Saint Michael: sacred handwork from Bethlehem
Olive wood, icons, mother of pearl and silver, made by hand in Bethlehem.
Enter the hallsOld Caritas Street · Bethlehem
Every piece in the house was made by hand by one of forty Bethlehem families, in workshops where the trade has passed from father to son. The AbuAita family chooses each one for its quality and offers it here.
Made by hand
Carved, painted, inlaid or cast in the workshops of the town.
From the Holy Land
Sent to you from Bethlehem, where the work was made.
Shipped in 48 hours
By EMS Express Mail, with tracking to your door.
Enter the Halls
Five rooms, one house
The house is laid out as a gallery. Walk through it room by room, or go straight to the hall you came for.
Every feather is a separate cut of the knife.
Masterwork I of III
The Eagle
The largest work in the house: an eagle on a crag, every feather cut by hand.
The grain runs through her mantle like smoke.
Masterwork II of III
The Pietà
Mary holds her son across her lap, the oldest and quietest of sorrows.
Three faces, a few centimetres high, finished with a blade.
Masterwork III of III
The Flight into Egypt
Warned in a dream, Joseph leads Mary and the Child away from Bethlehem by night.
Olive wood is among the hardest woods a carver can choose. It is dense, slow-growing and full of movement, with dark veins that wander through the pale body of the wood and never repeat.
In Bethlehem it traditionally comes from the pruning of the old groves in the surrounding hills. It has to be dried slowly before it is carved, or the finished piece can crack in its new home.
The carvers do not fight the grain; they read it. A dark streak becomes the fold of a robe, a knot becomes the shadow under a wing. This is why two carvings of the same subject are never alike.
Hall II
The Icon Room
Icons are not pictures of holy things, the Church says, but windows onto them. These are painted by hand in the Byzantine manner on shaped wooden panels, their haloes laid in gold.
Hall V · Pilgrim's Keepsakes
Small things, carried home
- No. 28
Nativity Stable with Music
Bethlehem olive wood
$52
- No. 29
Olive Wood Chess Set, Grand
Bethlehem olive wood
$520
- No. 30
Olive Wood Chess Set
Bethlehem olive wood
$200
- No. 31
The Lord's Prayer Cross
Bethlehem olive wood
$29
- No. 32
Olive Wood Rosary
Bethlehem olive wood
$6.50
- No. 33
Olive Wood Rosary on Cord
Bethlehem olive wood
$1
- No. 34
The Star of Bethlehem
Bethlehem olive wood
$5
- No. 35
The Holding Cross
Bethlehem olive wood
$5.50
- No. 36
Olive Wood Heart
Bethlehem olive wood
$5
- No. 37
Jerusalem Cross Magnet
Olive wood, grade A
$6
Saint Michael in mosaic, on the limestone façade of the house.
A Bethlehem family, at home to every pilgrim.
Saint Michael Store is owned by Johnny AbuAita, a Bethlehem Christian whose family has lived in the Holy Land for many generations, most of them in and around Bethlehem and Beit Sahour, where the angel first appeared to the shepherds.
Johnny is proud to carry on the local custom of hospitality to everyone who comes to the Holy Land to visit, to pray, to learn, and to travel in the footsteps of Jesus.
Come and see the work in Bethlehem.
- The House
- Old Caritas Street
Bethlehem - Open
- Monday – Saturday, 9 am – 8 pm