Rachel's Tomb

Rachel's Tomb (Biblical Hebrew: קְבֻרַת רָחֵל Qǝbūrat Rāḥēl; Modern Hebrew: קבר רחל Qever Raḥel; Arabic: قبر راحيل Qabr Rāḥīl) is a site revered as the burial place of the Biblical matriarch Rachel. The site is also referred to as the Bilal bin Rabah mosque (Arabic: مسجد بلال بن رباح). The tomb is held in esteem by Jews, Christians, and Muslims. The tomb, located at the northern entrance to the West Bank city of Bethlehem, next to the Rachel's Tomb checkpoint, is built in the style of a traditional maqam, Arabic for shrine.

The burial place of the matriarch Rachel had a matzevah erected at the site according to Genesis 35:20; the site was also mentioned in Muslim literature. Although the site is considered by some scholars as unlikely to be the actual site of the grave – several other sites to the north have been proposed – 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.

The first historically recorded pilgrimages to the site were by early Christians. 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". Rachel's Tomb has been a site of Jewish pilgrimage since at least the eleventh century—possibly since ancient times—and remains a holy pilgrimage site for modern Jews. Meron Benvenisti described it as "one of the cornerstones of Jewish-Israeli identity".

British Jewish financier Sir Moses Montefiore significantly expanded the building in 1841, obtaining the keys for the Jewish community while building an antechamber, including a mihrab for Muslim prayer. 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. 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 ruled by Jordan, which prohibited Jews from entering the area. Following the Israeli occupation of the West Bank in 1967, the site's position was formalized in 1995 under the Oslo II Accord in a Palestinian enclave (Area A), with a special arrangement making it subject to the security responsibility of Israel. In 2005, following Israeli approval on 11 September 2002, the Israeli West Bank barrier was built around the tomb, effectively annexing it to Jerusalem; Checkpoint 300 – also known as Rachel's Tomb Checkpoint – was built adjacent to the site. 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 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.