See photos and video below.

(UPDATE: Afternoon Mincha prayers will take place today (Sunday) at 19:00
at the site of the destroyed synagogogue, followed by several
speakers, evening prayers. Following evening prayers, those present
will begin to rebuild the synagogue.)

Last week I blogged in asking if the Chazon David Synagogue would merit another prayer service. That night the synagogue was slated to be destroyed again. It's already been razed over 30 times.

That night there were too many people present; the security forces postponed the
The hangman had arrived, bringing not a rope, rather an IDF-supplied tractor.
execution. But not for too long. After all, in honor of our 60th independence day we must give a worthy present to the visiting president next week.

Last night, or rather early this morning, just before 3:30, the phone rang and the beeper buzzed. The hangman had arrived, bringing not a rope, rather an IDF-supplied tractor. The road was closed, declared a 'closed military zone' until the sentence was fully carried out. By the time I could get through the synagogue was a place of the past. However, the forces remained behind to make sure we didn't get too close, in order to start reconstruction immediately.

A group from Hebron and Kiryat Arba played cat-and-mouse with the police and as soon as daylight approached, an early morning service took place in the street, opposite the ruins of the shul.

Some of the forces were uncomfortable being photographed; after all, the Hebron Arab Shech Ja'abri had saved the site from destruction just over a half a year ago, and last week we marked Holocaust Remembrance Day. Photos of destroyed synagogues were fresh in everyone's memory.

The original synagogue was built over seven years ago and destroyed well over 30 times. However the present structure stood for about three years. Why now? Simply Olmert has to have a gift-wrapped present for Bush to sacrifice on the alter of piece (and another piece and another piece) and it seems that again, we are the victim to be done away with. A synagogue, a place of prayer, in memory of two men killed at and adjacent to this very site.

There are no words: except that the synagogue will be rebuilt and rebuilt and rebuilt until it is recognized as a permanent structure, to stand forever.

People who participated in and cooperated with the destruction:
What will they tell their parents, their wives, their children?

Why not flirt a little at the site of a destroyed synagogue?

Police holding hands at site of destruction

Morning Prayer

Rabbi Shimon Ben-Tzion being carried out of area

Yehudit Katzover being carried out of area

Yehudit Katzover and Nadia Matar

Police sitting on synagogue furniture

Garbage left on the street

Kiryat Arba Mayor Tzvi Katzover

Synagogue activist Yaakov Eichenstein

Nothing like a bite to eat

Go Away! You're not wanted here!

Prayer and ruins

Good News! - At twelve midnight word was received that the 'authorities' decided to postpone the destruction of Chazon David due to the number of people present at the site, ready to physically protest the razing of the synagogue. Chazon David still stands!

A number of years ago two Jews were killed the same day in Kiryat Arba. In the morning David Cohen, sitting in his car near the western gate leading out of Kiryat Arba to Hebron, was shot and killed by terrorists. Later that night the Kiryat Arba municipal council protested the opening of a checkpoint which had allowed the murder to occur. While gathering outside the Kiryat Arba fence, near the location of the recently opened checkpoint, terrorists opened fire on the group. Several people were hit. Councilman and longtime Kiryat Arba resident Hezzy Mualem was killed.

In memory of the two men Kiryat Arba founded the Chazon David synagogue, on empty land between Kiryat Arba proper and the Givat Avot neighborhood, to the west. The synagogue was recognized by the government as an illegal 'hill-top settlement,' and a few years ago was destroyed a couple of days before Passover. Army tractors bulldozed the synagogue to the ground.

However Kiryat Arba - Hebron residents refused to accept the decree and rebuilt the synagogue. A game of cat and mouse ensued. People would reconstruct the synagogue and every once in a while, in the middle of the night, it was destroyed.

Last Rosh HaShana the Israeli left, together with local Arabs, decided to burn the synagogue down. However the plan became known to Sheikh Jabri, the leader of the largest Arab clan in Hebron, and he forbade the destruction.

According to intelligence reports received by Hebron-Kiryat Arba residents, sometime tonight, or early tomorrow morning, the Israeli army is planning on perpetrating the act forbidden by a Muslim Arab Sheikh from Hebron. They are planning on destroying the synagogue again.

Anyone able to get to Kiryat Arba in the next few hours is asked to do so and to assist in trying to stop this sacrilege.

Earlier tonight I prayed evening prayers at the Chazon David Synagogue and photographed. Below are some of the photos of the synagogue as it is today. Will Chazon David merit another prayer service tomorrow? Will Jews again be able to recite Shema Yisrael at this holy site?

 

The group of Jews who initiated and participated in that ‘Seder’ in Hebron in 1968 were the sparks that set the fire of the return of the Jewish people to themselves after two thousand years.
 

On Saturday night we will participate in one of Judaism’s most ancient ceremonies, and certainly one of the year’s most treasured events. We sit around a table and conduct a Seder – the annual recitation of the story of Israel’s redemption from Egypt.

Rabbi Avraham Yitzhak HaKohen Kook, Israel’s first Chief Rabbi, writes that that exodus had a two-fold purpose. On the one hand, it was a goal in and of itself, that being liberation from Egyptian bondage. However, he teaches that the exodus was also a means to an end,  that end being the reception of the Torah at Mount Sinai, and eventually, observance of that Torah in Eretz Yisrael.  The exodus as a stand-alone event was momentous, but its real significance came to pass only years and decades later.

We are currently marking the sixtieth anniversary of Israeli independence. The Jewish people have made tremendous leaps and bounds over the past six decades. Who could have expected, in May of 1948, the power and prestige a Jewish state would command at the beginning of the twenty-first century. This is especially notable considering the fact that the Jewish people, coming out of a 2,000 year old exile, had to virtually recreate its national being from scratch, having been totally removed from exercises in sovereignty for two millennium. On top of this we can never forget that Israel was reborn from within the ashes of Auschwitz. Jews have prayed, day in and day out for thousands of years for not only a return to Zion, but also for Techiat HaMetim, the revival of the dead. Israeli independence is no less than revival of the dead.  For this, we rejoice and give thanks to the L-rd for have granted us this most magnanimous gift of national life.

That’s the up side. The down side is all too well known. From the very beginning there was a concerted effort made to oppress the foundations of Jewish being. The founding fathers, or most of them, were not great fans of observant Judaism. The kidnapping and forced resettling of over 1,000 Yemenite children is perhaps the quintessential example of attempts to eradicate Judaism from the Jews.  Yet Ben Gurion was known to have answered, in reply to a question about Jewish legitimacy   to settle in Eretz Yisrael, that the source of Jewish rights to the Land is the Bible.

The relationship between Israel’s leadership and our Land has been overtly problematic. Eretz Yisrael was almost viewed as a ‘card’ to be dealt at the proper time. This was explicitly felt both prior to and following the 1967 Six Day war, when Israeli leaders attempted to refrain from liberating Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria, and following their liberation, expressed a desire to abandon them at the first possible opportunity. So it was that Israeli paratroopers, having captured the Old City of Jerusalem and Judaism’s most sacred site, Temple Mount and the Kotel (The Western Wall) were told to prepare to leave only a short time after the victory.

Yamit, Oslo, the Hebron accords, Gush Katif and the northern Shomron all speak for themselves. Other words are superfluous.

Where does this leave us, after sixty years?

In my humble opinion, the state of Israel isn’t really sixty years old. Yes, if we count from 1948, to 2008, the result is sixty. But in reality, we couldn’t really call ourselves a full-fledged sovereign entity while our heart was still in captivity. That heart being Jerusalem and Hebron. They go hand-in-hand, together. David began in Hebron for seven and a half years before moving up to Jerusalem. Hebron was lost in 1929; Jerusalem in 1948. Jerusalem was liberated on the 28th of Iyar and Hebron the following day. Hebron was chopped into two parts in January, 1997. Ehud Barak offered Arafat 90% of Jerusalem only a few years ago. The fates of these two eternal, holy cities are inextricably combined and cannot be separated. 

Following the Six Day war former Jerusalem residents, expelled during the 1948 War of Independence were repatriated. Moshe Dayan, then Minister of Defense, refused to speak to former Hebron Jewish homeowners who had lost their property to Arab marauders following the 1929 riots and massacre, and subsequent final expulsion in the spring of 1936. Only in 1968, exactly forty years ago this Friday, did Jews return to the first Jewish city in Israel.

As with many such stories, from close-up they seem almost ordinary. In reality, not only a physical reality, but also a metaphysical truth, such events are earthshaking, or perhaps better put,  ‘heaven-shaking. ‘ The return of a small group of Jews, that 1968 Passover in Hebron, with the guidance of Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda HaKohen Kook, with the participation of Rabbis Waldman, Druckman and Levinger, was the forerunner of a massive awakening, a returning to the heart of our land throughout Judea and Samaria. But this awakening too was not only a corporeal return to the land; rather, it was, primarily, a spiritual arousing, the voice of the Jewish people bursting through the ages, an almost primal expression of the faith buried so deep inside the souls of the Jewish people, who for centuries had cried out ‘next year in Jerusalem,’ whereby ‘Jerusalem’ was the keyword representing all our land, Eretz Yisrael. Without Jerusalem, without Shechem, without Hebron, we were as a body without a soul, a golem, whose bodily movements were predefined, perhaps classified as ‘natural.’ But the spirit, the inner essence, the heart, the soul, was missing. Only with the liberation of Jerusalem and Hebron and with them the rest of Judea and Samaria could we really and truly say, ‘we are back home – we have returned.’

That Passover, forty years ago, was the breaking of the ice – the trailblazer, the results of which are the authentic rebirth, physically and spiritually, of the Jewish people. As Jews began returning to their physical roots, so too did they commence the return to their spiritual roots; the numbers of Jews who have ‘returned,’ who have come back to observant Judaism in the past 40 years is beyond numbers. And that homecoming, as such, began with, and was initiated by our return to our land, our return to our heart – to Jerusalem and Hebron. The group of Jews who initiated and participated in that ‘Seder’ in Hebron in 1968 might not have known it then, and maybe some of them are still unaware of it today, but they were the sparks that set the fire of the return of the Jewish people to themselves after two thousand years.

Just as the exodus from Egypt had a double goal; one immediate and the other long-term, so too did our statehood in 1948 have a double agenda; one immediate – announcing before all the world, we, the Jewish people have not died out, we have escaped the bondage of galut, of exile, you have not been able to extinguish us; and also long-term – to bring the people back to all their land, to all their land and to all their heart and soul, physically and spiritually.

So as we celebrate sixty years and forty years, we can conclude that really, only now, are we beginning. The Jewish people spent forty years in the desert before entering the Land, forty years fraught with problem and crises. Now, we too have finished forty years, also filled with unimaginable predicaments. And just as then, when we came into the land the problems didn’t come to a swift end, we too, today, may still face unbearable situations. But those aren’t the key. The key is, we are home, we are in Israel, we have returned to Hebron and to Jerusalem, we have rediscovered ourselves, we have been granted the Divine gift of life, we are here to stay.

Happy Passover, Happy 60, Happy 40!
 ***********************************************************************
|Passover Schedule
We are gearing up for a joyous holiday season in Hebron this Passover. Please see our website at www.hebron.com for more information on Tuesday's Hebron Music Festival and our special holiday tour schedule. Bring your friends to celebrate Pesach in Hebron!

To include this holy man, Rabbi Dov Lior, in a list which includes Nasrallah, is sacrilege. I can only suggest that perhaps some readers react.
First, Happy Passover. If you're interested in coming to Hebron this Passover, see: http://tinyurl.com/3sq5jf for details.

I'd like to draw your attention to several articles that you might find interesting:

First: today the Washington Post, printed an article by Mahmoud al-Zahar, the so-called foreign minister of Hamas in Gaza. Among other pearls, he writes, "Resistance remains our only option. Sixty-five years ago, the courageous Jews of the Warsaw ghetto rose in defense of their people. We Gazans, living in the world's largest open-air prison, can do no less." (As I'm writing, I'm listening to Shimon Peres speak in the Polish parliament)

The Post, in an editorial response to this article writes, "ON THE OPPOSITE page today we publish an article by the "foreign minister" of Hamas, Mahmoud al-Zahar, that drips with hatred for Israel, and with praise for former president Jimmy Carter. We believe Mr. Zahar's words are worth publishing because they provide some clarity about the group he helps to lead, a group that Mr. Carter contends is worthy of being included in the Middle East peace process...it is one thing to communicate pragmatically, and quite another to publicly and unconditionally grant recognition and political sanction to a leader or a group that advocates terrorism, mass murder or the extinction of another state. That is what Mr. Carter is doing by lending what is left of his prestige to an avowed terrorist such as Khaled Meshal -- or Mahmoud al-Zahar."

A few days ago the Jerusalem Post printed an op-ed piece by M.J. Rosenberg , in which the author writes, among other lovelys, "Then there are places like Hebron in which the army is deployed to defend a tiny population of settler extremists prone to torment local Palestinian kids. Last time I was there I got to see a terrorized population facing incessant abuse from extremists. (One Israeli government official described the Hebron settlers last week as "the worst of the worst.") Not only that, young Israeli soldiers - hating every minute of their service in Hebron - are themselves continually abused by settlers who think the soldiers should be doing their bidding rather than protecting the local population from them."

Dr. Robert M. Goldberg, in an article called "The Sordid Exercise" in The American Spectator responds: "Indeed, Rosenberg has kinder things to say about Hamas, Stephen Walt, and John Mearsheimer than he does about his Jewish brethren. He calls Jewish settlers that have, with support of the government and often at the cost of their lives and the lives of their children, tamed a dangerous border, "the worst of the worst." (He claims young Israeli soldiers hate every minute of their service in Hebron. He should speak to my son who serves in the IDF and has nothing but good things to say about Hebron's residents.)"

And I've saved the best for last. In a list of "The World's Worst Religious Leaders" in foreignpolicy.com , the magazine 'honors', in the same breath with Hassan Nasrallah, the righteous, 'gadol hador,' my Rabbi and teacher, Rav Dov Lior, Chief Rabbi of Hebron-Kiryat Arba.

Rabbi Lior is one of the most highly respected religious leaders in Israel. A brilliant scholar, his halachic rulings (Jewish law rulings), are known internationally. A student of Rav Tzvi Yehuda HaKohen Kook, Rabbi Lior has taught Torah to thousands in the Kiryat Arba Nir Yeshiva and around Israel. He has worked for decades for the betterment of the Jewish people and has dedicated his life to Hebron and Jewish resettlement in all of Judea, Samaria and Gaza.

Rabbi Lior has never said, (as is claimed in the above article) that it is permissable under Jewish law to indiscriminately "kill Arabs" or that the commandant not to murder applies only to Jews. He has ruled that the armed forces, when facing attack by enemies who are taking cover in areas which include civilians, may and should respond appropriately, in a manner which will least endanger Israeli soldiers' lives, even if 'innocent civilians'' lives are endangered.

It should also be noted that the photograph of Rabbi Lior that appears in the article was taken from the website of one Kawther Salam, an Arab 'journalist' presently living in Vienna. She 'covered' Hebron years ago, during the shooting attacks of the 2nd Intifada (the Oslo War), and has opened an anti-Hebron, anti-Israel website, filled with hate and lies. She identifies Israeli military officers as 'military / IDF terrorists.' It is interesting to note that Foreignpolicy.com utilizes such a website for source material for their articles. (She can be emailed at: kawther_salam@yahoo.com)

To include this holy Rabbi in a list which includes Nasrallah is sacrilege. I can only suggest that perhaps some readers react. Letters to the editor can be addressed to: fpletters@CarnegieEndowment.org or at: fp@ceip.org - Their phone and fax are: Phone: (202) 939-2230 Fax: (202) 483-4430. The editor-in-Chief is Moisיs Naםm. The Senior editor is Michael C. Boyer and can be reached at (202) 939-2345.


If I add another blog before Pesach, I'll write this again. If not, Pesach Sameach - Happy Passover to all Arutz 7 readers. If you're interested in coming to Hebron this Passover, see: http://tinyurl.com/3sq5jf for details.

A people with no past, or a people that refuses to recognize its past, has no future.
Many events, despite their joy and festivity, may also have bittersweet shadows lurking behind them.

It is customary at every Jewish wedding, that under the huppa, or wedding canopy, the groom recites the words from Psalms 137:5-6: "If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget its cunning. Let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, if I remember thee not; if I set not Jerusalem above my chiefest joy." In some traditions the groom also places ashes on his forehead, recalling the destruction of the second Temple, and breaks a glass as an expression of loss. Even on the happiest of occasions, we recall the depths of sorrow at the loss of our most significant national enterprises, Jerusalem and the Temple.

ON THURSDAY night I attended a wedding. The daughter of one of Hebron's leaders was married in Jerusalem. As is wont at such weddings, the groom rubbed two sets of ashes on his forehead: ashes discovered in the Old City of Jerusalem, from the fire 2,000 years ago which destroyed the city, and also dust from Gush Katif, razed and obliterated almost three years ago, this summer.

However, this past Thursday night had a particularly poignant significance. The groom was a graduate of Mercaz HaRav High School. He knew many of the young men killed there by an Arab terrorist just a few weeks ago. The night of his marriage was also the "shloshim" - the 30th day following the murders. That night there was also a large memorial service at the yeshiva in memory of the young victims.

So, when the groom recited the words, "If I forget thee, O Jerusalem," all the people in attendance were remembering not only the Temple from two millennium ago, but the deaths of those eight students, only a short time ago.

This is, perhaps, the story of Judaism: a combination of sadness and happiness, mixed together, making for the Jewish people.

SOME EVENTS can be understood; others are difficult to fathom. We are currently celebrating the first anniversary of the conclusion of the purchase of Beit HaShalom in Hebron. Exactly a year ago attorneys gave us the green light, and in we went. This huge, 3,500 square meter structure, strategically located on the road between Hebron and Kiryat Arba, was the first property purchased outside of the borders of the original Jewish neighborhoods. The roof of the building serves as a lookout, with a view of Kiryat Arba to the east and the Hebron Hills to the south. It is an amazing sight; on the one hand, exceedingly beautiful, and on the other hand, a bona fide security asset.

Israel is on the verge of a 60th birthday. Since the birth of the state in 1948, despite all the problems encountered, Israel has made tremendous achievements. Who could have expected that a people being shoveled into ovens only a few years before, with over six million of their brethren exterminated, could overcome all odds and bring an ancient nation back to life, a feat unequaled by any other culture or nationality in the history of the world. It certainly does deserve to be celebrated.

However I cannot but sense that this celebration is somewhat bittersweet with the case in point an excellent example, a microcosm of issues continually encountered.

The Jews came back home to Israel; but to what kind of an Israel? Of course growth and development are measures of success. But do we remember where we've come from? Do we take into account the triumphs upon which modern Israel was born? Do we recall the bedrock which serves as the justification for the rebirth of our people in our homeland?

HEBRON WAS the first Jewish city in the land of Israel, home to our patriarchs and matriarchs. The Cave of Machpela is our people's second holiest site, after the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. It was off-limits to Jews for 700 years, until Hebron came under Israeli control in the 1967 Six-Day War. As we celebrate 60 years of independence, so too we observe 40 years since the return of Jewish residency in Hebron during Passover of 1968.

Yet when Jews legally purchase a building in Hebron, 60 years after the rebirth of our statehood, such a transaction is automatically shrouded in controversy. So much so that the families in the building were prevented from installing glass windows throughout a snowy and rainy winter. At present they still may not install plastic shades on the windows, nor may they hook up the building to the city's central electric services. This is not due to any question of the legality of the purchase, but rather to a fundamental question: Can Jews continue to live, grow and develop freely in Hebron?

How can we, as a people, justify our existence in Tel Aviv or Haifa, if we do not recognize the validity of our presence in Hebron? If we cannot accept and respect the very pillars upon which our statehood lies, a peek into a crystal ball of the days and years to come looks dismal and bleak. A people with no past, or a people that refuses to recognize its past, has no future.

A Jewish purchase of a building such as Beit HaShalom in Hebron should not be viewed as "problematic." Instead it should be cheered on as a positive step in the renewal of Israel's oldest city.

The time has come for Jews throughout Israel and around the world to declare their allegiance to Hebron.

--------------------------------------------------------------
This Op-Ed piece was published this week in the Jerusalem Post.

THE JERUSALEM POST Apr. 8, 2008