Rachel's Tomb
Rachel's Tomb in Bethlehem
Rachel's Tomb (Biblical Hebrew: קְבֻרַת רָחֵל Qǝbūrat Rāḥēl; Modern Hebrew: קבר רחל Qever Raḥel; Arabic: قبر راحيل Qabr Rāḥīl) is a site revered as the burial place of the Biblical matriarch Rachel. The site is also referred to as the Bilal bin Rabah mosque (Arabic: مسجد بلال بن رباح, romanized: Masjid Bilāl ibn Rabāḥ). The tomb is held in esteem by Jews, Christians, and Muslims. The tomb, located at the northern entrance to the West Bank city of Bethlehem, next to the Rachel's Tomb checkpoint, is built in the style of a traditional maqam, Arabic for shrine.
The burial place of the matriarch Rachel had a matzevah erected at the site according to Genesis 35:20; the site was also mentioned in Muslim literature. Although the site is considered by some scholars as unlikely to be the actual site of the grave – several other sites to the north have been proposed – it is by far the most recognized candidate. The earliest extra-biblical records describing this tomb as Rachel's burial place date to the first decades of the 4th century CE. The structure in its current form dates from the Ottoman period, and is situated in a Christian and Muslim cemetery dating from at least the Mamluk period.
The first historically recorded pilgrimages to the site were by early Christians. Throughout history, the site was rarely considered a shrine exclusive to one religion and is described as being "held in esteem equally by Jews, Muslims, and Christians". Rachel's Tomb has been a site of Jewish pilgrimage since at least the eleventh century—possibly since ancient times—and remains a holy pilgrimage site for modern Jews.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 26, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2424300. The Library of Congress control number is sh00001953. Authority coordinates are 31.722, 35.203. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank.
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This entry incorporates text from “Rachel's Tomb” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.