Hebron

I have wanted to go to Hebron for years now. Not only is Hebron home to the Tomb of the Patriarchs, where tradition has it that Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, and Jacob and Leah (Rachel is buried in Bethlehem) are entombed (on the land that Abraham bought for Sarah when she died), but Hebron has been a hotly contested site in the past several years (it is a Palestinian city in the West Bank, but there are many Jews who want to live or visit there because of the holiness of the Tomb).

However, Hebron is behind the Separation Wall, deep in the West Bank, and when I was here several years ago it was a hotbed of violent activity. For these reasons I have felt like Hebron would be a very dangerous place to go and visit.

But I really wanted to go, so I checked the news (nothing violent for months!), found a friend (Sabra, who is from America and studying Arabic here in Jerusalem), and hopped on a bus.

It is actually quite easy to get to most big cities in the West Bank. There are two central Palestinian bus stations across from Damascus Gate in Jerusalem (one for busses going north and one for busses going south), and even if those busses don't go where you want to go, you can transfer in one of those cities to another bus.

The best part? Bus tickets are actually pretty cheap on Palestinian busses. It costs 7 shekels to get to Beit Sahour (next to Bethlehem and inside the Separation Wall) and just 6 shekels to get from there to Hebron.

The bus ride to Hebron was beautiful! I felt like I was in the Jordanian countryside...which I never thought I would miss, but it was so nice to get out of the city. I even saw one tree with leaves that had changed to red for fall! (It's stayed pretty green around here...olive leaves just don't ever change color!)

The bus dropped us off downtown, and we walked through the Old City to get to the Tomb. The dynamics in Hebron are really very strange. Hebron is a Palestinian city, as I stated before, deep in the West Bank, but since it is also holy to Jews, there are about 500 settlers there. And according to the Lonely Planet guidebook, there are about 4,000 Israeli soldiers posted there to keep the peace!

I usually try to stay away from too much political discourse on my blog. After all, I am studying Arabic and Hebrew in Jerusalem so I can promote peace on both sides. But I will say that I do not agree with the settlers' ideology at all. And actually, according to the UN and the rest of the world, the Israeli settlements scattered throughout the West Bank are illegal and only serve to delay the peace process. In order to create roads for the settlers to drive on, they have to take more land from the Palestinians, in addition to the land taken for the settlement. I have found Israelis, on the whole, to be quite kind. But it seems like the settlers' ideology is one of entitlement--that just because this land was holy to their ancestors, they should get it.

It is a difficult thing to live with anywhere, but I think the situation is particularly tense in Hebron. So it didn't surprise me at all to have to pass through two checkpoints to get into the synagogue side of the Tomb (we couldn't go to the mosque side because it was closed for Friday prayers). The Tomb is divided into two sides (with a wall in between and separate entrances) because both faiths lay claim to the site.

According to Wikipedia, it was Herod the Great that built the first big structure over the caves, the Byzantines that added a roof, and Salah Ad-Din that added the minarets and turned it into a mosque. The Byzantines worshipped there for hundreds of years, so I'm surprised that the Christians haven't laid claim to part of the building, too! (Oh wait, they did...in 1100 the Crusaders conquered the place and no longer allowed Muslims to worship there. But even though Salah Ad-Din conquered it back in 1188, he allowed Christians to continue worshipping there.)

Anyway. Enough with the history and politics. I think in keeping with the integrity of the site, none of the Islamic paintings on the walls have been covered up or painted over (and according to Wikipedia, the waqf, the Islamic ruling body, has control over the maintenance of the site). So the cenotaphs of Abraham and the rest are covered with Arabic writing, the walls are painted in Arabic, and Hebrew signs and Torah scrolls fill the rooms. It's very odd.

This holds the Torah scroll in the room between Abraham and Sarah's cenotaphs (the caves are underneath and inaccessible). See the Arabic on the wall? And see the Hebrew on the box for the Torah scroll?

This is on the cenotaph of Abraham. It's Arabic.

No one is allowed to get close to the cenotaphs. This is looking in on Abraham's.

This is looking in at the room between Abraham and Sarah's cenotaphs. Abraham's cenotaph is on the right, Sarah's is on the left.

Both the Jews and the Muslims have washing rituals to cleanse themselves before worship. This is a Muslim cleansing station (they wash their hands and their feet, which is why it is so low) that now serves as a Jewish cleansing station.

Standing at the top of the synagogue, looking out over the city. The Old City (where mostly Palestinians live) is on the left, the settlement is (I think) on the right.

Soldiers guarding the road. I don't know if everything was closed because it was Friday prayers or because the Israelis closed the road so the settlers could use it, like one of the residents told us, but it was a pretty empty street. I'll have to go back when it's not Friday and see what life is really like.

The left side, behind the barriers, is for the Palestinians and leads to the Old City and the mosque side of the Tomb. The rest of it is for the settlers and leads to the synagogue side of the Tomb.

Sabra and I were walking through the Old City when we saw something fluttering in the breeze above our heads (Sabra was so shocked she just stared):

There are lots of checkpoints (I don't know if they are active) throughout the city. Here is one of them. Behind this wall is an Israeli building.

My visit to Hebron was fascinating and very enlightening. I am anxious to go again, this time on a weekday so I can see normal life (most things shut down on Fridays for Friday prayers). It makes me feel ill when I think about the injustices and horrors done on both sides and how both sides are suffering for it now. But whenever I get too weighed down by these things, I see restaurants like the "Happy Bunny" and I laugh again. So just in case you feel too weighed down by this post, here's the Happy Bunny (taken from the bus window as we were leaving Hebron).