Rachel's Kitchen

Rachel's Tomb is the site revered as the burial place of the matriarch Rachel. The tomb has been considered holy to Jews, Christians and Muslims for 2000 years. Since the mid-1990s, Palestinians have referred to the site as the Bilal bin Rabah mosque The tomb, located at the northern entrance of Bethlehem, is built in the style of a traditional maqam. The burial place of the matriarch Rachel as mentioned in Jewish Tanakh, Christian Old Testament and in Muslim literature is contested between this site and several others to the north. Although this site is considered unlikely to be the actual site of the grave, it is by far the most recognized candidate.The earliest extra-biblical records describing this tomb as Rachel's burial place date to the first decades of the 4th century CE. The structure in its current form dates from the Ottoman period, and is situated in a Christian and Muslim cemetery dating from at least the Mamluk period. When Sir Moses Montefiore renovated the site in 1841 and obtained the keys for the Jewish community, he also added an antechamber, including a mihrab for Muslim prayer, to ease Muslim fears. According to the 1947 United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine, the tomb was to be part of the internationally administered zone of Jerusalem, but the area was occupied by The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, which prohibited Jews from entering the area. Following the Israeli occupation of the West Bank in 1967, though not initially falling within Area C, the site has come under the control of the Israeli Ministry of Religious Affairs.Rachel's tomb is the third holiest site in Judaism and has become one of the cornerstones of Jewish-Israeli identity. According to Genesis 35:20, a mazzebah was erected at the site of Rachel's grave in ancient Israel, leading scholars to consider the site to have been a place of worship in ancient Israel. According to Martin Gilbert, Jews have made pilgrimage to the tomb since ancient times. The first historically recorded pilgrimages to the site were by early Christians, and Christian witnesses wrote of the devotion shown to the shrine by local Muslims and then later also by Jews. Throughout history, the site was rarely considered a shrine exclusive to one religion and is described as being held in esteem equally by Jews, Muslims, and Christians.Following a 1929 British memorandum, in 1949 the UN ruled that the Status Quo, an arrangement approved by the 1878 Treaty of Berlin concerning rights, privileges and practices in certain Holy Places, applies to the site. In 2005, following Israeli approval on 11 September 2002, the Israeli West Bank barrier was built around the tomb, effectively annexing it to Jerusalem. A 2005 report from OHCHR Special Rapporteur John Dugard noted that: Although Rachel’s Tomb is a site holy to Jews, Muslims and Christians, it has effectively been closed to Muslims and Christians. On October 21, 2015, UNESCO adopted a controversial resolution reaffirming a 2010 statement that Rachel's Tomb was: an integral part of Palestine. On 22 October 2015, the tomb was separated from Bethlehem with a series of concrete barriers.
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