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Dear LA Beirut Sister City, Thank you for sharing with us the beautiful puctures of the "Sister Cities" signing ceremony between "Beirut" and "Los Angeles", it gives us great pride and pleasure. Just like you shared with us the pictures, I would like to share with you a little history about the names of these two great cities: I am sure that any resident of Los Angeles knows that its name is in Spanish and means City of Angels. As to Beirut, it's name is in Syriac (A.K.A. Aramaic, the langauge spoken by Jesus) as "Beruta" and means "Pine Trees". Any person who is a native of Beirut, knows about its Pine tree forests along the road to the airport, and also about one of its famous neighborhoods that is known as Al-Snawbara (the Arabic name for Pine tree). As a child I recall that wherever I went in Beirut I saw Pine trees there, now after the war and urbanization, I don't know if there are any pine trees left! Personally I beleive that just as the Cedar tree is the symbol of Labanon, the Pine tree should become the symbol of Beirut, because after all that is what its name is all about. Best regards, Hanna Hajjar |