet located next to the large Christmas tree where the crowd.
The festive atmosphere of the great city of Galilee contrasts with that of another beating heart of Christendom in the Holy Land, Bethlehem, a Palestinian city in the West Bank where we are once again preparing to celebrate Christmas in gloom.
The Hebrew state has occupied the West Bank since 1967 and controls all entrances. As a result, tourists banned from visiting Israel are also banned on the Palestinian side, and Bethlehem, the birthplace of Jesus according to Christian tradition, sees its hotels and shops deserted.
And with Israelis banned from visiting this Palestinian Authority-controlled sector of the West Bank, Bethlehem cannot claim the same boom as Nazareth.
Yet the Christmas story “begins in Nazareth and continues in Bethlehem,” notes Aziz Banna.