A few days ago, someone posted the poem by poet Yitzhak Shalev, "I See
                                          Barricades," on one of the billboards in the town of Efrat, where last
                                          Thursday in  early morning hours the Tifferet Avot (Glory of the
                                          Patriarchs) synagogue was desecrated:."I see barricades rising again on the
                                          road to Efrata," wrote Shalev 12 years ago, after the signing of the Camp
                                          David agreements, "Ghost barricades arise from the land of 1948 / And I see a
                                          narrow opening, and a line where Jews wait / For the soldier's permission to come
                                          to Rachel's Tomb / And a green flag flies over the Tomb / And all the camps of
                                          Palestine are spread out in a battalion / And I hear again the voice, the voice of
                                          bitter weeping / Rachel is mourning her sons..."

                                          The "green flag" (of Islamic fundamentalism)  is not flying above Rachel's Tomb
                                          as yet, but except for that, Shalev's prophecies have been almost completely
                                          realized. Almost every night, shooting battles take place around the tomb
                                          compound. The IDF no longer allows Jews to visit, in spite of the fact that the
                                          compound, which is only 480 meters away from the area of Jerusalem's
                                          jurisdiction, as well as the road to it, are defined as Area C (complete Israeli
                                          control). The students of the yeshiva... are also not allowed to go the Tomb, which
                                          has become a forward outpost of the IDF.

                                          The anniversary of the death of Rachel will take place in another nine days,
                                          according to Jewish tradition, on the the 11th of Heshvan 5761 (November 9,
                                          2000). Porat and his friends are not willing to accept the decree, and have
                                          already made a formal request to the prime minister to allow them to hold a
                                          "mass prayer meeting, as is done every year," and "to take all necessary
                                          steps to guarantee the security of the worshipers."

                                          The Palestinians who shoot at the compound every day have already singled it out
                                          as the next Jewish holy site which they want to "liberate." Already last Yom
                                          Kippur the Palestinian Authority newspaper Al Hayyat al Jedida published an
                                          article entitled: "After the liberation of Joseph's Tomb - Can we liberate the Belal
                                          ibn Rabakh mosque? (the Arabic name for Rachel's Tomb).

                                          "Rachel's Tomb, or the Belal ibn Rabakh mosque," the article stated, " is
                                          one of the nails hammered into many Palestinian cities by the occupation
                                          governments and the Zionist movement. The outpost lies at the northern
                                          entrance to the town of Bethlehem. After the Oslo accords, the place became a
                                          military outpost surrounded by a beautiful marble wall, and a Jewish synagogue
                                          and other rooms were built ....

                                          "The Palestinians," reported Al Jedida, "affirm that this tomb is fake, and
                                          that it was originally a Muslim mosque ... until the occupation forces
                                          captured the Palestinian territories and considered the place to be Rachel's
                                          Tomb. The question is whether after the evacuation of Joseph's Tomb in
                                          Nablus, the Palestinians will succeed in forcing the occupation to evacuate
                                          Rachel's Tomb as well."

                                          In sermons given in the mosques, the mosque is also referred to as the next
                                          brick which must be removed from the Jewish-Zionist edifice, after Joseph's
                                          Tomb.

                                          IDF soldiers posted in the compound do not read Al Hayyat al Jedida, and
                                          they hear the muezzins only from a distance, but the comparison between
                                          Joseph's Tomb and Rachel's Tomb angers many of them. "Rachel is the mother.
                                          Joseph is the son," said one of the soldiers, sharing his feelings.
                                          "Joseph," added his friend, "is buried in Nablus, out of sight, out of mind.
                                          The place reserved here for Mother Rachel is entirely different from that
                                          which was reserved for the tomb of Joseph."

                                          An observant Jew, a resident of the nearby Gilo neighborhood, who tried on
                                          Friday to go to the compound in order to pray there, heard for the first
                                          time from the soldiers that the tomb has been closed already for several
                                          weeks. "And Rachel died, and was buried on the way to Efrat, which is
                                          Bethlehem," the man started reading from the book of Genesis, in front of
                                          the soldiers at the barricade. "And Jacob set a tombstone upon her grave,"
                                          the man continued, "that is the tombstone of Rachel's tomb to this day." The
                                          soldiers very politely followed orders. "You can't go through," they
                                          explained to him patiently. "They're shooting."

                                          After the Six-Day War, Rachel's Tomb was almost annexed to Jerusalem and
                                          included within the sovereign border of the State of Israel. Only a few
                                          hundred meters separate the barricade at the southern exit from the city and the
                                          site, which was sanctified by Jews for so many generations. Levi Eshkol, as prime
                                          minister in 1967, instructed his justice minister, Yaakov Shimshon Shapiro, to
                                          include the tomb within Jerusalem's new jurisdictional borders, and was angry
                                          when he discovered that his instructions had been ignored.

                                          In his book "Jerusalem, A City Without a Wall," Uzi Benziman writes that
                                          Shapiro considered the drawing of the borders a security issue only, and
                                          that in such matters he always relied on Defense Minister Moshe Dayan. Dayan
                                          did not want to include Rachel's Tomb within Jerusalem's boundaries. He was
                                          supported by Interior Minister Moshe Haim Shapiro, who thought that
                                          international sensitivity stemming from Israeli control of the Church of the Holy
                                          Sepulcher in the Old City was bad enough. Minister of Religious Affairs Zerah
                                          Wahrhaftig differed with them. He was not satisfied with Israeli control over the
                                          Church of the Holy Sepulcher, and wanted to transfer the Church of the Nativity
                                          in Bethelehem to Israeli control as well. In his opinion, the two places which are
                                          holy to the Christian world should be included within the borders of the State of
                                          Israel, "so that the Christian world would recognize [Israel's] importance.

                                          But the ministerial committee which discussed the issue rejected his view in
                                          favor of that of the ministers of justice and the interior. Only half a year
                                          after the Six-Day War did Eshkol discover that his request had not been
                                          honored, and that Rachel's Tomb had remained outside Jerusalem's borders.
                                          Upset at what had happened, Eshkol investigated why his instructions had not
                                          been carried out.

                                          Almost 30 years later, Rachel's Tomb was once again forgotten. The Israeli
                                          negotiating team for talks with the Palestinians had already agreed to
                                          include the tomb and its environs in the area of the city of Bethlehem,
                                          which has been transferred to the complete control of the Palestinian
                                          Authority. Only after the uproar raised by the religious parties, and
                                          frequent meetings on the issue held with late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin
                                          and with his successor Shimon Peres, were the Israeli negotiators ordered to
                                          take back the agreement. This change "cost" Israel other concessions, which the
                                          Palestinians demanded in exchange, but finally the tomb remained under Israeli
                                          control, with a road hundreds of meters long separating it from the Gilo barricade
                                          in the south of the city.

                                          The situation at Rachel's Tomb took on many different forms over the
                                          generations. "The Unknown Tourist from Bordeaux" mentions it in the year 333
                                          C.E., and a Christian tourist who visited the country in 670, tells of the
                                          tomb, which is in the form of a tombstone made of simple stones, without any
                                          ornamentation. Tourists in later generations tell of a tombstone made of 11
                                          stones, one for each of Jacob's sons, and above it a dome built on four
                                          columns. Another Jewish tourist, Rabbi Petahia, who passed through the
                                          country in 1180, describes it: "And on her tomb there are 11 stones, one for
                                          each tribe, and because Benjamin was not born until she died, there is no
                                          stone for him..."

                                          For several generations, the tombstone was under a round dome, built on four
                                          stone columns; only later did they build walls between the columns, which were
                                          surrounded by a small domed room, by special permission of the Turkish ruler of
                                          Jerusalem, Mohammed Pasha. In 1841, Sir Moses Montefiore received a permit
                                          to repair Rachel's Tomb, from the Turkish authorities, who recognized the place
                                          as the holy property of the Jews. At the entrance to the tomb a heavy iron door
                                          was built, and the key was entrusted to a Jewish sexton. The room surrounding
                                          the tombstone was renovated, and an additional room was built near the existing
                                          one. Thus Rachel's Tomb took on the shape which was familiar to us until a few
                                          years ago, before the wall was built around it.

                                          The inscription on Rachel's Tomb to this day testifies to the assistance
                                          given by Montefiore for renovation during that period: "The house which was
                                          built by the great minister in Israel Sir Moses Montefiore and his wife, the
                                          daughter of kings, Dame Judith, may they deserve to see our righteous
                                          Messiah." Twenty years later, a cistern was dug nearby, to allow the many
                                          visitors to the site to slake their thirst. After the Holocaust, the Chief
                                          Rabbinate of Israel put up a large menorah lamp, which was hung in front of
                                          the tombstone and which contained an "eternal light," which was dedicated,
                                          as written around the menorah: "To the elevation of the souls of tens of
                                          thousands of Jewish martyrs, who were destroyed by the cursed evildoers, may
                                          their name be erased, during the years 1939-1945."

                                          Charms, amulets and various prayers have been connected to Rachel's Tomb. To
                                          this day, their is a custom among women of circling the tomb with a red string.
                                          They believe that the string becomes sanctified because of its
                                          contact with the tombstone, and later they tie it on their neck or hand, as
                                          a charm against the evil eye and illnesses. Sacks filled with earth
                                          collected from around Rachel's Tomb were sold abroad during earlier
                                          generations, and Jews used to ask before their deaths that this earth be
                                          scattered around their graves. Pictures of the tomb were printed on coins,
                                          postcards, books and stamps, and rabbis designated special prayers to be
                                          said at the tomb. Many poems were written about Rachel's Tomb, and for
                                          generations Jews made great efforts to buy land there.

                                          During the first years of the Intifada, members of the Gush Etzion regional
                                          council managed to buy back ownership of about 10 dunams of Jewish-owned land
                                          near Rachel's Tomb, which had been taken over by Arabs. This is apparently land
                                          acquired by Nathan Strauss and Rabbi Zvi Kalischer during the last century. In
                                          Zev Vilnai's book "Holy Tombstones in the Land of Israel," these acquisitions
                                          are recorded. "Rachel's Tomb and the holiness of its environs," he wrote,
                                          "aroused among Jews already at the beginning of the Lovers of Zion movement,
                                          the desire to acquire property here and to settle on it. Through the intervention of
                                          Rabbi Zvi Kalischer, who was head of the Land of Israel Settlement committee,
                                          Rabbi Mordechai Yaffe managed to buy a plot of land near Rachel's Tomb."

                                          After almost being handed over to the Palestinians about five years ago, the
                                          tomb compound and the access road are now included within the boundaries of all
                                          the final agreement maps drawn by Israeli cartographers of every
                                          political persuasion. Even on Barak's map the tomb remains within Israel,
                                          and will be annexed to it

                                          (Translation courtesy of IMRA http://www.imra.org.il)