Hebron: Rebirth from Ruins80 years after the 1929 massacre,

Hebron lives!

Edited by Dr. Michal Rachel Suissa

Hebron: Rebirth from Ruins80 years after the 1929 massacre,

Hebron lives!

Edited by Dr. Michal Rachel Suissa

“Where they have burned books, they will

end up burning human beings.”

(Dort, wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man

am Ende auch Menschen. Heinrich Heine, 1821)

All rights reserved ©

Please credit sources when copying from this book.

Photographs: David Wilder, Hebron

Printed in Israel, 2009

Published by the Jewish Community of Hebron (JCH), Israel, and the

Center against Antisemitism (CAA), Norway.

First edition, 5000 copies

ISBN: 978-82-303-1359-6

“Those who revere G-d should manifest benevolence and love the site of our sacred forbearers with their very heart and soul, strengthening the presence of our brethren in our ancestral foothold. Thus we will benefit from the sacred virtues of our forefathers and our prayers willascend daily to the highest Heavens, through the Cave of Machpela, the resting place our holy forefathers and we will be graced with manifold blessings and long life.”

(Excerpt from the Mittler Rebbe’s letter to Habad (Lubavitcher)

Hasidim who moved to Hebron at his bidding in 1822)

“Hebron, by its very nature, manifests the revival and consolidation of the eternity of Israel.”

(Rabbi A.I. HaCohen Kook)

“We appeal to the elected Prime Minister to display courage and rescind the dangerous decision to hand over the Holy City of Hebron to Palestinian-Arab control, as its implementation is liable to bring about calamity and bloodshed.

We are commanded by our Holy Torah not to stand idly at the blood of our brethren. Consequently, we proclaim that the Torah forbids altering the security situation in the City of the Patriarchs. Hebron, City of Patriarchs, stands at the very heart of the Jewish people.”

(The Council of Torah Sages)

“Jewish history begins in Hebron…It would be a grave error not to establish a growing, thriving, Jewish community in Hebron, sister city and forerunner of Jerusalem, within the shortest possible period of time.”

(David Ben-Gurion)

Contents:

PREFACE

No Jewish State Without Hebron | Michal Rachel Suissa 6

Hebron: Eternal, Holy City of the Jews | Chief Rabbi Dov Lior 10

Eighty Years After the 1929-Tarpat Massacre | Noam Arnon 12

Judenrein Hebron and its Tikkun (rectification) | Erez Uriely 14

HEBRON: THE ETERNAL HOLY CITY OF THE JEWS

Hebron: A Jewish Presence for 3800 Years | Eliaou Attlan 16

The Machpela Tomb: Historical Background, Facts and Justice | Noam Arnon 23

THE 1929 POGROM

The 1929 Pogrom and the Dhimmi Syndrome in our Times | Elyakim Haetzni 27

The Hebron Pogrom of 24 August 1929 | Rehavam Zeevi 39

The 67 Martyrs Butchered by Arabs in Hebron | Rehavam Zeevi 62

The Hebron Scroll of Blood | Rabbi A. Reuven and B. Zuch Bemzweig 85

Slobodka Yeshiva: Between Pogroms and Holocaust | Michal Rachel Suissa 90

The Massacre in 1929 and the British Attitude | Pierre van Paassen 100

The Grand Mufti and the British | Menahem Uriely 107

RETURN TO HEBRON

Hebron is Jerusalem’s Sister | David Ben Gurion 108

The Return to Hebron - June, 1967 | Rabbi Shlomo Goren 110

Shlomo Slonim: Of the Slonim family, only 13 month old Shlomo survived the 1929 massacre.

Contents:

PREFACE

No Jewish State Without Hebron | Michal Rachel Suissa 6

Hebron: Eternal, Holy City of the Jews | Chief Rabbi Dov Lior 10

Eighty Years After the 1929-Tarpat Massacre | Noam Arnon 12

Judenrein Hebron and its Tikkun (rectification) | Erez Uriely 14

HEBRON: THE ETERNAL HOLY CITY OF THE JEWS

Hebron: A Jewish Presence for 3800 Years | Eliaou Attlan 16

The Machpela Tomb: Historical Background, Facts and Justice | Noam Arnon 23

THE 1929 POGROM

The 1929 Pogrom and the Dhimmi Syndrome in our Times | Elyakim Haetzni 27

The Hebron Pogrom of 24 August 1929 | Rehavam Zeevi 39

The 67 Martyrs Butchered by Arabs in Hebron | Rehavam Zeevi 62

The Hebron Scroll of Blood | Rabbi A. Reuven and B. Zuch Bemzweig 85

Slobodka Yeshiva: Between Pogroms and Holocaust | Michal Rachel Suissa 90

The Massacre in 1929 and the British Attitude | Pierre van Paassen 100

The Grand Mufti and the British | Menahem Uriely 107

RETURN TO HEBRON

Hebron is Jerusalem’s Sister | David Ben Gurion 108

The Return to Hebron - June, 1967 | Rabbi Shlomo Goren 110

Why Jews Live in Hebron | David Wilder 112

Hebron: The Eternal City of Our Fathers | Yehonatan Freide 119

From Ethiopia to Hebron | Baruch Dasa 121

To be a Jewish Child in Hebron | Ruti Wilder and three of her friends 124

EUROPEANS AND LEFTISTS IN HEBRON

Foreigners in Hebron | David Wilder 126

The”Peace Movements” and their Ideal of Expelling Jews: Three Ads | Erez Uriely 129

Inequality and Discrimination in Hebron | Orit Struck 135

Norwegians to Hebron | John Skåland 144

Hebron Sheik Saved Synagogue from Backslidden Jews | Erez Uriely 147

LAST WORDS

In Abraham’s Spirit of Love and Peace | Eliaou Attlan 150

On the 8th of August this year we marked the 80th anniversary of

the outbreak of the “Tarpat Pogroms,” committed by the Arabs of Eretz Yisrael against their Jewish neighbors. The pogroms struck Jewish communities in twelve cities throughout Israel, including Jerusalem, Safed and Hebron – where the Jewish community suffered most severely, scores being killed and the remainder exiled. The year was 1929, or 5689 according to the Jewish calendar (“Tarpat” in a standard Hebrew acronym), and the day was the Jewish holy day, the Sabbath, the 18th of Av.

This year is only the second time that the Jewish State of Israel declared the day of the Tarpat massacre as an officialMemorial Day. The memorial ceremony is scheduled to be held in Hebron on September 7th 2009, 18 Elul 5769.

On the 18th of Av eighty years ago, an Eastern European-style pogrom was carried out by the Arabs of Hebron, who for generations had lived in relative peace with the Jews. Suddenly and unexpectedly, the Arabs fell upon their Jewish neighbors, pillaging, raping and murdering. Only a few Hebron Arabs heroically protected the Jews. During this pogrom, Jews whose ancestors had lived in Hebron for generations, as well as newly arrived fugitives from the pogroms of Eastern Europe, were murdered.

The architect of the Arab pogroms in British Mandatory Palestine between

1922 and 1936 was the so-called Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini. He later became an admirer and ally of Hitler, met with him during World War II, and provided the Nazis with considerable Muslim political support and material assistance in the destruction of European Jews during the Holocaust. To that end, he promoted the creation of Muslim SS units in Bosnia, financed and equipped by the GermanNazi government and employed to exterminate Balkan Jewry.

Al-Husseini’s attempt to eliminate the Jewish community of Eretz Yisrael predated Hitler’s Holocaust in Europe. From the 1920s on, Husseini created a clandestine network of Arab terrorist groups throughout Mandatory Palestine and incited them to commit terrorist attacks and pogroms.

The massacre in Hebron represents his most gruesome and effective achieve-ment. British authorities, who had appoin-ted the Mufti to his position, did little to prevent his terrorist activities, acting only when they, too, became his targets. In 1929, the British took extraordinary mea-sures to cover up the Hebron massacre. It was Israel’s first Chief Rabbi, Rabbi Avra-ham Yitzchak HaCohen Kook, of blessed memory, who made the pogroms known to the world.

In August 1929, Hebron, the most ancient

No Jewish State Without Hebron

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of Jewish cities, became thoroughly “cleansed” of Jews, ending 3,800 years of continuous Jewish presence in the city. In this Hebron appeared to share the fate of the great majority of Jewish communities on the Eurasian continent, some of them quite ancient. The Holocaust burnt away the thriving Jewish civilization of Christian Europe and it has never been restored. Little but ashes remain.

This, however, was not Hebron’s fate. Though subject to its own miniature Holocaust in Tarpat, the Jewish commu-nity in Hebron was restored following the liberation of the city in the 1967 war. Though Jewish civilization was burnt out of Europe it was restored, not in Europe but in the land of Israel, which G-d pro-mised to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and their descendants forever. Hebron was the place where that promise was firstrealized. When, in G-d’s good time, the time came for the Jewish community in Hebron to be restored, it came to life not in some distant place but in its own native home, where it had dwelt till 1929.

The fate of the great Yeshiva (Talmudic academy) of Slobodka, whose history is recorded in these pages, is symbolic. One of the leading centers of Jewish culture in Eastern Europe, Slobodka divided in 1924. Half the Yeshiva remained in its traditional home on the outskirts of Vilna, Lithuania, and half of its leading scholars and students came in that year to Hebron.

Both halves of the distinguished Yeshiva underwent destruction, in Hebron in 1929 and in Lithuania in 1944. The Lithuanian Yeshiva remains in ashes; but in Israel

today Slobodka survives and prospers.

The present political struggle in Israel is very much about forcing Jews to relinquish their roots and identity. It is therefore important now more than ever for Jews, supported by their true Christian allies and everyone else who has high regard for truth and justice, to reach out to Hebron and do everything in our power to ensure that it remains forever in Jewish hands under the guardianship of a sovereign Jewish State. Only thus will people of all nations and creeds be guaranteed free access to the ancient City of the Matriarchs and Patriarchs. We must never forget that Ma’arat HaMachpela, was off-limits to Jews and Christians for 700 years, until the Jews returned to and liberated Hebron, 42 years ago.

It is our duty to bear witness to the truth. History has shown us time and time again that it is usually the few, daring to turn against the tide, with the light of truth as their guide, who are proven right in the end. Let us hope these pages may help the truth to be heard in Israel and throughout the world.

This commemorative volume is sacred to the memory of the victims of the Tarpat Massacre of 1929 in Hebron. The first part of this book gives an accountof Hebron as the oldest Jewish city in history. Hebron was the city of the Jews’ forefather Abraham, and the right of Jews to dwell in their father Abraham’s city was established at that time. It is especially necessary to remember this today, as we live in time where not only external enemies of the Jews, but also many leftist, backslidden Jews strive to make Hebron

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Judenrein again. The Bible describes the Land of Israel as the Jewish people’s “inheritance,” and the foundation of this inheritance was laid in Hebron. The price Jews may have to pay for giving up their oldest heritage, Hebron, may be the surrender of their entire heritage in the Land of Israel.

The second part of this volume presents updated documentation of the 1929 pogrom. We hope that we succeeded in showing proper respect for the holy Jewish martyrs who were massacred by their Arab neighbors – in many cases by Arab neighbors and employees who they’d known and trusted for years.

We strove to find a picture of each martyrwhose remains were identified after themassacre but some of them are still missing. We hope and ask that people who might have as yet unknown pictures and documentation of the pogroms in Eretz Yisrael to donate them to the Hebron Jewish Community’s archives. The memory of the pogrom martyrs should forever be with us, and remembering them will contribute to a better future for today’s Jewish residents of Hebron and for Jews the world over.

The third part of this publication chroni-cles the renewal of the Jewish community in Hebron after the city’s liberation in 1967, with some vivid personal testimo-nies of Jewish immigrants and their chil-dren, telling about their life in Hebron.

The fourth part opens a window to the dark & evil forces that strive side by side with the Arab enemy to make Hebron once again Judenrein. Acting behind a

humanitarian mask, extremist left wing Jews misuse the concepts of peace and morality in an attempt to oppress and ethnically cleanse their own brothers and sisters from their Land. Israel’s extreme left wing doesn’t see Israel as its historical, biblical land, and they reject Jewish tradition and spirit.

Their actions might not only, G-d forbid, destroy Jewish communities in Hebron and the rest of Judea and Samaria, but they may contribute to the destruction of the entire State of Israel – with Gush Katif and today’s Gaza as a model. It is very difficult to defend ourselves againstsuch destructive forces from within, whom European countries finance andsupport.

But there are some organizations today that fight for Jewish rights, with littlemeans but with huge faith. Two of them are located in Hebron. One is the “Honenu Legal Defense Organization” and the other, presented in this book, is the “Organization for Human Rights in Yesha” (Judea, Samaria and Gaza).

The renewal and continued survival of the Jewish Community in Hebron represents a miracle of tremendous importance to the Jewish nation – a nation that has gone through many trials, but never given up. As Israel’s Prime Minister, the late David Ben Gurion, correctly put it; “Those of us who do not believe in miracles are not optimists.”

The last words of this commemorative volume come from Hebron, the City of Peace and Love evocating the hope that always arises in each Jewish heart.

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The Jews are the only nation on Earth that has managed to come home after spending thousands of years in exile – four times! Many Jews paid the ultimate price for preserving their Jewish identity, one of the critical factors in the reestablishment of Israel. The martyrs of Tarpat are among them. A massive renewal of Jewish life in Hebron would be the best way to commemorate their martyrdom.

The publication of this book has been, for me, a painful personal journey through a mountain of documents soaked, as it were, in the blood of innocent Jews and the tears of those who survived. I would like to thank everyone on the CAA staff in Norway and the Jewish Community of Hebron who through their outstanding efforts helped bring this volume to the press. Special thanks to Eric Jacobson for the translation work and to Per Antonsen, Erez Uriely, Noam Arnon, Dr. Yitzhak

Klein and David Wilder for their skillful editorial assistance.

May G-d bless the memory of the victims of the Tarpat pogrom. May G-d also bless and keep His hand of mercy and love upon those heroic Jews who today struggle to secure Jewish life in the Jews’ eternal and holy city of Hebron. With their presence and daily prayers, these pioneers guard our Matriarchs’ and Patriarchs’ graves – roots which are crucial for the future of the Jewish nation. Children don’t forget their parents.

Let us hope that the children of Abraham will one day be able to live in Hebron in peace, side by side, in serenity and harmony, and that all the claims for a ‘Judenrein’ Hebron, will forever be rejected by all.

Dr. Michal Rachel Suissa, Oslo-Hebron, Elul 5769; August 2009

Beit Hadasa, Hebron

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The city of Hebron, is strongly linked to our nation’s beginnings. This

is because our mothers – Sarah, Rivka (Rebecca) and Leah, and our fathers – Abraham, Yitzhak (Isaac) and Yaakov (Jacob), lived here. Their tombs are still here, providing solid proof that Hebron is a part of the Jewish heart.

Innumerable important events througout the Jewish peoples’ history, through many tens of generations, are tied to our Belo-ved City, Hebron. We could mention that Caleb, son of Yefunna, visited the Tombs of the Fathers here. He was the only one, besides Joshua, of those who left Egypt who was allowed to enter the Promised Land. Later, David established his king-dom in the city and ruled Israel from here for seven years, before moving the throne to Jerusalem.

Jewish presence in the form of a com-munity has existed almost continuously in Hebron. Even when a majority of the

Jewish people was exiled in the Diaspora; Jews lived here for generation after gene-ration in close proximity to the Tomb of the Matriarchs and Patriarchs – the Mac-hpela Cave.

Hebron is one of the four holy Jewish cities – which Jews have longed for while our tears have filled the oceans of the World. It is therefore natural for us to have, in our time, experienced the liberation of the city by the Israeli military during the Six Day War. It is this city which Jews from 1929 to 1967 longed for more than any other. Hebron is the city we wish to restore, build our homes and raise our children in.

How is it possible, you may ask, that a city with roots so deeply planted in our history’s earth could be neglected in this way? How can it be that sons no longer come to visit the resting place of their fathers?

Hebron: Eternal, Holy City of the JewsChief Rabbi Dov Lior, Kiryat Arba – Hebron, Av 5769 (July, 2009)

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Ramban (Rabbi Moshe Ben Nachman) writes in his exegesis of the Torah’s story of Sara’s life, and makes a point of our obligation to honor the resting place of our Fathers.

Upon the liberation of Hebron, many people became excited and aware that they had a new and burning desire to return to the Land of the Fathers and rebuild the places where our nation had lived for countless generations. The Arab pogrom of 1929 (Tarpat pogrom) led to the only break in the city’s continuous Jewish presence which had lasted for nearly 3,800 years.

Hebron is visited every year by tens and hundreds of thousands of Jews from all corners of the World. The site is used

as a place of prayer, not just for Hebron’s Jews, but by Jews who come here from all over Israel and elsewhere to read Psalms and pray at this Jewish holy site.

Nothing is more important to us Jews, after Jerusalem and the Temple Mount, than Hebron – the heart of our Jewish identity.

But more than that: Hebron is a symbol of our mental and heroic strength. Hebron is the source from where we get our strength.

May G-d make it possible for us to yet again be blessed by experiencing our city rebuilt to it’s former glory – as soon as possible – in our time.

Respectfully, Rabbi Dov Lior

Torah joy: After the Arabs defied the U.N.’s 1948 partition plan, they attacked Israel and carriedout an ethnic cleansing of the Jews from the areas they illegally conquered. Following the defensive war in 1967, Israel survived and liberated the conquered areas. Rabbi Moshe Levinger (on the left) has been among the pioneers who renewed the Jewish settlement of Judea and Samaria and has ever since been one of the region’s leaders. Noam Arnon (on the right), is the leader of the Jewish neighborhood in Hebron. (Photo: David Wilder)

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Despite the fact that eighty years have passed since the 1929 pogrom, the

memory of this event continues to deepen and becomes more and more significantand actual.

The slogans spread by the Nazi Mufti el-Husseini have been transformed into acceptable ideas and are utilized by groups of leftist ‘progressives’ and groups of anarchists who support the annihilation of Jews in Hebron and other places. This is the same Mufti who invented the false creation called a ‘palestinian nation.’ The very beginnings of his career included spreading Arab-Islamic terror in Israel. This is the identical terror which is today supported by European governments and organizations who classify themselves as “Human Rights organizations,” (excep-ting, of course, human rights for Jews).

In order to exemplify their intentions, Arabs in 1929 attacked Jewish communities of all types: cities and villages, new communities and old ones, throughout Israel. This was a declaration of war against all Jews in Eretz Yisrael, decades before pronouncement of the State of Israel, prior to events which the

World today views as ‘causes of terror’ such as the 1967 Six Day war and renewal of communities in Judea and Samaria.

The answer to terror and to the moral support of terror must be given by ethical people who seek justice throughout the world, and first and foremost by theIsraeli government. It must condemn such terror and its supporters, both the visible and the disguised, and cut off all ties with organizations linked to it.

In Hebron there is an additional side which the Israeli government is obli-gated to implement: Much of Hebron’s Jewish property is still inaccessible, some held by Arabs and some by the Israeli government’s representative: the custo-dian for abandoned property. Much of this property remains desolate and aban-doned, in ruins and neglected. However, Jews are actively prevented from restoring this land to Jewish ownership and Jewish life. This property was stolen by the Jor-danians and the Israeli government con-tinues to hold it, despite its being abando-ned, and in ruins.

The supreme moral responsibility of the

Eighty Years After the 1929-Tarpat Massacre

– Thoughts for the Present

By Noam Arnon, Hebron, Elul, 5769; August, 2009

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Israeli government is to restore this pro-perty in Hebron to Jewish hands and to its owners, to permit Jews to live on this property, to develop it and to nurture it. Elements within the Israeli Left try to create an equation between this Jewish property and property abandoned by Arabs during the Israeli War of Indepen-dence. However, this equation is false. Hebron’s community was attacked during a brutal pogrom by groups of rioters in 1929, decades before the founding of the State; there isn’t any link between this property to the that of the Arabs, who initiated a war against the Jewish state of Israel, which had only then come into being, in 1948.

Jewish property in Hebron, just as pro-perty of Jews murdered in the Holocaust, must be returned to its rightful owners. In the meantime the state must allow Jews to

live on this land, to care for it, to develop it and to guard it. The continued defini-tion of this property as ‘abandoned’ only continues the acts of thievery by the Jor-danians, who declared it to be “property of the Zionist enemy.” It is necessary to rectify this iniquity which screams to the heavens, in order to heal, even if only par-tially, the still open wounds of 1929. In this way the government will be able to do its part, the most basic of acts, to ans-wer the murderous Nazi Mufti Amin el-Husseini and those who continue in his footsteps. This will prove that the Jewish people were able to overcome the terror and defeat it.

The building of Hebron with our heads held high, with feelings of justice and pride, this is the true victory over terror, and the most ethically correct path that can be chosen at this time.

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It is a great honor for the Center Against Antisemitism (CAA) in Norway to be

asked by the Jewish pioneers of Hebron to take part in the production of this book, in memory of the victims of Tar-pat, 1929.

When the CAA was formally founded in Norway in 2003, it quickly formed a natu-ral bond with the Jews of Hebron. The fight against antisemitism must confrontthe front lines of contemporary antisemi-tism. And the front line of this evil is the global struggle to Islamize the histo-rical parts of Jerusalem and Hebron – the cities with the oldest Jewish roots, and the heart of Jewish history and spiritual life.

The Jewish Community’s struggle to live in Hebron is a continuation of the struggle of the Jewish people for the right to live in their own homeland under their own sovereignty, like other peoples. We should listen to the decisive Jew-haters who wish to cleanse Hebron of its Jews. They know the importance of Hebron to the Jewish people. The possible destruction of the Jewish community of Hebron, G-d forbid, would not only lead

to the death of these particular Jews – but to the gradual destruction of Israel. That is why we call upon all moral individuals and NGOs that reject antisemitism, to put our Hebron on their banner.

When the German Foreign Minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, visited Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on August 7th 2009, he told him that “Israeli settlements remain an obstacle ... to peace in the Middle East”. Netanyahu answered what every Jew should answer: “Judea and Samaria cannot be Judenrein”.

Blaming Jews for evils that Muslims do is both cowardly and antisemitic, as is appeasing terrorists with territories cleansed from Jews, which is the main idea of “land for peace”.

Tikkun is a Jewish term referring to a good deed that rectifies a moral error commit-ted in the past. Netanyahu’s declaration is a Tikkun for the crime committed by the State of Israel against the Jews of Gush Katif and North Samaria. As a conse-quence of this crime, which rewarded terrorists with territory, the tide of Isla-mic Jihad escalated and many more Jews,

Judenrein Hebron and its

Tikkun (rectification)

By Erez Uriely, director of The Center Against Antisemitism (CAA), Oslo-Hebron, Elul, 5769; August, 2009

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besides the unfortunate victims of Gush Katif and Northern Samaria, became its victims.

The commemoration of the 1929 mas-sacre is a Tikkun for both the Muslim massacre, whose organizers were under European protection, and for the fact that the official Israel has till now largely cho-sen to overlook this part of its history.

That Tikkun however, could not be done without another Tikkun: the renewal of Jewish life in Hebron by the everyday presence of the brave Zionist pioneers. With G-d’s help, future generations will reap the fruits of their investment as we today harvest the fruit of the pioneers who renewed Jewish life throughout Eretz Ysrael.

It is time for Israel’s government and every Jew to make a significant Tikkun inHebron, by massively investing there and renewing the Jewish life that was cut off in 1929. In a time of growing global pressure to make Judea and Samaria Judenrein, the best response is an immense effort for the growth and development of Hebron. This is the mission of our generation. The time of Jewish spirit and Zionism is not over. We only have to follow Hebron’s pioneers and do our share.

Making Hebron Judenrein is the key to de-Judaize and destroy Israel. Peace, however, is about coexistence. The Machpela cave and the Jews living in Beit Hadassah link today’s and tomorrow’s Jews with 3,800 continuous years of Jewish history, a history that began 2,400 years before Islam arose.

There is indeed apartheid in Hebron today, where Jews are only allowed access to only 3% of the city’s area. Discriminatory regulations aimed only at Jews prevent them from reclaiming and living on their legally owned property or buying new property. The 1994–1995 law enforcement guidelines know as the “Special Procedures for Enforcing the Law Against Jewish Settlers in the Territories” are still discriminating against Jewish Zionists. This discrimination must cease. If it existed in Europe, it would have been denounced as antisemitic and unjust.

We must support peace and stand shoulder to shoulder with the idealistic Jews of Hebron.

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Archaeology and the Book of Gene-sis both show that Hebron is an

ancient city. It was here one man, Abra-ham, attempted to establish a moral foot-hold for mankind among the children of people who had turned away from mercy and tolerance. Abraham, the wanderer, laid the foundation for humanism’s his-tory. From him, a family grew into a tribe and then to a new people who wrote their founder’s message on their banner. In time, the Jews settled in Hebron, appro-ximately 700 years before David chose the city as his capital. Such continuity is unique in history. Hebron can be proud of this, which is without parallel when it comes to the Jewish presence. When considering the question of what the Jews have to do with Hebron, the answer comes quickly: Here are the root, trunk and branches of the Tree of Israel!

During the First Temple period, Hebron lay in the shadow of Jerusalem. But during the Shivat Zion period, following the Jews’ return from Babylon, many settled in Kiryat Arba – another name for

Hebron. Here, around the tombs of the Matriarchs and Patriarchs, Israel began a new building of its national strength.[1]

During the Hashmonayim period, around 150 B.C.E, the first building around thegraves of the Matriarchs and Patriarchs was built. During Herod’s time, fabulous buildings were erected in Judea and Galilee; one is the wall around the graves – a building still standing today. This wall has become the symbol of the life-force of the Jewish people through the ages.

The wall has been a silent witness to many great conquerors: the Romans, Byzantines, Arabs, Mongols, Mamelukes, Ottomans and others. If the stones could speak, they would testify to how the conquerors disappeared, while the People of Israel outlived them all.

According to the collective Jewish memory, Hebron was the first Jewishproperty in the Land of Israel. It was here Abraham purchased the Machpela Cave as a burial site and thus planted his

Hebron: A Jewish Presence for 3800 Years

By Eliaou Attlan. Attlan has, along with his wife Deborah and their five children, lived in Kiryat Arba for over 25 years. Here, in the City of the Fathers, he works as a history teacher at the yeshiva. He has also guided tourists in Hebron and Jerusalem for many years. Attlan is the author of the most comprehensive book on Hebron’s history. It is published in French: ‘Le livre de Hebron’.

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roots in the Land which was promised to his children.

The Bible gives a detailed account of this real estate purchase. The name of the seller, the price and the name of the buyer is given. It is not for nothing that the scholars of the Talmud have looked upon this transaction as a most important event. In a peaceful manner, Abraham bought this land and the seller received a very high price for it. “The actions of the Fathers are a guide for the children”, they said, and this is how the children of Abraham went forth thousands of years later when they reestablished Jewish sovereignty over the Land.

Hebron became the symbol of the Jewish people’s connection to Eretz Ysrael. It may have been for this reason that Emperor Hadrian decided to build a slave market in Hebron, following Bar Kochva’s failed uprising. This war, in 135 B.C.E., was a bitter war in which thousands of Roman soldiers lost their lives. When Hadrian eventually won, he decided to make Judea “Judenrein”.

Hadrian committed three crimes against the Jewish people:

He renamed Israel “Palestine”, after the Ægean “Philistines” who, by that time, had been extinct for around one thousand years.

He tore down Jerusalem and built a heathen city on its ruins, Ælia Capitolina.

It was from Kiryat Arba, Hebron, the place where G-d said to Abraham: “To

you and your descendants have I given this land...”, that he sold numerous Jews as slaves to all corners of the World.

During the Byzantine period, Hebron suffered, just as the rest of Israel, under the yoke of the latest occupiers. The Byzantine Empire became Christianized and turned against Judaism. In the fifthcentury, one of the Church fathers (Suzi-nius) wrote of a common summer festival for Jews, Christians and heathens. The description contains a lot of praise for the mutual respect the different religions had amongst themselves.

Around 600 C.E., camel caravans began penetrating Israel. They stole and plun-dered, while examining the possibilities for a possible conquest. City after city was occupied by Arabs who came out of their lands intent on occupying the entire World.

Following the occupation of Kiryat Arba, Islam as a religion was indifferent to this city. Descriptions of the occupa-tion don’t mention Hebron with a sin-gle word. This is proof that Hebron was of no importance to the original Islam. During this time, Islam was searching for its own identity and shifted between the various powerbases within itself. It is absolutely clear that this religion, despite being born in Hidgaz in the heart of the Arabian Desert, was based on elements of Judaism and Christianity. It is therefore natural that this new religion couldn’t remain indifferent to the Biblical lands-cape and the Biblical sites. Some of them are also mentioned in the Koran.

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This was a very interesting transitional period. After attaining many victories on the battlefield, the Arabs realized thatthey would have to administer enormous areas containing many different peoples. With this in mind, they became adept at showing tolerance and wisdom: They made use of the peoples’ administrative knowledge, including the Jews.

In the beginning, the Jews viewed the Arabs as liberators, almost as a sign of the Geula (Redemption, arrival of the Messiah), which the Jews had awaited from generation to generation. From the Jews, the Arabs learned to treat holy sites with respect. For 500 years, both Jews and Muslims came to the tomb and arranged various welcoming celebrations for adherents of other religions who visited. This idyll ceased when the Mamelukes came to power, around 1250 C.E.[2]

The Mamelukes brought a new dimension to Islam, a fundamenta-list and extremist dimension that was based on the hatred of all non-Mus-lims. Baberas, Sultan of the Mamel-ukes, forbade Jews and Christians to enter the Machpela Cave. The closest the Jews were allowed to come to it was the seventh step of the building, no further.

One could have hoped that this change within Islam wouldn’t achieve such a grasp on the religion after 500 years of relatively high tolerance. Unfortunately, it went the wrong way and the prohibition took on a religious shape. It is due to this that the children of Abraham, Yitzhak and Yaakov were denied access to their forefathers’ grave for around 700 years.

It is interesting and worth mentioning that Muslim scholars claimed that only Mohammed’s grave was holy, and was therefore the only grave a Muslim could pray at. This is why, to start, it was forbidden to build mosques over gravesites. Up until the 19th century, there were Muslim scholars who were strongly opposed to turning the Machpela Cave into a Muslim prayer site.

Muslims probably saw the Jews praying at the tomb and eventually did the same. However, it is important to remember that, today, Hebron is the fourth holiest city for Muslims, after Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem.[3]

The Muslim attitude to the holy sites of other religions can be seen as a process in three stages:

Indifference to non-Muslim holy sites.

Coexistence with other religions.

Takeover through deportation of other religions from their holy sites, which are then used only by Muslims.

We see the same phenomenon at the Jewish Temple Mount in Jerusalem. It is only in the last few years that this site has been transformed into an area containing many mosques. At times, though, these serious actions take on a humorous twist. One example is a tourist brochure which the PA (Palestinian Authority) has made. In it, it says that Herod built the Ibrahim mosque in Hebron in 100 B.C.E.. Yes, you read correctly. Herod built mosques

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700 years before Islam arose! We are wit-nesses to a ridiculous, historical revision, but at the same time, a dangerous revi-sion, because its aim is the eradication of the Jewish past.

In 1517 C.E., the Ottoman Empire brought an end to Mameluke control. This was the beginning of the longest occupation of Israel. During the firstyears, the Turks distinguished themselves by bringing order and safety to the region. The Jewish community made use of the opportunity to start a new period where important rabbis greatly contributed to the evolution of Kabbalah. The Jews who had been deported from Spain came to Hebron and purchased a farm to renew the Jewish Quarter.

Rabbi Malchiel Ashkenazi founded a congregation around the Abraham Avinu (Our Father Abraham) synagogue. The Jews of Hebron sent their best rabbis to congregations in the Diaspora to teach the Torah of Israel. These messengers awoke messianic expectations amongst the Diaspora Jews, such as the false prophet Shabbatai Ben-Zvi. In this way, Hebron held a leading position in the belief in the Geula.[4]

It is important to understand that for many Jews, who for generations had lived without a sovereign state of their own, Jewish belonging became only a concep-tual belonging. But the messengers from Hebron reminded the Jews that they are all one people with the same father and a country waiting for them. They reminded each other that the day would come when their prayers would be answered and they would again return to their Land. Modern

Zionism is not always aware of just how much these messengers have contributed to preserving the Jewish national identity down through the generations. Messen-gers from Hebron reached remote Jewish congregations, also in the U.S. where Rabbi Haiim Shneorsen was received by President Ulysses Grant as a representa-tive for the Jews in Hebron.

The break-up of the Ottoman Empire was followed by nationalistic phenomena in the Middle East. Both Jews and Arabs established active, nationalistic move-ments. The Arabs saw Zionism as their archenemy.

There were two Jewish groups in Hebron. The majority belonged to the established community (Hayeshuv Hayashan) which was primarily concerned with prayer, studying Judaism and waiting for the Messiah. The new community (Hayeshuv Hahadash) had a clear goal of building a new society in Israel, based on Jewish work and Hebrew as the day-to-day language. They worked actively against the Diaspora as a way of life.

The Arabs were astute enough to see the difference between these two movements. This is why the Arabs didn’t attack the Hebron Jews when the pogroms started in 1920–21. Good relations between the religious leaders of these two groups and the fact that the Arabs didn’t look upon the Jews in Hebron as a danger in the same way they looked upon the “Zionists” were the reasons for this.

The third wave of pogroms was led by Haj-Amin Al-Husseini. His Jew-hatred made him blind and he believed every

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Hebron: The Market is Jewish Property: The following contract proves that the marketplace in Hebron, once occupied by Arabs and lying in ruins, belongs to the Jews. It states clearly that the area was purchased by Jews in 1807. (The document is presented in both Arabic and Hebrew, http://isfsp.org/hev.html)

Jew should be murdered. This is why the pogrom in 1929 was the most murderous of them all. The Jewish congregation in Hebron was dealt a severe blow, and at least 67 Jews were butchered amid indescribable torture. Women were raped in front of their families and corpses were violated. This happened in the 20th century, under the British Mandate administration. The rest of the congregation was spared, not by the British, but by few Arabs who

bravely placed themselves between the killers and the Jews.

An attempt to bring the murderers to jus-tice failed, because the British weren’t inte-rested in having the extent of the pogrom exposed. Not only did the Hebron Jews not receive any significant reparation orcompensation for the killings and plun-dering they’d endured, but the British also decided to forcibly move the Jewish community to Jerusalem on the grounds

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that the British could no longer guaran-tee their safety in Hebron.

It was then the Arabs understood that violence pays. It should also be mentio-ned that the British tried to cleanse the town of Safed of Jews following a similar pogrom there, but the community refu-sed to move since it would reward the Arab terror. Today it is a matter of course for all of Israel’s citizens that Safed is an inseparable part of Israel, but not every-one in Israel is aware of the fact that the Jews also have the right to Hebron.

The U.N.’s partition plan didn’t take into consideration the historical roots of the Jews, so the holy city of the Jews, Hebron, was placed outside of Israel’s borders in 1948. During 1947–1967, the Jordanians continued the destruction that started with the 1929 pogrom. Jewish property was transferred to Arab hands, synagogues and community houses were either torn down or turned into public toilets. The cemetery was destroyed and large portions of it turned into farmland.

The IDF’s surprising victory in the 1967 war got many Jews thinking. The return to the “water wells” and the Temple Mount were the strongest aspects of this. It was in the meeting with precisely Hebron, the City of the Fathers, that the desire to initiate a grand settlement movement in Judea and Samaria was awoken in the hearts of idealistic youth. The community of Kiryat Arba in Hebron was the firstcommunity in Judea, Samaria and Gaza.[5]

Even though Israel won the war, this didn’t lead to Israel’s leaders sharing the

Rabbi Rahamim Yosef Franco

same view. The political establishment quickly adopted the empty phrase: “Land for peace”, even though the majority in Israel saw this as a golden opportunity to again populate Judea, Samaria and Gaza and thereby contribute to fulfilling theBiblical verse: “And the sons shall return

to their borders.”

Hebron was the first rebuilt Jewish neig-hborhood. It all started with a small group of families around Rabbi Moshe Levinger who renewed the Jewish con-gregation in Hebron. Following a bitter struggle, Israel’s government decided to rebuild Kiryat Arba in 1969. The com-munity has never received any type of aid

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from the government, but was the result of grassroots pressure. One example is Moshe Dayan, Defense Minister at the time, who refused to allow Jews to pray at the Machpela Tomb. It is thanks to the Jews of Hebron, who insisted on equal rights for both Jews and non-Jews, that, today, prayer is allowed at this holy place.

Hebron and Kiryat Arba have experi-enced innumerable terrorist attacks and disasters. Most of the cases where the government has granted building per-mits, have come in the wake of serious episodes were Jewish blood has been shed. Like what happened in the neig-hborhood of Beit Hadassah. Only after six Jews were murdered there in 1980, did Begin allow the Jews to return.

Kiryat Arba, the Jewish neighborhood in Hebron, quickly became the symbol for the populating of YESHA (Judea, Samaria and Gaza) with Jews. Kiryat Arba is the mother of settlements. From here, small groups of people have gone forth to establish new settlements.

Soon we will celebrate the 40th anni-versary of the rejuvenated Jewish com-munity in Kiryat Arba – Hebron. This is, according to Jewish tradition, the age of maturity. Let us hope that everyone will realize that Hebron has been, and will forever be, a Jewish city that, under Jewish sovereignty, always will be open to all religions that wish to fulfill our fatherAbraham’s message of peace.

Notes

[1] Ed.: Kiryat Arba means “the city of the four [mothers]” in Hebrew. “Kirya” is the original Hebrew word for church.

[2] Ed.: The Mamelukes, the El Bahris in Egypt (1250–1517 C.E.): Originally Turks who were sold as slaves in the Arabian Empire. The name El Bahri (from “the river” in Arabic, be-cause they were first placed by the Nile. Theywere called Mamelukes in Arabic: “Those who were bought”). Since they were great warriors, the Caliphs, who didn’t trust their own Arabs, used them primarily in the army and encoura-ged more Seljuks to move from Turkey to Iraq and Egypt. Bloody, internal wars amongst the Arabs led to the army taking control over the Arab empire and the slaves became the mas-ters. The original slaves controlled the Middle East with Cairo as their capital for around 250 years. During this time, they destroyed every-thing in the Arab lands they controlled. They stopped both the Mongols and the Crusaders. From Baghdad, they took a Caliph who was the formal governor in Cairo, but without po-wer. They were very ardent Muslims who had no tolerance for Arabs. The Turks (Ottomans), with Salim the first as commander, came fromConstantinople and conquered the Middle East, including the Mandate area Palestine and de-stroyed the Mameluke Empire in 1517. (from “History of the Arabs”, by Dr. Michal Rachel Suissa)

[3] Ed.: According to Islam Mecca is 1,000 ti-mes more holy than Medina, etc.

[4] Ed.: One well-known example is Shabbatai Ben-Zvi, who later was forced to convert to Islam.

[5] Ed.: The first Jewish settlement was actuallyin Beit Gala, a Christian village near Gilo in Jerusalem, founded by a secular Jew named Putzhi. Then Kfar Etzion was re-inhabited by Jews who were evicted in 1928. Kiryat Arba was the first large community built following theWar of Liberation in 1967.

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Only a few of the tourists who come to Israel visit the Tomb of the Matri-

archs and Patriarchs. Many of the tourists who plan their visits to Israel base their trips on information they find in booksor on the Internet and subsequently don’t visit Hebron. As a result, they are mis-sing out on a wonderful experience. The Machpela tomb is – without a doubt – one of the most important attractions in Israel, if not in the whole world.

The Biblical Story

In those parts of the World where the Bible is read, one knows that the Tomb of the Matriarchs and Patriarchs and the field around it were purchased by our

Father Abraham. This was, in fact, the very first Jewish property in Israel, a pro-perty that laid the foundation for around 3,800 years of Jewish presence in Eretz Yisrael. Upon inspection of the tomb, one sees that the story is still alive today, and that the Biblical description of the site is precise. The Bible says that the grave is situated on the edge of a field, and this isso. The field is still partially covered withstones, with some trees and a yard.

Also, the Biblical Hebrew words “Al Pnei

Mamre”, which in Hebrew means “east of

Mamre”, fits the eastern slope of what theArabs today call “Nemra Ridge”. The name has been changed only slightly through the years. You can still sit under

The Machpela Tomb: Historical Background,

Facts and Justice

By Noam Arnon. Noam is married to Tzippi, has 8 children and 13 grandchildren. They have lived since 1986 in Beit Hadassah in Hebron. Arnon was born in Israel in 1954, studied at Yeshivat Nir in Kiryat Arba, Hebron. During the Yom Kippur war, he fought in the tank corp on both the Sinai and Golan fronts. He later got a bachelors degree and a masters in geography and in Jewish history at The Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He was among the Israelis who excavated the Avraham Avinu synagogue (Our Father Abraham) in Hebron with Professor Ben-Tzion Tavgar, of blessed memory.

In 1978, he founded the educational center “Midreshet Hebron” in Kiryat Arba and is a board member on the YESHA council. Until 2007 he was the chairperson and presently is the spokesperson for the Jewish community in Hebron. In 2009 he received the Moskowitz Prize for Zionism. He is an avid and regular columnist with Arutz 7, and gives many lectures throughout Israel.

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the olive trees, read the Bible and feel as though you have gone back in a wonder-ful time machine nearly 4,000 years.

An Entire Building in Use for 2,000 years

The Machpela building is impressive in all its glory and with its mighty wall that protects the graves of our Mothers and Fathers. Visitors find themselves infront of a powerful wall with two towers. Those who are not familiar with archa-eology or history will get the impression that this building is probably a mosque in the Middle East.

But upon closer inspection, one will see that it is similar to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, which was built during the Second Temple period, about 2,000 years ago. The magnificent structure above theTomb of the Matriarchs and Patriarchs is the only visibly active building still stan-ding in its entirety from this period! It can be defined as a miracle: An entirebuilding that has survived everything for 2,000 years.

During the Second Temple era in Israel and the Roman era in Europe, thou-sands of splendid buildings and monu-ments were erected throughout the Roman Empire. Yet, all of these famous architectural works of art, designed by the World’s foremost architects, have been eroded by the hands of time and none of them remain standing in their entirety today. The decayed buildings that are left in Rome have recently been earmarked to receive 100 million Euros for restoration by the EU. But the only building from

this period which is still wholly intact and in active use today is the Machpela Tomb in Hebron.

We must remember that Hebron is of no economic or strategic importance. Its only significance is spiritual, religious andhistoric. It is impossible to explain the existence of the Machpela Tomb without believing in miracles. It is the only place where one can gain a clear impression of the ancient Jewish building technique.

This is the same technique that was used at the Temple Mount. However, soft limestone was used there, along with the fact that the Romans purposely tore down and destroyed this holy site. Hebron rock, on the other hand, is hard and strong. That, combined with the won-derful Jewish building technique used in Judea, made it possible for the Mach-pela building to stand without the use of iron rods or other structural aids. It has been in continuous use and has stood for 2,000 years!

The Legacy is Jewish

The Machpela Tomb is unique. Not only due to its archaeology and history, but also, and not in the least, because it was built by the Jewish people during the time of King Herod. During this time, the Jewish people inhabited their own land, which, of course, also included the hills of Hebron, Samaria, Jerusalem and Benjamin. These areas are what politicians today call the “West Bank”, despite there being no river close by. The Jordan River is miles away…

The Machpela building was built in a

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time when neither Christianity nor Islam existed on Earth. Christianity arose around 300 years later, and Islam another 300 years after that. The building carried no significance with the heathen Romansand they therefore didn’t bother to mark the spot in any way that might tie them to it. It is therefore obvious that this place is a Jewish site, a Jewish building, built by the Jewish people in a time when they lived in their own land and wanted to mark the spot where their forefathers were buried. Called in English “Judea” and in Hebrew “Yehuda,” this land is the source and homeland of the Jewish People, and provides us with our name: for Jews, in Hebrew, is “Yehudim.”

Several hundred years later, when the Byzantine Empire, and later the Arabs, occupied the area, they took the Machpela Tomb from the Jews and built an altar for their religious services there. On the southern side of the building, one can see that the Arabs some time later erected a mosque, including two towers above the wall in clear, Muslim style. There is no doubt that this was an obvious attempt to Islamify the external, visual portion of the Jewish holy site. One can also see this inside. The 3 Jewish mothers’ and 3 Jewish fathers’ memorials are encircled by Arabic verses with the clear intention of giving this Jewish place a Muslim identity. This is why many tourists are fooled and truly believe they have come to an Arab shrine, mosque or an Arab site.

The Machpela Tomb is a microcosm of the entire Land of Israel. This Land has been the Fatherland of the Jews for nearly 4,000 years. A Jewish monarchy was

established here more than 3,000 years ago, and the magnificent era during theSecond Temple lasted until around 2,000 years ago.

More than 600 years later, when the Arabs occupied Israel in 638 C.E., they tried to take over Jewish holy sites and remake them into Muslim ones. The Mamelukes went one step further and forbad the Jews access to the Machpela Tomb starting in the 1200’s. This prohibition lasted about 700 years. The Jews were left humbled and humiliated on the seventh step of the Eastern stairway, leading to their holy place. Here they prayed and wept and longed for their ancestors. Not until the liberation of Hebron in 1967 was the site opened to all religions, yet still with numerous restrictions imposed due to strong Arab pressure.

The reason for this is clear: The Arabs have no roots or ties to the Land of Israel. Their holy sites and roots are to be found on the Arabian Peninsula. From there, they came and occupied Israel, the Middle East, North Africa and Spain in the seventh century. To justify their occupation, they confiscated the localpeoples’ holy sites and converted them into Muslim shrines. They fabricated so-called “Arab (or Moslem) roots”.

The Arabs know that the future of the Middle East belongs to those who have a past in the region. The Machpela Tomb is an important symbol and evidence for the fact that the past is Jewish. This is why it is important for the Arabs to falsify his-tory and steal the Jews’ identity – which has never belonged to the Arabs!

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Historical facts prove that the Jews are an ancient people who have lived in Israel for around 3,800 years. Arabs, the occupiers, have no historical rights or historical connection to this small Land. They have their own land, Arabia, where they have their own holy sites.

In addition to these historical facts and according to the customs of ancient peoples, it is important to remember that Abraham gave the Land of Israel to Yitzhak, not to Ishmael. Ishmael’s descendants have the enormous land of Arabia.

Those who believe that Ishmael also has a claim to the inheritance of Abraham should read the Bible – which states that Abraham himself gave Israel to Yitzhak, who gave it to Yaakov who was given the name “Israel” by G-d, who later passed it on to his sons, the Children of Israel.

The Machpela Tomb is an excellent example of Middle Eastern reality. Journalists, tourists and politicians are led astray by the façades and they base their opinion on Arab propaganda. They see some minarets and Muslim ornaments and believe they have arrived at a Muslim site that the “Israel has

occupied”, and which “some Jews are trying to take over”. It is necessary to make an in-depth examination to bring forth the truth and to be able to come to the correct conclusion.

The same is to be said for the Temple Mount: Thousands of years after the Temple Mount had become a holy Jewish site, where two Temples had stood for more than a thousand years, the last one destroyed by the Romans, the Arabs came and, around 700 C.E., turned it into a “Haram”, built mosques on it and forced Islamic terror upon the site where, today, it is forbidden for Jews, even quietly, to recite Psalms.[1]

Visiting the impressive building above the cave of Machpela is a special experience, recommended to everyone who desires to know the truth about the history and reality of the Land of Israel.

Notes

[1] Ed.: Haram: Arabic for “forbidden”, a shrine for the Muslim god, Allah.

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On the 8th of August 2009, it will be 80 years since the Arabs started

the pogroms against the Jews in Israel, in Hebron, Jerusalem, Safed, Ber Tuvia and Hulda. The year was 1929 and the day was a Jewish holy day, the Sabbath. Despite a wave of 12 massacres in the country, the massacre in Hebron remains in the nation’s collective historical memory and that not just because of the 67 victims. In Jerusalem there were 34 killed, in Safed 17 and seven in Motza.

The pogrom in Hebron left an indelible impression, because it was a pogrom with a similar connotation as in Chisinau, which the Jews remember as “Slaughter City,” Kishinev.[2] Hebron was a pogrom carried out in Eastern European style, a horror which shocked all Jews who never expected such an atrocity could happen in Israel.

Arab violence against Jews in Israel took the the form of attacks, arson and assassinations.[3] To confront this Arab

terror, various defense units were estab-lished, such as HaShomer.[4] However people refused to realize, even in Israel, just as in the Diaspora, that Jews were murdered for no reason other than that they are Jews. Accordingly they redefi-ned reality and rather then refer to Arab terror; they labeled the violence as “Arab riots”. This terror was excused as a reac-tion to the fulfillment of Zionism andwas therefore accepted as a ‘political col-lision’ between two peoples: the Arabs and the Jews.

The defense units were regarded as a part of the Zionist-Israeli “new Jewish syndrome.” Jews move to Israel, settle the land, plow and build, while simultaneously fighting to protect the Zionist project “....who built the wall. When the pioneers took up their burden, they worked with one hand, while holding a weapon in the other.” (Nehemiah 4:11)[5] This is the entire Zionist ethos in a nutshell: the new Israeli continues his ancestor’s heritage in the Land of Israel. The Diaspora comes

Hebron: The 1929 Pogrom and the Dhimmi

Syndrome in Our Times[1]

By attorney Elyakim Haetzni. Haetzni lives in Kiryat Arba and was a member of the Knesset. He is one of the eight pioneers who initiated the re-establishment of the Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria. Presently he is a member of the board of the Yesha Council , the organization responsible for Jewish communities in Judea, Samaria and Gaza. He has a regular weekly column in Israel’s largest newspaper, Yediot Aharonot (Latest News).

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to an end: for thousands of years Jews did not and could not carry weapons to defend themselves; they were therefore treated as “sheep to slaughter” by their enemies.

This new self-image of the Jew who defends himself did not fit in thepogroms of 1929. Therefore it was not easy to accept the fact that the pogroms in Hebron were identical to the Diaspora pogroms. The result was denial of rea-lity.

The non-Zionists and the anti-Zio-nists from the established Jewish soci-ety also allowed themselves be surpri-sed. They saw the Arab reaction as an uprising against Zionism, and something which was primarily aimed against the “new” Jews who came to Israel for poli-tical reasons. Therefore the Jews from the established Jewish society did eve-rything within their power to separate themselves from”the other Jews” and thus distanced themselves from the essential self-defense (Ha Shomer and Haganah), which were established by the Zionists. They failed to let themselves be protected by the Haganah and instead depended on the British police and on the good rela-tions with their Arab neighbors. They were very sure that the Arabs differen-tiated between the anti-Zionists and the Zionist Jews.

The massacres on the established Jewish society as in Hebron, Jerusalem and Safed, and the murder of Arab-speaking Jews and Jewesses, who had Arabs as neighbors and business partners, shocked the established Jewish community so deeply that none of them dared to come

back home to Hebron after the liberation in 1967, despite the fact that their families had lived their from time immemorial.

A short time after moving to Kiryat Arba, I talked to an 80 year old Arab in the Kasba sector of Hebron. We talked of the massacres of 1929. The man talked honestly. One proof of this was that he did not use the “official” claim that theBritish had arranged the pogroms by the mobs brought in from outside areas. He stated clearly that the Arabs lived peace-fully with the small Jewish religious com-munity, but at the same time ensured that the Jews “did not hold their heads too high”.

He said further that when the new Yeshiva (Bible school) was established (’Slobodka - Knesset Israel’, 1924[6]) and when even students from the USA came there, the Arabs felt that the “Zionist threat” had reached Hebron and therefore they deci-ded to put a stop to it. “I personally,” said the Arab in a serious and matter-of-factly way, like a mafia godfather, “had nothing against the Jews in Hebron. One of the survivors, who fled to Jerusalem, owed mea lot of money. The Jew arranged to send me the money to last penny”. I did not ask him why they felt the need to mass-acre a non-zionist religious community. I could see that for him all Jews were the same.

It looks like this apparent fact is still not understood by the Jews in Israel, even in 2009, 80 years after the massacre. I point this at both the Jews who remain Zionists and the ultra-orthodox proto-Zionists, (Ed.: earliest form of Zionists), those who belong to the established population and

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the secular post-Zionists who today adopt the philosophy of the establishment.

The Pogroms

The Hebron massacre was unique, primarily because the Jewish religious community was completely wiped out as a result of the pogrom (even though some Jews came back after the pogrom and were there for a short period until the riots in 1936). The British mandate’s behaviour resembled very much the Czar’s pogroms in 1881–1882 (called by the Jews “Sufot BaNegev”, Desert Storm).

In both cases it was known beforehand that the pogroms were coming, but nobody helped the Jews. In both cases the murderers were not punished, but the Jews who tried to protect themselves were punished. Everything that was stolen remained with the mob and the Jewish

possessions were regarded as ownerless. The compensation from the British mandate authorities was an insult: The family of Rabbi Hasson, whose house was plundered and destroyed, received 11.1 pounds as compensation!

The religious Jewish community recei-ved 54 pounds for all their buildings and possessions, whereas Asher Kalinsky, whose house was razed to the ground, received 14 shillings, and Rabbi Dvortz received 2 pounds for his house which was burnt down and for one of his arms which was hacked off. Very few received reasonable compensation. On the other hand, 348 pounds was paid to advocate Hasan Albodeiri, an Arab from Jerusa-lem, as compensation for his claim to a few private possessions.[7]

After this pogrom, the Jewish graveyard was desecrated and destroyed and the gra-vestones used as building materials. Most

29

of the houses and the land owned by the Jews were stolen by the Arabs.

A similar phenomenon happened after the Holocaust: East European countries still refuse to return plundered Jewish properties. Museums in the “enlightened” western world keep the stolen art works belonging to the Jews. Insurance companies and business enterprises have enriched themselves on the plundered goods. Everybody treats Jewish property as ownerless objects.[8]

Just as in the Diaspora, a few just and honest people are found. These are in both Ishmael and Esau. According to a list of the massacre in Hebron, 19 Arabs were found to have saved 270 Jewish lives. On a different list, confusingly similar to the first list, 28 Arabs are mentionedto have saved 435 lives. Malka Slonim and her family were saved by a 75 year old neighbor, Abu Shachar: “He used

his body as a living shield against the murderers. The mob arrived at our house and we heard Abu Shachar’s voice: “Go away, you cannot come here! You must kill me first.” He was 75 years old but a strongman. One of the mobs took his sword and said: “I shall murder you, traitor.” Abu Shachar replied: “Go ahead and kill! Here is a Rabbi’s family and that is my family.” The sword pierced Abu Shachar’s foot, but he did not move, even when the mob left the place. When we tried to bring him inside for treatment, he refused for fear that they would come back.”

On the other side were the many so-called partners, “friends” and neighbors who both plundered and murdered the Jews. Just as in the Diaspora, the thirst for Jewish blood in Hebron was beyond all imagination. The poem by Hayyim Nahman Bialik, “City of Slaughter” from 1904, could just as well have been written in 1929[9]:

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[…] When you have come into the courtyard,

Shall you with your eyes see and with your hands feel…

On the fences, on the trees, on the stones and on the plaster of the walls

The dried blood and the brain matter of the massacred.

Your feet shall wade through piles

Of remains of destroyed books and [Torah]-scroll […]

In Zeevi’s book about the Hebron mas-sacre, quotes from 1929 newspaper clip-pings are found. In a memo that the Jewish religious community sent to the British Chief Commissioner, it states:[10]

“... Rabbi Meir Castel, 69 years age and rabbi Zvi Dribkin 67 years age, and fiveyoung men were attacked, castrated

and murdered under inhuman torture. The baker Noach Immerman was grilled alive over an open fire. … The rabbi ofZichron Yaakov, Avraham Yaakov Orlansky Hacohen, who came to pray in Hebron, was taken away in the middle of prayer still wearing his prayer shawl. His brain was cut out and his wife murdered by hacking her bowels to small pieces… [the doctor and] pharmacist Ben Zion Gershon, who was dependent on the wheel-chair, who had worked in Hebron for more than 40 years and who had extensively helped the Arab population, got his nose and fingers cutoff before he was murdered.

His daughters were raped and murdered under cruel torture. Both of his wife’s hands were hacked off and she died in the hospital in Jerusalem. The 2 year old Menahem Segal was beheaded. The teachers Haim-Eliezer Dobnikov and Yitzhak Abushadid were murdered by hanging.

Eighteen year old Moshe (Ben Yaakov) Gozlan was pierced through the mouth

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(with a sword) and murdered. Six synagogues, two of which were extremely old with 80 Torah rolls, were plundered and destroyed. The ancient library, with many expensive and rare books, was plundered and burnt. Many of the works

were treated as rubbish....”[11]

In this book on Hebron there is a description about the baby boy Menahem Segal. His father, Rabbi Nachman, held the boy in his arms. The father’s hand was hacked off, and then the father and the son murdered with a sword. The mother lost three fingers. A yeshiva student,Simcha-Yitzhak Broida, was hung by his legs from a window and afterwards murdered.

In Haichal’s house, where 10 Jews were hiding, the two Haichal brothers came out and requested help from a British policeman. They received no help, but a mob surrounded them and one of them,

Israel Haichal, was murdered on the spot, despite the fact that he was surrounded by 5 policemen. His brother, Eliyahu Dov, ran towards a police officer and held ontothe neck of the horse. He was attacked and killed with a sword and knives with the Arabs shrieking: “Does it hurt, yes Jew?”

Alter Palatzi was murdered right before his daughter’s eyes. His mother tells about an Arab policeman who was standing nearby and said: “Let them slaughter some Jews...” Human stomachs were opened. The intestines cut into pieces. The heads were smashed and the brains removed. Men were castrated before they were murdered. A woman from Tel Aviv was hung upside down and her hair ripped from her head. Rabbi Grodzensky’s eyes were cut out before his head was smashed.

A girl was raped by 13 Arabs, right in front

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of her father, before he too was murdered. Her mother and sister were seriously mutilated. In the house of Abushadid’s family, a baby was held by the legs and struck against the wall smashing his head. Many people had their eyes cut out before they were murdered. The description of these misdeeds is found in above mentioned poem ’City of Slaughter’:

In this violence two were beheaded: A Jew and his dog

And on the roofs shall they climb…here they found the axe…

A stomach which was opened and filledwith feathers

Cases of noses nailed through, smashed in skulls

Cases of people hung from beams to be slaughtered

A woman under seven uncircumcised men

A daughter before her mother and a mother in fornt of her daughter

Before the slaughter, during the slaughter and after the slaughter …

O’ look at the dark nook

The men, the fiancés and the brotherslay there and saw through the hole in the wall

they lay there with their shame and did not shelter …

Bialik’s sorrow could be written as if it was about Hebron’s pogrom. The biggest curses of the Diaspora were the pogroms and they still take place today, in the Land of Israel. This is the reason

why many Jews, from all groups have not been willing to face the reality. This is because the brutality, the thirst for Jewish blood and the uncontrolled lust to see humiliated, tortured and dying Jews, is impossible to understand.

The pogromists in Hebron enjoyed the bloodshed of the Jews, rather than the Zionist’s blood. They slaughtered them all: the old, the new, Ashkenazi and Sephardim, religious as well as secular, Zionists and non-Zionist Jews. In Hebron the myth about “Iben el-balad” [Ed.: Arabic: The country’s son, one who belongs to the country] was completely exploded. The illusion that the local, Jewish population, which is connected to the Arabs and their culture, and is secure under the Arabs protection, was completely destroyed.

The massacre undermined the illusion that Zionism and its fulfillment in the Landof Israel had banished Jew-hatred during the Diaspora. The self-delusion that new, normal conditions were created where the Jews were a part of the world community, has proven to be utopic. There is no difference between”the slaughter cities” Chisinau and Hebron.

80 years later a new wind blows about the “integrating the countryside”, in spite of the fact that thousands of Jewish civilians and soldiers have been, and are being killed in this country, in this century and the previous one- by the Arabs. But every effort to learn by these experiences is defined as “paranoia” or“Auschwitz-complex”. We must take into consideration this phenomenon and its bright side, more than its dark side. Once

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again it is necessary to formulate our thoughts about this country and whether it is correct that Zionism has created a gentile bastard of a Jew, a “Jewish goy”.

In spite of all the brutality which again and again has been used against the Jews, and only against the Jews, it has not caused most of the Jews to realise its true cause. I have therefore dared to describe parts of the pogrom in detail; despite the fact that psychologically it has been very difficult for me.

However, this was not understood. On the contrary, the extreme Jewish left, both in Israel and the Diaspora, deny the reality and ignore the thirst for Jewish blood which is found all over in the Arab world and in the Islamic East. To speak of this fact is politically incorrect,

regardless of how many Arabs are found with knives in their hands and with their mouths have said the simple message: “We wish to murder a Jew”; not a soldier, not a settler, not an enemy but - “a Jew “!

In one place is found a list of all humanity’s material and spiritual needs. Love and hate, food and sex, compassion and revenge, building and destroying etc. Up high on the list is found the lust for Jewish blood. A new-born baby has something which many would like to have: Jewish blood! In many cases this is an uncontrollable lust. Therefore it is necessary that all who have Jewish blood in their veins, and who want to survive, to be on guard, suspicious, careful and all the time awake and to take care of their own blood. This must be protected like

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a treasure in a bank vault, without any illusions. Their country must be armed to the teeth, and there should be no cutbacks on security. No price is worth it. Not even the “Peace Prize”. “ ... and you took care of your souls.” (Deuteronomy 4:15; Joshua 23:11)

The Jewish Mutation

Two Israeli film producers, No’it and DanGeva, have made a film: “Things I sawin Hebron”. They were interviewed by journalist Neri Livne in connection with this film.[12] No’it Geva’s grandmotherwas the granddaughter of Rabbi Eliyahu Manni, Hebron’s past Sephardi chief rabbi. No’it tells that at her parent’s home (her father is professor in biology and her mother is a lecturer in literature) “... it was forbidden to speak of Hebron just as it was forbidden to speak of the Holocaust, because my mother survived the Holocaust. ...” Where else in the world can one find a better example which fitsa social anthropological observation like No’it’s? She is an “Israeli” according to the word’s leftist-oriented meaning and a synthesis of the two exterminations – one in Hebron and the other in Europe.

One day No’it found a letter her grandmother Zmira, as a 16 year old and just after the August massacres in 1929, had written to the newspaper Ha’aretz. Because of the letter No’it and her husband decided to make a film about theArab who saved Zmira’s life, with the aim to strengthen the left wing’s views about the Arab-Jewish conflict. But as No’itstates: “The result was something else...”

In the letter, the grandmother Zmira

writes what she saw from the kitchen window on the day of the massacre. A large crowd of Arabs gathered together, armed with stones, sticks and swords. She witnessed Arabs returning from Jewish homes, carrying packages which they gave to the women who ran to hide them. The Jews who hid in cellars and under ruins survived. Zmira’s family lived on the fourth floor. She heardscreams and desparate shouts for help from the first floor. Stones were throwninto her apartment, and at the same time an Arab entered with his brother and son, who with a sword in hand came to help them.

On the way out she stumbled over a body. It was her neighbor, the teacher Abraham. “His head was thrown down the stairway while the body was still lying there in convulsions. Blood was squirting out from the stomach where a dagger had

struck.”

No’it states that she knew nothing of the Hebron massacre before she decided to make the film, but now she knows thatthere were Arabs who saved Jews.

“But I also know that except for the Holocaust, the Hebron massacre was the worst which was done to the Jews. … when we made the film we included themost brutal attacks…and I only said “an odd death” when I referred to a 13 year old Jewish girl who was raped by 13 Arabs and then hung with her head above the fire tobe burnt alive… We did the same when it came to describe the castration of the old and the children, cutting off of limbs and the tearing out of the eyes of living humans.”

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So continues No’it and asks the same question I asked: “The pogrom is one thing, let us assume that the mob was provoked… that many Arabs were murdered in Jerusalem and that many Ashkenazi Jews came there, who wanted to steal from them, but why the castrations? Rapes? Tearing out of eyes? And the

hacking off of hands and feet?”

No’it’s method of rationalising these cruelties is an explanatory testimony of the behaviour of many in the Jewish society of today’s Israel: “Also on our side

are good and evil people to be found.” She quotes someone who said that “Goldstein’s murder of the Arabs finished the massacre

in Hebron.” She is not contemplating revenge with this remark, but criminals are found on both sides!

The film shows one of the survivors of thepogrom, who falsely alleged that Moshe Dayan had sent a directive forbidding Jews from returning their homes in Hebron. No’it’s film also shows IdZeiton, the son of the Arab who helped No’it’s grandmother Zimra.

He alleges in the film that the IDF(Israel’s military) confiscated his housefor a Jewish kindergarten! “Thus was a family thanked for saving Jewish lives?” With magnanimity he invites No’it to “come and live in Hebron. If the Jews who earlier lived here continued to live here, and not the settlers, it would be very nice to live here.”

But No’it does not ask questions and the good-hearted Id does not explain why the Arabs murdered in 1929 “the Jews who

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lived there at that time,” for they certainly were not settlers. No’it’s father, in a polite way, declines the invitation and identifieshimself entirely with the Arab side:

“In the present political situation…it is not possible to live in Hebron. He (the father) knows that his prospective return to Hebron will be considered as a support to the settlers, whom he completely

opposes,” says No’it.

Thus we are reverted back 80 years in time. At that time some of the Jews thought that they and the Arabs were on the same side. At that time there were no “settlers” on the other side, only the Zionists.

No’it represents the same attitudes as these Jews had, who readily queued up as lambs to the slaughter.

At that time there were 1,000 Jews in Hebron, today there are more than 5 million Jews in Israel. Nevertheless we are facing the same threat. It is neither the Arabs’ sword nor the rockets, but it is the self-destructive Jewish mentality which is bringing catastrophe after catastrophe. Those who are destroying from the inside have fortunately not managed to destroy everything. The majority is still not infected with the Jewish self-hate and love of the enemy.

Eighty years later the “1929 syndrome” still continues. Jewish blood is still in demand amongst our enemies. The whole world’s nuclear weapons or ballis-tic missiles cannot help us, if we do not exert ourselves and fight agasinst thissyndrome

Notes[1] Ed.: Islam defines non-Muslims as a se-cond-class citizens, termed Dhimmi. The term Dhimmi also describes a state of mind of non-Muslims, who mentally accept their oppression by Muslims.

The term ‘Dhimmi Syndrome’ that Elyakim Haetzni is using in this paper refers to a slave mentality and the submission that the left wing in Israel, and in the Western World generally have towards the Muslims, accepting their do-minance, even though Islam (still) doesn’t rule the world.Left wing Westerners fighting againsttheir own people for the so-called “human rights of the Arabs”, are not motivated by justice and moral, but rather by their own Dhimmi mentality. The driving force is a slave state of mind which is a result of fear from the superior Muslim mas-ters, and submission to him. Dhimmi mentality is a clinical condition that has been embedded in the soul of the non-Muslims dhimmi over hundred of years.

Bat Ye’or defined dhimmitude as the condi-tion and experience of those who are subject to dhimma, and thus not synonymous to, but rather a subset of the dhimma phenomenon: “dhimmitude [...] represents a behavior dictated by fear (terrorism), pacifism when aggressed,rather than resistance, servility because of co-wardice and vulnerability. [...] By their peaceful surrender to the Islamic army, they obtained the security for their life, belongings and religion, but they had to accept a condition of inferiority, spoliation and humiliation.” (www.rutherford.org/Oldspeak/Articles/Interviews/Bat-Yeor.html; www.dhimmi.org)

A Dhimmi is a non-Muslim subject of a state governed in accordance with Shari’a law. Muslim scholars have formulated the Dhimmi status for all non Muslims living under Muslim law. This law, also known as Omar’s covenant I (634–644) or Omar’s covenant II (717–720), defines the special taxes (Jizya) non-Muslimsare obligated to pay and refers to their second degree status in the Muslim society, which they could easily avoid by converting to Islam.

Dhimmi status was in use in North Africa until European colonialists took over the area. In Persia and in Yemen the Dhimmi status was applied until the late 19th century. It was not until 1856, and after pressure from the West, that the Ottoman Empire finally was forced

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to abolish the Dhimmi status from its law. In practice, all non-Muslims, who are classified asinfidels, are still defined as Dhimmis of the Araband the Muslim world.

[2] Ed.: This is a Jewish term dealing with the pogroms in East Europe and describes the conditiond of the cities after the massacres. The Jewish author Hayyim Nahman Bialik wrote an important poem: The City of Slaughter, in 1904, about the pogroms in Chisinau (Kishinev; earlier in Russia, now in Moldovia) where 50 Jews were massacred.

[3] Ed.: Haetzni refers here to the situation in Israel around 1900, when the Zionists star-ted returning to the fatherland, Israel, after the pogroms in East Europe. There they met the established Jewish community which in Hebrew is called “Hayeshuv hayashan”. That which arose around 1880 is called “hayeshuv hachadash”, the new Jewish community. The anti-Zionists (who today call themselves post-Zionists) were found in both camps. The Arabs did not differentiate, and many of the mass-acred in the pogroms 1929–1936 were Jews who had lived in Israel from ancient times, as well as the newly-arrived Jews.

[4] Ed.: HaShomer was a self-defense orga-nisation which was established by the Jews in Israel under the Ottoman Empire. Their objective was to protect the Jewish settlements against the daily plundering and assassinations, which the Arabs did to the Jews. Amongst the most important persons who established the group were Yitzhak Ben-Zvi (later president of Israel), Alexander Zeid, Yisrael Schochat and Yisrael Galili. HaShomer’s motto was: “In blood and fire Judea fell; in blood and fire Judea willrise”. In the First World War the Turks execu-ted some of the members and forcibly deported many from Israel. After the British took over in Israel, the HaShomer was expanded and rena-med Haganah. The settlements Tel Adashim, Tel Hai and Kfar Giladi were established by HaShomer. As late as 1976 a large weapons arsenal was found hidden under the carpentry workshop. Today it is open for tourists and school children.

[5] Ed.: In the Hebrew original it is found in Nehemiah 4:11, but in the Norwegian edition it is in 4:17.

[6] Ed.: In 1924 a part of the world famous yeshiva, ‘Knesset Israel’ moved from the city

Slobodka in Lithuania to Hebron. The Bible school, along with its rabbis and students who came from all parts of the world, meant a lot to the Jewish community’s life in Hebron. The admission requirements were very high and the students prepared themselves for many years before they were admitted. The fact that the yeshiva chose to move to Hebron shows how important Hebron is for the Jews and for Jewish identity.

[7] William B. Ziff, ‘The Rape of Palestine’, New York, 1940.

[8] Ed.: Prominent Norwegians also made good money from the plundering of the Jews. Even as early as Krystallnacht the Jews were plun-dered by the Nazis. The Jewish properties and artworks were sold, among other reasons, for financing the armament and the imminent occu-pation (including Norway). The paintings, which the Nazis sold a few weeks later, ended up, among others with shipowners Thomas Olsen and Niels Werring, cf. Dagens Næringsliv 31.12.2002; www.dn.no/arkiv/article40050.ece

[9] Ed.: Israels national poet.

[10] Rehavam Zeevi, Hebron-massacre 1929, Havatzelet, 1994, Hebrew.

[11] Ed.: It was found later that at least 80 Torah rolls were desecrated and destroyed in this pogrom. More Torah rolls than Jews were destroyed in this pogrom, which indicates the murderer’s clear intentions.

[12] The newspaper Ha’aretz, 9.7.1999.

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The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, surreptitiously

spread his anti-Semitic agitation throug-hout the country, Hebron included. Reports of Arab plans to attack the Jews were rife and the tension could be felt everywhere. Still, the Arab leaders pro-mised the Jews of Hebron that nothing would happen to them.

The extent to which the Hebron Jews trusted their Arab neighbors is testifiedto by the visit of Rabbi Orlansky and his wife Yente from Zichron Yaakov on the Thursday prior to the massacre. They came to celebrate the Sabbath with their daughter, Hannah, and her husband, Eli-ezer Dan Slonim. Their youngest daugh-ter had married earlier in the week in Tel Aviv, and the newlyweds were expected there on.

That Thursday, some young men arrived from the Haganah[2] to inspect the town. They stored their weapons at the local branch of the Anglo-Palestine Bank to avoid arrest by the British Mandatory police. On Friday, the Rabbis of Hebron went to the local commissioner, Abed Allah Kardush. He promised to take responsibility for their safety and told

The Hebron Pogrom of 24 August 1929

By Rehavam Zeevi[1], edited by Dr. Michal Rachel Suissa

them in confidence that many plainclothespolice officers were stationed throughoutthe town to maintain peace and order in the event it should become necessary.

On Friday, a group of Arabs led by Sheik Mohammad Al Jaabari and Sheik Sabri Abdin marched through the streets shouting “Itbach al yahud! (Slaughter the Jews!)…We await the order from Mufti al-Husseini!” At the tombs of the Jewish matriarchs and patriarchs, which had been turned into a mosque, Aref al-Aref, who was governor of the city of Beer Sheba, preached and incited the murder of the Jews: “The government (British) is with us … Itbach al yahud- Slaughter the Jews!...”

That same day, in the morning, an Arab by the name of Haled came to the

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brothers Yaakov and Moshe Mizrahi, two carpenters he worked for, and said “Though I’m risking my life, I want to inform you that the Arabs are planning to murder you. Two Arab tribes, Harat al-Mashraka and Harat Beni Dar, are armed and planning to kill you. You must find away to save your lives.”

But the Jews in Hebron trusted their Arab neighbors. They were massacred by them on the Holy Day of the Jews- the Sabbath - Shabbat- 24th August, 1929. The Jewish date was the 18th Av 5689 (TARPAT in Hebrew). Thus, this pogrom is referred to as ‘Tarpat’.

Mr. Shneorsen, owner of the Eshel Avraham Hotel (Abraham’s tree) in Hebron, tells: “Around 10 a.m., Rabbi Rahamim Yosef Franco and I called Jerusalem and spoke to someone in the City Council.[3] The reply we got was that there was great fear in Jerusalem, but they didn’t anticipate problems in Hebron. After all, the Arabs of Hebron were opponents of the Supreme Moslem Council.

We tried again at 12:30 p.m., but no one answered. Since we could see that nothing was happening, we gave up and joined with some leaders of the Jewish community: Melamed, the now deceased Slonim, Bagio and others, to decide what to do, particularly about those exposed and relatively isolated Jews who lived far from the center of town.

But at this point nothing was done. We consulted with Rabbi Franco, who grew up in Hebron and knew the local Arabs. At his insistence we decided to gather the Jews who lived outside the center of town. As we left the house, we were met by a hail of stones from an agitated Arab mob.”

Elhanan Zelikroch

Eliezer Arvitar

Zvi Hirsch Heller

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At 1 p.m., after prayers in the mosque, the Arab leaders came to Eliezer Dan Slonim and boasted about how quiet it was in Hebron! Around 2:30 p.m., a young Arab arrived on a motorcycle from Jerusalem. He announced that ‘the blood of thou-sands of Arabs flowed like water in thestreets of Jerusalem’, and incited Hebron’s Arabs to avenge the blood.

The incitement grew as yet more cars carrying Arabs arrived in Hebron from Jerusalem, spreading the word of riots in Jerusalem and calling for vengeance. They attacked three Jews they came across: one was stabbed in the back and seriously wounded. Two others who were hurt hid, one in Chaimson’s house and the other at Rabbi Franco’s.”

“The Jews are Guilty!”

That Friday (August 23 1929), an agitated Arab mob gathered at the house of the Hebron police deputy commander and swept through the streets. Just then Rabbi Yaakov Slonim, Eliezer Dan’s father, was on his way to the police station. The Arabs attacked him with knives and stones while the Jews watched from the windows.

A Jewish woman who was at the Rabbi’s house, dared to go out to the British Chief of Police (who participated in egging on the mob), and begged him to save the Rabbi. His answer was:

“This is no matter for a dumb, Jewish woman. Go home and stay there! Usually, it is the Jews who are to blame in these cases.” Though these remarks were said in English, the mob heard and was encouraged by them.

Moshe Arvitar and his chopped off fingers

Pia Helman

Mina Goldshmid and her 5-year old daughter

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Witnesses tell that the wounded Rabbi Slonim pleaded with the police officerIbrahim Gergura for help, but Gergura shoved him aside with his horse. Moshe Grodzensky’s son related:

“When the riots began, there were people at our home. From the window, I could see an Arab open the gate to our garden so the mob could enter quickly. They broke windows and threw stones at the house.

A gunshot aimed at my father missed and we ran to the upper floors and shoutedfor help. There were about 30 Arabs surrounding the house. The late Eliezer Dan Slonim arrived with some Arab policemen to help us, but this didn’t stop the mob. One of the Torah students who were with us was injured by stones. My late brother Yaakov and my mother went home with Eliezer Dan because they felt safer there. My father, Moshe, refused to abandon our house.”

The First Victim of the Pogrom

On Friday evening, the throng moved to the yeshiva. Due to the Sabbath, there were only two people inside: the caretaker and Shmuel Rosenholtz, aged 23.

Rabbi Zeev Elimelech Lichtenstein was at the yeshiva just prior to the mob’s arri-val. His life was miraculously spared, but he was murdered the following day. As the murderers stood at the door with knives and bloodthirsty eyes, the Yemeni caretaker managed to hide in a cistern.

Oblivious to the mob, Rosenholtz remained immersed in his Gemara.[4] A large stone struck his head, stunning him and drenching his Gemara with blood. A

Shlomo Dadab

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moment later he was slain by knives and daggers.

Abed Allah Yakob, a teacher at the local Islamic council school, loudly declared after the killing:

“Alas, we found only one Jew in the yeshiva. But tomorrow, the number will increase significantly.”

The British police reacted to Rosenholtz’ murder by placing the Jews under house arrest. The British officer Cafferatacursed the Jews who came to him for help.

Shabbat: Pogrom from House to House

The streets were filled Shabbat mor-ning by a group of bloodthirsty Arabs screaming “Itbach al yahud! Slaughter the Jews!” In the lead was the leader of the Muslim organization in Hebron, Sheik Taleb Marka and his son, Zoheri, along with Sheik Tsabri Adin, teacher Abed Allah Yakob - the son of Amin Hamoor, Salim Katabi and other Arab leaders. They proclaimed: “The order has come from Haj Amin al-Husseini saying that now is the time to murder all Jews- from the youngest to the oldest. You may take the Jews’ women and possessions, in the name of Allah!”

At the Abushadid Hamily

On Shabbat, the mob arrived at the Abushadid family home and murdered the father, Eliyahu, aged 55. He was strangled after resisting the murderers, whom he knew personally. His son,

Abushadid Yosef

Zvi Haiim Hutner

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Yitzhak, 25, was murdered and a baby was slain by being hurled against the wall. A woman was stabbed and killed.

The house was next to the police station. One shot from that police station would have dispersed the mob, but none came. Everyone stood outside and watched. Eliyahu’s 11 year old son, Yehuda, survived the massacre but was seriously wounded. He knew 24 of the attackers by name. All were from Hebron. Eliyahu’s wife, Venesya, 45, and their son Yosef, 24, were also injured.

At the Gozlan Family

Around 300 Arabs attacked the house but were unable to breach the steel door. An Arab neighbor let them come in by way of the roof. It was Gozlan’s own employees who murdered him with knives and clubs. Both Yaakov Gozlan, 45, and his son Yitzhak, 19, were killed. His wife Soltana, 40, daughter Victoria, 14, and the rest of the family were seriously hurt before the looting of the home began in earnest.

At the Castel Family

The same happened at Hacham[5] Rabbi Meir Shmuel Castel’s, home. The Rabbi, aged 69, was tortured to death. He was from a Hebron family which had lived there for generations and had many Arab employees. On Shabbat, one of them came and suggested he take their gold and silver valuables, to hide until the riots were over. This Arab took with him objects valued at 10,000 pounds, a considerable sum then, and walked calmly down and

opened the door for the mob to come in and murder the Rabbi. His wife fainted and the mob, believing her to be dead, let her be.

At the Hasson Family

Near Beit Hadassah, Hacham Rabbi Hanoch Hasson, 62, and his wife Klara, 59, were murdered when their home was set afire. Gamila Hasson, 60, wasinjured.

Beit Hadassah

From there, the mob moved towards Beit Hadassah and Beit Gershon. The Beit Hadassah hospital and pharmacy were set ablaze and all medical equipment destroyed. The injured were thereafter unable to receive any form of medical assistance. The Torah scrolls in the syna-gogue were torn to shreds. Anything of value was looted from the hospital, where Arabs had been treated for years, before it was set alight.

At Beit Gershon

Pharmacist and doctor, Ben Zion Gers-hon, 72, sat in a wheelchair. That didn’t stop the Arabs from gouging out his eyes before they stabbed him with a sword. His wife Zehava, 40, had her hands cut off and she later died in Jerusalem. Their daughter Hava, 11, and son Yehuda, 5, were injured. Esther, 22, went through excruciating torture and was raped before she was murdered.

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Bank Director Slonim’s House: 24 Jews were murdered inside this house. Shlomo Slonim, 13 months old, was the family’s only survivor. His grandmother, grandfather, father, mother and brother were murdered. Shlomo was found beneath his mother’s corpse.

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At the Kapiluto-Borland Family

In the home of the Kapiluto-Borland family, Torah student Avraham Dov Shapira, 18, fought with a knife in his hand until he was killed by a large group of bloodthirsty Arabs. Zvi Hirsch Heller, 15, was beaten while he shouted: “I’m just a child, why do you want to murder me?” He was stabbed and died later in Jerusalem. Yeshiva student Moshe Aharon Rips, 25, asked his killers for a few seconds to recite the prayer “Hear, O’ Israel” (Shema Israel).

While he prayed, he was murdered with axes and daggers. The yeshiva’s two cooks, Shmuel Isaac Bernstein, 23, and Eliyahu Isshachar Sendrov, 17, were critically wounded. One died after being cut in the mouth and receiving massive head injuries. It took 24 hours for the other one to die, and his last words were: “I am the third victim in my family.” Eliyahu Kapiluto, 35, and Nechama Borland, 55, were severely injured.

At the Kizelstein Family home

Torah student Zeev Grinberg, 19, was the first to be killed at the Kizelstein home. The mob then assaulted the rest of the family who desperately tried to hide in the kitchen. Three of the family members, Yeshayahu, 17, Haya, 18, and Zvi Yosef, 47, along with a student, were later hospitalized with serious injuries. The home was looted and then destroyed.

At Moshe Reizmann’s Fome

Kosher butcher Rabbi Yaakov Reizmann, 35, went out to the mob and offered The Injured Children and Women

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them everything he owned. Hundreds of knives ended his life in the middle of the street. His brother, yeshiva student Moshe Reizmann, 17, was murdered in the house and his mother-in-law Esther Frida Hansson, 68, was gravely wounded and died later in Jerusalem. The child Yeshaya, 3, was hurt. The house was looted.

The Great pogrom at the Bank Director’s House

The mob surrounded the Slonim family house where around 70 Jews hid. Elie-zer Dan Slonim, 29, was director of the Anglo-Palestine Bank and the only Jew on the Hebron City Council. He was a respected man amongst Arabs. Many Jews had taken refuge in the Slonim house. Arabs outside called to Slonim: “If you’ll give us all the strangers in the house, we’ll leave you and your family alone.” Slo-nim quickly replied, “There are no stran-gers here. They are all my family.” The men now stood, wrapped in their prayer shawls, reciting the Sabbath prayer in fear and trembling. The sound of breaking glass could be heard from the neighbo-ring Sakover house. The Arabs broke into the house and began to shoot and stab everyone there. Mr. Y. Yenni was shot in the hand. H. Vollansy, 22, was hit in the face and seriously hurt. Student Morde-chai Kaplan, 22, was shot in the stomach and fell dead to the floor. “Shema Israel” could be heard from all sides. Many of the students were struck by gunfire anddied. Others were gravely wounded as they tried to bar the doors.

Some of the killers leaped onto the house

Hanna Karlinsky

Eliyahu Kapiluto

Dov Hankin of the Hebron yeshiva.

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from the roof. Slonim fired his pistol,but was killed after being struck on the head with a metal bar. His wife Hannah, 28, was murdered and their 5-year old son, Aharon, died later of injuries at the Bikur Holim hospital in Jerusalem. Only 13-month old Shlomo, who was later sent to the hospital, survived the massacre, hidden under his mother’s corpse.

Israel Lezarowsky, 17, died after recei-ving multiple knife wounds. Israel Hillel Kaplinsky, 22, was shot several times and thereafter stabbed repeatedly with kni-ves. He had a terrified look on his faceas he said: “They attack me even though I’m dying…” He later died in the hospi-tal in Jerusalem. Rabbi Abraham Yaakov Orlansky, 50, Chief Rabbi of Zichron Yaakov, was covered in a prayer shawl soaked in his own blood. His wife, Yente, 47, lay dying beside him.

Rabbi Zvi Dribkin, 67, had his belly slit open and his guts torn out. He had escaped the Eastern European pogroms and come to Israel 6 months earlier to findpeace, but was instead slaughtered in the Arab pogrom. Yeshiva secretary Rabbi Zalman Ben Gershon, 27, was stabbed to death. Students Shlomo Yagel, 24, Zeev Berman, 23, Yaakov Vecksler, 17, and Aharon David Epstein, 16 (son of the Rabbi of Chicago), were also murdered.

The old rabbi Aharon Leib Gutlevsky, 73, from Herzliya was killed along with his son-in-law Betzalel Lezarowsky, 38. His daughter, 5-year old Debora, was seriously injured and died later in Jerusalem. Husband and wife Yaakov and Leah Grodzensky, 22 and 28, were murdered. So were the teacher Haim

The Grodzensky Family: This picture was taken in Hebron before the massacre. In the first row from the right: Haya Malka. She diedand was buried in Hebron. In the middle: Menuha. To her left sits Rabbi Moshe. In the upper row stand siblings Sara, Abraham Pinhas and Yaakov. Rabbi Moshe, Yaakov and Leah (not pictured) were murdered in the pogrom.

Luba Segal

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Eliezer Dobnikov, 53, from Tel Aviv, and his wife, Pennina, 45. Shimon Ben David Cohen, 27, was murdered as well.

Many Arabs from Hebron participated in this barbaric mass murder – including the business associates of bank director Slonim. The massacre at Slonim’s house continued for about 30 long minutes. After that, everything was stolen and the house razed. Twenty-four people were killed and 13 wounded there, all Jews. Some 30 Jews survived the pogrom in Slonim’s house: Eleven hid in a bathroom the Arabs miraculously failed to break into. Ten hid under the dead. Five hid behind a book closet. Four escaped. Then the mob moved on to Rabbi Moshe Mash’s house.

At the Homes of Moshe Mash and Moshe Goldshmidt

When the murderers entered the home of Moshe Mash, they found no one there. The Jews had managed to jump from the roof to the neighboring house before the mob could catch them. Only an American student who was last in the line was stabbed and suffered serious injury. From there the rioters went to the home of Rabbi Moshe Goldshmidt, 31, where 10 people were hiding.

They jumped from the second floor tothe yard and were taken in by an Arab woman on the first floor. Moshe stayedbehind, blocking the door with his body while the others escaped. When the murderers broke in, he and his wife Mina, 34, begged for their lives. Nevertheless, Moshe was put to death, suffering

The Lezarovskys

Avigail Lezarovsky

Royza Immerman

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unspeakable torture. Mina and Musya, 5, were badly wounded. Two other children hid under a bed and weren’t hurt. Their house was looted.

At the Grodzensky Home

Moshe Grodzensky was murdered instantly; Meshulam Shraga Mitevsky, 25, and Leah Grodzensky, 28, were critically hurt and died later in Jerusalem. A Torah student was gravely injured, but survived the massacre. Everything was stolen and the house plundered.

At Rabbi Betzalel Samrik’s Home

A large horde attacked the 73-year old rabbi’s home. Engineer Shlomo Unger, 22, lived below, and on the other side lived the baker Rabbi, Noach Immerman, 33. Rabbi Samrik was taken outside and murdered in such a horrible manner that it cannot be described here. The Arab killers also murdered 3 American yeshiva students in the home: Binyamin Horo-witz, 20, Zvi Froman, 21, and Aharon Sheinberg, 22.

When the killers got to engineer Shlomo Unger, who was a big and strong man, they thought he was English and they asked him if he was a Christian. He stood straight and tall and said “I am a Jew.” His body was punctured like a sieve. His wife Nechama, 22, was stabbed and lost con-sciousness. She hung between life and death for three days before finally expi-ring. She left behind a 2-year old child and a one month-old baby who had been hidden in a laundry sack.

The Kizelstein Family who survived the massacre

Pogrom Aftermath: Hebron synagogue

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From there the mob burst into the house of Rabbi Noach Immerman, who was put to death under gruesome circumstances. He was burned alive by his co-worker – the Arab Isa, who spoke fluent Yiddish. His wife Royza, 27, and 9-year old daughter Tamar were badly hurt before the house was looted and destroyed.

At Rabbi Nachman Segal’s Home

Rabbi Segal, 30, was carrying his 2-year old son Menachem in his arms when the Arabs broke in. They cut his arm off with an axe, seriously wounding the boy. They then slaughtered the child with axes and knives. The father died later that evening. The mother, Luba, 24, was hurt and three of her fingers were hacked off. A yeshivastudent was also murdered there.

First they hacked his arm off, and then stabbed him repeatedly with daggers. An 18-year old student, Elhanan Zilgroch, lost an arm in the attack. In another room sat one of the yeshiva’s best students, Simcha Yitzhak Broida, 28, studying a volume of the Talmud.[6] The killers jumped on him and hanged him from the metal bars on the window. He suffered greatly before dying. Haim Zelig Karsner, 16, had his throat slit. Two visitors from Tel Aviv were also murdered.

At the Yeshivas

At the yeshivas, everyone was cut down and everything destroyed. The admi-nistration and registration papers, books and much more were set ablaze. Furni-ture was stolen or wrecked.

Jewish Blood: The stairs inside Beit Hadassah Hospital.

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At the Home of Rabbi Moshe Mordechai Epstein

A large group of Arabs gathered around the home of Rabbi Epstein, the head of the Slobodka Yeshiva. The men inside tried their best to stop the murderers while the women and children screamed in hysterical fear. The neighboring house belonged to the Governor of Hebron and was under police protection. Rabbi Zeev Elimelech Lichtenstein, 58, tried to escape but was murdered in the bathroom.

At the Haichal Family

On the road to the Eshel Abraham Hotel, the Haichal family owned a seclu-ded house. The Arab mob surrounded it while a number of yeshiva students barri-caded themselves inside. A British police officer and several other policemen arri-ved on horseback. The Haichal brothers went out and begged them for help.

Despite being surrounded by fivepolicemen on horses, Israel Haichal, 20, was stabbed to death by Arabs wielding daggers. He fought them like a lion with his bare hands until he fell.

His brother, Eliyahu Dov, 16, ran towards a police officer and clung to the mane ofhis horse. He was attacked with swords and knives while the Arabs screamed “Does it hurt, ya Jew (ya yahud)?” The brothers’ struggle drew the murderers’ attention away from the house.

The Jews there were saved because the Arabs began to throw stones at the British officer while yelling “Take him off his horse! He must be killed!” When the

Pogrom Aftermath: Hebron’s Sephardic synagogue

Pogrom Aftermath: Rabbi Mani’s synagogue

1929-Pogrom Victims

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officer realized it was him they wantedto kill, he ordered his policemen to firewarning shots. The mob then dispersed. The Haichal brothers’ mother watched from the window as the barbaric Arabs butchered her two sons, but she saved the yeshiva students hiding inside by saying: “Don’t go out – the blood of my sons is enough!”

At Shmuel Tanhum’s Home

About 30-40 Jews had gathered in this house. The Arab landlord gathered all the Jews on the first floor. He stoodguard outside the door against the Arab mob while his brother waited inside with an axe. All of the Jews inside were saved by the bravery of these two Arabs.

At Rabbi Slonim’s in the Old City

At the home of Rabbi Yaakov Slonim, father of Eliezer Dan, the mob arrived and forced its way inside. Screams from the house led to some brave Arab leaders to go in and chase the Arab horde away before escorting the Jews to the police station.

In Hebron’s Old City

The Old City of Hebron, which was a small ghetto whose inhabitants were mainly impoverished, was completely plundered. Alter Palatzi, 29, a penni-less painter with six children and the only son of his old mother, was murde-red. Rabbi Yitzhak Abu Hanna was kil-led along with Abraham Yenni, 50, and his wife Vida, 44. Every synagogue was looted and demolished. The Abraham

Avinu Synagogue (Our father Abraham), known for its splendor, was completely destroyed. The Ohel Avraham Synago-gue (Abraham’s tent), which was next to the post office, was also ruined. Thebooks and Torah scrolls there were bur-ned.

The Horror Stories and the Bravery of an Arab

Shneorsen, son of the owner of the Eshel Abraham Hotel and an eyewitness, said: “Sheik Taleb Marka, leader of the Arab mob, came to the hotel with his co-conspirators and shouted to them: ‘You Muslims! Here you have 10 rich American Jews; here you have Eliezer Dan Slonim who blinded Arab eyes with his credit. Butcher the Jews! Today is the day of Islam! This is the day the prophet charged us with. Allah and his messenger call upon you to avenge your brothers’ blood which was lost in Jerusalem! Allah is greater (Allahu aqbar!), butcher the Jews, come with me and see before you the beautiful Jewish women.’

Rivka Slonim, sister of E. D. Slonim, relates: Soon after my father and I shut ourselves up in our home, our neighbor Abu-Shaker appeared on his white horse. He tied up his horse and sat down on our doorstep. From what he told us – that the British police were aiding the rioters, stan-ding aside when the mob stormed Jewish houses and slaughtered their inhabitants – we knew our final hour had come.

We didn’t believe that an old man would be able to save us from the bloodthirsty mob drenching Hebron in Jewish blood. He didn’t tell us that my brother, his wife and their 5-year old son Aharon were already slain just a few houses away. My

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father stood praying and I asked G-d for forgiveness for all my sins.

The mob arrived at our house and we heard Abu Shaker’s voice: ‘Go away! You may not come here! You’ll have to kill me first.’ He was 75 years old, but a strongman. A man from the mob raised his sword and said: ‘I’ll kill you, traitor!’ Abu Sachar replied: ‘Go ahead and kill! There is a rabbinical family here, and they are my family.’ The sword pierced his foot, but he refused to move even after the mob had retreated. When we tried to bring him inside for treatment, he refused out of fear that they would return.”

After the Massacre

The result of the pogrom was unbelie-vable. Dead people, severed limbs and blood flowed everywhere. Many womenwere raped; one of them by 13 murderous Arabs. For families such as the Gozlans, Immermans, Slonims, Ungers and Abu-shadids, their murderers were their own Arab “friends”. Many Jews, though, were miraculously saved from the orgy of vio-lence. A number of them were also hel-ped by righteous Arabs or Arab friends.

The police gathered the injured Jews. In one hour, approximately 60 wounded Jews were assembled and brought to the police station at Beit Romano. There they were left on the basement floor. Itwas an indescribable scene: People with severed limbs, blood everywhere, many were screaming in pain and horror.

Two Jewish doctors, Kutai and Elkana, worked for 36 hours straight. In the evening, Dr. McCowen arrived with two

A Righteous Arab Policeman: An unknown policeman who helped Jews to escape.

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nurses from Jerusalem. The two Arab doctors in the town showed no interest and assisted no one. Many of the injured required surgery and had to be sent to hospital in Jerusalem. However, it was too dangerous to drive there. Only on Sunday evening were 15 cars able to drive to Jerusalem, escorted by two armored vehicles.

About 500 terrified and distraught Jewshad gathered at the police station. Women fainted in grief and many wept. The British wouldn’t allow the Jews to bury their dead and wanted to let Arabs do it. Only following an intense discussion were 10 Jews allowed to participate in the burials.[7] As the cars carrying the dead drove to the cemetery, Hebron’s

Arabs began to sing. It was a macabre sight. One British sergeant said that he had served four years in the trenches yet never had seen such a sight.

The corpses were laid in a row on the ground, and the Jews were allowed to identify them before they were buried. The last grave contained three severed arms and a person’s cheek. After three days without food, the surviving Jews were forcibly deported to Jerusalem. Only the policeman Hanoch stayed behind in the city. The city became ‘judenrein’, but nevertheless full of Jew-murderers who now could pillage the houses and homes of those they had slaughtered and killed. The Jews of Hebron were housed at Straus House in Jerusalem. On their

Torah Scroll Pogrom: 80 Torah scrolls were destroyed or burned during the Hebron pogrom. Here is one that survived.

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Audacious Arab Propaganda: The murderers know no bounds!

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Pogrom Victims: Jewish children from Hebron- after the forced deportation to Jerusalem.

faces one could see anguish and the fear of death.

After the Pogrom

The Governor of Jerusalem, Citrosh, banned the publication of all Jewish newspapers immediately after the pogrom. The Arab papers were allowed to publish as usual. On Monday, the Arab paper Akdam (Jaffa) printed a detailed account of the pogrom, but insisted that it was the Jews who started it by massacring Arabs!

The man who made the reality of the pogroms known throughout the world, despite British attempts to prevent it, was Eretz Yisrael’s Chief Rabbi, Avraham Yitzhak HaCohen Kook, in a series of telegrams where he wrote:

“Concerning the falsehoods and bloody

accusations filling the enemy’s media,Rabbi Kook declares it all to be lies and deceit. Especially the accusations of blood libel published in the Syrian press that Jews have desecrated Muslim sites, thrown bombs into the Omar mosque, raped Arab women, slaughtered children and other accusations of this sort.

The Jews have attempted only to protect themselves as best they could from the barbaric, Arab attack. With this declaration, Rabbi Kook invites all honest Muslim leaders throughout the world to come to Palestine and see with their own eyes that all this has been done to the Jews by Arabs

– and not the other way around.”

In a British government document, dated 25.08.1929, one can read: “…a serious attack on the Jewish congregation in Hebron where more than 45 Jews and 8 Arabs were killed. Soldiers from the British

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Royal Air Force have been sent, and the British police in Hebron will restore order. Hebron’s Jews have been evacuated and are now living in police barracks under

supervision.”

The pogrom shocked people the world over, but it was the British press especially which took up the affair and demanded action.

The Times wrote that it is the British government’s obligation to maintain

control and bring order to Palestine. The newspaper demanded a committee of inquiry immediately: “It is the Government’s duty to make clear that our policy in Palestine is not decided by one group that wishes to control another (the Jews). A stable policy is important for our honour and for our interests. If we back away and show weakness, we will meet greater and more dangerous things elsewhere.”

Daily News wrote that there is a danger

Pogrom Victims: forcibly deported to Jerusalem.

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of an anti-British movement spreading throughout the Muslim world: “Unless we stand by our mandate in Palestine, we will be made a laughing stock.”

In the U.S., the pogroms created a furor of reactions, and President Hoover expressed the government’s concern for American citizens in Israel. The Supreme Arab Council made a statement accusing the so-called Zionist communists of allegedly producing flyers enticing Arabsto revolt against the British. The Arabs demanded nothing except that their rights be respected, according to the statement!

On the fourth day after the pogrom, the British Governor of Jerusalem, Citrosh, visited the Supreme Moslem Council to “calm down” the Arabs. Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini, president of the Council, and Citrosh went together to the Omar mosque, which made a strong impression on the Arabs who “noticed this ‘righteous man’ and his sense of justice! ...”

The newspaper Al-Ahram wrote: “The British government thanked Haj Amin al-Husseini for his great effort in calming the situation down!”

On the 23rd of Av (29.08.1929), The Jewish National Council, (Vaad Leumi, Knesset Israel), released a statement asking the Jews to remain calm and not even contemplate revenge nor any other type of reaction. However, Rabbi Kook was quoted by his son-in-law Rabbi Shlomo-Natan Ra’anan, as having replied to a question, “as much as possible, they should be killed.”

That day the High Commissioner, John Chancellor arrived back in Palestine after a holiday in England one week after the pogrom and immediately published a statement which, amongst other things, states: “Upon my return from England, I unfortunately found a chaotic situation of illegal killings and acts of violence in the country. I have heard of the gruesome

The Baltimore News header reads: Massacre of women, children at Hebron told by refugees.

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misdeeds of the bloodthirsty and brutal criminals, of the barbaric misdeeds which were carried out on defenseless Jews, regardless of gender and/or age, such as happened in Hebron. Of terrible abuses impossible to describe, the burning of houses in cities and villages, the looting and destruction of property.

These criminal acts will bring down upon those responsible the wrath of all civilized peoples the world over. My foremost duty is to bring order to the country, severely punish those responsible and use all means possible to achieve this purpose. I expect all residents of the country to assist me in performing my duty.”

In his public statement, dated 04.09.1929, he writes: “The Mandatory government in Palestine/Eretz Yisrael has issued instructions to assemble evidence, before it is destroyed, regarding whether the disturbances which began on 23.08.1929, were spontaneous or premeditated. In the mean time, while His Majesty’s soldiers work to restore order, the civil government shall see to it that the appropriate individuals are brought to trial.”

On 01.09.1929, a medical committee was appointed comprising several British and two Jewish doctors, Dr. Grey and Dr. Gamsiba. On the 11th of September, 1929, they exhumed around 30 of the dead and examined the bodies. However, the bodies were in such poor condition that a conclusion was not possible.[8] On 15.09.1929, the committee filed itsreport which stated that the “claim” that the bodies had been tortured was not correct. The two Jewish doctors immediately issued their own counter report, where they underscored the fact

that the examination was unable to reach any conclusion due to the condition of the bodies.

Even the grave containing severed arms and a portion of a human face was, by the committee, not interpreted as torture, but as something normal! Therefore, the British committee had no basis for its conclusions. Yet, the Supreme Arab Council embraced the report and exploited it for all it was worth.

The investigative committee sent out by the British Colonial Office acceptedtestimony from Arabs only, as well as the infamous police chief Cafferata and Governor Abdalla Kardush.[9] Jews were not permitted to present their version to the committee, with the exception of Rabbi Yaakov Slonim, the father of the murdered E. D. Slonim.

Rabbi Slonim related the events of the two days in Hebron, of the murder of at least 67 Jews, the destruction of approximately 80 Torah scrolls, and the responsibility of the authorities, particularly Cafferata and Kardush who failed to prevent the pogrom. The committee disallowed Rabbi Slonim’s testimony. On October 15th 1929, the trials of the murderers began. Sheik Marka, leader of the mob in Hebron, received a two-year prison term which was changed to house arrest, and everything “fizzled away”.

Two of the four who murdered Rabbi Meir Shmuel Castel were acquitted due to “lack of evidence”. The two others were sentenced to death. The trials were a show for the gallery. Almost all the mur-derers went free and kept what they had

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plundered and stolen. This drove the Jewish community into a deep depres-sion. The clear, positive attitude the Bri-tish had towards the killers was visible. For most of the trials, a date for procee-dings wasn’t even set.

The City of Forefathers Became “Judenrein”

The pogrom in Hebron was identical to the Eastern European pogroms. Jews who had escaped the pogroms in Europe shortly thereafter became victims of Arab pogroms.

The driving force was the same in both instances: A burning desire to exterminate the Jewish people. The pogroms in Eretz Yisrael were concealed by many, including Jews who didn’t want to accept that they were murdered just because they were Jews.

The British reaction to the pogrom was to expel about 1,000 Jews out of Hebron. The City of Forefathers became “judenrein” until its liberation in 1967. At least 67 Jews were murdered and around 80 Torah scrolls burned in the Hebron pogrom.

In a short time, the oldest Jewish congregation in Israel was wiped out. The Holy city of Hebron was forever stained with Jewish blood in a pogrom no words can sufficiently describe. The 18th of Av5689, Tarpat (August 24 1929) will forever stand as the day the “City of Forefathers” became the “City of Slaughter”.

Notes

[1] From the book of Rehavam Zeevi, “Hebron Masacre, TARPAT”, Havatzelet-Jerusalem-Hebron, 1970. Translated and edited by Dr. Michal Rachel Suissa. This book also includes two articles by Oded Avishar that are used with gratitude, with his permission.

[2] Ed.: Jewish defense unit against the daily Arab terror.

[3] Ed.: Rabbi Rahamim Franco was the son of famous Rabbi Franco of Hebron. He was born in Jerusalem on June 18, 1866. As rabbi, he was Rabbi Hizkyahu Medini’s right-hand man and a judge on Medini’s Rabbinic court. He was also amongst the most important rabbis in Hebron. Two judges were murdered during the pogrom: his son-in-law, Rabbi Hanoch Hasson, and Rabbi Shmuel Castel. Franco died on October 8 1931. A portion of his teachings can be found in his book ‘Ma’asaf’ (Collection) by Rabbi Ben Zion Koainka and his book ‘Sha’ari Shamayim’ (The Gates of Heaven) which Rabbi Rahamim Franco’s father edited.

[4] Ed.: The Gemara, also known as the Talmud or ‘oral law,’ is a 3rd-century text elabo-rating the rabbinical interpretation of Judaism. The Talmud is composed mainly in ancient Aramaic; “Gemara in Aramaic and “Talmud” in Hebrew mean the same thing – ”the learning.”

[5] Ed.: The title is used by Sephardic Jews for learned people who possess great biblical knowledge.

[6] It would not be unusual for a devout Jew, unable to defend himself and anticipating vio-lent death, to devote his last hours to the study of holy wisdom.

[7] Ed.: 10 men (a minyan) is the quorum requi-red for Jewish rituals, including funerals.

[8] Ed.: Jews bury their dead without caskets.

[9] “The Hebron Tragedy. Mr. Cafferata’s Evidence’, From Our Correspondent.”, The Times, Friday, November 8, 1929; pg. 13; Issue 45355; col D.

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The 67 Martyrs Butchered by Arabs in Hebron

Abu-Hannah, Yitzhak; 70: Born in Morocco in 1859, the Rabbi came to Eretz Yisrael in 1900. He was a soft-spoken man of little means who spent the better part of his life in the synagogue in Hebron, often fasting. There, he studied and taught from early in the morning until late at night. He was alone in his home when the murderers came. They hanged the 70-year old and abused him until he died.

Eliyahu

Abushadid

Abushadid, Eliyahu; 55: Born in Hebron in 1874; son of Rabbi Haim Abushadid. Worked as a businessman, but studied Torah in the evenings at the synagogue. He fought a futile battle against his killers - whom he knew personally. His wife, Venesya, begged an Arab policeman outside their home for help, but he answered that if he were to go inside, it would be only to kill.

Abushadid, Yitzhak; 25: Born in Hebron in 1907, he finished high school at the age of 13. He then went onto study the art of silver and gold smithery at the Art College of Betzalel in Jerusalem, where he also worked. He was murdered with his father by multiple stab wounds.

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Ben Gershon (Volensky), Yisrael Shlomo Zalman; 27: Polish-born in Kozova in 1902. An especially gifted youth who completed his studies in half the required time. He studied Torah, German, Russian and mathematics. Known for the poem ‘David and Michal’ and the drama ‘Yitzhak’s victim’. He came to Eretz Yisrael in 1922 and was married the following year. Zalman was wanted as candidate for the position of secretary of the world-famous yeshiva ‘Slobodka - Knesset Yisrael’. He was killed with daggers in Slonim’s house as his horrified wife looked on.

Berman, Zev Wolf HaLevi; 23: Born in New York in 1906 and a yeshiva student. He became a popular orator who attracted a large number of followers. He came to Hebron with the desire to live a few years in the Land and City of the Fathers and Prophets. He was murdered in Slonim’s house.

Bernstein, Shmuel Isaac; 23: Born in Minsk in 1903. He studied at various yeshivas. He followed the Slobodka yeshiva when it moved Hebron and studied there for nearly 5 years. As late as the Thursday before the massacre, he completed a work regarding interpretations of the Gemara, ‘Bechorot’ (the oral law - a part of the Jewish interpretations of the Torah). On Shabbat, he was murdered in Slonim’s house.

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Broida, Simcha-Yitzhak; 28: Was born in Vilkomyr, Lithuania in 1901. Simcha-Yitzhak studied at many known yeshivas and wrote many papers on Torah explanations. He came to Hebron in 1926 and spent his time on Torah studies. Much of his time also went to answering religious questions. He was highly respected, and was called “the great and genius Rabbi”. He, who should have become a great light for Judaism, was instead barbarically murdered. His books were burned by his killers.

Castel, Rabbi Meir Shmuel; 69: Born in Hebron in 1860 to the well-known Castel family of Castilla, Spain. They had moved to Gaza and lived there for several generations. After Napoleon took the city in February of 1799, the family moved to Hebron. In 1910, he was appointed as a judge on Hebron’s Beit Din (Jewish legal court) and, in 1921, he was chosen as leader of the Jewish congregation in Hebron. He was engaged in much humanitarian work and supported many of the city’s poor. On Friday August 23rd 1929, Arabs broke the windows of the Castel house. His Arab partner came on Shabbat and took all of Castel’s gold and silver with him to “hide it at his house”. He then went downstairs and calmly opened the door for the mob. The old Rabbi was stabbed to death. His wife was severely wounded.

Cohen, Shimon; 27: Born in 1902 in Yazd, Persia. He came to Eretz Yisrael in 1922 and worked as a stonecutter until his health deteriorated. He opened a shop in Hebron where everything was written and expedited in Hebrew. Shimon assisted many, especially Jews from Persia, and took time to show them Hebron’s many historic sites. Not until 1929 could he save up enough money to be able to bring his mother and two brothers to Israel. In a small room at Slonim’s home, death caught up with him. His killers clubbed him to death with axes. His body wasn’t found until Monday; therefore he was buried apart from the mass grave in the Hebron Jewish cemetery.

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Dobnikov, Peninna; 45: Born 1884 in Russia; married to Haim-Eliezer. When her husband was imprisoned in Russia, Peninna and their six children fled to the Ukraine. Under appalling conditions, in a run-down shack with no windows or doors, she managed to keep herself and her children alive for a year and a half before they finallymanaged to escape their pursuers and travel to Eretz Yisrael in 1924. The couple survived the pogroms in Europe, but not in Hebron

Dobnikov, Haim-Eliezer; 53: Born 1876, in Krogle, Mohilov, Russia. He studied science and psychology at the university and became a therapist. Prior to his coming to Eretz Yisrael in 1924, he was headmaster at a Jewish school where only Hebrew was used. He wrote several books and fought for the use of Hebrew instead of Yiddish in the schools of Warsaw. Dobnikov was the principal of the Nordau School in Tel Aviv. He and his wife moved to Hebron in August 1929, where both were murdered by the bloodthirsty Arabs.

Dribkin, Zvi; 67: The Rabbi was born on April 22, 1862 in Saklov, Russia. He studied in yeshivas his entire life. A genius, he possessed an incredible knowledge of Judaism. His sons arrived at the yeshiva in Hebron in 1926, and he followed them in 1929 arriving six months before the massacre. He was received with great respect in Israel and was a highly valued lecturer in Hebron. The Arab killers silenced a genius of huge dimensions. He was murdered by brutal torture. Rabbi Zvi Dribkin’s abdomen was gashed open and his inner organs torn out. He had escaped the East European pogroms and came to Israel to find peace for his soul. Instead, hebecame a victim of an Arab pogrom.

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Epstein, Aharon David; 16: Born in 1913 in Chicago where his father was a rabbi. After studying at the University of Chicago, he decided to travel to Hebron to study the Torah with his uncle, Rabbi Moshe Mordechai Epstein, who was the dean of the Slobodka yeshiva in Hebron. Aharon David came to Hebron in the winter of 1929 and was murdered in Slonim’s house.

Froman, Zvi; 21: Born on 8th August 1908 in Hamilton, Canada. His family moved to Chicago when he was two and a half years old. At the age of 15, he published articles criticizing the school system’s pedagogy. He studied both at the university and the rabbinical school, and was an outstanding student. After some time, his dream of studying at the famous ‘Slobodka - Knesset Yisrael’ yeshiva in Hebron became a reality. He was murdered in the home of Rabbi Samrik, where he also lived. He left behind many articles in both English and Hebrew. They contain Torah clarifications and ideas, aswell as comments concerning the Word of G-d.

Greenberg, Zeev; 19: Born in 1910 in Kamenets-Podolsk, Russia. When he was eight, his family moved to New York. Early in 1929, he was promised by another Jew a scholarship lasting several years so he could realize his dream of studying at the Slobodka - Knesset Yisrael yeshiva in Hebron. He lived with the Lizelstein family and tried to protect himself from the murderers with a cane. They forced him out into the street where he was murdered. His body was left lying there until Sunday.

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Gershon, Ben Zion; 73: Born in 1856, he studied medicine in Kushta, Turkey before coming to Israel and Hebron in 1877. Here he worked as a doctor and pharmacist. Ben Zion helped the Arabs of the area for more than 40 years. The poor received free treatment and made up the majority of his patients. During the First World War, he served as a doctor in the Turkish Army. He later ran the Hadassah hospital in Hebron and a pharmacy. Once, on the way to a patient, he fell and one of his legs was so badly injured that it had to be amputated. When the murderers entered the house, he was in bed reading Psalms. “What are you doing?” his killers asked. “I’m praying to my G-d”, he answered. His fingers holding the book were cut off by a sword,his eyes were torn out and his body pierced by multiple sword and dagger stabs. His eldest daughter was raped and murdered; his wife was gravely injured and died a few days later. His three other children were also hurt. He was a very pious man and for that reason, never allowed himself to be photographed.

Gershon, Zehava; 40: From Sofia, Bulgaria whereshe was born in 1889. She came as a young girl to Eretz Yisrael with her parents. When her husband became confined to a wheelchair and could no longer work as adoctor or pharmacist, she opened a laundry and worked hard to support her family. At the same time, she nursed sick Jews and Arabs at the Hadassah hospital. Zehava was with her children when the murderers came to the house and she attempted to fight them off to save herchildren’s lives. She was seriously wounded by swords, daggers and sticks bristling with nails and died at the British hospital in Jerusalem 14 days later.

Gershon, Esther; 22: Born in Hebron in 1907. She studied at the school in Hebron and later worked as a seamstress. She spent much of her spare time volunteering to help the poor. Esther was engaged to be married, but was murdered after a heroic struggle against the Arabs who raped her. They stabbed her several times until she died.

Ben Zion

Gershon

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Goldshmid, Moshe; 31: From Yekaterinoslav, Russia, where he was born in 1898. He studied at the Lubavitch yeshiva from the age of 5. He came to Eretz Yisrael in 1925 and settled down in Hebron with his wife and three children. There, he was given the job of ‘shochet’, or kosher butcher and devoted much time to studying. The mob came in and tore his eyes out before forcing his head into the fire of the kitchen stove. His 5-year olddaughter witnessed the event. His seriously wounded wife tried to stop the attackers, but was stabbed several times. Shortly afterwards, Arab women looted their house.

Gozlan, Yaakov; 45: The Rabbi was born in 1884 to a family that had lived in Hebron for 150 years. They came from a French colony in Africa (Adzirya). In 1901, he married the daughter of Rabbi Dabab from Jerusalem. He worked half-day as a goldsmith and studied half-day in the yeshiva. He was advised to move from Hebron several days before the pogrom, but trusted his Arab neighbors and refused to flee. His employees murderedhim with knives and canes. His son, Moshe, was also murdered. The rest of the family was injured.

Gozlan, Moshe; 19: Born in Hebron in 1910 and attended a high school in Jerusalem. On Thursday, his relative Leah Gozlan told him she had overheard three Arab leaders, one of them Sheikh Taleb Marka, talking of plans to slaughter Jews in Hebron. He told this to his father, but his father didn’t take it seriously. On Shabbat, both were murdered by their neighbors. The Arabs tortured him and stabbed him in the face before killing him.

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Grodzensky, Leah; 28: Leah was born in 1902 in the village of Hwashmezi, Hungary. She traveled with the ‘Hehalutz’ movement to Eretz Yisrael in 1924 and married Yaakov. In 1928, they moved to Hebron. She was badly wounded and lay 3 days at Bikur Holim Hospital in Jerusalem before she died on August 26th, 1929.

Grodzensky, Moshe; 54: The Rabbi was born in Warsaw, Poland in 1875. His father was amongst the foremost rabbis in the city, and one of the founders of the great ‘Talmud Torah’ yeshiva. He studied in the yeshiva his entire life and had the honor of being a student and disciple of the famous Rabbi, the “Hafetz Haim.” Moshe supported many students and families economically. He came to Eretz Yisrael in 1925 and was alone when the murderers arrived and tortured him to death. They tore out his left eye and cut out his brain. His blood splattered all over the ceiling and walls.

Grodzensky, Yaakov; 22: Born in Poland in 1907; studied in the yeshivas his entire life. He came to Israel with his father in 1925. He ran a small restaurant for yeshiva students in Hebron with his wife. Yaakov tried to find work in Jerusalem and was there just a few daysbefore the pogrom. He returned to Hebron on Thursday and was killed on Shabbat. His head was split open by an axe.

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Gutman, Asher Moshe; 55: Born in the Polish village of Jablonka in 1874. His father died early in life, so Asher Moshe had to start working at an early age. He took upon himself the financial responsibility for his family,also after he married. He arrived in Israel in 1925 and settled down in Tel Aviv, spending much of his time on Torah studies. On August 22 1929, Asher Moshe traveled to Hebron because of failing health. He checked-in to the Nachman Segal Hotel and went straight to the Hebron yeshiva. His wife was murdered along with the other guests at the hotel. When the 3 dead were found, they were first listed as ‘unidentified’. The policemanwho opened her husband’s jacket found 2-year old Menachem Segal – beheaded!

Gutman, Hava; 55: Born 1874 in Jablonka, Poland. Just after Hava arrived in Hebron with her husband, she wrote a letter to Tel Aviv: “We’re staying at the Segal Hotel; we have a nice room and have found Hebron to be a fantastic place for recreation.” Her satisfaction with the place was short-lived as she was murdered soon after.

Gutlevsky, Aharon Leib; 73: From Ayava, near Vilnius, Lithuania, where he was born in 1856. He was a “melamed” a Torah school teacher and a rabbi of aristocratic birth. He moved to Eretz Yisrael in 1926 and settled down in Hertzliya. In 1929, he moved in with his son-in-law to Hebron because he missed yeshiva life. When the killers arrived at Slonim’s house, Aharon told everyone: “Pray the prayer of confession!” An axe to the head ended his life. He was murdered in Slonim’s house along with his son-in-law Betzalel Lazarovsky, brother Israel and grandchild Deborah- three generations!

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Hasson, Klara; 59: Born in Jerusalem in 1870, daughter of Gaon (expert in theology) Rahamim Yosef Franco and mother Mazal Tov, daughter of Gaon Yitzhak Yisrael. She was known for her charitable deeds amongst the poor and for her love and compassion. Klara would have preferred to live in Jerusalem, but her husband wouldn’t hear of it. The couple was murdered most brutally.

Hasson, Hanoch; 62: The Rabbi was born on May 22 1867, in Hebron, to Rabbi Mordechai, one of the richest men in the city, and his mother, Rivka, of the famous Benbishti family. He was a Supreme Court member of the Sephardic Judicial Court in Hebron. A very learned man, he also owned a large collection of antique writings on Hebron and its history. The Rabbi was also engaged in fundraising, helping many. Three days prior to the pogrom, he wrote the following to a friend abroad: “I wish you a blessed settling in Israel, for there are no limits for our G-d. …we are not safe from persecution, but He, The Holy One, will protect us…” During the pogrom, he was murdered together with his wife Klara most barbarically. His book collection was burned by the mob.

Hansson, Esther Frieda; 68: Russian-born in 1861. Came to Eretz Yisrael at the age of seven with her parents and remained in Hebron. She studied sewing and married Shochet (kosher butcher) Hansson. Her home was always open to the many Jews who visited the Tomb of the Forefathers. She was at the Reizmann family home when the killers came. Esther knew them by name and begged for her life. She reminded the murderers of all the help they had received from her. She was badly wounded anyway by sword and dagger stabs. She died six days later at the British hospital in Jerusalem.

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Heller, Zvi Hirsch; 15: Born on February 20 1914 in Minsk, then a part of Russia, to a well-known family of rabbis. The family came to Eretz Yisrael in 1921. He studied in a yeshiva as early at the age of six, and skipped over several class levels due to his enormous biblical knowledge. He was killed by mortal blows to his head. He fought for his life, but died on August 30 1929.

Heichal, Eliyahu Dov; 16: Born in the village of Shkodvil, Lithuania in 1913. His family arrived in Eretz Yisrael on August 1 1926. In Hebron, he began studying at the Slobodka - Knesset Yisrael yeshiva where his brother, Israel-Arieh, was also a student. In 1929, the family was to move to Ra’anana to build up a farm, but the pogrom took their lives. When the mob surrounded their house, Eliyahu and his brother went out to seek help from a British officer and his force who were there. While he held on to the officer’s horse, Arabs stabbedhim with knives while they asked: “Does this hurt ya yahud (Jew)?” His mother watched helplessly on from a window as the barbaric Arabs murdered her two sons, but she saved the yeshiva students hiding in the house: “Don’t go out! It is enough with the blood of my sons!”

Heichal, Israel-Arieh; 20: Born in Shkodvil, Lithuania in 1909, beginning his studies at the age of three. At 16, he joined the Jewish group ‘Tiferet Bachorim’ who worked towards coming to Israel. Israel-Arieh was murdered alongside his brother while the police stood by watching and their mother was a helpless witness from a window in the home.

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Horowitz, Benyamin HaLevi; 20: Born in New York in 1909. Studied mathematics in college and completed with top marks. He went on to study at a yeshiva, but dreamt of studying at the world famous Hebron yeshiva, Slobodka - Knesset Yisrael. He came to Israel in 1927 with his mother and two sisters, and they settled in Petach Tikva. His sisters went to high school there, while Benyamin went to Hebron to study for two years. He was murdered along with Rabbi Samrik, with whom he was staying.

Immerman, Noah; 33: Born in Slutsk, Russia in 1896. He dedicated his life to Torah studies. He was sent to war in 1914, and fought for three years. In 1919, he married, and came to Eretz Yisrael in 1925. He settled in Hebron and built a modern bakery where he worked during the day. His evening hours were dedicated to Torah studies in the synagogue. Immerman was killed under gruesome conditions. He was burned alive by his co-worker Isa (Arabic for Jesus). His wife Royza, 27, and daughter Tamar, 9, were badly hurt before their home was plundered and destroyed.

Kaplan, Yisrael Mordechai; 22: Born in 1907 in Vilkomir, Lithuania. His father died while Yisrael was still a child, and he, along with his mother, was deported to Astrakhan during the war. Though only a child, he carried sacks of salt from place to place and lived in deep poverty. They were allowed to return home after the war. From then, he studied at various yeshivas and left for Eretz Yisrael in 1925 having been accepted to the Slobodka - Knesset Yisrael yeshiva. He helped barricade the door at Slonim’s house and tried to stop the mob. Despite being shot in the stomach, he held the door closed as best he could: “You must be strong, I am doomed.” A blow to the head with a sword brought him down, and he fell on the gravely injured Rabbi Arieh Dov Lipkin. Yisrael Mordechai died, but in doing so, he saved Lipkin’s life.

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Lazarowsky, Betzalel; 38: Born in 1891 in Maltesch, Grodno County , Russia. He studied with famous rabbis such as the Gaon “Hafetz Haim.” In 1914, he was conscripted into the Russian army. He came to Eretz Yisrael in 1926 as a member of the ‘HeHalutz Hamizrahi’ movement and settled down in Hertzliya. He founded a synagogue in Apollonia, a Jewish neighborhood which the Greeks had once controlled and where they had built a temple to Apollo. In 1928, he brought his parents from Russia and moved to Hebron. There, he opened a canteen for yeshiva students. He was preparing to buy some land in Hertzliya to become a farmer and till Jewish land. The murderous Arabs slit his throat in Slonim’s house. They did the same to Deborah, his four and a half year old daughter, his brother Israel and his father-in-law, Rabbi Aharon Leib Gutlevsky.

Lazarovsky, Deborah; 4½: Little Deborah was butchered along with her father, uncle and grandfather in Slonim’s house.

Lazarovsky, Israel; 17: Born in 1912 in Maltesch, Grodno County, Russia. The family moved to Minsk to secure Israel access to good schools. At the age of 11, he began his studies at 3 o’clock in the morning and studied in secret at a yeshiva – which was a forbidden and punishable offense in Russia. In 1926, his greatest dream was fulfilledwhen he was accepted to the Slobodka - Knesset Yisrael yeshiva in Hebron. After two years, he was one of the yeshiva’s best students. On Shabbat, he and his brother were killed by the Arabs in Slonim’s house. During his short time in Israel, he lived a holy life and went in the holiness of his soul to the G-d of Heaven.

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Kaplinsky, Yisrael Hillel; 22: He was born in the village of Knyshin near Bialystok in December, 1907. He studied in yeshivas his entire life and was admitted to the famous Slobodka - Knesset Yisrael yeshiva at the age of 16. He was regarded as an exceptionally gifted child. He moved to Hebron in 1926 and studied at the yeshiva. His genius led him to being called “the great one”, and the rabbis called him a “living Torah scroll”. He was murdered by several knife and dagger wounds, and his last words were: “The murderers attack me even though I’m dying.”

Krasner, Haim Zeleg; 16: From Brooklyn, New York where he was born in 1913. His family moved to Eretz Yisrael in 1922, and he studied at the Slobodka - Knesset Yisrael yeshiva in Hebron. Haim was murdered in the home of Nachman Segal. His body was pierced by knives and daggers. He suffered for four hours before dying.

Lichtenstein, Zeev Elimelech; 58: Born in 1871 in Radzin, Poland. He came to Eretz Yisrael alone, but later brought his wife and four children to Jerusalem. He studied his whole life at the yeshiva, while working hard to support his family. When the Slobodka - Knesset Yisrael yeshiva moved to Hebron, he and his family followed there. On Sunday August 18, 1929, he traveled to Jerusalem when his son-in-law decided to stay there. His son-in-law feared the Arabs would carry out a pogrom against the Jews: “I was at the market and a mute Arab, who sold bread, threatened me with his fists… I realized that wewere facing a catastrophe…” On Tuesday, however, he changed his mind and returned to Hebron. “My heart wants to go to Hebron.” On Friday, he was miraculously spared from an attempt on his life when the Arabs suddenly came in and murdered Samuel Rosenholtz. On Shabbat he prayed the Prayer of Thanksgiving, Hagomel. Soon after the prayers, the pogrom began. He was murdered at Rabbi Moshe Mordechai Epstein’s home.

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Lipin, Dov; 26: Born in Vitebsk, Russia in 1903. After high school, he studied at several yeshivas, including Slobodka - Knesset Yisrael in Lithuania. He came to Hebron in 1926 and was part of the fourth class at Slobodka - Knesset Yisrael’s branch there. He was murdered in Slonim’s house and was among those who attempted to keep the door closed. He managed to say “Run and hide yourselves!” before he was axed down next to the door.

Palatzi, Alter; 29: Alter was born in Hebron in 1900, where his father had moved in 1850. He was an expert in Kabbala which he studied his whole life. Alter was the custodian of the yeshiva and supported his wife, six children and mother. In the evenings, he taught and preached to the people. When the mob knocked on his door, they promised that they would only loot the home. Egged on by an Arab policeman nearby, they killed him by stabbing him repeatedly with knives.

Mitavsky, Meshulam Shraga; 26: Born in 1903 in the village of Levadova, near Vilnius. His father, Ben Zion, was the town’s rabbi and wrote the book ‘Zion’s Children’ before being murdered by anarchists in 1905. Meshulam studied at many different yeshivas before moving to Hebron in 1926. The killers came to Rabbi Grodzensky’s home where he lived. He was hurt by bullets and daggers and died five days later at the BikurHolim hospital in Jerusalem. His mother wrote a letter to her son’s Headmaster in Hebron: “Two sacred members of my family, my husband and my son – who should have become a great, learned man in Israel, were executed. Where can I find comfort now that my beloved MeshulamShraga has been murdered by brutal animals? Rivers of tears will flow from my eyes all my days, and that is mycomfort…”

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Reizmann, Moshe; 16: Born in 1912 in Jerusalem. He was the son of Rabbi Yeshaya Reizmann who died in 1917 after great suffering in the Turkish army he was forced to serve with. At the age of five, Moshe was sentto Rabbi Diskin’s children’s home. By the age of nine, he was allowed to preach and finished high school at age13. He came to the Slobodka - Knesset Yisrael yeshiva in Hebron and was noted as an exceptional student. He was murdered by the bloodthirsty Arabs along with his brother, Rabbi Yaakov Zeev Reizmann.

Orlansky, Avraham Yaakov; 50: Born in 1879 in Bialystok, Poland. He was the son of Rabbi Aharon HaCohen – Petach Tikva’s rabbi. He came to Israel in 1882 and became a great scholar of Judaism. He was also an expert on medieval literature and had a large book collection. Many of the books were very rare. Chief Rabbi of Zichron Yaakov, he possessed a great knowledge of Hebrew and Arabic, and read much literature in the original languages. He was murdered during prayer still wearing his prayer shawl. His head was crushed and his brains spilled onto the floor. His wife, daughter, son-in-law and grandchild were murdered with him.

Orlansky, Yente; 47: Born in 1882. She was the daughter of Rabbi Zvi Pesach Frank and wife of Rabbi Avraham Yaakov Orlansky. She arrived in Hebron on Wednesday and was murdered on Friday in her son-in-law Slonim’s home.

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Reizmann, Yaakov Zeev; 35: Was born in Jerusalem in 1894 to Rabbi Netanel. The family came to Jerusalem in 1839 from Warsaw, and was amongst the first Jewishfamilies to settle outside Jerusalem’s Old City. He married Hebron Rabbi Zalman Hansson’s daughter and moved there. At the outbreak of the First World War, he was conscripted into the Turkish army and stationed with other Jews in Beer Sheba. In 1917, when the British took over, the Jews left Beer Sheba. A British pilot, thinking they were Turks, opened fire and killed nearly all of them. Rabbi Reizmann buried them in Beer Sheba and they were some of the first Jews to be buried there in modern times. After six years of war, he returned to Hebron and took over his father-in-law’s job as shochet (kosher butcher). On Shabbat, at 9 in the morning, the mob pounded on the door. As he tried to escape, he was struck by a sword. Injured, he ran out into the street where he was caught by some Arabs. They took his valuables before gouging out his eyes, slitting his throat and throwing him down onto the street. His body wasn’t found until Sunday.

Ripes, Moshe Aharon; 25: Born in Minsk, Russia in 1904. He studied with well-known rabbis. After only two years, he graduated high school with honors. For fiveyears he led the Zionist group ‘Tiferet Bachorim’ before coming to Hebron in 1926. Here, he studied at the Tiferet Israel yeshiva and experienced the liberation from the pogroms in Russia. In all, he helped 32 Jews escape Russia and come to Israel and in the summer of 1929, he had saved enough money to bring his parents to Eretz Yisrael. His killers didn’t let him finish the Prayer of Forgivenessbefore stabbing him repeatedly in the heart. When his family arrived in Eretz Yisrael, they found that Moshe was one of the martyrs of Hebron.

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Samarik, Betzalel; 73: Was born in 1856 in the village of Zitl in the Grodno County in Russia. He studied his entire life in yeshivas, teaching and guiding, a great rabbi with incredible biblical knowledge. In 1924, he went to Israel and settled in Hebron. On Shabbat, he came from the synagogue and with some students sat studying at the table. The mob came in and killed him with knives and blunt objects. They also killed three American yeshiva students: Benyamin Horowitz, 20, Zvi Froman, 21, and Aharon Sheinberg, 22.

Rosenholtz, Shmuel HaLevi; 23: Born in 1906 in the town Vilkovishki, Lithuania. He studied at various yeshivas, also in Hebron. In Hebron, known at ‘the Matmid’ – the perpetual student, he was by far the most laborious student and a genius with an amazing memory. He was also a sensitive soul and the quintessential symbol of goodness. He was the first victim of the Hebron pogrom. On Friday evening, August 23, 1929, Shmuel sat alone in his Sabbath attire in the yeshiva reading the Gemara. At 16:30, vicious murderers attacked the yeshiva. They were disappointed to find only one victim: A large rock crushedhis skull, blood splattering everywhere and covering the Gemara. The mob attacked again and pierced his body with daggers. He died with the Word of G-d in his hands. The book became drenched in Shmuel’s blood – blood which had spent a life-time studying the Word of G-d.

Senderov, Eliyahu Yissachar; 17: The youngest child to Rabbi Alter, he was born in Jerusalem in 1912. In 1928, Eliyahu Yissachar was accepted to the yeshiva in Hebron; and his joy in learning was enormous: His days began at 2 in the morning and he studied until late in the evening. He was murdered in a gruesome manner and suffered greatly before dying.

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Segal, Menachem; 2: He was only two years old when the barbaric Arabs cut off his little head. He was found, headless, in the murdered Asher Moshe Gutman’s coat. He had perhaps tried to protect the little child from the bloodthirsty Arabs.

Segal, Nachman; 30: Born in the village of Sokoly in Lomza, Poland in 1899. He joined the Zionist movement in 1918, and held a number of positions. In 1925, just after he’d married, he came to Israel. He moved, in 1926, to Hebron where he opened an inn and eatery for yeshiva students. On the day prior to the pogrom, some Arabs stayed the night with him and promised that nothing would happen to the Jews. They left Segal’s home at dawn and started the pogrom at 9 a.m. Several hundred Arabs attacked the house. Segal was seriously hurt and died the next day. His wife, who was carrying their two-year old son Menachem in her arms, begged for her son’s life and suggested the Arabs kill her instead. Their answer was: “No, you stay here – he dies!” The child was found beheaded in Asher Moshe Gutman’s jacket – who was also murdered. Students Haim Zeleg Karsner and Simcha Broida were also killed at Segal’s house.

Shapira, Avraham; 18: Born in 1911 in Jerusalem. He studied with Rabbi Diskin before he was accepted in 1928 to the ‘Ateret Israel’ yeshiva in Hebron. He knew that a pogrom was coming and discussed this with his friends on several occasions. He was attacked in Borland’s house, where he lived. Avraham fought the mob for some time, but numerous knife punctures to the lungs ended the life of this amicable young man.

Menachem

Segal

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Sher, Haim Shalom Alter; 24: Born in 1905 in Ruzalya, Lithuania. He studied at several different yeshivas before coming to the Slobodka - Knesset Yisrael yeshiva in 1922. Alter was one of the first to follow Slobodka whenit was moved to Hebron in 1924. He was the leader of two foundations supporting yeshiva students financiallyand collecting donations for the poor. On Shabbat he was with Slonim. He stood at the door and tried to stop the mob from coming in. But his body was repeatedly stabbed with knives and daggers, and he died by the door.

Sheinberg, Aharon David; 22: From Memphis, Tennessee, where he was born in 1907. He studied English literature at the local college. In 1928, Aharon moved to Hebron without letting his parents know. He studied at the Tiferet Israel yeshiva while at the same time supporting several yeshiva students financially. He wasmurdered along with Rabbi Samarik in the latter’s home.

Unger, Shlomo; 22: He was born in 1907 in Zagorz, Sanok County in Galicia, Poland. He came to Eretz Yisrael in 1923 and worked as an engineer. Shlomo was murdered along with his wife. Their two small children, aged 2 and one month, were spared miraculously.

Unger, Nechama; 22: Nechama was born in Vilnius in 1907 where she learned Hebrew at the local Jewish high school. She came to Eretz Yisrael at age 17 with the ‘Hehalutz’ group. Several years of laborious agricultural work had left their mark on her. She married in 1927 and moved to Hebron. Nechama was stabbed with daggers and went insane; for three days she fought out the atrocities she had experienced before finally dying ofgrief at the hospital of Dr. Wallach in Jerusalem.

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Slonim, Eliezer Dan; 29: Born in Hebron in 1900. He was educated at the teachers’ college and worked as a teacher for a few years. He later became a bank director and was the only Jew on the Hebron City Council. Around 70 Jews hid in his home, hoping the Arabs respected Slonim enough not to attack him. It was not to be so. He was murdered with his wife Hannah, and son Aharon.

Slonim, Aharon; 5: Aharon was only 5 years old when the murderers stormed into his home, murdering his father and mother and not stopping until they had killed 21 more Jews. He was seriously wounded and died at the Bikur Holim hospital in Jerusalem.

Slonim, Hannah; 28: She was born in 1902 in Petach Tikva, Eretz Yisrael; the daughter of Rabbi Orlansky and the wife of Eliezer Dan Slonim. On Friday before the massacre, two Arabs stayed the night with them in Hebron: Nase Al Adin and Yakob Haboi. The Arab owner of the house, Gadoi, who lived on the ground floor, promisedthat nothing would happen to them. But on Shabbat he disappeared and Adin and Haboi opened the door to Slonim’s house “to talk to the mob”. They forced their way in despite the many Jews’ attempts to stop them. They killed Hannah and her son Aharon, her husband and 21 others hiding in the home. Their other child, 13-month old Shlomo, was hurt and is the only surviving member of the family. He was found underneath his mother and the other corpses which had hid him from the murderous Arabs.

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Vecksler, Yaakov; 17: Born to a wealthy family from Chicago in 1912. During a family visit to Eretz Yisrael in 1928, he asked permission to remain in Hebron. He stayed with Rabbi Sokolover and quickly became a capable yeshiva student. Before being murdered in Slonim’s house, he managed to embrace Rabbi Sokolover and thank him for everything he had learned from the Torah from him: “I’m glad I’m going to die after having studied the Torah. I thank you for raising me in the Path of the Law and Torah.” A blow from an axe ended his thanksgiving.

Yagel, Shlomo; 24: Born on September 22 1905 in the Polish town of Slonim, the son of the town’s rabbi and the yeshiva rabbi, HaGaon Rabbi Shabtai. He studied with numerous very famous rabbis and possessed an enormous knowledge of the Torah. Daily, for many years, he would split wood and carry water for a poor widow who lived nearby. He came to Hebron in 1927 and studied at Tiferet Yisrael (Israel’s Beauty) yeshiva. He wrote many letters to friends encouraging them to come to the Land of the Forefathers. He lyrically described Eretz Yisrael, Hebron, the nature and everything around him as Paradise. He was murdered in Slonim’s house. His mother wrote brokenheartedly to her relatives in Eretz Yisrael: “Shlomo, my beloved, went to Heaven too young in years, but old in knowledge and deeds. He went to Heaven, and in his hands he held a great and holy Torah scroll. My beloved Shlomo was complete in his deeds – both to people and to G-d. Who can console me in the loss of such a son? I find only one comfort: our holy sonwas murdered for the holy Israel, just as were the ten holy men in their time. The blood of our holy son who gave his life for holy Israel, and the blood of all the other holy and pure who were murdered, will not stand still - it will be as the blood of the prophet Zechariah.”

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Avraham

Yenni

Vida

Yenni

Yenni, Avraham; 50: The rabbi was born in Kushta, Turkey in 1879 and came to Eretz Yisrael with his wife in 1911. They settled in Hebron where he spent much of his time on Torah studies. He discreetly helped many of the poor. On Shabbat August 24 1929, he was found dead on the stairs of his home with a dagger in his stomach.

Yenni, Vida; 44: She was born in Kushta, Turkey in 1885. She dedicated her life to the poor, and very discreetly aided them financially along with her husband. Vida wasfound murdered in a small storage room by the house where she hid. They had cut her throat and stabbed her.

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WITH G-D’S HELP, Monday, week of the Torah portion Shoftinm Vshotrim, 5689 [September 2,1929], Tel Aviv, may it be built up and firmly established speedilyin our days. Amen.

My dear children, may you live and be well,

Even before I begin writing my hand is already shaking, my head swims,

and every limb is trembling. I am unable to get control of myself, because the cries are still ringing in my ears. It is one week today since we came back from the bitter tragedy. Every day I want to write to you, but when I sit down to write all my limbs start to quiver and tears pour from my eyes so I have to stop. Today for the firsttime I was able to pull myself together, with all my strength, with superhuman effort. I got up at dawn and sat down to write. I hadn’t started yet, but even before I could begin, my pen was already soaked with tears. Although it seems that I am writing this letter with ink, you should know that it is not ink but tears.

Now, let me get to the point. I don’t really know where to start and where to finish,

because my blood is still churning inside me. But I will begin my Megilla [Scroll] of Hebron. Children, as you already know from my earlier letter. Mama, may she live and be well, had been feeling very weak ever since we came back from our trip to America... I kept pleading with Mama...that we needed a change of climate... Finally she realized that she had no choice and she agreed. She did not want to go by herself, only with me. So we left and went to the country - to Hebron.

We arrived on Sunday, August 18. There we went to a guest house [Eshel Avraham - M.G.], where we got a very nice room and came to an agreement on the charges. We paid for one month in advance, since we planned to stay for several months, until after all the holidays, when it would be cooler.

From the very beginning, things did not go well. Although the air was very good and the weather cool, and Mama, may she be well, did not perspire any more, she caught a severe cold and had to stay in bed.

Ever since we arrived in Hebron, we had heard talk of disturbances in Jerusalem, that Arabs and Jews were fighting.

The Hebron Scroll of Blood - Megilat Hebron

Rabbi Aharon Reuven and Breine Zuch Bemzweig

Translated from the Yiddish to English by Helen G. Meyrowitz and Dr. Meyer Greenberg

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On Friday, the 23rd, we heard that things had got worse in Jerusalem. Everyone became very uneasy and walked about without a head. We had forebodings that something terrible was about to happen - but what, exactly, we did not know. I was fearful and kept questioning the local people, who had lived there for generations. They assured me that in Hebron there could never be a pogrom, because as many times as there had been trouble elsewhere in Eretz Yisrael, Hebron had remained quiet. The locals [ Jews] had always lived very peacefully with the Arabs.

But my heart told me that the situation was serious. Hebron alone, without the surrounding villages, has a population of 24,000. Including the villages, there are 60,000 people. Of what significance isthe Jewish community there, a mere 100 families [actually, about 800 souls - M.G.]. What could we do to protect ourselves? We could only comfort ourselves with the hope that G-d, blessed be He, would have mercy, and the troubles would run their course quietly.

Friday afternoon the situation worsened. We heard that on the street Arabs had already beaten several Jews with clubs. Next we heard that all the Jewish stores had closed. The atmosphere was explosive. Everybody was afraid to go out into the street, and we locked ourselves in our rooms. Things looked really bad. What should we do? “No one could go out, and no one could come in” [ Joshua 6.1]; everybody was fearful. By now the local Jews too were saying that the situation was serious.

Suddenly, just one hour before candle lighting, pandemonium broke loose. Window panes were smashed on all sides. In our building, they broke every window and began throwing large stones inside. We hid ourselves. They were breaking windows in all the Jewish homes. Now we were in deathly fear. As we were blessing the Shabbes candles, we heard that in the yeshiva one young man had been killed. It was bitter, the beginning of a slaughter.

In the meantime, mounted policemen arrived, and all became still outside. We thought that our salvation had come. All through the night the police patrolled the streets. But it seemed that they were having problems. You can understand that I walked the floor, all night terriblyworried, with my heart in my mouth. On Shabbes morning, we saw that the situation was getting worse. Cars kept racing back and forth through the streets. They were filled with Arabs armed with long ironbars, long knives, and axes. The Arabs kept screaming that they were going to Jerusalem to slaughter all the Jews. Soon many Jews gathered in our house. We held a meeting and talked the situation over, but couldn’t think of anything .we could do to protect ourselves, since none of us had any weapons. Many of the people remained in our house, because by then it was too dangerous to try to go home.

Now let me tell you about the massacre. Right after eight o’clock in the morning we heard screams. Arabs had begun breaking into Jewish homes. The screams pierced the heart of the heavens. We didn’t know what to do. Our house had

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two stories. We were downstairs and a doctor [Zvi Kitayin - M.G.] lived on the second floor. We figured that we wouldbe safe in the doctor’s apartment, but how could we get up there? The stairs were on the outside of the building, and it wasn’t safe to go out. So we chopped through the ceiling and that way we climbed up to the doctor’s house. Well, after being there only a little while, we realized that we were still in danger because by that time the Arabs had almost reached our house. They were going from door to door, slaughtering everyone inside. The screams and moans were terrible. People were crying Help! Help! But what could we do? There were 33 of us. Soon, soon all of us would be lost.

Just then [five minutes before the Arabmob reached the guest house -M.G.], G-d, blessed be He, in His great mercy, sent us an Arab who lived in back of our house. He insisted that we come down from the doctor’s apartment and enter his house through the back door. He took us to his cellar, a large room without windows to the outside. We all went in, while he, together with several Arab women, stood outside near the door. As we lay there on the floor, we heard the screams as Arabswere slaughtering Jews. It was unbearable. As for us, we felt that the danger was so great that we had no chance of coming out alive. Each one of us said his vidui [confession in anticipation of death]. At any moment we could be slaughtered, for double-edged swords were already at our throats. We had not even the slightest hope of remaining alive. We just begged that it should already be done and over.

Five times the Arabs stormed our house with axes, and all in the while those wild murderers kept screaming at the Arabs who were standing guard to hand over the Jews. They, in turn, shouted back that they had not hidden any Jews and knew nothing. They begged the attackers not to destroy their homes.

We heard everything. In addition, the little children in our group kept crying. We were in deadly fear that the murderers outside would hear them...

Well, I can’t continue describing the destruction. It took several hours - to us it seemed like years - until all became quiet outside. We continued to lie there, waiting for the Angel of Death to finishwith us as quickly as possible.

But G-d heard our prayers. Suddenly, the door opened, and the police walked in. They had been told that we were hidden there. They insisted that we go along with them, and that they would take us to a safe place. We were afraid to go, because we thought they themselves might slaughter us. Eventually, they succeeded in convincing us that they had our welfare in mind. Since we couldn’t walk there, they brought automobiles and took us, under police guard, to the police station, which was in a safe location.

When we reached the police station, there was acted out a real-life dance of the devils, for the police had brought together ... the surviving remnant. During the earlier confusion, naturally, no one could have known what was happening to anyone else, but there, in the police station, everyone first discovered whom he had

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lost. As people told each other about their misfortunes and how many casualties they had suffered, there erupted a terrible outcry, everyone shrieking and weeping at the same time. It was unbearable. Blessed G-d, give us strength! It was beyond human endurance. Three women went, out of their minds right there.

In short, we were in the police station three days and three nights. We couldn’t eat and we couldn’t sleep. We lay on the ground in filth, just listening to the cryingand groaning. Finally, G-d, blessed be He, had mercy on us and [on Monday night -M.G.] the police again transferred us - to Jerusalem. There we stayed in the Nathan Straus Health Centre for two days and two nights, and on Wednesday we came back to Tel Aviv.

I AM WRITING you only about our troubles. I don’t have the strength to write about the additional troubles of the whole Jewish community. That you will surely read in the American newspapers. It is very tragic, but everything is from G-d.

Now I will tell you the total number of people who were slaughtered in Hebron. As of today, there are 63 holy martyrs. While we were still there, 58 were buried in a common grave - 51 males and 7 females; up to today, there are five moremartyrs from among the wounded. Of the wounded, 49 are in serious condition and 17 slightly wounded. Who knows how many more fatalities there will be. The yeshiva suffered 23 killed and 17 wounded. Eight of the dead and 14 of the wounded from the yeshiva are American boys. Gevalt! Twenty-three living Torah

scrolls were burned! May the heavens open and avenge us.

All the batei midrash with their Torah Scrolls and holy books were burned; everything in them was destroyed. All the homes were plundered; not even a straw was left!

We ourselves were left practically naked and barefoot. Since we had planned to stay there a few months, we had taken along all our clothes. Mama, may she live and be well, was left with only the one dress she was wearing and I, too, had only what I was wearing. They even took my talis and tefilin. Before Shabbes, Igave the money that I had brought along to the innkeeper for safekeeping. The Arabs took that money, too - quite a large amount.

To make matters worse, the situation in the entire country is very bad, and no one is paying his debts. I have notes for several thousand dollars. Last week, notes in the amount of $750 came due, but no one paid. Who knows what will happen in the future? G-d forbid that we should be ruined altogether. We’re trying to keep our heads above water while we keep hearing that here things are bad and there things are bad. May G-d, blessed be He, have mercy and help all the Jews, including us, that we should at least be well and be able to bear up under these trials. We Jews have had enough troubles!

I have no patience to write about family matters because my hand is still trembling.

JUST ONE THING, my dear children,

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may you live and be well, I ask of you that you save this letter for posterity. Each year, at an agreed-upon day, you should all meet and give thanks and praise to G-d, blessed be He, who saved your parents from this great catastrophe, and each one of you should make a generous contribution to charity. The miracle took place on the Shabbes of Torah portion

Ekev, the 18th day of Av, 5689 [August 24, 1929], in Hebron.

Your father, who wishes you the best, writing to you through tears,

Aharon

Segal Family Home: How it looked following the Hebron pogrom.

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The Slobodka Yeshiva (Talmudic Academy) was a lighthouse for

Jewish life. Hundreds of well- known rabbis, who led the Jewish Diaspora and who left their mark on Jewish thinking and lifestyle, came from the small Lithuanian town Slobodka. The Jewish Mussar Movement, which emphasizes intensive moral introspection originated in Slobodka. The school’s philosophy supported Jewish integration in local society, but with an uncompromising and high standard of individual and community behavior that would ensure the future existence of Judaism. The Mussar Movement came about as a reaction to the secularisation among the Jews, who wished to integrate into the non-Jewish society by abandoning their Jewish identity. The Holocaust demonstrated the futility of the latter endeavor.[2-7]

Rabbi Nathan Zvi Finkel (1849–1927) founded the Yeshiva in 1882 in a suburb (Slobodka) of Vilna, the capital of Jewish scholarship in Northern Europe during the modern era. Many yeshivas in Lit-huania and Poland drew scholars and inspiration from Slobodka, particularly

after the Russian Tzar forced the closure of the famed Volozhin Yeshiva. Rabbi Finkel’s conviction was that the Jewish people’s existence was dependent on scholars who would ensure the continua-tion of Judaism. In 1881 he anonymously published the book ’The Fruit Tree’. The book had articles written by himself, by Rabbi Israel Salant and other Talmudic scholars, and dealt with the importance of the Torah’s role for Israel’s existence. Rabbi Finkel understood the challenge of modern secular culture and was determi-ned to found a movement of Torah scho-larship that was logically rigorous, cri-tically oriented, and committed to bold intellectual creativity yet wholly commit-ted to orthodox Jewish values. The book had a great influence on its readers, butthe highlight in Rabbi Finkel’s life work was undoubtedly the Yeshiva ’Knesset Israel’ in Slobodka, a Yeshiva that very quickly became one of the World’s most famous Jewish theological schools. [8]

Only the very best students were admitted to the Yeshiva, which produced many illustrious and brilliant alumni. The entrance examination was very demanding and many prepared themselves for years.

World Famous Talmudic

Academy, the ‘Knesset Israel

– Slobodka Yeshiva’: Between

the Pogroms and the Holocaust

By Michal Rachel Suissa[1]

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In this school it was forbidden to learn by rote. It was rather mathematical analyses, a deep understanding, critical thinking and an uncompromising lifestyle with a high moral and human compassion that marked the school’s agenda.

The Moral Aim at Slobodka

Ethics, an important subject in the school’s curriculum, was lectured on and discussed every afternoon. The aim was that a person should constantly engage in self-criticism and repentance, gradually becoming a better person until he would deserve to be called a creature made in G-d’s image. This implied that the individual bore great responsibility for his actions.[9,10]

“The Grandfather”

One of Judaism’s most important values, charity (“Veahavta lereacha kamocha”, love one’s fellow as oneself) woven together with G-d’s love, had an important place in the school’s philosophy. Rabbi Finkel, Rabbi Avrahom Grodzensky and the other teachers at the school were living and shining examples of this message. Rabbi Finkel’s motto was humility and equal regard for every human being. The students called him ‘Saba’ - ‘Grandfather’, and did not always know what an important role he played in the World’s most exclusive theological school. For the students, he was first ofall the Grandfather who took care of the more practical side of things, and who personally took care of scholarships, food, clothes, medicine and whatever

Rabbi Natan Tzvi Finkel

Rabbi Moshe Mordechai Epstein

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the students were in need of. Humble as he was, he never signed letters nor did he write articles or books in which he addressed himself as the founder or leader. He did not even sign his name. In his peaceful way, he influenced the Jewishspiritual leaders for many generations to come.

Deportation to Kremenchug

During the First World War in 1914, the Tzar forbade the Jews to live in Slobodka and Kovno because of the many military sites there. The Yeshiva was first forcedto move to the city Minsk and thereafter to Kremenchug. Both the Grandfather and the ‘Rosh Yeshiva’, the Yeshiva’s dean, Moshe Mordechai Epstein, risked their lives by continuing the school and helping their students at the place of deportation.

Pogroms and hunger were the lot of the Jews of that time, but the Jews of Kremenchug heroically helped the students. This period bears witness of the strong bonds that existed among Jews, even those who had not known each other previously. Despite the difficulttimes, the Yeshiva managed to maintain its normal curriculum, and Grandfather declared that era as a golden period, both morally and for the study of the Torah.

In 1916, with Vilna (and Slobodka) under German military rule, the German-appointed administrator of the town, a local by the name of Haza, became aware that the Yeshiva building stood vacant and abandoned. He arranged for the building to be used once again as a Yeshiva, and

arranged travel documents for former students of Slobodka who lived in the German-occupied zone to return to it. The whole town was decorated for a feast on the day the school was reopened. Even the Berliner Tagesblatt wrote about the event. The “original” Slobodka yeshiva was reunited with the new yeshiva upon the former’s return from its Kremenchug exile in Kremenchug in 1921.

The Yeshiva’s Heyday

The Yeshiva’s golden period was right after the war. Students from all corners of the world sought the school, and in 1922 it became necessary to expand the school to accept younger students also. “The Grandfather” resumed his place and took care of the scholarships for the needy students. Rabbi Avrahom Grodzensky was appointed spiritual leader of the Yeshiva in 1913 (5673). He was a great genius, a sensitive human with a heart filled with love for all of G-d’screation. He spent much time teaching about ethics and he influenced the waythis subject was taught.

Rabbi Grodzensky was one of Israel’s great pedagogues with a deep psychological perspective. His gentle methods of correcting students’ behavior without causing them stress, demoralization or offense, endeared him to all. To his students he was a living example of how a person can at all times be just, compassionate and moral. It was said about him that he never pursuaded his students to be better persons by pointing to their negative sides. He had a positive view of everything and was a

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living example of the Jews love for G-d and the genuine Jewish love for all G-d’s creation. When “The Grandfather” went to Israel, Rabbi Grodzensky remained the chief spiritual leader of the Yeshiva at Slobodka.

Establishment of the Slobodka Yeshiva in Hebron

1924 was a historical turning point for the Yeshiva. At that time most of the best students relocated to Hebron and established a branch of the Yeshiva there. “The Grandfather” and Rabbi Moshe Mordecai Epstein headed the Yeshiva in Hebron.

A Reading Room at Slobodka Hebron – Before (above) and After the Pogrom (below)

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The issuance of the Balfour Declaration, the establishment of the British Mandate and the commencement of mass Jewish immigration to the Land of Israel strengthened Rabbi Epstein’s conviction that the people of Israel could not be spiritually edified without theirrestoration to the Land of Israel. Also in 1924 the Lithuanian government imposed compulsory military service on the Lithuanian yeshiva students, unless they studied at a public school. Shortly afterwards there were 160 students in Hebron.

The yeshiva changed Hebron. A hotel, a bakery and several canteens were opened and the Jewish religious community grew. Students from the whole world came to the yeshiva, their families came to visit, and some stayed. Every morning the Jews in Hebron could meet the World’s best students on their way to the study hall, geniuses who radiated G-d’s light everywhere. This encouraged the Jews from other parts of Israel to return to the ’City of the Forefathers’. They saw possibilities of a brighter future here, not least for the Jews who had fled theEuropean pogroms and were looking for a peaceful place to live.

But it was not be. After five years camethe Arab pogrom. It soaked the soil of Hebron in Jewish blood, and Hebron became ’Judenrein’ for the first time in itshistory. In 1928 Rabbi Epstein brought his family to Hebron. On 24 August 1929, the Arab pogrom murdered at least 67 Jews, 24 of them students, along with their teachers.

Slobodka Yeshiva’s Building in Kovno (Photo: Shai Lee, http://members.iglou.com/sgweis01/Lithuania.html)

Slobodka Yeshivas Building in Hebron

A Slobodka Class Picture, Hebron

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The Slobodka Yeshiva’s Last Period in Lithuania

After a large part of the Yeshiva had moved to Hebron, the Yeshiva at Slobodka continued under the leadership of Rabbi Yitzchok Eizek Sher. For him it was now even more important to ensure that the students received their scholarships, and he was preoccupied with reducing poverty and hunger amongst his students. For the rabbi every student was a prince.

The students were served three meals daily and on Shabbats one could hear the student’s song at the tables far out in the streets of Slobodka. In 1928 there were 267 students in the school and in 1932 it added another building. The foundation stone of the new building was laid by the American consul in Lithuania, Mr. Morris Staport. The flag of the United Stateswas hoisted, as many of the students were Americans.

The Holocaust

The yeshiva operated normally until June 22, 1941. On the 23rd the Germans were already approaching Kovno. That day, for the first time, the voice of the Torahwas stilled in Slobodka Yeshiva. Friday June 27, 1941 was a gruesome day with a pogrom against the Jews. On that day, Rabbi Shraga Faivel Horowitz, one of the Yeshiva leaders, together with a Yeshiva student from Germany, named Wolf, were siezed by 3 Lithuanian Nazis and shot in front of the rabbi’s wife and child.

Many students were taken to the seventh fort (one of a series of old forts from the Tzar’s day surrounding the city)

and shot. Haiim Lopet, Heshil Plahan, the son of the rabbi in Mastrik, Rabbi Leib Shimshowitz, Leib Erlich, Aharon Reichman, Israel Segal from Foslaba, Haiim Shitskos, Arieh, Yablanowitz, Abraham Yitzhak Zaks and many others were shot there. These Jews were taken from their homes and from the streets by the Lithuanian Nazis, who tortured and then murdered them. In the first week108 students and rabbis were murdered. Amongst them were also Rabbi Lipa Zilber, Rabbi Haim Gilmann, Rabbi Haim Bessarabin and many others.

On 18 August 1941, ten days after the Jews had been interned in the ghetto in the city of Kovno and 10,000 Jews were murdered, the Gestapo came into the ghetto and demanded 500 persons for ’administrative work’. Among those selected by the Judenrat were 40 Yeshiva students: Rabbi Shlomo Ralaba, Yehosua Graz, Baruch Straus and others. 543 Jews were taken to the fourth fort and shot there.

On 26 September 1941, on the Sabbath evening, the Lithuanian murderers surrounded the ghetto. They murdered approximately 1,000 Jews. Amongst them were 64 Yeshiva students and their families: Rabbi Isar Shur and his wife, Rabbi Zvi Shneider and his wife, Rabbi Moshe Bendam and his entire family, the Rabbi of the city Mush, Rabbi Moshe G-dzices, Nahom Ulsvang and their families, including infants. All were butchered.

On 28 October 1941, the ghetto leadership was ordered to gather all Jews, regardless of age or condition, at Democracy Square. Royka, the brutal Gestapo agent, started

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Yekutiel Fridmann

Kopel Pentiansky, one of the Slobodka students, managed to escape to his village, Filbishuk, just before the Germans captured Kovno. He and his brother Yitzhak hid themselves in a non-Jewish neighbor’s place. For two months Yekutiel Fridmann risked his life by bringing food to them. When the murderers found them, they were killed and their bodies thrown into the river. They floated in the water and the dogsate their corpses. Yekutiel survived and after the war ended he came back and gave them a Jewish burial.

The Plan of the Nazis

The plan of the Nazis was not just to kill the Jews but also to exterminate them spiritually. Their aim was not just the Jews but also Judaism. Therefore the Nazis were thorough when it came to murdering the rabbis and the Yeshiva students.

One of the first declared goals of theNazis was to convert the Jew from a creature who walked on two legs to one who crawled on four. They murdered both the Jewish spiritual leaders and children. Rabbi Efroim Oshry testifiesin his writing about an incident at the airport of the city of Kovno, where he saw both old and young performing forced labour. A German called a group of Jewish children who were hungry and exhausted. He slowly cut a potato in pieces and threw them around. His aim was to prove that Jews crawl on all fours.[2]

to separate the Jews into groups, some to the right and some to the left. He gathered together approximately 10,000 Jews, among them many students and Chief Rabbi Yehezkel Bernstein of the Yeshiva ’Israel’s Light’ with his family,; the spiritual leader of Yeshiva Bernowitz, Rabbi Israel Yaakov Lubatshensky; Rabbi Naftali Wasserman and his sons; Rabbi Elhanan Wasserman; Rabbi Zalmann Stein and his family; the secretary of the Yeshiva, Rabbi Yaakov Shlomo and many others. All were murdered that day.

The Ninth Fort: approx. 50,000 persons were murdered here- most of them Jews (Photo: Shai Lee)

The Jewish Street (Picture: Shai Lee)

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“In the evening I gathered the children and explained to them about the Nazi’s purpose: Dear children of Israel, I know that you are very hungry, but you must not allow these animals to take away from us the image of G-d that we have in us. Even when we are starving, we should show them that we are not animals like them.

I remember that a young boy, his skin quite yellow due to jaundice and weakened by hunger, answered me: “Don’t you think that we know that ourselves? What we should do when we are hungry? It is written in the Gemara, in tractate ’Baba Batra’, that hunger is worse than the sword!”

Rabbi Avrahom Grodzensky: A Model for Jewish Heroism

Even with the sword on their necks, the Jews did not stop studying the Torah. Chief Rabbi Avrahom Grodzensky in Slobodka miraculously escaped several attempts on his life even though he was physically handicapped and one of his legs gave him intense pain. His house in the ghetto became a center for Torah studies and it seemed as if G-d wanted to preserve him to ensure the study of G-d’s Word to the last moment. In his house at Fanaros Street 15 lived many rabbis, Yeshiva leaders and students under inhuman conditions. But the teaching went on as usual. Rabbi Grodzensky spoke on ethics and Rabbi Elhanan Wasserman taught the Tractate of Nida (impurity) from the Gemara

Nonetheless he too, with his students, was carried away to the Ninth Fort and murdered. Rabbi Yehezkal Bernstein taught from thetractate Nedarim (Vows).

Rabbi Israel Yaakov Lubtshansmaky, son-in-law of Rabbi Yosel of Mnoboradok, taught from Rabeno Yona’s book ‘Shaare Teshuva’ (Gates of Repentance), a wholly appropriate work for the times.

Those Yeshiva students who were still alive in the ghetto also used to gather on Sabbath evenings at Rabbi Grodzensky’s place. His home was near the Yeshiva building. There he continued with his holy work in disregard of the Gestapo. During that period the rabbi particularly talked much about the importance of sanctifying G-d’s name, the G-d whom the Jews loved so much and the religion so filled with love that words cannotdescribe it. He encouraged the students and helped them keep up their courage and preserve the highest Jewish morals in confronting their murderers. He talked about the righteous Rabbi Akiva and the many Jews who were martyred, but who did not renounce their G-d or their faith. “When one really believes in G-d there is no torture that can steal one’s faith”, he said.

For three years Rabbi Grodzensky stood together with those who were still alive, whilst the Nazi beasts daily attacked and murdered innocent and holy Jewish souls. On Shabbat July 8, 1944, when the Kovno ghetto was liquidated, they managed to hide the rabbi but unfortunately he was quickly discovered. He tried to flee butbroke his bad leg in the attempt and was admitted to the camp’s hospital.

Many Jews cried out in indescribable pains in the hospital but they received no treatment. The Nazis planned to set the whole building on fire.

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Simon Segal who visited the rabbi in the hospital, related that Rabbi Grodzensky told him:

“You must help that little girl in the adjacent bed! What possible wrong could that little creature have done?”

A Yeshiva student, who kept watch over Rabbi Grodzensky just before he was burnt to death, delivered the rabbi’s last words: “I do not think about my personal pain and all the suffering I have gone through. It is the screams from my small sisters and brothers whose lives the firewill extinguish that torment me.”

On Thursday 13 July 1944 the Nazis set fire to the hospital and Rabbi Grodzenskywas killed along with all the other ill and defenseless Jews held there.

Renewal

The Slobodka Yeshiva was destroyed; its innocent students and their rabbis were butchered by both the Nazis and the Arabs. Both shared the crime of taking the lives of holy and defenseless Jews, but they could not extinguish their spirit and that of the Torah.

The Jewish heritage, which is founded upon love and compassion, will safeguard for eternity the Jews, as has been done for the nearly 4,000 years. The great and powerful enemies of the Jews like Babylonia, the Philistines, Persia, Greece, Rome, Nazi Germany and many others, are only to be found in the history books. The Jews on the other hand, the World’s eternal, defenseless scapegoats, have out-lived them all.

Despite the destruction, the voice of Slobodka was not stilled. The refugees from Slobodka Yeshiva in Hebron reestablished their yeshiva in one of Jerusalem’s southern neighborhoods, nearest to Hebron. Slobodka, now known as “Hebron Yeshiva,” still teaches Mussar and produces Torah scholars in contemporary Israel. A dignified andappropriate step towards laying to rest the memory of the barbaric European and Arab pogroms culminating in the Holocaust which devastated Slobodka would be to return to the Jews the Slobodka Yeshiva building, which is still occupied by Arabs, to the yeshivas in Hebron and Kiryat Arba, which see themselves as a continuation of Slobodka with their top quality students.

Only when the Patriarchs in the Cave of Machpela will be awakened daily by the voice of the Torah, including the geniuses of the Slobodka Yeshiva, in the middle of the Jews’ eternal and holy city Hebron, only then will it be possible to conclude this painful chapter and finalize therestoration of Yeshivat Knesset Yisrael – Slobokda.

Notes

[1] Associate Professor of Medical Chemistry, Oslo University College. Editor, SMA-Info, the quarterly journal of the Center Against Antisemitism (CAA), Oslo, Norway. Besides her scientific work in medicinal chemistry, DrSuissa has published and lectured extensively on minorities in the Middle East, Islam, human rights in the Islamic world. A native of Morocco who received her PhD from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

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[2] This article is based on the Holocaust survivor Rabbi Efroim Oshry’s important docu-mentation work : www.daat.ac.il/daat/chinuch/mosdot/slovodka-2.htm.

[3] Rabbi Efroim Oshry, ‘The Annihilation of Lithuanian Jewry’, New York: Press, 1995, ISBN: 188058218X.

[4] Masha Greenbaum, ‘The Jews of Lithuania: A History of a Remarkable Community 1316-1945’, Publisher: Jerusalem, Gefen, 1995, ISBN: 9652291323.

[5] Hillel Goldberg, ‘Between Berlin and Slobodka: Jewish Transition Figures from Eastern Europe’ Ktav Pub. House, 1989, ISBN: 0881251429.

[6] ‘Encyclopedia Judaica’, 1972, Keter Publishing House Jerusalem Ltd., Jerusalem, Israel.

[7] Michael Maik, ‘Deliverance: The Diary of Michael Maik, a True Story’, Kedumim, Israel, Avigdor and Laia Ben-Dov edts., ISBN: 965-90701-0-1/ 9659070101 (Hebrew/English).

[8] The Yeshiva was named after its first leaderand pedagogue, Rabbi Israel Salant.

[9] Rabbi Dov Katz, ‘The Moral Movement’, vol. 2, Tel Aviv, 1950 (Hebrew).

[10] A. Fridmann, ‘The Moral Movement’s History’, Jerusalem, 1926 (Hebrew).

Yeshivat Shavei Hevron, in Beit Romano, with over 250 students, in the heart of Hebron

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Introduction

Pierre van Paassen (1895–1968) was a Dutch-Canadian-American jour-

nalist, writer, and Unitarian minister. Van Paassen was born in Gorcum, The Netherlands. He immigrated with his parents to Canada in 1914. He left theo-logical school to serve with the Canadian army in World War I. After the war he worked as an international correspondent and columnist for the New York Evening World, in which capacity he gained fame reporting on the conflict between Jewsand Arabs in the Middle East, as well as on the on-going African slave trade.

Van Paassen was generally considered a Zionist supporter, but, fundamentally, he was a Christian democratic socialist concerned, as he put it in “Days”, for the enduring struggle for justice for individuals. He was certainly a staunch opponent of fascism in Italy, Germany

and France from the 1920s, reinforced by the ten days he spent in Dachau in late March 1933. He also reported on the Italo-Ethiopian War, the Spanish Civil War and any number of regional European conflicts. Van Paassen’s autobiography,detailing the stories behind his newspaper writings, went through at least twenty-two printings in the U.S. alone.[2] He was ordained in 1946 and became a United States citizen in 1947.

The following is from Paassen’s book: “Days of our Years”, Pierre van Paassen Hillman-Curl Inc, 1939.

In this book he describes the Arab up-risings between 1921–1939, some of which are so similar to the events of today. He was one of the only witnesses to the Hebron Massacres of 1929. He makes some interesting comments about who was really behind those events. - Did the British benefit from perpetual conflict

The Massacre in 1929 and the British Attitude

“Israel, the Jewish people, remains to me of central significance in the history of Western civilization. Andthis not because of any chosen people concept or special divine revelation, but because the Jews, in spite of the enmity of demonic forces and a thousand deaths, furnish mankind with the key that fits the door throughwhich civilizations enter and leave history; I mean their Messianism, their undying vision and inextinguishable hope for the future.”

-Pierre van Paassen, ‘To Number Our Days’, p. 385[1]

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between Arab and Jew? The book gives a first-hand report of some of the eventsin Eretz Yisrael/Palestine early in the last century, with some very perceptive comments.[3]

****************

The Background for the Massacre

Those who remembered what had happened eight years earlier realized

at once that the party of Arab landlords, headed by the Mufti of Jerusalem who had been sentenced to ten years of labor in 1921 for incitement to riot and soon thereafter amnestied by a Jewish High Commissioner, had returned to the attack.

The flag-waving incident at the Wallhad been as good a device as any to throw sand in the eyes of public opinion. Clever propagandists easily - and did - magnify this intrinsically insignificantdemonstration on the part of children into a challenge of Jewish chauvinists. The Mufti had carefully prepared the stage for what was to follow: early in the upheaval of 1929, foreign public opinion was provided with a false premise on which to judge later developments.

[…] The Arab masses were thought to be reconciled to the Jews who had actually proved their benefactor. However, the year 1929 was to demonstrate that this sanguine expectation was ill-founded. The Arab landlord class reasserted its stranglehold on the Arab masses and launched them in a bloody assault against the Jewish community. […]

Why were these bloody outbreaks against the Jews in Palestine occurring at almost regular intervals? Who was the Mufti? Why did England permit this upstart madman, who was a government officeholder, to wreck a scheme thatEngland had promised to bring to a successful issue? […] What role was England playing in Palestine? And finally,was British power, which holds millions in India within bounds of law and order, insufficient to cope with a few thousandrioting Arabs in Palestine?

It will perhaps be argued that the objectivity of my approach to the Palestinian problem was vitiated by a pre-existent sympathy with the aims of the Jewish national movement. The Arab leaders took this view at once when they became aware of the nature of my published observations in the American press. The Mufti of Jerusalem led off with a vehement denunciation in the Arabic newspapers of Palestine, Syria and Egypt. I was called “a hireling of the Jews who had been sent to concoct anti-Arabic propaganda.”

The press campaign for my expulsion from the Holy Land was too clearly an attempt to divert public attention from, the implications of the murderous assault upon peaceful Jewish settlements to have merited a refutation. Not my journalistic activity in the Holy Land, but, rather, the Mufti’s personal share of responsibility in the massacre was one of the things that required investigation. I would therefore not have paid the slightest notice to that personage’s verbal fulminations, considering that I had merely done

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my duty in pointing to him, as the evil puppeteer in the bloody disturbance, if it were not that I began to receive telephone calls and anonymous letters threatening me with violence and even death. They were not idle threats either. On two occasions I was fired on by Arab snipers.[…]

A Conversation with ‘Grand’ Mufti ufti Haj Amin al-Husseini

Ai Hameen el Husseini, ‘Grand’ Mufti of Jerusalem proved to be an amiable young man with a silken red beard, a disarming smile and big blue saucer-eyes. Ein gemütlicher Viennese one might have said, had he been dressed in a frock coat with striped trousers. […]

“The British will have to put a soldier with a bayonet in front of every Jewish home if they want peace without a wholesale exodus of the Jews. Our people are at the end of their patience. They cannot bear the sight of the Jews any longer.”

The ‘Grand’ Mufti was toying with a gold box of cigarettes. He eyed me from the side, but when I turned my head and looked him in the face he smiled-the same candid baby smile he had worn when I entered. He asked me to step over to the open window to take a look at the garden while a black servant in a white gown arranged the trays on the low table of carved ivory. […]

“The whole marvelous scene lay at my feet. In the clear light the immense garden seemed almost unreal, a frame on which G-d had embroidered the world. Ulemas were strolling around in

the poplar lanes with their disciples or reposed in little groups in the shade of the palms. Believers were washing their hands and feet at the fountains. The sun had imposed a golden luster on the ocher façades of the kiosks. Above the treetops, against the incense blue of the Judean hills, I could see the gleaming porcelain dome of the great Byzantine mosque with its challenging inscription: “Remember, Moslems, God has no son!”

“That is the sanctuary,” said the ‘Grand’ Mufti at my elbow, “the Jews want to tear down. Here they plan to rebuild the Temple of Solomon.”

“You see,” exclaimed the ‘Grand’ Mufti triumphantly, “it is blood they want. The Jews are always thirsting for blood. Their whole history is soaked in blood.”

I looked at the man in astonishment. Was he serious or did he think I was a fool? The Jews thirsting for blood! It was he, the Mufti, who had just been wallowing in Jewish blood. That was a little too much. I almost lost my composure. […]

The Mufti did not reply. “Continuez, je vous prie,” he said.

As to the responsibility, I continued, for what Your Eminence calls “these horrible outbreaks, public opinion in France and in America, I am sorry to say, points directly to yourself. And not only in those distant countries; the most influential newspaperin Egypt, ‘La Bourse Egyptienne’, in one of its latest issues to arrive here in Jerusalem, declares that the murder of the Palestine Jews is an echo of the Mufti’s inflammatory exhortations in themosque.

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The Massacre

Falsified photographs showing the Omarmosque of Jerusalem in ruins, with an inscription that the edifice had beenbombed by the Zionists were handed out to the Arabs of Hebron as they were leaving their place of worship on Friday evening, August the twenty third. A Jew passing by on his way to the synagogue was stabbed to death. When he learned of the murder, Rabbi Slonim, a man born and bred in the city and a friend of the Arab notables, notified the British policecommander that the Arabs seemed to be strangely excited. He was told to mind his own business.

An hour later the synagogue was attacked by a mob, and the Jews at prayer were slaughtered. On the Shabbat morning following, the Yeshiva or theological seminary, which stands away from the center of the town on the road to Jerusalem, was put to the sack, and the students were slain. A delegation of Jewish citizens thereupon set out to visit the police station, but was met by the lynchers.

The Jews returned and took refuge in the house of Rabbi Slonim where they, remained until evening, when the mob appeared before the door. Unable to batter it down, the Arabs climbed up the trees at the rear of the house and, dropping onto the balcony, entered through the windows on the first floor.

Mounted police-Arab troopers in the service of the government had appeared outside by this time, and some of the Jews ran down the stairs of Slonim’s house

Synagogue door: This door was moved from Gaza to Hebron after Napoleon Bonaparte captured the city in February 1799. It was destroyed during the 1929 pogrom.

and out into the roadway. They implored the policemen to dismount and protect their friends and relatives inside the house and clung around the necks of the horses. From, the upper windows came the terrifying screams of the old people, but the police galloped off, leaving the boys in the road to be cut down by Arabs arriving from all sides for the orgy of blood. […]

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The British Attitude and Covering

We stood silently contemplating the scene of slaughter when the door was flung openby a British soldier with fixed bayonet. Instrolled Mr. Keith-Roach, governor of the Jaffa district, followed by a colonel of the Green Howards battalion of the King’s African Rifles. They took a hastyglance around that awful room, and Mr. Roach remarked to his companion, “Shall we have lunch now or drive to Jerusalem first?”

In Jerusalem the Government published a refutation of the rumors that the dead Jews of Hebron had been tortured before they had their throats slit. This made me rush back to that city accompanied by two medical men, Dr. Dantziger and Dr. Ticho. I intended to gather up the severed sexual organs and the cut-off women’s breasts we had seen lying scattered over the floor and in the beds. But when wecame to Hebron a telephone call from Jerusalem had ordered our access barred to the Slonim house. A heavy guard had been placed before the door. Only then did I recall that I had inadvertently told a fellow newspaperman in Jerusalem about our gruesome discoveries.

On the same day of the Hebron massacre, the Arabs had rioted in Jerusalem, crying: “Death to the Jews! The government is with us!” The fact that the attacks on Jewish communities in different parts of the country had occurred simultaneously was interpreted by the Mufti’s newspaper Falastine as irrefutable evidence of the spontaneity of the outburst of Arab indignation. The Acting High Commissioner, Mr. H. C. Luke, had

informed newspapermen that the government had been completely taken unawares. Yet a full ten days earlier it was he who had ordered the various hospitals, and especially the Rothschild clinic of which Dr. Dantziger was chief surgeon, to have a large number of beds in readiness in view of the government’s expectation of a riotous outbreak.

The same scenes which occurred in Hebron had taken place in the Holy City. Upon the conclusion of the morning service in the mosque where an unusually large crowd had been in attendance so that the congregation had overflown into thegardens, the Arabs, who had ordered their women to stay indoors that day, streamed into the city and began to attack any and every Jew they encountered. There were no street battles.

There was never any question as to whether the first slain were Jews or Arabs. For the Jewish merchants in the Old City were indeed completely taken unawares. As always, the Jews were unarmed. Groups of them ran in the direction of Government House, pursued by Arabs brandishing their long knives and clubs. Mr. Luke and Mr. Keith-Roach saw the crowd running up and in all haste ordered the mounted police to close all the approaches to the building. The Jews were trapped.”

Does the Mufti receive a stipend from the government? “Yes, as the spiritual head of the Moslem community of Jerusalem.” That is to say, from money paid in taxes by the Jews? “Oh, the Arabs also pay taxes, I assure you!” How much would you say? “Something like fifteen per cent.”

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But the Arabs own ninety-five per cent ofthe arable land, that is to say, a few Arab families do, amongst them the family of the Husseinis to which the Mufti belongs? “Ninety-five per cent, yes, something likethat! By the way, you are not a Jew?” asked the High Commissioner. No, sir! “Then why should you take, eh, such interest in the Jewish side of the question?”

You, Mr. High Commissioner, intimated that the government has reasons to fear a general conflagrationintheMohammedanEast in sympathy with the Mufti’s ideas. Yet the Mohammedan peoples did not lift a finger when Britain in 1914 went towar with the Turkish Sultan, and he was a great deal more than a Mufti - he was the spiritual head of all Islam.

[…] Fifty Jews took refuge in the flourmills of Haifa to defend themselves the other day when attacked by a crowd of two thousand Arabs. Those Jews are in jail today, and the Arabs went free.

“All right, the evidence has been sifted in their case; they, too, will be released tomorrow, I can assure you. We are not unreasonable. Naturally, mistakes do occur in a time of stress such as this. What else is there?” He rose to signify that the audience was at an end.

You speak of accidents, I said. Will you kindly explain why the Jewish colonies were searched for concealed weapons just a few days before the outbreak of Arab violence?

“I think you are wrong there,” answered the Acting High Commissioner, his voice hardening perceptibly. “No such order was issued by the government.”

There wasn’t? I asked. Perhaps you will let me tell you then what happened in the colony of Hulda. “Yes, I would be glad to hear.”

In Hulda, the Jews had thirty rifles. Theywere Lee Enfield rifles - the same typeof rifles we used in the Great War. Theyhad been placed there by the government after the rioting in 1921. These rifles werekept in a tin box called an armory. Every month an inspector from the military department in Jerusalem came to Hulda and to all the other colonies which had such an armory to look over the rifles. The inspector would go to the headman of the colony and ask him for the key of the armory. Together they would inspect the rifles, hold them up to the light tosee that the barrels were clean, verify the locks, and then put them back in the box.

In the month of June, 1929, the government’s inspector came on his usual monthly visit to Hulda and told the headman of the colony: “I have orders to take these rifles away.” “Why,” asked theJew. “Did we ever misuse them?” “No, I do not think you ever took them out of the box except on the occasions when I came here to inspect them,” replied the inspector, “but it is a general rule. All these armories are to be called in.”

But, stammered the Jew, “these guns are our only guarantee of security. The Arabs in the neighboring villages know of their presence. If they get to know that the guns are gone, we will be in danger.” No! I will not give up these rifles without a writtenorder from the chief of the military department in Jerusalem.

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The inspector shrugged his shoulders. But on his next visit, sir, he had the written order from the government, signed by the chief inspector of His Majesty’s military forces in Palestine.

“If you must take away what is our only protection,” said the Jew to the Englishman, “please take them away in the night so that the Arabs out there in the surrounding villages will not know they have been removed. Does that sound fair to you?”

“Very fair!” said the inspector.

The next day, Mr. Luke, I continued, at high noon, an Arab patrol was sent with a truck to collect the rifles by the authority

of the Palestine government. Nine days later, the colony of Hulda was destroyed!

References[1] Pierre van Paassen, ’Days of our Years’, Hillman Curl Inc, 1939.

[2] Pierre van Paassen’s books include: ‘Days of our Years’ (1939; autobiography), ‘That Day Alone’ (1941), ‘Earth Could Be Fair’ (1941), ‘Why Jesus Died’ (1949), ‘Jerusalem Calling!’ (1950), ‘A Pilgrim’s Vow’ (1956), ‘A Crown of Fire’ (1960), ‘To Number Our Days’ (1964).

[3] Ed.: When referred to the government of Palestine / Jerusalem, it means the British mandate government in Palestine, which was appointed by the League of Nations (later the United Nations) in 1917–1948.

After the Pogrom.

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Towards the end of summer in 1929, the country experienced the well-known pogrom attacks. Arabs who had been egged on by the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and encouraged by the British police, savagely attacked isolated Jewish settlements and killed many people. In Hebron, they gruesomely murdered their Jewish neighbors whom they had lived next to for generations, and with whom they’d had good relations for many years. Most of these Jews were believing Haredi [1] and yeshiva students.[2] They didn’t know how to use weapons and didn’t

understand that they were in mortal danger. As they had done every day, they went to the yeshivas and synagogues where, while reading their books, they were attacked by crazed people, who tortured, abused and, finally, killed them.

Notes[1] Ed.: Haredi means “fear” in Hebrew, as in “fear of G-d” (The word is derived from Isaiah 66: 2, 5).

[2] Students of Talmudical, Rabbinical acade-mies

The Grand Mufti and the British

From Menahem Uriely’s book: “When sons return to their border”, (Hebrew, 1981, p. 157)

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Three cities hold a great and unique place in the ancient history of our

people: Shechem, Hebron and Jerusalem. In the Book of Genesis (Bereshit) we are told that Terach took his son Abram, his nephew Lot and his daughter-in-law Sarai, Abram’s wife and left Ur Kasdim bound for Canan. On route they reached Haran and dwelt there. Terach died in Haran.

Then the Almighty said to Abram: “Go forth from your land, from your birth place and from your father’s house to the land that I shall show you ... and Abram went forth as he had been told by the Eternal ... and he took with him Sarai his wife, Lot his nephew, all their possessions and the souls that they had acquired in Haran ... and they came to the Land of Canan.

And Abram passed through the land until the place Shechem ... and the Eternal appeared to Abram and said, “Unto your children shall I give this land.” There Abram built there an altar unto the Eternal who had appeared to him-and Abram continued his journey shouthward ... and Abram made his camp and came and settled in the Plains of Mamre that are in Hebron and he built an alter to the Almighty” (Genesis 12:2).

Hebrew history begins in Hebron. In Hebron there arose the first Hebrew

armed force, which battled with four great kings: because they had captured Abram’s nephew Lot and his property. When Abram heard this in Hebron, he immediately mobilized 318 of his followers and pursued the four kings up to Dan in the north, where he attacked at night and destroyed them, and rescued all the property and his nephew Lot, the women and the rest of the captives. This was the first war in Jewish history, whichended not merely with victory, but also with a demonstration of Abram’s breadth of spirit.

When Sarah died in Hebron at the age of one hundred and twenty-seven, Abraham turned to the Hittites to grant him a burial plot. After prolonged and devious negotiations by the Hittites, Abraham paid four hundred silver shekels to Ephron for his field and all the trees surroundingits boundaries-and it became his. And when Abraham died 38 years later, he was buried by his sons Isaac and Ishmael in the cave which Abraham had bought from the Hittites.

Before Jacob died in Egypt, after going down there to see his son Joseph, he made his sons promise to bury him

Hebron is Jerusalem’s Sister

David Ben Gurion, Sdeh Boker 18 Shvat 5730, 25 Jan. 1970

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with his fathers in Hebron in the cave, in Ephron the Hittite’s field, where wereburied Abraham and his wife Sarah, Isaac and his wife Rebecca and where I buried Leah (Genesis 49:29, 31). And that is what Joseph and his brothers did. It is thus clear that only the three Patriarchs and the three Matriarchs of the Jewish People were buried in the Cave of Machpela.

However, the importance of Hebron is not merely its role in the lives of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs of our nation. After Saul, the first King of Israel fellupon his sword in the war with the Philistines, so that he might not be taken captive, and David replaced him as King, David inquired of the Eternal:

“And it came to pass after this that David inquired of the LORD, saying, “Shall I go up into any of the cities of Judah?” And the G-d said unto him, “Go up.” And David said, “Whither shall I go up?” And He said, “Unto Hebron.””. … So David went up thither, . … And the men of Judah came, and there they anointed David king over the house of Judah. […] (Samuel II, 2.1-4).

Finally, after the death of Avner, commander of Saul’s army, “Then came all the tribes of Israel to David unto Hebron and spoke, saying, “Behold, we are thy bone and thy flesh. Also in time past,when Saul was king over us, thou wast he that leddest out and broughtest in Israel; and the LORD said to thee, `Thou shalt feed My people Israel, and thou shalt be a captain over Israel.’” So all the elders of Israel came to the king at Hebron; and King David made a league with them in Hebron before the LORD, and they anointed David king over Israel.” (Samuel II, 5:1-3). Thus

arose in Hebron the greatest royal dynasty that Israel ever had.

The city of Jerusalem-which became in the course of time, from the crowning of David until our own days, not merely the most precious and Holy City in the Land of Israel, but one of the most revered cities in the world, is not mentioned at all in the Five Books of the Torah. Further, after the reign of David who captured the city Jerusalem from the Jebusites and made it the eternal capital of Israel and his son, King Solomon, built the Beit HaMikdash (Temple) within her.

After Solomon died the people of Israel came to crown his son Rechavam, not in Jerusalem, but in Shechem. And of the forty years of David’s reign, seven and a half he ruled in Hebron, while Jerusalem, though not mentioned at all in the Torah, was made by Israel’s greatest king into the city of holiness.

However, don’t forget: the beginnings of Israel’s greatest king were in Hebron, the city to which came the first Hebrew abouteight hundred years before King David, and we will make a great and awful mis-take if we fail to settle Hebron, neigh-bor and predecessor of Jerusalem, with a large Jewish settlement, constantly gro-wing and expanding, very soon.

This will also be a blessing to the Arab neighbors. Hebron is worthy to be Jerusalem’s sister.

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Who was the first Israeli to returnto Hebron in 1967? Moslems

refused to permit Jews into the Cave of the Machpela for 700 years. They were allowed to pray at the infamous ‘7th step,’ outside the building. However, anyone attempting to get any closer to the entrance was beaten by the Arab guards stationed there. The first Israeli in Hebron and inthe Cave of the Machpela was the then Chief Rabbi of the Israel Defense Forces, Rabbi Shlomo Goren, z’l. Here is his story that was told to a group of people by the Rabbi himself about 8 months before he died in October, 1994.

Rabbi Goren was present with Israeli forces as the IDF liberated the Western Wall in Jerusalem during the Six Day War. Holding the rank of general, Rabbi Goren knew that the army’s next mission was Hebron. Wanting to be among the first Jews in the ancient City of thePatriarchs, he joined the armed forces

stationed at the recently captured Etzion Block, on their way to Hebron. On the night of 28 Iyar, before retiring for the evening, he requested to be awoken when the soldiers began their march to Hebron the following day.

The next morning he woke up, only to find himself alone with his driver. Realizing that they had been “left behind,” he ordered his driver to begin the 15 kilometer journey to Hebron, expecting to meet the rest of the army, already on their way.

Rabbi Goren thought it peculiar that he hadn’t encountered any other Israeli soldiers on the road as he reached Hebron. He thought that surely the Israelis had already finished the job of marching onHebron. Driving into Hebron, Rabbi Goren was greeted by the sight of white sheets, hanging from roof-tops and windows, throughout the city. He was

The Return to Hebron - June, 1967

Rabbi Shlomo Goren

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astounded, but quickly understood. In the summer of 1929, Arabs in Hebron had massacred 67 Jews and wounded dozens of others. Now, in 1967 Hebron’s Arabs were, very clearly, scared of Jewish retaliation. They did not fire one shot. Instead they hung white sheets from windows and roof-tops.

Rabbi Goren quickly made his way to the Cave of Machpela. Finding the huge doors bolted, he tried breaking in by shooting at the lock, firing his Uzi submachine gun. When this failed to open the doors he attached chains to the doors and to his army jeep and literally pulled the doors open. Finally, entering the building atop the Caves of Machpela he blew the Shofar

and began the first Jewish prayer servicein that ancient, holy structure in seven centuries.

Only afterwards did Rabbi Goren discover that when he began traveling to Hebron, the rest of the Israeli forces had not yet left their base on on the other side of the Etzion hills, where they were planning the attack on Hebron. The IDF was unaware that Hebron’s Arabs would surrender. In other words, Rabbi Goren, a lone Israeli soldier, single-handedly liberated the firstJewish city in Israel.

Rabbi Goren hung a huge Israeli flagoutside the Ma’ara- Jews had returned to Hebron and to Ma’arat HaMachpela!

The Joy of Torah: returning ancient Torah scrolls to the renovated Avraham Avinu synagogue in Hebron on Tarpat Memorial Day, the 18th of Av in 1981.

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Were I to move to Tel Aviv, I would be referred to as a “resident” of that

city shortly following my arrival there. However, after living in Hebron for 28 years, I am still considered a ‘settler.’

According to the Cambridge Online Dictionary [1], to settle is defined as:

“to go and live somewhere, especially

permanently” or “to arrive, especially from another country, in a new place and establish yourself, claiming the land as your

own.” The example given is: “America was first settled by people who came across

from Asia over 25,000 years ago.”

That being the case, it can be claimed

that Hebron was settled almost 4,000 years ago by the Patriarch Abraham and Matriarch Sarah, as we read in the Bible. They came from a foreign land and established themselves in the Land of Israel, to live here permanently, claiming the land as their own, as promised them by G-d, in which case I cannot be called a settler, because Hebron was already settled almost four millennia ago.

During excavations in the Tel Rumeida neighborhood in Hebron about ten years ago, archeologists discovered LMLK seals (in Hebrew – l’melech – meaning ‘to the King’) which were stamped, in stone, some 2,700 years ago during the

Why Jews Live in Hebron

By David Wilder. David was born in New Jersey in the U.S. in 1954, and graduated from Case Western Reserve University with a BA in History and teacher certification in 1976. He studied in Yeshiva for over 8years.

David, with his wife Ora and family, has lived in the Hebron area for over 28 years: 17 in Kiryat Arba and 11 in Hebron. For over fifteen years David Wilderhas worked with Hebron’s Jewish community. He is the English spokesman for the community, granting newspaper, television and radio interviews internationally. He initiated the Hebron internet project, including an email list of over 15,000 subscribers who receive regular news and commentaries from Hebron. David writes frequent columns, posted on his blog, “The Wilder Way” on IsraelNationalNews.com and appears on websites and in newspapers around the world.

David designed and continues to update the Hebron web site, hebron.com, portraying various facets of Hebron, utilizing text, audio, video and photos. He conducts tours of Hebron’s Jewish community and travels abroad, speaking to groups around the World.

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reign of King Hezekiah. Embedded in the seals is the word ‘Hebron’, written in ancient Hebrew script. When unearthed, the archeologists stated, ‘if there were any doubts as to the site of the authentic Biblical Hebron, those doubts have all been erased. We have positive proof that Jews have lived here since the days of Abraham.’

My office, where this article is beingwritten, is located in a neighborhood founded by Jews in 1540. These people, having been expelled from Spain in 1492, had relocated to Turkey. In 1540, Rabbi Malchiel Ashkenazi purchased a plot of land from the remnants of a Jewish sect which had lived there for hundreds of years and moved, with a group of Jews, to the Jewish Quarter in Hebron. Jews lived here for almost 400 years.

Jewish presence in Hebron came to an abrupt end exactly eighty years ago, in August 1929. At that time, Haj Amin el-Husseini incited against Israel’s Jewish population, leading to Arab riots throughout Israel.

On August 25, 1929 New York Times correspondent Joseph M. Levy headli-ned:

“12 Americans killed by Arabs in Hebron…armed Muslims threaten new attack; Brooklyn student slain is one of fiftyvictims in sudden attack on rabbinical college. Towns looted and burned entire colonies are wiped out as peasants join rioters in outlying sections.”

A few days earlier, on Thursday, August 22nd, 1929, four Jews belonging to Hagana, the Jewish defense force, visited

Hebron leaders. Led by Commander Mordechai Shneerson, and including Rachel Yanait, later wife of Israel’s second president, Yitzhak ben Tzvi, they cautioned of impending disturbances as the result of massive incitement stemming from Arab leader Haj Amin el-Husseini. Hebron’s Jewish leadership refused to heed the warnings and rejected offers of weapons and protection.

Hebron leader Eliezer Dan Slonim, whose family had lived in Hebron for some 100 years, told them that Hebron’s Arabs are friends: “During the 1921 disturbances they protected us. They’ve promised to continue safeguarding the community. Acceptance of weapons on our part will be considered a provocation.”

The next day, Haj Amin el-Husseini dispatched messengers throughout Israel saying that Jews were attempting to conquer Temple Mount in Jerusalem and that Jewish blood was flowing throughthe streets of the Holy City. This lie served as a clear signal; riots broke out throughout pre-State Israel. Jews were plundered and murdered in Jerusalem, Tzfat and other cities. However the worst of the slaughter was in Hebron.

A total of over 130 Jews were murdered throughout pre-State Israel, while some 330 were injured; 67 were slaughtered in Hebron and over 70 wounded. Three days after the massacre, the ruling British expelled the surviving victims from Hebron, leaving the city Judenrein for the first time in almost 1,000 years. TheBritish High Commissioner, in response to a survivor’s question wrote: “Clearly the Jews and Arabs could not continue to

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live together. There were more Arabs than Jews in the city, so it was easier to expel the Jews.”

Following the riots, massacre and exile in 1929, a small group of Jews returned to Hebron in 1931. About thirty families lived in the city until just after Passover, 1936, when they were expelled by the British. Following the 1967 Six-Day War, Jews again had access to the first Jewishcity in Israel. It must be clearly understood: when Israel returned to Hebron in 1967, Jews did not occupy a foreign city; rather, they came back home.

In 1968, Jews officially came back toHebron. The day before Passover in April, 1968, a group of families arrived at the Park Hotel in Hebron. The proprietor rented them half of the kitchen, which they promptly koshered. The women and children slept in the rooms; the men and boys slept in the lobby and on the floor. It was the first Jewish Pesach in Hebronin decades.

Moshe Dayan, then Minister of Defense, arrived in Hebron shortly after Passover. Following several weeks of discussions he offered the group two choices: Either be forcibly removed from the city, or go live in the Hebron military compound, several kilometers outside the center of the city. This building, originally a British police station, had been transformed into the Israeli military Headquarters of Judea. It was not overly conducive to a civilian lifestyle. Dayan must have expected that the young families, including women and babies, would soon throw up their arms in frustration at the poor living conditions and leave of their own accord.

Dayan was partially correct. The group did eventually leave. But first they livedin the military headquarters for two and half years, until the first neighborhood ofthe newly founded Hebron suburb, Kiryat Arba, was completed.

There was, however, a yearning to return to Hebron, to Beit Hadassah, to the 450 year old Jewish Quarter, home of the ancient Avraham Avinu Shul, to reside adjacent to Ma’arat HaMachpela. Attempts were made, again and again, all leading to failure. Only in 1979, when Menachem Begin was Prime Minister, did a group of 10 women and 40 children succeed in setting up house in the basement of the old medical center, Beit Hadassah, in the middle of the city. Living in adverse conditions for close to a year, these women and children became the nucleus of Hebron’s renewed Jewish community. Only in May 1980, following the murder of six young men outside Beit Hadassah, did the Israeli government officiallyrecognize and authorize the renewal of Hebron’s ancient Jewish Community.

The present Jewish Community of Hebron numbers over 800 hundred people, including some 90 families, hundreds of children, and 250 post-high school yeshiva students studying at Yeshivat Shavei Hevron in Beit Romano. The reason there aren’t more people living in Hebron is simply because of a lack of space. There aren’t any apartments available. That is, perhaps, a misnomer. There are apartments available that we are presently unable to utilize. In the past few years we have been unjustifiablyexpelled from several buildings,

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including Beit HaShalom – the Peace House, a 4,000 square meter structure purchased for over one million dollars. These buildings, were they in use, would allow room for dozens more families in Hebron. Without a doubt, if there more apartments available, there would be many more Jews living in Hebron.

However, in spite of the small size of the community, according to the statistics received from the IDF and Civil Administration, over a half a million people visit Hebron annually. Worldwide support, including Jews and gentiles, is overwhelming. Groups from Europe, the United States, Scandinavia and even the Far East tour Hebron.

In addition, it should be noted that Kiryat Arba, a suburb of Hebron five minutesfrom the center of the city, was initiated in 1971 and is populated by over 1,500 families, totaling some 7,500 people. This town provides the necessary staples of everyday life: various stores, a bank, a post office, schools, as well as residences. In total, almost 10,000 Jews live in the greater Hebron region.

Why do we choose to live in Hebron? Again, the answer is quite simple. A number of years ago, a group of people associated with the New Israel Fund visited Hebron.

Following a short visit to the Jewish side of the city, they crossed the ‘border’ and met with then Hebron Arab mayor, Mustepha Natsche. They asked him whether Jews were allowed to pray at Ma’arat HaMachpela, the second holiest site to the Jewish people in the world. His

answer greatly surprised them. He said no. “Ma’arat HaMachpela is a mosque, and only Moslems can pray in a Mosque,” said Arab Mayor Mustepha Natsche.

This was reiterated by Natsche’s deputy, Kamal Dweck. In an interview, he also stated that Jews and Christians may not pray in the Tomb of the Patriarchs “because it is not a church or a synagogue; it is a mosque and only Moslems can worship in a mosque.”

The Tomb of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs was off-limits to Jews for 700 years. During that time Jews, as well as Christians, were not allowed inside the 2,000 year old Herodian structure atop the Caves of Machpela.

There are those who are skeptical. How then, can one explain what happened to Joseph’s Tomb in Shechem? According to the Oslo Accords, this holy site was to remain accessible to Jews. However, following the killing of an Israeli soldier at the tomb, Israel was forced to abandon it. The result was the total destruction of the building which was burned to the ground. And if the Arabs had their way, Rachel’s Tomb would long ago have been turned over to the Palestinian Authority.

The only reason the caves of Machpela are still accessible to Jews is because there is a permanent Jewish presence in the city. The disappearance of the Jewish Community of Hebron would be tantamount to abandoning the founders of our people. Would any American dream of abandoning Philadelphia or Boston or Mt. Vernon to the Taliban or al Qaeda, ‘in the name of peace’? Keeping

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in mind that that American history is less than 250 years old; Jewish history in Hebron is more than 3,700 years old. Hebron, home of Abraham, is not just the place where Judaism got its start. It is the source of monotheism for all peoples of the world.

What is our goal, living in Hebron? Despite media reports, the goal of Hebron’s Jewish community is not to expel the Arabs living here. Anyone of any race or religion should be able to live in Hebron. However, we demand that our Arab neighbors accept the fact that the Jews have an eternal, legitimate right to live in the first Jewish city in the land ofIsrael. This is our goal: living normal lives, just as anyone else, anywhere in Israel. Our goal is to ensure that our children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren will be able to live in Hebron. Our goal is to make sure that all Jews will have access to Ma’arat HaMachpela, that Jews will never again be told that this holy site is ‘off-limits’ because ‘you are Jews.’

Others ask: How can you stay in Hebron? It is so dangerous. How can you risk the lives of your families and children in such a place?

It was May 2001, about eight months after the Oslo War – otherwise known as the second intifada – began. Daily, Hebron’s residents were attacked by terrorist gunmen from the surrounding hills that had been transferred to the control of the Palestinian Authority several years earlier.

At 11 one night I was still in the office,five minutes from our home. Again, the

sound of gunfire could be heard from theAbu Sneneh and Harat al-Shech hills; the phone on my desk rang. It was one of my daughters, Aderet, then 15. Breathless, she exclaimed, “Dad, they’re shooting again.” I answered lackadaisically, “Yeah, I hear it.” In other words, “What’s new — it’s the same, every day.”

“But they shot into our apartment. And I was standing there,” my daughter cried. Arriving home, I discovered five holesin the wall opposite the window in the children’s room. Aderet and Ruti had been standing not more than three feet from where the bullets hit. Miraculously, they weren’t injured.

Today, Aderet is married with three children of her own. And she too lives here in Hebron. Another married daughter, with four children, and a married son with his family live a few minutes outside the city in south Hebron Hills communities. Why not leave, due to the danger?

Jews in Hebron are willing to risk present dangers because acquiescence can only be defined as a reward for terrorism,continuing in the footsteps of Haj Amin el-Husseini.

Arab terror seeks to expel us from our homes, using murder as a means to an end. However, “our homes” include not only those in Hebron but also in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Haifa. A map hanging on the wall of my office is titled Palestine, printedby the Palestinian Authority Ministry of Tourism and includes the entire state of Israel.

Jewish people in Israel and around the

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World support a strong, vibrant Jewish presence in Hebron. We do not expect any Israeli government to try and follow in the footsteps of Arab Nazi Mufti Amin el-Husseini and the British and expel Jews from the city. In any case, we would never abandon our homes.

Besides which, why should the State of Israel be forced to chop off its roots to appease Arab terror? We know the result of eradicating the roots of a tree. G-d forbid.

How is Arab life in Hebron? Perhaps the best account can be quoted from the extreme, left-wing daily newspaper, Ha’aretz. In an article titled ‘The Safest Place in the territories,’ Danny Rubenstein writes:

“Most Israelis imagine Hebron to be the site of harsh conflicts between Jewishsettlers and Arab residents. But the truth is that with the exception of the point of contention at the Tomb of the Patriarchs, this is the quietest and safest city in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. While Gaza is the scene of daily shootings and infigh-ting between a variety of groups, and one might say that personal safety in Ramallah and Nablus is also precarious, Hebron is tranquil.”[2]

A public opinion poll released by an international observer organization ‘The Temporary International Presence in Hebron (TIPH)’ shows that only nine percent of the population is unemployed and that sixty-nine percent of the overall population is optimistic.[3]

What are the major challenges presently facing Hebron’s Jewish Community?

Clearly, Hebron faces threats on multiple fronts. Hebron’s present Arab mayor, Khaled Osaily declared to a group visiting him that, “that the settlers must be removed from Hebron.”[4]

International pressure, stemming from Arab countries, the United States and the European Union, calling for the creation of Palestinian state and the removal of all Israelis from Judea and Samaria (the ‘West Bank’), including Hebron, are also a reason for concern.

A third front is that of the Israeli left, which is providing not only tacit support for Israel’s enemies, but extreme left wing politicians and organizations also call for the decimation of Hebron’s Jewish Community.

The reemergence of Benyamin Neta-nyahu as Prime Minister of Israel is not necessarily a cause for relief. It should be remembered that it was Netanyahu who signed and implemented the Hebron Accords in January, 1997, which transfer-red over eighty percent of Hebron to the Palestinian Authority. It is not yet clear what Netanyahu’s current policy will be towards Hebron.

That being the case, another question cannot be avoided: How can Hebron’s Jews continue to survive under what seems to be such awesome odds?

Hebron’s Jewish population could be described as ‘orthodox,’ or ‘religiously observant.’ On the one hand, we live and take part in the overall democratic framework of the State of Israel. We work, pay taxes, serve in the Israel Defense

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Forces, and partake in all the obligations and responsibilities of every Israeli citizen. However, we are also a people of great religious faith, who not only speak about conviction, but also ‘practice what we preach.’ We are frequently described as ‘extremist fanatics.’

A preferable alternative to this depiction would be to define Hebron’s Jews asidealists, who very simply live their ideals. It should be remembered that Hebron’s Jewish community was renewed by the decision of the Israeli government in 1980 and recognized by Yassir Arafat when he signed the Hebron Accords in 1997.

Labor party leader Ehud Barak (not known as a strong supporter of the Israeli right), a former Prime Minister and present Defense minister, wrote in a letter to Hebron’s Jewish community:

“On the occasion of the thirty second anniversary of the renewal of the Jewish Community of Hebron, I am happy to convey to the entire community blessings of success and shalom. The right of Jews to live tranquilly in the City of the Forefathers securely, protected from all danger, is not disputed. The test of the renewed Hebron Jewish community, which is the same test of the Arab majority, is the ability to develop good neighborly relationships.

Mutual honor and a joint effort are necessary to overcome the scars, the pain and the difficult reminders left from thedespicable carnage which desecrated this holy city.”

The time has come for our Arab neighbors to stop shooting at us, to stop trying to kill us for no other reason than because we are Jews living in Hebron.

Perhaps they believe that by killing us, or by attempting to murder us, they will scare us away.

They couldn’t be further from the truth, because Hebron is the heart of the Jewish people, the life-blood from which the Jewish people derives its sanctity. This is a simple truth that everyone should not only understand, but also agree with. We truly hope and pray for the day when true peace will prevail, both in Hebron, throughout the land of Israel and all over the entire World.

Eighty years later, Hebron’s Jewish community symbolizes the eternity of the Jewish people in the Land of Israel and a clear victory over Arab terror. In Hebron, the Jews have returned home.

Notes[1] http://dictionary.cambridge.org

[2] www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/857308.html

[3] www.tiph.org/filestore/TIPH_opinion_poll_2007_web.pdf

[4] www.alternativenews.org/content/view/1446/104

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City of the Fathers,

City of the Torah,

City of the Machpela,

City of the Soaring,

City of Restoring,

City of Regality,

City of the Bravery,

City of the Fathers’ Sleep,

City of the Rising,

City of Reviving.

In our World, there are expressive words such as those above. These may

be quite difficult to explain, and thereinlies a deep respect and awe that the explanation itself of the words could be muffled or obscured, and thereby maybelose much of their meaning.

Yet, this is what we Jews are exposed to, should we study and grow from our learning. Through this, we may achieve an increasingly higher level of morality. We extract the contents of an idea and transfer them into action.

Still, some things must be delved into more deeply. We have no choice! Biblical Hebron is no castle in the clouds. Like other holy sites in Israel, the City of Hebron has been written into our Jewish hearts with fire. It has entered us with themilk of our mother’s breast. We learned it from the wise men in a modest, remote village in Ethiopia. They reiterated how important these holy sites are for us as Jews.

A wise man in the village told me of the Matriarchs and Patriarchs, of King David who established his Kingdom in and from the City of the Forefathers, and of the purchase of the Machpela Cave. The seller was paid very well, and this particular sale and event became the genesis of our Jewish history. All began here – in Hebron.

The stories were not only heard, they were absorbed into our bones. They became the most vital inner landscape of our lives during the Diaspora. The message affected our view of life itself.

We, who were born in a strange land, an unnatural place for we Jews to be born, perceived ourselves as strangers from childhood. In a place we did not belong. This became our inner impetus; to return

Hebron: The Eternal City of Our Fathers

By Yehonatan Freide. Yehonatan is a 34-year old Yeshiva student, who is also currently finishing his BA in education. He was born in Ethiopia and came home to Israel during“Operation Solomon” in 1991. He lives in Hebron with his wife, Chana, and their children, Shvutia, Elitzur, Tzofia, Israel-Yair and Chasdeiya .

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to Israel – no matter the cost. It is our parents’ rearing that is the main reason we are here in Hebron today.

The Spirit of this Holy place,

The Fathers’ Spirits’ teachings;

Merits of the Fathers –

The World in their embracing.

The valor of the Spirit

Of David who is King,

Tarpat’s heroes’ Spirit,

In Hebron’s gallant pioneers;

In the City where the Spirits

Of the Fathers ever keep.

It is unnatural for us Jews to live in the Diaspora in places that don’t belong to us.

This is why it is such a wonderful feeling to finally be in a place that belongs to us;and for that reason, it is the most natural place for us to be.

Even more gratifying, is being with our ancestors – walking along the same paths that the Matriarchs and Patriarchs, King David, Kaleb Ben-Yefuna and Avner Ben-Ner walked along in their day. This knowledge is the driving force in our lives in Hebron. We, the Freide family, live and are nourished by this intimate and genuine reality that we are a part of. Here we live in happiness and harmony with everyone; heroes in a city of constant renewal.

We wish to live in this place of miracles. Hebron contains all the spiritual resources we need.

The Freide family: Yehonatan, Chana and our children, Shvutia, Elitzur, Tzofia,Israel-Yair, and Chasdeiya.

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From Ethiopia to Hebron

By Baruch Dasa. Dasa is 34 years old and lives with his wife and four children in Kiryat Arba-Hebron. He has lived there since 1981, when he came with his family to Israel from Ethiopia via Sudan. He was an officer in a volunteer security force that tried to stop aterrorist attack in Hebron on 15.11.2002.[1] Twelve people lost their lives, both soldiers and civilians, and 14 were wounded. Baruch lost his right leg. Still, this doesn’t stop him from bicycling – his favorite sport – and working as a full-time police officer.

My story is the story of the people of Israel (Bita Israel). We were

refused entry to both Jerusalem and the Jewish world. Still, we fought with all our might; with our lives at stake, to keep our Jewish identity and to preserve our Jewish tradition. At times, we had rulers who oppressed us because we are Jews, but we didn’t give up on our dreams and our hearts’ longing to be allowed to come home and embrace the holy earth of Israel.

Our passage from Ethiopia to Israel, by way of Sudan, was a historical journey and one of the most important homecomings of the Jewish people. The trek fulfilledour longing for the Land of Zion, fulfilledour dream of coming to Jerusalem; our dream of being reunited with our Jewish people has become a wonderful reality. We came home to rebuild our Land. It is an important part of rebuilding ourselves, the Jewish people. In 1977, 30 Jewish families from Ethiopia came home to Israel.

It was my grandfather Abraham, now deceased, who, in 1978, encouraged us to go home. In the middle of the night, we left everything we owned in Ethiopia.

We walked day and night for two weeks before reaching Sudan. There, we were thrown in prison. We remained there for two years and were harassed daily. My father, Avner, worked for Israeli intelligence, the Mossad, and we were constantly on the run. Finally, in 1981, we managed to come home with the help of the Mossad and Shayetet 13 [Navy commandoes].

We first lived in Ashkelon, but aftereight months, my father decided we had to move to the City of our Forefathers, Kiryat Arba. A meeting with the town’s mayor, Shalom Vach, convinced us that we had made the right decision in coming to Hebron.

We were overwhelmed at the love that gre-eted us. Every Shabbat a different family invited us for the Shabbat meal. We were quickly integrated into the community. Despite the big cultural differences, we were determined to succeed. I decided to enroll at the religious yeshiva high school “Ohr Etzion” (Light of Etzion) and wor-ked hard to pass the entrance exam.

When I’d finished my education, Icompleted my military service in the elite

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unit “Duvduvan”. At the time, it was a secret unit which no one knew about. After two years as an enlisted soldier, I was sent to officer school and returnedto Duvduvan as an officer. Then, afterserving 5 years in the IDF, I began my job as a police officer in the Jerusalem area. At the same time, I was busy volunteering in two security units: one national and one in Kiryat Arba. Both were voluntary service groups where I could serve in the event of terrorist attacks.

My task in these volunteer groups was to take the lead during a terrorist attack. My role as leader was based on my experience in the IDF and my specialist training in counterterrorism. That means: if a terrorist had barricaded himself in a house with hostages, we would be the first counterterrorist unit to go in.

On Friday evening, November 15th, 2002, the day before we read the week’s

Shabbat portion, Genesis 28 (Vayetzei), in the synagogue, I was notified of a terroristattack in Hebron. I took my equipment and went to the car. There, I met Moshe Fridz. We drove together by way of the Nir Yeshiva towards Hebron. We met up with other from the emergency crew who had heard shots fired from the narrowstreet called “The Street of Prayers,” and had already returned fire.[2] Thisstreet connects Kiryat Arba to Hebron and is used to walk to worship services on Shabbat in the Machpela Caves, in Hebron.

I tried to get an overview of the situation. When you “know” the terrain, there is a greater chance of success. There is no reason to ‘just hope’ you’re doing the right thing and then get killed. I went in with four soldiers. Alex Dochan, who was later murdered, used his flashlightto inspect the IDF jeeps that had been attack by terrorist gunfire. In one of

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them, we found one of our soldiers, dead. I took his M-16 rifle and moved forward. Yitzhak Boanish, the security chief of Kiryat Arba who also was murdered later, told us that there were wounded soldiers in the alley. They needed to be evacuated immediately. Without thinking twice, seven of us entered straight into the hail of bullets to rescue them. A terrorist who was behind us shot me in both legs and I fell. I screamed: “I’ve been hit by a terrorist! Don’t come closer!” Moshe heard me, but ran towards me anyway to give me first-aid. While Shlomi Cohenfired in the direction I showed him,Moshe treated my legs. Then the terrorist ran out and tossed a hand grenade at me and Moshe.

There were now nine people with serious injuries. Shlomi ran to get more help. The terrorist came towards me and Moshe, and kicked Moshe’s body to make sure he was dead. Then he walked away. At that point six of the group had been murdered, two seriously wounded and two slightly wounded.

After three nerve-racking hours of fighting, and attempts at evacuating thewounded from the warzone, 12 people lay dead. Among them were Colonel Dror Weinberg, Security Officer YitzhakBoanish and many others. I lay in intensive care for 30 days. It was there I learned that my right leg had been amputated. Shrapnel had penetrated my skull, causing epilepsy.

Our volunteer security group was comprised of Jews from all over the world. This resulted in a special bond between us, fighting shoulder to

New Generation: Little Menucha Rachel Cohen is born in Hebron to everyone’s delight.

shoulder during this attack, like a big family. The treatment afterwards and the daily struggle against the pain were very difficult. But when you find yourself ina place as magnificent as Hebron, wherepeople love you and care about you, it becomes easy to bear all the pain in the world. This is the driving force behind continuing life without looking back.

Notes

[1] Ed.: The attack began at 08:30 p.m. Three terrorists from the Islamic Jihad waited for Jews to leave the Shabbat service. They didn’t attack the Jews directly, but tried to mingle among them to sneak into Kiryat Arba. The last Jews noticed them, however, and the terrorists began shooting at them.

[2] Ed.: This is a very narrow street on the road from Kiryat Arba to the Machpela Tomb. The street acts as a death-trap for the peaceful Jews who use it to get to worship services. The terrorists can shoot from anywhere and escape is impossible. Still, Jews walk there every Shabbat.

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My friends and I want to describe for you our daily lives, that we, as

children, have here in Hebron. It is very important for us that you should know: we live a completely normal life here. Our life is filled with the joy of life. But at thesame time we NEVER forget that we live in the city of our forefathers, and that we have a reason to be here.

About 90 Jewish families are living in Hebron itself, and most of them are blessed with many children. We have playgrounds, a gymnasium and a kindergarten and nursery school for the toddlers. Older children have bicycles, which we use to go from one neighborhood to another. Some of the children built themselves a little zoo. In the beginning of the summer holidays we built a big pen for the animals. We have some bunnies, geese, hens and a little pond with some fish.

In the beginning of our summer vacation, all the children helped in renewing the city’s façade. Empty pots were replanted with new ornamental plants, chairs and benches were put out for people to rest and we made a great place for barbeques. We painted the grey concrete walls, which are placed around the city, and decorated them with funny drawings and biblical scenes.

Most children are members of the youth organization Bnei Akiva. In the middle of the week, different groups have various activities. They can watch educational movies, listen to lectures or go for nature hikes. Among the girls, there are some of us who work as volunteers with families who have many children.

Every week we attend the Shabbat prayers at the Machpela Cave. This is a very special spiritual experience which is difficult todescribe in words. The Carlebach service on Friday night, when we sing and dance during the prayer service, is one of the most joyful and spiritual experiences we know. When we are not in Hebron for Shabbat, we especially miss this special worship service.

The friendship between us is very strong and special. One of the girls lives in the Tel Rumeida neighborhood, isolated from the other neighborhoods. We always walk with her home so that she won’t have to walk by herself. Sometimes we organize group dinners and have surprise birthday parties for our friends.

We can also tell you, (but don’t tell anyone) that sometimes we argue with each other. So it is among friends all over the world. But shortly afterwards everything is forgotten and forgiven, and we continue our lives together.

To be a Jewish child in Hebron

By Ruti Wilder and three of her friends

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Our Zoo: We Love it in Hebron!

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Foreigners in Hebron

By David Wilder, the Jewish Community of Hebron

About 14 years ago a group of Chris-tians wearing red hats started strol-

ling the streets of Hebron. Called CPT, initials for ‘Christian Peacekeeping Team’, they are primarily made up of Mennoni-tes and Quakers.[1] The so-called ‘peace-keepers’ are virulently anti-Semitic and overtly pro-Arab.

Due to interference with active IDF operations in Hebron, the government has attempted to expel some of its members from Israel, only to be stymied by the Israeli courts. CPT has been known to incite against Hebron Jews, and in one instance it is known that they visited and spoke to Arabs in an area of the Southern Hebron hill only a day prior to the murder of an Israeli there, Dov Dribben.

At about the same time that CPT arrived in Hebron, the Israeli government approved the existence of a foreign-observer force, called TIPH, (Temporary International Presence in Hebron). This organization is composed of ‘observers’ from six countries: Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Denmark, Italy and Turkey.

Despite their supposed neutrality, the organization is blatantly pro-Arab. Their quarterly reports have been known to have been rejected by the Israeli Foreign ministry due to total lack of objectivity and pro-Arab sentiments expressed by the observers.

It should be pointed out that two TIPH observers were murdered by Arab terrorists in Hebron on the 23.3.2002, Catherine Berruex from Switzerland and Turgut Cengiz Toytun from Turkey. Hüseyin Ozarslan was injured during the attack.[2,3]

Also following the ‘Muhammad – Pig’ cartoon in Denmark, TIPH headquarters, on the “Arab” side of Hebron, was surrounded and attacked by Hebron Arabs, forcing the TIPH forces to fleethe city and seek refuge with the Israelis.

One example of TIPH anti-Israel – anti-Hebron activity: Several years ago Mary Robinson, then director of the UN organization for Human Rights, visited Hebron. While traveling through the

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‘Jewish-controlled’ part of the city, her car was shot at. No one was injured. When asked about the attack and the potential perpetrators she answered, “The Arabs

wouldn’t want to attack me.”

TIPH conducted extensive examinations, measurements and tests to determine the source of the gunfire. They concludedthat the gunshots could not have been fired from the “Jewish side” of Hebron,i.e, the attackers could not have been Jews or Israelis. However, these findswere kept secret, and were not publicly advertised. (The results appeared in the quarterly TIPH report, which is not made public.)

Other organizations which have started to frequent Hebron include “Ecumenical

Escorters,” an English version of CPT. Others, called ‘anarchists’ also line the streets of ‘Jewish Hebron’ disturbing the police, IDF, and of course, Israeli civilians.

Much of the organization and coordination of these activities is funneled through ISM – The International Solidarity Movement, which is, in its own words, “is a Palestinian-led movement committed to resisting the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land using nonviolent, direct-action methods and principles.”

David Bedein, Bureau Chief Israel Resource News Agency, has stated, “while ISM says its goal is to mitigate Israeli violence, in reality it serves as a front to support the [Palestinian arabs] armed struggle”, like the unarmed support units

Yassir Arafat is Joyfully Greeted by Smiling Members of TIPH (Temporary International Presence in Hebron) in Hebron. TIPH is comprised of six countries: Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Denmark, Turkey and Greece.

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in an army whose efforts make the military wing effective.”

According to The Guardian, “human rights sources told the Guardian that Sharif and his accomplice Asif Mohammed Hanif, arrived at the offices of the InternationalSolidarity Movement in Rafah and made contact with its members just days before the bombing” [of Mike’s Place in Tel Aviv in April, 2003, killing three and wounding over 50] [4,5]

Clearly the goal of the current Hebron protest activities is removal of all Jews from Hebron. This aim is backed by the EU, which invests hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars in Hebron. It is not out of the question that EU money finds its way into the bank accounts ofISM.

References

[1] Ed.: Quakers are members of a radical religious sect that originated in England in 1600-century, the so-called ‘Friends of Society’, also known as ‘Anabaptists’. Quakers reject all forms of religious symbolism and outward sacraments, such as baptism or celebrating the Eucharist. Some Quakers rejected also the mainstream Protestant idea of sola scriptura, that the Bible is G-d’s written word; instead, they believed that Christ, instead of the Bible, is the Word of G-d. Some of them have com-munist ideals, and tried to carry them by force of arms.

[2] www.tiph.org/News/News.asp?id=81

[3] http://tinylink.com/?kKEfo1Cy8E

[4] http://tinylink.com/?okZF5IRoNT

[5] www.littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=6453_Brit_Bombers_Contacted_ISM

Huge Financial Investments by the EU, Germans, French, Spanish and others in Hebron. (Photo: David Wilder)

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The main idea of this article was taken from Nativ, published by the Ariel

Center for Policy Research (ACPR), for many years a unique and inspiring source for thinking people.[1]

In August 2005, the well-organized, secular and left-wing power elite who control Israel executed a forced deportation of some 10,000 Israeli loyal and believing Zionist Jews from Gaza and Northern Samaria. At the same time, Slobodan Milosevic was on trial in The Hague for genocide and ethnic cleansing – war crimes. This didn’t stop the “doves of peace” on the Israeli Left from declaring that they wanted to implement Milosevic’s ideas in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem. The following is a translation of an advertisement that was published by the so-called Israeli “peace movement,” “Shalom Ach’shav” (Peace Now)[2]:

The Jewish settlement in Hebron:

An isolated settlement in the heart of Hebron.

500 settlers.

120,000 Palestinians.

Every soldier’s nightmare.

Next deportation coming soon!

(Signed “Peace Now” and published in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, 21.10.2005)

The members of “Peace Now” present themselves as a human rights organization and a peace movement fighting forcoexistence between Jews and Arabs. At the same time, they have no qualms about supporting the ethnic cleansing of Jews – which is at variance with the principle of

The “Peace Movements” and Their Urge to

Expel Jews: Three Advertisements

By Erez Uriely, director of The Center Against Antisemitism (CAA, SMA in Norwegian), Norway

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coexistence and basic human rights. The organization is, of course, against similar actions taken against Arab minorities in areas with a Jewish majority. “Peace Now” calls this racism and compares it to Nazism. This double standard and auto-antisemitism [3] has seemingly no bounds when so-called “Jewish peace activists” feel that a small Jewish minority of 0.5 % of Hebron’s population cannot be tolerated by the Muslim majority, and that these Zionist Jews (but not the PLO or other Jihadists) are the cause of conflicts andwar. The movement is made up mostly of Ashkenazi (European), anti-Zionist, backslidden (ultra secular) Jews, while the Jews of Hebron are mostly Zionist, believing Jews, loyal to the Jewish state.

Were one to follow the Judenrein-logic of these “peace doves”, one would be able to legitimize even the most extreme – including the Holocaust. The message in the first advertisement could soon, G-dforbid, be realized: Under the leadership of Ariel Sharon, Ehud Olmert and Shimon Peres, with help of ministers as Benyamin Netanyahu and Tzipi Livni, the Government cleansed Gaza of Jews and began the process of making also Hebron and the rest of Judea and Samaria, and Jerusalem’s heart, Judenrein. The idea that Jewish presence in Israel endangers World peace is common among European leaders, who not by chance, finance theIsraeli left winged organizations, the PLO, Hamas and Hizbullah, as also Norway does. Therefore, the following proposal from ACPR[1], for what could be the next “Peace Now” advertisement, according to their own principle:

The Jewish Settlement in the Middle East:

An isolated settlement in the heart of the Arab world.

6 million inhabitants.

Over 200 million Arabs.

Every Jihadist’s nightmare.

Next deportation coming soon!

(Could be signed by Peace Now or their colleagues)

Doves of Peace or Anti-Jewish Hawks?

The principles supported by the Jewish “peace doves,” are also supported by other “peaceful” bodies, such as the PLO, Hamas, Iran’s president, European Nazis, Leftwing extremists and others. In different languages and with varying wording, they all want the same thing: The Jews must go – wherever you findthem.

In earlier times, the Jews were unwanted in Europe as well as in Arab countries. Back then, they were mostly driven out of these areas, but many survived by fleeingto the Jewish land, Eretz Yisrael.

Now, the Jew-haters are fighting againto evict the Jews – this time from Jewish land, Palestine. Should they go to Norway, where Norwegians wrote on the windows of Jewish shops: “Palestine is calling: Jews will not be tolerated in Norway!”? Today, Jews do not feel safe in Norway and do their utmost to keep a low profile, or

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The Jewish Settlement in the World:

Isolated religious communities and families in the heart of the non-Jewish world.

Eight million Jews – 0.2 % of the World’s population.

Seven billion non-Jews.

Every human being’s nightmare.

Next extermination coming soon!

(Could be signed by backslidden Jews who dissociate themselves from Judaism and “fight for peace” in the World)

Self-destructive Radicalism

Dana Olmert, former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s daughter, is continuing on the ideological path she learned at

even attack Israel, absurdly trying to be accepted by the Norwegian Left.

Animosity towards Jews is blooming like never before, both in the Muslim world and in the Christian-European world.[4] But Jew-hatred is not limited to Israel and not only spread by non-Jews; it is also being spread by backslidden Jews who live in the West and want to show that they don’t have “dual loyalties” and a “dual identity”[5], but that they are just like the Gentiles around them.

The Jewish “peace activists” don’t like to be called Jewish because they are trying to distance themselves from anything that smells like Judaism: G-d, prayer, the Bible, Jewish garb, headwear, beards, Zionism and Israel. These characteristics are used by Jew-haters to identify the “target”. The backslidden Jews, who don’t hesitate to sacrifice their own brothers and sisters,are therefore identifying themselves with the enemy. It is a proven fact that they, unlike the Arabs, act like a virus inside Jewish society.

Since Israel’s Muslim neighbors (including Muslims with Israeli citizenship) are preparing to wipe out the Jews and the Jewish State, this sort of encouragement from the “peace movement” is a great support to the Jihadists. It also encourages the Jihadists’ European supporters, who traditionally hate the Jews, “who crucified Jesus and refused to convertto Christianity”. Since the modern fightagainst “Israel” is nothing less than a new chapter in the long fight against the Jews,Peace Now lays a realistic foundation for the third, future ad:

Dana Olmert (to the right)

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home. She was photographed with other demonstrators who called Israel’s Defense Chief a “murderer”, because he had implemented daddy Olmert’s policy. Olmert’s two sons left Israel and one of them refused to do military service. Daughter Dana is a member of a radical, leftwing, lesbian “peace organization” and her mother, Aliza, has joined the radical, leftwing “Machsom Watch”, which harasses and demonizes Israeli soldiers and demonstrates against the government, also when her husband, Ehud, was prime minister and the soldiers only obeyed his orders. Smartly

acting from within the moderate Likud Party, Olmert continued Rabin and Peres’ policies, and he supported the PLO and Hamas’ Palestinian Authority with guns, money, protection and political recognition.

The corrupt Ehud Olmert supported the forced deportation of Jews from Gaza and Northern Samaria. He carried out a pogrom against honest, believing, Zionist Jews in Amona. Olmert went further than supporting the leftists’ traditional demand of “land for peace”. Instead, he switched to supporting Ariel Sharon’s radical principle of “land for no-demand-

The “Peace Activists” haven’t understood that there is a difference between the peaceful idealist Gandhi and the Egyptian terrorist Arafat, who oppressed “his people” and stole their money while murdering Jews and many others. They never listen when the Muslim Jihadists openly declare they are attempting to destroy the “peace activists” own home – Israel.

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Jewish Jew-hatred: Image from a movie made and distributed on the Internet by Gush Shalom, an umbrella organization for several “peace movements”, of which “Peace Now” is the largest. The film shows the Zionist settlement in the heart of the Jewish homeland (Judea, Samaria andGaza) knifing through what Gush Shalom portrays as Arab land. The film’s soundtrack ridiculesbelieving Jews, Zionism and Judaism.

Muslim Jew-hatred: “Israel: Murder, deportation, settlements, torture” is written on the knives (Al-Ra’i, Jordan, 29.01.1991). In the next picture, you can see how the Jewish “peace movement” uses the same propaganda against their own.

The same weapons:

Muslim and Jewish antisemites use the same elements in the propaganda war against the Jews.

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for-peace” – that is, “land for war”. That shameful submission encouraged the Jihadists and resulted in bloodshed: Second Lebanon War and the Gaza War.

There is no doubt that people like these will continue to attempt to carry out the ethnic cleansing of Jews and support Islam’s Jihad – until they themselves are being “cleansed”. They surely didn’t learn from former Jewish radicals who traveled to the Soviet Union to support Stalin – who in turn executed them or “just” sent them to a Gulag. Extremists and people who are willing to sacrifice their sistersand brothers, never learn.

This phenomenon exists within every society and it also existed among Jews during the Holocaust. A few individual Jews and some Judenrats cooperated with the Nazis, to save their own necks (and were killed later, when their Nazi masters no longer found them useful).

The “peace activists” have not understood that there is a difference between the peaceful idealist Gandhi and the Egyptian terrorist Arafat, who oppressed “his people” and stole their money, while murdering Jews, Christians and Muslims. They never listen when the Muslim Jihadists openly declare they are attempting to destroy the “peace activists’” own home – Israel.

We must be aware of the fifth columnundermining the Jewish world and be strong and united in the face of the existential challenges we face.

Settlements: Facsimile, Nativ 6, November 2005, (Hebrew), published by the Ariel Center for Policy Research (ACPR)

References[1] Nativ 6, November 2005, Hebrew edition, published by the Ariel Center for Policy Research (ACPR) www.acpr.org.il.

[2] 21.10.2005, in Haaretz, Hebrew edition.

[3] Jewish self-hatred was discussed in NIS-info 3/2005; Sander L. Gilman, 1985; Jewish Self-ha-tred: Antisemitism and the Hidden Language of the Jews. Johns Hopkins University Press.

[4] For example, Prime Minister Dr. Mahathir Mohammad spoke to the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) on 16.10.2003, and asked the World’s 1.3 billion Muslims to unite and get rid of the World’s Jews: “1.3 billion people can-not simply be wiped out. The Europeans killed 6 million Jews out of 12 million. But today, the Jews rule this world by proxy. They get others to fightand die for them.”

[5] Like Jews in other countries, Norwegian Jews are also confronted with doubts about whether they are loyal to Israel – or to Norway (a problem faced by Jews in other countries as well). Jew-haters give no room for the idea that a positive attitude towards Israel does not conflict with theirloyalty to Norway.

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Hebron, a Jewish City

From the standpoint of some of the Israeli and international public,

Hebron is an “Arab city.” This view is occasioned by Hebron’s location over the “Green Line,” its current demographic situation (tens of thousands of Arabs alongside only around 1,000 Jews in the inner city, plus 7,000 or so in adjacent Kiryat Arba), and incessant propaganda by the Left. History, however, did not begin in 1967. No cultured person who has studied the Bible and ancient and modern history can deny the facts: Hebron is the first Jewish city in history. It is the place where the Jewish national patriarchs lived and were buried. Their burial plot – Ma’arat HaMachpela, the Tomb of the Patriarchs – was the firstJewish property purchased in the Land of Israel, and one of the Jewish people’s

most impressive monuments was built atop it. Hebron is an object of yearning for Jews throughout the Diaspora and is numbered among the four holy cities (along with Jerusalem, Tiberias, and Safed). The Jewish community in Hebron existed for thousands of years until it was brutally displaced in 1929 – after Arab marauders murdered, raped, and burned to death scores of Jews and dispossessed the community of properties that included hundreds of acres of real estate.

If the Jewish people have undeniable rights anywhere on earth, it is in Hebron. The Jewish community of Hebron today resides on a relatively small fraction of the Jewish property that was plundered in the 1929 pogrom. This community constitutes the basis and the beginning of the return of Jews to the World’s oldest Jewish city.

Inequality and Discrimination in Hebron

By Orit Struck. Orit Struck was born in Jerusalem. She and her husband Avraham moved to Hebron about 30 years ago. Presently Orit Struck is director of the legal department of the Hebron Jewish community. She founded and directs the organization “Human Rights in Yesha” (Judea, Samaria and Gaza). This organization has issued complaints to police investigatory squads and to Israel criminal courts against police who have allegedly attacked protestors during demonstrations against the expulsions from Amona and Gush Katif. She was a candidate for the 17th Knesset, on the National Unity-NRP part list. Orit and Avraham Struck, parents of 11 children, live in the Avraham Avinu neighborhood of Hebron.

In contrast to the false, anti-Jewish, anti-Israeli propaganda, here are the real facts:

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Jews are Allowed to Enter Only 3% of the Municipal Area

The city limits of Hebron encompass eighteen square kilometers. Of this area, fifteen square kilometers are defined asH1, the area that was surrendered to the Palestinian Authority; this area is off-limits to Jews. Nearly all of the remaining area, H2, is open to unrestricted Arab traffic and presence. The presence ofJews is also forbidden in most of this area. In fact, Jews are allowed in only six tenths of a square kilometer, 3 percent of the municipal area!

Thousands of Arabs continue to live in the Israeli zone. The Palestinian Authority deliberately operates and is establishing institutions in this area for the express (written!) purpose of “strangling” the Jewish community by attracting masses of Arabs. Across from Beit Hadassah, for example, Cordoba School continues to operate even though most of its students come from other parts of town. Next to Tel Rumeida and the Jewish cemetery, another school is under construction – not to meet any urban need, but rather solely to crowd out the Jews in this area.

Due to long-term geo-economic processes (that have nothing to do with the Jewish community), the town’s central business district has moved to the western side of town. The area where the Jews live has not been the central business district of Hebron for quite some time. On the west side, opulent multistory commercial and office buildings are being put up. Nevertheless, the Palestinian Authority has instructed merchants who have shops near the Jewish community to keep them

going even though there is no economic justification for doing so. In contrast,Jews are not allowed to engage in any activity whatsoever in the areas that are off-limits to them, including access to properties that they own. For example, Jews are barred from Parcel 37 (adjacent to the cemetery), the street that runs past Beit Hadassah, the bottom floor of BeitHadassah, and Jewish-owned houses deep in the “Palestinian” zone. A Jew who dares to enter these areas risks his or her life, not to mention arrest and prosecution for “violation of orders.”

Jewish Traffic is Confined to a Minuscule Area and to One Street

The Oslo War (beginning in September 2000) brought on a string of terror attacks and murders against the Jewish community of Hebron that claimed dozens of casualties, including some at short range within the community’s cramped area. In response, the defense system was forced to restrict and inspect Arab traffic in the Israeli part of the city. The area where the Jews dwell – only 3 percent of the town’s territory, as stated – is not totally off-limits to Arab movement; instead, vehicular traffic is restrictedand pedestrians are checked (per the conventional Israeli practice at entrances to public places). Thousands of Arabs continue to live and circulate in the Israeli zone; the area totally forbidden to Arab movement adds up to only a few hundred meters. Importantly, over the years the defense system has attempted to ease the movement restrictions. These attempts, however, have repeatedly failed, as each

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leniency was exploited for provocations and attacks that claimed a toll in blood.

Concurrently, the movement of Jews in 97 percent of the town area, the part that was handed over to the Palestinian Authority under the 1997 “Hebron Accord,” is totally forbidden even though the accord stipulates total freedom of movement. The prohibition was imposed after “Palestinian police” and terrorists threatened to murder any Jews who entered. The sweeping injunction includes revocation of the right to visit and worship at shrines such as Elonei Mamre and the Tomb of Otniel B. Kenaz, even though the Hebron Accord entitles Jews to free access and worship at these locations. Even within the Israeli zone (H2), Jews are denied access to various holy places such as the Tomb of Avner B. Ner and the kabbalistic yeshiva in the casbah.

The most significant difference betweenthe movement restrictions imposed on Arabs in Hebron and those imposed on Jews is neither the size of the restricted area nor the motives for the restriction. The Israel Supreme Court recently ruled that movement restrictions should be applied against the side that threatens violence and lawbreaking and not against the threatened side. “As a rule, the military commander should discharge his duty to defend the safety of the inhabitants ... in some other way and not by closing off the areas” ( Justice Beinish). “The military commander should refrain from declaring areas off-limits … for the purpose of protecting the inhabitants themselves” ( Justice Rivlin). “The upholding of public order and the inhabitants’ safety

… should be accomplished by taking appropriate measures against the factors that perpetrate riots and not by imposing further restrictions on the casualties of the violence” ( Justice Joubran; all quotations are from Ruling 9593/04). The restrictions on Arab movement correspond to the ruling established by the Supreme Court because they are meant to prevent attacks, acts of violence, and lawbreaking by those whose movements have been restricted. In contrast, the restrictions imposed on Jews’ movement clash with this basic rule: they were imposed on the casualties of the violence.

The Jews are Almost Totally Deprived of Their Property Rights

The Arabs of Hebron enjoy the natural and basic right of possession and ownership of real estate – a right that is almost totally denied the Jewish population.

The houses, shops, and lands that the Jews of Hebron left behind when they were banished from the city after the 1929 program were expropriated after the Jordanian occupation in 1948 by the Jordanian Administrator of Enemy Properties, even though these Jews had never been anyone’s enemy and had been murdered and expelled for no reason whatsoever and in no context of belligerency. These properties have never been returned. The Government of Israel decided to let the injustice stand and to transfer the plundered properties from the Jordanian administrator to the Israeli one. In practice, this decision means the continued leasing of these properties to Arabs, who often treat

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them with contempt. To this day, for example, a building next to the Avraham Avinu quarter that had once housed a kabbalistic yeshiva is being used as a cattle barn; until recently a flea market operatedon the ruins of the Chabad synagogue, and so on. Even when the original owners of these properties submit officialapplications for possession or for the right to allow Jews to settle in them, they are answered in the negative. For example, the Government rescinded its decision to lease to Jews the dwelling units in the Hebron “marketplace,” in disregard and repudiation of the request of the owners of the property.

Furthermore, Jews are being denied the natural right to purchase houses and enjoy the right of ownership that all human beings share. The withholding of this right from Jews only is a blatant act of racist discrimination. Jordanian and “Palestinian law” established the death penalty for any Arab who sells his home to a Jew, and this stricture has in fact been carried out. The State of Israel takes no action whatsoever against these racial laws.

To deny the Jews their right to possess real property, the Israel Civil Administration staff has been instructed to adopt a strict enforcement policy toward Jews and a lenient one toward Arabs. The planning and building laws are totally unenforced when it comes to Arabs, resulting in illegal Arab construction on a massive scale. Sometimes laws are even invented for the sole purpose of thwarting the purchase of property by Jews. An internal document written by a

senior official at the military prosecutor’soffice, revealed in the press, states thatin any legal dispute between Jews and Arabs over property, the Army, the Civil Administration, and the police are to side with the Arab party even when the latter’s claim is groundless. This means that Jews will find it virtually impossible to registerland titles. The directive is tantamount to racist discrimination against Jews, in contravention of the international law stating that no population group shall be given summary preference over another.

While the Arabs Build Massively in Hebron, The Right to Build is Almost Totally Denied to Jews

Everyone in the world has the right to engage in construction and develop-ment in accordance with accepted local rules and regulations, irrespective of religion and race. The Palestinian Aut-hority exploits this entitlement cynically by initiating wide-scale construction and development. On the western, Arab side of Hebron, multistory buildings, malls and high-tech buildings are going up on an immense scale, with funding from for-eign governments and international orga-nizations. On the “Israeli” side, too – the H1 area – a building, development, and housing project is moving ahead under the sponsorship of the “Palestinian government” (today, the Hamas govern-ment). The Palestinian Authority has declared Hebron a Class A Development Area: it has established a lavishly budge-ted special office for the declared purposeof “strangling the Jewish community” by surrounding it with dense Arab building.

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Arabs who move into the Jewish area are exempted from taxes and municipal duties and receive free water, free electricity and a monthly stipend of NIS 1,000 in return for their participation in a project that is being carried out to “strangle the Jewish

community.” Other Arabs, who lawfully possess buildings near the Jewish com-munity but are not interested in living in them, are forced to transfer their proper-ties to the Palestinian Authority.

In contrast, the Jews of Hebron are virtually deprived of the right to build, even on property that is unquestionably Jewish-owned, including the core of the minuscule Jewish community area, and even when the plans comply with all regulations and professional

requirements. In the past twenty years, building permits have been issued for only three buildings. Offspring of the Jewish community who marry and wish to live in their community cannot do so – due to the racist Jews-only building restrictions. The Government of Israel, unlike the “Palestinian municipality,” withholds building permits from Jews and busies itself with evicting Jews from lawfully purchased homes.

Law Enforcement – Zealous Against Jews, Lax Against Arabs

There are two de facto levels of law enforcement in Hebron – one for the Jewish population, another for the Arab population.

Arab Resident of Tel Rumeida in Hebron, giving David Wilder ‘the finger’ because he daredphotograph her.

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For the Jewish population, enforcement is applied zealously, anchored in tough procedures under guidelines from the State Attorney’s Office. Theseprocedures,which were secret until revealed in a 1997 investigation by a committee of the Hebron Jewish community, stirred fierce public criticism due to the odor ofcrude discrimination that they exuded. The “special procedures” were ostensibly amended in 1998, but the main sections that instructed police to apply excessive enforcement against Jews remained on the books and obligatory. The procedures require the police to invest unprecedented resources in personnel, funds, and motor vehicles. High-ranking officials at theState Attorney’s Office watch closely forany violation of the law – even the most trivial – on the part of Jews. The direct results of this over-enforcement are the wholesale opening of investigation filesfor trifling offenses and inconsequentialacts, and the submission of indictments

and holding of trials that often end with acquittals or closure of files on technicalgrounds. This is a grievous and ongoing blow to the personal freedoms of the Jewish inhabitants of Hebron, coupled with cumulative damage in the form of files that besmirch the inhabitantswith criminal records – files that wouldnot have been opened anywhere else in Israel.

For the Arab population, in contrast, the law is chronically under-enforced and applied for show. Usually, lawbreaking by Arabs is dealt with only if it reaches the level of terrorism. Thus, dozens of daily attacks by Arabs against the Jewish inhabitants of Hebron – physical attacks, stone-throwing, sexual harassment, property damage, etc – are ignored. This is the outcome of written procedures from the military prosecutor’s office,exacerbated by a shortage of police personnel because nearly all such

Massive Arab Building in Hebron

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personnel are pledged to enforcing the law against the Jewish inhabitants. The direct result of this under-enforcement is the denial of the Jewish inhabitants’ right to police protection against waylaying, harassment, and miscellaneous attacks.

Activities of Leftist Organizations

Various international and anti-national organizations have targeted Hebron for hostile activities.

Most of these organizations are funded by anti-Israel foundations, enemy states, and European governments. They disseminate falsehoods and conduct propagandistic field trips, media shows,and tendentious visits with VIPs, and sundry provocations in order to substantiate what they call “discrimination against the Arabs.”

For example, the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), a blatantly pro-Palestinian-Arab organization, floodsHebron with “anarchists” from all over the world to harass the security forces that are charged with protecting the Jews in the tiny Israeli zone. Organizations such as Ecumenical Escorters and the Christian Peacekeeping Team, among others, engage in constant provocations and incitement. Groups of antisemitic Christians encourage terrorism and endanger the lives of soldiers and civilians alike. Israeli leftist organizations such as B’tselem, Machsom Watch, Sons of Avraham, and Breaking the Silence love to tour the city with groups of Israelis, non-Israelis, and diplomats, inciting against the Jews of Hebron by giving

false, warped presentations.

Especially grave is the fact that these organizations act in full cooperation with the observers of the Temporary International Presence in Hebron (TIPH), even though TIPH is supposed to be objective and to refrain from provocations. Furthermore, these organizations act with the cooperation of Palestinian disrupters of order and marauders to undermine the operations of the Israel Defence Forces.

The Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) recently joined the activities of the Left in Hebron, acting continually by legal means to breach and trample the Jewish citizens’ rights to life and safety.

In fact, the activities at issue, cynically huddling under the umbrella of “human rights,” are racist actions that aim to bring about the ethnic cleansing of Hebron and restore the situation there to that following the 1929 pogrom – a Hebron that is Judenrein.

Jewish Worshippers are Confinedto Only one-fourth of the Tomb of the Patriarchs area.

The Tomb of the Patriarchs is the oldest Jewish-owned property in the Land of Israel and the burial place of the nation’s patriarchs. The building atop the burial cave was constructed by the Jewish people during the Second Temple era, about two thousand years ago. For generations, it has been a magnet for Jews from all over the world. After the Muslim Mamelukes occupied the Land of Israel, they forbade Jews and Christians to enter the building

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Apartheid: Jews have access to 3% of Hebron; Arabs have access to 98% of the city.

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and required Jews to stand outside, next to the seventh step. This injunction lasted for 700 years, until the State of Israel struck it down.

However, Jews face grave discrimination at the Tomb of the Patriarchs today – in the apportionment of floor space insidethe shrine, forced separation, and the ability to develop and enhance the site.

Apportionment of Floor Space

At first glance, the tomb appears to bedivided between the worshipers of the two faiths. In fact, the area available to Jews is only one-fourth that of the Muslims’ and most of it is an open courtyard exposed to cold, rain and other ravages of weather.

Forced Separation

The ironclad rule of “separating” the adherents of the two faiths, established by the Shamgar Commission, is implemented only against Jews for all intents and purposes. Representatives of the Muslim Waqf and the muezzin are allowed to enter the Jewish area; the muezzin continues to cross the Jewish area and play raucous cries over the loudspeaker during the Jews’ worship services. In contrast, Jews are unconditionally enjoined against entering the areas reserved for Muslim worship.

Permission to Develop and Enhance the Site

Jews are deprived of the basic right to enhance and improve their shrine because

the Muslim Waqf is allowed to veto the Jews’ enhancement and development plans. The Arabs, in contrast, are not limited in any way; lavish budgets are reserved for the halls allocated to them and are used relentlessly. Obviously, these plans are not presented for the approval of, or even for consultation with, the Jewish authorities in charge of the tomb. Consequently, the Isaac Hall, the main and largest hall in the building, is being enhanced with the help of mammoth investments in paint, decorations, and Muslim ritual objects, in total insensitivity to the Jewish nature of the place.

The Jewish Community of Hebron Demands:

Stop the discrimination!

Assure the right of free and safe movement for Jews in all parts of Hebron.

Assure the right of Jews to possess, purchase, and dwell in properties throughout Hebron.

Stop the hostile and racist propaganda against the Jews of Hebron.

Banish inciting, anti-Semitic, racist and anti-Israeli players from Hebron.

End the discrimination within law enforcement and religious and civil rights.

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It is Thursday morning. Karmel’s car is on its way south from Jerusalem. The

main road south used to enter Bethlehem, but has been closed to cars with Jewish plates since the “Oslo Accords”. We are driving on a new, so-called “by-pass” road outside of the city. Large, concrete walls have been erected at strategic locations along the road. This is to hinder the Arabs in nearby towns from shooting at the travelers.

The area we are driving through is beautiful. The road from Bethlehem towards Hebron has wonderful nature. There are numerous grape vines, olive trees and other greenery. The Jewish settlements lay by themselves, while Arab homes and villages line the road.

After only half an hour, we arrive at Kiryat Arba. This is the Jewish part of Hebron. Around 6000 people live here in pretty houses with flowers and yardswhich are beautifully tended. There are shops and light industry. In the Bible, we

can read that Kiryat Arba is the name for Hebron.

After driving through Kiryat Arba, we pass through the gate to the old neighborhood where the Arabs live – over one hundred thousand Arabs. Kiryat Arba is well-guarded. There are many enemies in the neighborhood and a lot of blood has been spilled here.

We drive straight to the Machpela Tomb. There are Arabs everywhere, garbage and other types of clutter along the road. After driving a little more than half a mile from the Kiryat Arba gate, we arrive at Machpela. This is where the old Patriarchs lie buried. The site is very important and holy to the Jews. Israeli soldiers guard the area which is squeezed in between Arab houses. Following a scrupulous check, we’re allowed into the building itself. There aren’t too many people inside. But several Jews are sitting and reading the Scriptures and praying. There are four of us from Norway and an

Norwegians to Hebron

By John Skåland, leader of the Karmel Institute (www.karmel.net). Karmel seeks to broaden knowledge of the Bible, Israel and the Jewish people, and establish contact between Christians and Jews through Zionistic information service. The Institute owns and runs several houses in Israel, arranges trips to the Land and collects money for projects in Israel. Karmel looks upon what is happening in Israel as a literal fulfillment of the Bible’s prophecies, and is especiallyengaged in supporting the Jews who settle in Judea and Samaria, and those who lived in Gush Katif.

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American couple. We take out our Bible and read about this piece of land which the G-d of Israel Himself has given to the Jewish people. “And the field of Ephronwas certified, which was Machpela, whichwas before Mamre; the field and the cavewhich was in it, and all the trees in the field,in all the borders round about, to Abraham for a possession in the presence of the sons of Heth, before all that went in at the gate of his city.” (Gen. 23: 17-18)

This area, which has so clearly been given to Abraham and his seed through Isaac and Jacob, the whole World now wants to make a part of a Palestinian state.

We enter the small café where there are only soldiers. Tourists seldom come here. On the table lie brochures where we can pay a small sum and receive a card in the café. We can give the card to a soldier who can then use it for a free meal and beverage. We give cards to all the soldiers in the café. They are happy for the friendliness shown by the Norwegians and Americans. We chat with them, and agree that the multinational force (TIPH) the U.N. has placed in Hebron, among

them Norwegians, is only harmful. This force has the task of making sure the over 130,000 Arabs in Hebron are not harassed by the 800 Jews who live among them. Go figure!

In the heart of the old town, 90 Jewish families live under the most exposed conditions one could imagine. And several have also been killed. But these are people with a deep belief in the Word of G-d – in Abraham, Isaac and Jacob’s G-d. They know that this area has been given to them by Him, even if the world says differently.

We call David Wilder who is the spokesman for the Jews here. He’s a very likeable man who arrives in 5 minutes. He explains why it is so important to be precisely here. Until the great Arab uprising against the Jews here in 1929, Arabs and Jews lived together peacefully. But after so many Jews were killed then, nothing has been the same. Here, on the hillside, are a few Jewish houses and prefabs – again, totally encircled by Arab houses. An elderly Jewish man was shot her a few years ago. That Jews live here

Neighborly shooting: Jews in Hebron show Norwegian tourists bullet holes they “received” from their Arab neighbors. (Photo: Karmel)

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is not tolerated. It should be Judenrein. But, precisely here, in these few, Jewish houses, it is important that we are, Wilder says. Archaeologists have found the original city wall, and it seems that right here, on this hillside, is the gate where Abraham stood when he got the property in Hebron.

Wilder shows us a newly purchased house. Through straw men, they were able to buy a house from Arabs. They thought the house was being sold to other Arabs, but this way, Jews were able to purchase it legally. For the Arabs, selling a house to a Jew is punishable by death here. This, in the Land of Israel that G-d has given to the Jews as an eternal property.

We drive back towards Kiryat Arba while soldiers guard almost every street corner. More Jews have come to the Machpela Tomb. A wedding is to take place here today. Jews, strong in faith, risking their lives to do as the Lord has commanded them. We read in Gen. 13: 15: “For all the

land which you see will I give to you, and

to your seed forever.”

There will come a day when the World’s people will have to bow before the G-d of Israel. Then the Word will be fulfilledcompletely. Today, we see the beginning, but we believe wholeheartedly that the Word is unshakeable!

Haakon Lie on the Brits

”We felt we had close ties to the British Labour Party then; but we never forgave Ernst Bevin for the way he dismantled the British Mandate administration in Palestine. I had, myself, just had a confrontation with Bevin’s ‘right hand man’, Denis Healey. I said I was appalled in my very soul over the British Labour government’s betrayal of the Jews in Palestine. The cynic then answered: If you Norwegians had the choice between 70 million Arabs and 700,000 Jews, you’d probably choose the Arabs as friends, too.”

(Haakon Lie, 1983. “The way I See it”, part 2. Tiden Norsk publishing, p. 131)

This conversation took place in 1948 after the Arabs had taken on a more positive relationship with Great Britain’s enemies. Shortly thereafter, the British were dumped by the Arabs as partners in Arabian oil fields. The British actedimmorally and lost both money and a strategic alliance.

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Incredible, But True!

Little illustrates the spiritual battle for Hebron better than the surprising

story of what happened on September 12, 2007 (Elul 29, 5767). It was the eve of the Jewish New Year, a holy day, which some leftwing, backslidden Jews decided to celebrate by destroying a synagogue in Hebron!

Israel’s leadership had already decided to destroy the synagogue, even before the left-wing went into action. Therefore, the corrupt Olmert’s police had no qualms about allowing this misdeed to occur.

Destroying a synagogue could not happen in Western Europe, where it would be described as an antisemitic act, but such is the reality in the Jewish State, which the ultra-secular power elite is attempting to de-Judaize and transform into “a state of all its citizens”. Israel’s government has never destroyed a single

mosque, even when it has been used for terrorism – however synagogues have been demolished many times.

Why the Synagogue was Built

On July 12th, 2001, Arabs shot and killed two Jews in the Hebron area. One was Hezi Mualem, 49, who left behind a wife and four children. He was killed just outside of Kiryat Arba. The other was David Cohen, 28, who left behind a wife and two children. David was killed adjacent to Kiryat Arba’s western gate, leading to Hebron, and opposite the Givat HaAvot (Ridge of the Fathers) neighborhood of Kiryat Arba.

The Jews of Kiryat Arba built a synagogue where David had been murdered and named it after the two men: H’azon (for Hezi Mualem) David (for David Cohen) H’azon David means, in English, David’s vision. While Israel’s government allows massive, illegal construction on the part

Hebron Sheik Saves Synagogue from Jew-

Hating Jews[1]

By Erez Uriely, director of The Center Against Antisemitism (CAA), Norway

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of the Arabs, all over Judea and Samaria and within “The Green Line”, Israel’s law enforcement discriminates against Jews. The synagogue was declared an “illegal structure” and the army’s bulldozer leveled it just before Passover. The Jews of Kiryat Arba did not give up and shortly after, rebuilt the synagogue.

The “Doves of Peace”

The Israeli Left has never demonstrated against Arab terrorists, but, instead, these extremists spend much energy on demonizing and harassing traditional Jews, while also sending Israel’s enemies in Europe intelligence information used to pressure the Israeli government to demolishing synagogues and Jewish communities. This synagogue, which has been resurrected over 40 times by faithful Jews, is no exception.

The Israeli radicals camouflaged theirinitiative as “support for the Palestinians” and were accompanied by some of Hebron’s Arabs (With mountains of European money, one can achieve quite a bit – including paradoxical coalitions). Together, they marched towards the synagogue, with a group of swarming journalists, who planned to document the “Jews’ violence against peaceful activists”, because it was expected that Hebron Jews would defend the synagogue with their bodies. Such journalists specialize in only photographing the Jews’ reactions to such attacks, thereby covering up the initial provocation and presenting the victims as the aggressors.

Policemen, who in the name of democracy

protected the radicals’ right to free speech, hindered the Jews from coming to the site and defending the synagogue. The police’s discriminative act against Jews was according to the governmental discriminative regulations “Special Procedures for Enforcing the Law Against Jewish Settlers in the Territories”.[2]

Muslim Respect and Help

However, the police didn’t stop a group of Arabs approaching the synagogue, because they thought that these Arabs, along with the Jewish anarchists, were going to destroy the synagogue. But these Arabs had been sent by Sheik Jabri, leader of Hebron’s largest clan. The Sheik learned of the demonic plan to demolish a holy place and hence sent his men to defend the synagogue from the backslidden Jews and their Arab allies!

This surprised the radicals so much that they left and the synagogue was saved. The astonished journalists asked Sheik Jabri’s people why they, as Muslims, stopped the burning of a synagogue. Their answer was: “We, as Muslims, cannot allow a holy site in our neighborhood to be purposely destroyed.”

Hebron’s Jews had no reason to thank the Israeli police, but instead sent a delegation to thank Sheik Jabri and his people. We can only wonder what went so ideologically wrong here that the media hushed a story that should have been published with huge headlines. What is so wrong about true peace and coexistence between Israelis and Arabs, between Jews and Muslims?

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We have often experienced that civilized people of faith have a better foundation for understanding one another, and have more respect for each other, than non-believers have. The Israeli left wing’s struggle to de-Judaize Hebron sheds light on this theory. There are, in fact, many Jews and Muslims who live peacefully side by side, respect and accept each other, and it is sad that journalist filterinformation that doesn’t fit the “reality”they wish to dictate.

References

[1] David Wilder: Will Jews Merit another Shema Yisrael at Chazon David?, Arutz Sheva, Nissan 23, 5768, 4/28/2008; www.israelnationalnews.com/Blogs/Message.aspx/2744, and conversations with representatives of Jews of Hebron.

[2] In 1994–1995, an Israeli government legal team headed by then-Attorney General Michael Ben-Yair formulated a set of law enforcement guidelines know as the “Special Procedures for Enforcing the Law Against Jewish Settlers in the Territories”. See www.hebron.com/english/article.php?id=301

The Chazon David Synagogue outside the gates of Kiryat Arba has been destroyed by order of the Israeli government and rebuilt over 40 times.

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In Abraham’s Spirit of Love and Peace

By Eliaou Attlan

The New Year is approaching and, with it, a new Day of Judgment, when all creatures are weighed in the Divine balance. The Creator of the Universe, who

gave us life, scrutinizes our use of His precious gift. He expects us to hold life sacred and protect it.

I wish to relate a story that could have appeared in the Midrashic literature (ancient Jewish Bible interpretation), but actually took place a few years ago right here in Hebron.

An IDF soldier named Hannanel G. was wounded in Hebron after an exchange of gunfire with terrorists. A young Jewish boy, who was visiting the city, stopped the flowof blood from the soldier’s wound, saving his life.

Hannanel’s parents searched for years for this boy to thank him until, one day, a woman came into Hannanel’s parents’ shop in Kiryat Gat and told Hannanel’s mother: “I am the mother of the boy you’re looking for.”

After several seconds of seemingly eternal silence, the two mothers tearfully embraced each other.

“Oh, but we already know each other”, the woman told Hannanel’s mother who admitted that she did not remember her. 16 years earlier, she’d met Hannanel’s mother in her shop and told her of her decision to have an abortion. However, after a long conversation with Hannanel’s mother, she was persuaded not to do so.

“Thank G-d and thanks to you I changed my mind. Through this, you saved the life of my son who, in turn, saved the life of your son.”

Abraham, the father of peace and reconciliation, is buried in the city of Hebron, the City of Grace. This city of peace prays that all the sons of Abraham will continue following in his footsteps like this Jewish youth and the mother of Hannanel who, in the spirit of Abraham, completed the circle of respect for human life

We, all of us, who have received the gift of life, need to justify this gift at every moment. May this message penetrate the hearts of all the sons of Abraham,

Amen!150

Ancient Olive Tree at Tel Hebron: According to experts, such trees, still alive, may be thousands of years old. (Photo: David Wilder)

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Published by the Jewish Community of Hebron (JCH), Israel

and the Center against Antisemitism (CAA), Norway.