Zebabdeh and Jacob's Well

Zebabdeh and Jacob’s Well – The West Bank

Today we drove deep into the West Bank, up north in what used to be called Samaria, to a little village called Zebabdeh where we met the priest who is in charge of St. Matthew’s Anglican church in that village.  The village has about 6000 inhabitants, about 4000 Christian and 2000 Muslim.  The church has about 270 families and is growing, with a significant number of children and teens, which is unusual and refreshing!  They also house a medical clinic in their lower level, which serves the village offering primary care and obgyn care for the women in the village, as well as basic dental care.  The medical clinic is serving so many people that they are running out of room and may have to try to find new quarters, which is a good problem to have.  We were impressed with the vibrancy of the church in this little village and with the ecumenical and interfaith cooperation that seems to be happening there.  The Christian clergy all know one another and work together on various projects, not the least of which is the one private school in the area, which is run by the Roman Catholic parish right next door to the Anglican parish and serves about 1000 children.  The priest said that relations between Christians and Muslims in the village are very good.  We noted that this village seems to be far enough into the West Bank that they are removed from a lot of the settler violence and tension that marks places that are closer to the border with Israel.  Being up north the land is fertile there and most of the villagers are farmers.  The village looks run down as do most West Bank cities and villages but it didn’t seem quite as gritty as others we’ve seen and it certainly had a more peaceful air about it.  They served us a delicious Palestinian lunch of grilled, spiced chicken on flatbread that was covered in  onions and almonds with spices.  We were all pretty full and then the church lady brought us all plates with two different cakes on them!   We did not feel we could refuse anything they offered so we all left feeling pretty stuffed!

As you drive into the West Bank you can see the many Jewish settlements, which are illegal, all over the West Bank territory.   They are surrounded by 10 foot barbed wire fences and served by the new settler roads, which are like major highways, and on which Palestinians are not permitted to drive.  The settlements are served by municipal water and electricity provided by the Israeli government, while the Palestinian villages that are right next door only get water about once every two weeks and all the homes have black tanks on their roofs to hold the water that then has to last them for two weeks until they get their next delivery.    They also frequently go without electricity, while the settlements are lit up 24/7.  The contrast between the settlements and the Palestinian neighborhoods and villages is stark and inescapable.     We drove through many villages and through the largest city in the West Bank, Nablus, and the look and feel of these places is very much “third world” with trash strewn all over (they have no municipal garbage collection),  poor roads, very small storefronts which are old and run down.  It is hard to miss how tough life is for the Palestinians.  For those who have the kind of identity card that allows them to get a permit to enter Jerusalem, travel to Jerusalem for work is a long and arduous ride, on secondary roads that are often blocked off by the Israelis and dotted with checkpoints as you near the border with Israel. 

After we left Zebabdeh we went to Nablus to the Greek Orthodox Church there which houses “Jacob’s well” from the story in John’s gospel where Jesus met “the woman at the well.”  We were met there by a very elderly Greek Orthodox priest who let us into the church and down under the main altar area is a small chapel wherein you find the well, believed to be Jacob’s well.  We read the gospel story of the woman at the well with Jesus and the English priest who is our chaplain did a short reflection.  We then spent time soaking up the beauty of the Orthodox church, which was only completed in the mid 1990s when the Russians poured money into it to complete it.  The church is located near some Jewish settlements and has been the locus of significant violence from the settlers.  In the church lies the body of the last priest who served the church who was hacked to death by a Jewish settler.  His body is in a coffin in the church and it has become a shrine.  The current priest was shot at by settlers just recently when a group drove by the church and shot through the metal doors to the church complex.  Because this priest is very short, the bullets flew over him and didn’t harm him, but you can still see the bullet holes in the door to the complex.   This is unfortunately the norm in the West Bank as tensions between the Jewish settlers, many of whom are quite militant and the Palestinians who are suffering under the Israeli occupation of their land, often boil over into violent clashes. 

I have been struck on this visit with how completely the Christian Palestinians and Israeli Arabs are separated from the larger Jewish population of Israel.  The only contact with Jews they have are with the ultra Orthodox right wing groups in East Jerusalem and/or with the settlers in the West Bank.  There is really no opportunity for them to get to know the larger Jewish Israeli population and they tend to be highly critical of “the Jews” based on the context in which they are living.  I do not see any sign that they engage in any dialogue of the kind that I have been part of for years in the US.   Part of the issue in Israel is that the Jewish community here is either the ultra-Orthodox right wingers, or the very secular Jews who live outside of Jerusalem and who never go to the West Bank and so the Christians here don’t have any opportunity to interact with moderate or open-minded Jews.  There is a great need for some interfaith dialogue here and I don’t see much evidence of it, at least not here in East Jerusalem.    This is a particular political hotbed however, so maybe it is different in other parts of Israel.  Tomorrow we head to the Galilee and will spend two nights in Nazareth, and things may be somewhat different there.  It is also a different context here where the Christians are the tiny minority as opposed to our context where we are the majority faith tradition.

Pics today are some shots of the church in Zebabdeh and scenes from that village, Jacob’s well and some of the icons from the church where Jacob’s well is housed.