Jewish pilgrimage to Palestinian Jericho

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Jews visit Jericho (Photo: Alon Tuval)

By Matthew Bell

About 30 Jewish men gathered in an empty basement last week to pray and sing on the first day of the new Jewish month, at the tail end of the Chanukah holiday. It’s hardly a unique scene.

That is except for the location of this particular gathering.

These Jewish pilgrims had come to an ancient synagogue in the middle of the Palestinian-controlled city of Jericho, in the West Bank. Getting here required some careful coordination between the Israeli army and Palestinian security forces.

The Jewish pilgrims almost all of them men and many of them students from a Jerusalem Yeshiva, rode into Jericho in a bulletproof bus. The bus was accompanied by three Israeli armored vehicles and half-dozen Palestinian SUVs.

After arriving at the synagogue, Israeli and Palestinian soldiers eyed each other intensely. They didn’t mingle or speak a word to one another, as that’s not allowed. An Arab Israeli officer was in charge of all interaction with the Palestinians.

None of them would speak to me on tape.

But one Israeli officer was willing to chat a bit. He said this about his Palestinian counterparts: “we trust them, but we don’t trust them.”

Ari Zivotovsky, who came to pray, said he had got mixed feelings about seeing Israeli and Palestinian soldiers working side by side.

He said he couldn’t help but think back to something that happened on September 27th, 2000.

“What it brings to mind is how the intifada started,” Zivitovsky said. “It started with a joint patrol in which the Palestinian then shot the Israeli. That was the first casualty, the first one killed.”

From the outside, the building that the Israelis came to visit is a rather unimpressive, two-story cement building. What makes it significant is on the ground floor. There’s a tile mosaic that dates back to the 7th century.

Erna Kovos was the organizer of the tour to the synagogue, which is called Shalom Al Israel, or Peace Upon Israel. The tours happen once a month.

Kovos lives in a settlement not far from here. She said this historic site is just one symbol of the Jewish connection to the city of Jericho.

“The place is holy because it is the first city that has been conquered by Israel when they came to the country,” she said. “All of it is to God. So, this is a holy city. As our sages say, whoever conquers Jericho conquers all the country.”

Then, I asked about her choice of the word, “conquer.” Does she really want to conquer the Palestinian city of Jericho, I asked?

“Of course,” Kovos said.

Kovos said she once lived inside Jericho. She hopes Jews return to live there one day, and the sooner the better, she said.

In recent months, groups of Israeli settlers have entered Jericho illegally. This has led to confrontations between settlers and Israeli soldiers, and also with Palestinian security forces.

On a separate visit to the same Jericho synagogue, a Palestinian guard told me about one recent incident that took place in the middle of the night.

“A group of settlers came without any coordination,” he said. “(And) we caught them. We made them wait. Our coordinating officers came here and they handed them over to the Israeli coordination office.”

I talked with the Palestinian governor of the Jericho area, Majed Al-Fityani. And he said, “the main issue is we don¹t want to have any trouble with the Israelis.”

Fityani said the Palestinian Authority participates willingly in joint security activities with the Israelis to make it possible for Jewish pilgrims to visit holy sites in Jericho.

But he told me the unauthorized incursions by settlers are a problem.

“Sometimes we feel that somebody is sending them, just to create problems, just to have it in the media,” he said. “They just want to make propaganda.”

After spending about 90 minutes at the synagogue, Erna Kovos led this group of pilgrims back onto the bus.

Next stop, another Jewish historical site. This one was some ruins just outside the city of Jericho. But when the bus finally arrived, Kovos got out to speak with the Israeli Army commander in charge of the area and there was a misunderstanding.

Kovos wanted permission to bring the tour group by foot to the site of the ruins.

The commander would not allow it, because is a restricted Israeli military zone. Kovos got angry, and she said Israelis can’t even count on their own army.

Later, she complained that Israel’s military is more interested in protecting the Arabs than anything else.

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