Christmas in Bethlehem…New Year in Ramallah

Did you hear the one about the Jew, the Christian and the Muslim?…. a view from the “inside” of the West Bank. Read more

A Sydney Jewish Boy’s Christmas in Bethlehem

Sipping a Turkish coffee in the heart of Tel Aviv early last week, I pondered how a secular Jew from Australia might experience Christmas in a country where a public celebration of such a holiday is considered taboo.  The instinctive answer lay 93 kilometres away, in the primordial town of Bethlehem (Hebrew meaning “The House of Bread”), the heralded birthplace of King David and one Jesus of Nazareth, and home to the oldest continuous Christian community in the world. Read more

Ben Weiss Discovers Jewish Life in Cyprus

It was a late November afternoon, a plan was hatched over a telephone call with my Cypriot born friend, Anthony.  A Roman Orthodox, the son of a father of Armenian descent who fled his native Jerusalem in 1948, he strangely felt a kindred spirit towards me, a secular Jew with a European parentage. Read more