In Bethlehem, a bond is born
Visiting group sees two sides of wall
The lyrics about the little town of Bethlehem, so closely associated with the Christmas season, ring with irony for a group of Cambridge citizens who recently visited the Middle East.
The 15-member delegation, called the Cambridge-Bethlehem People-to-People project, set out to gather stories of the city's residents, and investigate how the separation barrier that Israel has built around and through the city has affected life in the region.
Among their conclusions: The barrier has devastated the local economy and, as described in the familiar carol, Bethlehem does indeed lie still.
For many in the delegation - which included six Jewish members as well as two of Palestinian descent - the events and scenes they witnessed during the visit late last month remain emotionally raw and often difficult to convey to friends and co-workers.
The effect on Bethlehem's economy is "impossible to appreciate," said delegation member Gail Epstein, "but it's helpful to imagine if there were a wall on all the bridges that go between Cambridge and Boston and suddenly you can't get into Boston."
Life in Cambridge, Arlington, and Watertown would grind to a halt, she said, adding, "It's kind of shocking for people to envision."
Omar Bandar, the group's youngest member at 29, said a co-worker's casual question about his trip triggered an unexpected "emotional convulsion" akin to shock or post-traumatic stress.
During his visit, Bandar met distant relatives, saw buildings that had been confiscated from his grandfather, and returned to the place where his father's home once stood. Bandar's father left Palestine in 1948 and returned for the first time as a member of the Cambridge-Bethlehem delegation.
The younger Bandar's name and appearance made him an object of constant scrutiny during the group's visit. Airport personnel interrogated him for 1 1/2 hours upon his arrival. His Palestinian Christian relatives advised him to immediately change his name to avoid further difficulties. And he was asked by a delegation member to sit at the back of the group's bus to avoid attention at security checkpoints.
Delegation members emphasized that their goal was to bring back the stories of people living in the region. Cathy Hoffman, director of the Cambridge Peace Commission, said the project is "a way of building relatioinships built on humanized and useful exchanges with Palestinians."
Nancy Kaufman, executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston, echoed the importance of hearing individuals' stories. But she said the barrier has been instrumental in decreasing violence.
"The fence is not very pretty. I've seen it. But it's a temporary measure to save lives," said Kaufman. "The pure fact of the matter is that there were hundreds of suicide bombings" before construction began in 1997, "and now there aren't any."
As a Jewish member of the delegation and as someone who had escaped from the Nazis in Vienna, Eva Moseley, 76, said the trip left her with "complicated feelings about the Holocaust," because "on top of the usual outrage and horror at what it was, I feel another layer of outrage at the way it is used to punish the Palestinians, who had nothing to do with it."
Epstein said she would be digesting the experience the rest of her life and noted the significance of Bethlehem past and present.
"It's striking to think about people being so interested in what happened there 2007 years ago," she said, "but not that interested in what's happening there now." 