AR Palestine 2022 Year End Event, Bethlehem
by Mohamad Jamous
December, 2022
This year as every year, we have prepared to bid farewell to one year and welcome a new one. In the Holy Land, in general, people say goodbye to the year by meeting and celebrating with family, friends, and relatives in homes or in public cafes. They celebrate the end of a year that was for them full of joy, sadness, challenges, many things that every Palestinian and Israeli individual has gone through.
For us in the Abrahamic Reunion, we celebrate the end of the year in a different way from the rest of the people. We focus on stories of success and changes made in building peace and we prepare for the start of another year to complete this building. We have given ourselves and years of our lives to this building, in order to create a better future for our families, spouses and children.
In Palestine, we in the Abrahamic Reunion celebrate the end of the year by gathering with each other in a small party in “the city of Jesus”, the city of Bethlehem. This event usually brings together Christians, Samaritans and Muslims at one table, to the sounds of Christmas music. It is an expression of our standing side by side promoting love, respect and tolerance among all religions and nationalities in Palestine and Israel, this building of peace that we have faced many difficult obstacles to build in the right way and to complete.
In early December, I was arranging and preparing for this beautiful occasion, which warms us all with the warmth of faith and love that unites Christians, Muslims and Samaritans.
I coordinated with the Canary Restaurant, the venue for the event, and invited clerics from different religions in Palestine, and many Muslim, Christian, and Samaritan families to share with us this beautiful day. In addition, I printed the Abrahamic Reunion’s banner congratulating the Palestinian people on the advent of Christmas and arranged for the band and dinner that would enhance this celebration.
On December twenty-second, the day scheduled for this beautiful occasion, I set off from the city of Ramallah, where I live, at exactly three o’clock in the afternoon, four hours before the start of the event, leaving enough time to anticipate road crises and the difficulties of the current situation in the region. I had decided to start early in order to prepare and decorate the hall, arrange the seats and tables, hang the banner and install the sound system in the place.
At exactly half past six in the evening, to the tune of Christmas music, the guests began to arrive, Muslim and Christian families from various Palestinian cities, Nablus, Jenin, Bethlehem, and Jericho, Hebron and Ramallah. Almost 100 people attended this beautiful event!
Apologies were sent by Father Issa Thaljieh, and the Mufti of Bethlehem Abd al-Majid Amarneh and some of the Samaritans and other personalities who could not attend, due to the occurrence of a tragedy in the city of Bethlehem. Most of the clergy had gone to attend the funeral of two young fraternal children on this day, who had died from a gas leak in one of the buildings in the city.
A few moments later, AR’s International Director, Sheikh Ghassan Manasra arrived with his family, as well as many invited leaders, including:
Professor Suleiman Suleiman who works at the Ministry of Education and Higher Education in the city of Bethlehem and holds a master’s degree in Israeli studies and non-violence. He has participated in many of the Abrahamic Reunion’s programs over the past 4 years.
Milad Vosgueritchian, a Palestinian resident of Al Eizariya, chairman of Vision Association for Culture and Arts and its House of Hope Vision School. An educator, community organizer, and NGO director with expertise in nurturing changemakers, in and out of the classroom, he inspires Palestinian youth to embrace empowered communication, builds bridges between estranged Jewish and Palestinian communities, and puts vocational training within reach for low-income Palestinian women. He is currently pursuing a master’s degree in Human Rights and Nonviolence in Lebanon. As a consultant for the Rossing Center for Education and Dialogue, Milad has worked extensively in empowered communication education for Palestinian youth.
Hanan Shaaban, a Palestinian Muslim peace activist who lives in the city of Nablus in the northern West Bank, is the mother of a family of 5 children. She has participated in many programs of the Abrahamic Reunion during the past five years.
Shaaban leads a group of Muslim women who believe in making peace in the Holy Land through their active participation in the Palestinian society and raising women’s voices loudly for peace.
The event started at 7:30 with my partner, Israeli Director, Abdel Salam Al-Manasra and I welcoming our distinguished guests and invitees. Sheikh Ghassan Manasra then welcomed the speakers, who in turn gave a warm welcome to all who attended this important occasion, especially in light of the harsh conditions that we suffer, in particular those coming from northern Palestinian cities, which are areas of violence in recent days.
Sheikh Ghassan spoke from the bottom of his heart thanking everyone who defied the difficult circumstances to come and attend this occasion in affirmation of their strong faith in loving the other and spreading peace on this earth. His beautiful words were greeted with warm applause by the participants.
Next, Professor Suleiman Suleiman was invited to speak. Suleiman stressed his commitment to participation in the events of the Abrahamic Reunion, whether by Zoom or on the ground, and affirmed the importance of incorporating an educational curriculum in AR’s programs, the further expansion of which has been an exciting development for AR this year.
Suleiman shared that from his point of view, the existence of an educational curriculum designed on an informed method of building peace is one of the best solutions to bring about a great change in our children and youth. This will educate youth of all parties and develop their culture on how to end the conflict and build toward peace. He concluded his speech by quoting Islamic hadiths and Quranic surahs that urge love and tolerance with the “other side”.
After Suleiman finished speaking, I invited a representative of the active youth voice in the community, Milad Vosgueritchian, to speak. He began by thanking all the guests of different religions for coming on this day and bringing happiness with them. Indeed, he said we were missing this family gathering after a long period of interruption and violence in the Holy Land. He felt our being together in this way would demonstrate to everyone that the Palestinian people are a people who love goodness and peace and are a tolerant and loving people. Vosgueritchian stressed the importance of the voice of youth in peace-building programs. This affords the youth an opportunity to impact change in a positive trend.
After Milad finished his speech, Hanan Shaaban from Nablus was invited to speak on behalf of Muslim women. It is worth noting that most of the wave of violence was in the city of Nablus recently, which witnessed many killings, vandalism and destruction.
Hanan shared that despite everything that has happened in her city, there is strong belief in the Abrahamic Reunion. She said that if they didn’t know firsthand of the successful changes AR has recently brought about and is still making, her contingent would not have come.
“We are a large group of Muslim women in Nablus. We have previously participated in many of the Abrahamic Reunion’s programs with Programs Director Muhammad Jamous. We saw and felt the success of these programs by bringing people together and seeing the deep love between all the participants of different faiths who had already participated in these programs.”
She continued, “Our presence today is an affirmation of the need for us to stand with each other as Muslim, Christian, and Samaritan women. And we thank the Abrahamic Reunion for what it has provided and what it is doing in order to build a better life for all the children and all parties.”
Next, we celebrated by listening to the beautiful Christmas songs and music from the band “Noubar” and danced together. Through the words and celebration, we forgot the pain, we forgot the suffering, and we forgot that we are in conflict! The smiles of the children, the dance of the participants, the beautiful words of the speakers, all made us feel at true peace!!
At around nine P.M., the restaurant staff served the meal. We all began to happily eat, Christians and Muslims mingled at one table filled with great, indescribable joy!!
The dinner included many types of delicious salads with a main dish of stuffed chicken thighs, in addition to soft drinks and water.
After dinner, I distributed baklava sweets to everyone, and congratulated them again on the arrival of Christmas and the end of 2022. This beautiful event had ended, and with it the story of a whole year, as we continue to hope, pray and work together so that 2023 will bring us peace, love and goodness in the Holy Land!
Mohamad Jamous is the Palestinian Director for the Abrahamic Reunion, living in Ramallah. Reach him at mohamad@abrahamicreunion.org
