Where What When

Chevron Revisited

The author, a visitor to Chevron since the1980s, wrote the Washington Post’s “Hebron: Jewish All Along,” a rebuttal response to the newspaper’s Hebron series portraying the city’s solely Arab character.

In Israel this summer, we yearned to revisit David Hamelech’s first capital. We caught the 9:30 a.m. #160 bus from Jerusalem’s central bus station for a trip to Jewish Chevron. We were surprised to find this trip safer than the one we shared with WWW readers a decade ago. This time around, our bus contained no protective metal bars, although bulletproof windows still represented an extra precaution. During the windy ride through the Chevron hills, I dreaded reliving our past adventure.

Ten years ago, we saw Jews under siege, anticipating expulsion following the Ma’aras Hamachpeleh shooting rampage of Dr. Baruch Goldstein. During that visit, we attempted to reach the Ma’ara by walking from the Jewish quarter and Haddassah through the hostile Arab market along Rehov Dovid Hamelech. The Arabs glared at us, an unarmed chareidi couple pushing a double stroller with two toddler boys. Our presence must have been unusual, as we provoked a nearby Israeli soldier to overtake us and insist on escorting us back to the Ma’ara.

Reaching Jewish Chevron

This time, we got off the bus at Ma’aras Machpeleh, at the edge of the city. While my wife and five-year-old daughter entered the Machpeleh, which is prohibited to me as a kohen, I guided my sons toward the famed “seventh step,” to which Jews were restricted for centuries by Moslem conquerors. We reunited at the nearby Gutnick Guest Center, where we ate lunch and watched a video documenting the history of Chevron through the 1929 Arab massacre and the triumphal return in the 1967 Six Day War.

Then the time for the “hike of dread” arrived, and we headed up Rehov Dovid Hamelech toward the Jewish community and Hadassah complex. With stiffened bodies and hearts pounding, we prepared to march through thousands of Arabs in the market. The tenseness quickly faded, and we grew perplexed. Where were all the Arabs? We passed shuttered shops with Jewish stars painted over them and graffiti proclaiming “Hashem Hu Hamelech.” Israeli flags lined the curvy, near-deserted street leading to our destination. There was only the sound of Arab families chattering in their homes above the closed shops and an occasional pedestrian in headdress.

We confidently reached the Jewish community, and entered the Avraham Avinu shul, which had been resurrected from an Arab public latrine and goat pen. We visited the Hadassah museum depicting Chevron Jewish life throughout the ages and the Arab massacre. We shed tears for the martyrs of the famed Slobodka Yeshiva, the Chabad Kollel, and the Sefardic kehila, dating back to 1492, all pinnacles of the old Yishuv who perished.

While my children played in the Hadassah playground, I investigated behind the complex and was able to see the Arab shuk, known as the kasbah, below. Suspicious Israeli soldiers, concerned about stragglers getting too close to the new Arab border within the city, asked me if I was a resident. I rejoined my family to exit Hadassah, where another soldier nearby blocked the street, denying us access deeper into the city. As Jews, we had reached the end. We turned back through the ghost-town market and reached Ma’aras Hamchpeleh, where we waited for the hourly bus back.

Suddenly a car sped up, driven by Dan Brock. He offered us a ride into Kiryat Arba, the adjoining Jewish suburb, where there were more frequent buses to Yerushalayim. He also extended a Shabbos invitation. As we approached Kiryat Arba’s gate, he pointed to a makeshift structure, Chazon Dovid. “That shul was demolished 36 times by the Israeli government, yet we keep rebuilding it!” The Jewish state’s destruction of a synagogue so infuriated me that I was determined to daven there, in solidarity. That desire, and our quest to delve deeper into Chevron’s resurgence, motivated us to accept his kind invitation, and we return to Kiryat Arba on Shabbos Nechamu.

Shabbos in Chevron

As Shabbos entered, we approached Chazon Dovid. The shul memorializes Dovid Cohen and Chezki Meulum, Hy”d, two residents murdered by local Arab snipers. Arriving late for Lecha Dodi, I entered the shul hesitantly and stood on its dirt floor. A congregant offered his hand and escorted us to seats. I didn’t stand out too much with my bekishe (long chasidic Shabbos coat) and black hat among the mostly kipa seruga residents, as the shul Rav and other congregants wore both bekishes and shtreimels.

We ate with Yosef Hartuf, a Chevron activist who together with his wife Melody Weiskott, a former Baltimore activist for Jews for Judaism, regularly hosts students. I was indeed honored as Yosef recited the “homework” he had done about me, discussing my online Middle East articles. We looked forward to his Shabbos afternoon tour, which would climax in an IDF Givati Brigade tour through the post-1929 Arab kasbah, once the hub of the Jewish community.

Har Hagal

Shabbos morning, our family joined Mr.Hartuf, Mr. Brock, and other Kirya residents for a minyan at Har Hagal’s lone hilltop house. Har Hagal is located on the other side of Chevron, behind Kiryat Arba’s army headquarters. After leaving the Kirya, Yosef guided us up a steep shvil (path) beside a backyard hen house, whose Arab owner had just emerged. The property owner responded to Yosef’s morning shalom with a silent stare at our entourage of taleisim-wearing Jews. Yosef explained that the Kirya paid this member of the Jaber Hamura (clan) for use of his property as a shortcut to Har Hagal. He pointed to a nearby mansion towering between Chevron and Kirya Arbra as the residence of Sheik Jaber, the clan chief. The Jaber clan cooperates with their Jewish neighbors.

Upon reaching Har Hagal, we entered a makeshift shul which also serves as the home of the Avner Cohen family. The Cohens initiated this newest extension to Jewish Chevron. They and their 11 children took possession of the hilltop by living in a parked bus for months, until they built their home. Every Shabbos they convert their modest house into a shul with a Temani baal koreh. I was honored with the kohen aliya and was given their special mishebeirach for success at rebuilding Eretz Yisrael. The Temani laining was unique in that the gimels are pronounced softly (as in “giraffe”), which they claim is the original Hebrew pronunciation, dating back to Moshe Rabbeinu.

After davening, the two soldiers guarding the hilltop were invited inside to partake of the kiddush. One soldier felt uncomfortable bareheaded, and placed his hand over his head. I walked over to him, plopping my black yarmulke on his head to ease his discomfort, and remained in my hat.

Dan Brock singled me out for a personal show of the scenic hilltop, where one has the best, almost aerial, view of Chevron. Dan pointed out the biblical road taken by Judean kings, including Dovid Hamelech, to Yerushalayim. He confided his future plans to move to the hilltop lot where we stood.

We returned to the Kirya through the Jaber property, passing some soldiers along the path. Mr. Hartuf marveled that even the soldiers had begun using the shortcut, instead of adhering to previous security restrictions limiting their movements to armed vehicles along the main road. The main road, sporadically the target of sniper fire, has recently become safer. Many attribute this to Jewish resolve to expand into Chevron, which necessitated heightened IDF patrols and also led to the cooperation of the Jaber clan, who wanted to protect their property and profit.

The Baruch Goldstein Legacy

We ate lunch with another Baltimorean, WWW writer Rafi Blumberg, and then prepared for Yosef Hartuf’s 2:30 p.m. tour of Chevron. We joined him and another visitor, who turned out to be a fellow alumnus from Columbia University’s International Affairs School. Mr. Hartuf showed us the Rabbi Meir Kahane memorial park by the Kirya gate with the unmarked grave of Dr. Baruch Goldstein. He lambasted the Israeli government for declaring Goldstein a terrorist and denying him a proper memorial. Residents had repeatedly built the doctor a monument only to have it torn down by government order. Adding insult to injury, Israeli leftists defaced his grave with yellow paint.

Knowing the Goldstein family well, Mr. Hartuf offered alternative explanations of Dr. Goldstein’s mysterious 1994 shooting of 29 Arabs at Ma’aras Hamachpeleh, as opposed to the media’s version. Following the Israeli handover of Chevron to the PLO, he said, Chevron Jews were besieged and attacked, enduring heavy casualties. Intelligence uncovered an Arab plot to attack more Jews, and it is believed that Dr. Goldstein’s rampage was a preemptive response. Another explanation suggests Israeli government collusion in instigating a Jewish vigilante attack in order to justify its planned expulsion of Jews from Chevron. To the Rabin government, the Jewish enclave was an obstacle to peace negotiations. Indeed, Rabin ordered Jews to be evacuated from Chevron following the shootings, but the intervention of prominent rabbanim forced him to retract. To many Chevronites, Baruch Goldstein’s medical practice left a legacy of devoted medical care to Jew and Arab alike.

Beit Shalom and Jewish Reclamation

As we exited the Kirya, our first stop was Beit Shalom, a large building situated along the infamous sniper road between Chevron and Kiryat Arba. Mr. Hartuf pointed to a group in the valley below the Kirya. “That’s the Mennonite Christian Peace Mission from Lancaster, Pennsylvania!” The “peace mission” was one of the hostile international monitoring groups coming to Chevron eager to report alleged Israeli abuses.

Beit Shalom is a towering three-story mansion whose recent purchase from an Arab sparked media controversy and court battles. The Israeli government joined the Arab seller in claiming that the sale never took place. (The Arab knew that his selling to Jews was punishable by death under PLO Authority law.) Jewish Chevronites won their legal battle after a Hebrew University forgery expert certified that the government had doctored property sale documents to back the owner’s denial of the sale. The Chevron plaintiffs convinced the court of their ownership by showing a video of the seller pocketing bundles of cash and signing his deed over to them. Forced to acquiesce to the sale, the Israeli government is nonetheless preventing full Jewish occupancy by using Ottoman Turkish law to deny the owners the ability to make necessary renovations. Jewish Chevronites are still working on achieving habitation.

Mr. Hartuf next took us into the sparsely furnished building. Its kitchen entrance bears a portrait of the late Knesset member Rabbi Kahane. We climbed onto the roof, where Hartuf delighted in showing us a spectacular view of the Kirya and Chevron, including vacant roadside fields targeted by Jews for new encampments. He related how teenagers have successfully established temporary camps with the goal of turning them into permanent habitations. Mr. Hartuf also pointed to Beit Shalom’s next door neighbor, a mosque.

From Beit Shalom we descended the road behind Ma’aras Hamachpeleh, passing two Arab boys riding a donkey. We were a little worried as we approached a seemingly hostile Arab crowd of youth atop a pile of roadside rocks. They turned out to be the American peace mission with pads and pens at the ready to record either our activities or those of a passing group of Jewish seminary girls.

Mr. Hartuf solved the Arab market mystery for us, explaining that Jewish women and children had emerged as heroes to reassert Jewish rights. After an attack of sniper firing on Jews, these girls entered the market and went on a rampage, overturning deserted merchant carts and breaking down stalls. They cleared out the market in one night, then entered Arab neighborhoods adjoining Beit Shalom, knocking on doors and telling the residents they must leave our city. While these vigilante tactics seem provocative to Westerners, they suit the culture of lawlessness that prevails in Chevron. In an atmosphere similar to the American Wild West, a situation of warring clans of Arabs and no Israeli authority mean that the might of the street becomes the law of the land.

At Ma’aras Hamachpeleh, Mr. Hartuf told us about Jewish excavations, in which small-bodied teenagers slip into underground caverns to search for our forefathers’ graves. He explained that the Mumluks, a medieval dynasty of Moslem mercenaries, had arbitrarily marked the gravesites of the patriarchs. These erroneous markings have survived to mislead pilgrims into mistaking them for the actual burial sites of the patriarchs, which are in truth hidden beneath the three-story Ma’aras Hamchpeleh monument.

Inside the Kasbah: Echoes of Jewish Glory

Accompanied by the sound from the minarets calling the faithful to Moslem prayer, we walked up Rehov Dovid Hamelech toward the entrance to the Arab kasbah for a rare IDF-sponsored tour. Mr. Hartuf departed, and we joined the group of tourists protected by the armed Gavati Brigade. A former Russian refusenik, Shmuel Moishnik, was our tour guide into what was once the heart of Jewish Chevron. After hearing the rules for the tour from their commander, the soldiers lifted and uncocked their guns in the air in ceremonial fashion. They then surrounded our group and lead us into the Arab market.

We entered just beyond the famed Slobodka Yeshiva, which had been relocated to Chevron from Jaffa in 1925. We saw the Beit Hamekubalim, as well as the early 18th century homes and businesses of the Chabad kehila. We also viewed the home of Chief Rabbi Chaim Hizkiyahu Medini,, author of the famous Talmudic encyclopedia, the Sdei Hemed. We saw mezuza and menora imprints adorning the kasbah’s doorways.

Arab business was scant, and the merchants appeared annoyed as Moshnik showed us the remains of Chevron’s pre-1929 Jewish life. He took us to Chevron’s “German Square,” where residents had placed a swastika beside the entrance and captioned it with “Heil Hitler,” yimach shemo, in Latin letters. Although it was misspelled, its intention was clear. This imported Nazi propaganda highlights the fact that, contrary to the media’s myth of a distinct “Palestinian” identity, no united Arab identity exists beyond hatred of Jews. The populace, rural and conservative, is separated by clan, tribe, social class, political ideology, and geographic origin.

Mr. Hartuf had earlier cited these divisions when telling us about sporadic gun battles among the nearby Arab clans, in which the IDF hesitated to interfere, as long as they were confined to clan neighborhoods. While the Jaber clan peacefully acquiesces to its Jewish neighbors, other Arabs, identifying with Islamic fundamentalism, are hostile.

Competition for Sovereignty

Mr. Hartuf had also mentioned that Arab-Jewish competition for land is a zero-sum game; whatever hill tops Jews don’t grab, the Arabs will. The Israeli bureaucratic barriers to Jewish acquisition of vacant hills allowed the Arabs to seize them. As a result, many Jews are imitating the Arab land grabs by establishing shuls like Chazon Dovid and Har Hagal to force realities on the ground.

Our host, Mr. Brock, told us how they outsmarted the government during U.S. Secretary of State Rice’s recent visit. Chazon Dovid was one of four “illegal” outposts that the Israeli government demolished to satisfy U.S. demands prior to her visit. When Israeli officials notified the U.S. State Department that they successfully bulldozed the four outposts, including Chazon Dovid, they were shocked when the agency produced American satellite photos showing that Chazon Dovid remained. Kiryat Arba youth worked speedily after the demolition to rebuild Chazon Dovid, making the government look bad. On Israeli television the youngsters rededicated Chazon Dovid as the “Children’s Synagogue of Chevron”!

Am Yisrael Chai

We concluded our Shabbos with a seuda shlishis at the home of the Simcha Hochboim family. The Hochboims, refugees from Gush Katif, live in the heart of Jewish Chevron, above the famed 15th century Avraham Avinu shul. After my sons davened Mincha, Mr. Hochboim gave visitors a heartening welcome by opening the aron kodesh to show us the original turquoise Sephardic sefer Torah brought from Spain in 1492. He recounted the shul’s history from 1498, sharing two inspiring anecdotes of Divine will.

First he told of a 1648 legend about the mysterious tenth elder who showed up on erev Yom Kippur for Kol Nidre to make the minyan but disappeared after the fast. The worshippers decided he was none other than the shul’s namesake, the resurrected Avraham Avinu.

Next, he told us about the Jewish survivors of the 1929 massacre, who were gathered for deportation by British soldiers. One Avraham Frankel slipped away to the aron kodesh and seized that very medieval Torah scroll. Clinging to the Torah, he vowed, “I swear that Jews will one day return!” The soldier dragging him away let out a hearty laugh. In 1982, Frankel’s vow was realized, when returned Jewish refugees and pioneers danced around the now-92-year-old Frankel, who held the Torah to commemorate the rededication of the Avraham Avinu shul.

Hochboim thanked us for our interest and support of Chevron. He inquired whether I knew Rabbis Moshe Hauer and Shmuel Silber, “supporters from Baltimore” whom he had previously hosted. “Of course,” I declared. “They have been at my home, and along with all of Baltimore, we seek Chevron’s rejuvenation!” Mr. Brock drove in from the Kirya to pick us up after a maleva malka of singing and music. The young musician confided to me that his dedication to Chevron stemmed from surviving an Arab ambush in which 28 bullets were fired into his car yet he was miraculously unharmed.

We departed Chevron with a proud message: Despite near-impossible odds, our inheritance is successfully being reclaimed. Am Yisrael chai is Chevron. With the birth pangs of Mashiach upon us, may we continue to witness Hashem’s miracle in restoring the Jewish people back to our original capital.

The author, a visitor to Chevron since the1980s, wrote the Washington Post’s “Hebron: Jewish All Along,” a rebuttal response to the newspaper’s Hebron series portraying the city’s solely Arab character.

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Article List - September 2008