The Church of Saint Gabriel The nearby Church of Saint Joseph At the top of the slope The bishop's residence The Mosque Quarter In the Market Casa Nova Street

The Church of St.

From the Church of St. Gabriel, a narrow street winds among the houses of Old Nazareth to the Church of the Annunciation. This Roman Catholic church is one of the most important sites in the Christian world. The huge modern - day building, completed in 1966, is constructed over a cave traditionally believed by Roman Catholics to be the site of the Annunciation. Adjacent to the cave are the remains of the apse of a church from the Crusader period. Here, pilgrims' groups can sometimes be seen celebrating mass. A circular stairway leads to the second floor, where the parishioners of Nazareth pray. The walls of the upper sanctuary are covered with panels containing portrayals of Mary , depicted from a variety of cultural perspectives; the panels are gifts from Catholic communities around the world. A symbolically rich and colorful mosaic decorates the huge wall behind the altar. The floor is open to the lower level. , providing a view of the ancient remains in order to give visitors a sense of continuity. A dome in the shape of an inverted lily, one of the symbols associated with Mary. rises about 20 meters above the apse and the open section of the floor. At noon, its gates close to the public. They reopen at 2, but only until 4:30, and in summer until 5:45. On Sundays, the church is open only for mass. These restrictions are the bane of the existence of tour guides, who must make sure to arrive at the church well enough in advance of closing time to permit a tour and perhaps a brief prayer service.

The Nearby Church of St.

The nearby Church of St. Joseph. built in 1914, rests on remains of a sixth - century church, which was renovated during the Crusader period. In the courtyard between the Church of the Annunciation and the Church of St. Joseph, a small museum displays the remains of rare Crusader bas-reliefs, capitals, and inscriptions found during construction of the present church. An admission fee is charged. The street leading to the Church of the Annunciation and the market, and the streets that branch off from it, are lined with mansions that are over a century old. Two storeys high, they are roofed with tiles manufactured in Marseilles and their walls are coated with a yellowish- brown plaster. There are over a hundred of these houses, and Adeeb Daoud knows all of them inside and out. Besides examining them thoroughly, he has documented them and seen to it that they were declared buildings slated for preservation. "This is a typical courtyard house, one of the nicest in the city," he told me as we entered the courtyard of the home of the Jlrjura family through an old wooden gate with a large arch above it. In the center of the courtyard is a cistern, covered with a leaning structure created by a local artist. The walls of the mansion still have their original plaster. The patina of decades enhances it and brings out the yellowish-brown hue of the Nazareth earth with which the plaster was mixed. This type of plaster, by the way, is fashionable today in the affluent suburbs of Tel Aviv. "An importer who brings this material in from Italy has already been to see me," said Daoud. "There are organic substances in the plaster - horsehair or straw - that hold it together," he explained. "The lime isn't ordinary lime either. After it's burned, it's left to lie for a little while, until it stops smoldering. There's one lime supplier in Galilee whom everyone runs to, because he lets the lime lie for two months. At the time these houses were built, the lime was left to lie for years, so that it was burnt and cooled down to an extent that is impossible to achieve today.

At the top of the slope

At the top of the slope, in the Old City, stands the A-Rls House. This is the home of In'am Zuabl, widow of Sa'if a-Din Zuabl, who was mayor of Nazareth for many years. He had also served as a member of Knesset since its beginnings, and was deputy speaker for a time. The Zuabi family, with over 50,000 members, has branches throughout the Middle East. Fifteen thousand of them are in Israel. According to a family tradition, they are descendants of the prophet Mohammed. In the time of the British Mandate, the leadership of the family was concentrated in the villages of Galilee, but with the establishment of the State of Israel, the family moved its center to Nazareth. The A-Rls House stands at the intersection of three streets. It, too, is coated with typical Nazareth plaster and roofed with tiles from Marseilles. It has numerous openings and staircases. The main entrance, beyond a porch festooned with plants, leads to a vast hall, about 200 square meters in size. The ceiling is decorated with a colorful fresco. It used to be possible to go out to the wooden balcony, or mashrabiya, overlooking the roofs of the Old City. A wooden statue of a vulture used to rise above the balcony, but it fell into the street during a storm two years ago. The balcony is also in danger of falling apart. From the A-Rls House we walked toward the residence of the Greek Orthodox bishop. Its iron gate leads into another world, a miniature Greece. The walls are painted light blue, an immense cypress tree stands in the center of the courtyard, and a tin bucket is suspended from a rope over the cistern. The bishop has a small church within his house, an intriguing structure in its own right. At the entrance to his office is an ancient sarcophagus, which serves as a bench.

The bishop's residence

The bishop's residence is on the periphery of "Author's House Square," one of the most beautiful squares in the Old City. Local folklore long claimed that numerous cisterns and caves lay beneath the square and its surrounding area, and now it has emerged that they really do exist. This year, a seismographic survey will be carried out to map these spaces and examine the connection between them. If possible, a passageway linking them will be installed and visitors will be able to tour underground Nazareth. Author's House Square is the home of what is known as "The Higher Institute of Art and the Author's House. " As we stood there, the sounds of a violin and a piano poured from the windows of class- rooms on the first floor. "The demand is tremendous," said Karim Shadad, director of the institute. "Teachers come from all over, mainly new Russian immigrants from Upper Nazareth. One teacher even comes from Tel Aviv. " Shadad used to be a bank manager. He has many plans for the new center, such as a course for local guides, as well as courses for the furthering of culture in the city. The center was officially opened a short time ago by Shulamit Aloni, minister of communication and culture. The opening was interpreted as a sign that things are beginning to move in Nazareth. The feeling that something is beginning to happen in Nazareth is particularly strong in the Old City market. In the 1960s, the market buzzed with Israeli Jews, local residents, and even tourists. Then, in the 1970s and '80s, its glamor began to fade. Apart from the fact that it lost much of its Israeli Jewish trade to the Jerusalem and Bethlehem markets after the Six Day War, its normal market-clutter went out of control. Shops spilled into the street, sometimes even meeting each other in the middle of the road.

The Mosque Quarter

In Harat Alghama, the Mosque Quarter, in the center of the market, stands the White Mosque, a Turkish building with an exquisite pencil -shaped minaret. The tomb of Abdullah et-Fahoum, governor of Ottoman Nazareth and builder of the mosque, is in the courtyard. The mosque was built in 1812, during the reign of Suleiman Pasha. Suleiman's successor', Abdallah, put Sheikh Amin el Fahoum in charge of the mosque, and today it belongs to the Fahoum family religious trust. The Fahoum clan, which resides in the Mosque Quarter, is one of the wealthiest and most influential families in the city. Until the establishment of the State of Israel, the clan had extensive landholdings in the Jezreel Valley. In 1946, Yusef Fahoum was elected mayor of Nazareth, bringing the office of mayor under Moslem control. The largest of the Fahoum mansions is the one overlooking the Vegetable Market. It is also considered the largest private home in the city. Three sizable arched windows grace its wall. "Not long ago, the big windows still had the original wood frames and shutters," Adeeb Daoud told me. "When they renovated, I tried to convince them to keep the original wood. I even brought experts from the Antiquities Authority to give advice. But the family went to an aluminum worker in Ellabun who told them that wood is good, but aluminum is better."

In the Market

In the market, I met Faisal Najim, standing in his vegetable shop. His father bought the shop when the market was built in 1961. Faisal had not planned to follow in his father's foot steps.He studied theater and art at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, but he didn't succeed in finding employment in his field. He took over his father's shop in 1986. "An apprenticeship in the theater of life," he calls it, with an endearing smile. When I asked him what the people in the market thought about the development project and the plans to move shops out, he replied, "Nazareth is thirsty for development. It was neglected for a long time, both as a tourist city and as a city of minority groups. It's about time something was done. I hope it succeeds." I personally had some apprehensions at first, he continued. "Every new thing is a bit frightening. But when I look at things now from a different perspective, I see it's for the good. "There will also be people hurt Twenty -five years ago,business licenses were distributed in a disorganized way,and people received favors and rights to open shops in the middle of the road. Now the municipality is putting things in order."

Casa Nova Street

We could feel the same atmosphere of anticipation in the small market in lane 601, which links Casa Nova Street with Pope Paul VI Street. When I came there with llan Oren, everybody crowded around us. They already knew Oren, and associated him with the great changes that were about to take place. On this spot, there will be a large public square, from which people will he able to go up to the Church of the Annunciation. In order to construct it, several buildings will be raised, including a school that was built in the 1960s. The merchants in the market are fearful. They are about to lose what has been their place of business for decades, on the lane through which the tourists pass on the way to their buses. Nevertheless, one of the merchants said to me, "It's for the good. All of Nazareth will blossom, there'll be tourists, there'll be Israelis, there'll be a livelihood. " His colleagues, standing at their stalls along the lane that will be gone by next year, nodded their heads in agreement.