RACHEL'S TOMB, A JEWISH HOLY PLACE, WAS NEVER A MOSQUE by Nadav Shragai
November 2005: Entrance of the tomb from before the construction of the fortress complex which is used to protect visitors from terrorists
- UNESCO has declared that Rachel's Tomb near Jerusalem is the Bilal ibn Rabah mosque - endorsing a Palestinian claim that first surfaced only in 1996 and which ignores centuries of Muslim tradition.
- As opposed to the Temple Mount and the Cave of the Patriarchs which also serve as the location of mosques, Rachel's Tomb never served as a mosque for the Muslims. The Muslim connection to the site derives from its relation to Rachel and has no connection to Bilal ibn Rabah, Mohammed's first muezzin.
- Rachel's Tomb, located some 460 meters south of Jerusalem's municipal boundary, has been identified for over 1,700 years as the grave of the Jewish matriarch Rachel. Many generations of Jews have visited the place for prayer. The depiction of Rachel's Tomb has appeared in thousands of Jewish religious books, paintings, photographs, stamps, and works of art.
- There is a Muslim cemetery on three sides of the compound mainly belonging to the Bedouin Taamra tribe, which began burying its dead at the site due to its proximity to a holy personality. Members of the Taamra tribe harassed Jews visiting the tomb and collected extortion money to enable them to visit the site. With this background, Moses Montefiore obtained a permit from the Turks to build another room adjacent to Rachel's Tomb in 1841 to keep the Muslims away from the room of the grave and to help protect the Jews at the site.
- Jewish caretakers managed the site from 1841 until it fell into Jordanian hands in 1948. In contravention of the armistice agreement, Jordan prevented Jews from accessing the site during all the years of its rule (1948-1967). On October 19, 2010, the anniversary of her death, some 100,000 Jews visited Rachel's Tomb.
- In 1830 the Turks issued the firman that gave legal force to Rachel's Tomb being recognized as a Jewish holy site. The governor of Damascus sent a written order to the Mufti of Jerusalem to fulfill the Sultan's order: "the tomb of esteemed Rachel, the mother of our Lord Joseph...they (the Jews) are accustomed to visit it from ancient days; and no one is permitted to prevent them or oppose them (from doing) this."
- Ironically, Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan, whose government has been described as "neo-Ottoman" in outlook, told the Saudi paper al-Watan (March 7, 2010) that the Cave of the Patriarchs and Rachel's Tomb "were not and never will be Jewish sites, but Islamic sites."
On October 21, 2010, UNESCO (the UN Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization) declared that Rachel's Tomb near Jerusalem is the Bilal ibn Rabah mosque — endorsing a Palestinian claim that first surfaced only in 1996 and which ignores centuries of Muslim tradition.
In a series of decisions condemning Israel, the UNESCO board called upon the government of Israel to rescind its decision in February to include Rachel's Tomb and the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron on Israel's official list of national heritage sites. The sharp protests by Israeli Ambassador to UNESCO Nimrod Barkan to the UN body's decision were expunged from the record by the chairman of the session, the Russian representative, on the pretext that they were too aggressive.[1]
A scrupulous examination of testimonies and historical sources demonstrates that defining Rachel's Tomb as a mosque does an injustice to historical facts and traditions anchored in both Muslim documents and Jewish sources, and constitutes distortion, bias, and deception. As opposed to the Temple Mount and the Cave of the Patriarchs which also serve as the location of mosques, Rachel's Tomb never served as a mosque for the Muslims. The Muslim connection to the site derives from its relation to Rachel and has no connection to Bilal ibn Rabah, Mohammed's first muezzin.
Rachel's Tomb — A Jewish Holy Site
Rachel's Tomb is located on the northern outskirts of Bethlehem some 460 meters south of Jerusalem's municipal boundary. The site has been identified for over 1,700 years as the grave of the Jewish matriarch Rachel. The copious literature of Jewish, Christian, and Muslim pilgrims identifies and documents the spot as the place where Rachel is buried.[2]
Many generations of Jews have visited the place for prayer, requests, and entreaties. The site has become a sort of Wailing Wall to which Jews come to pour out their hearts and share their troubles and requests with the beloved matriarch, hoping to find solace and healing. Jewish tradition attributes unique and wondrous qualities to Rachel's tears, [3] and visitors to her grave ask her to cry and pray on their behalf.
According to the Book of Genesis (ch. 35), Rachel died when she gave birth to Benjamin: "And Rachel died, and was buried on the way to Ephrath, which is Bethlehem." In Jewish tradition, her tears have been identified by authors, poets, and biblical commentators with almost every disaster that befell the Jewish people.[4]
Over hundreds of years, visitors to her grave have established the tie between Rachel and her burial place. "The house with the dome and the olive tree" became a Jewish symbol.[5] An additional room that was attached to the original structure by Sir Moses Montefiore in 1841 has only enhanced the link. The depiction of Rachel's Tomb has appeared in thousands of Jewish religious books, paintings, photographs, stamps, and works of art.
Yet anyone visiting the site today will find it difficult to identify the image known to generations of Jews. The small, domed structure now sits within an armored concrete sleeve containing firing positions and defensive fortifications, and covered with camouflage netting. At the height of the Second Intifada, the Israeli government decided on September 11, 2002, to place the sacred compound inside the area of the Israeli security barrier in the Jerusalem area.
The outside area of her tomb had been adjusted by the Israel Defense Forces to assure the safety of all present. The Muslim Link to Rachel
The Muslim link to the site derives from the figure of Rachel rather than from Bilal ibn Rabah, who is buried in Damascus. The accepted Muslim tradition which venerates Rachel identifies the site at the outskirts of Bethlehem as her grave. According to Muslim tradition, Rachel's name comes from the word "to wander," because she found her death on one of her wanderings and was buried on the way to Bethlehem.[6] Rachel is alluded to in the Koran[7] and other Muslim sources where, just as in Jewish sources, Joseph tearfully falls upon the grave of his mother, Rachel, when the caravan of his captors passes by the site.[8]
For hundreds of years, the shape of Rachel's Tomb resembled the grave of a vali (a Muslim saint). The building received its distinctive shape in 1622 when the Turkish governor of Jerusalem, Mohammad Pasha, permitted the Jews to wall off the four pillars that supported the dome and for the first time Rachel's Tomb became a closed building.[9] This was allowed by the Turkish governor to prevent Arab shepherds from grazing their flocks at the site. [10] Yet according to one report, an English traveler claims this was done "to make access to it more difficult for the Jews."[11]
For centuries, Rachel's Tomb was considered only a Jewish holy place. The sixteenth-century Arab historian Mujir al-Din regarded Rachel's Tomb as a Jewish holy place.[12] Beginning in 1841, the keys to the place were deposited exclusively with Jewish caretakers who managed the site until it fell into Jordanian hands in 1948.[13] In contravention of the armistice agreement, Jordan prevented Jews from accessing the site during all the years of its rule (1948-1967).[14] Following the Six-Day War, Jews returned to Rachel's Tomb, with millions of Jews from around the world having visited the site. According to Jewish tradition, Rachel died on the 11th day of the Hebrew month of Heshvan (October 19); in 2010, some 100,000 Jews visited Rachel's Tomb on that day.[15]
The Harassment of Jews at Rachel's Tomb
For many centuries, Jews were compelled to pay protection money and ransom to the Arabs who lived in the area so they wouldn't harm Rachel's Tomb and the Jews who visited it. In 1796, Rabbi Moshe Yerushalmi, an Ashkenazi Jew from central Europe who immigrated to Israel, related that a non-Jew sits at Rachel's Tomb and collects money from Jews seeking to visit the site.[16] Other sources attest to Jews who paid taxes, levies, and presented gifts to the Arab residents of the region.
Dr. Ludwig August Frankl of Vienna, a poet and author, related that the Sephardi community in Jerusalem was compelled to pay 5,000 piastres to an Arab from Bethlehem at the start of the nineteenth century for the right to visit Rachel's Tomb.[17] Other testimonies relate that in order to prevent damage to Rachel's Tomb, payment was transferred to Bedouin members of the Taamra tribe who lived in the region, who had also begun to bury their dead near the tomb during that era.[18] There is a Muslim cemetery on three sides of the compound that mainly belongs to the Taamra tribe and the entire attitude of the Muslims to Rachel's Tomb derives to a large extent from this tribe, which began burying its dead at the site during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries due to its proximity to Rachel's Tomb. The origins of the practice, as the Land of Israel researcher Eli Schiller writes, is the popular Muslim belief that "the closer that the deceased is buried to the tomb of a sainted personality, the greater will be his rewards in the world to come."[19]
Taxes were also collected from the Sephardi Jewish community in Jerusalem to pay the authorities for various "rights," such as passage to the Western Wall, passage of funerals to the Mount of Olives, and for the protection of gravestones there, as well as payment to the Arabs of Bethlehem for safeguarding Rachel's Tomb.[20]
One of the scribes who managed the accounts of the Sephardi Kolel during the eighteenth century reported on the protection money that the Jewish community at that time had to transfer to the "non-Jews and lords of the lands who are called to effendis...(15,000) Turkish grush...and these are the people who patrol the ways of Jaffa Road, Kiryat Yearim, the people of the Rama, the site of Samuel the Prophet, the people of Nablus Road, the people of the Efrat Road, the tomb of our matriarch Rachel...so they would not come to grave-robbing, heaven forbid. And sometimes they complain to us that we have fallen behind on their routine payments and they come scrabbling on the gravestones in the dead of night, and they did their things in stealth because their home is there. Therefore, we are compelled against our will to propitiate them."[21]
Rabbi David d'Beth Hillel, a resident of Vilna who visited Syria and the Land of Israel in 1824, testified about a Muslim cemetery in the region of Rachel's Tomb. "No person is living there, but there was a cemetery. On the opposite hill there is a village whose residents are Arabs and they are most evil. A stranger who comes to visit Rachel's Tomb is robbed by them."[22]
In 1856, fifteen years after Montefiore had built another room to Rachel's Tomb, James Finn, the British consul who served in Palestine during the days of Turkish rule, spoke about the payments that the Jews were forced to pay to Muslim extortionists at some holy places including Rachel's Tomb: "300 lira per annum to the effendi whose house is adjacent to the site of crying" (the Western Wall) for the right to pray there and "100 lira a year to the Taamra Arabs for not wrecking Rachel's Tomb near Bethlehem."[23]
Jews Expand Rachel's Tomb in 1841 to Prevent Muslim Violence and Strengthen the Jewish Presence at the Site
In 1841 Moses Montefiore obtained a license from the Turkish authorities to refurbish Rachel's Tomb and add another room to it, which changed its appearance and improved its formerly neglected status. A door to the domed room was installed and keys were given to two Jewish caretakers, one Sephardi and the other Ashkenazi. Fourteen years previously, an official of the Sephardi Kolelim (religious study centers) in Jerusalem, Avraham Behar Avraham, laid the groundwork for Montefiore's activity at Rachel's Tomb when he obtained recognition from the Turkish authorities for the status and rights of Jews at the site. This was, in practice, the original firman (royal decree)[24] issued by the Ottoman authorities in Turkey recognizing Jewish rights at Rachel's Tomb.
The firman was necessary since the Muslims disputed ownership by the Jews of Rachel's Tomb and even tried by brute force to prevent Jewish visits to the site. From time to time Jews were robbed or beaten by Arab residents of the vicinity, and even the protection money that was paid did not always prevail. Avraham Behar Avraham approached the authorities in Istanbul on this matter and in 1830 the Turks issued the firman that gave legal force to Rachel's Tomb being recognized as a Jewish holy site.[25] Additionally, the governor of Damascus sent a written order to the Mufti of Jerusalem to fulfill the Sultan's order.
This is our order to you: (the following matter) was submitted to us by the subject of our order, the sage representative of honored Jerusalem's Jewry and his translator that the tomb of esteemed Rachel, the mother of our Lord Joseph...they (the Jews) are accustomed to visit it from ancient days; and no one is permitted to prevent them or oppose them (from doing) this....It turned out that at this holy site, they have been visiting since ancient times, without any person preventing them or trespassing on their property and they (have it) as was their custom. In accordance with the respected judgment, I order that our commandment be issued to you so you will treat them accordingly without addition or without subtraction, without hindrance and without opposition to them by anyone in any way whatsoever — written August 10, 1830.[26]An additional firman from April 1831, eight months later, determined inter alia:[27]
To inform and demonstrate to all interested parties and the appointed officials, the right of the Jews who are residents of holy Jerusalem to visit the grave of Rachel, the mother of the Prophet Joseph, peace be upon him, without hindrance....The deputy translator and other public functionaries, members of the Jewish community of Jerusalem, approached me with many requests regarding the tomb of Rachel, may peace be upon her, the mother of the Prophet Joseph, peace be upon him, and it is known that this grave is located outside the city of Jerusalem opposite the town of Bethlehem, on the highway...and that since ancient times the Jews have tended to visit this holy grave without anybody preventing them from doing so, as an inviolable law. And now people have emerged who have begun to hinder them, although as aforesaid and as proven the Jews have a right to visit the grave according to the Sultan's order. Hence I approach his honor the governor, may he be exalted, reminding him of the contents of the existing order. I also order him to attempt to remove the obstacles from the Jews, residents of Holy Jerusalem and others, so they can visit the aforementioned holy grave unhindered. Rendered in Istanbul at the end of the month of Shawwal in the year 1246 to the Hejira. Signed: The Sublime Porte.Ironically, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose government has been described as "neo-Ottoman" in outlook, told the Saudi paper al-Watan (March 7, 2010) that the Cave of the Patriarchs and Rachel's Tomb "were not and never will be Jewish sites, but Islamic sites."[28]
The two firmans were preserved in the archives of the Sephardic Community Committee in Jerusalem. In 1910 they were transferred to Pinhas Grayevsky, one of Jerusalem's most important researchers, who published them 22 years later. They were also published in Miginzei Kedem, a more scientific publication.[29]
Montefiore received the permit for building an additional room attached to the existing structure from the Sublime Porte in Constantinople. The permit, bearing the seal of the Sublime Porte, resided for many years in the museum named after Sir Isaac and Lady Edith Wolfson at Hechal Shlomo in Jerusalem. Many saw it, but it was lost and quite possibly stolen.[30]
We have no details regarding the conversations of Montefiore with the Turkish authorities on this topic. Nevertheless, one can assume that Montefiore arrived at an informal arrangement with the authorities on a modus for dividing the rights to use the additional room, the room that leans on the older structure from the south.
We can find support for this in the mihrab — a niche symbolizing the direction of prayer to Mecca that was built in the new room.[31] Subsequently, Muslim dead were purified in this room on occasion.[32] Yehuda Burla, the son of Yehoshua Burla, the caretaker of Rachel's Tomb, and his wife Miriam recount in their memoirs that the additional room was built so the Muslims would keep their hands off of the room marking the grave itself.[33] The Jews who came to Rachel's Tomb also used this room either as a waiting room or as a prayer room, especially on those days when a large public had gathered at Rachel's Tomb.[34] In practice, in any event, presumptive ownership at the location was Jewish. Shlomo Freiman, the last Ashkenazi caretaker of Rachel's Tomb, documents in his diary the friction with the Muslims who from time to time attempted to purify their dead in the additional room until they desisted from the practice in return for a sizable amount of money.[35]
Here, for example, is one of Freiman's descriptions from his diaries:
The 18th day of Sivan 5705: On Wednesday they brought a slain person from Bethlehem. We suffered greatly. They spent around two hours in the outer room and fought among themselves regarding revenge....The sheiks said that one had to wait three more days and the others claimed that it was a pity to wait. The grave was closed until they quitted the place.Elul 5706: Most of the (Muslim) dead do not enter inside (the anteroom). Only in isolated cases where they bring a slain person from Jerusalem, or a dead person from the hospital, and have not managed to pray at the spot, they bring the dead body into the corridor and pray. Many times they bring the dead deliberately in order to disturb the prayers, for they as well recite a long prayer. Many times they sit for hours upon hours without disturbance....I think that one has to correct this distortion and must not allow them to do as they want. Yesterday I felt that they were afraid. They saw many Jews, so they didn't bring the dead person inside.
How Rachel's Tomb Was Islamicized and Became the Bilal Ibn Rabah Mosque
Between 1993 and 1995, Palestinian groups committed terror and suicide attacks that killed 80 Israelis. In February 1996, the Israel Defense Forces feared that Rachel's Tomb would furnish a convenient target for an attack of this sort, as it was situated on the main highway connecting Jerusalem and Hebron, with heavy Jewish and Arab traffic. Demonstrations of a nationalist Palestinian character erupted at Rachel's Tomb as Muslims began to raise the argument that the site involved "Islamic soil."[36]
At the end of September 1996 the "Western Wall Tunnel Riots" broke out. After the attack on Joseph's Tomb in Nablus and its fall to the Palestinians, hundreds of Arab residents from Bethlehem and the Aida refugee camp attacked Rachel's Tomb. They set on fire the scaffolding that was erected around the tomb as part of fortification work at the site and tried to break into the compound. Marching at their head was Muhammad Rashad al-Jabari, the Governor of Bethlehem, an appointee of the Palestinian Authority. The IDF dispersed the demonstrators with gunfire and stun grenades. Scores were wounded, including Kifah Barakat, the commander of Force 17, the presidential guard force of Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat.[37]
With the outbreak of the Second Intifada in 2000, Palestinians again attacked Rachel's Tomb, and for 41 days Jews were prevented from visiting the site due to shooting incidents.[38]
The Muslims also escalated their rhetoric. They stopped calling the site "Rachel's Dome," as they had done for hundreds of years, and began calling it the mosque of Bilal ibn Rabah.[39] The Muslim religious authorities (wakf) first began to employ this name in 1996, and it eventually took root in Palestinian national discourse.
Bilal ibn Rabah, an Ethiopian by origin, is known in Islamic history as a black slave who served the household of the prophet Mohammed as the person in charge of calling the Muslims to prayer five times a day — the first muezzin.[40] Upon the death of Mohammed he went to fight the wars of Islam in Syria, was killed there in 642 CE, and was buried in Damascus. [41] The Palestinian Authority raised the argument that, according to Islamic tradition, the Islamic conquerors of the country called the mosque that was established at Rachel's Tomb after Bilal ibn Rabah.
Yet the Palestinian argument ignores the presumptive ownership that the Jews acquired at the site for many hundreds of years and from thefirmans that the Ottoman authorities issued awarding Rachel's Tomb to the Jews at the beginning of the nineteenth century.[42]
The Palestinian arguments ignore even the accepted Muslim tradition that venerates Rachel and identifies the site as her burial place. Professor Yehoshua Porat termed the claim of a mosque at Rachel's Tomb as mendacious. He noted that the place was known in Arabic as "Rachel's Dome, a Jewish place of worship."[43]
For many years in official publications of Palestinian national bodies, there was no reference to any other name for the site, including in thePalestinian Lexicon issued by the Arab League and the PLO in 1984, or in the Al-mawsu'ah al-filastiniyah published in Italy by the Palestinian Encyclopedia organization after 1996. The book Palestine the Holy Land simply relates that "At the northern entrance to the city the Tomb of Rachel appears, the mother of the matriarchs, who died while giving life to Benjamin."[44] The book The West Bank and Gaza — Palestinealso fails to mention the location of Rachel's Tomb as a mosque.[45] Despite this, the Deputy Minister of Religious Trusts and Religious Affairs in the Palestinian Authority defined Rachel's Tomb as an Islamic site.[46] On Yom Kippur 2000, six days after the IDF retreated from Joseph's Tomb in Nablus, the official PLO newspaper Al-Hayat al-Jadida published an article indicating Rachel's Tomb as the next Palestinian target. "Bethlehem — Rachel's Tomb or the Mosque of Bilal ibn Rabah is one of the stakes that the occupation government and the Zionist movement drove into most of the Palestinian cities....This grave is spurious and was originally a Muslim mosque." [47] During the Second Intifada, Rachel's Tomb was attacked by gunfire both from the direction of the Aida refugee camp between Beit Jalla and Bethlehem, as well as from the rooftops of houses to the west, south and east. Palestinian Authority forces, who were presumably in charge of preserving order and should have prevented violence, not only did not prevent it but took an active part in the fighting.
At one point, 50 Jews found themselves besieged at Rachel's Tomb while a gun battle between the IDF and Palestinian Authority forces was taking place around them.[48] On April 2, 2002, the IDF returned to Bethlehem in the framework of Operation Defensive Shield and remained there for a protracted time. At the outset, the IDF besieged wanted terrorists holed up in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem not far from Rachel's Tomb. Violence continued sporadically in the following years as well. A bomb was thrown at Rachel's Tomb on April 10, 2005, and another on December 27, 2006, while on February 10, 2007, scores of Palestinians attacked the site with rocks.[49] Israel's High Court of Justice has recognized the clear security need of defending this holy site. On February 3, 2005, it rejected petitions by Palestinians who wanted to change the route of the security barrier near Rachel's Tomb, ruling that the current location of the barrier preserved the balance between freedom of religion and the local residents' freedom of movement.[50] SOURCE:
The Palestinian Authority and the Jewish Holy Sites
in the West Bank: Rachel's Tomb as a Test Case
Nadav Shragai
- Rachel's Tomb lies on the northern outskirts of Bethlehem, about 460 meters (about 500 yards) south of the Jerusalem municipal border, and for more than 1,700 years has been identified as the tomb of the matriarch Rachel. "The building with the dome and olive tree" became a Jewish symbol, appearing in thousands of drawings, photographs, and works of art and depicted on the covers of Jewish holy books. However, today the little domed structure has been encased in a sleeve of reinforced concrete with firing holes and defensive trenches, and covered with camouflage netting.
- According to the armistice agreement signed on April 3, 1949, Jordan was to allow Israel "free access to the Holy Places and cultural institutions and use of the cemetery on the Mount of Olives." In practice, Jordan did not allow Jews free access to their holy places, and for 19 years, until 1967, Jews could not go to the Western Wall, Rachel's Tomb, the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron, Joseph's Tomb in Shechem (Nablus), or other sites sacred to Jews which remained in Jordanian hands.
- The Gaza-Jericho Agreement signed in May 1994 stated: "The Palestinian Authority shall ensure free access to all holy sites in the Gaza Strip and the Jericho Area." The Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement, signed on the White House lawn on September 28, 1995, dealt with the status of 23 places holy to Jews. The Palestinians promised to assure freedom of access to those places. However, the Palestinians either made access extremely difficult or prevented it entirely.
- In October 2000, Joseph's Tomb in Nablus was attacked, set ablaze and desecrated. Druze Border Police Corporal Yusef Madhat bled to death on October 4 because Palestinians refused to allow his evacuation. The "Shalom al Israel" synagogue in Jericho was also attacked. Holy books and relics were burned, and the synagogue's ancient mosaic was damaged.
- In 2000, after hundreds of years of recognizing the site as Rachel's Tomb, Muslims began calling it the "Bilal ibn Rabah mosque" - a name that has since entered the national Palestinian discourse. The Palestinian claim ignored the fact that Ottoman firmans (decrees) gave Jews in the Land of Israel the right of access to the site at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Israel's experience since the Oslo agreements has shown that the responsibility for Jewish holy sites or the roads leading to them should remain in Israeli hands.
The Fortification of Rachel's Tomb
In September 1997 the Israeli media departed from its routine chronicling of security and society, and for a few days the radio, television and press joined forces in harsh criticism of what looked like an architectural catastrophe: the scene at the Tomb of Rachel, the mother of the Jewish people. Writers, poets, intellectuals, and newspapermen bewailed the loss of a picturesque tableau: the small stone structure with its dome, appended room and ancient olive tree nearby. Enraged, they railed against the new vista: a giant concrete blockhouse surrounded by gun positions and guard towers which obscured the image of the ancient, traditional structure engraved on Israel's collective memory.1
The architectural logic behind the fortifications was based upon security considerations: hundreds of incidents in which Palestinians from Bethlehem and the nearby refugee camps threw rocks and Molotov cocktails, and even shot at Jewish worshippers and Israeli soldiers.
A 1,700-Year-Old Tradition
Rachel's Tomb lies on the northern outskirts of Bethlehem, about 460 meters (about 500 yards) south of the Jerusalem municipal border, and for more than 1,700 years has been identified as the tomb of the matriarch Rachel. A vast amount of literature written by pilgrims - Jewish, Christian and Muslim - documents the site as Rachel's burial place.2
Jews have visited the site for generations, coming to pray, request and plead. The place became a kind of miniature Wailing Wall where suppliant Jews came to pour out their hearts and recount their misfortunes at the bosom of the beloved mother, where they could find consolation and cure.
According to Jewish tradition, Rachel's tears have special powers,3 which is why those who visit her grave ask her to cry and intercede with the Divinity. According to Genesis 36:16-19, Rachel died giving birth to Benjamin and was "buried in the way to Ephrath, which is Bethlehem," and became, in Jewish tradition and history, biblical interpretation and essence, the mother whose tears have a special function.4 Writers, poets and biblical exegetics identified her tears with almost every catastrophe or trouble which plagued the Jewish people.
Visitors to Rachel's Tomb connected her and her tears to the tomb itself. "The building with the dome and olive tree" became a Jewish symbol.5 The room added to the original structure by Sir Moses Montefiore in 1841 only served to reinforce the connection. The tomb has since appeared in thousands of drawings, photographs, stamps, and works of art and has been depicted on the covers of Jewish holy books. However, whoever visits the tomb today will find it hard to recognize it as the place engraved on Jewish hearts and memories. The little domed structure, the memory, and tomb of the matriarch Rachel has been encased in a sleeve of reinforced concrete with firing holes and defensive trenches, and covered with camouflage netting.
In accordance with an Israeli government decision of September 11, 2002, Rachel's Tomb, which millions of Jews have visited since the Six-Day War, was enclosed by the security fence built by Israel. That made it look even worse. Not only was the tomb within the fortification, but the short road to it - a few hundred yards from Jerusalem - was closed off inside concrete walls and firing positions.
The Fate of the Jewish Holy Places
Since its establishment, the State of Israel has been badly disappointed by agreements transferring responsibility for Jewish holy places to neighboring Arab or Palestinian rule. On April 3, 1949, Israel signed an armistice with Jordan. According to Paragraph 8, Article 2 of the agreement, Jordan was to allow Israel "free access to the Holy Places and cultural institutions and use of the cemetery on the Mount of Olives." In practice, not only could Jews not visit the graves of their loved ones on the Mount of Olives, but the site was desecrated. Headstones of Jewish graves were shattered and some were used as paving stones or in construction.6 Jordan did not allow Jews free access to their holy places, and for 19 years, until 1967, Jews could not go to the Western Wall, Rachel's Tomb, the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron, Joseph's Tomb in Shechem (Nablus), or other sites sacred to Jews which remained in Jordanian hands.7
In May 1994, Israel signed the Gaza-Jericho Agreement in Cairo. According to Article 15 of Annex II, "the Palestinian Authority shall ensure free access to all holy sites in the Gaza Strip and the Jericho Area," mentioning the Naaran synagogue, the Jewish cemetery in Tel Sammarat, the "Shalom al Israel" synagogue in Jericho, and the synagogue in Gaza City.8
On September 28, 1995, the Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement was signed on the White House lawn, making the Palestinians responsible for civilian and security matters in additional areas of the West Bank. In accordance with the agreement, Israel withdrew from six Palestinian cities and part of Hebron; the IDF and the civil administration were withdrawn. In addition, Israel withdrew from 450 villages, towns, refugee camps, and other areas throughout the West Bank.
The holy sites in those regions, or adjacent regions (access to which passed through or close to Palestinian areas), were designated as "sites of religious significance" or "archaeological sites." The agreement also dealt with the status of 23 places holy to Jews, including the tombs of biblical figures, the ruins of ancient synagogues, and ancient cemeteries. The Palestinians promised to assure freedom of access to those places.9 In reality, however, the Palestinians either made access extremely difficult or prevented it entirely.
In October 2000, Joseph's Tomb in Nablus was attacked, set ablaze and desecrated. Druze Border Police Corporal Yusef Madhat bled to death on October 4 because Palestinians refused to allow his evacuation. It also became extremely complicated for Jews to reach other, less well-known places, such as the tomb of Avner ben Ner near Hebron,10 or similar sites, to say nothing of the synagogue in Gaza. Only at the "Shalom al Israel" synagogue in Jericho did the Palestinians generally adhere to the agreement, for a time, until it too was attacked with the outbreak of the second intifada in the fall of 2000. Holy books and relics were burned, and the synagogue's ancient mosaic was damaged.11 Unfortunately, there has been a discernable deterioration in Palestinian treatment of Jewish holy sites in 2007, including the Tomb of Joshua bin Nun at Kefel Hares.12 In November 2007, the Palestinian Authority began to clean Joseph's Tomb and discussions have been held regarding visits by Jews to the site.
Jewish Religious Leaders Plead for "Mother Rachel"
During 1995, when it became known that Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin had agreed to give the Palestinians full security and civilian control over Rachel's Tomb, there was a strong reaction in the Jewish world. The Chief Rabbi of Israel, Israel Meir Lau, met with Prime Minister Rabin and said, "One does not part from one's mother." In a scene fraught with emotion, Menachem Porush, an aged ultra-Orthodox Knesset representative from the Yahadut Hatorah party, broke down in tears, weeping on the prime minister's shoulder (in his office). He would not leave Rabin in peace until he changed the decision.13 Rabbis, political parties, Jewish organizations, and many important figures involved themselves in the issue until Rabin and Shimon Peres, at that time foreign minister, reached a new agreement with Yasser Arafat: Rachel's Tomb and the road leading to it would remain under Israeli control.
On December 1, 1995, after Rabin's assassination, Bethlehem, with the exception of the enclave of the tomb, passed under the full control of the Palestinian Authority. Rachel's Tomb is now an outpost marking Jerusalem's southern border. It has been massively fortified and Jews can only reach it in bulletproof vehicles under military supervision.
Why Rachel's Tomb Became a Fortress
By February 1996 it was generally suspected that the Palestinians would carry out terrorist and suicide bombing attacks at Rachel's Tomb as they had done elsewhere in Israel. The IDF feared the tomb would be an easy target, situated as it was on the main road linking Jerusalem and Hebron, which was well-travelled by both Jews and Arabs, and a decision was made to fortify the site.
In response, for the first time since 1967, the Palestinians claimed that "the Tomb of Rachel was on Islamic land."14 At the end of September 1996, Palestinian riots broke out over the opening of an ancient tunnel in Jerusalem. After an attack on Joseph's Tomb and its subsequent takeover by Palestinians, hundreds of residents of Bethlehem and the Aida refugee camp also attacked Rachel's Tomb. They set the scaffolding which had been erected around it on fire and tried to break in. The rioters were led by the Palestinian Authority-appointed governor of Bethlehem, Muhammad Rashad al-Jabari. The IDF dispersed the mob with gunfire and stun grenades, and dozens were wounded. One of them was Kifah Barakat, a commander of Force 17, the presidential guard of Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat.15
In the following years, the Palestinians occasionally disturbed the peace and public order, but a serious escalation occurred at the end of 2000 when the second intifada broke out. For forty-one days Jews did not visit the tomb because Palestinians attacked the site with gunfire.16
Bullets were fired at Rachel's Tomb as soon as the riots began, from the Aida refugee camp between Beit Jala and Bethlehem, and from the roofs of buildings located to the west, south and east. Palestinian Authority security forces, who were responsible for keeping order, not only failed to prevent the violence, they actively participated in it. When the gunfire at soldiers and visitors increased, the Israeli army took to the neighboring roofs. Two Israeli soldiers were killed in the battles, Shahar Vekret and Danny Darai. Darai was murdered by Atef Abayat, a Tanzim operative who headed the main terrorist network in Bethlehem at the time.17 In his book Permission Given, Israeli journalist Ronen Bergman revealed that not only was Abayat not arrested, as Israel demanded from the Palestinian Authority, but Yasser Arafat personally instructed that he be paid.
On December 4, 2000, Fatah operatives and members of the Palestinian security services also attacked Rachel's Tomb. In May 2001, fifty Jews found themselves trapped inside by a firefight between the IDF and Palestinian Authority gunmen.18 In March 2002 the IDF returned to Bethlehem as part of Operation Defensive Shield and remained there for an extended period of time. In April 2002 the IDF laid siege to wanted terrorists who were hiding in the Church of the Nativity, not far from the tomb. In recent years there have been terrorist attacks at the site (although Israeli military control has decreased the level of violence), such as bombs thrown on April 10, 2000, and December 27, 2006, and scores of Palestinians who threw rocks as recently as February 10, 2007.
The Israel Supreme Court, which has often acceded to Palestinian appeals to change the path of the security fence, recognized the obvious security needs for protecting the holy site and on February 3, 2005, rejected a Palestinian appeal to change its path in the region of the tomb. The court decreed that the balance between freedom of worship and the local residents' freedom of movement was to be preserved.19
The Palestinians Invent a Religious Claim
In 2000, after hundreds of years of recognizing the site as Rachel's Tomb, Muslims began calling it the "Bilal ibn Rabah mosque."20 Members of the Wakf used the name first in 1996, but it has since entered the national Palestinian discourse. Bilal ibn Rabah was an Ethiopian known in Islamic history as a slave who served in the house of the prophet Muhammad as the first muezzin (the individual who calls the faithful to prayer five times a day).21 When Muhammad died, ibn Rabah went to fight the Muslim wars in Syria, was killed in 642 CE, and buried in either Aleppo or Damascus.22The Palestinian Authority claimed that according to Islamic tradition, it was Muslim conquerors who named the mosque erected at Rachel's Tomb after Bilal ibn Rabah.
The Palestinian claim ignored the fact that Ottoman firmans (mandates or decrees) gave Jews in the Land of Israel the right of access to the site at the beginning of the nineteenth century.23 The Palestinian claim even ignored accepted Muslim tradition, which admires Rachel and recognizes the site as her burial place. According to tradition, the name "Rachel" comes from the word "wander," because she died during one of her wanderings and was buried on the Bethlehem road.24 Her name is referred to in the Koran,25 and in other Muslim sources, Joseph is said to fall upon his mother Rachel's grave and cry bitterly as the caravan of his captors passes by.26 For hundreds of years, Muslim holy men (walis) were buried in tombs whose form was the same as Rachel's.
Then, out of the blue, the connection between Rachel, admired even by the Muslims, and her tomb is erased and the place becomes "the Bilal ibn Rabah mosque." Well-known Orientalist Professor Yehoshua Porat has called the "tradition" the Muslims referred to as "false." He said the Arabic name of the site was "the Dome of Rachel, a place where the Jews prayed."27
Only a few years ago, official Palestinian publications contained not a single reference to such a mosque. The same was true for the Palestinian Lexicon issued by the Arab League and the PLO in 1984, and for Al-mawsu'ah al-filastiniyah, the Palestinian encyclopedia published in Italy after 1996. Palestine, the Holy Land, published by the Palestinian Council for Development and Rehabilitation, with an introduction written by Yasser Arafat, simply says that "at the northwest entrance to the city [Bethlehem] lies the tomb of the matriarch Rachel, who died while giving life to Benjamin." The West Bank and Gaza - Palestine also mentions the site as the Tomb of Rachel and not as the Mosque of Bilal ibn Rabah.28However, the Palestinian deputy minister for endowments and religious affairs has now defined Rachel's Tomb as a Muslim site.29
On Yom Kippur in 2000, six days after the IDF withdrew from Joseph's Tomb, the Palestinian daily newspaper Al-Hayat al-Jadida published an article marking the next target as Rachel's Tomb. It read in part, "Bethlehem - ‘the Tomb of Rachel,' or the Bilal ibn Rabah mosque, is one of the nails the occupation government and the Zionist movement hammered into many Palestinian cities....The tomb is false and was originally a Muslim mosque."30
Conclusions
Beyond religious, historical, and political arguments about the right to control Jewish holy places in Judea and Samaria, the situation on the ground since the Oslo agreements has shown that the Palestinians should not be given responsibility for the sites or the roads leading to them. That responsibility should remain in Israeli hands.
The Palestinians, as they have in the past at the Temple Mount and the Western Wall, use their real or supposed religious interests to make political capital for their national campaign. The story of Rachel's Tomb, recognized as a Jewish holy site for two thousand years31 - which has become "Rachel's Fortress" - only serves to illustrate this.
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Notes
1. For an expanded version of this article, see Nadav Shragai, At the Crossroads, the Story of the Tomb of Rachel, Jerusalem Studies, 2005, pp. 216-26 (Al em ha-derekh, sipuro shel kever rachel, shaarim le-heker yerushalaim, 2005, 216-26).
2. For more documentation, see Avraham Yaari, Jewish Pilgrims' Journeys to the Land of Israel (Gazit, 1946) (Masaot eretz israel shel olim yehudim, Gazit, 1946); Zeev Vilnai, Sacred Tombstones in the Land of Israel (Rav Kook Institute, 1963) (Matzevot kodesh be-eretz israel, Mosad harav kook, 1963); Michael Ish Shalom, Christian Pilgrimages to the Land of Israel (Am Oved, 1979) (Masaot notrzim l'Eretz Israel, Am Oved, 1979); Natan Shor, "The Jewish Settlement in Jerusalem according to Franciscan Chronicles and Travellers' Letters" (Yad Ben-Tzvi, 1979) (Ha-yeshuv ha-yehudi be-yerushalaim al pi chronickot frantziskaniot ve-kitvei nosim, Yad Ben-Tzvi, 1979); Eli Schiller, The Tomb of Rachel (Ariel, 1977) (Kever Rachel, 1977). For a summary of these and other sources, see At the Crossroads, the Story of the Tomb of Rachel, Part I, 1700 Years of Testimony (Jerusalem Studies, 2005) (Al em ha-derekh, sipuro shel kever rachel, helek alef, 1700 shanim shel eduiot, Shaarim le-heker yerushalaim, 2005).
3. See the summary in Gilad Messing, And You Were Better than Us All (Private Publication, 2001), pp. 161-4 (Ve-at alit al kulanu, hotzaa pratit, 2001, pp. 161-4).
4. See, for example, Shragai, At the Crossroads, pp. 163-5.
5. Ibid., p. 14.
6. Meiron Benvenisti, The Torn City (London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1973), pp. 78-9.
7. Ibid., pp. 78-81; Shmuel Berkowitz, The Wars of the Holy Places (Jerusalem Institute for Israeli Studies and Hed Artzi, 2000), pp. 50, 54 (Milhamot ha-mekomot ha-kedoshim, Machon yerushalaim le-heker israel ve-hed artzi, 2000, pp. 50, 54).
8. Berkowitz, ibid., p. 215.
9. Ibid., pp. 215-21.
10. A biblical figure, commander-in-chief of King Saul's army. He appears mostly in 2 Samuel.
11. "Sharm el-Sheikh Fact-Finding Committee - First Statement of the Government of Israel," Jewish Holy Sites, #233, December 28, 2000, http://www.israel.org/MFA/MFAArchive/2000_2009/2000/12/Sharm%20el-Sheikh%20Fact-Finding%20Committee%20-%20First%20Sta
12. Jonathan Dahoah Halevi, "A History of Desecrating Holy Sites," Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (Hebrew) October 29, 2007, http://www.jcpa.org.il/JCPA/Templates/showpage.asp?FID=416&DBID=1&LNGID=2&TMID=99&IID=9522
13. Shragai, At the Crossroads, pp. 198-208.
14. Danny Rubinstein, "Bethlehem does not want to be Berlin," Ha'aretz, February 16, 1996.
15. Shragai, At the Crossroads, p. 216.
16. Ibid., p. 229.
17. Ibid., pp. 235-6.
18. Ibid., p. 242.
19. Supreme Court decision, February 3, 2005.
20. Shragai, At the Crossroads, pp. 230-1.
21. Danny Rubinstein, "The Slave and the Mother," Ha'aretz, October 9, 1996, and a private conversation with Orientalist Yoni Dehoah-Halevi.
22. Ibid.
23. Shragai, At the Crossroads, pp. 48-52; Miginzei Kedem, Documents and Sources from the Writings of Pinhas Name, ed. Yitzhak Beck (Yad Yitzhak Ben-Tzvi, 1977), pp. 30-32 (Teudot u-mekorot tokh kitvei Pinhas, Miginzei Kedem, Yad Yitzkah Ben-Tzvi, 1977, pp. 30-32).
24. Eli Schiller, The Tomb of Rachel, p. 18.
25. Ibid.
26. Ibid.
27. Yehoshua Porat, "Two Graves, Two Worlds," Ma'ariv, around the same time.
28. Islam adopted the same tactic regarding the Western Wall. Further information can be found in Dr. Berkowitz' book. He found that until the eleventh century Muslim scholars disagreed as to where the prophet Muhammad had tied al-Buraq, his winged horse, after his night ride. Some identified the place as the southern wall of the Temple Mount, others as the eastern wall, but none of them suggested any connection to the western wall, sacred to Judaism, called the Wailing Wall in the diaspora and the Western Wall in Hebrew. The claim was only made after the "Wall conflict" broke out between Jews and Muslims before the 1929 riots.
During the riots of 1929, violence broke out in Jerusalem and on the Temple Mount. From there it spread to neighboring areas and hampered regular visits to Rachel's Tomb. In 1929 the Wakf demanded control over the tomb, claiming it was part of the neighboring Muslim cemetery. It also demanded to renew the old Muslim custom of purifying corpses in the tomb's antechamber (the structure added by Montefiori in 1841).
29. Shragai, At the Crossroads, p. 233.
30. Al-Hayat al-Jadida, October 8, 2000.
31. Christian sources identified the site as such almost two thousand years ago. For example, see the New Testament, Matthew 2:18.
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Nadav Shragai is the author of At the Crossroads, the Story of the Tomb of Rachel (Jerusalem Studies, 2005); The Mount of Contention, the Struggle for the Temple Mount, Jews and Muslims, Religion and Politics since 1967 (Keter, 1995); and "Jerusalem is Not the Problem, It is the Solution," inMister Prime Minister: Jerusalem, ed. Moshe Amirav (Carmel and the Florsheimer Institute, 2005). He has been writing for the Israeli daily newspaperHa'aretz since 1983.
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