Olive Wood Hand made crafts by the christian community in Bethlehem, Holy Land.  

Over 300 years, the olive-wood crafts began in the city of Bethlehem by the Bannoura family as well as other Christian families. But during the ancient times, it was Saint Joseph the carpenter who taught our Lord Jesus Christ the wood work. Olive wood was mainly used for wood carving work. As it is stated in the Holy Bible: “But I, like an olive tree in the house of God, trust in God's faithful love forever” Psalm 52:8. Thus the olive wood has always been considered the special wood in The Holy Land.

Bethlehem Handicrafts, the olive wood factory creates all the olive wood carvings by using wood that is pruned from young trees and the sprouts of trees that are no longer producing olives. The olive wood from Bethlehem or "Bethlehem olive wood" is a local raw material from which mainly religious, historical, and artistic articles are made, using the prunes of young olive trees, and the sprouts from the trunks of the old, unproductive trees. This is an essential process for a healthier growth for the trees and to generate environmental stability. No olive tree has been damaged or destroyed during the process of harvesting the olive wood.

Olive Trees in the holy land are very unique. In the shepherd field area, because of the fact that the weather is quite dry and scarce there are more textures of the grains visible on the wood. The oldest known olive trees - the oldest olive trees in the Holy Land - are found in Bethlehem, the West Bank region of Palestine and Israel. The older the tree the darker the grains of the wood are. Because of the ways in which the age and environment affect the wood no two pieces are the same even if they are carved from the same tree.

Bethlehem’s olive wood is very hard wood since it has more grains therefore it needs special sharp tools for carving. It is known as one of the most resilience wood and being the natural choice of wood for sculptures for thousands of years. In the Bannoura factory, we use our own tools that were created over hundreds of years. This is also the same reason why the olive wood that we use in making rosaries, nativity sets, Jesus figures, and a wood cross among others is heavy and far heavier than the other olive wood in the holy land and in other countries as well.

We at Bethlehem Handicrafts do not carve the olive wood the same year when the wood is harvested. We know how to exhibit the beauty of Bethlehem olive wood by storing the wood over a year in a special closed warehouse. It is this aging of the wood which allows the grain to be so developed. Our highly skilled artisans at Bethlehem Handicrafts are well trained to tell the age of a piece of wood by its grain and color.

The Holy Bible tells us how King Solomon temple had one of the most beautiful and intricate olive wood decorative designs. The natural brightness of its colors and the variety of grain makes the olive wood a unique and most exquisite wood.

Our greatest harvest is the happiness of our Christian community that we bring to the town of Bethlehem supporting over 240 individual artisans. Only through your support and our commitment to help our Christian brothers and sisters in the holy land can we further help our mission to remain strong and continuous.

The olivewood crafts have been inherited over several generations of our town’s population. The Bannoura family in Bethlehem Holy land takes great pride in this distinct and unique crafts that are part of our town’s heritage.

Our main goal is to preserve the existence of the olive wood handicrafts. The pictures shown on this website represent the work of many Christian families in the ancient city of Bethlehem. It also depicts the natural colors of olive wood. However, we are prepared to make any suggested modifications or to create new designs as required. Your opinion is greatly appreciated in order to improve our efforts to satisfy our customers.

If anyone rode into Bethlehem today, they would find accommodation with ease. But Christian Palestinians who live in the West Bank city, making their living selling Christian olive wood souvenirs to tourists has been quite difficult. Tourists feel insecure about traveling to Bethlehem because of the media's portrayal of that region. Political situation is constantly changing especially since the uprising which began in 2000 - and olive wood handicrafts such as the ones made by the Bannoura have gone unsold because of the current turmoil. So our organization was founded to bring Bethlehem to United States and the rest of the world in hopes of helping our community. The Palestinian Christian community has been hampered by the lack of tourists. The unemployment rate in Bethlehem hovers around 65 percent and increasing, and many of them are Palestinian Christians.

Bethlehem Christian families believe that when peace returns to the Middle East, a strong emergence of tourism will return. Until then please be as supportive as you can so that we can continue to provide holy land’s unique products to you and the Christian community thrives and prospers. Bethlehem Handicrafts will continue to create olive wood products such as Christian gifts that include olive wood crosses, olive wood nativity sets, olive wood rosaries, Jesus figures and other holy figures all from the holy land.