The Book of Ruth begins with a famine in Bethlehem. A family leaves because there is nothing to eat in the town whose name means house of bread. They go to Moab, modern-day Jordan.

I met Jiries on a plane out of Amman.

It was May, near the end of Israel’s second war with Iran, and Amman was the only way I could get out of Israel that week. For him it isn’t a war measure. Ben Gurion is an hour from his house and he has never used it. Every time he leaves the country he has to cross into Jordan first.

We kept in touch, and in June he invited me to Bethlehem. Within an hour of arriving, we were at his family’s table, and his father was putting food on my plate faster than I could eat it. Chicken in za’atar, two types of ancient grains, and fresh watermelon. His older brother had gotten engaged that week. His younger sister was about to finish school and get on an airplane, to Europe, for the first time in her life to look at universities. The family imports and exports Christian ornaments. They have not had a real season in three years.

The next day we went to visit a very quiet Church of the Nativity. Our guide told us we were his first group in over a........

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