Nadene Goldfoot
(Image: Painting of the Cave of Machpela before King Herod's memorial ediface was built. Credit: Shmuel Mushnick)Judaism was remarkable besides saying to Polytheists that there was only ONE G-d in the universe, and that he was invisible and did not want statues or idols made in his name, but that it was telling us how to behave!
One thing of importance came from Abraham, the father of Judaism. When his wife, Sarah died, he needed to lay her aside in death and show care for her body that he loved so much, so what did he do? Now this was way back in the 2nd millennium BCE-over 4,000 years ago. He bought land with a cave on it, the Cave of Machpelah, which he would use as his family burial place. He would be buried there, too, and it would be a place where his children could be buried in.
At Hebron Abraham purchased the Cave of Machpelah (Hebrew: Meʿarat ha-Makhpelah) as a burial place for his wife, Sarah, from Ephron the Hittite (Genesis 23); this became a family sepulchre. According to tradition, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, with their wives Sarah, Rebekah, and Leah, were buried in the cave..
Sarah had lived for 127 years. She died in Kiriath-arba which is Hebron in the land of Canaan. He said to the people there in Hebron, "I am an alien and a resident among you: grant me an estate for a burial site with you, that I may bury my dead from before me."
They said to him, "Hear us, my lord: You are a prince of G0d in our midst; in the choicest of our burial places bury your dead, any of us will not withhold this burial place from you...
Now Ephron, the Hittite, was sitting in the midst of the children of Heth, I have given you the field, and as for the cave that is in it. I have given it to you....but Abraham answered back, "Rather, if only you would heed me! I give the price of the field, accept it from me, that I may bury my dead there."
And Ephron replied to Abraham, saying to him: "My Lord, heed me! Land worth 400 silver shekels; between me and you---what is it? Bury your dead.
This part of our Torah narrative reveals that Ephron's public generosity was a sham. Not only had he no intention of making a gift, he hypocritically implied to Abraham that he expected an outrageously high price. The righteous say little but do much, but the wicked promise much and perform not even a little. They would offer to anoint with oil from an empty flask.
Abraham re-married and his 2nd wife was Keturah.
Abraham died at the age of 175 and was buried in the cave of Machpelah. This act of buying the land laid down the foundation that whatever the reason for a need of land, one buys it if it belongs to someone else first.
Jews did this when they returned to their Jewish Homeland, Judah, the land of the largest of the 12 tribes which was at the southern end of Israel. This was over 2,000 years later after Abraham's life, and still Jews knew in the 1880s onward that their return from exile meant they need to buy the land back. They had been reading their Torah, their Tanakh, which included more than the Torah every Shabbat on Saturday, and were reminded. Besides that, they did their best to follow Moses's 613 laws, many of which came inadvertently to them anyway, but such things as buying and not taking land was right there for all to see.
Abraham could not feel secure that their remains would be safe if he did not own the land such as Ephron had owned the land, for Abraham had left Ur, and whatever conditions that was under, he and his family were seeking better lives. Having title to the land said that you were the landowner.
"And Abraham hearkened unto Ephron; and Abraham weighed to Ephron the silver, which he had named in the hearing of the children of Heth, four hundred shekels of silver, current money with the merchant.
So the field of Ephron, which was in Machpelah, which was before Mamre, the field, and the cave which was therein, and all the trees that were in the field, that were in all the border thereof round about, were made sure unto Abraham for a possession in the presence of the children of Heth, before all that went in at the gate of his city.
And after this, Abraham buried Sarah his wife in the cave of the field of Machpelah before Mamre--the same is Hebron--in the land of Canaan. And the field, and the cave that is therein, were made sure unto Abraham for a possession of a burying-place by the children of Heth".
Mamre, full Hebrew name Elonei Mamre, refers to an ancient religious site originally focused on a single holy tree, growing since time immemorial at Hebron in Canaan. Talmudic sources refer to the site as Beth Ilanim or Botnah, where it was one of the three most important "fairs", or market places, in Judea.
The time had come when Jews found their exile so unbearable that they started returning to their ancient homeland, now called Palestine when the Ottoman Empire had included it in their domain and managed to hold it for 400 years. The Turks maintained order there, and made sure that residents paid their taxes. It was just wild untamed land and not someone's country. The name was still the Roman name of Palestine.
In the first half of the 19th century, no foreigners were allowed to purchase land in Palestine. This was official Ottoman policy until 1856 and in practice until 1867. When it came to the national aspirations of the Zionist movement, the Ottoman Empire opposed the idea of Jewish self-rule in Palestine, fearing it might lose control of Palestine after recently having lost other territories to various European powers. It also took issue with the Jews, as many came from Russia, which sought the empire's demise. Working on draining the many swamps
The land under the Ottomans were held by them during uncertain times of insecurity and oppression in the 17th and 18th centuries. There were incursions by marauding Bedouin tribes, internal strife between rival local alliances. The number of villages was reduced by half between the 16th to 19th centuries. At the beginning of the 19th century the population had dwindled and did not exceed 250,000.
In 1881 the Ottoman governmental administration (the Sublime Porte) decreed that foreign Jews could immigrate to and settle anywhere within the Ottoman Empire, except in Palestine and from 1882 until their defeat in 1918, the Ottomans continuously restricted Jewish immigration and land purchases in Palestine. In 1892, the Ottoman government decided to prohibit the sale of land in Palestine to Jews, even if they were Ottoman citizens. Jewish pioneers draining the Hulch.
In the 2nd half of the 19th century, Arabs and Jews and their communities began to grow. By 1914 the land west of the Jordan River had grown to about 680,000 of whom 85,000 were Jews. The attitude of the Ottoman administration was hostile and oppressive towards both Arabs and Jews. Life for those who had returned to the Land was a continuous ordeal, and the new villages survived precariously.
A neglected land, valued only to the Jews for its historical connections.
On 31 December 1944, out of 1,732.63 dunums of land owned in Palestine by large Jewish Corporations and private owners, about 44% was in possession of Jewish National Fund.
A dunam's legal definition was "forty standard paces in length and breadth", but its actual area varied considerably from place to place, from a little more than 900 m2 in Ottoman Palestine to around 2500 m2 in Iraq. Originally it was how much land that could be plowed in a day by a team of oxen.
Baron Edmond Rothschild was a millionaire and Jewish. He and his wife, Adelaide, were attached to Jewish religious traditions. The 1st Zionist pioneers in Palestine appealed to him in the early 1880s to save them from financial collapse. He supported Palestinian colonization unostentatiously and gradually taking under his protection all the new settlements, which would have had to be liquidated had it not been for his aid. He visited the land 5 times, in 1887, 1893, 1899, 1914, and 1925. Altogether, he bought 125,000 acres in Palestine and is to be credited with the settlement of the Galilee and Samaria. In his last years, he cooperated with Weizmann and Sokolow and in 1929 was the honorary president of the Jewish Agency. Rothschild and his wife were buried at Zikhron Yaacov in 1954.
The land on which Jewish towns and villages were settled was bought and paid for with due regard for Arab rights. The Arab community grew during those years by reason both of the economic prosperity brought about by Jewish immigration, and of Arab immigration which uncontrolled and unconditioned, was drawn to Palestine by its rapid development. Within 30 years the Arab population nearly doubled. This occurred AFTER the Brits had been given the 30 year mandate and told to HELP the Jews to create their Jewish Homeland. Instead, with the 2nd world war starting and Jews being the goal for death squads and they needing a place of refuse, their PROMISED LAND, were kept from it while the Arabs were allowed in.
Those who are obscene in their narrative of Jews stealing their land are not truth tellers, but trying to cover up the history and tell their own versions. It used to be that people were familiar with the story of David and Goliath, the giant, and connected the Jews as David and Goliath as the enemies of the Jews. Today the opposite has happened. People think of David being the Palestinians and Goliath as Israel. Even the fact that every war has been the many against one little country, Israel, and they still have warped memories of the facts.
The time is now, it has come. Egypt and Jordan and now 4 more Arab countries so far have accepted Israel's return and legitimacy in returning. Hallelujah! Let it Be in the name of Peace.
Resource:
Tanakh
http://en.hebron.org.il/history/598
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_land_purchase_in_Palestine
Facts About Israel 1973 version of book; published by the Division of Information, Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Jerusalem
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