Celebrating three winter holidays

This year Christmas, Hanukkah and Mawlid an-Nabi are not so far apart so on Thursday the school children celebrated all three with performances and a party.

Once all the parents and children had settled in the sports hall the first graders began the event with a song to banish the darkness on the occasion of Hanukkah, the Jewish festival of the lights. The second graders then performed a Christmas song dressed as Santa. The third graders followed on with a performance that explained the year of the elephant, also the year in which the prophet Mohammed was born. After musical performances and dancing the children and their parents went outside to mingle and enjoy the wide range of food that had been brought.

On Sunday the Pluralistic Spiritual Community Centre also hosted a celebration of all three winter festivals. Villagers were joined by friends and neighbours; the monks from Latrun, nuns from the Beatitudes community at Imwas and people from nearby Kibbutz Nachson. Everyone gathered in the Centre’s courtyard, which had been adorned with Christmas lights, Hanukkah decorations and depictions of elephants and the Kaaba for Mawlid an-Nabi. After the doughnuts and Christmas turkey had been eaten, and everyone had greeted each other, the evening’s events began with speeches and season’s greetings from Dafna, as well as committee heads Peter al-Kalek and Adnan Manaa. Some of the village children then presented Father Paul (from Latrun) with a present they had made to thank the monastery for the land they have given the village and to symbolise the good relations between village and monastery. Music was provided by the band Qawwalia (Mark Eliyahu, Yaron Pe’er, Shahar Kaufman) for most of the evening and the nuns from Imwas also led the party in a recital of Silent Night and other Christmas carols.

More photos of these two events can be found at:
https://plus.google.com/+nswasorg/posts/HhsfrJznkPV (Primary School)
and at
https://plus.google.com/photos/108120223435960529904/albums/6095786611351666625