I’ve wanted to go to Hebron since before I came to Israel this year, but I had given up. There’s been a bit of conflict there, so I knew I shouldn’t go alone, and the tour I wanted didn’t operate on days I could go (the High Holy Days make it extra difficult to schedule things these last weeks). I was still sad, though. I wanted to see the Tomb of the Patriarchs (the castle-like structure in the middle of this photo).
In between interviews on Monday, I flipped open my Bible to fill some time, and turned right to the page where David is anointed king…in Hebron. My disappointment came back afresh. I decided to look one more time. Lo and behold, I had misread the calendar. I thought tours were Monday/Wednesday but it was a Monday-Sunday week layout so they were actually Tuesday/Thursday…and I was free the next day! So less than 24 hours later I was on a bulletproof van to Hebron.
I went on the Abraham Hostels Dual Narrative tour, so we had a Palestinian guide in the morning (right) and a Jewish guide in the afternoon (left). Our Jewish guide rode from Jerusalem with us. He said, “We expect most people to come in with one or two pressing questions. We hope they leave with hundreds of questions.” His wish was fulfilled.
Hebron is such a complicated city. I obviously am not qualified to give a good overview, but here is a general picture. Hebron is the second largest Palestinian city in the West Bank after East Jerusalem. It is the fourth holiest city in Islam and one of four holy cities in Judaism. The city is divided into two zones: H1 (under the Palestinian Authority, 80%) and H2 (under Israeli military administration, 20%, including 35,000 Palestinian residents). Jews and Muslims cannot cross over without special permission, so our guides handed us off at the check-points.
The New Yorker said in a 2019 article: “Hebron is a microcosm of the West Bank, a place where the key practices of the Israeli occupation can be observed up close, in a single afternoon.” It certainly did feel like a pressure cooker, even to an unobservant person such as myself. There is so much tangled into the one city. For a few hundred years, a small population of Jewish people lived in harmony with the Palestinian Muslims and Christians. In 1929, Palestinians massacred 65 Jewish people and wounded 60 more because of a recent move of Jewish militants to the area (if I understand correctly). However, the majority of the remaining Jews survived because their Palestinian neighbors hid them at great risk to their own safety. The Jewish population dwindled to zero after 1948, but after 1967, they began moving back or settling for the first time. In 1994, an Israeli soldier (lone-wolf/terrorist) massacred 29 praying Palestinians inside the mosque and wounded over a hundred more.
Clearly, there’s a ton of horror in the recent history of the city. One cannot help but feel so sad about the current state of things. No one we talked to wanted to be living so separately, but there just seems to be no good way to integrate. A problem which doesn’t present easy solutions, that’s for sure.
Moving on to the highlight of the trip for me! The Tomb of the Patriarchs. Herod the Great built this structure in the 1st century BCE. Historians think it served as a template for the Temple Mount project, as this one was smaller in scale but very similar in design. In fact, it is almost certain that the Temple Mount looked like this, with the pillar-like motif up high. According to a plaque I read in a Jewish museum, the Tomb of the Patriarchs is the only two thousand year old edifice in the world, still active, existing in its entirety.
The Tomb traditionally holds three power-couples from days of old: Abraham and Sarah; Isaac and Rebekah; and Jacob and Leah. Jewish people also believe Adam and Eve are buried here. In the Bible, Abraham buys the cave from the Hittites for 400 silver shekels to bury Sarah. The cave was called Machpelah, which means “double”. Only a few people have been to the cave under the Herodian structure, and were surprised to see the cave split into two: a double cave if you will. They also discovered pots and other items dated to the approximate time of Abraham. I always feel surprised when real archaeological support pops up like that!
The structure is currently split into a Mosque and a Synagogue. Ten days a year, the entire building becomes a mosque (e.g. Mohammed’s birthday, Eid, etc.). Ten days a year, the entire building becomes a Synagogue (this week for Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur, and Sukkot). A fascinating situation to be sure. We were able to go in both sides, which is rare for visitors, but was enabled by having a Palestinian guide in the morning and a Jewish guide in the afternoon. The left and middle picture are from the mosque, the right picture from the Synagogue.
As expected, I came away with more questions than answers. The longer I’ve been in Israel/Palestine, the more I realize I will never know enough to take any strong opinions. I feel like all I can do is listen and grieve and hope. It’s a complex situation, but I think ultimately life is a lot about family and God, and less about politics and oppression…that’s really the only way I can feel hopeful about a place like this.
Alan, one of the volunteers here, likes to share a saying he heard from a speaker in Jerusalem once. It goes something like: “Come to Jerusalem for a day and you can write a chapter. Come for a month and you can write a sentence. Come for years, and at best you can write a word.”
I think that is a terribly true way to put the ever-growing complexity of this place. I’m hoping that when I go home, I remember that I don’t have to know things. In fact, I almost never know things. I would much rather learn to listen well.
More later!
Cecilia
Cecilia Joy 