(As these words are being written, Monday, 7 Kislev, a battle wages at Rachel's Tomb and on the roads near Bethlehem. Last night Arabs attempted to overrun Rachel's Tomb, determined to add the grave of our beloved Matriarch to their new list of mosques.  With God's help, the Jewish people are more determined to protect Rachel Our Matriarch and keep a strong hold on her burial place. May Hashem strengthen our efforts.)

Flashback - only a few short weeks ago. Dusk on the road to Bethlehem. The sky is a frenzied mixture of blues and whooshing clouds. It is an evening uncharacteristic of those before and after it - there is no shooting this night near Rachel's Tomb.  Crowds of people have gathered only a few hundred meters from the burial place of our cherished Rachel to call upon the government to reopen Rachel's Tomb to its previous 24 hour a day schedule, and to provide security for those who travel on the roads - at the Betar junction, on the Etzion Bloc highway and in tunnel just minutes from the site.  On a podium in the middle of Bethlehem Road stand the Chief Rabbis of Gilo, Keneset Members Rabbi Benny Elon and Zevulun Orlev, former Israeli Parliamentarian and founder of the yeshiva at Rachel's Tomb, Rabbi Hanan Porat, and mayors and representatives of the Etzion Bloc of communities, Efrat, Betar and Hebron area. Rabbi Benny Elon, his imposing silhouette, is recognizable even as the night falls, explains the Jewish people are so distraught over the closure of Rachel's Tomb: "The Sephardim call this place 'Rachel Emainu,' ('Rachel Our Mother') the Ashkenazim, 'Mama Rachel.' This is our mother, not a grave. It is alive. People who don't understand our roots understand nothing."

Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Gilo Rav Eliyahu Schlesinger explains, "Every Friday since the Oslo Accords, the Gilo residents have come on Shabbat evenings to pray the afternoon service here to say 'Shabbat Shalom I'Ema' "Shabbat Shalom, Mother."  Now from 'Shabbat Shalom', we are left with only 'Shabbat.' The government has separated the children from our mother." Despite the frequent battles at the site, Rachel's Tomb is not totally closed to Jews. [What will happen following the current heavy fighting is not known at this time. May God protect!] Rabbi Hanan Porat credits Parliamentarian Rabbi Menachem Porush for playing a central part in the struggle to keep Rachel's Tomb and the road to the site in Jewish hands and the Cave of the Patriarchs remains open every day. Due to their merit, the merit of these righteous women, the yeshiva at Rachel's Tomb is open again, the students were able to return to learning there, and the Jewish people can once again pray in Rachel's Tomb."  Only a block away from the Gilo-Bethlehem junction, where the crowd has gathered, the women of the Hebron community take turns occupying protest tents that they say will remain until Kever Rachel is open, not three hours a day, but all day long, as it was before the Rosh Hashanah war began, a few short months ago.

On a floor of dirt and rock, two babies toddle around the "tent of Rachel Emainu." A crib stands in the corner next to a simple table holding religious books. Women from Hebron sit inside, talking about the current situation with visitors from all over.  Outside, bright yellow signs point the way to Rachel's Tomb, others announce times for prayer at Kever Rachel or the checkpoint nearby, and still others quote verses relating to Rachel from Tanach. The traffic whizzes by - one way to the Etzion Bloc and Hebron, and the other to the Malcha Shopping Mall. But inside the tent, the thoughts are aimed in one direction only: Rachel's Tomb.

With strollers and high chairs pushed out of the way, the day's residents sit together. Women from different communities drop by - giving support, food, and donations to keep the project going while the women of Hebron take turns "manning" the tent. The one constant is Rabanit Miriam Levinger.

A leader of the struggle to return to Hebron in 1968, a "resident" of Beit Hadassah in 1979, and today a member of the Avraham Avinu community with her husband, Rabbi Moshe Levinger, Rabanit Levinger is an inspiration to Hebron's residents and Jews everywhere who love Eretz Yisrael. At 62, Miriam Levinger should be enjoying the quiet life of a grandmother, but instead she is fighting the battle for Eretz Yisrael once more.

"I never was looking for another struggle. I only did this for Rachel Emainu. Logically I wouldn't believe I'd do something like this again, but I couldn't stand the thought of what might happen to Rachel's Tomb," Rabanit Levinger told VOICES. "After what happened at Joseph's Tomb and then the Jericho Synagogue, for me it was two and two makes four."

"How can it be," asked Rabanit Levinger, "that Rachel's Tomb - which is in an area under full Israeli jurisdiction, less than half a kilometer from Jerusalem, fortified to the hilt, with an Army base right near it - can be closed to the Jewish people? When I heard this, and listened to the Arabs speaking plainly on the radio, calling the burial place of our matriarch an Arab tomb, I began to fear that the government must have made a dealwith Arafat."

Although the Army has said that Rachel's Tomb is closed or its hours are limited because of shooting, Rabanit Levinger disagrees. 'So they're shooting there? They're shooting everywhere!  And in Hebron they're shooting all the time - day and night and Me'arat HaMachpelah (The Cave of the Patriarchs) is in the middle of the city surrounded by Area A [full Palestinian Authority jurisdiction], and yet private cars can come at all hours to the Cave. And there are buses that ao there nearly every hour."

As of this writing, thanks largely to the persistence of the women from Hebron, Rachel's Tomb is open daily with bullet proof buses taking visitors to pray at the site at 9, 10 and 11 AM. But the women of "Rachel's Tent" and their supporters agree that this is not enough.
 They began their struggle for continuous access to Rachel's Tomb a week before the yahrzeit, the anniversary of Rachel Emainu's death, in November. The women, including Rabanit Levinger's daughter and daughter, in-law, rented a bullet proof bus and tried to travel there. The Army wouldn't let the bus into Bethlehem. So since it was a quiet day, the women and children got off the bus and walked to Rachel's Tomb.
The soldiers stationed there, astonished at the sight of the mothers and children, opened the doors for them. They prayed and danced, and upon seeing the sorry state of an abandoned Rachel's Tomb, they might have been tempted to "pull a Beit Hadassah" and stay, but police quickly arrived to evict them.

Through the intervention of Parliamentarian Rabbi Yitzchak Levy and Rabbi Hanan Porat, the women left with the promise that there would be a commemoration on the anniversary of Rachel Emainu's death, her yahrzeit, on 11 Heshvan. "The day of the yahrzeit carne and there was nothing - no Rachel's Tomb, no commemoration.  Instead, there were roadblocks and violent behavior by the police toward women who tried to pass the roadblock."  Rabanit Levinger said.

The Hebron women, who were standing by the barrier nearest to Rachel's Tomb, had decided that they would not leave until her Tomb was opened once more. Long after others had gone home, Hebron's women remained. "We were ready to set up a tent right there on the road to Rachel's Tomb," Rabanit Levinger said, "But the police gave us this spot."

It was close to midnight. Immediately people came with pup tents, food, and first aid supplies. Members of the Gilo community have been good hosts - offering the tents, the use of their homes for showers, bringing food for Shabbat, joining their new neighbors for the 3rd Shabbat meal, and helping make the prayer quorum every morning at the roadblock.

Visitors come during the day - mornings are the busiest, and "residents" of the Tent of Rachel Our Matriarch would like women to visit in the afternoons, bring religious lessons & studies to learn there, or organize groups to say Psalms.

In the evenings, yeshiva boys sleep there and do guard duty. Rabanit Levinger said, "This project is really in the hands of the youngsters. In fact, my grandson did guard duty here recently."

So while the next generation - among them Rabanit Levinger's daughter, Yirat - are in charge, Rabanit Levinger remains to give support, do the daily shopping and act like a grandmother helping with the many babies in the tent.  Holding an infant on her lap. Rabanit Levinger noted, "I held her mother when she was a baby in Beit Hadassah."

Now, weeks after they took up residence in the tent town, Rabanit Levinger and the "youngsters" are still there. Did she think that when she slept there that first night, she'd still be in the tent more than a month later? "I'm used to this," she answered. "It's the third time around. The first was the military compound in Hebron. The second was Beit Hadassah. I know when you start these things, you don't know when you're going to finish."

"But," Rabanit Levinger explained, "Pirkei Avot says, '...Lo aleichem hamelacha ligmor,' ('...it is not up to you to finish the job'). We are doing what we know has to be done in order for us to continue living with ourselves. And whatever G-d wants, that's what's going to be in the end."

(The above was reprinted with permission from "Voices" from the Kislev 5761/December 2000 issue.  "Voices" is an independent, advertizer-supported newspaper distributed to the residents of the Greater Jerusalem area and Judea & Samaria.)