When winter settles over the olive groves, Palestinian artisans and their families venture out to the hills, delicately pruning branches from the ancient trees to form a base for their craft. Here, in ...

Eisa Khalid Gareeb and his two sons, Walid and Mansour, did not seem very busy as they grouped in their small workshop in Beit Shahour. The Gareebs who have been carving wood for nearly a century are ...

BETHLEHEM, West Bank – Thirty years ago Bassem Giacaman, whose large extended family has lived in this town for generations, immigrated to New Zealand with his parents and siblings in search of a life ...

Ashraf Sa’d seeks to promote the roots of Christianity in the Holy Land by selling hand-crafted olive wood carvings of various religious items. Mr. Sa’d visited with parishioners of St. Francis Xavier ...

Olive wood carvings line artist Bassam al Hayek’s mantel — Jesus wearing a crown of thorns, a Christ child the size of an eggplant. This is the art he hopes to sell to the world. But the violence of ...

BETHLEHEM, West Bank (RNS) — Artisans in and around Bethlehem specialize in carving wood from a tree that makes several appearances in the Bible. They consider the work — a millennium-old tradition — ...