A Covid Christmas Comes to Bethlehem

A Covid Christmas Comes to Bethlehem

Bethlehem dispatchA Covid Christmas Comes to BethlehemEvery Christmas, the quiet West Bank town of Bethlehem becomes a bustling hub for pilgrims, tourists and dignitaries. Not this year.Manger Square in Bethlehem, usually thrumming with tourists this time of year, was quiet last week.Credit...Samar Hazboun for The New York TimesBy Adam RasgonBETHLEHEM, West Bank — The Church of the Nativity was closed, and most souvenir shops shuttered. Hotels that are usually sold out months in advance were deserted.Among the few signs of life on the main street in Bethlehem's Old City last Friday were the chirping of a few birds and stray cats scavenging an overflowing garbage can.Earlier in the month, only a few people attended the tree-lighting ceremony in Manger Square, an event that usually heralds the metamorphosis of the quiet West Bank town of Bethlehem into one of the main seasonal attractions of international Christendom.The coronavirus pandemic has put a damper on Christmas at the place where it is said to have all begun.“Great sadness,” Father Ibrahim Shomali, the chancellor of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem, said of this year's celebrations. “We are very frustrated, but what can we do? We need to accept the reality and do the right