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The Committed Jewish Presence in Chevron
The Jewish Home | NOVEMBER 17, 2022 Living in the Embrace of Avraham and Sarah The Committed Jewish Presence in Chevron
By MiriaM Sara Leff
You sleep wherever you can find room – in a trailer, inside a tent at a park, or on a patch of grass under the stars, wrapped up in a sleeping bag. It’s become a tradition, and it’s happening again this Shabbat. Every year, tens of thousands of Jews descend on Hevron for Parshat Chayei Sara, which recounts the purchase of the Cave of the Patriarchs by our forefather Avraham from Ephron Ha’Chiti. “It’s a miracle. Our tiny home seems to expand and expand, so thirty, forty people can sleep here,” Elimelech Karzen, a resident of Hevron, tells me, a warm smile in his voice. His home is only 860 square feet, and on a regular day it already looks stuffed with two adults and five children.
At a checkpoint leading to the city, a soldier asks Chagi, a friend of mine in his sixties, why he’s driving to Hevron. Chagi is practiced in his reply: “To visit my Abba and Ima.” The soldier looks puzzled. Your Abba and Ima are in Hevron?” Sure, Chagi smiles. Avraham, Sara, and also Yitzchak and Rivka, Adam and Chavah… The soldier smiles, he gets it.
Chagi delights in this recurring conversation with soldiers. He uses it to impress on them that our patriarchs and matriarchs are not relics, not dusty ethereal figures.
They are our parents.
The ones who look after us.
The ones whom we come to visit, to honor, to speak with – just as any child does with his parents.
Ancient Love Meets BoundLess HAtred
Days before elections in Israel, a terrorist shot two Jews in Hevron near the house of one of the leading right-wing candidates, Itamar Ben Gvir. One of those shot was murdered, the other lightly injured. Itamar Ben Gvir symbolizes the tough Right, proudly representing Jewish strength and sovereignty. The media widely debated whether the terrorist was simply attempting to scare Ben Gvir or to murder him. And while Ben Gvir symbolizes the arch-villain to the Arabs, both to those who purport to be peace-loving and to those who vocally (and violently) are not, the recent terror activities that have swept Israel nationwide have only strengthened and entrenched his political position. Time after time, terror attacks in Judea turn out to have been committed by an Arab from Hevron. None of this is new; it goes back many years.
In the months leading up to the elections, there had been hundreds of terror attacks, ranging from attempting kidnappings to stone-throwings to shootings to stabbings. Very few of these incidents had been broadcast on international media; in fact, very few had been broadcast here in Israel. Was it due to the elections? After all, it wouldn’t serve the Left to have the dream of peaceful co-existence (or an equally peaceful Two State Solution) dented as badly as my neighbor’s car when a grinning young Arab smashed a boulder into it. The boulder missed the window – and her toddler’s head – by inches.
A sadder but less-cynical view would be that these attacks are not being publicized precisely because they are happening so often. It is these attacks that are pushing
college students, hip, secular, and young, to vote for Ben Gvir – instead of for the Left-Wing bloc.
However, the violence is more than just politics: they are about Abba and Ima, and a promise recounted from father to son that goes back thousands of years.
Thousands of years ago, in a single, radical, courageous act, Avraham listened to G-d’s instructions and traveled to a land he’d never seen before. He pitched his tent in Hevron. Hevron was where he circumcised himself, forever dedicating himself and his descendants – the Jewish people – to the Al-mighty. According to Sefer HaYovlim, Hevron was where G-d revealed Himself to Avraham in Brit ben Ha’betarim, a prophecy in which Avraham was promised that he would become the father of a great nation whom G-d would always remember even through the terrible enslavement of Egypt. Hevron was where G-d promised the Land to the Jewish nation.
Today, the Jewish community occupies less than 3% of the city where G-d made Avraham that promise. Those 3% comprise about one-hundred Jewish families as well as a yeshiva. The low numbers are not due to Arab terrorism; they are due to Israeli government policy. In the late ‘90s, Israel made a series of concessions to the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) which included drastically limiting Jewish presence in Hevron. These were the Oslo Accords (1997) between Peres, Rabin, and Arafat and the Wye Agreement between Benjamin Netanyahu and Arafat (1998). These agreements not only heavily limit Jewish expansion in the city but also prohibit Jews from visiting certain important Jewish sites in Hevron, such as Yeshivat Knesset Yisrael.
eneMies WitHout, eneMies WitHin
Elimelech Karzen grew up in Hevron, and he recounts that unfortunately very little has changed in the Jewish Quarter since his childhood. The Jews of Hevron have two enemies – one stated, and one unstated; the first without, the latter within; Arabs, and the Israeli policymakers. These foes color the history of the Jewish community of Hevron and arguably divide the entire Jewish Israeli public.
Ettie Meidad, a longtime resident of Hevron and mother of nine, doesn’t agree. She says that the Arabs aren’t the real enemy. In her words: “They’re just here to remind us that we have something valuable to fight for.” Abba and Ima.
Our important national historical memories are embedded deep within Hevron’s soil. It is where the very first Jewish “militia” was founded: Avraham’s men, who set out from the city to free Avraham’s cousin Lot. It is where the very first piece of Jewish land was legally acquired through a transaction between Efron the Hittite and Avraham.
Throughout the centuries, the city’s significance grew. It is where Calev ben Yefuneh and his fellow spies gathered an abundance of fruit to demonstrate the plenty of the Land to the Israelite nation wandering in the desert. It was a city conquered by Yehoshua bin Nun. It is where Yishai and Ruth are buried. It was where King David was secretly anointed with oil to be king of Israel, and Hevron became his first capital. King Herod of Judea built up the Cave of the Patriarchs into the impressive structure it is today.
Hevron is considered one of the four holy cities for Jews. From Biblical times until the destruction of the Second Temple, Hevron was a respected Judean city. Even after the destruction of the Beit Hamikdash, a small community of about twenty families survived and remained in the city. They were joined in the 1600s by a community of Jewish exiles from Spain. The Spanish Jews built the famous Avraham Avinu Synagogue. Regardless of the hardships, Jews have always lived in Hevron – up until the summer of 1929.
Later called “the pogrom of 1929,” this bloody massacre signaled the end of the centuries-old Jewish community in Hevron. Sixty-seven Jews were tortured to death in a wave of obscene violence orchestrated by the Arabs of the city, including one Sheikh Jabbar, who would end up being a key figure in Hevron in later decades. Hours before the massacre began, the respected head of the Jewish community of Hevron, Eliezer Slonim, was assured by his Arab friends that Jews would not be harmed. A short time later, Slonim’s skull caved in from the force of the metal rods when the Arabs beat him to death. The local Jewish baker was burned alive, stuffed into his own oven. Two rabbis were castrated and then slaughtered. The victims included yeshiva students, women, and little children. The surviving Jews fled the city. The murders were so brutal, so ungraspably inhumane, that local legend among the Arabs claimed that the Jews’ houses were haunted and that the curse would be lifted only once Jews returned to live in Hevron. Very few of the Arabs moved into the eerily empty Jewish homes. A handful of Jews attempted to return about a year later, only to flee again when the War of Independence broke out in 1947. The once-beautiful Jewish Quarter decayed over the decades.
It wasn’t a natural decaying process. It was “helped” by the Jordanian regime which conquered Hevron. Orders were given to destroy the Jewish Quarter. Empty homes were torn down, and a huge, smelly, open-air market (souk, in Arabic) was erected in their stead. The ancient and once-ornate Avraham Avinu Synagogue was turned into a public restroom and animal pen. The graves of Ruth and Yishai became the entire city’s garbage dump. The Jewish graveyard was desecrated: gravestones were smashed, and some of the land was used to plant grapes. Jews were forbidden entry to the Cave of the Patriarchs.
Survivors of the 1929 massacre painted Hevron as an idyllic co-existence with sprawling grapevines; if that Hevron ever really did exist, its Arab residents erased all evidence of it.
Nineteen years later, Hevron was liberated by the IDF during the Six Day War (1967). Even though it was the first time in over two thousand years that Jewish rule was reestablished in the heartlands of Judea, Jews were still banned from freely praying in the Cave of the Patriarchs and were forbidden from residing in the city which was their historical home. Moshe Dayan, Minister of Defense at that time, promptly returned control over the Cave of the Patriarchs to Sheikh Jabbar, one of the city’s rulers, as “a gesture of goodwill.” That was the same Sheikh Jabbar who helped orchestrate the slaughter of 1929.
The phenomenon of military commanders, such as Dayan, deciding his own approach with regards to Arabs was the dire consequence of the Israeli government’s inability to formulate a clear policy over the newly-liberated territories. Instead of annexing Judea and Samaria, the Israeli government placed the areas under military rule, to the detriment of all residents, both Arabs and Jews.
Even so, the miserable situation in the Cave of the Patriarchs was an improvement over what had been the status quo for centuries. Access to the Cave of the Patriarchs had been completely barred to Jews under Islamic rule: Jews were allowed only to walk up to the seventh step leading up to the plaza outside the Cave’s entrance. After the Six Day War, Jews were allowed in the Cave together with tourists, for six hours and fifteen minutes a day, except Fridays, when Jews were forbidden entrance. Arabs, however, were allowed entrance at all hours of the day and
Me'aras Hamachpela in 1906
78 night, every day of the week. The unstated expectation on the part of the Israeli government was that Jews would behave like tourists: quietly admire the Arab calligraphy, The Jewish Home | NOVEMBER 17, 2022 quietly pray, quietly leave. The IDF commander responsible for Hevron strove to “keep the peace” by maintaining this arrangement. He failed, thanks to a short, middle-aged physics professor. tHe MAn WHo refused to Be A tourist The year was 1975. The professor’s name was Bentzion Tavger, and he’d made aliyah from the USSR three years before – after the KGB decided it was better having that stubborn refusenik out of the country than in. To him, the strict arrangement for Jews praying in the Cave of the Patriarchs was both deeply shameful and downright infuriating. In his deceptively mild way, the professor decided to do something about it. The time was 3 PM. Tavger, his 15-year-old son Eliyahu, two rabbis and six other people were davening Mincha in the Cave. Once they finished praying, the men began reciting Tehillim. They knew they had a 4 PM deadline to leave, but they chose to ignore it. Around them, Muslim Arabs prayed, chanted, and milled about. One of the rabbis stood up and began giving a d’var Torah. It was 4 o’clock. Tourist hours were over. IDF soldiers stationed at the entrance inched closer to the group of Jews. The hint became less subtle when one impatient soldier strode up to the rabbi and pointedly tapped his watch. The rabbi smiled and ignored him, continuing to explain an intricacy in one of the Torah portions. The soldier muttered something like, “OK, five minutes, but I warn you, only five minutes more!” but the rabbi continued talking. The professor and his son quietly moved their chairs back so the plastic backs touched the bars surrounding Sara Imeinu’s tomb (tzi’un). Carefully, while the soldiers’ annoyed attention was riveted on the talking rabbi, father and son locked the chains they had already attached to their bodies around the bars. A soft click sounded. “We’re not leaving,” the professor told the other rabbi quietly. The rabbi nodded; he had suspected as much. Bentzion Tavger was not afraid of threats, violence, and fury. He remained calmly unfazed while the Israeli soldiers barked at him to leave the Cave, then when backup arrived and tried to bodily remove him before realizing that the professor and his son had chained themselves to the metal bars. The saga lasted over an hour, and through it all the Tavgers quietly studied the parsha. Finally, the soldiers found the keys, unlocked the chains, and hauled the Tavgers off to the police station – together with the two rabbis who had also refused to leave quietly.
This demonstration marked the turning point in the struggle for Jews both to pray freely in Me’aras Hamachpela and to live in the city of Hevron.
In the days following his quiet demonstration at the Cave of the Patriarchs, more and more Jews from the nearby city of Kiryat Arba flocked to the Cave and remained praying inside for hours, defying the 4 PM deadline. Their fierce persistence won a partial victory, culminating in today’s arrangement: the Cave itself is divided roughly in half, with the Jews receiving the smaller section. It is open for Jews from 4 AM until around 9 PM. Ten days a year, the entire Cave is open to Jews; and during another ten days, it is entirely forbidden to Jews, open instead only to Arabs. tHe return to tHe JeWisH QuArter
Although there are now only about one thousand Jews in Hevron, the very first resident – grimly enough – since 1929 was a dead baby. The four-month-old had died of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) in 1974, and his family, who lived in Kiryat Arba, insisted on burying him in the ancient Jewish cemetery of Hevron, an action opposed by the Israeli government. Subsequently, the baby’s gravestone was vandalized by local Arabs, restored by the
family, and was vandalized again. To protect the grave, the residents of Kiryat Arba arranged for a guard at the grave. The first applicant? Bentzion Tavger. Unemployed, searching for a job which would allow him quiet time to peruse Torah and mull over theoretical physics, Tavger thought this job was the perfect opportunity.
As it turned out, the professor did little studying of either physics or Torah. When he arrived at the cemetery for his first day of work, he was shocked by its condition. The entire cemetery was in ruins. Gravestones were smashed. Their pieces had been stolen by local farmers who used them to build terraces nearby. These farmers also stole some of the cemetery’s land to plant grapes. Vines were growing wildly all over. The Jews of Kiryat Arba might have become resigned to the sight of the desecrated place; Tavger was not.
The professor set his jaw and began to work. Over the course of months, the professor patiently took apart the nearby terraces, rock by rock, and retrieved pieces of gravestones. Using historical descriptions and the shapes of gravestones as guidelines, Tavger was able to accurately reconstruct many of the ancient graves, including that of the 16th century kabbalist Rabbi Eliyahu Di Vidash. The professor slowly broadened his scope of work. He began rambling around the destroyed Jewish Quarter, meticulously identifying important Jewish sites. He fought for the restoration of Avraham Avinu Synagogue; it galled him that the bleating of goats sounded in the place where the rapturous melody of Lecha Dodi had once been sung on Friday nights. The price Tavger paid for his dogged activities was repeated arrests by the IDF. He was placed in jail and released. He was threatened, warned, bullied, and cajoled. Jailed once more. Released. Tavger kept going. And through it all, he continued his fierce campaign for the Jews’ right to pray freely at the Cave of the Patriarchs.
The first “live” Jewish presence in the city was established in a dilapidated old Jewish building in the Jewish Quarter of Hevron. Built in 1893, it had once been a hospital which offered free care to both the Jews and to the Arabs of Hevron. It became known as Beit Hadassah when Henrietta Szold (1860-1945) led a successful campaign to raise money for its expansion. During the summer of 1929, its Jewish doctors and patients were brutally murdered, and since then, the place had remained empty of Jews. In April of 1979, a group of women and children led by Rebbetzin Miriam Levinger, the wife of the rabbi of Kiryat Arba
A Jewish home plundered during the riots The Avraham Avinu Synagogue after the 1929 pogrom Portraits of some of those who were slaughtered in the 1929 massacre adorn the walls of the Hebron Heritage Museum
Moshe Levinger, smuggled themselves into the ruins of Beit Hadassah. By the time IDF troops were alerted to the incident, it was too late. The women and children refused to leave. The situation was so tense that the Prime Minister himself intervened, famously stating that he would allow no area of the state of Israel to become judenrein (free of Jews). Even so, the Prime Minister, Menachem Begin, forbade anyone else from entering the building, including the women’s husbands, except once a week on Friday evenings for a few hours. IDF troops constantly patrolled the perimeter of the building, both to protect its occupants from hostile Arabs and to keep other Jews from trying to infiltrate. Water, food, and necessary supplies were brought daily from Kiryat Arba to the women and their children. If the government hoped that these harsh restrictions would cause the women to abandon their efforts to reestablish a Jewish community in Hevron, they were disappointed. Almost a year went by, and the women and their children remained steadfast in Beit Hadassah.
Government officials held frequent negotiations with the rabbis and heads of community of Kiryat Arba, attempting to bring the situation to a close. But then something happened which changed the situation entirely. It was May 2, 1980, a Friday night. Smiling husbands and yeshiva students were walking together towards Beit Hadassah for the evening Shabbat prayers and a meal with their families. Across the street, on the rooftop of the house of the Hirbawwi family, four men stood, black shapes outlined against the night sky. They belonged to the Fatah, a faction within the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO). Shots rang out in quick succession. Six Jews were murdered. Twenty more were injured.
Retaliation was immediate. The IDF razed two large buildings across from Beit Hadassah and took control of four others. Three of the city’s leaders were expelled. The four terrorists were arrested, tried, sentenced to life in prison, and then, as invariably happens in Israel, released a short few years later. However, in a surprise move, the Israeli government declared that Jews were now allowed to live in Hevron, and Beit Hadassah became their first apartment building. IDF soldiers continued to patrol the area.
I spoke to one of the IDF soldiers who was stationed in Hevron. He told me that years after the 1980 murders, he watched as an Arab tour guide showed wealthy Saudi tourists the city sights. The tour guide led his group to the Hirbawwi home. On the rooftop, he pointed to Beit Hadassah. “This is where I stood. I killed six Jews.”
When the IDF soldier, today an archeology professor at Bar-Ilan University, recounted the story to me, helpless rage glittered in his eyes. Another of those terrorists was elected mayor of Hevron in 2017. His hate for Israel runs so deep that he refuses to coordinate with the IDF even on matters pertaining to his own municipal needs, such as city waste removal. His deputies do so in his stead.
WHen JeWs figHt BAck
The murders of 1980 birthed yet another great change: Jewish vigilantes in a Jewish State. Little-known, hardly discussed, the Jewish Underground was the first and largest of these groups. Numbering around thirty members, many were fathers of families who resided in Kiryat Arba. These men agreed that the only way to stop the brutal murders was to make the Arab leaders afraid for their lives. Their first attack was aimed at the mayors of Shechem (Nablus), Ramallah, and Al-Birah. Two car bombs the Underground placed went off, instantly searing off the legs of two of the mayors (Shechem and Ramallah). The third mayor shrewdly called in sappers.
The Underground’s second attack was in retaliation for the murder of yeshiva student Aharon Gross in Hevron. Members of the Underground attacked the Hebron Islamic College, killing three students and injuring thirty-three others. When the members of the Jewish Underground were arrested in 1984 and put on trial, public opinion supported them so strongly that one Israeli survey at the time showed a whopping 73% voted to release them all immediately. Among those 73% was the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Yitzchak Shamir, who made his support public. Nonetheless, the Jewish Underground was not freed; each member served a prison sentence ranging from months to years. Other vigilante groups were quietly arrested or disbanded.
Fourteen years later, the world was outraged by the violence of another alleged Jewish vigilante. Baruch Goldstein was a medical doctor serving in the IDF and living in Kiryat Arba. Around 5:00 AM on February 25, 1994, Goldstein entered the Cave of the Patriarchs and murdered 29 Muslim worshippers, wounding 125 more, and was then surrounded by the furious worshippers and beaten to death. This could have been just another horrible story of the volatile relationship between the Jews and Arabs of Hevron – if it were true.
However, contradictory evidence and claims have emerged to paint a murkier picture: there are eyewitnesses who testify that the Arabs in the Cave were armed and that public calls for a massacre against the Jews had been sounded for days before; an Arab reporter who interviewed twenty-five survivors claimed that there were at least two shooters at the scene; reports circulate that Goldstein was brought to the Cave in an Army jeep; three IDF soldiers outside the Cave of the Patriarchs testify that seconds after Goldstein entered the Cave another Jew carrying a Galil assault rifle followed him in; and the IDF claim that Goldstein shot one hundred and eleven rounds of ammunition in a minute and a half, when ballistics experts of the Palestinian police denied this was humanly possible. These are only a few of the glaring inconstancies in the well-known, oft-repeated horrific tale. But hardly anyone asks these questions, definitely not in Israel. There were whispers that the doctor was set up as a fall guy in order to instigate a wave of riots against the Jews of Hevron, so the Israeli government could then uproot the Jewish community “for their own good.” Conspiracy theory? I don’t know.
Today, Goldstein’s name is sullied as a murderer; even the Israeli Right shudders and prefers to change the subject. In fact, the entire subject of Jewish vigilantes is avoided by the Right (except, of course, the extremists who laud them), and mentioned by the Left only as a counterargument to “Arab terrorism.” Both the political Right and the political Left in Israel purposely miss the very simple point which the violence in Hevron, Jewish and Arab, emphasizes: Jews live in Hevron. Arabs don’t want Jews in Hevron. The conflict is real. What do we do about it?
Bentzion Tavger’s response? Dig in your heels. Revel in the land – our land. When Tavger began taking apart terraces and uprooting vines from the ancient Jewish cemetery, one old Arab farmer was furious. Tavger ignored him. When the farmer tried salvaging some grapes, twigs, or grape leaves, Tavger grabbed them from the Arab’s hands and destroyed everything. Tavger didn’t know Arabic and the old farmer did not understand much Hebrew, but Tavger made it very clear that this was Jewish property and the Arab could not profit from any of it.
Interestingly, when Tavger requested the farmer’s help, the farmer provided it. Later, when the owner of the goats complained to Tavger that he was destroying his livelihood by cleaning and restoring the old synagogue, Tavger’s friends in Kiryat Arba beat the Arab up. When the Arab’s
Bentzion Tavger Tavger excavating the cemetery with a volunteer Rabbi Shlomo Goren holding a homemade Israeli flag over Me'aras Hamachpela, June 8, 1967
The Jewish Home | NOVEMBER 17, 2022 Living cLose to ABBA And iMA
Today, the street leading up to the synagogue and the small block surrounding it – predominantly Jewish areas – are named after Tavger. The synagogue stands refurbished, proud and tall. The Jewish Quarter is still not fully inhabited due to government restrictions. Inside the community are kindergartens and daycare centers. Older children are bussed to school in Kiryat Arba.
Etie Meidad, a longtime resident of Hevron, told me that there is a very long waiting list of families who wish to move in, but there are simply no homes available. Jews purchase homes from Arabs in Hevron through an organization called Harchivi Mekom Aholech, meaning “expand your tent.” But these transactions are complicated for Jews and dangerous for Arabs. Complicated, because the Israeli government tries to limit the Jewish presence in the city; dangerous, because any Arab who sells his home signs his death warrant. He is immediately prey to PLO or Hamas.
“As soon as Harchivi purchases an Arab home, they try to help them get out, preferably to Europe, where they can begin a new life,” Meidad explained. “Harchivi also purchases the house through a string of straw organizations so the transaction cannot be traced to Jews. For us, the cost is exorbitant, but we feel responsible for them.”
She added that sometimes the owners drag their feet about leaving or decline to go, saying that they are too wellknown in their community to be harmed. Those, too, find their deaths at the hands of their elected leaders.
Daily, rocks are hurled at pedestrian Jews and vehicles. Hevron is a bedrock of Hamas as well as other, less wellknown Arab terror organizations, ranging from deeply religious to communist-secularist. There are constant terror attacks, and only very few of them reach the news. Only two weeks ago, Ronen Hananyah and his son were shot at in Hevron. Ronen was killed, his son wounded, together with the Jewish medic who rushed forward to save them. But the Jewish settlers of Hevron will not give up, and they refuse to succumb to fear.
According to Karzen, Jews in Hevron generally feel very secure: there are army troops stationed every few meters, and security is so tight that children play on the street and alleyways without fear. Not that the Jews are careless: for example, some Jewish neighborhoods are separated by predominantly Arab neighborhoods, and so many Jews will prefer to take a shuttle there and back rather than walk. Occasionally, Karzen recalls, one can hear shooting from the direction of the center of the city, probably caused by in-fighting among the Arabs.
“In exile, when we were attacked, we escaped. But this is our home. We’re not running,” Meidad emphasizes. She and her husband raised their nine children in Hevron. While she admits that, at times, she is afraid, Meidad describes that she feels deeply that Hevron is where she and her family belong.
When Jews first moved back to Hevron, the municipality refused to take responsibility for its Jewish residents. Basic needs ranging from electricity to waste removal were
ignored; the Jewish residents had to set up their own system. Only in 2017 was the Jewish community of Hevron recognized by the government as its own municipality.
Jews and Arabs hardly interact. Some small neighborhoods (such as the one near the Avraham Avinu Synagogue) are only Jewish. In other neighborhoods, Jews and Arabs live on the same street but rarely even nod at each other in passing. The stated policy of the Jewish community is to hire Jewish labor only.
Both Meidad and Karzen mention that the starkness of the political situation in Hevron eradicates most of the fear. The Jews know Arabs will try to kill them. They take measures to protect themselves. With the situation so stark, there is no fear. There is fear only in ambiguity.
Karzen works in a Jewish organization responsible for the upkeep of the Cave of the Patriarchs. One of his main duties is arranging and organizing Shabbat Chayei Sara, when the entire Cave of the Patriarchs is open to Jews. From all over Israel, thousands flock to Hevron. Many even make an international pilgrimage. “It’s the holiday celebrating our Patriarchs and Matriarchs,” Karzen explains.
According to Karzen, over 40,000 Jews attended Shabbat Chayei Sara in Hevron of 2019. During the lockdowns following COVID, the government restricted Jewish visitors. But now that government restrictions are over, Karzen anticipates that this year there will be at least as many as there had been three years ago.
Meals are held inside enormous tents erected in the parking lot of Me’aras Hamachpela. Karzen describes chandeliers that hang from the ceilings and tables laden with quality catered food, supervised by Chabad. Massive prayers are held in the Cave, with so many attending that it is impossible to fit them all in. Many spill out onto the plaza outside and steps below. Throughout the Shabbat, different families, rabbis, and Chabad of the city host shiurim. Residents show visitors around. Many families keep their doors unlocked so visitors can wander in, eat, sleep, and chat.
“On Friday, the road leading to Hevron is clogged with heavy traffic. Sometimes people are stranded en-route when Shabbat comes in,” Meidad adds.
The Jews of Hevron are doing everything they can to affirm and solidify Jewish presence in Hevron. Proud and dedicated, they treat it as their legacy from their parents (and they use the word “parents,” not “forefathers,” to refer to Avraham and Sara). The city’s history is complex, rife with more tensions and a wealthier history than one article could possibly describe.
Meidad reminds me that Hevron is the bedrock of the commitment between the Jewish nation, G-d, and the Land; and this commitment was sealed with blood. Not just that of Brit ben Ha’Betarim, but the blood of Jews brutally murdered there over the centuries. None of the fearsome violence or strict government policies erase G-d’s promise to Avraham in Bereshit 12:7: “L’zaracha e’tein es ha’aretz ha’zos, To your descendants I give this land.”
Special thanks to Ettie Meidad and Elimelech Karzen for sharing their experiences.
To learn more about the Jewish community of Hevron, visit: en.hebron.org.il
To learn more about Harchivi Mekom Aholech, visit: harchivi.co.il
Rabbi Moshe and Miriam Levinger Beit Hadassah, 2015
