This week, people from all over Israel will pour into Debbie Hill's Jerusalem neighborhood to celebrate Hanukkah.
"People use these brass boxes with glass and use olive oil with floating wicks and every day they add to it," the Boone County native said. "So by the end, it's so beautiful to walk through the neighborhood."
Hill, 59, will celebrate the eight-day Jewish festival of lights in the Nachlaot neighborhood of Jerusalem. She's lived in Jerusalem for more than 20 years. While Hanukkah is a minor holiday in the United States, in Israel, students are out of school for the week, she said. The festival isn't about buying presents, nor is it a religious holiday, she said. Some parents will take the time off and take their children abroad, she said. People flock to her neighborhood because it's one of the oldest neighborhoods outside of the old city of Jerusalem, she said. People put their Hanukkia outside, she said.
"And you'll see whole families out because you light the candles or the oil at the same time every night," she said. Hill grew up in Racine, and moved to Israel after converting to Judaism.
"I like the fact you're encouraged to question [in Judaism]," Hill said. "Growing up Christian you weren't encouraged to question at all, just encouraged to do what you were told."
In Jerusalem, she's a world away from the West Virginia town she grew up in, both in distance and in culture. There were no Jews in Boone County that she knew of. She doesn't remember it as a very diverse place.
"But the one thing that's kind of similar is the closeness of families that I'm used to from West Virginia," Hill said. "That's a very Middle Eastern characteristic."
Hill works for a couple newspapers in Europe and a couple smaller news agencies in the United States, she said. Her work has been published in Time magazine, USA Today, The New York Times, Sunday Telegraph London, German Financial Times, Wall St. Journal and many other publications.
This fall, Israel has seen a wave of Palestinian stabbing attacks on civilians and Israeli soldiers. Hill said her work has mostly focused on how the attacks have changed the lives of Arab people in the area. She said the attacks have been on people as young as 13 and 14 all the way up to age 70. And there's reason to be on edge in light of the recent attacks, she said.
"With suicide bombings, if you kind of stayed out of crowded areas you could almost be guaranteed you'd be OK," she said. "With this, it's random, and it's not accomplishing anything, either. Nine times out of 10 the stabbers are killed and the people [they attack] don't die. It's counter productive."
While violence is nothing new in Israel, Hill said, especially lately, she's hesitant to put herself in harm's way to photograph.
"I've done it over 20 years," she said. "This latest round of violence ... I didn't go to the riots in the West Bank. I did some other stories there but I didn't go to the riots."
Hill said she didn't go because she feared Palestinians throwing stones at her car windshield. The Israeli border police and army were also targeting journalists, she said.
She's not a war photographer, she said, though she's covered a lot of it because of where she lives.
"So many young people are so eager [to cover the violence]," she said. "They get a rush out of it."
The violence is expected to have an negative effect on tourism in the region. Tourists from Europe, America and a huge number of Nigerians typically flock to Jesus' birthplace in Bethlehem for Christmas, she said. The latest wave of violence started early enough for people to cancel their trips, she said.
"I think Bethlehem will be empty," she said.
In spite of all the violence, Hill said she believes people on both sides of the issues want to live in peace.
"They want to be able to work, they want to send their kids to school they want to educate them," she said. "They want good lives but there are extremists on both sides and also the government on both sides don't do a lot to help the situation."
All the violence can wear on a person, she said. Sometimes she longs for a cabin in the woods and quiet. But while the violence is depressing, she is also encouraged.
"I think that as much as you see people be terrible to each other, you see people on both sides that are amazing, incredible ... I really don't think there will be any kind of peace in my lifetime, but that gives you hope, when you see people kind of reach across the line and reach out to help."
Reach Lori Kersey at Lori.Kersey@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-1240 or follow @LoriKerseyWV on Twitter.