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Article: Dark Days in Bethlehem: Under siege from all sides, Christians in the Holy Land have never been so beset. A report from the front.
- Article from:
- Newsweek
- Article date:
- September 29, 2003
- Author:
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Byline: Joshua Hammer
David Mansour's ties to the Holy Land have all but unraveled. A Greek Orthodox Christian whose family has lived in Bethlehem for generations, Mansour runs the Christmas Tree Souvenir Shop on Milk Grotto Street, just around the corner from the Church of the Nativity. For years he earned a comfortable living selling olive-wood nativity scenes to religious pilgrims who flocked to Jesus' purported birthplace at a rate of 130,000 a month. But since the start of the Aqsa intifada, tourism has vanished, and so has Mansour's livelihood. "My last customer? I think he came into the shop three weeks ago," he says, blowing dust off a stack of yellowing ...