Sharing and Exclusion: The Case of Rachel’s Tomb

In the opening decades of the last century, in the latter days of Ottoman rule over Greater Syria as well as in the early days of the British Mandate for Palestine, inter-communal sharing of shrines was still a relatively common phenomenon. In the summer of 1903, Lewis Paton accompanied Professors Samuel Curtiss and Stuart Crawford on “an extended trip … through the rural districts of Syria and Palestine”