Forty-four years ago today, I spent Christmas Eve in Bethlehem. It was a night to behold, for sure, during a memorable winter that I spent working on a kibbutz in Israel. It was what young backpackers did at the time – when it got cold in Europe where everyone was touring around on a Eurail pass, we would head for the volunteer office in Tel Aviv to get a posting. It wasn’t a religious pilgrimage or a political mission, it was simply the familiar course of backpacking travel at the time. And what a time it was…
I wasn’t going to write about my time in Israel, because the country is so fraught. But I was struck by a long-buried impulse the other day and I lifted my leggings from the laundry basket and yanked, flipped and tucked them into a pretzel. It was a routine that became very familiar during my shift in the large bakery on my kibbutz – plaiting long rolls of dough into Challah (Shabbat bread). People throughout the land would have their ceremonial bread the next morning and I would have memories that were forever baked into my heart.
My friend and I spent several months volunteering on our kibbutz that year. As the rest of the world made the leap from 1980 to 1981, we were drifting with the rise and fall of each day along with other young people, all far from home, who had meandered into that tiny country. Our jobs were to snip navel oranges from the trees in the orchard or clean the tables at the communal dining hall or braid the Shabbat bread in what was the second largest bakery in Israel. One of the American girls could braid one strip of dough in each hand simultaneously. We all figured she had been there too long.
When the time came for us to begin making plans for Christmas, about ten of us volunteers got permission to use the big industrial kitchen in the dining hall and we gathered our meager rations to see what we could muster up. Our Christmas baking was an odd assortment that year: Vegemite nuts and bolts, macaroni and cheese balls, and fried brown sugar cookies. All prepared and shared with the richest goodwill I have yet to experience again.
Then came the day when we hopped on the bus for the trip into Bethlehem. It was Christmas Eve. It was magical. Our young Jewish friends who lived on the kibbutz joined us for the journey, where thousands of people thronged the ancient streets of Bethlehem. The high mass that was held in Manger Square was projected onto the brick wall of The Church of the Nativity for the multitudes to see. It felt sacred for us with our Catholic upbringing, but it was also crazy amounts of fun. There were musicians and buskers, prayerful people and party people. We danced together in large circles – strangers, colours, languages all. The frenzied celebration of life lasted until it was time for us to pile back onto the bus. It was nearly daylight when we pulled back into the kibbutz that Christmas morning. The sun was stretching its long fingers into the back Israeli sky and turning the orange trees to gold in the orchard.
The young kibbutz residents had decorated their youth centre in our honour, painting a large picture of Santa at the start of the ramp that led far underground and taping tinsel along the reinforced cement-block walls in the bunker below. They had laid out the bounty of our baking and added several items themselves. Some oranges, of course, and slices of different meats.
We were tired, but happy as we shared the feast and recounted highlights of Bethlehem – which were strangely already becoming a memory. Then someone started to sing. Very softly at first, until everyone joined in. It was Silent Night, each one taking a turn to sing it in their voice from home. German, Spanish, French, English. It seemed we were all nearly crying from the fullness of the moment – sure our oneness would blast forth from that shelter and change the world.
That was a long time ago. I looked down at the plaited tights in my hands and made a silent wish for peace in that part of the world, in all places at war, and in all homes. May homes be filled with moments that transcend politics and wars and distance to touch our souls.