A conversation between photographer, artist, and lecturer Gaston Zvi Ickowicz, and Hava Schwartz, a tour guide who teaches and researches the history of visual art and culture
Rachel’s Tomb, a building of stone with a dome, stands solitary in the hilly landscape. On a hill in the background is the small city of Bethlehem. A man standing on the road adjacent to the building casts a short, bent shadow onto the wall. On the right, in the forefront of the photograph, is an olive tree planted in stone-strewn soil, its branches extending protectively over the building.
This photograph made its first appearance in a souvenir album of photographed scenes from the Holy Land that was published in 1900 as a memento for a group of Austrian pilgrims, after being colored by Swiss artists at Photochrome Zurich. Under the photograph is the caption in German, “Rachel’s Tomb of Bethlehem”; on the next page, there was a photograph of the cave where Jesus was born, in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem.[1]
In photographs from the nineteenth century and turn of the twentieth century, the image of Rachel’s Tomb is frozen in time as a timeless holy site. However, this image also attests to changes in place and time in Ottoman Palestine at the turn of the century: it depicts the building identified as Rachel’s Tomb after it was renovated in 1841 by Moses Montefiore, with the Turkish authorities’ approval, after visiting the site with his wife Judith when they traveled to Hebron in 1838. Besides marking Rachel’s burial place, the additional antechamber built during the renovation, with its mihrab facing Mecca, served for Muslim prayer (and for purifying the dead before burial in the nearby cemetery),[2] and for the many Jews who visited Rachel’s Tomb. It was also a pilgrimage site, particularly for women for whom Rachel was a figure they could identify with, pray to for fertility, and from whom they could draw comfort.[3]
Judith Montefiore’s tomb, and later Moses Montefiore’s, in Ramsgate, England, is replica of Rachel’s Tomb. Memories of and identification with Rachel led to the creation of a replica of her tomb, as they fixed the image created at a particular moment in time, making it timeless.
However, the building of the tomb has changed beyond recognition. Today, the tomb is part of a fortified enclosure. After the annexation of East Jerusalem in 1967, the tomb, which blended into Bethlehem’s urban space, was not included in the city’s municipal jurisdiction; but with the erection of the Separation Wall during the Second Intifada, the tomb was included on the Jerusalem side. Near Rachel’s Checkpoint (Checkpoint 300), the main crossing point between southern West Bank and Jerusalem, is the access road to the tomb, winding between two high concrete walls, on the other side of which lies Bethlehem. The grave marker, which can be reached through separate entrances to the women’s and men’s sections on either side of the tomb and the partition, is now concealed behind the wall. Adjacent to it, a temporary structure serves as a beth midrash (Torah study hall), and behind it is the Bnei Rachel yeshiva and settlement.
Hava: In September 2022, you showed an exhibition called “An Entirely Different Map of the Country” at Hamidrasha Gallery in Tel Aviv. It engaged with the photographed landscapes of politically loaded places, like the Rachel’s Tomb enclosure, alongside enlargements of landscape photographs from a series of postage stamps/labels from the Palestinian philatelic history, or printed in Lebanon, and refer to Palestine in the early 1970s. One of the photographs you showed there, and which drew my interest, was of an improvised building and the Israeli flag, a yard in front of it covered with synthetic grass and garden ornaments, and a section of the Separation Wall in the background. Like the photographs on the stamps, this place appeared without any identifying marks, even though it’s situated right behind a very familiar site: Rachel’s Tomb.
Gaston: Yes.
Hava: You’ve been wandering around Rachel’s Tomb a lot in the past three years; what drew you there? And what have you seen that intrigues you?
Gaston: I went there by chance. By chance, in the sense that many of the places I go to in order to photograph them, or look at them, in some way, I plan in advance to go there. In this particular case, I went to the nearby Checkpoint 300, and didn’t remember that this is where Rachel’s Tomb is located. I walked around the checkpoint, and something intuitive drew me to go back to the car and go into the enclave.
Hava: And then you went back again and again. What kept drawing you back?
Gaston: I ask myself whether I go there because of what I see, or because of what I don’t see.
Is it actually that this place is so restricted in view, or for view, in contrast with its purpose as a historical and religious site.
As a person engaged in photography – and photography engages with gaze and view – I’m busy with the question not only of what I see, but also what I don’t see in this place. Going back to the first time I went to Rachel’s Tomb, to the first time I drove between two walls that form a kind of sleeve for the road leading to the tomb enclosure, and I parked the car. It’s important to note this matter of the car because you can’t get through the entry barrier to the sleeve on foot. Only in a car or bus. I tried several times to enter on foot, and you can’t. I went towards the entrance to the tomb itself, and quite naturally I lingered there, because that’s where a lot of people congregate, and there’s a dynamic there that intrigued me. Opposite the building of the tomb there’s the wall, and at the end of it I suddenly noticed a basketball hoop attached to the wall, and I couldn’t understand what it was doing there. I saw it as a sign that something happens there. After I went into the tomb building and looked around a bit, I walked back in the direction of the hoop (which had meanwhile been removed, but you could still see the two holes made by the screws in the wall). I came to an enclosure where Rachel’s Tomb Yeshiva is situated, and right opposite the hoop is the settlement. That is, a few caravans, which to all intents and purposes is a settlement as far as I’m concerned, and families live in them. I’m not naïve, of course, and I know the tomb is located in a highly complex and political space, but I didn’t expect to come face to face with this settlement.
Hava: Which is actually located deep inside the enclosure, behind the tomb building, at the foot of the wall, which is perhaps the most significant thing there. The settlement, and despite being familiar with the Rachel’s Tomb enclosure, I’d never really known it until we went there together. It’s actually a cluster of buildings surrounded by the Separation Wall, located at the foot of the wall, and beyond it you can see – if you look – the buildings of Bethlehem.
Gaston: The settlement adjoins Bethlehem. The only thing separating these buildings, or these caravans, from the buildings in Bethlehem, is the wall. On the other side of the wall there’s a Muslim cemetery. You realize you’re right next to Bethlehem because when you’re in the settlement you constantly hear the everyday sounds of a city, of Bethlehem. Sometimes you can even hear people talking, voices, things like that. Something interesting happened to me recently that demonstrates how close it is. I went up to one of the roofs to take pictures, the roof of the yeshiva. A funeral was just starting in the cemetery, and in the Rachel’s Tomb enclosure, where the settlement is located, there was a matzo baking event/activity.
On the right there’s a funeral, and on the left they’re baking matzos. It might sound somewhat romantic, but it just shows how close life it. Life goes on, everyone’s doing their own thing. But of course, this huge wall also demonstrates the gaps.
Hava: Yes. I think about that settlement, and I think actually the settlement lies beyond what’s been perceived for hundreds of years as an important ritual hub, which is the tomb itself.
Gaston: That’s the word I was looking for earlier – ritual.
Hava: The tomb itself isn’t visible either: anyone traveling to Rachel’s Tomb passes next to a system of fences, and near the main checkpoint between Jerusalem and southern West Bank.
Within this system of fences and cameras, the building of Rachel’s Tomb isn’t visible. When we were there together, I went into the tomb’s women’s section. Like many grave markers in Israel, there were women praying and reading verses from the Book of Psalms, getting as close as they could to the tomb. They are continuing a tradition of prayer at women’s grave markers from a belief that the buried woman’s presence, and close intimate proximity to her, possess healing powers.[4] When I entered the prayer area around the tomb, one of the things that caught my attention was that there’s a cover over the tomb bearing the historical image of Rachel’s Tomb, like the photographs from the Ottoman period we mentioned earlier. Rachel’s Tomb became a major site in Zionist culture from its very beginnings as a biblical site embodying the historical connection with the Land of Israel. The image of Rachel’s Tomb appears in countless Zionist visual art items and objects, like postcards, illustrations for children, and even cigarette packets.[5] It also appears as a central image in the artworks of “Old Bezalel”, frequently together with other holy sites in the Land of Israel, or adorned with the figures of Jacob and Rachel. This image combines buildings and nature, in which the biblical event of Jacob burying Rachel on the road to Ephrata can be imagined.
Gaston: How and where does this image appear at Rachel’s Tomb?
Hava: It’s a recurring image, not only on the cover of the tomb itself, but also in the paintings hanging on the wall next to “Rachel’s Prayer”. The tomb stands as part of the partition, so it can be approached both from the men’s and women’s sections. This image, of the tomb building next to a tree, is also part of the logo of the yeshiva at the site, where it appears against the background of an open Torah scroll, and under it the inscription, “The children shall return to their own borders”.
This image has undergone such an interesting transformation, from a religious Christian image to an image associated with the Jewish connection to the Land of Israel in Zionist contexts. And now it’s once more becoming an image whose religious meaning is intertwining with national meaning – “The children shall return to their own borders” and the Torah scroll.
Gaston: It’s actually quite natural for this image to appear at Rachel’s Tomb, isn’t it?
Hava: Yes and no. Because this image, which ostensibly depicts the site where it’s located, stands in stark contrast to what you actually see there. There’s an inconceivable disparity between what you see when you enter the tomb enclosure, and the image itself, which is so very idyllic.
Gaston: I think what you’re saying is something that generally characterizes what you call religious fantasies. The settlers live there, closed in by a nine-meter wall, a huge gray wall that closes them off in every direction – and on the other hand, this wall isn’t something that bothers them. They cling to fantasy, imagination, history, they cling to this historical image and actually live in a different reality because they don’t relate to the realistic image, but to their desired, imagined, historical image. I think I encountered the very same thing in my photographic wanderings around numerous Jewish settlements where the inhabitants live in a very harsh place, visually speaking, yet they somehow manage to ignore it. I sometimes ask myself, and I’ve also asked settlers at Rachel’s Tomb, how they can give up the aesthetic aspect, or some kind of peace for the eyes? When I show this to them, they shift into a very productive conversation. That is, as far as they’re concerned, they’re like soldiers there, they’re on the front line. They have a function. Once I “position” them in the reality they constantly distance themselves from, they start talking about the important task of building this place.
Hava: When you say, “give up the aesthetic aspect”, after saying they’re actually clinging to the historical, the utopian, it seems that giving up the aesthetic aspect is to some extent giving up the present.
We’re supposedly here, in the here and now, and actually we’re constantly turning our gaze backward and forward. The image of Rachel’s Tomb is a historical image but at the same time also a utopic image because that’s the history we return to.
Gaston: But the teachers at “Old Bezalel” described a utopic reality, didn’t they? How are the new images different from those from Bezalel, where there was also a utopic reality?
Hava: Yes, there was something utopic in the depictions of Rachel’s Tomb at “Old Bezalel”, but it was a Zionist utopia; and while it was full of religious elements, it was embodied in the picture of the idyllic landscape itself: the utopia is the return to the Land of the Bible. The image of Rachel’s Tomb in the present appears with additional elements, like the logo of the yeshiva there, wrapped in a Torah scroll, and the verse “The children shall return to their own borders”. In other words, we’re returning to the site and coming full historical circle by divine will. The leaflets handed out at the site carry the same image of the tomb building next to a tree, with the addition of birds and a brilliant light erupting from the sky above. This is a common iconography of redemption images in diverse religious contexts around the world. In contrast with the images of “Old Bezalel”, the drama isn’t only on the earth, but in the heavens as well.
This image is possibly a kind of answer to the question you asked: how can you, and why do you, choose to live under a concrete wall? But the gaze isn’t turned in that direction, the gaze is directed towards the past, which is projected onto the imagined future.
And living there is a kind of step towards that vision.
Gaston: Yes. Did you know that on the wall, in the settlement enclosure, they recently hung some posters with photographs depicting the settlement enclosure, and the stages of its development. The final stage is by 2028.
In these images, too, I’m constantly impressed by this clinging to the image, to what was and what will be, rather than to the reality of the present.
Hava: And in the process they skip over the present. Skipping over the present is not only ignoring the conditions I’m currently living in, it’s also skipping over the cost of what I’ve chosen to do.
A few meters away there’s a checkpoint where people crowd together every morning, mainly Palestinian laborers from the West Bank going to work in Jerusalem.[6] The proximity between Rachel’s Tomb and the reality of the checkpoint, and between the utopia in the image of the settlement and the dystopia of the checkpoint, stand in stark contrast. On the one hand, the gaze towards utopia, which the image of Rachel’s Tomb expresses, is perhaps one of the means that enable the Israelis there to not see the present: not of the Palestinians at the checkpoint, and not of those taking refuge in the shadow of this image, of the settlers themselves who live in caravans at the foot of the wall. On the other hand, we’ve both seen the attempts to domesticate the place. For instance, the children in the settlement drew grass and flowers at the foot of the wall, what one of the inhabitants described as a nice activity for the children.
There’s synthetic grass in the settlement, a playground, and some attempts at gardening outside the homes. There’s an attempt in this little corner to create something homelike, and perhaps resists just a little the blatant lack of aesthetics of the wall surrounding it. Ultimately, people can’t really give up the present and a sense of home, not just the Third Temple of the prophesy, but also the home you come back to every day and where you raise your children.
Gaston: You can see the settlement enclosure at Rachel’s Tomb as part of a routine system, where you take a historically or religiously charged place, and use it to expand boundaries, territory, in order to enter a new place – in this case, Bethlehem. When you’re there, you get the impression that there’s a kind of super-architect who thinks about these things – we’re here, we’re living here, under these conditions, and we’re sacrificing our lives because the very legitimacy for us to be there for religious reasons is what will also enable us to grow and expand and go and live in Bethlehem. If I go back to the first question, what draws me so strongly to this place, it’s that when I go there, I constantly witness encounters between the historical and the future. I recognize the ambition, how they’d like this place to grow and develop.
Hava: In other words, although this place has its peculiarities, there’s actually a pattern here. It’s not just the place, it’s a pattern we can see in the City of David for instance, which is also in a process of expanding beyond the archeological site to its surroundings in Silwan. Beyond all the legal issues and the mechanisms that will facilitate it, part of it is also the creation of an image that embodies a picture of the past and the future.
It can be seen very clearly in the City of David: not only the place, but the image of the place as it was in the days of David and Solomon, or as those who are creating it would like it to look. So, for example, the tourist maps of the site are a mix of existing and imagined topography. Under the auspices of this image, it’s possible to expand, it conveys the message that what’s here right now is the current reality, but in its essence it’s different, in its past it’s different, and that’s the appropriate picture of the place, and what we’re aspiring to. The image creates a kind of mental picture of what we’d like to do, where we’d like to go. But what’s very interesting in the dynamics of Rachel’s Tomb and other sites we’ve mentioned is that the image doesn’t only say, “Let’s leave the present for a moment and see how it should be here”, but it gazes back at us in the form of plans for the place.
When we see that synthetic grass and the flowers drawn on the wall, it’s an attempt, perhaps, to close the gap between the brutal reality and the utopian image. As in the City of David, not only has the image grown, but the idyllic nature of the site is also growing in light of the image: olive trees are being planted, and music, supposedly of David’s lyre, is played. In fact, the image not only creates an alternative picture of reality, but also dictates what should be. And what should be there is a correction of the supposedly defective present.
And what’s defective at Rachel’s Tomb is that there’s a wall there. Palestinian Bethlehem is also a kind of defect, according to this view, that needs to be corrected. And this correcting will be achieved by the actions we perform here in the present, which will gradually create a Jewish Israeli presence in Bethlehem, at the expense of Palestinian presence.
Within this pattern, the visual image and the expansion that’s developed in its light, comes at the expense of the present, and the everyday life of the people themselves becomes entirely secondary to the big picture, “The Big Story”.
Gaston: I wonder if on the other side of the wall, the Bethlehem side, too, gaps can be observed between reality and imagination, fantasy.
Hava: Beyond the wall, on the Bethlehem side, about half a kilometer east of Rachel’s Tomb, you can see another attempt to rise above reality in the form of “Our Lady of the Wall” near Emmanuel Monastery. It’s a mural of an icon of the Virgin Mary, painted in 2010 by British iconographer Ian Knowles who has an icon workshop in Bethlehem, which was commissioned by local nuns and Christians. Mary is depicted in her traditional image as the Mother of God, with halo and cloak, and the fields of Bethlehem in the background. Local devotees and a few pilgrims – due to fears of coming too close to a place that’s considered dangerous – come and sing psalms devoted to the Virgin Mary, rosaries in hand.[7]
The image of Rachel on one side of the wall, a kind of mother that people come to pray to, and of Mary on the other side, also as a kind of mother that people come to pray to, looks out at the residents of Bethlehem beyond the wall. Like the images of Rachel’s Tomb on the other side, here, too, the gilded image, with graffiti on either side of it, stands in extreme contrast to the wall and fences and cameras and all the other signs of the occupation surrounding it; in the shadow of an array of control mechanisms, the icon constitutes a means to claim ownership of and belonging to the place.[8]
Gaston: That’s right. And on the other hand, the image of Rachel is absent Rachel. There’s no human depiction of Rachel on the Jerusalem side of the wall, but rather an image of a tomb.
Hava: Exactly. There’s possibly a mental image of her.
Gaston: And another difference is the different power relations. Israel built the wall as a fait accompli, and it has a huge impact on the lives of the Palestinians, and consequently the meaning of the image is different. Miriam appears here as a Palestinian symbol of survival, she’s a kind of martyr.
Hava: The icon is also a kind of gesture by a Western artist who came to live in Bethlehem, and the icon of Miriam on the wall with her face to the Palestinians is a kind of message of hope and compassion.
On the Israeli side, a group of settlers who are working hand-in-hand with the Israeli authorities that enable their life there, and protect them, and this image is not an image of helplessness; on the contrary, it’s an image of strength and power. An image that says: we’re shaping reality.
I think we should also distinguish between the people of the yeshiva and the worshipers at Rachel’s Tomb. Maybe how the way to get there has been engineered is also an act of power. But I think the women who come to pray at Rachel’s Tomb have similar sentiments, the presence of Rachel is the presence of a protective mother who’s attentive to the hardships in the lives of the praying women.
Gaston: Exactly, what you’re saying shows the delicate seepage from arriving at the site for ritual purposes, to arriving at a political place, both at the icon and at Rachel’s Tomb.
The devotee comes because she wants her prayers to be heard, but when she gets there – not her as a human being, as an individual in this world – the entire “set”, even the visual, leads us to the political place. I came here for the icon, but there’s something beyond the icon, and that takes me to reality again, to the incredibly dramatic connection such places between religious reality and political reality.
Hava: I don’t think it follows immediately; I think it’s simultaneous.
Gaston: Concurrent.
Hava: In this regard, there’s a dynamic here that’s characteristic of pilgrimages that have always been a political act as well: from “below” – when movement and prayer at Rachel’s Tomb or the Tomb of the Virgin Mary in Jerusalem are also expressions of a sense of belonging or even appropriation – and also from “above”,[9] by those who have a vested interest in pilgrimages, in this movement. The same applies to the tourists who come to the site ostensibly because this particular place interests them, but it’s clear that there are also those who want to develop this place for economic or political reasons. That’s why the distinctions nowadays between tourism and pilgrimage are very blurred, and are often considered one category. Here, too, the worshipers, whether willingly or unwillingly, are part of a movement that has immense political significance of normalizing the site located between walls and fences and security guards.
Consequently, expanding Jewish prayer at the site, and the busses and events and branding of the site, are all part of the attempt to assimilate the site, which is outside Jerusalem’s municipal jurisdiction – in West Bank territory, and in effect in Bethlehem – as an inseparable part of Israel. This is also appropriation of the site exclusively to Judaism. In this regards it resembles additional holy sites, like the Cave of the Patriarchs, and King David’s Tomb on Mount Zion, where there’s been a migration of traditions over the years; at times they functioned as shared spaces, and are now being appropriated as exclusively Jewish-Israeli sites.
Gaston: But there’s also a history of Christian and Muslim rituals, and this image also appears on Palestinian stamps as a national Palestinian symbol.[10] There’s a series of stamps featuring images of holy sites, such as Dome of the Rock, Tower of David, and Rachel’s Tomb. Following the Oslo Accords, the Palestinian Authority established a postal authority and started printing stamps. One of the interesting series from that period is based on a series from the British Mandate period. The Palestinians took the image of the original stamp bearing Rachel’s Tomb, for instance, and printed it on a new, Palestinian stamp.
Hava: In this respect, there’s a history here of attempts at national appropriation of what had at times served as a shared space.
Gaston: What you’re saying takes me back to the beginning of our conversation, when I said, what don’t you see there? You don’t see the historical building, the tomb itself, the dome that’s so strongly identified with the historical building, you don’t see any population other than a Jewish population, and again this separation. Compared to Hebron, the situation is more “advanced”, the Jewish settlement has already been established. On the other hand, Cave of the Patriarchs is a place that serves Muslims and Jews, and at Rachel’s Tomb the place only serves Jews. So, in some way, Hebron is a model for settlement at Rachel’s Tomb, and Rachel’s Tomb itself…
Hava: …is a model for Cave of the Patriarchs and the Jewish community in Hebron.
Gaston: In terms of vision they’ve already progressed, they’ve managed to disconnect it from other religions by means of the wall, in fact they’ve already achieved full appropriation.
Hava: Yes. So actually, Rachel’s Tomb is drawing a picture of the future for us, not only in its utopic meaning, but also in the direction in which these political moves are leading. And it’s all being done with strong means and from several directions: military, security, settlement, religious, and visual. Multiple channels executing the vision of Greater Israel.
Gaston: I’m returning to the place of the photograph and the gaze. In fact, it’s not just the place of the photograph from which I gaze at the site more broadly, but also the connection between gaze and a place of ritual, a religious place; a place of prayer is a place that’s supposed to be without borders, a symbol of the infinite. On the other hand, as soon as you get to the enclosure, even before you get there, when you pass through the guard post and turn right at the end of Hebron Road, you immediately feel restricted. In other words, you’re not in the infinite. This affects me very strongly, the disparity between the spiritual place that’s meant to allow you a kind of infiniteness, and the fact that you’re in a place with clear and harsh boundaries.
This reminds me that one day, about three years ago, I was traveling on Hebron Road towards Checkpoint 300. When you drive all the way to the end, there’s a big gate that the army uses when it goes into Bethlehem. It’s actually the end of Hebron Road, and when I reach the end, I’m used to seeing the closed, sealed area.
That day, as I drove, I noticed that the gate was slightly ajar! I clearly remember the feeling, physically, I suddenly felt there was a little air; I remember experiencing a different, unfamiliar sensation. That’s what I mean when I say there’s a claustrophobic experience here. I ask myself how can you experience such claustrophobia and be in a state of prayer, of infinity?
Hava: Yes. But maybe it actually goes together – in one respect, the Palestinians’ prayer after they pass through the checkpoint in the morning, in the inconceivable crowding, and the Jews’ prayer at Rachel’s Tomb, are similar; it’s this closing off that embodies the highly restricted maneuvering space you have in reality that also turns the prayer into a breath of fresh air.
Gaston: Yes, but there’s a difference.
A Palestinian laborer, who’s in survival mode from the outset, gets up at three-thirty, four o’clock in the morning and starts the arduous journey to the checkpoints, which includes walking, driving, standing, security inspections, not to mention more extreme things, and after all that he prays. And maybe after everything he endures, praying is the moment that can possibly release him from reality; in contrast with those who pray at Rachel’s Tomb, who can reach the site safely and with relative ease, not after standing at a checkpoint, without having to sneak in. As the site becomes established, it creates a safe, comfortable reality for Jewish worshipers that hadn’t existed before.
Hava: I think the broader aspect that this resembles, which is clearly evident in this fortified space, is that in prayer and religious outlook, in the name of which people cling to this place, there’s something that transcends actual reality and its physical conditions.
You asked if it’s even possible to resolve this contradiction between a fenced place that’s so restricted physically, and infinity. Maybe there’s a possible answer here. When we were there, one of the things that jarred me, or surprised me, was that besides the images there are also verses about Rachel’s death, her burial, and about Jacob setting a pillar on her grave, “That is the pillar of Rachel’s grave unto this day” (Book of Genesis, 35:20). These verses that identify the site as a holy biblical place are inscribed on a plaque resembling a parchment scroll – in Hebrew, in Torah-scribe letters, and translated into English. The display of the seminal text on the walls of the site serves as proof, characteristic of holy sites, that this is the place. The powerful contrast between the concrete wall and the biblical verses encapsulates the contradiction in this place between the reality of military control and the religious ethos that justifies it.
Hava: And on that note… [laughs]
Gaston: We shall light a beacon.
Hava: Yes [laughs].
Gaston: You weren’t asked to this year?
[1] Aus Dankbarkeit und zur Erinnerung von den Obersterreicher Pilgern in das Heiligen Land.
Gil Weissblei, “Photographic Testament: 100 Years of History at Rachel’s Tomb”, Blog of The Librarians: The National Library of Israel, 25.06.2017.
[2] Nadav Shragai, “The Story of Rachel’s Tomb”, Shearim Publications, 2005, 52-60.
[3] Glenn Bowman, “A Weeping on the Road to Bethlehem: Contestation Over the Uses of Rachel’s Tomb”, Religion Compass, 7(3), 2013.
[4] Anthropologist Nurit Stadler discusses Rachel’s Tomb as belonging to the type of women’s holy sites, such as the Tomb of the Virgin Mary in the Valley of Jehoshapat, and the Tomb of Rachel, Wife of Rabbi Akiva, which resemble wombs, a kind of “womb tomb”.
Nurit Stadler, “Appropriating Jerusalem Through Sacred Places: Disputed Land and Female Rituals at the Tombs of Mary and Rachel”, Anthropological Quarterly, n.d., 725-58; Nurit Stadler and Nimrod Luz, “The Veneration of Womb Tombs Body-Based Rituals and Politics at Mary’s Tomb and Maqam Abu al-Hijja (Israel/Palestine)”, Journal of Anthropological Research, 70(2) (2016); Nurit Stadler, Voices of the Ritual: Devotion to Female Saints and Shrines in the Holy Land, Oxford University Press, 2022.
[5] Yoram Elmakias, “In the Fields of Bethlehem: Bethlehem and Rachel’s Tomb in Zionist Consciousness”, Judea and Samaria Research Studies, 26(1), 2016, 101-120.
[6] Situated at the northern edge of Bethlehem, the checkpoint (officially, Rachel’s Checkpoint) is staffed around the clock by the army, Border Police, and private security companies. It is classified as a “terminal”, and Palestinians are not allowed to cross into Jerusalem unless they hold entry permits into Israel, or are residents of East Jerusalem. Israeli tourist buses are allowed to enter Bethlehem only through this crossing (according to the websites of MachsomWatch and B’Tselem).
https://machsomwatch.org/he/node/52652 https://www.btselem.org/hebrew/freedom_of_movement/checkpoints_and_forbidden_roads
[7] Nurit Stadler, Voices of the Ritual, 120-124. See also the iconography of the icon and the ritual surrounding it as an expression of hope, faith, connection to the land, resistance, hopes of dismantling the wall, and peace: Stadler, 125-128.
[8] According to Nurit Stadler, “From the perspective of the ritual, the icon of Mary is another form or public space to claim the lands”: Stadler, 125.
[9] Nurit Stadler, Voices of the Ritual.
[10] The antechamber at Rachel’s Tomb is also identified by Muslims as Bilal bin Rabah Mosque, named after the Ethiopian slave who served as the Prophet Mohammed’s first muezzin, and was killed in Syria during the wars of Islam. According to Nadav Shragai, after the Western Wall Tunnel riots in 1996, this identification served the Palestinian Authority in appropriating the tomb enclosure, and later in Muslim claims of exclusivity over Rachel’s Tomb. Nadav Shragai, “The Story of Rachel’s Tomb”, 231-249.