Christmas

Classical music festival in Nazareth brings Arabs, Jews together for Christmas.

 I’ll hazard a guess and say you weren’t expecting Christmas to feature as the main topic this week. After all, there are many pressing defence and security related matters arguably more important.

Admittedly, the title is slightly misleading, the festival which is an annual event, celebrated 250 years of Beethoven this year. It was held at the Polyphony Conservatory in Nazareth, last week.

The conservatory’s director Nabil Abboud Ashkar estimates that about 35 percent of the audience is local, including Christian and Muslim Nazarenes who support the conservatory. “The rest of the people who came for the festival were mostly Jewish tourists from out of town. Some are long-time supporters of the conservatory, but many are simply people who want a weekend away in a nearby destination that feels somewhat, well, foreign.” Ashkar said.

Currently with government-imposed travel restrictions to many overseas destinations, Mr. Ashkar’s observation rings true.

Today Nazareth is known as "the Arab capital of Israel” and the largest city in the north of of the country with a population of close to 80,000 residents predominantly Arab citizens of Israel, of whom 69% are Muslim and 30.9% Christian.

“The first Christians wouldn't recognise today's Santa-centric holiday, let alone figure out what that tree is doing in the living room.” Claims Elon Gilad in a piece he wrote for Haaretz. “The first historic record of the holiday is a calendar dating from 354 CE, belonging to a rich Roman Christian named Philocalus.

That calendar tells us that on the same date - December 25 - another holiday was celebrated, marking the birth of Sol Invictus, “the Unconquered Sun.” That was a new pagan cult, worshiping a new sun deity. (The same Roman Sol Invictus/Greek Helios that appears in the centre panel of the zodiac mosaic in the Beit Alpha synagogue as well as other ancient synagogues). In the same article Elon Gilad traces other Christian traditions from antiquity to the present day.

By most accounts, in the early centuries of the Christian Era Nazareth was no more than an insignificant village. It’s population at that time is variously estimated at about 400 residents. However, nearby Bethlehem in Galilee was more populous.  

Jessica Steinberg Times of Israel columnist and author posed a provocative question in a piece she wrote seven years ago. Was Jesus born in a different Bethlehem?

A sub-heading clarified the intriguing query in Ms. Steinberg’s article.

“An Antiquities Authority archaeologist argues that the Christian saviour was born in Galilee, not Judea.”

“The New Testament claims Jesus was born in Bethlehem, Judea, but one rogue Israeli archaeologist says it is far more likely the Christian saviour was born in Bethlehem in Galilee, more than 96 kilometres from Jerusalem.

Archaeologist Aviram Oshri spent nearly eleven years excavating Bethlehem in Galilee — an ancient biblical village near Nazareth. He believes the traditional account of Jesus’ birthplace may be wrong.

But when he presented his findings to the Israel Antiquities Authority, they were rejected out of hand.

 Oshri argues, “The town of Bethlehem in Judea, about 10 kilometres south of Jerusalem, has always been considered the birthplace of Jesus. According to the New Testament, Joseph and Mary were living in Bethlehem in Judea at the time of Jesus’ birth and later moved to Nazareth. In another account, Joseph and Mary, who was then nine months pregnant, travelled more than 175 kilometres on a donkey from Nazareth to Bethlehem in Judea, Joseph’s hometown, in order to register in a Roman census. “It makes much more sense that she would have travelled seven kilometres,” the distance from Nazareth to Bethlehem in Galilee.

Getting Jesus to Bethlehem in Judea is an important part of the Christian narrative.

However, there are also variances regarding the date of Jesus’ birth.

Various Christian denominations celebrate Christmas at different times. Some of the differences can be accounted for by alignment with either the Julian or Gregorian calendars and a later calendarial adjustment.

The season of the event has also been called into question. Tour guide and Jerusalem Post columnist Gil Zohar wrote, “The New Testament is mute about the date of Jesus’ birth. Indeed, it may have occurred in the spring rather than shortly after the winter solstice since Luke records that shepherds were “abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flocks by night.” Traditionally shepherds in Palestine guard their flocks around the clock at the spring lambing time; during the winter months, the animals are penned in corrals, unwatched.

Adoration of the Shepherds - Matthias Stomer

Regardless of Aviram Oshri’s suggested alternative Bethlehem and the seasonal variances, the Christian nativity narrative will remain unchanged.

 Christmas in Israel outside the main Christian communities is barely sensed during normal times and even less when we are moving in and out of lockdown.

However, those of us who grew up in other countries where Christianity is the major religion, have experienced Christmas at close hand. Nonetheless, a quick Google scan revealed a lot I didn’t know about Christmas or had forgotten.

The Catholic Church gradually came to embrace Christmas, but the Protestant Reformation gave the holiday a good knock on the chin. In the 16th century, Christmas became a casualty of this church schism, with reformist-minded Protestants considering it little better than paganism,

In the early 17th century, a wave of religious reform changed the way Christmas was celebrated in Europe. When Oliver Cromwell and his Puritan forces took over England in 1645, they vowed to rid England of decadence and, as part of their effort, cancelled Christmas.

The pilgrims, English separatists that came to America in 1620, were even more orthodox in their Puritan beliefs than Cromwell. As a result, Christmas was not a holiday in early America. From 1659 to 1681, the celebration of Christmas was actually outlawed in Boston. Anyone exhibiting the Christmas spirit was fined five shillings.

Though many outright acts of protest followed, with people defying the Puritans and continuing to celebrate the holiday, albeit in a less public manner.

In England even after the restoration of the Monarchy in 1660, celebration of Christmas wasn’t completely restored to its former glory.

At roughly the same time, the tradition of setting up a tree in one’s home and lighting candles began to spread in Germany. The concept spread among European nobility during the 18th and 19th centuries, reaching the lower classes only in the late 19th century.

The huge success of Charles Dickens’ "A Christmas Carol" in 1843 greatly contributed to popularising Christmas, and gave it much of the qualities we associate with it today: a holiday centred around the family, as opposed to a community holiday celebrated in church.

The book also contributed to the popularity of the phrase “Merry Christmas,”

After the American Revolution, English customs fell out of favour, including Christmas. In fact, Christmas wasn’t declared a federal holiday until June 26, 1870.

Christmas traditions have warped over time, arriving at their current state a little more than a century ago.

Stephen Nissenbaum, author of "The Battle for Christmas" said

“All of this gift-giving, along with the secular embrace of Christmas, now has some religious groups fuming. The consumerism of Christmas shopping seems, to some, to contradict the religious goal of celebrating Jesus’ birth. In some ways excessive spending is the modern equivalent of the revelry and drunkenness that made the Puritans frown.” Summing up Stephan Nissenbaum said,

"There's always been a push and pull, and it's taken different forms. It might have been alcohol then, and now it's these glittering toys."

 Happy Holidays.

 

Beni,                                                   23rd of December, 2021.

 

 

 

 

 War and Pieces

News outlets everywhere have been reporting that Israel is more determined than ever to carry out a preemptive attack on Iranian nuclear facilities.

On September 26 someone in the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director-General Rafael Grossi’s office disclosed that Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi had reneged on a previously agreed summary of the discussions in Vienna.

The same day, the site of the Shahid Hemmat Industrial Group was rocked by an explosion followed by a fire. The group is part of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Iran’s Aerospace Industries Organisation. It is also responsible for Iran’s liquid-fuelled ballistic missile programme.

However, explosions have happened quite often around Iran over the last 18 months, and only three incidents have been completely confirmed as sabotage, which Iran attributed to the Mossad. However, following the September 26 incident the Islamic Republic of Iran chose not to comment on the incident.  

A news item in the Jerusalem Post asserted that sources (possibly Americans trying to deter Israel from further attacks) claimed that Israel was the perpetrator.  Apparently, Israel decided to hit the IRGC ballistic missile base after the leaked report about Raisi’s reneging on his deal with Grossi.

That reneging amounted to Iran’s demand for complete sanctions relief from the United States, a posture that portends a final collapse of talks billed as a “last chance” to rehabilitate the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.

“From our point of view, the sanctions, which are in contradiction and inconsistent with the [Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action], need to be removed immediately,” Iranian nuclear negotiator Ali Bagheri Kani said. "These sanctions have been imposed during the Obama, Trump and Biden administrations. All of them need to be removed.”

The Iranian intransigence leaves little room for any progress at all at the Vienna talks.

Maybe it was in response to news of planned Israeli and U.S simulated attack  exercises that motivated the Tehran Times to publish the target map(below) under the threatening heading- “Just one wrong move.” A closer look at the map published on Wednesday reveals that the cartographer erroneously marked targets in Lebanon, Arab towns in Israel and towns in the West Bank and Gaza.

 

Ein Harod didn't deserve a red blob, but I assume we are on the hit list

 "The Zionist regime has forgotten that Iran is more than capable of hitting them from anywhere, just one wrong move!" The author warned in the article.

Well, that’s enough sabre rattling for now, let’s move on to something else.

I’ve prepared a supplement to last week’s account of mosaic floors in ancient synagogues and churches.

Three years ago, on a trip organised by my kibbutz to the Gaza periphery communities we stopped at Khirbet Shellal (a mound near the Gaza Strip) to get a panoramic view of the region. After our tour guide finished pointing out the landmarks, I asked him to tell us something about the hill we were standing on. “We don’t have time for that.” He said abruptly before leading us back to our bus.

Later in the day, on the return journey north I asked our driver for the microphone and ‘volunteered’ a brief account of the Shellal mosaic.

Early in April 1917 when Australian soldiers from the Anzac Mounted Division of the British armed forces arrived at the Besor Springs near Khirbet Shellal they encountered little or no opposition. The Turkish troops deserted the position just before the Aussies arrived.

I believe I mentioned the Shellal mosaic a few years ago in a different context. However, this time I’ve added more details about mosaic floors.

I found most of the information in an article written by Australian journalist and author Paul Daley for the Canadian Globe and Mail in 2012 under the title “War and

Pieces.” Read on an you will understand why.

Daley told how the Turks had positioned a machine gun post at the top of the hill. It also served as a good observation point.

When the Australian force captured the position one of the soldiers discovered part of a beautiful mosaic at the edge of one of the trenches cut into the hillside by the Turks.  

“The mosaic made up of thousands of individually hand-coloured tesserae formed a vine trellis — a popular figurative design for mosaic floors in Southern Palestine in the sixth century CE. After clearing the area around the trench 45 medallions in nine rows of five were revealed. Each circle contained figures of animals and exotic birds facing a central stem containing baskets of fruit, a chalice and a caged bird. The mosaic formed the floor of an early Christian Church.  Daley said, “The floor is remarkable on account of its delicate colours — every hue of russet and gold, subtle blues, oranges, agricultural greens and gentle eggshell blues — that render it an object of stunning beauty.”

At the eastern end of the mosaic was a tiled inscription which, translated from the Greek, reads “this temple has been decorated with a rich mosaic in honour of our most holy bishop … and the most God-loving George, priest and sacristan.”

In 1917 William Maitland Woods was the senior Anglican chaplain to the Australian Imperial Force in the Middle East. Besides being clergyman, he was a keen amateur archaeologist.

The commander of the force that captured Khirbet Shellal ordered a cordon to protect the mosaic until Woods’s arrival a few days later.

Volunteers from the Anzac Field Squadron, spent two weeks working in the searing heat to completely uncover the mosaic. Two drawings were made of the mosaic, an initial drawing by one of the sappers and a later illustration made by one of the officers. It was published in an article for The Burlington Magazine in May 1917.

A later examination revealed important discrepancies between the two drawings.

An elaborate tessera peacock at the bottom right of the sapper’s drawing was almost gone in the later drawing.

Archaeologist Arthur Trendall complained, “It is more than unfortunate that the right-hand bird is now irrecoverable, the tesserae having been carried off as souvenirs by the troops during the interval between the discovery of the mosaic and its removal…”

When the mosaic was first uncovered the pheasants were conspicuous for the glass tiles used in their plumage. But they, too, were destroyed or taken as souvenirs along, it seems, with a precious stone — a ruby perhaps —that formed the eye of one of the birds.

In the piece he wrote for the Globe and Mail Paul Daley noted that “While Woods was enamoured of the mosaic, it was a related find, that captivated him.

“Under the Greek inscription the bones of the Saint were discovered, lying feet to east and arms closed on chest. The delicate bones had to be handled very carefully before they were placed in a casket. But this had to be done when the high wind of the afternoon had died down.” Daley wrote.

The word quickly spread through the ranks that the bones were those of St George of Cappadocia, England’s patron saint. Consequently, the bones were of immediate interest to British command, not least the head of the Egypt Expeditionary Force, General Edmund Allenby, who wanted the complete find, the bones and the mosaic floor shipped immediately to London.

In a later publication Paul Daley told how even the bones of the sacristan who helped lay the mosaic floor were pilfered too by the light-fingered Aussies.

Woods was certainly, initially at least, of the view that the bones belonged to the famous St George. But he re-evaluated this upon realising that England’s saint died 269 years before the basilica at Shellal was built.

During the excavation Maitland Woods wrote “I don’t mind what happens to the pavement. But I do want (1) the wonderful Greek inscription in black and white marble mosaic … ; (2) the relics of the Saint (George of Shellal) and I want to place the inscription and the Relics in Brisbane Cathedral under the Alter there where they will be a fitting witness to the bravery of our Anzacs in Palestine . . .”

Woods managed to ship the incomplete mosaic floor to Cairo where it was stored till the wrangling between Britain and Australia was eventually resolved.

In late 1918, amid the euphoria of the war’s end, it was finally agreed that the mosaic would be shipped to Australia.

It was shown briefly in Melbourne and Sydney and stored till it was displayed in the Australian War Memorial Museum in Canberra when it opened in 1941.

In the article he wrote for the Globe and Mail Paul Daley claimed that Australian families, descendants of the soldiers who were at    Khirbet Shellal are still in possession of tiles from the mosaic.

But what became of George of Shellal?

By most accounts the portion of his skeleton that escaped the hot-fingered light horsemen disappeared somewhere en-route between Shellal and Cairo, never to be seen again.

But it seems George did actually make it to Australia — though not, as Reverend Woods had hoped, to his beloved St John’s Anglican Cathedral in Brisbane.

While it is not clearly documented in the war memorial archives it seems that Woods left the bones of St George of Shellal for “safe keeping” with his good friend, Reverend Herbert Rose. Rose was the vicar at St Anne’s Anglican Church in Sydney for 45 years. He secreted the bones under the alter at St Anne’s where they remained in a box until they were reinterred in St Anne’s sanctuary in 1986.

George still rests there today, as a modest bronze plaque in the church attests. The parish has always treated him with appropriate reverence and dignity. This is the least George probably deserves given the way his bones were handled when they were first discovered.

I played a very modest personal role in the Anzac saga. In 2017 my kibbutz hosted some of the descendants of the Anzac Mounted Division I translated for the group and showed them around the kibbutz.

During the kibbutz trip to the Gaza periphery communities, we stopped briefly at Kibbutz Nirim mainly to see the Maon synagogue mosaic. Much like the Beit Alpha synagogue mosaic the Maon synagogue mosaic, also known as the Nirim mosaic, was discovered during the construction of a road in 1957. The mosaic was damaged, but the undamaged segment was preserved by a salvage excavation.

 

A section of the Nirim synagogue mosaic floor

After its discovery, the mosaic was removed for restoration and returned to its original site in 2009.

Incidentally, before I came to Ein Harod, I was a member of Kibbutz Nirim.

 

Take care.

 

Beni,                                                   17^th of December, 2021.

 The Beit Alpha synagogue

American Jews, so I’m told, would prefer a stand-alone Hanukkah that doesn’t overlap with either Thanksgiving or Christmas. In Israel we are not faced with that problem. However, during the Roman and Byzantine eras Jewish communities in this country were confronted with a different dilemma. It appears they found it easier to accommodate external influences rather than reject them outright.

Arguably the most controversial topic relating to that time is the significance of the zodiac design in the mosaic paving of synagogue floors.

In 1928 during excavations for an irrigation system members of kibbutz Hephzibah unearthed the mosaic floor of the early sixth century Beit Alpha synagogue. It is one of the best-preserved mosaic synagogue floors of the many found in Israel to date.

        The mosaic floor of the Beit Alpha synagogue.

The floor mosaic of the ancient Beit Alpha synagogue showing an allegorical illustration of the sun god Helios – surrounded by the twelve zodiacal signs. The zodiac wheel is featured on a souvenir miniature postal stamp sheet issued on 17^th of September 1957.

 Similar mosaic zodiacs were found in other synagogues of the same era with decorative mosaic panels depicting vine tendrils, hunters, animals and birds. They may be more spectacular in the grand Roman-Byzantine manner, yet the simple, naïve folk art of Beit Alpha has a special appeal. Its inscriptions are also unique in crediting the work to Marianos and his son Hananel as the first recorded Jewish artists of their time.

This zodiac wheel, along with other similar examples found in contemporaneous synagogues throughout Israel form the focal point   of a scholarly debate regarding the relationship between Judaism and general Greco-Roman culture in late-antiquity. Some interpret the popularity of the zodiac design in synagogue floors as evidence for its Jewish acculturation and adaptation into the Jewish calendar and liturgy. Others see it as representing the existence of a "non-Rabbinic" or a mystical and Hellenised form of Judaism that embraced the astral religion of Greco-Roman culture. Astrology, albeit aligned with superstition predates Greco-Roman culture and continues to the present day, so let’s not put too fine a point on it.

Further evidence of the same trend is found a few kilometres to the east of the Beit Alpha synagogue at the Monastery of Lady Mary near Beit She’an. The monastery was built during the same era. Its many rooms and its church were decorated with mosaics among them a large zodiac, a circle of 12 figures representing the months, with the sun god Helios and the moon goddess Selene in the centre. This is especially strange because Pagan zodiacs are known from the early Empire, but by the time the Lady Mary floor was laid, all elements unacceptable to Christianity had been eliminated. Yet, it appears that the clergy and worshippers at the monastery were unperturbed by the pagan symbols depicted in the church’s zodiac circle.

Columnist Eli Abt elaborated on the same topic in a piece he wrote for The Jewish Chronicle a few weeks ago

“The Torah condemns divination and fortune-telling unambiguously (Lev. 19:26, Deut. 18:10-12). Isaiah mocks the “the scanners of heaven, the star gazers, who announce what will come upon you month by month.” Jeremiah (10:2) warns us not to be “dismayed by portents in the sky” like other nations.

Yet ever since Pompey first captured Jerusalem in 63 BCE, if not earlier, the pervasive classical culture in which such predictions were embedded was bound ultimately to seep into daily Jewish life and thought. To this day we still celebrate a happy event with “mazaltov”, our wish for a favourable constellation.

The Rabbis were initially divided on the issue. Whereas Rabbi Akiva had been deeply opposed to astrology the 3rd century’s Galilean scholars Rabbi Joshua ben Levi, Rabbi Hanina ben Hama and others agreed to disagree with Rabbi Johanan ben Nappaha and Abba Aricha who disapproved of such auguries.

Coinciding with the earliest examples of our synagogue floors, we find no recorded dissent from the eminent sage Rabbah ben Nahmani’s startling declaration that longevity, fecundity, and sustenance are matters for the stars. Astrology would thereafter face no serious challenges in Jewish thinking until condemned by Maimonides 800 years later.

The debate hasn’t stopped since, but either way that extraordinary image of the sun god, the Greek Helios, the Roman Sol Invictus, demands its own explanation.

In Psalm 19:1 the author extols God’s creation, - “the Heavens declare His glory, the firmament proclaims His handiwork”. Yet in that same text he celebrates the sun’s passage, portrayed as “a bridegroom emerging from his canopy, a hero eager to run his course”. An ancient oral tradition recorded in a Midrash credited to Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus of the eighth or nineteenth century, imagines him riding a chariot in his journey.

In focusing on the sun as the source of the zodiac’s seasons, the Jews of Beit Alpha, like their peers elsewhere, were probably aware of that comment and illustrated it by appropriating the imagery of their time without adopting its alien meaning. We’ve been doing that for millennia, borrowing ideas from our surroundings and reinterpreting them for our own purposes.”

 I intended to write about matters of more immediate concern in this region, but on reconsideration I decided that the Beit Alpha synagogue mosaic floor would be more appealing.

Excavations began at the site in 1929 under the auspices of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and were led by Israeli archaeologist, Eleazar Sukenik the father of Yigael Yadin Israeli archaeologist, soldier and politician. Yadin was the second IDF Chief of Staff. He also served as Deputy Prime Minister from 1977 to 1981.

A secondary round of excavations, sponsored by the Israel Antiquities Authority in 1962, further explored the residential structures surrounding the synagogue.

Architectural remains from the Beit Alpha synagogue indicate that the synagogue once stood as a two-story basilica and contained a courtyard, vestibule, and prayer hall. The first floor of the prayer hall contained structural elements that would be familiar to synagogue goers today. It’s generally agreed that the earthquake that destroyed Beit She’an – Scythopolis and other cities and towns in the region in 749 CE caused the roof of Beit Alpha synagogue to collapse in a way that protected the mosaic floor below.

I have seen the Beit Alpha synagogue mosaic on a number of occasions. The last time was a few years ago when we attended the bar mitzvah of a friend’s grandson.

It was a unique experience. The boy’s family came all the way from Toronto to

hold the bar mitzvah in the incomparable setting of the ancient synagogue.

 

Take care.

 

Beni,                                       9^th of December, 2021.