by Brian Shilhavy, Health Impact News:
I have not celebrated the Christian Christmas holiday for several years now. This year, not only am I not celebrating it, I can no longer return the “Merry Christmas” greeting to my well-meaning friends and family, because there is absolutely nothing “Merry” about Christmas this year, in 2023.
And I am not the only one not celebrating Christmas this year.
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Jesus in the Rubble. Image source.
In the city of Bethlehem, the historic birthplace of Jesus Christ, where every year millions of Christians worldwide visit to celebrate Christmas in Jesus’ birthplace, Christmas has been canceled.
The Palestinian Christians, many of whose families have lived in Bethlehem for over 2000 years since the birth of Jesus, cannot be “Merry” because hundreds of them have lost their children and loved ones in the Hamas Israeli war.
I’m a Christian Palestinian in Bethlehem. This Christmas, we feel alone and broken.
As a Palestinian Christian, canceling Christmas celebrations this year feels right.
Every year at Christmas time in Bethlehem, bright lights and colorful decorations adorn the streets and homes in the Christian areas of the city where Jesus was born. Christian communities light trees and people crowd Christmas markets, where their neighbors sell handmade gifts.
As Palestinians, we welcome tourists this time of year, and celebrate with them the re-birth of Jesus and the rebirth of hope. During Ramadan, we do the same. We fast together and then celebrate Eid holidays.
This year, Christmas is canceled. The lights are dark and there are no bustling Christmas markets. Bethlehem feels empty, and we feel broken.
Christian leaders here canceled the celebrations in solidarity with Gaza. We can’t celebrate until our friends and colleagues in Gaza, both Muslim and Christian, are safe and can celebrate Christmas with us.
This Christmas is different. Across the West Bank, we, as Palestinians feel alone as the world watches our brothers and sisters in Gaza face unimaginable suffering. Usually a time when Palestinians, Christian and Muslim, celebrate the birth of Jesus with tourists from all over the world, today we feel like the world is no longer with us. We feel alone in our suffering.
We worry our children in Bethlehem are next
As a humanitarian aid worker, my work has always given me hope during times of conflict and injustice, and a reason to work for the greater good and to serve the people in greatest need. Since the beginning of this recent violence in Gaza, and while responding to the unfolding humanitarian catastrophe there, that hope has felt very distant.
Instead, I feel a tightness in my chest. Trapped, insecure and without hope. I love my country and I love being a Palestinian. But it seems the longer we hold on to our country, the more we suffer.
We are angry, sad and afraid over what’s happening in Gaza.
For years I told my children that they are safe living in Bethlehem. Now they know I’ve been lying to them. They see the Israeli soldiers on their way to school and they watch the news. They see Palestinian children being killed and as much as I want to tell them this couldn’t happen to them, we worry that the West Bank is next, that our children are next.
Since the start of the relentless bombing of Gaza and the violence across the West Bank, my children cry at the sounds of nearby explosions. I hold them tight and tell them where to hide when we hear these sounds.
I think about how families in Gaza have lived with these sounds for more than two months.
As a Palestinian Christian, canceling Christmas celebrations this year feels right. We can’t celebrate while Palestinians in Gaza face so much suffering. (Full article.)
For those of you Americans who went to a Christian Church this year to celebrate Christmas, I am curious about something. Did your church and their leaders pray for the Christians suffering in Palestine right now, or did they pray for their oppressors, the Zionist Jews, and their “right” (where does this “right” come from??) to “defend themselves”?
The western Christmas holiday is first and foremost a marketing bonanza to promote commercialism and retail sales, like most holidays.
It is one of the religious holidays, designed to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. Western commercialism presents it as a “family friendly” positive holiday, with family traditions practiced for gathering together and exchanging gifts.
I was listening to a Christian radio station this morning, thinking it would all be music since all of the radio DJs were taking a few days off for Christmas.
But they played a short clip from a pastor, a very famous Zionist pastor, and in this clip which was probably from a sermon he preached in his church, he stated that the “red” on the clothing that Santa Claus wears is “red” to represent the “blood of Christ”, and that “Christmas Trees” represented the cross of Jesus Christ.
While this disgusted me, it did not surprise me, because American Christians need some way to rationalize participating in American commercialism and the spending of money at Christmas time.
Hollywood has produced many “feel good” films over the years to be played at Christmas time, to promote the “Christmas spirit.” It is also the time of year when Christmas music is played to contribute to this “Christmas spirit.”
Many Christians will celebrate by reading the biblical stories of Jesus’ birth as recorded in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke.
If you are gathering together with family and loved ones during this season, and enjoying this holiday, consider yourself blessed. There is nothing I am writing here that is intended to steal your joy during this season. By all means, enjoy it, while you can.
But the Christmas holiday season also brings much sadness, not only for Palestinian Christians, but also for many Americans who are separated from family and loved ones, including the multitude of parents in the U.S. who have lost their children to the corrupt child welfare system that routinely kidnaps children from loving families, often through medical kidnapping.
Others are separated from family because they stand for the Truth, and Jesus Christ, and have counted the cost of being a disciple of Jesus, which more often than not means losing the support of your biological family.
You will be betrayed even by parents, brothers, relatives and friends, and they will put some of you to death. All men will hate you because of me. (Words of Jesus recorded in Luke 21:16-17)
So if you find yourself this Christmas alone and separated from family, take heart, and be encouraged, because even Jesus was eventually rejected by his family, and even considered “insane,” because he spoke out against the tyrannical Jewish system of his day. See:
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