Posted on 02/12/2005 5:22:05 PM PST by Alouette
We've succeeded in saving Rahel's Tomb," says Kever Rahel Fund founder and director Miriam Adani.
Adani was responding to the decision by the High Court of Justice last week to dismiss petitions by 18 local Palestinians, together with the Bethlehem and Beit Jala municipalities, against construction of a bypass road leading to the compound.
The new route will annex Rahel's Tomb to Jerusalem's municipal boundaries and place it within a segment of the planned "envelope" barrier being constructed along the city's southern perimeter.
Adani, who established the Kever Rahel fund in 1999, reveals that for her and her supporters, the Court's decision is also the first step towards the establishment of a Jewish community around the Rahel's Tomb compound. In the past few years, she claims, several houses in this area have been purchased from their Arab owners, who have since left the area and perhaps the country. She adamantly declined to give any details regarding these deals.
Israel Defense Force troops are already using one of the houses – connected to the compound – as a billet. Adani hopes that civilians will move in "soon," once the Chief of the IDF Central Command gives the go-ahead and various "security concerns" are dealt with.
She added that "several hundred apartments" were due to be constructed on the site, but that most of the civilians will arrive only after the barrier is completed.
Tempering her initial excitement about the decision over the planned housing development, however, Adani says that "As long as the IDF Central Command views the issue as hurting peace or as a provocation – I don't believe he'll authorize it."
The IDF Spokesman's office did not respond to requests for information on its meetings with Adani and her organization or their position regarding these issues.
Adani does not believe that Jews will occupy the houses in the area by force or take steps that might endanger the existing Jewish presence.
"We are strongly guided by the lesson of our Matriarch Rahel: everything done at Rahel's Tomb will be done in agreement, with understanding and towards the unity of Israel, and without one iota of controversy."
She speaks of the "unity of Israel," but what about the Palestinians who live in the area? Adani seems unfazed that nearby Bethlehem and its environs are under full Palestinian Authority control.
"In any case, a Jewish presence among the Palestinians will be in their [the Palestinians'] best interests," she contends. Emphasizing each word by softly banging on the table, Adani adds, "Wherever there is a Jewish presence, there's more security, more army, more order."
But, when pressed if the Palestinians would, in the final analysis, accept any enlarged Jewish presence in the area, Adani shot back with the Biblical passage, "Esau hates Jacob."
In its decision, the court dismissed the petitioners' contention that the route would limit their freedom of movement, responding that the route, which has already been changed several times in response to previous petitions, does not significantly harm the petitioners' rights. The justices also ruled that Jews are entitled to freedom of worship, and that the IDF is responsible for defending that freedom.
Adani, however, said that there is "something absurd" about the court's decision, even though it was in her group's favor, because a handful of Arab dwellings, located several hundred meters from the checkpoint at the current Jerusalem border, will remain. As a result, the proposed road will have to be routed around them.
"If we're talking about disengagement and evacuating thousands of Jews from their homes in order to reach an agreement with the Palestinians," she argues, "Why can't four [Palestinian] families also be moved and compensated?"
Attorney Arie Tussia-Cohen, who represented the Palestinians in this case, views the situation differently. Speaking to the media after the decision, he said: "Unfortunately, the High Court of Justice took into account only the narrowest aspect of the conflict, and not the wider aspects. The court did not internalize the situation that has been created, according to which the IDF is giving in to political pressures and changing the routes [of the passage to Rahel's Tomb] according to pressure groups. The court annexed Rahel's Tomb to the State of Israel, in violation of the Oslo Accords, which determined that the area would be under Palestinian, and not Israeli, control."
Tussia-Cohen continued to say: "I hope that there will be people who will say that, given the new spirit in our region, we will have to rediscuss the issue of the route, because it will be making enemies for us, instead of friends."
Adani contends that nearly 1,000,000 visitors come to Rahel's Tomb yearly and tens of thousands attend services that commemorate the date traditionally associated with the death of Rahel the Matriarch.
The implication of the court's decision is that Israel will also have to give up the old Jerusalem-Rahel's Tomb road, by which Jews have accessed the site since 1967. According to IDF plans, a checkpoint will be established at the intersection with the Jerusalem municipal border, some 900 meters north of the holy site, and the new road will be paved to the west, arriving at Rahel's Tomb from the back.
The court's decision came at a particularly sensitive point in Israel's diplomatic relations, since the United States and the rest of the international community have clearly requested that Israel refrain from "provocative gestures" in order to bolster Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas' first, shaky steps after the Sharm e-Sheikh summit. But Adani insisted that, "We have had excellent neighborly relations with the residents of Bethlehem. But do I believe in these good relations? Happy is the believer.
Adani's protege in running the Rachel's Tomb Fund operation, veteran immigrant from Queens, New York, Aviva Pinchuk, says that Rahel's tomb is a particularly significant site for Jewish women. "When the Intifada erupted, Jewish worshipers were cut off from reaching Rahel's Tomb for 41 days, due to the fighting and lack of security arrangements for visitors. Despite the difficulties, a stalwart group of 40 women residents of Hebron gathered together and walked past the barricades and up to the site, which was under IDF control," she recalls. "Astonished soldiers manning the site allowed the group access, later requiring them to acquire armored vehicles to allow safe passage."
Over the last four years, groups like Adani's have raised money, primarily abroad, to pay for the cost of running several daily buses to the site. The group also offers a dowry fund for brides, established in memory of Nava Applebaum, who was killed, along with her father, Dr. David Applebaum, and five others, in a suicide bombing at the Hillel Cafe in Jerusalem, on the eve of her wedding in September, 2003. Sections of Applebaum's wedding dress were later used for the ceremonial curtain in front of the Torah scroll enclosure at the site.
Recently, additional sections have been used to make a huppah, the traditional marriage canopy, which will be used in wedding ceremonies at Rahel's tomb.
"I grew up with that symbol of Kever Rahel," Pinchuk recalls. When she and her husband visited Israel as tourists for the first time in 1967, six months after the Six Day War, the two joined a bus tour to Rahel's Tomb with an American Jewish tour group on Christmas Eve.
To her dismay, people on the bus were saying, "'When are we going to get to the Mass? We want to get to Mass already,' in nearby Bethlehem, rather than visiting Rahel's tomb. "I was shocked. Here we were at Rahel's Tomb; this is what I grew up with, and I just wanted to stay and cry..."
"Rahel's Tomb always had a very special place in my heart, whenever I have something I want to pray for, it was [at] Kever Rahel," Pinchuk says.
(Dan Izenberg contributed to this article)
I believe you understand the allusion correctly.
R. Shimon bar Yochai is the traditional author of the intensely mystical (and abused in our time) ZOHAR, which is the primary text of the most popular school of mystical kosher 'kabbalah'; i.e., not someone to be taken lightly.
Rashi, who is learned precisely because he avoids the mystical for the most part, was relaying a powerful statement.
And now, thank YOU for that wonderful post!
Thank you
Reason 123034908344534534563313548 why I do not, repeat do not, trust Muslim rule in areas where Christian holy sites exist, much less where Jewish holy sites exist. The heathens want to destroy anything pre-islam and act like Islam suceeded and replaced Judaism and Christianity.
If Israel or the US had done this Mecca or the mosques that are on the Temple Mount, the howls would have been heard on the moon and riots would have happened in every city, town, and hamlet from Morocco to Indonesia.
Bump for later
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