Last week I visited a friend who lives in Efrat, a town about 20 minutes south of Jerusalem in the Gush Etzion settlement bloc. We met at his apartment and had coffee on the balcony. The town is situated across several small hilltops and the views are amazing. There was a cool breeze blowing over the hills and it was much less humid than down on the coastal plain in Ra’anana. In fact, the first thing I thought to myself was that back in Ra’anana we would never dream of sitting outside on our balcony at noon this time of year. We then set out to do some touring in Hevron, but first we just stopped on the road a bit beyond his apartment building and noticed the view to the north. He pointed out the small golden dot, easily seen among the lower hills in that direction. It was the Dome of the Rock on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem in the distance. In ancient days, that’s where the Temple would have stood. And it would have been the only major building around for hundreds of miles, easily seen from all directions. What a sight that must have been.
We started driving, turning south, away from Jerusalem, towards Hevron. We arrived at the town of Kiryat Arbeh, a small Jewish town adjacent to Hevron. In biblical times those two names referred to the same city – the Bible uses the two names interchangeably. Today, that original city is the city of Hevron, a mostly Arab city under the control of the Palestinian Authority. It was such a contentious site that when the Oslo Accords were signed dividing up the West Bank into Areas A, B, and C, there had to be a totally separate agreement just for Hevron, which is divided into H1 and H2 areas – the Palestinian Authority controls H1, which is 80% of the city, and the Jews control H2, which is 20% of the city.
The city of Hevron gets a lot of bad press from the Jewish perspective because of the security needs of the Jews who live there, and the claims by some that the rights of the Palestinians are being infringed upon by the Jews’ presence there. For example, there is one street in the H2 Jewish area where the IDF, in an attempt to prevent further violence, closed down and relocated several Arab shops, so that the street today stands empty. However, what is evident when you visit there is just how huge the city actually is, and how negligible that one street is compared to the entire city (into which Jews are not even allowed at all. which is somehow fair. and therefore doesn’t make the news. 🙄or whatever…). It is a sprawling city, the richest Arab city in Israel, with manufacturing, retails shops, a large fancy shopping mall, complete with a fast food court (including, I am told, the first KFC in Israel). And the entire thing is totally Jewless. Jews are simply not allowed in. Period. It’s just not at all like what I’d seen on the news.
Parts of ancient Hevron have been unearthed and you can see some of the ruins – ancient walls, parts of buildings, mikvahs (ritual baths) and a staircase that lies next to a very thick, fortified wall. Archeologists think this may be the staircase that led to the gates of the city, where the Bible details the story of the first Jewish land purchase in Israel, when Abraham buried his wife Sarah there. The city of Hevron was the original capital of Israel before Jerusalem became the capital. King David was from the tribe of Judah, Hevron was the capital of Judah, and so it was there that all the tribes gathered to anoint David King of all of Israel. It remained the capital for seven years until David moved it to Jerusalem, which has been the capital ever since.
David’s father, Yishai (Jesse in English), is buried at the top of a hill there, and there is a tradition that Yishai’s grandmother, Ruth, of “The Book of Ruth” fame, is buried with him on the hill. We visited the memorial at their graves as well. There is a large random fig tree outside where we literally just picked the ripe figs off the tree and ate them right there. (After carefully making sure there were no worms inside the figs, which apparently can be a thing…) It was kind of surreal, in a biblical sort of way, sitting around enjoying fresh figs just plucked off the tree, at the grave of the father and great-grandmother of King David.
We also visited the new Hevron Observatory, on top of a building which is built right over an archeological site and right next to the ancient staircase I mentioned above. The observatory has excellent views of the entire city, including the Ma’arat HaMahpela, the large 2000 year old building that King Herod build over the cave where the forefathers and mothers (Abraham & Sarah, Isaac & Rebecca, Jacob & Leah) are buried. I have more to say about that structure itself, so I decided to do a separate post just about that. So stay tuned…😀
