By Rabbi Gila Ruskin
Chayei Sarah
And they buried him [Abraham], Isaac and Ishmael his sons, in the Cave of Machpelah … (Genesis 25:9).
I wonder: how many of you have been to Hebron?
Hebron means “friendship” or “unity.” How ironic. Since the day that Isaac and Ishmael buried Abraham, after a lifetime of enmity and estrangement from each other, Hebron’s unity has been elusive.
A city steeped in history and in strife. A place of reverence and suffering, of reconciliation and revenge, where, for millennia, Abraham’s children have lived and mourned separately and together, and have shed each other’s blood.
My memory is vivid of my first visit to Hebron, at age 13 in 1967. The West Bank was newly under Israeli sovereignty. I was thrilled to be in the Cave of Machpelah, where Abraham had buried Sarah, where Isaac, Rebekah, Jacob and Leah were interred.
Although my grandparents were all born in Poland, this ancestral tomb was the place where I felt rooted. I was moved by the sight of Jewish descendants of Abraham davening in the synagogue, and Muslim descendants of Ibrahim prostrating in prayer in the mosque at this site holy to all.
Hebron massacres: In 1517, Turks sent by the Sultan attacked, raped, looted, killed, and exiled the Jews of Hebron.
In 1834, during the Peasants Revolt, Egyptians desecrated synagogues, ransacked houses, and killed young Jews.
In 1929, yeshiva students were brutally slaughtered when a rumor spread of Jews burning the Al-Aqsa mosque. As the survivors fled, the centuries-old Jewish presence in Hebron came to an end, until 1967.
Fast-forward to Purim 1994, when, as a congregational rabbi in Baltimore returning home after a rousing Megillah reading, I heard the gruesome news that American-born physician Baruch Goldstein had opened fire upon the Muslim worshippers at Abraham’s tomb, slaughtering and injuring innocent people bowing in prayer, inciting violence for months to come.
In chapter 9 of the book of Esther, the Jews massacred 75,000 Persians. Baruch Goldstein had taken his mandate from that reading.
How could Purim ever be the same?
From 1995 to 2000, I was the rabbi/tour leader for hundreds of Baltimore teens on summer pilgrimage to Poland and Israel. We never visited Hebron. After 1994, teen tours were diverted into tubing down the Jordan River rather than solemn visits to the tombs of our ancestors. Rarely did we teach the kids about the contemporary tragedy of Baruch Goldstein or the Israeli occupation of the territories.
In 2013, I visited Hebron again on an international tour. In order to enter the Tomb of the Patriarchs, we had to wind through the barbed wire of H1 (Palestinian territory) and H2 (Israeli military occupied territory). Barriers and heavily armed soldiers prevented Hebron’s population of Jews and Palestinians from intermingling. Palestinian homes were barricaded with steel bars. Families were separated; children often prevented from going to school.
Pregnant women and elderly waiting in the blinding sun to get medical care were stopped and searched at multiple checkpoints.
We stopped for a falafel lunch in the largely abandoned shuk of Hebron. Bleached-out embroidered shirts hung from a few shops. Heavy netting covered the alleyways with bricks precariously hanging. Our guide explained that the army had installed the netting to prevent harassment of the vendors. Yet, groups of settlers continually dropped bricks from above, trying to pierce the barrier. We actually witnessed laughing youngsters pouring jugs of bleach through the netting onto the goods below.
From the tourist van, we passed a burning field. Our guide explained to us that wheat fields were often set on fire by settlers. On his cellphone, he contacted the local police and IDF to report the fire.
When I came home, I told people what I had witnessed in Hebron. They didn’t believe me. They accused me of being a gullible victim of propaganda.
In 2024, mainstream news outlets like Reuters and the NY Times regularly report about international human rights volunteers helping with the olive harvests being attacked, nonviolent activists in Hebron being raped and imprisoned, access to the Tomb being severely limited.
The brutality, fear, and carnage continue. Isn’t the time ripe for the children of Isaac and the children of Ishmael to redeem Hebron?
Rabbi Gila Ruskin lives in West Philadelphia and is a member at Kol Tzedek. She expresses Judaism through Mosaic Midrash. The Board of Rabbis of Greater Philadelphia is proud to provide diverse perspectives on Torah commentary for the Jewish Exponent. The opinions expressed in this column are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the view of the Board of Rabbis.