One of the main sources of income in the Holy Land is tourism, especially pilgrimage tourism. It was all the more dramatic for the people on both sides of the Jordan River when travel came to a standstill worldwide as a result of the Corona pandemic. Numerous church guesthouses and hotel management schools were also affected.

Since last summer, traveling is possible again. In the current Schneller magazine, people in the Middle East who work with pilgrims and tourists report on how they are adapting to the current situation. In the process, we have encountered a great deal of creativity and numerous new departures.

Of course, pilgrimage is much more than just tourism. This becomes very clear, among other things, in the biblical reflection of our Jewish author Johanan Flusser. But we also made some amazing discoveries while working on this issue. Who knew that there are also pilgrimages from Palestine to Lebanon? And a real scoop is probably that the great Jewish thinker Shmuel Hugo Bergman once trained as a shoemaker at the Syrian Orphanage in Jerusalem!

Martina Waiblinger researched in Lebanon what becomes of children and young people who nowadays do a vocational training at the Schneller schools. She describes three wonderful examples of how "Schneller" inspires hope and draws life paths.

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