This page is subject to the extended confirmed restriction related to the Arab-Israeli conflict.Joseph's Tomb (Hebrew: קבר יוסף, Qever Yosef; Arabic: قبر يوسف, Qabr Yūsuf) is a funerary monument located in Balata village at the eastern entrance to the valley that separates Mounts Gerizim and Ebal, 300 metres northwest of Jacob's Well, on the outskirts of the West Bank city of Nablus.

[1] It has been venerated throughout the ages by Samaritans, for whom it is the second holiest site; by Jews; by Christians; and by Muslims, some of whom view it as the location of a local sheikh, Yusef al-Dwaik[2][3][4][5][6][7] or Dawiqat, who died in the 18th century.

[10][11] While some scholars, such as Kenneth Kitchen and James K. Hoffmeier affirm the essential historicity of the biblical account of Joseph, others, such as Donald B. Redford, argue that the story itself has "no basis in fact".

Though it fell under the jurisdiction of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) following the signing of the Oslo Accords, it remained under IDF guard with Muslims prohibited from praying there.

[31] The Genesis Rabba, a Jewish text written c. 400–450 CE, states that a burial site in Shechem is one of three for which the nations of the world cannot ridicule Israel and say "you have stolen them," it having been purchased by Jacob.

[36] The Hebron tradition is also reflected in some medieval Christian sources, such as the account by Srewulf (CE 1102) who says that "the bones of Joseph were buried more humbly than the rest, as it were at the extremity of the castle".

[46][47] In the wake of scholars like Hermann Gunkel, Hugo Gressmann and Gerhard von Rad, who identified the story of Joseph as primarily a literary composition,[48] it is now widely considered to belong to the genre of romance,[49][50] or the novella.

[66] In Schenke's view, from the beginning of the Hellenistic period down to the 1st century CE, when the author of John's gospel was presumably writing, the grave commemorating Joseph stood by Jacob's Well.

The officials had to excavate the general area where graves abound and, on finding an intact marble sepulchre beneath an empty coffin, concluded that it must contain Joseph's bones, and sent the sarcophagus to Byzantium, where it was incorporated into Hagia Sophia.

[74][75] Jerome reports that apparently the Christians had intended to remove Joseph's bones to their city, but a column of fire rose skyward from the tomb scaring them away.

[78] The Madaba Mosaic Map (6th century) designates a site somewhat problematically with the legend – "Joseph's" (τὸ τοῦ Ὶωσήφ) – where the usual adjective 'holy' (hagios) accompanying mentions of saints and their shrines is lacking.

[10] Menachem ben Peretz of Hebron (1215) writes that in Shechem he saw the tomb of Joseph son of Jacob with two marble pillars next to it—one at its head and another at its foot—and a low stone wall surrounding it.

[citation needed] Ishtori Haparchi (1322) places the tombstone of Joseph 450 meters north of Balāta, while Alexander de Ariosti (1463) and Francesco Suriano (1485) associate it with the church over Jacob's well.

[36] William Cooke Taylor (1838) describes the biblical parcel of ground Jacob gave to Joseph as situated on plain of Mukhna, and identifies the tomb as an oriental weli structure at the entrance to the valley of Nablus, to the right near the base of Mt Ebal.

The sarcophagus, he suggests, lies underneath or somewhere else in the vicinity of this plain, and comments: The present monument ... is a place of resort, not only for Jews and Christians, but Mohammedans and Samaritans; all of whom concur in the belief that it stands on the vertiable spot where the patriarch was buried.

Scripture, he argued, calls the place neither an emek (valley) nor a shephelah (plain), but a 'portion of field' (chelkat hasadeh), and concluded: "in the whole of Palestine there is not such another plot to be found, a dead level, without the least hollow or swelling in a circuit of two hours.

"[99] During the late 19th century, sources report the Jewish custom of burning small articles such as gold lace, shawls or handkerchiefs, in the two low pillars at either end of the tomb.

[100][101][102][103] A stone bench is built into the east wall, on which three Jews were seated at the time of our second visit, book in hand, swinging backwards and forwards as they crooned out a nasal chant–a prayer no doubt appropriate to the place.

In addition to the one close to the well, (location of Conder's survey), he describes another exclusively Muslim tomb in the vicinity, about a quarter of a mile up the valley on the slope of Mt.

[116] In the mid-1980s a yeshiva named Od Yosef Chai, (Joseph Still Lives), affiliated with some of the more militant Jewish settlements, and headed by Yitzhak Ginsburg,[117][118][119] was built at the site beside an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) military outpost, apparently on the model of settler success in establishing a presence at the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron.

[122] Shulamit Aloni, minister for culture and education in the Rabin government, outraged religious activists at the time by asserting, on the basis of archeological evidence, that the site was only 200 years old, and the tomb that of Sheikh Yūsuf (Dawiqat), a Sufi holy man who died in the 18th century.

[126] A curfew lasting 24 hours was once imposed by the IDF on Nablus's 120,000 inhabitants to allow a group of settlers and 2 Likud Knesset members to pray at the site.

[134] On September 24, 1996, after the opening of an exit for the Hasmonean Tunnel under the Ummariya madrasah, which Palestinians interpreted as a signal Benjamin Netanyahu was sending that Israel was to be the sole sovereign of Jerusalem, the PNA called for a general strike and a wave of protests broke out throughout the West Bank.

[139] In September 2000, in the wake of Ariel Sharon's controversial visit to the Temple Mount, the Al-Aqsa Intifada broke out, and Nablus turned into conflict zone, in part after its governor's son was shot dead during a clash with Israeli soldiers.

[144] Joseph's Tomb embodied a key Zionist theme: the return from exile to one's homeland, and the Palestinian assault has been interpreted as challenging the credibility of claims to the site.

[147] The mayor of Nablus Ghassan Shakaa was reported as saying Jewish worshippers would not be permitted to pray there until an international organization or third party determines whether the site is holy to Muslims or Jews.

[156] In February 2003 it was reported in the Jerusalem Post that the grave had been pounded with hammers and that the tree at its entrance had been broken; car parts and trash littered the tomb which had a "huge hole in its dome".

Bratslav leader Aaron Klieger notified and lobbied government ministers about the desecration, but the IDF said it had no plans to secure or guard the site, claiming such action would be too costly.

[158] In early 2008, a group of MKs wrote a letter to the Prime Minister asking that the tomb be renovated: "The tombstone is completely shattered, and the holy site is desecrated in an appalling manner, the likes of which we have not seen in Israel or anywhere else in the world.

[174] At 2 a.m. on the night of 18 October 2015, a group of 30 Jews on instruction from Rabbi Eliezer Berland,[175] went to the tomb without permits, in contravention of a standing IDF order, to clean and paint the compound that was burned three days before.