With Her Dead Baby in Her Arms, Sarah Renewed Jewish Burial in Hebron
Weekly cultural activity, under the orchestration of the Women in Green movement, continues at Shdema.
This past Friday, February 15, dozens of supporters of the settlement enterprise gathered for a lecture delivered at Shdema, this time by Sarah Nachshon, the wife of the painter Baruch Nachshon, and one of the leaders of the community of Kiryat Arba-Hebron. After the end of her lecture, in which Sarah told of the struggles of the beginnings of settlement in Kiryat Arba-Hebron, the participants planted five trees in memory of the five members of the Fogel family, may the L-rd avenge them, on the second anniversary of their murder.
In her lecture Nachshon told the story of the moving and heroic struggle that led to the opening of the Cave of Machpelah for Jewish prayer and events.
The couple came to Hebron upon the recommendation of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, who told them to live in the City of the Patriarchs, specifically. When their first son was born, Sarah led the subterfuge that enabled her to have her son’s brit milah – to bring him into the covenant of Abraham – in the Cave of Machpelah – all while the official announcement said that the circumcision had been conducted in the Military Administration building, and while the large crowd that had assembled waited there, the brit milah was secretly conducted in the Cave of Machpelah. The guests received with understanding and joy the report that the brit milah had been conducted, albeit without them, in the Cave of Machpelah.
When their second son was born, the Nachshons came with their infant son to the Cave of Machpelah, where they began the circumcision ceremony. The local commander arrived in the middle of the event and ordered the immediate cessation of the event, so as not to harm the feelings of the Arabs. With no other choice, the participants were forced to continue the brit milah ceremony in the adjoining building, the “Settlers Restaurant”.
Five months later, the infant died in a tragic case of crib death. Nachshon decided to bury him in the ancient Jewish cemetery of Hebron. The Defense Minister at the time, Moshe Dayan, absolutely refused, but this refusal did not deter her from her original intent.
Nachshon came to the cemetery with her dead infant, and with a large crowd following her. The military commander there could not halt the funeral procession and the burial in the cemetery. Nachshon’s infant was the first of the Jews to be buried in the ancient cemetery in modern times.
After they heard this moving story, the participants went out, still with tears in their eyes from emotion, to plant memorial trees on the hill opposite the gate of the community of Elazar , in memory of the members of the Fogel family.
During the course of the planting event, the participants received word that Arabs and extreme leftist activists and anarchists had gathered at one of the entrances to nearby Efrat.
The heads of Women in Green, Yehudit Katsover and Nadia Matar, sum up the events and draw a connection between them: “In the morning we received a reminder from Sarah Nachshon that Eretz Israel is acquired only through struggles, establishing facts on the ground, self-sacrifice, and exceptional activity. So it was in the 1970s, and so it is now.”
The two add that “now, when Barack Obama is on his way to Israel, and the pressure on the State of Israel to make further concessions is increasing, we give a reminder with these plantings in memory of the Fogel family, may the Lord avenge them, who are the people with whom they want us to make peace, people whose entire goal is to murder us and remove us from our land. The only solution is a return to the basic Zionist vision, taking hold of the land, plantings, and the application of sovereignty over the entire area.”
for details:
Yehudit Katsover – 050-7161818, Nadia Matar – 050-5500834
ihuditk@gmail.com nmatar@netvision.net.il
the movement for Israel’s Tomorrow-Women in Green
www.womeningreen.org