There are exceptions to the unwritten rules of Arabic hospitality. I quickly learned them when I asked the Cairo hookah bar proprietors where the bathroom was in my Midwestern Arabic. After a few ...

MALULA, Syria — Elias Khoury can still remember when old people in this cliffside village spoke only Aramaic, the language of Jesus. Back then the village, linked to the capital, Damascus, only by a ...

What do these three locales have in common: a remote village in Syria; Sydney, Australia; and the Old City of Jerusalem? The answer is: Aramaic, a dominant language in the ancient world. Now, Jews, ...

For many centuries, the Syrian village of Malula was so remote that Aramaic, the language spoken by Jesus, survived here. Liz Sly / Chicago Tribune MALULA, Syria — While millions will commemorate the ...

This Sunday's lectionary reading in Year A is the baptism of Jesus from Matt 3.13–17. It is a short and compact reading, and ...

A nun lights candles in the Syrian village of Maalula, in of the world's oldest Christian settlements - Copyright AFP VALERIE BAERISWYL A nun lights candles in the ...