Nazareth has few public Christmas decorations this year, marking the second year in a row Jesus’ hometown has been precluded by wartime conditions from traditional celebrations honoring the birthday of its most notable resident of all time.
Jesus’ hometown and the place where his ministry began also is hometown to Yasmeen Mazzawi, a volunteer paramedic with Magen David Adom, Israel’s national emergency services system.
For her, Nazareth is home, yet she feels the sadness of another year with no Christmas trees in the public square. In normal years, Nazareth has three beautiful trees on display, she said.
With the Israeli-Hezbollah ceasefire agreement announced Nov. 27, there’s some improvement over last year. A few Christmas trees can be seen peeking out of windows, Mazzawi noted. But the overall tenor is far from celebratory, her damp, crestfallen eyes in a video call communicate.
Christian Influence
Nazareth is in northern Israel about 70 miles south of Lebanon. An Arab Christian, Mazzawi graduated from Nazareth Baptist School.
Her family did not attend a Baptist church. But, she explained, it was next door to her school, and she was there every day for chapel services.
She said her experience at the Baptist school “contributed a lot to my faith and my life day-to-day and also [her commitment to] helping people in need, definitely.”
Mazzawi said it was amazing growing up in Nazareth, walking the streets Jesus walked. She explained her Baptist school was in the town center, “where we know Jesus walked and where he went to the churches we have only 200 meters from my school.”
She explained her family talks at home about how many people in Nazareth go about life there as if it’s “very ordinary,” never considering Jesus physically inhabited their town. But she and her family think about the fact they are walking where Jesus walked all that time.
