Nazareth’s fifth Liturgical Festival was held earlier than usual this
year, ten days before Christmas.
“The terrible events of October 7 and the tragic
events that came after have left us speechless,” said violinist Nabil Abboud Ashkar,
who founded the festival, in 2019, and Nazareth’s Polyphony Conservatory.
The three days of Christmas season concerts will
host musical guests from abroad, including soprano Nour Darwish, along with
local Arab and Jewish musicians, all performing at Nazareth’s Salesian Church
which is marking its centennial.
I invariably write something
about Christmas during the ‘festive season.’
Despite the harrowing events
of the war there is good reason to relate to Christmas, but in a different
context.
The war has triggered
widespread anti-Israel and antisemitic demonstrations.
Until quite recently, anti-Israel
protests were often regarded as politically motivated, simply, siding with the
Palestinian narrative. However, they rapidly morphed into unbridled
anti-Semitism.
At this juncture I want to
briefly mention the nineteenth century British caricaturist and illustrator
John Leech.
He was best known for his work for Punch, a
humorous magazine for a broad middle-class audience, combining verbal and
graphic political satire with light social comedy. Leech catered to
contemporary prejudices, such as anti-Americanism and antisemitism and
supported acceptable social reforms.
Leech also enjoys fame as the first illustrator of Charles Dickens' 1843 novella A Christmas Carol,
This begs the question- Who invented Christmas as we know it? Charles Dickens is given some credit for giving us Christmas in its more modern form, thanks to his classic novel- “A Christmas Carol.” Published in 1843, it became an instant bestseller, and changed people's view of Christmas, putting emphasis on kindness, being charitable and spending time with family. One of his first full-length- novels, Oliver Twist is devoted to the evils of the poor-law system, introduces a Jewish villain, Fagin a corrupter of youth and receiver of stolen goods. Apart from Shakespeare’s Shylock, Fagin is unquestionably the best-known Jewish figure depicted in the traditional canon of English literature. As for his Jewishness, Dickens claimed that "that class of criminal almost invariably was a Jew," but Fagin in fact lacks any recognisable Jewish traits. Dickens was challenged about his antisemitic prejudices, and in reply, claimed that he had always felt himself to be a friend of the Jews. As if to prove this, his last complete novel, Our Mutual Friend (1864–65), featured Mr. Riah, "the gentle Jew in whose race gratitude is deep." Jews appear in other novels that Dickens wrote. Dicken’s contradictory portrayal of Jews illustrates something of the ambiguity of the Jewish image in Victorian England, and also the deep contradictions in Dickens' own complex character. Nonetheless, the debate over Shakespeare’s Shylock continues unabated. Journalist Brandon Ambrosino wrote in an article for Smithsonian Magazine “Four hundred years later, scholars still debate whether Shakespeare’s ‘Merchant of Venice’ is antisemitic.”
Illustration from Merchant of Venice. corbis
Americans who complain about the modern-day commercialisation
of Christmas may be surprised to discover that dissatisfaction with the way the
holiday has been observed is by no means a new phenomenon. In 1659 the
Massachusetts General Court declared the celebration of Christmas to be a
criminal offense. What the Puritans were trying to suppress was a season of
excess rooted in the ancient agricultural cycle - rowdy public displays of
eating and drinking, mockery of established authority, aggressive begging, and
boisterous invasions of the homes of the wealthy. In his seminal work “The Battle for
Christmas”,
Stephen Nissenbaum shows how in the early nineteenth century, with the growth
of cities, these Christmas-season carnival revels became even more threatening
as they turned into gang violence and even riots. Attempting to get Christmas
out of the streets, a group of New Yorkers - Washington Irving among them - led
a movement to transform it into a new style of celebration that would take
place within the secure confines of the family circle, and be concerned
especially with the happiness of children. We learn how two classic texts
helped refashion the holiday: Clement Clarke Moore's "A Visit from St.
Nicholas" and Charles Dickens' “A Christmas Carol.” And we are shown the child-centred Christmas epitomised
by the family gatherings and gift-exchanges of the Sedgwick family in
nineteenth-century Massachusetts and New York.
As Israel's Christian citizens prepared to celebrate
Christmas on Sunday night and Monday, the Central Bureau of Statistics released
data pertaining to the country's
Christian community.
According to the CBS, around 187,900 Christians
live in Israel, composing 1.9% of the population. This represents a 1.3% growth
from the year before.
Three-quarters (75.3%) are Arab Christians. They
make up 6.9% of the total Arab population.
This increase
contrasts to
most countries in the Middle East where Christian populations are declining,
and there is "horrifying growth" of Christian persecution, according
to the organisation ‘Open
Doors,’ which puts out an annual "World
Watch List" of where Christians suffer very high or extreme levels of
persecution and discrimination for their faith.
A spokesman for Israel’s
finance ministry estimated that the ongoing war
with Hamas is expected to cost Israel around $13.8
billion in 2024, assuming that high-intensity
fighting in Gaza will come to an end in the first quarter of the new year.
Overall
budgetary spending for 2024 is expected to balloon to $155.44 billion from the $141.88 billion that was approved in
May. Meanwhile, government revenue, mainly tax income, is likely to fall short
of forecasts due to a slowdown in the economy during the war period.
The Finance Ministry expects the economy to grow at
a pace of 1.6% next year, slowing further from the 2% forecast for 2023, and
after fast growth of 6.5% in 2022. That’s amid expectations for a continued
slowdown in private consumption, real estate deals, and corporate earnings due
to the repercussions of the war.
Higher-than-planned expenditure and expectations for
lower government income will lead to a budget deficit of 5.9 percent of gross
domestic product in 2024, up from the planned ceiling of 2.25%, the Finance
Ministry estimated.
Bank of Israel Governor Amir Yaron has in recent
weeks urged lawmakers to make adjustments and cut expenses in the 2024 budget
that are not related to the war
effort or that do not promote growth, to balance rising war costs, while
maintaining fiscal responsibility.
The call for fiscal restraint comes as the central
bank is concerned that the government’s management of the higher security
spending burden could harm Israel’s standing in international markets and
negatively impact future decisions by credit rating agencies, which in turn
could lead to higher costs for raising debt.
Columnist Anshel Pfeffer wrote, “As
the year draws to a close, the IDF is well on its way to destroying Hamas’ military
capabilities in Gaza. Hamas’s rule of the coastal strip now extends to barely a
third of the territory and is being squeezed daily. Whether these key
objectives of the war - along with the release of nearly 130 hostages
still being held in Gaza - can be achieved remains to be seen in 2024.
But when the Hamas leaders in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Deif and Marwan
Issa the masterminds of the massacre finally meet their overdue deaths in the
new year and Hamas plays no part in the day-after solutions for Gaza, they will
still have succeeded in putting the Palestinian issue back on both the Israeli
and international agenda.”
In preparing this blog I
resort to a fair amount of plagiarism. Most of it is open-source material. I
chop, change rephrase, and of course cherry-pick to suit my needs. At the same time,
I’m careful no to infringe on copywrite limitations.
Take care,
Beni,
28th of December, 2023.
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