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Record crowds celebrate Abraham’s purchase of Hebron; festival marred by “fringe elements”

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by

Adam Eliyahu Berkowitz
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Record crowds celebrate Abraham’s purchase of Hebron; festival marred by “fringe elements”

On Shabbat, over 35,000 Jews came to Hebron to celebrate Abraham’s purchase of the Machpelah Cave of the Patriarchs. The huge festival was successful overall with mass prayer events and a joyous atmosphere. But the joy was marred by several incidents of hooliganism.

Yishai Fleisher, the International Spokesman for the Jewish Community of Hebron, was thrilled at how the event transpired. 

“It was really unbelievable, maybe a record,” Fleisher said, describing the weekend as “Woodstock meets the Bible.”

“It was twenty-five hours of bliss, with prayers into the night, full-to-overflowing prayers at dawn, non-stop singing and dancing. There was free food everywhere. People came from abroad to celebrate with the Patriarchs and Matriarchs.”

“It was a Jewish festival atmosphere, Fleisher said. “I call it the ‘Foundation Festival because that is what we are celebrating; the founding of the Jewish state in Israel.”

According to the Israel Defense Forces, there was an altercation between Jewish worshipers being escorted by the army to the tomb of Othniel Ben Kenaz, the first biblical judge after Joshua, and some Palestinians. There are conflicting reports about how the altercation began with some reports claiming the Jews initiated the conflict and other reports blaming the Palestinians. The tomb is in Area H1 which Jews are normally prohibited from entering. The IDF used crowd control measures to separate the two groups. The army said one Israeli man assaulted a female soldier with a wooden stick, injuring her lightly. Several suspects who were detained also assaulted soldiers, the IDF said, before they were handed over to police. Several Jews were arrested.

In a separate incident, a group of Jews reportedly threw stones at Arabs. 

The IDF in a statement said, “violence of any kind, in particular against the security forces, is an intolerable criminal act that requires immediate attention and demands strict justice.”

On Friday morning, a Palestinian teen with a knife was arrested at the entrance to Kiryat Arba adjacent to Hebron.  

Prime Minister Yair Lapid said in a statement that attacking soldiers was a “national disgrace.”

“This is harmful to Israel’s security, it harms the values of the Israel Defense Forces and those who protect our lives, and this is a serious criminal offense. This evening I wish strength to the soldiers of the IDF who stand guarding our country. We will bring justice to the perpetrators,” Lapid said.

Fleisher acknowledged that there were disturbances and that a few Jews became unruly, even acting disrespectfully towards the IDF troops assigned to protect them.

“Yes, incidents did happen and I condemn them,” Fleisher said. “But the media focused exclusively on those fringe elements. And the remarks by Prime Minister Lapid were entirely inappropriate. Three Jews were murdered by Palestinian just a few days ago and we are suffering a wave of terrorism with attacks of all sorts almost every day. Lapid politicized the bad actions of a few people, using it as a fulcrum to denigrate religious Jews in general and an agenda to delegitimize the Israeli nationalist movement in particular.”

“As the prime minister, he should have said a few words praising the festival and its Biblical roots,” Fleisher said. “Like the United Nations, Lapid never acknowledged the Jewish connection to Hebron.”

Jews around the world read the Torah portion of Chayei Sarah (Genesis 23:1–25:18) last Shabbat describing Abraham’s purchase of the Machpelah Cave and the fields around it from Ephron the Hittite for four hundred shekels of silver as a burial site for his wife, Sarah. The Biblical couples of Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rivkah, and Jacob and Leah were buried in the Machpelah Cave. Jewish tradition holds that the Cave of Machpela is also the burial place of Adam and Eve and leads to the Garden of Eden making Hebron, the site of the oldest Jewish community in the world, one of the four holy cities of Judaism.

Over the cave is a large structure built by the Israeli King Herod. During the periods in which Muslims ruled over Hebron, Jews were forbidden from praying inside the building and were relegated to the stairs leading up to the site. In 1929, Arab rioters murdered 69 Jews and the British evacuated the remaining Jewish community. In1948, the Jordanian Arab Legion conquered the city. No Jews remained in Hebron until Israel conquered it in the 1967 SIx-Day War when Hebron came under Jewish control for the first time in 2,000 years and the 700-year-long restriction limiting Jews to the seventh step outside was lifted.

Under the present arrangements, Jews are restricted to entering by the southwestern side, and limited to the southwestern corridor and the corridors that run between the cenotaphs, while Muslims may enter only by the northeastern side. For the annual festival, the Hall of Isaac and Rivka, normally reserved for Muslim prayers, was open to the Jewish public.

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