Palestine offered us its own illusions.
We put the sea behind us and passed through small villages along the road. At first I saw the many fields of grain and the vast groves of olives tended by farmers. Then villages made of stone-and-reed houses cobbled together with mud and dung. Everywhere I looked I could see abject poverty forced upon the people by the Roman taxes. As Judah explained with growing consternation, in the occupation of Palestine, Rome demanded a heavy tax to support its empire. Up to fifty percent, but paid in coin, not grain or produce. Many farmers had to sell their land to rich Jewish landowners in order to pay their tax. Most who had themselves once been landowners now worked in those same fields for new masters, to make the coin owed in taxes. Fishermen and tradesmen were robbed in the same fashion.
The people walked about with heads bowed. Judah explained they suffered so because the Jews of Palestine were by nature exceedingly pious and clean. It seemed to me that the Jews were no more soiled than any person I’d seen in Egypt or among the Bedu. But they could not attain their standards of cleanliness amid the filth of poverty.
And I could feel an even deeper oppression in the air. Something else seemed to have overshadowed this land that Judah called Israel.
By late afternoon we came to Nazareth on a narrow path rarely traveled. My mind was consumed with Sepphoris, which lay only an hour’s walk north from this poor village. Had it been mine to decide, we would have bypassed Nazareth, for I was a foreigner and Judah had been clear that all foreigners were considered unclean.
And yet Judah was thoroughly committed to finding this Yeshua, and he’d convinced himself that Nazareth would lead him to the man.
“We must not remain long,” Saba said, staring at the dingy huts.
“With only a few questions, they will know,” Judah replied. “Only a few hundred live here.”
There were perhaps fifty houses by my reckoning, all of stone and mud, many sharing a common courtyard. I could not imagine any king living in such a state of poverty. I wasn’t eager to enter the town dressed as I was.
“You should go, Judah. Saba and I will wait.”
He looked over at me. “No, I would have you with me. You must see as well.”
See what, I did not bother to ask.
So as not to appear lofty in this place of squalor, I replaced the olive mantle over my head with the threadbare one from Dumah.
Judah prodded his camel forward and we entered Nazareth on the single dusty road that passed through.
It was true, only a few hundred could live here. Most were gone, presumably to the fields or to nearby Sepphoris. Three small children squatted on the roadside, dressed in what might pass as rags. The moment they saw us, the youngest boy, perhaps eight years of age, jumped to his feet and raced our way, yelping with delight. There was no mistaking his announcement for all to hear.
“Foreigner, foreigner, foreigner!”
It appeared he was too young to realize that this designation was meant to be shouted not with delight but with scorn, to warn others.
Judah only chuckled. “You see, they love you, Maviah.”
All three wide-eyed children had now reached the camels and were hopping about, slapping at the camels, tugging on their ropes, hands extended as they chattered and bickered.
“Do you have denar?”
“I will brush this camel!”
“They are from the city.”
“No, they are from the desert!”
“From Jerusalem!”
“What do you know?”
“Do not touch her, it is forbidden!”
“Do you have honey?”
Judah slid from his mount, dug out a small jar of honey from the bags, and handed it to the first child, only to be descended upon by yet more children who’d heard the commotion and magically appeared from the houses—no fewer than a dozen.
A woman emerged from the nearest door and cried out, shooing the children frantically. “Leave them! Have you no decency? Get back to your mothers!”
They scattered, surprisingly obedient. An old man with a cane had appeared from behind one of the mud homes, and it was to this man that Judah went without giving the woman a second look, for among the Jews a woman could not be easily approached by a man.
He quietly spoke with the man for a few minutes, likely explaining that he too was a Jew and was looking for this Yeshua. I kept my eyes on the children now peering at me from the sides of the road, several still holding their hands out for food or money, some daring to call out.
“Do you need a guide?”
“You must be careful of the robbers on this road!”
“I can guide you!”
“Can you give me honey?”
The woman, now joined by another, offered even more pronounced scolding.