‘In Hebron I felt that God had abandoned earth’

Some religious zealots, including the rightwing member of the Knesset, Danny Danon who addressed the crowd in Hebron yesterday, believe passages from Hayei Sarah establish Israel’s historical title to Hebron. At a time when radical religious extremism seems to threaten all hope of finding peace and resolution in Palestine and Israel, I find it difficult to express how moved I am to hear deeply religious voices who work tirelessly for peace. It is probably because I am a secular person that it took me a long time to really listen to religious voices in the activist community. That changed when I attended a Sabeel conference last year. Yesterday I visited +972 and clicked on a link that made me weep. Called WATCH: Alternative Jewish interpretations seek to counter settler takeover of Hebron, this is about Project Hayei Sarah.

Ben Murane:

“It’s supposed to be a holy city… a city given as a reward for truthfulness. And it’s because Hebron is supposed to be such a holy place that I am so disappointed… How does one behave in a holy place? In holy places we speak quietly, respectfully…

“[But] today there are few pilgrims in Hebron… Some 20 percent of it is under full curfew and military patrol… It’s a ghost town. The only layers of history there seem dry and ugly, just dust swirling in empty marketplaces.”

In a truly holy place, “witnesses are inspired to holiness themselves…. In Hebron I felt that God had abandoned earth.”

All people of faith who work tirelessly to heal the Holy Land have my thanks today. And thank you Mairav Zonszein for bringing these videos to my attention, and Breaking the Silence for offering tours of Hebron that open people’s hearts and minds.

Also, here is Rabbi Jill Jacobs’  impassioned plea for justice:

A group of Jews stands in a small park. Across from us two Palestinian children are playing soccer in the street. The ball rolls into the park. A member of our group kicks it back. ‘That’s lucky fur the children, the park is off limit to Palestinians…’ A row of closed storefronts stands where the lively Palestinian market used to be. The graffiti on the metal doors proclaims ‘death to Arabs’, and warns Palestinians that ‘the death chamber awaits’. Bizarrely, one mural shows a smiling Haredi man saying ‘keep smiling’…what a contrast to the Hebron of the torah. There, the city is  a place of compassion, a place where people of different families, tribes and backgrounds come together…it is a place where Abraham introduces himself as a  stranger, a resident alien, and who is welcomed by the residents of the city…a place where Abraham’s estranged sons, Isaac and Ishmael, come together to bury and to mourn for their father….Today, Hebron is just one extreme symptom of the broad systemic violations of human rights that are required to maintain Israel’s occupation of Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem. It is also a city that to both Jewish and Muslim traditions was once a shining example of human coexistence.  This week, as we read Parsha Havei Sarah, the story of Sarah’s burial in the city of Hebron, I hope and pray that we can all do our part to make Hebron once again a city of compassion, friendship, and coexistence.

Today, the sons of Isaac and the sons of Ishmael, recognized by all monotheisms as the Jews and the Muslims, respectively, still come together to mourn their father in Hebron. Housed within a half-mosque, half-synagogue compound, Abraham’s Tomb sits in a circular vault, surrounded by a synagogue window on one side and a mosque window on the other. Gazing through each of their windows at the tomb of their father, the two faiths awkwardly look at each other out of the corner of their eye, through a narrow, slanted, indirect, sidelong, askew line of sight. “How sweet and pleasant it is for brothers to dwell together in unity!” (Psalm 133:1)