ABSTRACT
In April 2000, Palestinians clashed with Jews and Israeli police officers when the former attempted to fence in a five-dunum plot of land in Wadi Joz in East Jerusalem, owned by the Abu Jibna family, containing what Jews claimed to be a Jewish holy place, Ramban’s Cave. On 14 May 2000, in resolution of this dispute, Israel’s Minister of Religious Affairs, Yitzchak Cohen, declared the disputed site to be a Jewish holy place. The site in question is an area near the Tomb of Rabbi Shimon Hatzadik (Simon the Just) that Jews refer to as Ramban’s Cave (in reference to Rabbi Moshe ben Nachman, known also as Nachmanides). The Arab owners of the site wished to erect a fence around the area and turn it into a car rental lot, while the Jewish parties to the dispute claimed that enclosing the area would compromise access to their holy place. The site is thought to be where the Ramban prayed and studied while he was in Jerusalem in 1267; for this reason it was accorded sacred status in Jewish tradition. The Ministry of Religious Affairs’ decree led the Jerusalem Magistrates Court1 to decide, on 22 May 2000, to cease the legal deliberations that it had been conducting on the topic. The reasons given by Judge Carmi Mossek for this decision were as follows:
[ … ] when a court is asked to determine whether a place is sacred, that is, to determine the site’s nature-in light of the provisions of Sections 2 and 3 of the King’s Order-in-Council, the court shall refrain from ruling on this issue, but rather refer it to the Minister of Religious Affairs [ … ] On 14 May 2000 a decision was made by the Minister of Religious Affairs [ … ] according to which the Ramban’s Cave is a Holy Place, relying on Section 3 of the Order-in-Council [ … ] Thus, it may be stated that the Minister of Religious Affairs exercised his exclusive authority and rendered a decision regarding the issue with which I was faced, that is whether the Ramban’s Cave is indeed a holy site.
