Game set and match to the patriarchs!

This past Shabbat’s Torah reading was Chayei Sarah, in which Abraham comes to Hebron to buy a burial place for his wife Sarah. That burial place is the Cave of Machpela, in which the patriarchs and their wives are all buried, and is the second most sacred shrine in Judaism after the Temple Mount and its Western Wall.

As in most years, I spent this special Shabbat in Hebron with tens of thousands of my Jewish brothers and sisters to have the enormous privilege of hearing the Torah reading and story of the burial of Sarah in the exact place where it actually happened 3,800 years ago. If you’re looking for a means of really “earthing” yourself to Jewish history, this time and place never disappoints.

I returned to Jerusalem after Shabbat to hear of the crowd forming in Tel Aviv to mark the 23^rd anniversary of the murder of Prime Minister Rabin z’l  in the same square as he had then held a rally in support of the Oslo peace accords.  Rather than ‘mark’ the anniversary, it seems the demonstration was held more to ‘politicise’ it. Failed prime ministerial aspirants like Avi Gabbay (Labour) Tzachi Hanegbi (Likud) and Tzipi Livni (no fixed abode) jumped at the chance to make themselves relevant on the podium. No surprise that Hanegbi got booed while far left Meretz leader Tamar Sandberg got the biggest applause. This is after all Tel Aviv!

The biggest story the following morning was about someone who was not there. Knesset speaker Yuli Edelstein. He reportedly declined to attend because a “settler in a kippa” would not be welcome to speak at such a gathering. The headlines made a meal of his comment that Rabin’s assassination had “no historical impact” on the peace process. That is of course true. The Oslo process didn’t die at Rabin Square, but collapsed 5 years later at Camp David. Israelis still live with its deadly legacy of thousands of Jewish lives ended or disabled, along with the empowerment of the PLO and the advent of Hamas.

I have a better reason why Speaker Edelstein was not in Tel Aviv. That’s because he was in Hebron, where I spoke to him Friday night in the Cave of Machpela. This is a place where settlers in a kippa are very welcome indeed. Their interest is in deepening their roots to the Jewish homeland and heritage, rather than negotiating it away to Arabs in hopes they will stop stabbing our people in the supermarkets and stop machine-gunning families by the roadside.

And whilst Rabin’s left-wing exploiters managed to garner just a few thousand in Tel Aviv, Abraham and Sarah pulled in 40,000 for Shabbat.

  

Game set and match to the patriarchs!

A Persistence of Savagery

The cry went up: “Al Aksa is in danger … kill all the Jews wherever you see them!”  

And so they came with axes and meat cleavers and hacked the Jews to death.

I speak not of this week, but of August 1929 when 67 Jews were hacked to death in Chevron in response to the same Al Aksa war cry based on the same blood libels of Arabs being killed by Jews.

It seems bizarre that just last week, in Chevron for Shabbat Chayei Sarah, I walked along Rechov Tarpat (1929) talking about that massacre which came so close to repeating itself this week in Jerusalem. 

I was walking with Arieh Kiselstein whose father (pictured here with his injured father and sister) was 4 years old when rescued from under a heap of slain Jewish bodies.  At the time of the Chevron massacre, there was only one British policeman in charge of the whole town.  Fortunately this time our own police responded quickly enough to prevent many more deaths.

The lesson is that however much our people have progressed in 85 years – from hapless refugees to citizens of the most powerful and successful state in the region – our enemies have not changed one iota from the bloodthirsty automatons of jihadi incitement they’ve always been.

Before the 1929 massacre, Jews and Arabs had an almost idyllic coexistence in Chevron.  Jewish doctors treated Arab patients and Arab kids babysat for Jewish families in complete trust and harmony. This is the kind of co-existence the current-day Osloists and peaceniks still dream of as part of their Two-State Solution.  But Chevron 1929 was a wake-up call to our people just as shrill as last Tuesday should be.

This was not about Abbas. He is a man of straw.  This is way above his pay-grade.

This is being orchestrated by the Muslim Brotherhood with dreams of re-creating the Ottoman Empire as a Sharia caliphate with its capital in Jerusalem.

Having been unceremoniously turfed out of Egypt within an inch of reaching ultimate presidential power, the Brotherhood now seeks new relevance in the region and has chosen Jerusalem as its new powerbase.  Its tentacles are everywhere, including the White House which regularly entertains the leaders of its American chapter, known as CAIR; the Council on American Islamic Relations.  And the Brotherhood now has the patronage of Qatar, the world’s new spigot of terror funding and sponsors of Hamas.

In 1929 the Arabs offered Chevron's Sephardi community leader Rabbi Slonim a deal: hand over the local yeshiva boys and we will let your families live. The rabbi refused and was shot dead. 

In the end 55 of the 67 killed were yeshiva boys.

Just as 1929 was not a massacre of kibbutzniks, Tuesday’s attack was not against a secular target or any ‘symbol of the Zionist occupation’.  And as we all know, Har Nof is hardly an IDF recruitment centre. Think of Mercaz Harav, and the school in Toulouse and you will realize that these were not attacks on Zionism, but on Judaism itself.

The lesson of 1929 was that co-existence is an illusion which will only last as long as the next imam’s cry of Itbah al-Yahud.  We need to separate ourselves from the Arabs and to stop employing them in our stores, restaurants and building sites. There are hordes of peace-loving Filipinos and Eastern Europeans who will be only too pleased to take their places and their jobs in our land of milk and honey without lusting daily for Jewish blood.

Here is a sobering video account of the Chevron massacre.

ה' ינקום דמם

Child of Chevron

Snapped last week - a settler child picks flowers in the hills of Chevron.

Chevron (Hebron) is the site of the oldest Jewish community in the world, which dates back to Biblical times. The Book of Genesis relates that Abraham purchased the field where the Tomb of the Patriarchs is located as a burial place for his wife Sarah. According to Jewish tradition, the Patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and the Matriarchs Sarah, Rebekah, and Leah are buried in the Tomb.

Hebron has a long and rich Jewish history. It was one of the first places where the Patriarch Abraham resided after his arrival in Canaan. King David was anointed in Hebron, where he reigned for seven years. One thousand years later, during the first Jewish revolt against the Romans, the city was the scene of extensive fighting. Jews lived in Hebron almost continuously throughout the Byzantine, Arab, Mameluke, and Ottoman periods. It was only in 1929 — as a result of a murderous Arab pogrom in which 67 Jews were murdered and the remainder were forced to flee — that the city became temporarily "free" of Jews. After the 1967 Six-Day War, the Jewish community of Hebron was re-established. It has grown to include a range of religious and educational institutions.

Hebron contains many sites of Jewish religious and historical significance, in addition to the Tomb of the Patriarchs. These include the Tombs of Othniel Ben Kenaz (the first Judge of Israel) and Avner Ben Ner (general and confidante to Kings Saul and David), and Ruth and Jesse (great-grandmother and father, respectively, of King David). Victims of the 1929 pogrom, as well as prominent rabbinical sages and community figures, are buried in Hebron's ancient Jewish cemetery.

[Source: Jewish Virtual Library]

The Lunacy of Oslo



I took my 7-year-old daughter and two granddaughters to Rachel’s Tomb this afternoon. We went from there to Kiryat Arba, Hebron and Machpela, Cave of the Patriarchs and the tomb of Ruth.





Rachel’s Tomb is only accessible through a high-walled road corridor into Arab- controlled Bethlehem.

We gave that control to the Palestinian Authority under the Oslo Accords.

In return we got restaurant and bus bombings and daily rocket attacks which continue until today.

How Jews managed to retain even this tentative access to the tomb of the mother of the tribes of Israel is a miracle in itself. (See my Jewish Press article of some years ago HERE.)

Similarly the burial site of Ruth, located in Tel Rumeida, is accessible only through an army base and tin-sheeted corridor laced with barbed wire which zigzags into Arab-controlled Hebron.

That was another accord named Wye. It should have been called Why? (Our attachment to Hebron is the subject of another article of some years back HERE.)

Then there is Joseph's tomb in Shechem; another Oslo casualty where we have to visit in bus convoys in the middle of the night to avoid upsetting the Arab mayor of what they renamed the City of Nablus. (This is a derivative of the Roman name Neapolis - or Naples. Palestine was another Roman name used to erase the true biblical name of Judea.)  

Apart from reviving past writings, my point in blogging today’s excursion, is the irony that, in the Diaspora, Jews can freely visit the tombs of their rabbis and Hassidic mentors on visits to Poland, Russia, Germany, the Czech Republic, Spain … even Turkey and pretty much all over Europe.

But in our very own homeland, we can only visit our most revered sites like criminals, under armed guard at risk of a sniper’s bullet.

How does one explain this to a grandchild?

That we can do what we like in someone else’s house, but in our own home we appear like intruders?

That is the lunacy of Oslo.
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Moses of Mamre

"And the life of Sarah was a hundred and seven and twenty years. These were the years of the life of Sarah. And Sarah died in Kiryat-arba (the same is Hebron), in the land of Canaan. And Abraham buried Sarah in the cave of the field of Machpelah before Mamre: the same is Hebron in the land of Canaan ."

It's hard to imagine a scene as joyous and religiously charged as Machpela on the Friday night of Parshat Chayei Sarah. Every year, many thousands of Jews from all over Israel, and hundreds more from Europe and America, flock to the tomb of our patriarchs, which Abraham purchased for Sarah's burial nearly 4,000 years ago.

The traditional burial plots of Adam and Eve, Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca and Jacob and Leah are now enclosed within one of the region's only fully surviving Herodian structures, secure behind 6-inch-thick stone walls which have withstood countless sieges over the centuries.

The property may have changed hands many times - from Romans to Muslims and Persians to Crusaders and Marmelukes - but on this night it belongs undeniably to the Jewish people. Until its recapture during the Six-Day War, the ruling Muslims only allowed Jewish pilgrims as far as the seventh step along an outer wall to stand and pray. On this night, the structure is filled to bursting point with hundreds of Jews of all denominations singing Lecha Dodi as one, with a fervor and passion that's simply unforgettable.

Flashback to a previous visit: The heat and crush soon become too much to bear, so I squeeze myself through the throng to find a way out and finish Maariv in the coolness of the night air. Outside I encounter a heaving sea of humanity. During the past hour, every section of courtyard and grass verges has filled with hundreds of youngsters - yeshiva boys and seminary girls in separate sections - dancing to Lecha Dodi as if it were Simchat Torah all over again.
It's a heartwarming scene of Jewish renaissance, oblivious to the hostile surroundings of bombed-out and battle-scarred Arab streets hidden in the shadows of a cold winter evening.

As I peer across one of the dancing groups, a familiar figure catches my eye. With his trademark large black yarmulke and wispy white beard, the man stands back from the crowd, clutching a small siddur to his chest as he watches the excitement going on around him. Not a single one of those kids paid him the slightest attention. Why should they? How could they know that, without this man, none of this would be taking place?

"Good Shabbos, Rav Moshe," I say. He returns my greeting with a handshake and a winning smile. Turning back to watch the youngsters dancing before us, I say: "See, Rav Moshe - these are kol bonayich [all your children]."

It was in 1968 that a small ad appeared in an Israeli newspaper. It read: "Wanted: Families or singles interested in resettling the ancient city of Hebron. For details contact Rabbi M. Levinger." It was close to Pesach - the first Pesach after the Six-Day War - and this relatively unknown rabbi from Petach Tikva had the idea of holding a Seder in the newly liberated Hebron, final resting place of our patriarchs and first capital city of King David.

War is always bad for business and the owner of Hebron's Park Hotel was only too pleased to welcome the 60 "Swiss tourists" who booked in for Passover. He allowed them to kosher-up the kitchens and provided for all their special festival needs.

But at the conclusion of the Pesach week, Rabbi Levinger and his followers announced that they were refusing to leave. The police were called. The army was called. The government was called. They even sent the legendary defense minister Moshe Dayan to try and persuade them to leave. But Moshe the general was no match for Moshe the rabbi, and the standoff continued.

In the end a compromise was finally reached. If he agreed to vacate the hotel, Rabbi Levinger and his followers would be allowed safe passage to move into an abandoned army base on a nearby hilltop.

Forty years later, that hilltop has become the bustling town of Kiryat Arba, home to 7,000 Jews, complete with schools, synagogues and shopping centers. It is linked to Hebron and the Cave of Machpela by a short road, best known as The Worshippers' Way.

This is the road along which tens of thousands of Chayei Sarah pilgrims have marched for this most important Friday night of the year,

Thus Rabbi Moshe Levinger's 1968 Seder "sit-in" became the first settler foray into the liberated bible lands of Judea and Samaria, commonly known as the West Bank. Under the guidance of Rabbi Zvi Yehuda Kook, Rabbi Levinger later formed Gush Emunim (Bloc of the Faithful) which went on to establish dozens of Religious Zionist communities in Judea and Samaria which now boasts a Jewish population of more than a quarter of a million souls.

During the year since my last visit, Rabbi Levinger suffered a stroke from which he has, thank God, been gradually recovering. I am flying out from England to be there again this year. While I may not find him in the crowd again this Friday night, Rav Moshe will not fail to hear the sounds of Jewish awakening echoing across the plains of ancient Mamre from wherever he is sitting.

For just as Moses once led the Jewish people to their Promised Land, this modern-day Moses, with true grit and determination, has shown our people the way back home.

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This article first appeared in The Jewish Press
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