Every year, Issa Kassissieh, a Christian Arab from Jerusalem’s Old City, distributes free Christmas trees on behalf of the Jerusalem Municipality to the capital’s Christians before the Christmas holiday. Ringing his golden bell and humming the seasonal ‘Jingle Bells’, Issa has become a well-known holiday figure, for both the local residents and visiting Christians who come to get their cypress trees.
“I’m the Jerusalem Santa,” Kassissieh told Tazpit Press Service. This year, Kassissieh distributed around 230 Christmas trees at the Jaffa Gate of the Old City. “The trees have been great this year, better than last,” he noted.
The Christmas trees are Arizona cypresses that are donated by the Keren Kayemet LeIsrael-Jewish National Fund in keeping with the organization’s annual tradition of Christmas tree distribution throughout Israel including Nazareth, Shfar’am and Jerusalem. KKL-JNF distributes Christmas trees to local monasteries, churches, convents, embassies, diplomats, foreign journalists and the general public.
“It’s really nice that they do this,” Samuel Abel, a Christian Arab from the Old City told TPS, who came to get a Christmas tree for his family. Abel works with the Franciscan church in Jerusalem.
“I like to come here each year to get a tree for my kids. It’s great that our traditions are remembered even if the situation is not good right now,” commented Abel, who explained that his family has lived in Jerusalem for four generations since the Ottoman Empire. Abel added that his mother’s family are Coptic Christians originally from Egypt.
“We wish for peace and love in this country – between Jews, Muslims, Christians, Hindus, everyone,” said Abel.
“I tell my young sons that this is the land of peace if we only have to want it to be.”
The Santa-clad Kassissieh, complete with a reindeer belt and white beard, also echoed his wishes for peace. “We try to make the holidays as festive as we can in Jerusalem. Our message is peace for Jerusalem – we need to give hope to the kids of Jerusalem and around the world.”
There are 14,000 Christians living in east Jerusalem and around 160,000 throughout the country according to official Israeli figures.
