                      A Voice from Hebron
                     by Gary M. Cooperberg
December 22, 1995        
     Miriam Levinger, the Angel of Hebron

     Miriam Levinger is a living legend.  She was among the very first Jews to return to the
holy city of Hebron after the Six Day War of June 1967.  She and her husband, Rabbi Moshe
Levinger, raised twelve children here.  They lived together with several other families for two
years in the military compound in Hebron in what was once the stables of King Hussein.
     When permission was finally given to build the town of Kiryat Arba, they moved in.  But
when it became clear that Kiryat Arba was but a tiny fenced in Jewish ghetto outside of a
Judenrein Hebron, it was Miriam who organized a local women's movement to return to the city. 
While many individuals and groups did try to return to Jewish properties in Hebron, the IDF
turned them all back.  It was only after Passover in 1980, that Miriam's effort succeeded where all
others failed.  On a dark April night the women of Kiryat Arba roused their children from sleep,
piled them into a rented truck and unloaded the human cargo in back of the Bet Hadassah
building.   The soldiers were guarding in the front because there was no entrance in the back.  
     A tall ladder was propped up against a second storey window and the women and children
climbed into the deserted ruin which had served fifty years prior as a Jewish community center
including schoolrooms, a synagogue, and a small clinic.  The building which had been ransacked
in the Arab riot of 1929, remained abandoned ever since.  The dust and filth was inches thick and
there was no electricity or water.
     After the women and children were all safely inside and the truck had left, they deliberately
made their presence known to the soldiers, who, instinctively, thought to remove them.  Upon
realizing that only women and children were present and not wanting to unnecessarily enter into
battle with them, the army decided to let the conditions do battle for them and allow the women
to leave when it became too uncomfortable.   The fact was that the soldiers admired these spunky
women and truly sympathized with their plight.  The government was not about to change its
policy of forbidding Jews to return to Hebron, but they also did not want to suffer the
embarrassment of dragging out women and children.  Miriam and her crew spent nearly two
months in the most primitive conditions.  Food and water were supplied to them, but it was a very
difficult way to live.  Rabbi Levinger commented that this was the first prison he heard of where
the prisoners were permitted to leave and not return.   The "prisoners" were determined to stay.
     As is always the case in our strange country, the deciding factor of their fate was
determined not by them and not by the government, rather by our enemies.  The boys of Yeshivat
Kiryat Arba, along with many citizens of the town, developed a new custom on Friday nights. 
After prayers at the Cave of Machpela, they would sing and dance to Beit Hadassah where the
men would make kiddish outside for the women and children inside.  
     One Friday night in June of 1980 several Arab terrorists lay in wait on the roof of a
building across the street from Beit Hadassah.  When the procession of men arrived after prayers
at the Cave of Machpelah, the Arabs opened fire murdering six and injuring several others.  In
reaction to this ambush the Israeli government decided to permit the women to make permanent
homes at Beit Hadassah. 







     Today the Beit Hadassah building has been completely refurbished and converted into
modern apartments.  Miriam Levinger did not get to move into one of the new apartments. 
Instead she and her family moved into quarters formerly inhabited by goats in the Jewish Quarter
surrounding the five hundred-year-old Avraham Avinu synagogue.  It was an ancient stone
building with huge steps.  But it enabled Jews to regain more of their precious Hebron, and for
this Miriam was prepared to sacrifice her comforts . . . and happily so.   It was only after years of
Spartan living that Miriam and her family were rewarded with a normal apartment in the now
modern rebuilt Avraham Avinu neighborhood of Hebron.
     A grandmother many times over, Miriam is happy to leave demonstrating and pioneering
to the next generation.  She has earned her right to sit back and enjoy life now.  After all she is
still living in the heart of Hebron and surrounded by over 70,000 hostile Arabs who are growing
ever more hostile every day.  But it seems that peace and comfort are just not part of Miriam's
destiny.   Hebron has been and still is the biggest bone in the throat of the so called "Peace"
process.  It was the one issue which threatened to stall the talks.  The only way the "problem" was
overcome was by agreeing to postpone the decision of what to do with Hebron.  The typical
Jewish solution . . . postponement.
     Knowing full well the vehement international Jewish support for maintaining our control
over Judaism's second holiest city, the government of Israel has a real problem.  If  removing the
women and children from Beit Hadassah threatened to be an embarrassment, the forcible eviction
of young Jewish families from their homes in Hebron would be a national crisis.  So the
government has embarked on a new tack.  It was decided to mount a vilification campaign against
the Jewish residents, including full-fledged police harassment.  
     When her children and grandchildren were taunted by Arab children and fought back, as
they always did, the Israeli police now responded by beating the Jewish children.  When Rabbi and
Miriam Levinger came to intervene, they too were beaten.  Undaunted, Miriam took statements
from witnesses and filed formal complaints with the Israeli Department of Justice.   She soon
learned that there is no justice in Israel.  The case was brought before a judge without informing
those involved.  The report stated that since there were no witnesses all charges against the police
were dropped.  
     After this mockery, new charges were brought.  This time Miriam and her husband were
charged with assaulting the police!   This was just too much for Miriam to take.  If the game has
rules and is played fair, she was always willing to play and, if need be, even lose.  But if the
government throws away all the rules, then it is time to stop playing.  She would lose in any
event, but she could see no reason to lend credibility to the kangaroo court system designed to
break the Jews of Hebron.  
     With no regard for her personal respect or dignity, Miriam simply refused to be involved
with the evil intimidation procedures.  Rather than go along with the mockery, she submitted
herself to have the police literally break into her home and carry her away by force to appear at
the trial.  She refused to as much as defend herself against the trumped up charges and instead
used the publicity platform given her by the local media to accuse the government of usurping its
right to govern by operating against the will of the governed.
     She recently told me that she had been reading "1984" by George Orwell.  It was about a
society which called war, "peace," and which rewrote its own history.  It seems like 1984 is
eleven years late in coming to Israel.  If we cannot fight the government through normal channels,
then each Jew simply has to fight on his own.  We dare not sit back and wait as every human and
Jewish right is taken away from us . . . certainly not in the Jewish State.  Once again, Miriam
Levinger, the Angel of Hebron,  is sacrificing her own comfort and freedom in the hope of
rescuing it for others.