The din of earthmovers and a cloud of dust rise over Mount Precipice as workers scramble to get ready for a papal visit that Israel hopes will bring in tourist dollars and rave reviews.
The Jewish state is pumping some €7.5 million into preparations for Pope Benedict XVI's visit to the Holy Land, between May 11 and 15, that will bring tens of thousands of pilgrims to Israel.
It also hopes the papal trip will help polish Israel's international image in the wake of the Gaza war.
In the Bible, the town of Nazareth was the boyhood home of Jesus and a place he returned to with almost fatal consequences after he began his ministry. His fellow townsmen, angered by his teaching, tried to shove him off a cliff.
That was at Mount Precipice, where authorities face the formidable challenge of turning a hillside into a 40,000-seat amphitheatre in time for the May 14 open-air Mass the Pontiff will celebrate there.
More than 50 earthmovers and other heavy construction vehicles are tearing up a flank of the mountain, overlooking Nazareth. In the distance, a large, tarred blot on the forested landscape marks the spot where the Pontiff and his delegation will arrive aboard nine helicopters.
Israeli authorities hope the pope's visit will boost the number of foreign tourists in Israel, which already reached a record three million last year, one third of them pilgrims.
"The government at very short notice has invested a lot of time and money in the success of this visit," says Raphael Ben-Hur, a deputy director-general of the tourism ministry.
Christians in Israel, who make up two per cent of the seven million population and many of whom are Arabs, hope the visit will help put their small community on the map.
Plans for the Pontiff's visit have not been without controversy.
"Many people, including among the clergy, were not pleased with the visit coming at this time," says Odeh, referring to calls for Pope Benedict to shun Israel to protest the war on the Gaza Strip that killed more than 1,400 Palestinians.
The visit has also stirred controversy within the Jewish community, coming after months of uproar over the Vatican's decision to lift the excommunication of Holocaust-denying bishop, Richard Williamson of Britain.
Within hours of landing in Israel on May 11 following a visit to neighbouring Jordan, Pope Benedict is set to pray at the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem.
But he will shun the part of the complex where a caption below a photograph of Pius XII says his Nazi-era predecessor never protested the holocaust during World War II.
"Even when reports about the murder of Jews reached the Vatican, the Pope did not protest... When Jews were deported from Rome to Auschwitz, the pope did not intervene," the caption states.