And That Other Holy Site

Back in 2010, Nadav Shragai wrote

UNTIL 1996, NOBODY CALLED RACHEL’S TOMB A MOSQUE

He does note that

an official of the Sephardi kollels (religious study centers) in Jerusalem, Avraham Behar Avraham...obtained recognition for the status and rights of Jews at the site from the Turkish authorities. This was, in practice, the original firman (royal decree) issued by the Ottoman authorities in Turkey recognizing Jewish rights at Rachel’s Tomb.

The firman was necessary since the Muslims disputed ownership by the Jews of Rachel’s Tomb and even tried by brute force to prevent Jewish visits to the site. From time to time Jews were robbed or beaten by Arab residents of the vicinity, and even the protection money that was paid did not always prevail. Avraham Behar Avraham approached the authorities in Istanbul on this matter and in 1827 the Turks issued the firman that gave legal force to Rachel’s Tomb being recognized as a Jewish holy site.

And I found this

In 2010,

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu bitterly attacked as “absurd” a UN statement that the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron and Rachel’s Tomb in Bethlehem are an integral part of the “occupied” Palestinian territories.

“The attempt to disconnect the nation of Israel from its heritage is absurd,” he said in a statement his office issued on Friday, in response to an October 21 decision regarding both sites by the executive board of the United Nation’s Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, UNESCO.

^