Kever Rachel Encaged by IDF; Does the Same Fate Await Rachel Imeinu as the Abandoned Kever Yosef?

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URGENT: “Stop The Encagement Of Rachel’s Tomb”, by Evelyn Haies, President Rachel’s Children Reclamation Foundation, and Beit Bnei Rachel Corp

Note: When pictures of the various recently erected walls encaging Kever Rachel arrive, they will be posted here. MB

Excerpts;

“On February 1, 2006, Shevat 3, Rachel’s Children Reclamation Foundation hosted a wonderful shiur at our house, Beit Bnei Rachel adjoining Kever Rachel by a corridor the army had us build on what we named Derech Chaya Rachel. Atara Gur spoke to a group of women about the Jewish Mother who was buried “on the way”. She spoke of Rachel’s ohel in Beis Lechem as a house of bread, provisions, family, unity as presented in a special Siddur Rachel Imeinu, compiled in 1911 by a Yerushalimi. It was sad and demeaning to have been blocked from traveling directly via Hevron Road as was the custom or Jewish Pilgims for 3600 years. It was inspiring and comforting to learn of Rachel’s midos and the prognosis for a better world.”

“On February 8, 2006, Shevat 10, our group returned for our weekly Wednesday, 10:10 Egged Bus ride to our 11 am shiur. It was shocking and brought tears to my eyes and pain in my heart and soul to find the corridor we built smashed and our houses disconnected from Kever Rachel and without access. The weekly shiurs by the women of Efrat in memory of Sarah Blaustein HYD and by the women of Bat Ayin as well as the kollel hosted in our house were not allowed as Beit Bnei Rachel was disconnected after five years. In the areas about Rachel’s Tomb, thirty foot cement walls encaged the once spacious landscape so famous in so many Jewish homes just a three minute walk to Gilo and so near Talpiot and Ramat Rachel.”

“There were walls with the cement from the Mahmoud Abbas’ cement factories, to the north, west and east and soon to be in the south, double walls, a tangled and strangling web of walls in the face of the Nathan Straus property purchased by this great benefactor and builder of Israel who survived the Titanic sinking in 1912 and with grateful philanthropy provided soup kitchens for the poor, centers for the sick and childcare. He bought this property in 1924 with great accolades from all Israel. His good deeds merited the town of Netanya as well Straus Street in Jerusalem named after him. There are walls in the middle of the Kalisher property bought by the pennies of those who suffered pogroms and may not have survived the Holocaust, their only memorials, used as a parking lot and then as a military base when Oslo brought Jihad to Bethlehem where so many have fled. Furthermore, there are walls possibly dividing my property, owned together with many Americans like the Jews worldwide who hold Kever Rachel so dear to their hearts.”

“The soldiers who live in our houses which will become a future Museum of Jewish Aliyah are disheartened by this destructive change. They explain that this is to save Kever Rachel from the fate of Kever Yosef but in fact it was the encagement and encroachments that led to the destruction of Joseph’s tomb. Militarily and obviously, the further apart we are from Jihad, the more secure. Our land goes back 375 feet from the road, the kever, the soldiers barracks and to reduce that distance is to put our IDF, tourists and worshipers in harm’s way.”

“As my supporters rally to my events at Kever Rachel and for Kever Rachel in America, and as my Senators Hillary Clinton and Charles Schumer, Congressmen, State and Local Legislators, Governor Pataki of New York and Mayor Michael Bloomberg have praised my work and it is five years since they inaugurated Jewish Mother’s Day on MarCheshvan 11 recognizing Rachel Imeuni as a model of the good ideology and a role model for the whole world, I have faith that these walls will come not to slice up Jewish owned property bought not for selfish purposes, but bought for the sake of the Jewish people and public good.”

“As Jeremiah 31 was quoted at the Memorial for the loss of the 2800 a week after the September 11, 2001 attack in the USA, Yirmiahu 31 is on our minds in Israel. Rachel is crying; she is pained by the encagement of her burial place of 3600 years; she is saddened by the sorrow and shame of her faithful children, visiting and crying no matter the self-imposed difficulties.”

“As Mother Rachel, Mother of Israel comforted the IDF who marched to free Israel after the Husseini massacres of 1929 and 1936 and the European Holocaust, let her not be encaged now. Let her love embrace us as only the Jewish self-sacrificing mother can.”

“As Rachel Imeinu was buried “on the way” to advocate for her children and the end of their hardships and exiles. Let us advocate for she who was called Mother Israel in times of distress and rally with Torah and simcha this Rosh Chodesh Adar so the walls will not encage the area so near to the large population of Jerusalem and the area that will be the most visited Jewish tourist site in Israel, the area about the holy site of the burial of Rachel Imeinu where so many over the centuries have seen their prayers answered and their dreams actualized.”

“For more details, or for media interviews, please contact Evelyn Haies, President of Rachel’s Children Reclamation Foundation at cellular # 050-856-3898.”