Sunday, August 22, 2010

Preparing to Rebuild Joseph's Tomb

 by Maayana Miskin

Chief Rabbis Shlomo Amar and Yona Metzger issued a joint call Thursday to rebuild Joseph's Tomb (Kever Yosef) in Samaria. The tomb, which contains the remains of the Biblical Joseph, has been seriously damaged by Palestinian Authority vandals.

The site is under PA control, and for most of the year is closed to Jewish worshippers. On select occasions Jews are allowed in to briefly say prayers under IDF guard. The number of worshippers is limited, and would-be visitors often wait months for their turn to pray at the holy site.

The tomb has been vandalized several times and periodically also set on fire since 2000, when Israel turned control of the city of Shechem over to the PA. In 2009 visitors arrived at the site to discover smashed headstones and swastikas painted on the walls.

Click here to read more

************

Joseph is the father of the British-Israelites.

My sojourn at Kibbutz Ramat Yohanan, where I served as a kibbutz volunteer for five months in 1982-1983, blessed me with memories to cherish a lifetime.