Better roads, B&B on a kibbutz, taking a stroll on the Sea of Galilee – they’re all part of the plans to make these year-end celebrations the biggest and best in the world. Michael Freedland writes from Israel
It’s as though the archbishop of Canterbury were running a barmitzvah, or the chief rabbi were in charge of a christening. Israel, the world’s only Jewish country, is busy planning the world’s biggest Christian festival.
You might think it the ultimate in chutzpah, but since that was where it all happened, the country regards it as its duty to tell people to come to them to celebrate the millennium. One man has now indicated he might do so. If he does, it will be the best boost for tourism to the Holy Land since Moses parted the Red Sea.
The pope has not officially accepted the Israelis’ invitation, but the view in the country is that now there is a new, apparently more flexible, government installed, he will come in March. If he does, they think Pope John Paul II will generate almost as much publicity as Moses – although they might wish that the one in charge of the earlier public relations campaign was still around. Of course, there are plenty in that place who think He is.
And that is what it’s all about, at the same time turning the country into the world’s biggest theme park. Israel is, of course, proud of its sacred Jewish sites, such as the Western Wall and Masada. To the Muslims, who have their two stupendous mosques on the Temple Mount, Jerusalem is the third holiest city on Earth. But it’s the Christian places that are getting top priority next year – a move the country says could bring in about six billion shekels (R10-billion).
Israel hasn’t got Bethlehem to play with any more; the problems of being in charge of Jesus’s birthplace were usually spoken of as not being worth their weight in holy water. Now, the Palestine Authority is spending a huge amount of its budget on extending and cleaning up Manger Square and organising a massive collection of events – including anything from “Follow the Star” concerts to a mass baptism.
But most of the activities in this part of the world will be in the Jewish state. No one is saying that this is a secular festival – it certainly is not a Jewish one – focusing purely on the historical aspects of the date that will appear in everyone’s calendar.
The hope is that three million people will flood into Israel, to see where Jesus worked and led his people and where he died. Millions of dollars are being spent on new hotels, new roads and new road signs.EWhat’s more, the whole of the sewerage system in the Galilee area is being renewed in time for the mass influx.
Airlines such as El Al are brushing up their schedules for what is described not as the millennium but as “year 2000”, which is possibly a sop to the rabbinical authorities who might have doubted the wisdom of celebrating the birth of a man not officially regarded as the Messiah thereabouts.
But the Ministry of Religious Affairs, usually involved with matters like conversions and circumcisions, is taking to it all like a dove flying out of Noah’s Ark – and just as peacefully. The only rows are likely to be the ones that have existed all along, such as that between the Greek Orthodox and other sects, each of which lays claim to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem and has different ideas about exactly where Jesus was crucified. But most agree that this is the site of Calvary.
The government is pulling out all the stops to attract visitors. Jerusalem is getting a facelift. Tourists flocking to the Via Dolorosa and its various stations of the cross will find the ancient cobblestones scrubbed. Guides are being primed to make sure that the easiest routes along the Mount of Olives are not clogged. Historical sites are being floodlit.
There will be no shortage of hotels and other accommodation. In Jerusalem, they vary from the five-star-plus King David hotel in the (Jewish) west of the city, the still magnificent hotel that plays host to presidents and prime ministers, and the American Colony in the (Arab) eastern section, beloved of journalists and business people who are not happy about the kosher restrictions in most Israeli hotels, to hundreds of simple bed and breakfast places. Kibbutzim are extending their guest houses and pilgrims are likely to flood out the various “hospices” run by the churches.
There has been one worry in some people’s minds: the millennium itself falls on a Friday night, the beginning of the Jewish Sabbath. That’s the night that western Jerusalem and the Jewish parts of the Old City virtually shut down. No buses run. Few cars are on the road and there are no concerts or cinemas open. But, ever a resourceful people, the Israelis think that if they could get away with Eurovision (which was at the other end of the Sabbath on a Saturday night), the millennium will be a doddle. But scoring douze points cannot be relied upon. “There will be no restriction on tour buses or taxis,” a Ministry of Tourism representative told me as we sat in a fish restaurant. “Tourists don’t use our regular buses.” The rabbis will need to know that.
If you look at the plans, you can see that it’s all intended to be in the best of taste. That is, if the authorities have anything to do with it. But Israel is a country where the words “mixed economy” are almost as sacrosanct as the religious vows. Private enterprise is working hand in hand with the government – with all the predictable results.
No place has more associations with the events the millennium is commemorating than Nazareth – a city that has long complained that it is the orphan among Israeli towns. They say its tourism has suffered too, but any analysis seems to indicate that the reason has been that business investors have not put enough money or effort into the project.
But all this is changing for the millennium, too. The town that plays such a huge part in the New Testament story now resembles a vast building site. Roads are being dug up, cleaned and turned into a combination of pedestrian precinct and building development. In the Cactus cosmetics and jewellery store an ancient bath house – dating back to about 10BC – has been discovered in what the owners thought was the basement, and is being converted into a tea house. On the Precipice Mountain, a natural amphitheatre is being prepared to hold 4 000 seats with room around them for another 20 000 – probably for when the pope comes.
Not that the town has been freed of the rows endemic here. There were fights between Muslims and Christians about converting the site of an old school into a public square, as the Christians wanted to do. The Muslims wanted to put up a mosque. Now both sides say the row was merely political – and predictably blame the Israelis, who, they say, could have controlled the rioters. Of course, had they done so, they would have been blamed for that. That’s the Middle East.
But Nazareth is not just an interesting city; it is, in parts, a beautiful town. A local entrepreneur is creating a Jesus village, showing what Nazareth was like two millennia ago. A souk is being redeveloped, though market stall keepers are not happy with tourists coming to the town. “They take away business,” said one, meaning that they stopped to buy souvenirs in shops in the main street.
“That’s always been our problem,” said Tareq Shihada, director of the Tourist Department. “Tourists come for a few hours and then go away again. We want people to stay in Nazareth for three or four days.” So do hoteliers. But Nazareth does have a problem. You can quite easily see most of the sites in one day.
Visitors like to walk the streets, appropriately stopping to take photographs and videos of any of the local carpenters who make sure that their shop fronts are wide open. But are they going to want to stay in Nazareth?
When Tiberias is half-an-hour away, that is always going to be a problem. If you can stay in one of the high-class hotels facing the magnificent Sea of Galilee instead of on top of a mountain looking down on a dusty city, there’s not going to be much of a contest. Unless, that is, you want to get away from the past for a few days. An hour’s drive away is the Carmel Forest spa. It is close enough to the holy spots to make it both a convenient place to stay and a great holiday break before going back to Galilee, taking particular note of Capurnum on the shores of the lake, supposedly the birthplace of St Peter and where Jesus lived when he began his ministry.
Galilee really is magnificent, with the mountain ranges overlooking the lake seemingly representing some kind of holy being making sure all is well down there. Certainly, pilgrims come to Galilee to feel what they insist is the Holy Spirit. The tourist industry is ready for them. The hotels are all spruced up. The restaurants are prepared. One of them, Pagoda, is the biggest kosher Chinese in the world; another, Decks, insists it cooks its kosher meat the way it was done in Jesus’s time, over charcoal.
The fact that the owners of the restaurant also run the Jesus boats – pleasure boats modelled on the wooden designs used 2 000 years ago – only increases their interest in the millennium. A little Israeli ingenuity goes a long way. No one pretends that the boats are original, but the owners of the Galilee Lido have gone one step further: they have built a platform just below the lake surface, low enough for people to get their feet wet at the same time as claiming they have walked on water.
If that is not enough, the Lido makes sure that visitors realise the significance of the miracle of the loaves and fishes. “We are offering at the same place the same kind of loaves and the same St Peter’s fish,” said one restaurant owner.
They take it for granted that there will be no shortage of customers. Maybe, if it does all happen, it will simply go down in Israeli history as just another of those miracles.