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TNL in Jerusalem #33 - The Tomb of Joseph
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Ari and Jeremy discuss the importance of the Tomb of Joseph and present a powerful clip showing the recent ascents to the site.
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Transcript
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the landof israel.com and Israel
national TV present Aria bramwit and
Jeremy
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gimpel Live From The Heart of Israel
it's Tuesday night live in
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Jerusalem
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Shalom and welcome to Tuesday night live
in Jerusalem I'm Jeremy gel this is ARA
bramz and thank you for joining us
tonight we're talking about the tomb of
Joseph we're talking about reclaiming
our holy sights I'll tell you I went for
the first time in my entire life to the
tomb of Joseph and it transformed me for
years it's been closed to Jews it's been
impossible it's in the heart of sh in
nais it's in the middle of a like a like
a nest of vipers I mean it's a very
dangerous place to go we went in the
middle of the night we had helicopters
and tanks and we had all of these people
protecting us and I got out of this
armored bus and I was with a few friends
of mine I was with Ari you to devid
elezar Rovia singer and I saw the tomb
of Joseph for the first time and I'm a
little bit of a drama queen I
know but I started crying because the
tomb of Joseph was a garbage dump the
Arabs in Shem throw all of their garbage
in the Tomb of Joseph it was graffitied
there was garbage everywhere it was
burnt in fact the the Dome of the tomb
of Joseph was cracked in and I looked I
said what ysep at sadic that's the tomb
of Joseph where the hell is the
leadership in this country how could
that be how could that be that the tomb
of Joseph would be that's the third
holiest site to the Jewish people it's
the Temple mount the Tomb of the
Patriarchs Kev Yosef this is what it
looks like like and I'm like all right
if we did one of those we took one of
their holy sights if it's the Church of
the Holy whatever or the mosque of the
Holy whatever and we treated it like
that you know what would happen there
would be human rights activists storming
the streets of Israel parading about
human rights about freedom of religion
about oppression and here I am now in
Jerusalem calling on all these human
right activists where are you
now where are they any human right
activist here you're not
welcome see the question is you know
there there's a lot of tombs in Israel
there's there's probably a lot of
Joseph's also why did we pick the tomb
of Joseph why this show what's it about
in my mind the reason the tomb of Joseph
was picked is because of who Joseph was
what are we facing in Israel right now
the government the entire National
policy the foreign policy of Israel is
revolved around fear fear that America
won't support us or fear that the
Nations will turn against us say and
what was Joseph all about he didn't know
the word fear there was no such thing as
the word fear his whole life was lived
with such a consciousness of God of his
his emuna his his belief his faith you
know comes from the word imim from
training from practice his whole life he
lived his faith to the degree where he
went before Pharaoh the superpower of
the world and Pharaoh said I need you to
interpret my
dream and Joseph said I don't interpret
dreams that's the god of Israel that is
courage that is just an instinct a
reflex of saying no it's all God and
perhaps if we go and we take care of
Joseph Our Father we help bring his his
tomb back to a respectable way where we
can respect it and the world would
respect us for that we could then earn
and Merit his attributes of courage and
honor and faith and Truth for the entire
nation and tonight we want to share with
every everyone here a short clip of our
experiences at the tomb of Joseph enjoy
it's the dead of night Jewish settlers
in an armored van with an army escort
traveled to the tomb of Joseph the
biblical patriarch in the heart of nais
on the West
Bank Israel controlled the tomb until
late 2000 when it was taken over by
Palestinians after the outbreak of the
intifada Jewish worshippers now return
always late at night for brief visits
these are the hardcore of Israel's
settler movement is this a free
democracy in the land of Israel are
these holy Jewish sites or in fact we're
slaves in our own country was that the
Zionist dream was that the dream of
2,000 years that we would have to go to
the tomb of Joseph with helicopters
tanks in a bulletproof van that's not
the Jewish dream we're going to bring
the Jewish dream
back their dream is to reverse the peace
process to regain control of the West
Bank in Gaza the main message is that
that also was wrong that the
disengagement was wrong the the Arabs
proved in their barbarism in their hate
towards us in the rockets that they
shoot into our cities that they are not
worthy of having their own State they
surely not on our land the land of
Israel belongs to the Jewish people it
was wrong it was wrong to give it over
to the Arabs and it must be returned to
our
hands
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Jerusalem HED sukot the year
2008 it's near midnight as tens of Jews
are preparing for a long
ride in the meantime thousands of Jews
from all over the country get ready to
make their way in a bus similar to this
they are all going to Joseph's tomb in
Shem why what is everyone looking for in
Joseph's tomb and in the middle of the
night what is so special about Joseph's
tomb Joseph's tomb is mentioned in the
bible both in the Kash and the prophets
and Yakov came to shalm a city of Shem
which is in the land of
Canan and he bought the piece of land on
which he spread his tent at the hand of
the children of hamor shim's Father for
a 100 pieces of
money and and the bones of Yosef which
the children of Israel brought up out of
Egypt they buried in shm in a section of
ground which Yakov bought from the sons
of hamor the father of shm for a 100
pieces of money and they became the
inheritance of the children of
ysf the tradition as to the location of
Joseph's tomb has been preserved and
passed down over the years the ancient
madaba map from the 7th Century mentions
Joseph's tomb near
Shem 600 years later a Jewish traveler
writes and from there I went to Shem and
saw the grave site of the righteous
Joseph son of Jacob which was situated
between two marble pillars one at its
head and one at its feet throughout all
of history Jews made the pilgrimage to
the gravite of yosf hat sadik Joseph the
righteous one to pray and pour out their
supplications to God they are attracted
to the figure of Joseph because of his
Noble and righteous character as
mentioned in the Bible for decades the
Yeshiva oseph Kai located near Joseph's
tomb in the city of Shem was a place
where people of all ages came to pray
and engage in deep study of the
Torah in addition to the numerous
visitors to the holy site there existed
a permanent Yeshiva of Torah Scholars
studying torad daily with great
self-sacrifice
but during the second antifa in
September 2000 on the second day of
rosha Shana Joseph's tomb was attacked
by
Palestinians one of the soldiers
defending the site was injured and
killed in the aftermath of the attack
the Palestinians take control of the
area from the IDF promising to honor the
sanctity of the
site but the moment the IDF withdraws
from the area Joseph's tomb is
desecrated toas scrolls are burned
the entire area ransacked and
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vandalized for several years after that
Jews are not permitted to visit at
yosef's
tomb when I look down to K ysf I feel
that we've sold our brother for a second
time we see what a farce that was uh
this was supposed to be one of the
fundamental things that they are going
to protect us something that I never
believed was going to happen and
something that the whole world sees uh
has not happened it is obvious that the
Palestinian Authority has not complied
uh with the stipulations that they
provide free and unfettered access to
all Jewish holy sites the Jewish people
have a right to the land of Israel they
have a right to their holy
places
today through great efforts Jews are
returning to Joseph's tomb the
government is giving permission for only
one visit a month in the middle of the
night with a massive Army escort and for
only a few thousand Jews each time on
the nights in which Jews are allowed to
visit there is great excitement and
anticipation tens of buses from all over
Israel are filled with Jews who come to
pour out their hearts and bask in the
Holiness of the righteous yosf it is an
atmosphere of spiritual elevation and
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sanctity
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I hadn't been aware of before of the
power of yourf it was almost like a
magnetic draw for people and I'm not
sure many of them could even explain it
themselves C yose is not only holy but
it's part of our heart and part of our
soul and part of who we are he was a uh
personality who could uh be the Viceroy
uh second only to the Pharaoh in Egypt
but yet still maintain his misar still
maintain his tradition and his Jewish
identity that's why he is so important
to us to the Jewish
people it's inspiring to see the
thousands of people who are coming out
in the middle of the night to take part
in this event and this brings us further
to our ultimate goal of reestablishing
kevf and I'm sure that we will reach
that goal the variety of different kinds
of people who came I think it's
impossible to gener I and label them as
anything because I mean you had the
grandmothers from Rana and from and
people who actually in normal life would
probably not have that much in common
with each other by continuing to visit
kevf we're showing the government and
our people and our kids how important it
is to maintain our rights and our
connections with our heritage in this
country
for after great effort a small
flickering light was ignited on Hanukah
of
2008 a team of Jewish workers
accompanied by the IDF entered Shem and
rebuilt Joseph's tomb the restoration is
a small part in an overall effort to
return Jewish sovereignty and dignity to
the historical
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site
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we we intend to come in and rebuild the
the roof of the building and to finish
renovating the entire building and to
continue and demand the regular access
for Jews to Jews for Jews to be able to
enter yourself every day without that
access uh to our holy sites to our
Legacy we have no future thank God there
are people who care and all of the
Jewish people need to support the
efforts they need to be involved
Joseph's tomb Kev yosf the grave site of
one of our nation's forefathers is again
becoming a place where multitudes of
Jews visit and pray in a continuous
chain generation after generation of
Jews continue the tradition of visiting
their patriarch to pray for themselves
for their land and for their
Nation today there is an opportunity to
strengthen our Jewish hold on the site
ensuring that this site remains in
Jewish hands is fulfilling the legacy of
our Holy Father Yosef at
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sadik
with pesak on the horizon and realizing
that the key to the Redemption is
actually the bones of Joseph stay tuned
next week when we see what's happening
practically on the ground in Israel with
the head of the Council of Samaria
joining us and how the Jewish people are
going to reclaim our holy sights and
we're going to restore the tomb of our
holy sadic Our Father Joseph have a
wonderful happy
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passover's go hey
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hey
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oh
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oh
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I
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n