"Make sure you get on the right bus, number 160, the one that goes directly to the Tomb of the Patriarchs," Brad, an investigative journalist, whom I was meeting in Hebron cautioned me.I was on the phone with him as I stood in the entrance to the central bus station in Jerusalem. "I'll be waiting right in front of the entrance where the bus stops," he said reassuringly.
"Which one is the wrong bus ?" I responded, since I had never taken a bullet proof bus to Hebron. In fact I hadn't been to Hebron or the Tomb of the Patriarch's (in Hebrew, "Ma'arat Hamachpelah" or "Cave of the Patriarch's", considered the burial place of Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, and Jacob and Leah.) since 1982, long before the first Palestinian intifada had broken out. I went as part of my graduation trip from my Jewish high school, in the days when it was not considered so dangerous.
The bus I didn't want was the one that would take me to the Jewish settlement of Kiryat Arba, where approx 7000-10,000 Jews live (the settlement was established after the Six Day War) , and from there I'd have to hitchhike a ride with a Jewish resident of Hebron to get to the Tomb of the Patriarchs.
I had no absolutely no intention of hitch hiking anywhere in Hebron, which has long been a contentious flash point of the Israeli-Arab conflict. If I caught a ride, with the 'wrong' driver, I could be in big trouble. I had little doubt that in Hebron, Hamas could easily win out over Fatah if there ever were Palestinian elections in the area
According to the Bible, Abraham purchased the land containing the cave (which became the Tomb of the Patriarchs) to use as a burial place when his wife Sarah died. While the Bible says that it cost 400 shekels of silver for Abraham to buy the cave , the bus ride to Hebron from Jerusalem was only costing me 9 shekel (less than i had expected). I used my spare change to buy some sweet baklava and a coffee at the bus station. Most of those on the bus with me that morning were soldiers.
I got off the bus with my cameraman to be greeted by Brad and a crew of Israeli soldiers, who wanted to check my cameraman's belongings, and his ID (He was held up for quite some time).
Brad gave us the concise history of The Tomb of the Patriarchs. The site is essentially a large ediface built by King Herod the Great (a Jew) 2000 years ago, over two burial caves underneath that are connected to each other. Byzantine Christians converted the compound into a church, and later on under Moslem control it was turned it into a mosque, until Crusaders turned it into a church again. Then Moslems turned it into a mosque again and for the next 700 hundreds years until the Six Day War in 1967, the caves and the compound over them were completely off limits to Jews. When the Israelis arrived in 1967, they found inside Herod's enclosure a raised courtyard, a mosque and a network of passages and rooms built over the centuries by various conquerors, all leaving their imprint on the site.
Outside the cave Brad pointed to a huge gaping hole in the ground , near part of the outer wall that was built by Herod the Great(which I shall refer to as "Dayan's hole"). After the Six Day War when Israel captured the Hebron, Defense Minister Moshe Dayan essentially gave the keys to the Tomb of the Patriarch's compound to the Muslim Wakf to administer- meaning that Jews could not worship in the compound nor were they permitted to access the burial caves underneath the compound.
When I asked about the gaping hole, Brad explained the situation. "After the Six Day War, Dayan was looking for a way " to make a place for Jewish prayer which would not require Jews to enter the building altogether with the Arab worshippers, in order to prevent a possible conflageration. When the Israelis arrived in 1967 the Tomb of the Patriarch's was the Ibrahim Mosque. Dayan authorized an excavation next to the outer wall of the edifice in the hopes of making r finding a new entrance that could become a place where Jews could pray. But it wasn't successful and the project was abandoned."
I began thinking there ought to be a sign near the gaping hole saying "Moshe Dayan was here."
Brad added that there was method to Dayan's madness in terms of the location where Dayan made the hole.
"The burial cave where it is believed that the bodies of the patriarchs are is right underneath part of the the outer wall built by Herod. Dayan made the hole right near this part of the outer wall.Dayan, who was an amateur archaeologist thought that maybe there had been some ancient existing entrance to the underground burial cave down there that he could find if he excavated. Even if it turned out he couldn't find an ancient entrance to this cave, then at the very least Dayan thought that a prayer site for Jews could be built down there which was as physically close as possible to the burial cave. It would mean that Jews could pray in a synagogue that would be completely separate from the rest of the compound which could remain a mosque. In other words, Dayan hoped that the Jews would pray on a level lower than the Muslims,so that he could avoid having Jews and Muslims enter the compound together."
However according to Brad, Dayan aborted the excavation not only " because the bedrock was too solid," and he "couldn't find an entrance to the burial cave " but also because he got concerned that his excavation would undermine the entire foundation of the whole compound." (Some say that this was typical of Dayan, who decided many things on his own, without extensive consultation).
Brad pointed out what appears to be a little "kotel" where Jews who venture to Hebron today come to pray and leave notes. "Hebron is the second holiest site in Judaism,and King David established it as his first capital city, even before Jerusalem. Herod also built the structure around the tomb of the Patriarchs, using the same type of stone work that he used for the Temple Mount enclosure in Jerusalem."
Today the edifice over the burial caves has been partitioned with Muslims being granted 82% of the total area and Jews being granted 18%.One of the things I remember most about being inside the Jewish section of the compound is that it is the only time in my life where I have felt like I was both in a synagogue and a mosque simultaneously- a very unusual and memorable experience. I heard the loud Muezzin's call to prayer when I was in a hall which has been turned into a synagogue with an ark and Torah where Jews pray I heard the loud Muezzin's call to prayer . Suddenly I heard the overpowering sound of the Muezzin's call wafting throughout the synagogue. The reason that the sound was so arresting is that the Muezzin is able to cross through the Jewish prayer area in order to get to a small adjoining room where he issues his call to prayer via a very booming loudspeaker that is situated at the top of the minarets. It is the only time in my life where I have felt like I was both in a synagogue and a mosque simultaneously- a very unusual and memorable experience.
Outside the cave, Brad told me the story of how Rabbi Shlomo Goren was the first one of the Israeli army to arrive in Hebron. Goren had blown the shofar when the IDF captured the Western Wall in Jerusalem and knew that the army's next mission was Hebron. Goren wanted to be among the first Israelis to arrive in the ancient city, and as it happened his driver got him there before the rest of the army had arrived.Driving into Hebron, Rabbi Goren was amazed to see that the Palestinian Arabs had hung white sheets from rooftops and windows, throughout the city. Goren understood this to be the case since the Arabs remembered that that their relatives had killed 67 Jews and wounded many more during the riots of 1929.They were terrified that the Jews would take revenge. Without firing even one shot, they hung white sheets to surrender.
Reaching the Tomb of the Patriarch's, Rabbi Goren hoisted an Israeli flag outside of it (there is a famous IDF photo of this) and brought a Sefer Torah inside. The next day Dayan sent a telegram which said "Take down the flag, take out the Sefer Torah, and everyone who enters must take off his shoes, because the building is a Mosque!" Rabbi Goren sent a return telegram saying, "The Sefer Torah is Kodesh (holy) - it stays. The flag means to me what it means to you. If you want to remove it, do so. I will not touch it."
According to the Jews I met in Hebron, Rabbi Shlomo Goren told a group of people in Kiryat Arba about 8 months before he passed away that Dayan sent an officer into Hebron to remove the Israeli flag and Torah from the Tomb (or Cave) of the Patriarch's. On the way back to Jerusalem, however, the officer was killed in an automobile accident. (The suggestion is that Dayan suspected that this was no ordinary accident but that the officer was purposely killed and that removing the flag and Torah was seen as a sign of Jewish weakness). According to Goren, Dayan then rescinded his order to remove shoes in the cave.
Until my visit to Hebron, I had not realized that David Ben-Gurion, Israel's first and longest serving Prime Minister had supported Jewish settlement there following the Six Day War. Ben Gurion wrote in 1970, "We will make a great and awful mistake if we fail to settle Hebron, neighbor and predecessor of Jerusalem, with a large Jewish settlement, constantly growing and expanding, very soon." For those who are interested, I have appended Ben-Gurion's s complete statement below.
[Editor's note: My visit to Hebron described above took place in January 2014. I have posted it now for the 50th Anniversary of the Six Day War
DAVID BEN GURION: HEBRON IS JERUSALEM'S SISTER
Three cities hold a great and unique place in the ancient history of our people: Shechem, Hebron and Jerusalem. In the Book of Genesis (Bereshit) we are told that Terach took his son Abram, his nephew Lot and his daughter-in-law Sarai, Abram's wife and left Ur Kasdim bound for Canan. On route they reached Haran and dwelt there. Terach died in Haran.
Then the Almighty said to Abram: "Go forth from your land, from your birth place and from your father's house to the land that I shall show you...and Abram went forth as he had been told by the Eternal...and he took with him Sarai his wife, Lot his nephew, all their possessions and the souls that they had acquired in Haran...and they came to the Land of Canan. And Abram passed through the land until the place Shechem...and the Eternal appeared to Abram and said, "Unto your children shall I give this land." There Abram built there an altar unto the Eternal who had appeared to him-and Abram continued his journey shouthward ... and Abram made his camp and came and settled in the Plains of Mamre that are in Hebron and he built an alter to the Almighty." (Genesis 12-B).
Hebrew history begins in Hebron. In Hebron...there arose the first Hebrew armed force, which battled with four great kings:...because they had captured Abram's nephew Lot and his property. When Abram heard this in Hebron, he immediately mobilized 318 of his followers and pursued the four kings up to Dan in the north, where he attacked at night and destroyed them, and rescued all the property and his nephew Lot, the women and the rest of the captives. This was the first war in Jewish history, which ended not merely with victory, but also with a demonstration of Abram's breadth of spirit...
When Sarah died in Hebron at the age of one hundred and twenty-seven, Abraham turned to the Hittites to grant him a burial plot. After prolonged and devious negotiations by the Hittites, Abraham paid four hundred silver shekels to Ephron for his field and all the trees surrounding its boundaries-and it became his. And when Abraham died 38 years later, he was buried by his sons Isaac and Ishmael in the cave which Abraham had bought from the Hittites.
Before Jacob died in Egypt, after going down there to see his son Joseph, he made his sons promise to bury him with his fathers "in Hebron in the cave, in Ephron the Hittite's field, where were buried Abraham and his wife Sarah, Isaac and his wife Rebecca and where I buried Leah" (Genesis 49:29, 31). And that is what Joseph and his brothers did. It is thus clear that only the three Patriarchs and the three Matriarchs of the Jewish People were buried in the Cave of Machpela.
However, the importance of Hebron is not merely its role in the lives of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs of our nation. After Saul, the first King of Israel fell upon his sword in the war with the Philistines, so that he might not be taken captive, and Davidreplaced him as King, Davidinquired of the Eternal: "Shall I go up to one of the cities of Judah?" And the Eternal answered: Go up!" And Davidsaid: "Unto where shall I go up?" And G-d answered" "To Hebron." And David went up there...and the men of Judah came and anointed David there as King of Judah" (Samuel II,2.4). Finally, after the death of Abner, commander of Saul's army, "and all the tribes of Israel came to David in Hebron and proclaimed: "Behold we are of the bone and flesh; and so it wasyesterday and the day before, while Saul was King over us, it was you who were the leader of Israel; and the Almighty has said "You shall shepherd my people Israel and you shall be prince of Israel." And all the elders of Israel came to the king in Hebron, and King David made a covenant with them in Hebron over Israel" (Samuel II, 5:1-3). Thus arose in Hebron the greatest royal dynasty that Israel ever had.
The city of Jerusalem-which became in the course of time, from the crowning of David until our own days, not merely the most precious and Holy City in the Land of Israel, but one of the most revered cities in the world is not mentioned at all in the Five Books of the Torah. Further, after the reign of Davidwho captured the city Jerusalem from the Jebusites and made it the eternal capital of Israel and his son, King Solomon, built the Beit HaMikdash (Temple) within her. After Solomon died the people of Israel came to crown his son Rechavam, not in Jerusalem, but in Shechem. And of the forty years of David's reign, seven and a half he ruled in Hebron, while Jerusalem, though not mentioned at all in the Torah, was made by Israel's greatest king into the city of holiness.
However, don't forget: the beginnings of Israel's greatest king were in Hebron, the city to which came the first Hebrew about eight hundred years before King David, and we will make a great and awful mistake if we fail to settle Hebron, neighbor and predecessor of Jerusalem, with a large Jewish settlement, constantly growing and expanding, very soon. This will also be a blessing to the Arab neighbors. Hebron is worthy to be Jerusalem's sister.
David Ben Gurion
Sdeh Boker