More than any travel agent or tour guide, world-traveler Jake Warga is aware of poignant contradictions in various ports of call. In his latest sojourn in the Holy Land, he lets us know that in 2009 Mary and Joseph would not be permitted to enter Bethlehem for Jesus’s birth because both would be Jews unable to cross the checkpoint between Israel and the Occupied Territories. “Jews, “ Warga lets us know, “are not allowed into Bethlehem, the birthplace of the world’s most famous Jew. “

Isaac, we learn from Warga, is the Hebrew word for “He laughs,” and Ishmael for “He weeps.”

As neither a Jew nor a Muslim, Warga uses his mic to record the dead-serious non-laughter of an Israeli woman speaking of Jerusalem’s Colindia checkpoint and, implicitly, of all walls dividing people: “It’s just bad news all around. Can’t put a fence around yourself and have people living in the third world five minutes from your home.”

Warga asks an Arab taxi driver if he speaks Hebrew, and, rather than weeping like his forebear Ishmael, the driver grouses, “No, I don’t speak Jewish.”

These are only a few of this piece’s many rewards. Although we don’t get to see the evidence here, Warga is a superb photographer whose visual images capture the gritty essence of places like Guatemala, Rwanda and Norfolk Island off the coast of Australia.

His script for this piece is an offbeat ear-opener perfect for the winter holiday season—and suitable all year round.