18th March
Bethlehem.
Following some recent improvements to the building that houses the Bethlehem branch of the conservatory, further steps forward have been made, the most recent of which has been the donation by the British Consulate in Jerusalem of money to purchase two new pianos and a library of music for the use of the students.
In order to pick out the right books to buy, a group of teachers representative of the various instruments taught at the conservatory traveled to Tel Aviv to perform the sheet music equivalent of supermarket sweep. We had just an hour to collate the various books wanted, then return to Jerusalem leaving the shop owner to list the chosen books and put together a price for them.
Also traveling with the teachers were a few of the administrative staff, one of whom was making a rare departure from Bethlehem, and an even rarer one from the West Bank. As a Christian, he has been granted a permit to visit Jerusalem over the Easter period and took advantage of this short-lived freedom to make the trip to Tel Aviv – a city he last saw in 1987. It felt odd to show a local how to pass through a checkpoint, but some people who are confined to only one side of these checkpoints have never crossed them, and this was his very first time. To realise that it was over 20 years since he last visited a city that is around an hour’s drive away was astonishing, and as we took the bus from the Bethlehem checkpoint to Jerusalem, he told me that before the building of the Separation Wall that cuts off Bethlehem from it’s mother city, he used to have a job teaching in a school in Jerusalem. He would finish his morning teaching job in Bethlehem at 12:30, have a quick lunch then leave in order to start at 1pm. He said he used to allow ten minutes for the drive between the two places, and as we crept along in the traffic, already having traveled for almost an hour, I realised once again what change the people here have seen. In just the last few years, the ability of people to travel, work and socialize has been thoroughly impinged upon and it is still reducing.
Once back in Jerusalem, I heard reports that a Jewish Rabbi had been stabbed in the Old City. In fact, had I not left the bus after it had been stopped at a ‘flying checkpoint’ that morning to take a taxi in order to save time, I would have passed the spot where the attack occurred at the time of the incident. Fortunately for the Rabbi he wasn’t seriously injured, but the attempt on his life is further fuel on the fire of the current tense situation.
Away from the political events of recent days, our students have been performing alot. For concerts both in and outside the conservatory they have been preparing pieces they will use again in the end of year exams, and hopefully gaining a taste for the stage. The prospect of performing certainly motivates them to learn and practise, so in itself this is a valuable benefit for us teachers. Also, next week is Performance Week in the conservatory so all lessons are cancelled so that we may help our students prepare concerts for each day of the week. This happens to coincide with my tourist visa’s expiry, so I’ll be taking the first few days of the week to make a trip over to Jordan, where I’ll hopefully get the time to visit Petra, before returning with the aim of getting a nice new three-month stamp for my passport. Since Christmas the border control seem to have become stricter, but hopefully they won’t cause me too many problems. It is an understatement to say that a Denied Entry stamp at this point in the year would be inconvenient.
