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Arab Christians try reviving town of Jesus miracle

January 25, 2010 | Israel
January 25, 2010
Israel

Arab Christians try reviving town of Jesus miracle

By Diaa Hadid

1/20/2010 Kufr Kana, Israel (AP) – In this small Galilee town where tradition says Jesus turned water to wine, an ambitious priest hopes to perform his own miracle – revive a shrinking flock.

But he will have a tough time slowing the hemorrhage of Christians from this bleak, economically depressed town, as the young move away to cities like nearby Nazareth, which offer bigger Christian communities, more jobs and better marriage prospects.

Migration and low birth rates have diminished Christian populations across the Middle East. Israel’s community of 123,000 Arab Christians is one of the few in the region whose numbers have held steady – it grew slightly by 2,000 in 2009. But it does face a problem of rural flight to big cities, which leaves traditional small Christian towns like Kufr Kana to waste away.

Kufr Kana was entirely Christian at the beginning of the 20th century, but Muslims began settling in the village first as traders, and then as refugees fleeing fighting during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, locals said. Now the village is home to 16,000 Muslims and 4,000 Christians.

The remaining Christians are already discussing what happens when their community dies out completely: Would local Muslims one day have to oversee the Christian holy sites or would members of the clergy stay behind to do so?

Relations with Muslims tend to be cool but polite. Some Christian residents describe warm friendships with Muslims – while others claim Muslims want them banished from town. Mostly, Christians said they just felt outnumbered.

Most Arab towns in Israel have the same concrete-block bleakness and appear impoverished compared to Jewish communities nearby – a legacy of decades of budgetary discrimination by Israeli governments and mismanagement by local municipalities.

Christians are a tiny part of Israel’s Arab minority of some 1.4 million, or 20 percent of the country’s population of 7.4 million. Another 50,000 Christians live in the West Bank and Gaza, among nearly 4 million Muslims.

The relatively more prosperous cities of Nazareth and Haifa, both with large Christian minorities, give Kufr Kana’s young Christians an escape route from boring village life.

[Full Story]

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