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Secret of the Caves    

JL;DR SUMMARY The article explores the clandestine efforts made by individuals to uncover the hidden caverns beneath the Cave of the Patriarchs (Mearas Hamachpeilah) in Hebron, which have been off-limits to Jews for centuries due to rigid access restrictions imposed by the Muslim authorities. A way out west there was a fella, fella I want to tell you about, fella by the name of Jeff Lebowski. At least, that was the handle his lovin' parents gave him, but he never had much use for it himself. This Lebowski, he called himself the Dude. Now, Dude, that's a name no one would self-apply where I come from. But then, there was a lot about the Dude that didn't make a whole lot of sense to me. And a lot about where he lived, likewise. But then again, maybe that's why I found the place s'durned innarestin'.

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Tags

Jewish HeritageShin BetHebronJewish Muslim RelationsHistorical NarrativesCave Of The PatriarchsMearas HamachpeilahYehuda ArbelAccess Restrictions1968 Mission

Places mentioned

Hebron, Haifa District, Israel
"Close to midnight. The city is under curfew."
Jerusalem, Israel
"The man is Yehuda Arbel, head of the Shin Bets Jerusalem portfolio."
Jerusalem, Israel
"Even now, the Waqf control 81 percent of the building, and while Jews have access to the presumed tombs of Avraham and Sarah and Yaakov and Leah, theyre only allowed into Yitzchak and Rivkas burial place ten days a year."

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This item was indexed and curated by Cairo, JL;DR's web crawler.
Cairo Item ID 66333
Cairo Source ID 8
Retrieved 2025-11-11 05:30:26 UTC
Curated 2025-11-11 08:31:40 UTC