TAYBEH
A CHRISTIAN VILLAGE
Taybeh, northeast of Ramallah, on the border between
Judea and Samaria, is perhaps the only 100% Christian
town in Palestine. Its 1300 inhabitants are divided among
Greek Orthodox, Greek Catholic, and Latin Catholic.
The town is the biblical Ephraim, where Jesus and his
disciples stayed before the first Holy Week, because it
was too dangerous for Jesus to move about Jerusalem.
(John 11: 54)
In the fourth century St. Helen and her son, Emperor
Constantine, as part of their campaign to have a church
at every holy site, built a church in the village. The
ruins of the church of Saint George are still found on a
hill in town. Several times a year the three churches
come together there to pray, especially on Palm Sunday
and the feast of St. George
The town was renamed Taybeh in the twelfth century when
the Muslim leader Salahadin came to the village and
received a warm welcome from the Christians there.
Because of the warmth of the people, he thought the town
should be called Taybeh, which means good - and, when
applied to food, delicious.
Today the town is also the home of the only Palestinian
brewery in the Middle East, the home of Taybeh -
delicious – beer.
Here and in other places I have encountered Palestinians
who lived or were educated abroad who have decided to
return - or to stay.
Nadir and David Khoury had been educated in the US and
lived there for years. But they returned to their
hometown, Taybeh, after the Oslo accords, with a dream of
a microbrewery. In light of the hopes raised by theses
accords, this project was for the Khoury brothers a way
to do what they love to do and to build up their
hometown. As David’s wife, Maria explained to us
they returned because they saw this little town as a
place to raise their children with their extended family,
away from the distractions of US culture.
Nadir Khouy and his
sister-in-law Maria in the Taybeh brewery
The beer can be found throughout Palestine and is also
sold in Germany; there are hopes to market it soon in
selected parts of the United States. But since the
beginning of the Second Intifada in 200 and the
subsequent violence the demand for their beer has
decreased and now they are running at about twenty-five
percent of capacity. And so they have expanded into the
exportation of olive oil.
The local Roman Catholic church is also working in
exporting olive oil. Because of the disruptions of the
economic life of so many people from Taybeh due to
curfews and roadblocks imposed by the Israeli
authorities, many families who had sent their children to
the Catholic school could no longer pay the tuition in
cash but brought the priest olive oil. The priest soon
obtained an olive press and is now working to export
olive oil. The church has also begun projects in olive
wood, candles, and ceramics – small ways to help
the local population obtain some needed cash.
All the three churches in town are working to build low
cost housing as a way to encourage people to stay.
But lack of employment and low-cost housing are not the
only impediments to retaining people. Taybeh has very
good relationships with the surrounding thirty five
Muslim village. However, there are two Israeli
settlements by Taybeh. These settlements have received
privileged treatment by the Israeli authorities, as have
many settlements in the West Bank and Gaza. They have
good access roads which Palestinians cannot usually use
and they have water twenty four hours a day, whereas
Taybeh may have water only two or three says a week. The
settlers have also broken up roads used by the
Palestinians and scattered broken glass on them. One
woman told us what happened one day when she accidentally
drove on the settlers’ road on her way home. Her
car was surrounded by men with guns who ended up beating
on the car; she escaped and had to get home on the
potholed and partially destroyed roads that Palestinians
are permitted to use.
Despite all this the Khourys and others stay to keep a
Christian presence in the Holy Land.
Several other times I ran into Palestinians who had
studied in the US and could have stayed and found good
jobs there. But they have returned “home” -
to help build up a new Palestine
The portal of
the ruins of the Church of St. George,
built by St. Helen
To lose
one’s home – the right of
return
A major point of contention in Israel and Palestine is
the right of return.
Jews throughout the world have the right to come and
settle in Israel. About one million Russians of Jewish
ancestry settled in Israel in the 1990s, swelling the
population to about six million.
But the Palestinians who left or were forced out of
Israel in 1948 are not permitted to return to Israel.
Many of them were forced into refugee camps in the West
Bank, Gaza, and throughout the Middle East. Some still
have the keys of the houses they once owned. And so many
demand that Israel recognize a right to return.
This had seemed to me to be a very tricky, if not
unreasonable demand.
Visiting Lydd and seeing the pain in Omar’s face,
as he walked around the lands that had once been his
grandfather’s, started to convince me.
But it was in Maria’s magnificent house in Taybeh
that it finally made sense. She talked about how it must
be to lose one’s home – and all one had.
Palestinians are a people who have an attachment to their
land. What must they have felt as they were forced out
– sometimes violently.
This doesn’t mean that the right to return –
which is guaranteed in international law – will be
easy. But not all who have left will want to return or be
able to. But it is a question that must be faced.
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For information on Maria Khoury's work, check out these
websites:
http://www.saintgeorgetaybeh.org/maria_khourys_page/maria_khourys_archive/biography.html
http://www.middleeastwindow.com/mariakhoury.html