1929 Hebron massacre Totally Explained

Everything about 1929 Hebron Massacre totally explained

The Hebron Massacre refers to the mass murder of sixty-seven Jews on 23 and 24 August, 1929 in Hebron, then part of the British Mandate of Palestine, by Arabs incited to violence by false rumors that Jews were massacring Arabs in Jerusalem and seizing control of Muslim holy places. This massacre, together with that of Safed, sent shock waves through Jewish communities in Palestine and across the world.
The survivors were forced to flee Hebron, and their property was seized by Arab residents and occupied until after the Six Day War of 1967. It also led to the re-organization and development of the Jewish defense organization, the Haganah, which later became the nucleus of the Israel Defense Forces.

Background

Hebron, located 30km south of Jerusalem, is the second holiest site and one of Four Holy Cities in Judaism, and is revered by Muslims as well. It is the place where the Cave of Machpelah, holding the Tomb of the Patriarchs where tradition records that Abraham was buried, and where David was anointed King of Israel and reigned there until his capture of Jerusalem. Its Jewish Sephardic community had lived there continuously for over 800 years under various imperial powers, and the Ashkenazi community had roots there that went back at least a century.
   In Hebron in the early 20s, periods of Arab harassment, involving cursing on the street, occasional beatings, rocks through windows, and disturbances at the Cave of the Patriarchs, would occasionally disturb what was, in many accounts, an otherwise amicable relationship between the Hebron Jewish and Arab communities In one such period the Jewish community registered several complaints with the British police, saying that not enough was being done to protect them. The Jews attributed some of the trouble to the Arab nationalist Muslim-Christian Association's activities, which included the spread of anti-Jewish songs and other incitement. A consignment of police was sent from Jerusalem but was delayed by other violence on the way to Hebron and arrived hours too late. This later became the source of considerable acrimony.
   Many Jews survived by hiding in their Arab neighbors' houses, while others survived by taking refuge in the British police station at Beit Romano on the outskirts of the city. The surviving Jews were later evacuated to Jerusalem. One third of the killed were students of the Hebron yeshiva. After the massacre, the remainder of the yeshiva was also moved to Jerusalem. Most of dead were Ashkenazi men, but there were also a dozen women and three children under the age of three. Seven of the victims were yeshiva students from the United States and Canada. Dozens of people were wounded, including many women and children. Several cases of rape, mutilation and torture were reported. A few dozen Jewish families did return in 1931, but were evacuated, except for one family, again during the 1936-1939 Arab revolt in Palestine. The last family left in 1947.
   As of 2006, hundreds of Jews live in Hebron again.

Specific accounts of the massacre

The House of Eliezer Dan Slonim

Eliezer Dan Slonim was born in Hebron in 1900. He was the son of Rabbi Yaakov Yosef, the Rabbi of Hebron. Eliezer was a member of the city council, appointed by the government. He was also a director at the Anglo-Palestine Bank. Eliezer had excellent relations with the British and the Arabs, who had assured him that no riots would occur.
Baruch Katinka, a member of the Haganah tells about his encounter with Eliezer Dan before the massacre: ť "Two days before the massacre, they told us about a need to go to Hebron with 10-12 people with weapons in order to defend the place. I believe we were 10 men and 2 women... We came to Hebron after midnight, and went into the house of Eliezer Dan Slonim, the head of the bank in the area and the head of the community. We woke him up and told him that we brought weapons and people. He started yelling and said that if he wanted any weapons he'd request them but there's no need for them because he's an understanding with the Arabs, they need the credit, they're under his influence, and that they won't harm him. On the contrary he said, new faces in Hebron might just tease them. During the argument, two Arab policemen went in and ordered us to go to the Police. The officer Cafferata met us in pyjamas and asked us who we were and what were we doing. We said we came for a walk. The officer preached us how dare we walk around during this time and said we must go back to Jerusalem escorted by the police. Two men stayed with suitcases in Silonim's house. They had the bombs with them, but the day after they came back to Jerusalem too, because Silonim forced them to leave. The next day, the massacre occurred".

After the first victim was killed on Friday, 40 people assembled in Dan's house, confident that because of his influence, no harm would come. On Saturday, the rioters approached the Rabbi and offered him a deal. If all the Ashkenazi yeshiva students were given over to the Arabs, the rioters would spare the lives of the Sephardi community. Rabbi Slonim refused to turn over the students and was killed on the spot, along with his wife and 4-year-old son (another son, 3 years old, survived). In the end, twelve Sephardi Jews and 55 Ashkenazi Jews were murdered.

Raymond Cafferata

After the massacre began, most of the Arab constables deserted, leading the rioters to where Jews were hiding. Cafferata testified:

'On hearing screams in a room I went up a sort of tunnel passage and saw an Arab in the act of cutting off a child's head with a sword. He had already hit him and was having another cut, but on seeing me he tried to aim the stroke at me, but missed; he was practically on the muzzle of my rifle. I shot him low in the groin. Behind him was a Jewish woman smothered in blood with a man I recognized as a[nArab] police constable named Issa Sheriff from Jaffa in mufti. He was standing over the woman with a dagger in his hand. He saw me and bolted into a room close by and tried to shut me out-shouting in Arabic, "Your Honor, I'm a policeman." ... I got into the room and shot him.'

Nineteen local Arab families saved dozens, perhaps hundreds, of the Jews. Zmira Mani wrote of an Arab named Abu Id Zaitoun who brought his brother and son to rescue her and her family. The Arab family protected the Manis with their swords, hid them in a cellar along with other Jews whom they'd saved, and found a policeman to escort them safely to the police station at Beit Romano

Survivors controversy

Descendants of the survivors are divided, with some claiming they wish to return, but only once the occupation is over. Other survivors and descendants of survivors support the new Jewish community in Hebron.
   Noit Gevas, daughter of a survivor, discovered that her mother had written an account of the massacre, published in Haareetz in 1929. In 1999 Gevas released a film containing testimonies of 13 survivors that she and her husband Dan had managed to track down from the list in "Sefer Hebron" ("The Book of Hebron"). Originally intended to document the story of the Arab who had saved Gevas's mother from other Arabs, it became an account of the atrocities of the massacre itself. These survivors (most of whom no longer live in Israel) are mixed as to whether they can forgive, but none of them hate the Arabs.
   In the film, "What I Saw in Hebron" the survivors - now very elderly - describe pre-massacre Hebron as a kind of paradise surrounded by vineyards, where Sephardic Jews and Arabs lived in idyllic coexistence. The well-established Ashkenazi residents were also treated well - but the Arabs anger was roused by those they called the "Ashkenazim" - students of the Lubavitcher Rebbe who had came to redeem lands in the Holy Land and establish a Zionist community in Hebron.
   The survivors interviewed in the film say that the Arabs from the villages essentially wanted to kill only the new Ashkenazim. When the riots started, representatives of the Arabs came to the Ashkenazi rabbi, Rabbi Slonim, with a proposal - if he allowed them to kill 70 students from the yeshiva in Hebron, they wouldn't kill the other Ashkenazim or the Sephardim. Rabbi Slonim told them, "We Jews are all one people." He was the first person to be killed in the riots. Noit Gevas's aunt thought that it all happened because in Hebron, there was an alienated Jewish community that wore streimels, unlike the Sephardi community, which was deeply rooted, speaking Arabic and dressing like Arab residents. Noit Gevas's mother had never wanted to tell the family anything. But in the contemporary article, she'd told how Abu 'Id saved them and that the Arabs in Hebron were friends of the family, it had been Arabs from the villages and not the ones from Hebron who had done it. And she said that it all happened because of the Ashkenazim.
   Abu 'Id, saviour of Gevas's mother, shows off documents about the location of the house was in which the Jews were hidden - the house where he lived with his father. The IDF confiscated the house, and today it houses a kindergarten for the settlers.
   Noit Geva says "I learned a lot about the issue of Ashkenazim and Sephardim. I discovered who I am, where I came from. I also discovered another thing - that the government wants the settlers to sit in the place where peace-loving Hebron Jews once resided. It's a fact that they let the settlers stay there, while they don't allow other Jews who want to return to do so. The reality is very complicated. There's no black or white. We have to find a solution for peace quickly.".

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