Meeting Place Tabgha

for Israeli and Arabic handicapped and war-disabled people, children and youth

“When Jesus saw the large crowd, he had compassion on them…” – these are the first words of the account of the Feeding of the Five Thousand as we can find it in the Gospels according to Mark and Matthew. In Tabgha, at this biblical site, we commemorate Jesus’ encounter with the people. “When Jesus saw the large crowd, he had compassion on them…” – these words could also describe Jesus’ encounter with the people today.

On one side, people are suffering from unpredictable terrorist attacks, on the other, people are suffering from an oppressive occupation. Both peoples, Israelis and Palestinians, feel more insecure than ever. Meanwhile, the vicious circle of violence goes on. In times like these, society cares less for those people who are living on the margins. This is especially true in the case of physically and mentally disabled people who have been leading a difficult life either since birth or as a consequence of the armed conflict.

More than twenty years ago, the first group of children came to Tabgha, the place of the heptapegon, in the garden of the Benedictine monastery during an improvised programme. When they returned home to the SOS Children’s Village Bethlehem, it seemed as if they had completely changed. This was the beginning of the youth and handicapped meeting place.

Sumaya Farhat-Naser, a Palestinian professor and peace activist, wrote about the work in Tabgha following the first Intifada: “Tabgha, which had a recreation centre for disabled children, allowed us to make a small step towards mutual understanding in 1988. In cooperation with the monastery’s Prior and the German couple managing the centre, I could implement a project for disabled and wounded Palestinian youth who suffered from the consequences of bullet wounds. Several times, I smuggled groups of fifteen to thirty injured people from Gaza, Jerusalem or Nablus to Tabgha. For the first time, both Palestinian and Israeli doctors took part in this humanitarian mission.”

For more than 22 years, physically and mentally disabled youth and adults have been coming regularly to Tabgha, Israelis and Palestinians, Jews, Christians and Muslims. At Beit Noah (“House of Noah”) meeting place, they can recover physically, mentally and spiritually from their difficult everyday life. We offer them free accommodation in this wonderful patch of earth. For Palestinians, Tabgha is the only place in the whole country where they can go for a rest. In Tabgha, the sentence from the Gospel can easily become a personal experience: “When he saw the large crowd, he had compassion on them…”