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Once a Jew?
Isabel Kershner and Khaled Abu Toameh
The 10,000-strong Muhamreh clan in the West Bank village of Yata cannot shake off the legend of their supposed Jewish roots
One afternoon in 1927, Itzhak Ben-Zvi, the Zionist leaderwho would go on to become the second president of Israel, set out from Hebron in a hired automobile together with two Jewish colleagues in the direction of Yata, a village located in the hills nine kilometers south. Ben-Zvi, then in his 40s, had a passion for seeking out Jewish roots in the less likely spots in Palestine; he was particularly intrigued by the tales he had heard about a Yata clan named Muhamreh, whose ancestors had converted from Judaism to Islam but who never failed to light candles for eight days every winter to mark the festival of Hanukkah.
Armed with a letter of introduction from an Arab acquaintance in Hebron addressed to Sheikh Shehada Abu Iram, the chief of the Muhamreh clan, Ben-Zvi set off to investigate. The road, he later wrote, had been paved only a year earlier but was already potholed. Though built to accommodate automobiles and carts comfortably, the only travelers Ben-Zvi's party came across were on horseback, donkey, camel or foot.
When Ben-Zvi reached Yata, he found that the sheikh was out in the fields and would be unable to meet with him. Instead, he was taken to a young illiterate named Jibrin Abd al-Rahman, a Muhamreh and one of the sheikh's helpers. Unable to read the letter of introduction himself and curious about its contents, Jibrin took it to one of the village wise men. When he heard who the visitors were, Ben-Zvi recorded, Jibrin showered the party with honor and opened up his heart.
"We're all one people," Jibrin proclaimed. "Our ancient ancestor came from a distant land, from Khaibar. In his bravery he conquered this village and mastered it and we, the Muhamreh, are his descendants."
Ben-Zvi could hardly believe his ears. The legend, it seemed, was true. Khaibar, a fertile oasis in the Arabian peninsula 90 miles south of Medina, was the largest Jewish settlement in the time of Muhammad. The prophet of Islam fought cruelly against the tribes of Khaibar, and in the seventh century, his successor, Caliph Omar, expelled them. Here, over 1,200 years later, was a man claiming kinship.
Jibrin Abd al-Rahman, encouraged by the captivated audience hanging on his every word, felt inspired to elaborate. He described how his "Jewish ancestor," on arriving in Yata, killed 39 robbers and their dog. When asked by Ben-Zvi if he could name this hero, he was struck dumb for a while, then suddenly exclaimed "Muhaimar! And for him we are all named." Sometimes, he added, with a laugh, when quarrels break out between the Muhamreh and other families in the village, "our neighbors say, in order to anger us: `You are from Jewish stock!'"
The road to Yata is still potholed, the village still dominated by the Muhamreh, who make up about a third of the estimated population of over 30,000. Today Yata is known more as the West Bank's central depot for stolen cars and shady business than as a destination for local history enthusiasts. But the legend of the Muhamreh lives on, and the modern traveler curious about the once-Jewish clan invariably ends up at the stone house of Khalil Muhamreh, 57, a retired highschool history teacher who has devoted much of his free time to trying to prove he is not Jewish.
Khalil holds court on a plastic garden chair on the porch, his head covered with a black and white keffiya. He is armed with two reference books and an Arabic Bible. In 1968, he says, a year after Israel won control of the West Bank from Jordan, the first couple of journalists arrived here with Ben-Zvi's memoirs tucked under their arms. Two more came in 1984. And 10 years later, the same old questions still bring tears of laughter to his already twinkly eyes.
Point by point, he refutes what he knows of Ben-Zvi's observations. "Jibrin, if there ever was such a man, told him `We are all one people,'" Khalil says, barely concealing the undertone of hilarity in his voice. "Well, that's a common local greeting around these parts. We say it to visitors all the time." And the candles? No such thing, he claims. The Muhamrehs, like everybody else in the village, used to light oil lamps in the evening if visitors were due; some stranger obviously got the wrong end of the stick. Then was it true that Muhamreh only marry each other? When Ben-Zvi came to town, Sheikh Shehada himself was married to a Sha'abin, a member of another Yata clan, Khalil replies.
The story of Khaibar elicits another guffaw. Then turning solemn, Khalil declares: "We, the Muhamreh, trace back our family tree 400 years, and that's where it ends. Our ancestors came in with Beduin from Sinai, and we are related to the Tarabin Beduin of the Negev to this day."
But best of all, Khalil relates, by now slapping his knee in mirth, Ben-Zvi had written that the Muhamreh wouldn't eat camel meat because it wasn't kosher. "As it happens," says Khalil, the glow of triumph brightening his brow, "when the journalists came in 1984, I'd just slaughtered two camels in honor of my son's wedding!"
At this point, Khalil takes off from his chair, summons a friend, commandeers his visitors' car and embarks on a tour of the village and the area, which he knows alley by alley, tree by tree, rock by rock. First stop is the domed stone building in old Yata that used to serve as the divan, or local meeting hall, where Ben-Zvi's encounter with Jibrin took place. The wooden door pushes open onto a cavernous space now filled with neatly stacked car fenders, doors and various other car parts. Next, it's on to the ruins of the ancient town of Carmel nearby. "Islamic Byzantine!" exclaims Khalil, pointing at fallen, broken columns and handing out white and pink stone mosaic pieces like toffees. The fact that the Byzantine empire preceded Islam by several centuries doesn't perturb him in the least.
Several ruins, traces of early mosques and bumpy rides later, Khalil takes his guests on the ultimate visit: to his sister, who lives in a cave. A steep climb up a grassy, rugged hill leads to a community of four Yata families who make yogurt and butter, a Hebron specialty, and graze their sheep on quality land in the mild southern winter climes.
The underlying message of Khalil's tour? That such people, in such places, could not possibly be Jewish. Elyakim Haetzni, former Knesset member of the far-right Tehiyah party, begs to differ. "I have absolutely no doubt that the Muhamreh are of Jewish stock," he says, speaking from his home in Kiryat Arba, the Jewish settlement of some 5,000 on the edge of Hebron. "When the army liberated the area in 1967, Yata was without water. The other Arabs went to the Muhamreh and said `You go ask the Israelis for water, because you will not be killed.'"
Haetzni has heard other stories too like the ones that Ben-Zvi heard in
1927 of how the Muhamreh always tended to buy more from Jewish store owners in Hebron than from the Muslim merchants. What's more, he has a story of his own. A lawyer, Haetzni once represented a Muhamreh family in a civilian matter. "The woman came to our house in Kiryat Arba and asked me to give their case special attention," Haetzni recounts. "Then she whispered, `We're Jewish, you know.'" Aman who introduces himself as Muhammad Hassan Suleiman Hassan Muhammad Muhamreh, cousin of Khalil, comes running out of his house as Khalil and prtypass by on their way back to Yata. There's no time to come inside, so coffee is served on the street. "Don't listen to the intellectuals," jokes Muhammad, "listen to the illiterates like me and Jibrin. There are people who call us the Jews of Khaibar. I say just give us the same rights as the Jews and we'll be Jewish with pleasure!"
At this, the whole company collapses in giggles. For in Yata, the Muhamreh history has become something of a village joke. And the truth of the matter may never be known. For local anthropologists, it's all in the realm of myth and tradition that cannot be proved. But Khalil remains adamant: "There are two possibilities," he declares. "Either Ben-Zvi was misled, or he made it all up."
And in the end, even those who most like to establish Jewish roots in inhospitable places concede that it doesn't really matter. "So what if they were Jewish," says hawkish Haetzni of the Muhamreh. "How would that help us? Shimon Peres and Yossi Beilin are also from Jewish stock and look at what they are doing. Even the Nazi exterminator Heydrich was one-quarter Jewish. There's no sentimentalism here. The goyim who join us do us more good than so many Jews."
1994
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