Beit Sahour is where the Angels visited the Sheperds on the first Christmas night, Bringing good news. Today there is more good news for Beit Sahour as they have been recognized as a global craft city 2020.

Radio Hayah spoke with Elias D’eis from the Beit Sahour Municipality.

Arabic

I’m with Elias D’eis from the Beit Sahour municipality and Beit Sahour has just been recognized as global craft city 2020, Elias how important is this for the city of Beit Sahour?

Yes this is very important for the city of Beit Sahour since its first the largest Christian town in the holy land and most of its citizens work in olive wood carving and this is one of our christian identity and also is part of our cultural identity here in the town that around 30% of the citizens they work in carving olive wood, Now this will attract more tourists and also we can empower this sector by giving more facilities and what they need in a way to improve and keep this handy craft as part of our cultural identity.

How many cities were looking for this title?

So the world craft council actually, each year they nominate several cities from the world, I believe there was around 5 or 6 cities that have been picked as craft cities that are picked as craft cities so each year they choose 1 city but they choose 1 city from each country, so they don’t like choose 2 cities in the same country so Beit Sahour was nominated for Palestine  and 2020 .

So, this is quite a big honour for Palestine and Beit Sahour as well

Exactly its actually  first for Palestine and second Beit Sahour, this is the second Palestinian city after Hebron 2016, Hebron was nominated as a craft city as well in Glass and ceramic craft and now Beit Sahour is in the olive wood and we hope that more cities will be nominated in the future, Palestinian cities.

This was recognized for olive wood, are there a lot of people working in the olive wood industry and what sort of things do they make in Olive wood?

So mainly they make religious items, they make some souvenirs for tourists, like all these olive wood products they make to sell it to the tourists visiting Bethlehem as souvenirs and mainly its religious items that come from the bible like religious figures as kind of a souvenir, Part of these products is like a Nativity scene, Nativity set like the good shepherd, the holy family, virgin Mary’s statue, Jesus, crosses, Christmas ornaments as well, so many products that the tourists like to buy as a souvenir from Bethlehem when they visit the holy land and also sometimes they make some kitchen tools that they can use in the house.

What do you hope will come from having this title?

So this title actually will give is an opportunity to request a lot of things from the government first and from Local government and the world city council, so we have a committee that was established when we were working on this file or project like the civil society I was actually working directly with the craft people and we came out with a list of needs, one of the needs for example is we want to have not an industrial but a craft zone in the city where we can move all these craft shops from their homes from the city Centre out to a zone where they can be all together so we can reduce the pollution in the city and the noise because most of these shops are located in the homes, the family homes, the second we want to have like a permanent gallery or museum where tourists can come and visit during their pilgrimage here to get to know more about the history of the craft, how they make it, to get to see the live production in front of them, we want to facilitate and support the small workshops, how can we financially support them and give them facilities from like loans and banks where they can improve their work and they can produce more. One of the needs that we want to have   is a vocational training Centre in the city we don’t have any Centre where they teach olive carving and we don’t want to loose this craft in the future because most of the young generation now they go more into business, different businesses and they are loosing the craft that we inherited from our ancestors like from the 4^th century and we want to keep this craft as part of our city history and heritage that we want to have a craft like vocational training where we can teach the young generation and keep it for the future.

Is finance a problem, buying olive wood then having to leave it to dry for nearly a year, so you are laying money out?

Yeah the olive wood is really very expensive when you but it and because most of the craft men they buy the wood during the olive harvest season when they cut the old branches and they just keep it to dry so it will require more time and for them to start working with it and so the raw material is also one of the challenges that we have here now in this industry first because it is very expensive to buy the raw material, second because we don’t have a lot of olive wood now because it is related to the political situation that most of the olive fields are now annexed to the Israeli side and there is a lot of olive trees uprooted for the building of the settlements, so I think we will face a huge problem in the future like key resource for the raw material.

How important are traditional crafts to this area and do you feel that some crafts will actually die out?

This craft is actually back to the 4^th century, it was started during the byzantine era when the pilgrimage started coming to the holy land so the local people here in Bethlehem and Beit Sahour in particular they started this craft by making crosses and Nativity scene and selling it to the tourist and then it developed, and we have had it since 1000’s of years and as I mentioned most of the young generation now they are going more into IT businesses, technology and they are loosing this craft but many families they keep this as a family tradition that they inherited from their fathers and grandfathers and they keep working on it and this is what we hope that the young generation will be into this craft  and this is why we need to have a vocational training Centre where people think they have an opportunity instead of like an option or plan B, if they are not going to university then they can go to this vocational training Centre and learn about the craft.

Does it take many years of work and practice to be a skilled craftsman?

It is actually, I am one of the people that I used to work in my summer vacation with my father and it is hard job, you need to be talented, its an art actually so it requires a lot of energy and time to do the carving and to cut the wood and to shape it and to finish it so actually its requires a lot of time of learning and practicing.

Are the people of Beit Sahour happy to receive this prize?

Yes, actually we have been waiting for this for almost a year because we applied last year for this title, people were very excited but unfortunately it came in a very difficult time now with what we are facing with the Covid 19, we were planning that when we get the title we will do a huge celebration and festival for the city and honor those who work in this craft but unfortunately because of what we are passing through we are not doing a big event but yes most of the  people are seeing hope, in the future we will get more tourists , it will be more easier to export this craft with the stamp of the world craft city and this will help to promote it globally as well, so this title will help all these craft shops to promote the olive wood product  as one of the product that was recognized from the world craft council.

One of my questions was has the Corona virus affected the industry? Of course, you are not getting tourists coming into Bethlehem at the moment.

For sure, most of the shops if not all of the shops have been shut down since the Corona Virus because the main market for this product is tourism and now we are in a lockdown and no tourists, no single tourists now in Bethlehem so 50% of the product was sold in the souvenir shops, 40% of it goes to the global market exhibition like the United States and Europe, they sell it in churches and exhibitions and 10% goes to the Arab countries, like the gulf area but now with the Corona virus all these markets are closed, No tourists, most of them are suffering now financially from the Corona Virus.

What is your prayer for the future of the industry?

So my prayer always  is that we will get tourism back to the city and the international will think about this industry as one of the main reasons for visiting the land, like visiting the holy land here is not only visiting the dead stones, the churches and museums, I pray that when the internationals when they come here they will just think about the local people who are living here, the living stones and how can the support and make a sustainable life for them by buying the products and supporting the local economy so I hope we will overcome the Corona Virus and things will be back to normal and these hand crafts will be promoted globally as a world craft city and we will get more tourists as well so this is my prayer.