Wednesday, March 21, 2012

A house in Jerusalem to counter the Christian exodus

‘If we hadn’t received this help, we would never have been able to afford our own home…’ 

Richard Zananiri and his wife, Maysoon, smile in front of the white stone apartment block that contains the apartment they’ll finally be able to move into in a few weeks’ time. 

They smile while they accompany 300 Italian pilgrims from the Movimento Cristiano Lavoratori (MCL) worker’s movement to the building site where construction work is nearing an end.
 
Among the narrow streets that have yet to be tarmacked in the suburban district of Beit Zafafa in Jerusalem, while the sun begins to set, marking the end of the Jewish shabbat, a simple but important ceremony takes place: on land bought by the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem – thanks in part to a donation from the MCL – four apartment blocks have been built to provide homes for 80 Christian families, mostly young couples, who will consequently have the chance to remain in the city, paying council house rents and redeeming the property after a few years. 

This way they won’t have to leave the Holy Land, as many others have already done, forced to emigrate to find work or a home at an affordable price.

‘Life here is very expensive,’ says Zananiri, a P.E. teacher at St. George School. ‘At the moment, I spend 70% of what I earn to pay the rent of the house where I live. Now, thanks to the Patriarch’s project and a mortgage with favourable terms, I will finally be able to buy a bigger apartment and we can stay here where we were born.’ 

On this tiny plot of land – holy for Jews, Christians and Muslims – the ownership of land, of a home and the right to live there will never merely be a property issue. It’s something that has to do with one’s faith and one’s identity.

‘There aren’t enough apartments here,’ William Hanna Shomali, the Auxiliary Bishop of Jerusalem, said as he thanked the Italians for their contribution. ‘Prices are prohibitive and, above all, it is very difficult to secure the permits necessary to build new homes.’ 

The Latin Patriarchate had managed to buy the land some time ago, but it was only a year and a half ago that it received the go-ahead from the Israeli authorities to build. There wasn’t enough money, so Patriarch Fouad Twal turned to his friends in Italy. 

Among them the MCL – which wished to celebrate its 40th anniversary – decided to do so with something more tangible than conferences and commemorative ceremonies. ‘What we are seeing today is the “first brick”,’ said the movement’s president, Carlo Costalli. 

‘But we won’t stop here: we will continue to support this project by building other apartments and by supporting the Catholic university and the Patriarchate’s schools.’ 

A dozen or so apartments have already been entirely financed by the project and some of those who supported it were able to add a visit to the new Christian district to the usual pilgrims’ tour, after their visit to Bethlehem.

‘We appreciate the MCL’s scheme,’ said Patriarch Twal, ‘which acknowledges that the Church of Jerusalem is the church of our roots for each and every one of us. This project to build homes for young couples hopes to slow the constant Christian exodus, giving them the chance to live and work in Jerusalem, stopping holy sites from becoming mere museums without any spirituality or lifeblood. Inopportune decisions in the past have stopped Christians from being able to work and live in Jerusalem, reducing their already meagre presence, as they scarcely account for 2.1% of the population.’ 

Pilgrims who visit holy places, stopping to reflect on the historical and archaeological past described in the Bible, are always reminded by the Franciscan friars of the Custodia Terrae Sanctae, as well as by the leaders of the different Christian denominations, of the importance of preserving not just the stones but the ‘living stones’ that are the native Christians who live here.

A century ago, the Christians of Jerusalem accounted for 25% of the population. In 1948 there were 30,000 of them. Today they have shrunk to less than half that number. 

Israel’s central statistics office has just issued 2011 statistics regarding the Christian population: there are 154,000 Christians in the country, 2% of the population. 

One also has to add to that number the tens of thousands of foreign immigrant workers. Eighty percent of the Christians resident in Israel are ethnic Arabs. 

The growth rate of the Christian population is 0.9%, lower than that of Jews (1.7) and Muslims (2.7).

Arab Christians attain a high school diploma and are admitted to university more frequently than Muslims or even Jews, but the average employment rate among Arab Christians is 52%, while the rate for Jews is 60%.