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Rachel's Tomb Is Now a Mosque?

(New York Jewish Week) Jonathan Mark - A month before his assassination in November 1995, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin asked the Knesset to ratify Oslo's cornerstone "Israel-Palestinian Interim Agreement." Rabin said: "As a Jewish nation, we must, first and foremost, pay attention to the holy places, to our religion, tradition and culture. We were strict about this in the Interim Agreement." Regarding Rachel's Tomb, the third holiest site in Judaism, Rabin told the Knesset, the agreement "determined that worshippers and visitors would not encounter Palestinian police, neither on their approach to the Tomb nor during their prayers. The main road to Rachel's Tomb...will be the responsibility of the IDF. Guarding the Rachel's Tomb compound will be the responsibility of the IDF." Rabin was a secular Jew but understood that he was representing the Jewish people, past and present. Before that 1995 agreement was drawn up, Israeli newspapers reported that Knesset Member Menachem Porush was sitting in Rabin's office when Rabin mentioned that Rachel's Tomb was originally on the Palestinian side of the map. Through actual tears, Porush cried to Rabin, "Reb Yitzhak, Mama Ruchel, how can we give her away?"
2010-11-26 08:43:01
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