The two weeks surrounding the Millennium and Christmas 2000 in Israel and Palestine were crammed with pilgrims, social celebrations, and a yearning for peace. Only in the Palestinian limited self-controlled West Bank town of Bethlehem however, did large crowds gather outside on New Year's Eve to celebrate the millennium 2000. Massive public gatherings within Israel itself were not officially organized for fear of Jerusalem syndrome extremists or terrorism. In the Bethlehem Church which surrounds the manger where Christ was born, and in the Sepulchre Church of Jerusalem where lay the stone Christ's crucified body was washed on, as well as a second one from which he rose. Christians gathered, prayed, and waited on the Orthodox Christmas Eve of January 6, the night before the month long Muslim fast of Ramadan ended on Id al-Fitr with Muslim families visiting the graves of their deceased. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian leader Yassir Arafat kept a low public profile as religious and political public figures from the Orthodox world, from Russian ex-president Boris Yeltsin, to Greek President Constantine Stephanopolous, came to celebrate with the clergy, crowds and pilgrims.