Hebron parties like it’s 1800 BCE

When thousands of pilgrims converge on the Cave of Machpelah in Hebron this Shabbat Chayei Sarah, they’ll be celebrating more than a return to their roots after a Covid-plagued year.

They will rejoice as well over news that construction has begun on the first new major building in the Jewish enclave in 21 years, providing 31 new housing units for Jewish residents.

Jews everywhere will read about this place this Shabbat, with the parsha telling of Avraham’s purchase — for 400 shekels of silver — of a burial place for Sarah some 3,800 years ago.

This was the first real-estate transaction that would make Israel the Jewish homeland and Jews her indigenous people. 

“Long before Jerusalem was mentioned in the biblical text, Hebron was embedded as a site of pilgrimage for sacred memory,” writes Jerold Auerbach.

A spokesman for the Jewish community in Hebron said that “at least 10,000 people” would visit this weekend, down from the 40,000 to 50,000 typical in many years but up from last year, when there were no visitors because of the pandemic.

“I think of it as Woodstock meets the Bible,” Hebron Jewish Community spokesman Yishai Fleisher said in a previous year. It’s an incredible spiritual festival, with the main event being the reading of the Torah portion that “describes the purchase of this plot of land by Abraham.”

“There is nothing like reading that ancient scroll in that ancient spot together with the children of that place, the Jewish people,” he said.

Around 1,000 Jews live in Hebron. They are restricted to just 3 percent of a city that is occupied by 250,000 people.