Sugar Cubes

Paris has the Legion d’Honneur, Britain has its Knighthoods, and the US has the Congressional Medal of Honour. With the creation of the Bethlehem Passport, Bethlehem has its own high honour to recognise those who make an important contribution to the city. The passport has been deliberately crafted as a beautiful object, with leather covers and deep watermarked pages, and a design that features both the star of Bethlehem and the figure of St George – Al-Khadir – the patron saint of Bethlehem and a figure sacred to Bethlehem’s Muslims and Christians alike. There are several routes to winning a passport, whether as a benefactor prepared to underwrite a specific initiative or an entrepreneur bringing wealth-creating opportunities to the city. The passport is also open to people of imagination and experience who can bring major events to a city that lives through its visitors: imagine an international conference, a festival of sacred music, even a marathon across the mountains of Bethlehem’s wilderness. But the passport will also be offered to anyone willing to make an extended stay in the city – sharing our journey as we work to overcome the Wall.

Dabdoub explains that the passport represents a strategic initiative to regenerate the city, build goodwill and, more importantly, an emotional investment with Bethlehem. “The passport is for friends of Bethlehem worldwide, who will stand by us for as long as the Wall stands. We should not under-estimate what the passport means for the Palestinian Diaspora abroad, some of whom are in the third or fourth generation and know Bethlehem only as a memory of their grandparents or from an old photograph in an album. The passport is a way for them to reconnect with their watan, their homeland.”

[Via This week in Palestine]

Related: Bethlehem an Open City

Related tags: Bethlehem, Palestine