Rose, 6, is one of 233 children sponsored by World Vision in the village. In her home, women gather around her mother’s kitchen table to make the Easter cookies.

The cookie dough is made from semolina and is prepared two days in advance in order to ferment properly. The cookies are stuffed with dates, seasoned with cinnamon and nutmeg and made into a round shape with a hole in the middle to symbolize the crown of thorns that Christ wore at the crucifixion. After they are shaped, special tweezers are used to make indents on the dough so that sprinkled powdered sugar sticks to the cookies when they are served on Easter Sunday.

Palestinian Christian families in the village of Aboud in the West Bank northwest of Jerusalem prepare for Easter . The population of Aboud are mixed Christian denominations and Muslims and have traditionally been a model of ecumenical and interfaith co-existence. The community’s way of life is under threat as the Palestinian Christian population continues to decline due to the increase in political and economic instability. Text and photos by Margo Sabella