A Welcome Center Nearly 4,000 Years in the Making

In 1677 BCE, Abraham purchased a plot of land in Hebron to bury his wife Sarah — the first Jewish land acquisition in history. The Torah devotes an entire chapter to the transaction, describing in meticulous detail how Abraham negotiated with the Hittites, weighed out the silver, and secured the deed. It was, from the beginning, a statement of permanence.

In 2017, UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee voted to designate the Old City of Hebron — including the Cave of Machpelah — as a Palestinian World Heritage Site “in danger,” omitting any reference to its Jewish significance. The Israeli government responded by announcing it would establish a Jewish heritage site on the very field Abraham bought nearly four millennia earlier.

That site is now open.

The “Gateway to Hebron,” inaugurated in late May by Chabad of Hebron, is the first phase of the Field of Machpelah Visitor Center — a $9 million immersive experience built inside a historic building that sits on the actual ground described in Genesis. Through video displays and hands-on exhibits, it brings thousands of years of Jewish history to life.

The project has been nearly a decade in the making. Rabbi Danny Cohen, director of Chabad of Hebron, says the need was obvious long before UNESCO entered the picture.

“For 25 years since our Chabad House opened, we watched people come to the second holiest site in Judaism and leave without really understanding what they had just seen,” he said. “There was nothing there that answered the basic question: why does this place matter?”

The center answers that question for visitors from every faith and persuasion who might otherwise experience the city only through the lens of its political tensions.

“We want people to stop associating Hebron exclusively with the conflict,” Rabbi Cohen said. To Jewish visitors, the message is, “Come and connect to your fathers and mothers — that’s what this place is about.” And to others, it’s a place to witness the trajectory of Jewish history from Biblical times to the 21st century.

The Gateway to Hebron is only the beginning. When fully completed in one year, the visitor center will house four distinct educational experiences covering the history of the city, the origins of Jewish prayer, the lives of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs, and the archaeological story of the cave itself. A restaurant, synagogue, and event hall will all be parts of the final complex as well.

The inauguration drew Israeli government ministers, rabbinic leaders, and local community representatives. For Rabbi Cohen, the moment carried a weight that went beyond the ceremony.

“Now there will be a place here that is welcoming and genuinely inspiring for every person who walks through the door,” he said. “Exactly what Abraham would have wanted.”