On Tuesday, October 8, a Judaica auction offering ceremonial art, paintings, illuminated Ketubot and illustrated manuscripts was held by Sotheby’s at the Tel Aviv Hilton.
A most interesting item on sale was a painting, executed circa1820-1830, showing Jewish worshippers holding Lulavim near the Machpela Cave in Hebron.
“In the foreground, a Jewish man dressed in typical Jewish-Palestinian costume and wearing a Tallit is carefully selecting an Etrog from a female Jewish vendor dressed in the white shawl worn by Jewish women of the Holy Land of the time, for reasons of modesty.” the catalog states.
For hundreds of years, until the liberation of Hebron bv the Israel Defense Forces during the Six Day War, Jews and Christians were not permitted to enter the edifice erected over the tomb area. They were allowed to use a small entrance and ascend several steps on the stairway,
leading up to the floor of the building. They used to assemble in this narrow space for prayer and also inserted Kvittlach -through a deep hole, which pierced the entire thickness of the old wall —into the cave area situated beneath the floor
In the painting, one sees a figure of a worshipper inside the small entrance. Also visible are a flight of steps and the deep hole. The latter contains a “Ner Tamid” (Eternal light). At the foot of the staircase leading up to the entrance, stands another Jew holding a Lulav.
The high quality painting, the work o fa very talented and accomplished artist was, seemingly commissioned by a wealthy Jew.
In these days when all of us are greatly concerned about the safety and the future of the Jewish settlers, This painting -which was expected to fetch from $70 000 to $100,000 dollars — is a poignant reminder of the Jewish life that once flourished in that city.
For many generations, Hebron was one of the “four holy cities” of the Holy Land- the other three were Jerusalem, Safed and Tiberias. Throughout the diaspora funds were continually being collected to support the Jews of these cities.
(To be continued)
The Jewish Press, Friday, October 11, 1996
Hebron like the other three “holy cities”- of the land was a center of Torah learning.
Prominent rabbis who lived there included Eliezer Ben Arha, who was the rabbi of the town –
(his responsa – edited and provided with an introduction by Rabbi Ezra Batzri-were published by Machon Yenishalayim some years ago); Rabbi Shlomo Adeni, who wrote in Hebron Melekhet Shlomo, his commentary on the Mishna and the Kabbalist Rav Avraham whose Mishna commentary on the entire Order of Nezikin was printed by Machon Yerushalayim in 1986.
Dr. Dov Zlotnick had published the commentary on Eduyot some years earlier. The commentary on Avot appeared for the first time in 1910). All three lived in the second half of the 16th and in the first half of the 17th Century.
Rabbi Eliyahu De Vidas, a student of the Kabbalist R. Moshe Cordovero and author of Reshit Hokhma, lived
in Hebron after he left Safed. Rabbi Hayyim Hezekiah Medini, author of Sedei Hemed (died 1904), spent the
last years of his life in Hebron. He established a Yeshiva there.
Chabad Chasidim, at the initiative of the Mitteler Rebbe, (Rabbi Dov Baer of Lubavitch) established their own community in Hebron about 1820. The mid 1920s saw the transfer to Hebron of the Yeshiva of Slobodka.
Jewish life came to an end in Hebron in 1929 when Arab pogromists killed 67 Jews and wounded many. The rest fled the city. In 1931 former Hebron Jews began returning. However, in 1936, when new Arab rioting erupted all over the country the British, fearing a new pogrom, evacuated the 200 Jews, who by then were living there.
The Arabs took over the abandoned Jewish property. Much of it still in their possession. They desecrated and destroyed synagogues and places of study. The ruins of the “Avraham Avinu Synagogue” were turned into a stable.
Since the return of the Jews to Hebron, about one year after the Six Day War —the “Avraham Avinu Synagogue” has been restored. Twenty Jewish families now reside nearby in what is called Shekhunat Avraham Avinu (“the Avraham Avinu Quarter”).
A beautiful story is associated with the synagogue. It was first published in R. Naftali Hirtz’s Kabbalistic Emek HaMelekh (Amsterdam, 1648).
At one period; there were only a few Jewish families left in Hebron (some say that it was during an epidemic when many Jews fled the town). On Sabbaths and festivals they formed a Minyan in the synagogue with the help of Jews from neighboring villages.
One Erev Yom Kippur in the afternoon, there were only nine men in the synagogue. They waited for the villagers who didn’t show up, because they had gone for Yom Kippur to Jerusalem. They were desperate and cried. How could they pray on Yom Kippur without a Minyan? All of a sudden, they saw an elderly man approaching. They offered him food, but he declined, saying that he had already eaten.
After the fast, each of the nine men wanted to invite the stranger to his house. They cast lots. The Hazan was to be the host of the old man. When the Hazan arrived with his guest at his home, the stranger suddenly disappeared. In the night, the stranger appeared to the Hazan in a dream, revealing that he was Avraham Avinu! Learning of the Hebron Jews’ despair, he had come to complete the Minyan (see Zev Vilnay’s Legends of Judea and Samaria, J P S 1975). From then on, the synagogue was named for Avraham Avinu.
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The new Jewish settlement in Hebron is in grave
danger. Each one of us must do his share to support the settlers morally, financially and politically. Israeli rabbis have appealed to Prime Minister Netanyahu not to abandon the City of the Patriarchs, not to withdraw the
I-D.F. from Hebron. Rabbinical organizations in this country must do likewise, They must also call on the
President of the U S. not to pressure the Government of Israel.
The Jewish Press, Friday Oct. 18, 1996
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