social compass 55(4), 2008, 581–596

Rachel SHARABY

The Holiday of Holidays: A Triple-Holiday Festival for Christians, Jews and Muslims Religions differ from each other in their beliefs, customs and holidays. They often ignite wars and create impenetrable boundaries between peoples. Religion becomes the spearhead and driving force for hatred, destruction, and separation from the other. The author will discuss an inter-religion holiday that is exceptional in the Middle East and in the entire world: called the Holiday of Holidays Festival, it unites the holidays of the three monotheistic religions, Christian Christmas, Jewish Hanukkah and Muslim Ramadan, and its logo is three intertwined hands. It takes place during the months of November and December in a mixed neighbourhood in the city of Haifa, Israel. The organizers of this festival try to create an inversion of social reality, representing it in a new and subversive form by blurring the boundaries between holiday and festival, private and public, sacred and secular, local and global, as well as between rival groups. Key words: festival · holiday · religion · syncretism

Les religions diffèrent les unes des autres dans leurs croyances, leurs coutumes et leurs jours de congé. Elles déclenchent souvent des guerres et créent des frontières hermétiques entre les peuples. Les religions deviennent le fer de lance et la force de conduite de la haine, de la destruction et de la séparation de l’autre. L’auteure se penche sur un congé religieux qui est exceptionnel au Moyen-Orient et dans le monde entier. Nommé “la fête du congé des congés” il réunit les congés des trois religions monothéistes: le Noël chrétien, la Hanoukka juive et le Ramadan musulman. Son logo se compose de trois mains entrelacées. Cette fête a lieu durant les mois de novembre et décembre dans l’environnement mixte de la ville de Haïfa en Israël. Les organisateurs de cette fête essaient de créer une inversion de la réalité sociale par une représentation nouvelle et subversive de celle-ci, et ce en rendant floues les frontières entre congé et fête, privé et public, sacré et profane, local et global, et entre des groupes rivaux. Mots-clés: congé · festival · religion · syncrétisme

The article presents a broad theoretical section that discusses the concepts of holiday and festival. The research literature indicates that the terms holiday and festival are sometimes used interchangeably because of the similarity in contents and in ritual forms, and the same celebration may be called holiday or festival (for example, the Spring Holiday or the Spring Festival). This conceptual DOI: 10.1177/0037768608097240 http://scp.sagepub.com

© 2008 Social Compass

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ambiguity creates a difficulty in differentiating between the two terms. However, analysis of the research literature on ritual activity that takes place during holidays and festivals around the world indicates that there are often significant differences between the two forms of celebrations. The present article presents a new model of a celebration that is predefined simultaneously as a holiday and a festival. The Holiday of Holidays Festival is a triple holiday and actually comprises a unique hybrid creation, integrating elements of a holiday and elements of a festival. The article claims that the blurring of boundaries in this festival and the resulting religious and cultural syncretism, whether between holiday and festival, private and public, sacred and secular, local and global, or between rival groups, are directed towards overcoming the harsh social reality of differences and controversies, and towards creating the largest possible common denominator. 1. The Holiday: A Sacred Time The holiday is a prominent universal phenomenon that has existed since the beginning of human history. It is a cyclic system of ritual activities, which comprises a break from everyday life (Social Sciences Encyclopedia, 1969; Danzu, 2004: 7–9; Sever, 2002). It is celebrated in a group, publicly, by a nation, a community, an ethnic group, a family or even an entire culture (for example, the entire Christian world celebrates Christmas).The holiday is related to natural events (the Spring Holiday in China, India and Switzerland), historical-religious events (Passover for the Jews to commemorate the exodus from Egypt), or historical-secular events (independence days, or Bastille Day in France). It is also celebrated in honour or in memory of a mythical, historical or political figure: a god (a holiday in honour of the birth of Buddha in India), a saint (Saint Patrick’s Day in Ireland), “The Father of the Nation” (a holiday celebrating the birth of Gandhi in India or the birth of the Grand Duke in Luxemburg), or a renowned personality (the Holiday of Confucius in China). The holiday is sometimes celebrated in honour of a broad social group (the Workers’ Holiday on 1 May). From a cultural viewpoint time is not objective and is not homogeneous, and every society has a different attitude towards different time periods, social meanings and religious differentiations. Physical time is a continuum that is measured by different means, whereas the concept of time as it is perceived in a society, i.e. cultural time, is spread into single units (Rubin, 1988). Leach (1961: 126) regarded the process of time as a cyclic pattern of repetition, the continuation of oscillations between polar opposites, day and night, winter and summer, youth and old age, life and death. In this scheme there is no depth to the past, and any past is simply an equal past that opposes the present. Leach wrote about two simultaneous and contradictory experiences of time: one based on the fact that there is cyclicity of day, month and year in natural phenomena and the other based on the fact that there are life phenomena that do not repeat themselves, because every creature that is born grows and dies, with no turning back. Time can therefore be viewed as flowing in a linear manner, from an infinite past to an infinite future, and also as being circular or cyclic. People

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thus “create” times by these views, and divide continuous time into discrete units that are placed side by side, as if they were separated from each other: hours of work and hours of leisure, secular days and sacred time, etc. (Leach, 1961: 124–36; Gell, 2001: 30–36; Rubin, 1988: 7–8). Sacredness is a certain status which people afford to a spiritual or material entity (Shavid, 1988: 28–35). It is related to holy times and places, and its definitions vary across generations, with new aspects. Durkheim (1965 [1922]), in his essay The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, claims that the concept of sanctity in general stems from the individual’s experience with social norms, whose power is in their sanctity. What a person calls “god” is actually society, which from a subjective viewpoint has all the characteristics that were usually attributed to godliness. In this context the concept of time, according to Durkheim, is “social time”, which exists for us because we are social people (Gell, 2001: 3–4). According to Shavid (1986: 28–35), two operations determine a sacred status: one is the separation of the sacred thing from all others and a high degree of sanctity (godliness), an absolutely separate sanctity, and the other is man’s recognition of a sacred, superior entity. In this manner a regular day turns into a sacred one by being severed from the sequence of all the other days and from regular human activity. On this day time is expropriated from man’s possession and he cannot do as he wishes. The holiday is also unique in having a clear ritual status, and man rises to a higher level by observance of religious rituals. Eliade (1996: 1–4, 388–408) described the time of the religious person as a time that is not homogeneous and not continuous. On the one hand it has intervals of sacred time, a time of celebrations, and on the other hand it has secular time, which is a regular, transient continuation. Rituals enable the transition from secular time to sacred time. Sacred time, because of its nature, is thus reversible in that the time of genesis, the mythical time, becomes present. This is ontological time. Religious and sacred time is not created periodically, and any time can turn into a sacred time. During the festive ritual activity the person again experiences the wonderful revelation of genesis, from which he became charged with values and with spiritual power. Since sacred time, according to Eliade, comprises an eternal present, it is ahistorical, a time without motion. The holiday is an expression of a unified worldview of sanctified time and space. When a certain space meets a holiday, it immediately changes and prominently receives the characteristics of a sacred space. The change is sometimes more extreme: a poor room turns into a castle, the world of below rises and unites with the world above and a hostile space becomes more relaxed and intimate. The changing of the space on the holiday is achieved via concrete physical changes that occur because of the introduction of various items that are related to the holiday customs and symbols, as well as due to the change in people’s behaviour. Activity during the sacred time is ritualistic and symbolic, and even functional activities receive a ritual meaning on the holiday (Shuv, 1992). The holiday is a creation of human culture, and answers the universal human need for stopping the progress of secular time and joining immortality. The holiday fulfils many functions in the life of the individual and the society. It enables the person to step out of the secular days’ routine, and affords him spiritual experiences and feelings of elation. The holiday and its rituals also fulfil an important function in the cohesion of the community, in maintaining its

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identity and historical continuity, and enable identification with its collective memory (Don-Yehiya, 2005: 281; Havlin, 2005: 265). The main origin of the holidays is in religious tradition, which affords them their meaning and fulfils a major role in shaping their contents. However, modern society, in spite of the secularization processes to which it is exposed, may add to and need the holiday and its symbols even after it has lost or significantly weakened its affinity to its original significance. The social celebration is central for transmitting tradition. The symbols remain but the concepts, conditions and meanings that we attribute to these symbols change. The celebration thus enables us to experience continuity and renewal simultaneously, and comprises a foundation for dialogue between tradition and modernity (Costa, 2001). Gadamer (1975: 262–71) affords great importance to the “encounter of horizons” or the “merging of horizons” between the past and the present which takes place in the individual (who interprets the traditional text), and even points to its position in shaping the individual’s identity. He regards this encounter as a dialogue that connects past and present, and creates a continuum between them, and continuity in the life of the people for all generations. According to Gadamer, tradition is not something into which we come, something closed and complete, but rather we are partners in its shaping and development. In his opinion, the encounter between the past and the present is not an encounter between two completely detached elements, since the present is also partially shaped by what was transmitted from the past. Dynamics is therefore not a random property of tradition. Rather, it is one of its constitutive elements (Havlin, 2005: 256–8; Sagi, 2003: 15–29). In modern society secular holidays and rituals take place alongside the religious holidays. These can also be viewed as a type of cultural activity that can shed light on the collective life. Douglas (1973) differentiated between the religious ritual which places less importance on intent and more on the precise mode of performing the action, and the secular ritual which she regarded as an act of ethics originating in the society. Turner (1974: 231–71) claimed that the religious ritual is a rite of passage that creates a transformation, whereas the secular ritual, the ceremony, is a social, conformative ritual that confirms the existing situation. Douglas and Turner thus referred to the ritual in its religious meaning, since in their opinion sanctity has a religious significance and the fields of the religious and the sacred are identical. In contradistinction, Moore and Myerhoff (1977: 3–8, 17–24) differentiated between the fields of the religious and the sacred. Their main claim is that any ritual, whether religious or secular, is sacred and that the secular collective ritual is a complex, organized social behaviour with a particular order, with a defined goal and a social message. In this context they emphasized the instrumentality of the collective ritual and its status and stressed that its characteristics cause it to be an ideal form for transmitting messages. Secular collective holidays and rituals, as interpreted by Moore and Myerhoff, are a major component of “civil religion”. Civil religion refers to a comprehensive system of beliefs, symbols and customs that have an absolute and sacred validity, at the centre of which stands not a supernatural entity but society or the state (Bella, 1974). These values comprise a basis for identification and solidarity, afford legitimization to the social order and thus help unify the society.

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As claimed by Moore and Myerhoff, the celebrations express values that are common to the members of the community, and enable them to unite around these values. This is especially true of the modern nationalist community. The identical rituals performed simultaneously by all members of the nation enable them to imagine themselves as belonging to the same community (Anderson, 1999: 53–68). The traditional holiday may also serve as an instrument for cultivating political myths by social groups. This tendency is especially prominent among modern nationalist movements (Tudor, 1972; Don-Yehiya, 2005: 581–2). 2. The Festival: A Great Social Celebration The word festival is derived from the Latin word festus (of a holiday) and the Indo-European word dhes or dhesto, which is the root of several related words (Levinson and Ember, 1996). A festival is an event that is created by a community in a symbolic and active manner in order to demonstrate its vitality. The symbolic meaning of the festival is related to values that are overt and accepted as essential to the community’s ideology, social identity, historic continuity and physical survival. The concept “festival” contains two different modes: a ritual which is real and serious, and a game that overturns the social order and sanctions transgressive behaviour. The tension between the ritual and the game supplies the festival with its spice and power. Anyone can participate in the festival, thanks to the game element. The festival is a universal phenomenon. It crosses boundaries and periods. The great influx of observers who are not participants has introduced a new theatrical element into old celebrations. They are no longer the experience of the local community, but rather a tourist attraction. The success of the agricultural yield is no longer a central motive for celebration in most societies, and this has therefore dwindled in industrial societies. However, the need for a real experience is great, and mixtures of holidays and rituals have been created, and new ones invented, in order to stop the course of time. These fulfil the basic human need of creating an island in the sea of routine and reinforcing a sense of social unity (Durkheim, 1965 [1922]). Most festivals take place regularly on a particular date (Sever, 2002; Kleinberg, 1995). Festivals that celebrate the New Year exist in many cultures and emphasize the cycle of time. In traditional societies there are numerous festivals that celebrate the coming of the seasons, which are important for agriculture, for example the Spring Festival (holiday) in China. Additional festivals that are related to nature are, for example, the Lemon Festival in France, the Flowers Festival in Thailand, the Wine Festival in Bulgaria and the Gray Whale Festival in California. Religious festivals celebrate the anniversaries of the gods, the founders of the religion or holy figures. They demonstrate the importance of the social factor in religious experience and are sometimes immense events. The greatest festival on earth, the Maha Kumbha Mela in India, which takes place once every 12 years, brings millions of participants to the banks of the Ganges River. Pilgrimages around the world also include great festive events, for example the greatest pilgrimage of Christianity, Guadalupe Day (12 December), which is celebrated near Mexico City.

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A special religious festival, Domsmohe, takes place in India. During this festival religious priests put on masks and dance traditional dances. In Japan the holiday of Kambutsue is celebrated on 8 April, which is Buddha’s birthday. At the centre of the great festival in Bolivia, a religious procession takes place in honour of the god Fiesta, with musicians and dozens of dancers in magnificent costumes and masks. In Ireland there are processions and festivals on Saint Patrick’s Day, and each marcher wears something green—the colour that characterizes this holiday. Aguilar (1987), who wrote about religious festivals in southern Spain, indicated that these events demonstrate how festivals afford the community disengagement from routine and oppose mechanical everyday time. They afford people a sense of territorial and historical identification and the holy time acts as a safety net for cultural differences and antagonism that must be repressed in everyday life. Many festivals are art events, for example the art festival in South Africa, the international arts festival in Scotland, or the large arts festival in Brisbane, Australia. Special festivals for music also take place, such as those in Italy and Switzerland, the Nagasaki Kunchi festival in Japan that includes a procession of dragons, or the international music festival in Washington DC—the Smithsonian Folklife Festival. International film festivals should also be mentioned within the category of arts festivals, for example those that take place in Hollywood or Switzerland. The aim of the modern arts festival is to assemble the artists and the audience for a short time for the purpose of a show. However, the event also represents commercial motives (Waterman, 1999). Another type is the sports festivals, such as the Ouray Festival in Colorado, USA, for winter sports fans, or the Ice and Snow Festival in China. Certain rites of passage can also be included in the definition of festivals, for example the Apaches’ Sunrise Ritual, Asian weddings and major African maturity rites, since these rituals empower the entire community (Farrer, 1991; Kapferer, 1983). Political and national festivals can be classified as empowerment rituals, or as important events in the collective memory, such as the Independence Days of different countries. Handelman (1990: 22) referred to these days as mirror rituals, which are a type of public event that represent reality and glorify it. Their function is to create a sense of identification and reinforce the existing situation. Human history abounds with leaders who used festivals and other cultural representations to strengthen their control and to seemingly bridge social gaps (Soja and Hooper, 1994; Peled-Bartal, 2001: 8). For example, the leaders of National Socialism used festivals to emotionally influence the masses, increase patriotism and create a new style of politics (Mosse, 1975). The political power of public events such as festivals stems from their being first of all places of enjoyment and pleasure, and at the same time imagined as neutral sites situated outside the political field. People are therefore more exposed to the hidden meanings that are embedded in them (Stallybrass and White, 1986). The festival often represents and serves forces from the “down” side, of repressed minority ethnic groups. The events of the festival emphasize their cultural uniqueness, their protest and their independence, and induce group solidarity, cultural pride and a sense of renewal. Examples are events expressing black national identity (Pleck, 2001; Manning, 1977) or the Pow Wow Festival in

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Canada that is attended by thousands of Indians from all across North America (Dyck, 1983). Stewart (1986) wrote that for the people of Trinidad to miss the Trinidad Carnival celebrations meant to become extinct. Every West Indian society is challenged by discrimination, whether over race, status, colour or sex. The celebrations afford a positive channel for releasing these pressures. In spite of the great diversity of the festivals, some typical characteristics can be seen from the extensive research literature mentioned above. The festivals are liminal, cyclic events that comprise a break in everyday life (Turner, 1982). Most festivals are associated with a particular place, and the organization of time-space is an important component in the production of a festival. The place undergoes a transformation in order to take it out of its everyday context and turn it into a special, festive event which has an important existential symbolic meaning. Today festivals comprise “agents of change” and are an active force that manipulates images and symbols. However, the cultural aspect of the festival cannot be cut off from commercial interests, such as tourism (Zukin, 1995; Peled-Bartal, 2001: 10). Some festivals are syncretic and integrate both the customs of different groups and religious and non-religious symbolic meanings (Stewart and Shaw, 1994; Sharaby, 2002), for example the Ati-Atihan Festival that takes place in Kalibo, on Panay Island in the Philippines. This festival combines Christian religious rituals and prayers with salsa dances, drinking, processions, costumes, masks and dances. In Seattle, Washington, the Northwest Folklife Festival is an ethnic festival affording rich representation to the numerous communities that live in Seattle. The Holy Holiday in Nepal combines Hindu mythology and local holiday traditions (Sever, 2002: 30, 68, 252). Many festivals and carnivals have a long tradition and historic continuity that afford them legitimization. However, the fixed tradition of the festival constantly changes. Many of the old traditional customs today comprise a broad basis for identification, local pride and local patriotism. However, they are also reprocessed and changed (Gilad, 1995). Costa (2001) criticized the type of dominant modernistic thought that emphasizes the dichotomy between tradition and modernity. He indicated that the festival celebration is central to the transmission of tradition and comprises the basis for the interaction between tradition and modernity. He emphasized its theoretical importance in his analysis of the Fallas Fire Festival in Valencia, Spain. The artistic and satiric structures (the Fallas), which are burnt during the festival, are traditional, yet the old myths are updated in rituals and a unique syncretism is created. In this manner tradition prevails and is enriched, and a dialogue is created between tradition and the current culture. Another major aspect of the festival is the blurring of the social boundaries between “the other” and “me”. Bahtin (1978) wrote that the carnival and similar events, such as rituals, celebrations and festivals, are a syncretic, colourful and symbolic visual conformation. The social-hierarchical inequality is abolished during the carnival, and a unique category of familiarity between people is created. The carnival as a liminal stage affords temporary legitimacy to crossing boundaries, and the participants are expected to break the normal rules and create an enclave of disorder. The anarchistic impulse can be controlled and utilized as a psychological valve that releases pressure by institutionalizing it within the framework of formal celebrations, and limiting it to fixed dates.

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The absolute order becomes relative with the help of carnival humour. A new more humane modus of interrelations between the self and the other is set, which is opposed to the social relations outside the carnival. The carnival is outside normal time, so that realities can be destroyed and renewed. The eccentric carnival world sense is based on the pathos of substitution and change, undermining of the usual and accepted: life that deviates from its normal course and turns into an “upside-down world”. The carnival maintains a happy relativity that is expressed in masquerading. One of the characteristic figures is the clown, symbolizing the breaking out of boundaries and the encounter between worlds (Zacks, 1978: 19–33). For example, many celebrations such as the carnival in Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, or the Christian carnivals that take place during the period between Christmas and the beginning of Lent, are characterized by costumes, masks, jesting and role inversion (Kleinberg, 1995; Ankori, 1995; Salamone, 2004). De Man (1983) claims that the dialogical attitude of the carnival leads people to listen to each other as independent persons. The subject recognizes and respects his needing the other, who is as independent as he or she, not in order to enslave him or her to his or her needs and desires. The carnival is an invitation to a dialogue and a language of dialogue which is not accepted in the formal language. The carnival is an informal, underground culture, and only in it can a person realize his or her freedom (Da Matta, 1984). The above-mentioned extensive research literature discussing holidays and festivals sometimes interchanges the terms holiday and festival, and it is sometimes difficult to differentiate between them. However, in spite of the conceptual confusion, a significant difference can be observed in the researches regarding the two kinds of celebrations. The term holiday is usually related to religious events and to the religious tradition that is accompanied by ritual activity. The origin of most festivals, on the other hand, is not religious, and they are more in the nature of entertainment: food, art, nature, sports, folklore, movies, etc. Since the festival is less obligating, it is not necessarily an integral part of the calendar, and might take place every two years. In contradistinction, the holiday, which is fixed in the ritual system, takes place in a cyclic manner every year on a given date. Festivals are usually mass popular events that extend beyond the borders of the state, whereas the holiday is intended to emphasize the unique and the religious historical heritage of the community or nationality, and its celebration has a more local character. This difference is expressed in the location of the celebrations. Festivals take place in religious as well as non-religious sites, such as temples, castles, convents, churches, palaces, gardens, city centres. They do take place in the private sphere, but mainly in the public sphere in the city streets, in the natural place of the masses. With holidays, on the other hand, the element of an intimate family gathering is prominent. This article will discuss an inter-religion event called the “Holiday of Holidays Festival”. In these days of terror and extremism in the Middle East and in the world at large, the festival of the Holiday of Holidays is unique in being common to the three monotheistic religions and combines Hanukkah, Ramadan and Christmas. The festival is also unique in that in its official slogan and publications it declares that it is simultaneously a holiday and a festival. The interesting questions that will therefore be examined here are: how do the organizers create a festival that is a (triple) holiday, what are their aims, and what message

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do they want to transmit? The research was carried out through interviews with the festival’s organizers and producers, participating observations, and by examining printed and photographic material in art catalogues, publications, newspaper articles, internet sites, etc. 3. The Holiday of Holidays Festival The Holiday of Holidays festival has been taking place in Haifa, Israel, for 12 consecutive years during the months of November and December. This festival unites the holidays of the three monotheistic religions that occur during this period: the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah, the Christian holiday of Christmas and the Muslim holiday of Ramadan (Danzu, 2004: 164–72, 204–9; Don-Yehiya, 2005). Hanukkah is the oldest of these three holidays. It was established in the year 165 BC in commemoration of the freeing of the Temple from the Greeks and its cleansing of their paganism. The holiday lasts for eight days because, miraculously, a small vase of oil was found which sufficed for lighting the Temple Menorah for eight days. Lights are lit in a Hanukkah lamp and fried potato pancakes and jam doughnuts are eaten in commemoration of the miracle. The children play with spinning tops and receive Hanukkah money from their parents. Christmas, which is the most renowned holiday in the Christian world, has been celebrated since about the year 200 AD. It takes place on 25 December and celebrates the birth of Jesus. The holiday is celebrated by family meals, a lit and decorated fir tree and presents for the children, which according to legend are brought by Santa Claus on his sleigh. The large star that shines over the church symbolizes the star that shone when Jesus was born. Prayers and festive rituals take place in the churches and religious processions also take place. Ramadan is the ninth month in the Muslim calendar, during which according to tradition Muhammad received the Holy Koran. Muslims fast during this month from dawn to dusk, and in the evening festive family meals take place, with traditional dishes. At the end of the month the Muslims celebrate the holiday of Eid-Al-Fitr for three days, during which they give presents to each other and visit friends and relatives. Prayers and religious processions also take place. The Holiday of Holidays Festival began in 1994, after the signing of the Oslo agreement, which was a time of great hopes. It is held in the Wadi Nisnas neighbourhood in the city of Haifa, whose residents are Christians (the majority), Muslims and Jews (the minority). The festival was initiated by Beit Hagefen, a Jewish-Arab organization founded in Haifa in 1963, which acts to develop intercultural ties between peoples and religions in the city.1 One of the important projects held by Beit Hagefen is the Holiday of Holidays Festival. The Haifa municipality, government and commercial bodies also participate in its production. The Beit Hagefen managers and the festival’s producer declare2 that the festival’s goals are to promote an encounter, mutual respect and discussion between people, religions and cultures, to give expression to the unique and the different, to express the special interrelationships between Jews, Christians and Muslims in Haifa, to cultivate the Wadi Nisnas neighbourhood and to promote tourism in the city.

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The festival organizers express their hope that the message of the festival and the model of Haifa as a town of coexistence will pass to thousands of visitors who come from out of town. It is also intended to prove that it is possible to live in peace even in the harsh reality of wars and conflict, and that Haifa will be a bridge to tomorrow.3 This message is reflected in the logo that appears on all of the festival advertisements: three intertwined hands in brown, green and blue, and to the side, in colourful letters, the name of the festival in Hebrew, Arabic and English. The Holiday of Holidays Festival is a large public celebration that takes place for five weeks (end of November and December) during which the three holidays, Christmas, Hanukkah and Ramadan, take place. The opening ceremony of the festival is called “We are all together” and opens with a festive procession of young and old, members of all ethnic groups and religions: kindergarten children, school pupils and their parents, representatives of the public, artists and large numbers of the general public, who march together to show support for tolerance, peace and being good neighbours. Afterwards a huge show takes place, accompanied by the release of hundreds of balloons, and performances by youth bands, wind-instrument bands, and Jewish and Arab singers who stand on staircases, balconies and rooftops in the Wadi Nisnas neighbourhood. The mayor of Haifa gives his blessing but politicians at national level are not invited, so as to avoid politicization of the event.4 The festival programme includes numerous events and performances that take place mainly on weekends, when people are not working. The festival crosses the borders of religions and nations, and draws thousands of visitors from the city, from all over the country and even from abroad. Everyone celebrates with everyone and the differences between people disappear. An atmosphere whereby it is possible to live in a brotherhood of man is created. This is a colourful celebration of art, music, fragrances, tastes, spectacular holiday lighting and much joy. It expresses syncretism between the old and the new, between languages and religious symbols: Hanukkah lamps are sold at the Beit Hagefen building, fir trees decorate the shop windows, young Jews participate in concerts in churches, or dressed as Santa Claus parade in the streets, and the streets fill with the fragrances of the Muslim dishes that celebrate the end of Ramadan. The main street turns into an arts fair, where artists of the different ethnic groups and religions present and sell diverse products. At food counters, bakeries and restaurants the neighbourhood’s Muslim inhabitants sell home-made foods characteristic of the meals for breaking the Ramadan fast, and of the Eid-Al-Fitr holiday. The neighbourhood’s inhabitants also open their houses to visitors and offer coffee and refreshments. A Muslim with a bakery filled with clients was enthusiastic about what he called “the Haifa mentality” and said that “here there is a healthy conflict between the Jewish and the Muslim population. Here, somehow, all the holidays combine together”.5 The festival programme includes numerous events and shows.6 Singers and ethnic bands appear in the streets, singing in different languages. Special jazz concerts take place which are integrated with Arab music. Street performances take place, including wind bands, pantomimes and clowns, which symbolize the free familiar element, the inversion and the friendly interaction of the festival (Bahtin, 1978). Sports and cooking competitions also take place, as well as a

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decorative lighting competition, an exhibition of medicinal herbs and a national antique fair that draws collectors as well as thousands of visitors. Colourful processions of the different religions pass through the neighbourhood. Concerts of liturgical music are held in halls and churches, with the participation of singers and orchestras from Israel and from abroad. Although this music is related to the Christian religious ritual, Jewish orchestras performing pieces originating from the Jewish religious world as well as music from the Muslim heritage are also integrated. Emphasis is placed on the children, since this is the most prominent element of the holidays of all three religions, which under normal circumstances find it hard to get along. The festival’s organizers, together with the city’s hotels, organize weekends that include guided tours of the city in different languages, as well as lectures on the Middle East. They also initiate conferences for participants from all over the country and discuss questions of education towards values of peace and coexistence, human rights, and the place of religion in the Middle East. One of the important conferences is a conference of religious leaders from Israel and the Middle East.7 Dozens of participants make a common declaration calling for the cultivation of tolerance, dignity and understanding between all people, nations and religions, for promoting universal values common to these religions, and for the denunciation of violent and aggressive acts that abuse human rights and the principles of belief. They also emphasize the role of religious leaders, educators and politicians in continuing the dialogue and advancing peace. Posters with verses from the holy books of the three religions are hung all over the neighbourhood.8 A walk called “The Poem’s Path” was set up for poetrylovers, in which translated excerpts of poems from dozens of Jewish, Christian and Muslim poets are hung on billboards. The public’s encounter with the works of the poets and authors creates a dialogue that has the power to induce a better atmosphere of understanding the other, especially when these works are presented next to each other, on the same billboards.9 An arts exhibition called “Coexistence” is at the centre of the festival, since the festival organizers regard art as a means for encounters and for promoting values of tolerance and cooperation. Dozens of artists from all religions present paintings, photography and sculpture intertwined with inscriptions in Arabic, Hebrew and English, and this exhibition remains in place for the entire year. A study of the exhibition’s catalogues revealed that its topic changes every year: love, open house, horses, utopia, children, the playing arena, the Mediterranean, weddings, innocence, black coffee. The chosen subjects are universal and emphasize what people hold in common. The works are dispersed in the neighbourhood and are integrated in the street. This is actually a path which is a giant outdoor exhibition converting the neighbourhood into a large open museum. Art bursts out of its elitist isolation and becomes integrated in life itself, using its power to arouse public involvement, creating connections, intensifying understanding of the other and the different, and drawing the artist nearer to the audience of spectators.10 Since the organizers do not permit the exhibition of overtly political works, the arts path contains allegorical and implied political statements regarding the religious and national tension in the region, for example a painting of a chess match over Jerusalem, a roulette table, or a representation of a net and two tennis

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rackets that is called “Ping Pong”.11 A serious incident broke out when the work of two Jewish artists, called “All of Our Flag”, was defaced.12 Some of the artists and residents of the neighbourhood, mainly those who have radical political attitudes, oppose the festival and the art exhibition at its centre. They claim that the festival does not promote a real dialogue for solving the problems and does not transmit either optimism or peace.13 The events of the Intifada which began in September 2000 have increased the tensions in relations between the Jews and the Arabs in Haifa, and criticism against the festival and its organizers has increased.14 However, most inhabitants of the Wadi Nisnas neighbourhood regard the festival with positive optimism and cooperate with the organizers. They indicate that the festival contributes to the neighbourhood’s image and that it turns the place into a demonstration of brotherhood and an island of sanity in the heart of the conflict.15 In their opinion, the Wadi Nisnas neighbourhood is different because there is love between people, and it is therefore appropriate for performing works of art.16 An artist from the neighbourhood expressed the hope that “sooner or later, in spite of the extremists from all the religions and ethnic groups, peace will come, and it will leave the alleys of the neighbourhood into the entire land of Israel and from there to the entire world”.17 In October 2000 the mayor initiated an encounter between the inhabitants of Haifa, under the slogan “Continuing Together”, in order to maintain the dialogue and the special relations between all religions and ethnic groups in the city. The festival organizers also made a great effort and spent large sums to prepare the festival.18 Indeed, contrary to expectations, there was a great increase in the number of Jewish visitors to the festival even in years of Intifada and terror attacks.19 Many Jews thus demonstrated their wish to live in coexistence with their Christian and Muslim neighbours. 4. Conclusion This article presents a new model of a celebration that is defined simultaneously as a holiday and a festival, and is called the “Holiday of Holidays”. This is an event that is unique in the Middle East and in the world, and unites the holidays of the three religions, the Christian Christmas, the Jewish Hanukkah and the Muslim Ramadan, and its logo is three intertwined hands. This festival has been taking place for 12 consecutive years, during the months of November and December, in the Wadi Nisnas neighbourhood in the city of Haifa, Israel, which has a mixed population. The Holiday of Holidays Festival is a triple festival and actually comprises a unique hybrid creature, which integrates elements of a holiday and elements of a festival. Its aim is to hold an event common to the three great religions, and to draw people to the joy of the triple holiday. The event’s religious characteristics are expressed not only in its timing, during the period in which these three holidays take place, but also in placing Jewish, Christian and Muslim symbols, food, toys and objects, regardless of religion, next to each other. This is a colourful celebration of arts, music, fragrances, tastes and spectacular holiday lighting that creates syncretism between old and new, languages and religious symbols.

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The definition that integrates the event as a festival and a holiday affords the impression that the organizers wanted to give this celebration of the three holidays not only a religious expression, but also the nature of a festival. Christmas, Hanukkah and Ramadan are holidays that are celebrated mainly in a private family sphere, but the organizers wanted to turn them into a festival, the property of the general public, one great mass celebration, and therefore organized it within the public sphere of the neighbourhood. Whereas the holiday tends to separate groups because of its religious basis, the festival has, to a large extent, a broader common denominator. It is a general, entertaining and not discouraging event and everyone can therefore participate in it. The use of the term festival is intended to ignore the differences between religious and ethnic groups and to create unification. The Holiday of Holidays Festival crosses the boundaries of religions and nationalities, and draws thousands of visitors. Everyone celebrates with everyone, contact between people is free, differences between them disappear, and a sense of cohesion, fraternity and equality is created. The politics of recognition (Taylor, 1994), which emphasizes the need of minorities for cultural and social recognition in order to define their identity and win equal group respect, is the basis for the production of the Holiday of Holidays Festival. Its blurring of the boundaries between the holiday and the festival, the private and the public, the sacred and the secular, the local and the global, and rival religious and ethnic groups, transmits a message that it is possible to live in fraternity. Analysis of the publications and contents of the Holiday of Holidays Festival celebrations indicates that by characterizing the event as a festival the organizers avoided dialogue with the real problems and discussing controversial subjects such as religion, politics and the Israeli-Arab conflict in the Middle East. They emphasized the common denominator and not the separation between the groups, and chose universal elements, with a festival-like nature, that can ensure the continuation of the event: food, commerce and art. The organizers’ goal was to promote the event by art, since art is a means for encounter and dialogue between people. Art, which is usually exhibited in separate spaces, is taken out of its place and interwoven with the everyday street scene. Canonic art is substituted by emphasis on the spectacular and the popular (Featherstone, 1995; Peled-Bartal, 2001), in order to expand the circle of visitors and make the event more amusing and less committing. The residential neighbourhood turns into a giant outdoor exhibition and a great open museum without boundaries, with a complete mixing of art and life. The festival, like Christmas celebrations worldwide, is characterized by a connection between religion and consumption (Peled-Bartal, 2001: 51–7), since without admitting it, modern man has a need for new gods, a diversity of ritual behaviours and ritual sites to the god of consumption (Warshevski and Sigan, 2002; Farchek and Pinkus, 1999). The consumption aspects of the Holiday of Holidays Festival have intensified, since these dimensions are less charged, being free of conflicting religious and national contexts. Most festivals are identified with a place, which undergoes change in order to take it out of its everyday context and turn it into a special and festive space. The space of the festival is a real place where people live, but also has an important symbolic experiential meaning, and may comprise an agent of change (Zukin,

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1995; Peled-Bartal, 2001). The organizers of the Holiday of Holidays Festival use a combination of the elements of a holiday and a festival that lead to religious and cultural syncretism, in order to create a bubble of coexistence that is disengaged from the oppositions and stresses of everyday life. According to the analysis of Bahtin (1978) and Handelman (1990), the Holiday of Holidays Festival tries to create an inversion of social reality, break down barriers and represent reality in a new and subversive form. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I would like to thank the research committee of Ashkelon Academic College and the Interdisciplinary Social Science Department at Bar-Ilan University for their help in funding this research.

NOTES 1. See the introductions to the catalogues Open House (1999) and Utopia (2004), Haifa: Beit Hagefen Publishing; www.haifa.gov.il (all in Hebrew). 2. Introductions to the catalogues Weft and Warp (1997), Open House (1999), Weddings (2002), Middle Eastern (2003), Utopia (2004), Haifa: Beit Hagefen Publishing (all in Hebrew); personal interview I held with the festival’s manager and producer in August 2005. 3. Introductions to the catalogues Weddings (2002), Middle Eastern (2003), Utopia (2004), Haifa: Beit Hagefen Publishing (all in Hebrew). 4. Light and Shadow (2004), published by Beit Hagefen and the Ministry of Education and Culture of the Haifa Municipality; Haifa Time (21 Nov. 2003); www.haifa.muni.il (all in Hebrew); personal interview I held with the manager and producer of the festival. 5. See the newspaper Haifa Time, 28 Dec. 2001. See also the newspapers Yediot Aharonot, 8 Dec. 2004, Ha’aretz, 28 Nov. 2002; www.ofakim.org.il (all in Hebrew), as well as my participating observations in Dec. 2003 and 2005. 6. See, for example, brochures of the Holiday of Holidays, published by Beit Hagefen Publishing, the Ministry of Education and the Haifa municipality from the years 1995 –2005; the newspapers Yediot Aharonot, 19 Nov. 1998, Ma’ariv, 12 Dec. 2001, Ha’aretz, 28 Nov. 2002; www.haifa.gov.il (all in Hebrew). 7. See, for example, the newspapers Ma’ariv, 26 Nov. 1998, Ha’Tzofe, 15 Dec. 2004 (both in Hebrew). 8. www.Dev.ahlan.kfar-olami.org. 9. See www.ofakim.org.il as well as the newspapers Haifa Time, 28 Dec. 2001, 28 Nov. 2003, Ha’aretz, 28 Nov. 2002, Yediot Aharonot, 6 Dec. 2004 (all in Hebrew). 10. Introductions to the catalogues Weft and Warp (1997) and Open House (1999), Haifa: Beit Hagefen Publishing (both in Hebrew). 11. See, for example, the catalogue The Game Arena (2005), Haifa: Beit Hagefen Publishing; Ha’aretz, 9 Dec. 2004 (both in Hebrew). 12. See the newspapers Kolbo, 29 Oct. 1999, Ha’aretz, 19 Nov. 2000; and Peled-Bartal (2001: 105–108) (all in Hebrew). 13. See Kolbo, 8 Dec. 2000, Ma’ariv, 10 Dec. 1999 (all in Hebrew). 14. See Kolbo, 8 Dec. 2000, 28 Dec. 2001, Yediot Haifa, 21 Dec. 2004, Ha’aretz, 19 Nov. 2000, 17 Dec. 2000, Yediot Aharonot, 30 Nov. 2001 (all in Hebrew).

Sharaby: The Holiday of Holidays: A Festival for Christians, Jews and Muslims 595 15.

See Kolbo 28 Dec. 2001, 10 Dec. 2004, Yediot Haifa, 10 Dec. 2004; Peled-Bartal (2001: 79–109) (all in Hebrew). 16. See Yediot Haifa, 21 Dec. 2001, Haifa Time, 28 Dec. 2001, Kolbo, 10 Dec. 2004 (all in Hebrew). 17. See Yediot Aharonot, 1 Dec. 2003 (Hebrew). 18. See the newspapers Haifa and the North, 18 Oct. 2000, Kolbo, 20 Oct. 2000 (both in Hebrew). 19. See Kolbo, 8 Dec. 2000, 28 Dec. 2001, Yediot Haifa, 10 Dec. 2004 (all in Hebrew).

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Rachel SHARABY is a senior lecturer at the Sociology Department, Ashkelon Academic College, and Bar-Ilan University in Israel. She researches syncretism and has written two books: The Sephardic Community in Jerusalem at the end of the Ottoman Period (1989; 2nd edn, 2001) and Syncretism and Adjustment: The Encounter between a Traditional Community and a Socialist Society (2002). ADDRESS: Hashmonaim St. 2, Petach Tikva 49275, Israel. [email: [email protected]]