After more than two decades of planning, bureaucratic hurdles and court petitions filed by opponents, the Jewish Community of Hebron is on the cusp of laying the foundations for 31 new housing units in the city’s historic Hezekiah Quarter.

The project also includes plans for several kindergartens, public parks and a dormitory.

The Civil Administration’s Higher Planning Council announced preliminary approval for the project back in 2017, with the Israeli Cabinet giving final approval the following year. The construction represents the first major Jewish construction in the H2 section of Hebron in 23 years.

The Hebron Protocol of 1997 signed by Israel and the PLO divided the city into two sectors: H1, controlled by the Palestinian Authority, and H2, roughly 20 percent of the city, under Israeli military administration. The protocol has never been ratified by either of the contracting parties.

Around 1,000 Jews live in the area of Hebron under Israeli jurisdiction.

Uri Karzen, director general of the Jewish community in Hebron, home to over 100 families, told the Tazpit Press Service that the ground has been cleared. The Civil Administration’s team of archeologists under the auspices of the Israel Antiquities Authority has completed its mandatory inspections, and building should commence in the next few months, he said.

Karzen, along with the other leaders of the community, doesn’t consider the new apartments as simply housing units, but views them as a symbol of a nearly 200-year-old historic effort to reclaim the area, as it changed hands under various governments but is now back in the hands of its Jewish owners.

“The significance of this project is the fact that we are redeeming Jewish land in Hebron,” he said. “It’s the essence of the Jewish people returning to Israel.

“This land switched hands many times over the past 150 years, from Turkish control to the British, then the Jordanians and finally Israel. It’s gone through so much. But finally, Israel is able to move forward and develop the area and strengthen our presence in the holy city of Hebron,” Karzen said.

The Arc of History

Yishai Fleisher, the international spokesperson for the Jewish Community of Hebron, told TPS, “The amazing tenacity of the Jewish people in an arc of history which spans over 200 years to redeem a piece of property in Hebron shows—as opposed to what our enemies claim—our deep, unabated connection to the city of our forefathers and mothers.

“Our enemies try to frame our presence in Hebron as an occupation and ‘white colonialization.’ Nothing could be further from the truth. The Jewish connection to Hebron is over 3,800 years old. The Hezekiah Quarter will house Jewish families who will grow and thrive in the city until such a time as Jewish rights in Hebron will be enshrined once again,” he said.

“We have at times been an ethnic majority in the city and other times like today an ethnic minority but our indigenous, historic and spiritual connection cannot be denied,” Fleisher said.

Noam Arnon, the longtime Hebrew-language spokesperson for the Jewish community, whose doctoral thesis from Bar-Ilan University is titled “The Tomb of the Patriarchs: From Origins to Late Antiquity,” told TPS he was issuing a call for Jewish families to come and live in one of the new housing units in the project, on the land which was liberated.

“It is not every day that one is given the opportunity to continue a 4,000-year-old historical enterprise,” he said.

“It’s not every day that a person has the opportunity to participate in a unique and innovative opportunity: building a Jewish home in Hebron, the city of our ancestors, where the builders are the buyers and the owners, where you can own a home and private property that you can pass down to your children and grandchildren, just a few minutes away from the Cave of the Patriarchs, the estate of our fathers and mothers, the oldest Jewish piece of property in the world. Don’t miss this opportunity!” Arnon said.

Image - Gershon Elinson/Flash90