The tour I booked to Hebron was set to leave at 9:15 from the Sheraton in central Jerusalem. I tremped into town, but unbeknownst to me, my ride would end far south of where I needed to end up. A local bus took me where I needed to go, but my plan of getting a free ride in backfired when I only saved one shekel by taking the local bus over the bus from Alon Shvut.
Anyhow, the tour bus took us first to Rachel’s tomb in Bethlehem, except you wouldn’t know it to be there. Bethlehem is an Arab city and between violent attacks and peace accords, the place was set to be closed to Jews. But, as our clearly religious-right tour guide retold, enough Jews made a fuss and braved the dangerous territory to visit that the government preserved the site for future generations of Jews. This meant that the Wall would have to be designed in such a way as to allow access from Israeli controlled territory, so a narrow finger was built that extended to the site. We drove down this corridor, surrounded on both sides by tall gray concrete walls, until we reached the building. The tomb used to be a small building in the middle of a larger lot, but after Joseph’s tomb was desecrated by Palestinian rioters, this large structure was built around it to protect and preserve it.
From here the bus drove to Hebron, but the tour guide got off the bus halfway there and said we would be met in Hebron by another tour guide. We drove along through places unknown to us, one man commenting that only in Israel would we be on a tour without a guide. After meeting our new guide, a Jewish resident of Hebron, we stopped in various places where he told us of the history and importance of the community here. Walking through a small museum in the Beit Hadassah building, which featured a moving display on the 1929 massacre, he recounted tales of Jewish valor and heroism, and of the hardships suffered by the Jews who wanted to be so close to this holy place. Without diminishing the real efforts of Jews to maintain this part of their heritage, I can’t omit that the tour was heavy on inspiration and light on facts. I like tours where the guide tells a sweeping narrative of a place from ancient times to present day, but we only heard bits and pieces.
Hebron itself was a ghost town. Very few people—Jew or Arab—walked the streets. Here and there were a hasid or Arab kids on a donkey. The kosher restaurant, which wasn’t so good, blasted Chanukah music as a form of audio assault on the city, across from the only three Arab shops open. I looked around, watched one hand-mold dozens of small cups on his clay wheel, and chatted with another shopkeeper who thanked me for even stopping to talk. Walking into the Ma’arat Hamachpelah, or the Cave of the Patriarchs, the traditional burial place of Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, Jacob and Leah, and possibly others, I was caught off guard by Jews praying under Arabic script. This was converted to a mosque centuries ago, the Ibrahimi Mosque after their patriarch as well, and now arks with torah scrolls and Hebrew biblical passages sit in rooms covered in clashing religious décor. Cenotaphs honoring Abraham, Sarah, Jacob, and Leah are situated among small prayer rooms, while Isaac and Leah’s are in the Muslim side of the building, which Jews only have access to ten days out of the year. The whole complex used to be open to all, until American-Israeli Baruch Goldstein opened fire on worshiping Muslims in 1994, killing 29, and a gate now separates the Muslim side from the Jewish side, with neither allowed on the other’s turf.
By the end of the day I had visited the graves of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs, the holiest places in Judaism after the Temple Mount. I saw the yearning of Jews to be in this place, and heard of the courageous acts they performed to be here. But I also saw a nation divided, justified or not, and the home of our forefathers resigned to rot. We drove through the well-kept Kiryat Arba on the way out, contrasting sharply with the decrepitude of the Hebron streets. I pass no judgment, but I do hope to get an alternate story on a Palestinian tour later this week.
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