- Times were tough for Joseph and Mary. The real estate
bubble crashed. Unemployment soared among construction workers. There
was no work, not even for a skilled carpenter.
-
- The settlements were still being built, financed
mostly by Jewish money from America, contributions from Wall Street speculators
and owners of gambling dens.
-
- "Good thing", Joseph thought, "we
have a few sheep and olive trees and Mary keeps some chickens. But Joseph
worried, "cheese and olives are not enough to feed a growing boy.
Mary is due to deliver our son any day". His dreams foretold of a
sturdy
-
- son working alongside of himmultiplying loaves and fish.
-
- The settlers looked down on Joseph. He rarely
attended shul, and on the high holidays, he would show up late to avoid
the tithe. Their simple cottage was located in a nearby ravine with water
from a stream, which flowed year round. It was choice real estate for
any settlement expansion. So when Joseph fell behind on his property tax,
the settlers took over their home, forcibly evicted Joseph and Mary and
offered them a one-way bus ticket to Jerusalem.
-
- Joseph, born and raised in the arid hills,
fought back and bloodied not a few settlers with his labor-hardened fists.
But in the end he sat, battered on their bridal bed under the olive tree,
in black despair.
-
- Mary, much the younger, felt the baby's movements.
Her time was near.
-
- "We have to find shelter, Joseph, we
have to move on this is no time for revenge", she pleaded.
-
- Joseph, who believed with the Old Testament
prophets in an "eye for an eye", reluctantly agreed.
-
- So it was that Joseph sold their sheep, chickens
and other belongings to an Arab neighbor and bought a donkey and cart.
He loaded up the mattress, some clothes, cheese, olives and eggs and they
set out for the Holy City.
-
- The donkey path was rocky and full of potholes.
Mary winced at every bump; she worried that it would harm the baby. Worse,
this was the road for the Palestinians with military checkpoints everywhere.
No one ever told Joseph that, as a Jew, he could have taken a smooth paved
road forbidden to the Arabs.
-
- At the first roadblock Joseph saw a long
line of Arabs waiting. Pointing to his very pregnant wife, Joseph asked
the Palestinians, half in Arabic, half in Hebrew, if they could go ahead.
A path was opened and the couple went forward.
-
- A young soldier raised his rifle and told
Mary and Joseph to get down from the cart. Joseph descended and nodded
to his wife's stomach. The soldier smirked and turned to his comrades,
"The old Arab knocks up the girl he bought for a dozen sheep and now
he wants a free pass".
-
- Joseph, red with anger, shouted in rough
Hebrew, "I am a Jew. But unlike you I respect pregnant women".
-
- The soldier poked Joseph with his rifle and
ordered him to step back: "You are worse than an Arab - you're an
old Jew who screws Arab girls".
-
- Mary frightened by the exchange turned to
her husband and cried, "Stop Joseph or he will shoot you and our baby
will be born an orphan".
-
- With great difficulty Mary got down from
the wagon. An officer came out of the guard station, summoning a female
soldier, "Hey Judi, go feel under her dress, she might be carrying
bombs".
-
- "What's the matter? Don't you like
to feel them yourself anymore? " Judith barked back in Brooklyn-accented
Hebrew. While the soldiers argued, Mary leaned on Joseph for support.
Finally, the soldiers came to an agreement.
-
- "Pull-up your dress and slip",
Judith ordered. Mary blanched in shame. Joseph faced the gun in disgrace.
The soldiers laughed and pointed at Mary's swollen breasts, joking about
an unborn terrorist with Arab hands and a Jewish brain.
-
- Joseph and Mary continued on the way
to the Holy City. They were frequently detained at the checkpoints along
the way. Each time they suffered another delay, another indignity and
more gratuitous insults spouted by Sephardim and Ashkenazi, male and female,
secular and religious - all soldiers of the Chosen people.
-
- It was dusk when Mary and Joseph finally
reached the Wall. The gates had closed for the night. Mary cried out
in pain, "Joseph, I can feel the baby coming soon. Please do something
quickly".
-
- Joseph panicked. He saw the lights of a
small village nearby and, leaving Mary on the cart, Joseph ran to the nearest
house and pounded on the door. A Palestinian woman opened the door slightly and
peered into the dark, agitated face of Joseph. "Who are you? What
do you want?"
-
- "I am Joseph, a carpenter from the hills
of Hebron. My wife is about to give birth and I need shelter to protect
Mary and the baby". Pointing to Mary on the donkey cart, Joseph
pleaded in his strange mixture of Hebrew and Arabic.
-
- "Well, you speak like a Jew but you
look like an Arab," the Palestinian woman said laughing as she walked
back with him to the cart.
-
- Mary's face was contorted with pain and fear:
her contractions were more frequent and intense.
-
- The woman ordered Joseph to bring the cart
around to a stable where the sheep and chickens were kept. As soon as
they entered, Mary cried out in pain and the Palestinian woman, who had
now been joined by a neighbor midwife, swiftly helped the young mother
down onto a bed of straw.
-
- And thus the child was born, as Joseph watched
in awe.
-
- It came to pass that shepherds, returning
from their fields, heard the mingled cries of birth and joy and hurried
to the stable carrying both their rifles and fresh goat milk, not knowing
whether it was friend or foe, Jew or Arab. When they entered the stable
and beheld the mother and infant, they put aside their weapons and offered
the milk to Mary who thanked them in both Hebrew and Arabic.
-
- And the shepherds were amazed and wondered:
Who were these strange people, a poor Jewish couple, who came in peace
on a donkey cart inscribed with Arabic letters? The news quickly
spread about the strange birth of a Jewish child just outside the Wall
in a Palestinian's stable. Many neighbors entered and beheld Mary,
the infant and Joseph.
-
- Meanwhile, Israeli soldiers, equipped with
night vision goggles, reported from their watchtowers overlooking the Palestinian
neighborhood, "The Arabs are meeting just outside the Wall, in a stable,
by candle light".
-
- The gates under the watchtowers flew open
and armored carriers with bright lights followed by heavily armed solders
drove out and surrounded the stable, the assembled villagers and the Palestinian
woman's house. A loud speaker blared, "Come out with your hands up
or we'll shoot." They all came out from the stable together with
Joseph, who stepped forward with his hands stretched out to the sky and
spoke, "My wife, Mary cannot comply with your order. She is
nursing the baby Jesus".
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