A
famous scholar who migrated to Hebron was Moroccan born
Hakham Avraham Mordekhai Azoulay, author of Hessed le-Avraham
(1685). He also authored the Kiryat Arba' as well as an
important source on genealogy and life in Fes and Eres Yisrael.
Jews not only migrated to Hebron, but Hebron's Jews ventured
away to other communities for the purpose of raising funds
and teaching. This was the job of the Rav Ha-Kolel, the
rabbi responsible for raising funds for the poor people
in the community. From Casablanca to Halab (Aleppo) and
from Alexandria to Mosul, they traversed the dangerous highways
and treacherous seas, as emissaries of their communities.
More
than two centuries ago, Avraham Ruvio went abroad to raise
funds for printing a book his father Mordekhai had written.
Avraham's father was the head of the rabbinical court of
Hebron in the 18th century. Mordekhai had written a religious
manuscript that was eventually published at Livorno in 1793,
and another printed in Salonika over 40 years later. Avraham
Hayyim of Hebron was born in Fes, Morocco. As a rabbi of
Hebron, he traveled from community to community seeking
sedaka (charity) for the Talmud-Torá (Jewish children's
school) in Hebron. Sadly, while traveling on this most honorable
mission in the Turkish city of Monastir (modern Greece),
Avraham died.
From
the Balkans came Moshe ben Avraham Ferrera of Sarajevo.
Ferrera traveled to Eres Yisrael in 1823, and became head
of the rabbinical court at Hebron; he died four decades
later in 1864. Even though both Smyrna (Izmir) and Hebron
were both considered part of the Sultan's empire, Smyrna
could not compare to the holiness of Eres Yisrael for the
spiritual Jew. For this reason Sephardim migrated from one
location of the Ottoman Empire to another.
From
the icy mountains of Macedonia to the scorching deserts
of Syria, and from the Maghreb to the Fertile Crescent they
came. One notable was Hakham Yosef Rafael ben Haim Yosef
Hazan who had relocated from coastal Turkey to Hebron, later
becoming the Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem.
In
1831, Ibrahim Pasha of Egypt took Gaza, Hebron, Jerusalem
and other cities with 40,000 men from the Turkish Sultan.
Pasha had arrived in Egypt in 1799 along with the Ottoman
Expedition to drive out the French. Wanting to be an independent
ruler, but couldn't, he declared war against the Sultan.
Although he marched his troops as far as the Syrian cities,
an internal revolt occurred. This stemmed from Pasha's order
to collect firearms from the population. These measures,
and others alienated, his fellow Muslims but were received
with satisfaction from Jews who had always feared the armed
Arabs.
In
1858, Hakham Eliahu ben Suliman (Shelomo) Mani, traveled
from Ottoman Baghdad to Hebron and was elected chief rabbi
of the city. He remained as chief rabbi for 40 years, passing
away at the age of 75.
Hebron
has been considered such a holy location, that Jews would
make the precarious journey there, not just to live, but
to die. From across land and sea, on foot and with beasts,
Jews would journey to settle in Hebron and live out their
remaining years. Historic literature demonstrates Jews emigrating
from the Balkans, Thrace, Venice and Anatolia. Hakham Yehuda
Havilo, the Chief Rabbi of Alexandria, emigrated north across
the desert to Hebron for just this reason. Chief Rabbi and
Dayan (rabbinical judge) Hakham Yosef Fintsi of Belgrade
emigrated to the sacred soil of Hebron when he was elderly.
For centuries, Jews have migrated to the holy land if for
no other reason than to fulfill a final misva of burial
there.
Hebron
was a poor city throughout its time of Turkish occupation.
The 1839 Montefiore Census notes that Jews were employed
as silversmiths, clerks, bakers, slaughterers, but most
of all, professional Torá scholars. The community
was administered by the Chief Rabbi and a council of seven
members. The following were chief rabbis of Hebron: Israel
Sebi (1701-1731); Avraham Castel (1757); Aharon Alfandari
(1772); Mordekhai Ruvio (c. 1785); David Melamed (c. 1789);
Eliakim (end of 18th centurt); Hayyim ha-Levi Polacco (c.
1840); Hai Cohen (1847-52); Moshe Pereira (1852-64); Elia
Suliman (Shelomo) Mani (1864-1878); Rahamim Joseph Franco
(1878-1901); Hezekiah Medini (former chief rabbi of Karasu-Bazar
in the Crimea, known as the Hakambashi Wakili who was the
chief rabbi in 1901). Bension Koenka served as a chief rabbi
of Hebron during turn of the 20th century. Prior to this,
the respected Spanish sage was the head of the rabbinical
court at Jerusalem.
In
1879, Haim Yisrael Romano of Constantinople constructed
a large and elaborate home known as Beit Romano. The home
functioned as a domicile for visiting Turkish Sephardim.
The building included a synagogue, called the Istanbuli
Synagogue. Today, Beit Romano houses Yeshivat Shavei Hebron,
a school for young men of Hebron. Prior to 1929, Hebron
possessed four Sephardic Talmud-Torás. There were
three mutual-aid societies and a free dispensary for medications.
During the period of British occupation of Palestine, the
British expropriated the Beit Romano and used it as a police
station; after the 1929 riots, the Jewish survivors were
brought there.
Violence
and unrest was never distant to the Jews who suffered under
continued Arab coercion. On August
23, 1929, Arabs, under direction of their Islamic
religious leaders (muftis), attacked the Jews with a most
savage zeal wielding axes, knives, and other weapons upon
the defenseless community. They not only murdered Jews,
but they utilized ghastly methods of torture, including
rape, castration and limb amputations. They assailed Jews
throughout the holy land, from Safed to Hebron.
Scores
of Jews were murdered during this gory rampage. In Hebron,
the Islamic murderers killed Hakham Hanokh Hasson, the chief
rabbi, and his entire family. The prominent Hakham, Yosef
Castel, locked himself in his home, but Arab mobs broke
in-murdering him and his family-then setting the home ablaze.
The
last Sephardic rabbi in Hebron, subsequent to the 1929 pogroms,
was Hakham Meir Franco, who had lost his son-in-law in the
murderous frenzy. Shortly after the massacre, Hakham Franco,
with a number of other rabbis, produced a small brochure
in Ladino, the language of the community. It was an appeal
to fellow Sephardic Jews throughout the world to assist
financially in the rebuilding of the community of Hebron.
The brochure detailed the destruction, and contained pictures
of the synagogues and holy places before the Arab destruction.
It educated the reader about the holy city where their forefathers
were buried and about the ancient Jewish community. The
Spanish language volume expressed urgency for help, communicating
that the community desperately needed funds for rebuilding.
Partially
because the British had no great love for Jews, as well
as the fact the British did not want to provoke the Arab
world, the British government was unwilling to subsidize
the costs for a large police force in Palestine to control
the Arabs. In addition, the British adamantly did not allow
any independent legal Jewish self-defense force. Thus, the
Jews were disarmed and had virtually no protection against
rioting Arabs.
Later,
in a bizarre twist of fate, the British helped the Arabs
become the undeserving masters over the Jews. The British
essentially sided with the Arabs and issued a set of discriminatory
regulations. One restricted Jewish rights to pray at the
Western Wall in Jerusalem. The riots of 1929 were investigated
internationally and reported in the Hope Report. According
to the report, the riots were instigated by none other than
Mufti Amin al-Husseini, the same man who, one decade later,
would be working hand-in-hand with Adolph Hitler to murder
the Jews in Arab countries and the Balkans, during the Holocaust.
Hebron
was liberated in 1967, and today has more than 600 Jews,
both Sephardim and Ashkenazim. The city is bordered to the
east by the large settlement of Kiryat Arba, whose population
now reaches 6,000. Even today, attacks and murders are again
the norm, not the exception. Not only are these courageous
Jews constantly on the defense from the Arabs, but they
continually have to defend themselves from the international
media, which attempts to make them look like criminals.
Hebron and all of the holy land was stolen from the Jews
by the savage Romans, occupied by murderous medieval Christian
armies, and more than once occupied by various power-hungry
Islamic regimes.
Today,
the Jews of Hebron face not only gunfire and stabbings,
but also political attacks aimed at removing the city from
the sovereignty of the State of Israel. The United States,
Britain, and all of the European Union have officially decided
that Hebron, as well as other communities in Judea and Samaria,
should be turned over to the Arabs and made part of a new
country, Palestine. Anyone who believes in the Torá
must also believe that Hebron is, and must always be, Jewish.
To find the deed to the land and to the Cave of the Makhpela,
one needs to look no further than Genesis 23.
Personal
Note:
At
the time of this writing, the Beit HaShalom, (Peace
House) of Hebron, a four-story 35,000 sq. ft. structure
where Jewish families and students reside, is about to be
taken by the Israeli government.
The
building is owned by my friend, Morris Abraham, who lives
here in the Brooklyn Sephardic community, the largest religious
Sephardic community in the world outside of Israel. Morris's
great-grandfather was a resident of Hebron during the 1929
pogroms. Morris had purchased the building from the previous
(Arab) owner transferred all his legal rights of the building
to the Hebron Jewish community. He legitimately purchased
the property, has the evidence, and can demonstrate the
transfer of money. The Hebron house case erupted in May
of 2007, when a Palestinian resident filed a petition against
20 Jewish families he claimed had seized the house illegally.
The families claimed the property had been paid for, but
the court ruled they were to be evicted. According to Ynet
News, the case is currently being examined by the High Court
of Justice, which stated recently that even if the house
had been purchased legally, the residents could still be
evicted until the matter was resolved. The decision prompted
Hebron Jewish residents to begin preparing for a forced
evacuation.
It
is my hope that the Israeli government comes to understand
that the Abraham family legally purchased the property.
My heart remains with the Jewish residents of Hebron and
the Abraham family during this dark period.
Please
click here and watch even one minute of the video on
Beit HaShalom