The Digital Ark: Early Modern Collections of Curiosities in England and Scotland, 1580-1700
Rachel's Tomb
Bethlehem (Settlement), Israel
View Larger MapDescription of institution: Rachel's Tomb is a site revered as the burial place of the Biblical matriarch Rachel. The site is also referred to as the Bilal bin Rabah mosque. The tomb is held in esteem by Jews, Christians, and Muslims.[4] The tomb, located at the northern entrance to the Palestinian city of Bethlehem, next to the Rachel's Tomb checkpoint, is built in the style of a traditional maqam, Arabic for shrine.[5]
The burial place of the matriarch Rachel as mentioned in the Jewish Tanakh, the Christian Old Testament and in Muslim literature[6] is contested between this site and several others to the north. Although the site is considered by some scholars as unlikely to be the actual site of the grave,[4] it is by far the most recognized candidate.[7] The earliest extra-biblical records describing this tomb as Rachel's burial place date to the first decades of the 4th century CE. The structure in its current form dates from the Ottoman period, and is situated in a Christian and Muslim cemetery dating from at least the Mamluk period.[8][9][10] When Sir Moses Montefiore renovated the site in 1841 and obtained the keys for the Jewish community,[9] he also added an antechamber, including a mihrab for Muslim prayer, to ease Muslim fears.[11][12] According to Genesis 35:20, a mazzebah was erected at the site of Rachel's grave in ancient Israel, leading scholars to consider the site to have been a place of worship in ancient Israel.[13][14][15] According to Martin Gilbert, Jews have made pilgrimage to the tomb since ancient times.[16] According to Frederick Strickert, the first historically recorded pilgrimages to the site were by early Christians, and Christian witnesses wrote of the devotion shown to the shrine "by local Muslims and then later also by Jews"; throughout history, the site was rarely considered a shrine exclusive to one religion and is described as being "held in esteem equally by Jews, Muslims, and Christians".[4] Though Rachel's Tomb has been a common site of Jewish pilgrimage since the twelfth century, in the modern era, a cult with uniquely Rachel elements developed. In contemporary Jewish society it is now considered the third holiest site in Judaism[17][18][19][20] and has become one of the cornerstones of Jewish-Israeli identity.[21]
Following a 1929 British memorandum,[9] in 1949 the UN ruled that the Status Quo, an arrangement approved by the 1878 Treaty of Berlin concerning rights, privileges and practices in certain Holy Places, applies to the site.[22] According to the 1947 United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine, the tomb was to be part of the internationally administered zone of Jerusalem, but the area was ruled by Jordan, which prohibited Jews from entering the area.[23] Following the Israeli occupation of the West Bank in 1967, the site's position was formalized in 1995 under the Oslo II Accord in a Palestinian enclave (Area A), with a special arrangement making it subject to the security responsibility of Israel.[1] In 2005, following Israeli approval on 11 September 2002, the Israeli West Bank barrier was built around the tomb, effectively annexing it to Jerusalem; Checkpoint 300 – also known as Rachel's Tomb Checkpoint – was built adjacent to the site.[24][1][25][26] A 2005 report from OHCHR Special Rapporteur John Dugard noted that: "Although Rachel's Tomb is a site holy to Jews, Muslims and Christians, it has effectively been closed to Muslims and Christians."[27] On October 21, 2015, UNESCO adopted a resolution reaffirming a 2010 statement[28] that Rachel's Tomb was: "an integral part of Palestine."[29] On 22 October 2015, the tomb was separated from Bethlehem with a series of concrete barriers.[30] URL:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rachel%27s_Tomb