In Hebron the following day I found more evidence of the power of women in the settlement movement. Sarah Nachshon had been one of the first Jews to move into the new settlement of Kiryat Arba with her husband Baruch and they were soon blessed with the birth of a son. Privileged to have his bris performed in the Cave of Machpela they named the boy Avraham. Tragically the baby fell victim to crib death at 3 months. In a grieving search for some purpose in this terrible blow Sarah determined that having been brought into the covenant of Abraham in the Cave of the Patriarchs her son should be buried in Hebron’s ancient cemetery.
But Hebron’s cemetery was not in Jewish hands. Closed by the British after the 1929 pogrom it had been locked up and off-limits for 45 years. This did not deter Sarah Nachshon. Holding her lifeless baby she led a procession of Kiryat Arba residents past the Cave of Machpela and the Avraham Avinu synagogue toward a confrontation with the Israeli border guards. Senior officers barked orders over walkie-talkies: You will obey your command and must not let them pass! The sentries overcome by the scene replied: The mother is standing here with the baby’s body in her arms. If you are able to stand in her way please come down here and do it yourself.
Only moonlight illuminated the burial field as the tiny bundle was lowered into a fresh grave dug just a few meters from the mass grave of 1929’s pogrom victims. Then Sarah Nachshon spoke. Four thousand years ago our patriarch Abraham purchased Hebron for the Jewish people by burying his wife Sarah here. Tonight Sarah is repurchasing Hebron for the Jewish people by burying her son Avraham here.
Hebron’s cemetery has been open to Jews ever since and is now fully restored with proper markers for the victims of the 1929 massacre.
Another part of Hebron liberated by women is Beit Hadassah the old Jewish hospital in the Avraham Avinu neighborhood. This also fell victim to the 1929 riots during which local Arabs murdered the very doctors who had cared for them. Fifty years later just after Pesach 1979 a group of 10 women and 40 children left Kiryat Arba in the middle of the night and somehow crawled into the basement of the abandoned building. They swept up decades of dust from the floor laid down mattresses and went to sleep. The following morning IDF soldiers were astonished to hear the sound of children singing.
After much government wrangling food and supplies were allowed in. Later occupants were allowed to leave and return but no one else was allowed to join them. The women and children lived this way for a year. On Friday nights after prayers at Machpela husbands would stop at the gates of Beit Hadassah to recite Kiddush for the women. One Shabbat they were fired on by Arab gunmen who killed 6 men and left 20 wounded. Within days the Begin government responded by granting official permission for the reopening of a Jewish community in Hebron.
In the continuing process of defiance over death and tragedy the names of the dead have been immortalized on a new apartment building called Beit Hashisha (House of the Six) which is now home to new Hebron families.
The last stop on our tour was Rachel’s Tomb which I had not visited since the 1960?s. The privilege that we are still able to pray at Judaism’s third most important site is solely due to determined resistance to its surrender under the infamous Oslo Accords. Once again women have figured prominently in this resistance defying soldiers to open the way for them to enter the tomb on the anniversary of Rachel’s death.
