BY: Laura Menchaca Ruiz1
Nativity Under the Rubble. Tariq Salsa. 2023. Photographs: Laura Menchaca Ruiz.
In the popular imagination of many people around the world, the city of Bethlehem is fixed as a sleepy, provincial town that once gave refuge to the Holy Family in their most vulnerable moment—when the Virgin Mary was about to give birth to the Christ. When one thinks of Bethlehem, one likely imagines the familiar scene of Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus, huddled together in a humble shelter, lit by an other-worldly star, and presided over by shepherds and their flocks, the magi, and an angel. This image has been recuperated by thousands of artists in thousands of renditions—printed onto Christmas cards, etched into olivewood, sculpted from stone, immortalized in films and music. For centuries, this image has been a symbol of hope for Christians worldwide, the notion that good will prevail over evil. However, for all of Bethlehem’s fame and renown, rarely do people consider its contemporary inhabitants—the Palestinian descendants of the earliest followers of Christ—or what is happening there, the fact that Bethlehem is one of the major cities of Palestine currently under a brutal Israeli occupation.
In December 2023, after nearly three devastating months of Israel’s war on Gaza, which, just a month later, the International Court of Justice would deem a “plausible genocide,”2 the nativity scene was once again re-imagined in a life-size installation by the Palestinian Christian artist, Tariq Salsa3. The installation, entitled, “Nativity Under the Rubble,” was forged from metal, stone, barbed wire and cloth, and briefly stood in Bethlehem’s Manger Square, just in front of the Church of the Nativity, a basilica built over the historical birthplace of Jesus, known as the “Grotto of the Nativity.”
Anyone standing in front of the installation is immediately struck by its resemblance to the horrifying images of destruction in Gaza. Joseph, Mary and Baby Jesus are at the center of the installation, congregated amidst the rubble of what looks like their bombed-out shelter and caved-in roof, the remnants of their humble refuge. Broken piles of limestone brought from local quarries are strewn about, which match the stones of the Church of the Nativity just behind the nativity scene. The Holy Family is surrounded by barbed wire, calling attention to the many years that Palestinians have experienced repression—17 years of Israeli blockade in Gaza, 57 years of Israeli occupation in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, 76 years of Nakba, and many more of European colonialism.
At the center of the scene, Jesus is wrapped in his swaddling cloth, which is eerily reminiscent of a child wrapped in a burial shroud, his face indiscernible. Mary is crouched over Baby Jesus in what could be perceived as either reverence or lamentation, seemingly offering the child to the crowd for consideration, with Joseph at her side consoling her. The scene of the Holy Family is left ambiguous. Is Baby Jesus dead or alive? Is Mary grief stricken or reverent? In pondering this question, one notices that the scene recalls other scenes in circulation—that of Gazan mothers and fathers, weeping over their murdered children. Indeed, in Israel’s war against Hamas fighters, nearly two thirds of all casualties have been women and children, and a vast majority of casualties in general have been civilians.
To the right of the Holy Family, stands one of the wisemen, arms outstretched, offering a long white cloth that in the December evening wind, blows ominously and is the only movement the installation allows. One immediately recognizes the cloth as the kafan, the traditional Muslim burial shroud in which fallen Gazans have been buried. The cloth’s to-and-fro sway gives it a ghostly aura, a reminder of the incomprehensible photographs of neatly wrapped human bundles organized into rows. For those well versed in biblical literature, this scene might also bring to mind the wisemen’s gift of myrrh, here replaced by a burial shroud, which foretells of Jesus’ eventual crucifixion at the hands of the Romans, themselves an occupying force—for Jesus was also the martyr of a military occupation and a global failure to intervene.
The inclusion of the shroud, held by a wiseman, may also hold a double meaning. When a limited number of humanitarian aid trucks were finally allowed to enter Gaza after weeks of relentless bombing, one of the main items the trucks carried were burial shrouds. Rather than send life-saving items—water, food, shelter, medicine, medical supplies, Gazans were stunned to receive a large quantity of these shrouds. Gazans wondered whether the aid workers were primarily there to attend to death (or for the performance of aid provision), rather than to nurture life. The fact that the wisemen were “foreign leaders” in the biblical story, and that the aid trucks were coordinated by the “international community” makes one wonder whether this criticism might also be present in the installation.
To the left of the Holy Family is a shepherd—the original witness to the miracle of Jesus’ birth—who seems to be witnessing again now, but in a different context, pleading with us, the crowd of onlookers, to take notice. He carries a small bundle, representing his own displacement. Behind the figures, is the angel who appeared to Mary, Joseph and the shepherd on separate occasions to foretell/announce Jesus’ birth and who presided over the birth as a protector and guardian. Here, the angel is represented as a child-like cherub, perhaps symbolizing the many children who have been martyred in Gaza and who have been imagined in other Palestinian artwork as watching over their surviving relatives from the heavens.
While viewing the installation, other biblical and sociopolitical stories come to mind. In the extended bible story of the nativity, King Herod orders all the “sons of Bethlehem” (male children of Bethlehem under the age of two) to be killed when he learns of a prophecy foretelling that the messiah would come as a child. Most Christians will know that underneath the Church of the Nativity, in addition to the Grotto of the Nativity, are also catacombs where these children were thought to have been buried, and where people today can pray and reflect on the massacre of the innocents. Palestinian Christians who gather in Manger Square to commemorate Christmas, would see this installation and understand the connection between the children massacred under their feet and those in Gaza—their very existence seen as a threat to state power. In the biblical story, Mary, Joseph and Baby Jesus narrowly escape the fate of these children when an angel warns them to wake and flee to Egypt for refuge, an enduring fear of Palestinians—that Palestinian families in Gaza, many already refugees from the Nakba and the Naksa, will be forced out of Gaza and into the Sinai.
Nativity Under the Rubble. Tariq Salsa. 2023. Photographs: Laura Menchaca Ruiz.
In addition to the biblical allusions of Salsa’s work, there may also be a sociopolitical significance to the placement of the installation in Manger Square. The plaza unites four buildings, each with its own symbolism: the Church of the Nativity, Omar Mosque, the Peace Center, and Bethlehem Municipality. The adjoining of these four buildings is significant due to their interrelated history and how their history has shaped the city of Bethlehem.
Omar Mosque was built in 1860 in honor of Caliph Omar Ibn Al-Khattab, who in the 7th century conquered the Byzantine Empire. In the Pact of Omar, he decreed that the Church of the Nativity would remain a Christian place of worship, stipulating that Muslims would be allowed to pray there only individually and prohibited the call to prayer(al-Adhan) from being made from the church walls. He further decreed that the Church would be always under the protection of the Caliph and that no harm would come to the Christian community in the newly conquered territories. Rather than turn the Church of the Nativity into a mosque, as was the custom during the Islamic conquest, Omar built a prayer site nearby, and later, the mosque was built over the same site in his honor. Because it is customary in Islam not to build mosques too near each other for fear of creating disunity, this ensured that the Church of the Nativity would preserve its Christian character throughout time. This story serves as a sort of founding myth for Christian-Muslim relations in Bethlehem, highlighting interfaith care and mutual respect as central tenets of Palestinian life, as well as a commitment to Palestinian unity among the Abrahamic faith traditions.
The Peace Center serves as another aspirational symbol of Palestinian future. The Center, which now stands adjoining the Church of the Nativity and Omar Mosque, was erected in 2000 as part of Bethlehem’s preparations for the new millennium, which, coming on the heels of the Oslo accords, Palestinians hoped would finally bring peace, stability, and eventually, an autonomous Palestinian state. The construction of the Peace Center has a particular significance, since its construction required the destruction of a large police station and jail that had been founded by the British during the Mandate period to control the people of Palestine. The demolishing of the British Mandate police station and the building of the Peace Center was a deeply symbolic project for Bethlehemites who were looking forward to a future finally free of European colonialism, and the ability to welcome international visitors on their own terms.
Finally, opposite the Peace Center, stands the Bethlehem Municipality, an institution that was hard won by the Bethlehem community during the Ottoman Empire. The establishment of the municipality allowed the city to expand its self-governance and to mark the importance of the region as a critical site of world heritage. Throughout Ottoman rule, British occupation, and Israeli occupation, the Bethlehem Municipality has served as a symbol of national aspirations for freedom and self-determination. From its rooftop flies a large Palestinian flag, an act that is currently on its way to becoming illegal in Israel, including in Bethlehem’s sister city of Jerusalem, just on the other side of the apartheid wall.4
Against the backdrop of Manger Square, at the nexus of these four buildings, the installation casts the long shadow of history, telling the story of a nation that can’t seem to shake colonial rule, but that continues to imagine a liberated future.
Just days after I first saw Tariq Salsa’s installation, the community gathered for midnight Christmas mass inside the church. The Latin Patriarch gave the homily, which focused on the gospel line “no room in the inn,” when Mary and Joseph were told there was no room available for them, and Mary was forced to give birth in a cave for livestock. The Patriarch related the phrase to the idea that supremacy always leads to the mindset of “no room” and that to create room for people and all life, is to create room for God (love and peace). The night was cathartic, a collective release after so many days of witnessing and being subject to mass atrocity. People hugged and cried together. At the end of the night, the people processed, carrying a figure of Baby Jesus high over their heads on their way to place it in the grotto of the nativity, marking the enactment of Christmas. I watched as the large crowd lifted the figure of the Christ child, which seemed to float along their shoulders. As it passed, people leaned in to touch and kiss it. As I watched, my mind drifted to an image I had recently seen on social media—a video reel of Palestinian civil rescue workers, tired and beaten back by their daily proximity to death, weeping for joy and kissing the days-old baby they had just rescued from the rubble, raising the baby over their heads and shouting, “Allahu Akbar,” (God is Great). Overcome by the immensity of the loss of those last few months and the magnitude of the hope that remained, I closed my eyes and allowed myself to be absorbed into the chanting of the people around me, who were singing the song that the angels are said to have sung at the birth of the Prince of Peace: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth, peace, good will to all people.”
- Laura Menchaca Ruiz is a sociocultural anthropologist and media maker from the borderlands of the U.S. Southwest, currently residing in Bethlehem, Palestine. Her recent creative work includes an audio/visual archive of everyday stories from Bethlehem called, Hay Betl7em, created alongside her creative collaborator, Khader Handal. ↩︎
- https://www.icj-cij.org/node/203447 ↩︎
- To learn more about Tariq Salsa’s artwork, visit: https://tariqsalsa.info/ ↩︎
- https://www.972mag.com/palestinian-flag-ban-history-israelis/ ↩︎