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The Christian
immigration from Palestine is a subject that we touched in previous
article
and is not a new story.
Many Christian families
left the region from the late 19th century seeking
greater economic
opportunity, freedom of
social-religious expression, political stability.
Emigration is not caused
by one single factor but by many such as: threats to personal
security, challenges to
religious identity, political uncertainty, housing, education,
economic
hardship.
In places of Christian
concentration as Bethlehem, Ramallah and Jerusalem is almost
impossible to know the
number of people who emigrated.
HISTORICAL BACKDROP
I. Brief history of
Christian emigration from the region, beginning in the late 19th century to
present.
A. Syria-Lebanon
B. Palestine – two major flows from the
central region
1.
Christians of Ramallah to North America
2.
Christians of Bethlehem area to South
America – Chile, Argentina, etc.
C.
Explanations for early immigration:
1.
Contacts with early pilgrims and
missionary schools
2.
Freedom from Ottoman rule
3.
Economic incentives – education,
employment shift from
agriculture to service
and private sector employments, rural to urban orientation, etc.
D. Socioeconomic outcomes contributing to
present immigration trends:
1.
Family in the West – greater networks
and family links overseas for Christians. An
estimated 90 percent of Palestine’s Christians have relatives in the
United States, Europe or Australia.
2.
More opportunities elsewhere for
Palestinian Christians due to higher levels of
education, work and travel experience – a heightened Western
orientation.
3.
Christians leave to establish
themselves permanently elsewhere, while Muslims leave to
generate quick income and then return.
4.
Since 1948, some 230,000 Arab
Christians have left the region (Dr. Bernard Sabella,
Bethlehem University), including refugees from 1947 and 1967;
moreover, some 35% of the total Palestinian Christian population
has emigrated since the Six Day War, June 1967.
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