Sunday, August 21, 2016

Gush Etzion - Israel


Gush Etzion 
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Bridge and tunnel on Highway 60, leading from Jerusalem to Gush Etzion
Gush Etzion (Hebrewגּוּשׁ עֶצְיוֹן,lit. Etzion Bloc) is a cluster of Jewish settlements located in the Judaean Mountains, directly south of Jerusalem and Bethlehem in the West Bank. The core group includes four Jewish agricultural villages that were founded in 1940-1947 on property purchased in the 1920's and 1930's, and destroyed by the Arab Legion before the outbreak of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, in the Kfar Etzion massacre.[1] The area was left outside of Israel with the 1949 armistice lines. These settlements were rebuilt after the 1967 Six-Day War, along with new communities that have expanded the area of the Etzion Bloc.[2] As of 2011, Gush Etzion consisted of 22 settlements with a population of 70,000.[3]
The international community considers Israeli settlements in the West Bank illegal under international law, but the Israeli government disputes this.[4]
History
The core settlements of Gush Etzion before 1948 were Kfar EtzionMassu'ot Yitzhak,Ein Tzurim and Revadim, built on tracts of land purchased in the early 1920s.[5] From November 29, 1947, Kfar Etzion was under siege and cut off from Jerusalem. On May 13, 1948, when the village surrendered, 127 Jewish inhabitants were massacred by the Arab Legion or local village irregulars or both.[6] The other villages surrendered the next day. The inhabitants were taken prisoner and the homes were plundered and burned.[7]
The establishment, defense and fall of Gush Etzion have been described as "one of the major episodes of the State of Israel-in-the-making", playing a significant role in Israeli collective memory.[8] The motivation for resettling the region is not so much ideological, political or security-related as symbolic, linked in the Israeli psyche to the massive loss of life in the Israeli War of Independence.[9]
Pre-state settlements
Kibbutz Masu'ot Yitzhak, May 1947
In 1927, a group of religious Yemenite Jews founded an agricultural village they named Migdal Eder (Hebrewמִגְדַּל עֵדֶר), based on a biblical quotation (Genesis 35:21).[10] The land had been purchased in 1925 by Zikhron David, a private Jewish land holding company [11] at a site between Bethlehem and Hebron that fell between the zones of influence of the local Arab clans. This early community did not flourish, mainly due to economic hardships and escalating tension with neighboring Arab communities. Two years later, during the 1929 Palestine riots and recurring hostilities, Migdal Eder was attacked and destroyed. Residents of the neighboring Arab village of Beit Umarsheltered the farmers, but they could not return to their land.[12]
In 1932, a Jewish businessman of German extraction, Shmuel Yosef Holtzmann, provided financial backing for another attempt at resettling the area, through a company named El HaHar ("To the Mountain").[13] The kibbutz established there in 1935 was named Kfar Etzion, in his honor (the German word Holz means "wood", which is etz עץ in Hebrew).[14] The 1936–1939 Arab revolt made life intolerable for the residents, who returned to Jerusalem in 1937. The Jewish National Fund organized a third attempt at settlement in 1943 with the refounding of Kfar Etzion by members of a religious group called Kvutzat Avraham. Despite the rocky soil, shortage of potable water, harsh winters, and constant threat of attack, this group managed to succeed.
Their isolation was somewhat relieved by the establishment in 1945 of Masu'ot Yitzhak and Ein Tzurim, populated by members of the religious Bnei Akivamovement and Religious Kibbutz Movement. Against the backdrop of an impending struggle for Israeli independence, the secular Hashomer Hatzair movement founded a fourth kibbutz, Revadim. A religious center, Neve Ovadia, was also founded by the bloc's members. By the start of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, the Etzion bloc numbered 450 residents and stretched over an area of 20,000 dunams (20 km2).[14]
Civil war and Arab-Israeli War
Jewish prisoners in Jordan, after the fall of Gush Etzion, May 1948
On November 29, 1947, the United Nations approved the Partition Plan. The bloc fell within the area allotted to a proposed Arab state. The Haganah command decided not to leave the bloc. Arab hostilities began almost immediately, and travel to Jerusalem became exceedingly difficult. For five months the bloc was besieged, first by Arab irregulars, and then by the Jordanian Arab Legion. Throughout the winter hostilities intensified and several relief convoys from the Haganah in Jerusalem were destroyed in ambushes. For 47 days the armed conflict was intense.[15] In January, the women and children were evacuated with British assistance. An emergency reinforcement convoy put together by the Haganah and attempting to get to Gush Etzion under cover of darkness was discovered and Arabs killed all its 35 members. Despite some resupply flights by Piper Cubs out of Tel Aviv onto an improvised airfield, adequate supplies were not getting in.[16]
On March 27, land communication with the Yishuv was severed completely when the Neve Daniel Convoy was ambushed on its return journey to Jerusalem. In the following months, Arab irregular forces continued small-scale attacks against the bloc, which the Haganah was able to effectively withstand. At times, the Haganah forces, commanded by Uzi Narkiss, ambushed Arab military convoys — and, according to Morris, also Arab civilian traffic and British military convoys[17] —, on the road between Jerusalem and Hebron. The defenders of Gush Etzion and the central command in Jerusalem mulled evacuation, but, although they had very few arms, a decision was made to hold out due to their strategic location as the only Jewish-held position on Jerusalem's southern approach from Hebron.[18]
Gush Etzion massacre
On May 12, the commander of Kfar Etzion requested from the Central Command in Jerusalem permission to evacuate the kibbutz, but was told to stay. Later in the day, the Arabs captured the Russian Orthodox monastery, which the Haganah used as a perimeter fortress for the Kfar Etzion area, killing twenty-four of its thirty-two defenders. On May 13, a massive attack began, involving parts of two Arab Legion infantry companies, light artillery[17] and local irregular support, attacking from four directions. The kibbutz fell within a day; and the Arab forces massacred the entire population of Kfar Etzion, soldiers and civilians alike. The total number of dead during the final assault, including those killed in the massacre and those who committed suicide, was estimated to be between 75 and 250. Only three men and one woman survived.[18] The following day, the day Israel declared its independence, the three other kibbutzim surrendered. The Arab Legion took 320 persons as prisoners of war and held them in Jordan for a year before releasing them.[19] [20]
Interim period (1949–1967)
"The lone oak", one of Gush Etzion's symbols
In May 1948, the women and children evacuated from the bloc before the battle were taken to the Ratisbonne Monastery in Jerusalem. In June 1948, when the road to Jerusalem was opened, they were moved to Petah Tikva for two months. The refugees lived at the Netzah Yisrael school until the school year began [21] and resettled in Giv'at Aliyah, a neighborhood in Jaffa organized like a kibbutz.[22]
Four years later, the returning prisoners of war of the bloc founded Nir Etzion in the Mount Carmel area near Haifa. Nir Etzion sought to accept the majority of the bloc's children into it, but despite wishing to unite in a new place of residence, the issue of joining Nir Etzion was a matter of debate among the children, many of whom joined the Nahal military unit. The survivors ofMasu'ot YitzhakEin Tzurim, and Revadim founded their communities anew in Israel proper.[23]
The interim period saw the rise of two movements designed to commemorate the fall of Gush Etzion, through songs, poetry, prose and cultural activities.[23] Both the land of the bloc, and the events that transpired there in the war of 1948, became sacred to the descendants of the original participants. Some compared the story of the yearning to return to the bloc to the story of the Jews yearning to return to theLand of Israel.[24] For 19 years, some survivors would gather on the Israel–Jordan frontier and gaze at the giant oak tree there in remembrance of what was. They gathered again after each annual Independence Day ceremony. Poems and stories were written that humanized the lone tree. This was criticized by the novelist Haim Be'er, who called the bloc's settlement movements a "fervent cult" and compared them to the Canaanites.[24]
Re-establishment
Alon Shvut winery
As a result of the 1967 Six-Day War, Israel controlled the area of the former Etzion Bloc. A loose organisation of Bnei Akiva activists, who later coalesced into Gush Emunim, led byHanan Porat, whose parents had been evacuated, petitioned Israeli prime minister Levi Eshkol to allow the reestablishment of Kfar Etzion.[25] Among the supporters were Ra'anan Weitz, head of the settlement department in theJewish Agency; minister of internal affairs Haim-Moshe Shapira; and Michael Hazani of the national religious movement. Supporters of the Allon Plan in the government were also in favor of settling the bloc. Eshkol was finally persuaded to give a green light to the plan. He was not decisive however, and the settlement movement did not immediately begin to build in the entire bloc, but only on the location of Kfar Etzion. Construction began in September, 1967. Since the government initially decided not to establish civilian settlements in the occupied territories, the settlement was falsely portrayed as a Nahal outpost.[26]According to Ra'anan Weitz's plan, Kfar Etzion was meant to be one of three settlements in the new bloc, which also included Aviezer. A new middle village would be established on Jewish National Fund land purchased in the 1940s.[27]
Weitz' plan of creating a line of settlements based on territorial continuity, however, had a number of opponents: the descendants of the original residents of the bloc and the settlers on the ground, the Religious Kibbutz Movement, and the Israel Defense Forces. The IDF surveyed the land and decided that, "Kfar Etzion B should be founded near the existing Kfar Etzion, and not near the former Green Line". This eventually was supported by defense minister Moshe Dayan, who envisioned five settlement points in the West Bank, one of them being the Etzion bloc. On September 30, 1968, the government gave permission to create a regional center and Hesder Yeshiva in Kfar Etzion, a major demand of the settlers and the final departure from the continuity plan.[28]
In the same decision, the government appointed a committee for planning the settlement of the bloc. In accordance with the committee's recommendations, Revadim and the settlement of Rosh Tzurim were founded on the former site of Ein Tzurim in July 1969, and Alon Shvut in June 1970.[28] Many other settlements and two municipalities (Efrat and Beitar Illit) have been founded in the area of the historic Etzion bloc, and its name was taken for the greater Gush Etzion Regional Council.
Today there is a museum about the history of Gush Etzion.[29]
Today
Here is a list of communities in modern Gush Etzion.
Gush Etzion Junction
The entrance to the Gush Etzion bloc is the Gush Etzion Junction, which is located just west of the intersection of Route 60 and Route 367. The junction is located between Efrat and Alon Shvut and very close to Migdal Oz. It is the site of the Gush Etzion visitors' center,[32] a gas station,[32] an automotive repair shop, a Rami Levydiscount supermarket,[33] an electronics store, the Gush Etzion Winery (one minute towards Alon Shvut on the north side of the road),[34] [35] a bakery, natural foods store, eyeglass shop, clothing store and pizza / felafel / shawarma stands. Across the street are a nursery and car dealership. The junction is a popular hitchhiking post, both south to Hebron / Be'er Sheva and north to Jerusalem, as well as west towards Bet Shemesh and the coast) which has frequently been the site of attacks by Palestinians against Israeli citizens.[36]
See also
References
  1. Between Jerusalem and Hebron: Jewish Settlement in the Pre-State Period, Yossi Katz, Bar Ilan University Press, pp. 8, 265.
    • "An Overview of the Expansions in the Etzion Settlement Block"POICA. December 1, 2000. Retrieved 2009-10-10.
    • Report of the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People. By United Nations Publications, United Nations. Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, United Nations. General Assembly. United Nations Publications, 2003, ISBN 92-1-810275-3, p. 9.
    • Muna Hamzeh (2001). Refugees in Our Own Land: Chronicles from a Palestinian Refugee Camp in Bethlehem, Pluto Press, ISBN 0-7453-1652-2, p. 9.
    • SAIS Review by Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. Published by the School of Advanced International Studies of the Johns Hopkins University, 1985, p. 238.
    • Robert I. Friedman (1992). Zealots for Zion: inside Israel's West Bank settlement movement. Random House, ISBN 0-394-58053-2, p. xxv.
    • William W. Harris (1980). Taking Root: Israeli Settlement in the West Bank, the Golan, and Gaza-Sinai, 1967-1980. Research Studies Press, p. 53.
  2. West Bank settlers shrug off Obama call
  3. "The Geneva Convention"BBC News. 10 December 2009. Retrieved 27 November 2010.
  4. Gorenberg (2007), p. 19
  5. Benvenisti, Meron (2000). Sacred Landscape: The Buried History of the Holy Land since 1948. University of California Press. p. 116.
  6. Between Jerusalem and Hebron: Jewish Settlement in the Pre-State Period, Yossi Katz, Bar Ilan University Press, p. 273.
  7. "Kfar Etzion: The Community of Memory and the Myth of Return", David Ohana, Israel Studies, volume 7, number 2, summer 2002, pp. 145-174
  8. Symbolism and Landscape: The Etzion Bloc in the Judean Mountains. Yossi Katz and John C. Lehr.
  9. "The History of Gush Etzion". Gush Etzion website. Retrieved 2009-08-28.
  10. Naor (1986), p. 235
  11. Settlements in Focus: Gush Etzion
  12. Vilnay (1976), pp. 3806–3809
  13. Ohana (2002), pp. 146–148
  14. Ben-Yehuda (1995), p. 130
  15. "Moshe Moskovic, who had been abroad on movement business, returned to Tel Aviv in April 1948 and wrangled a place on a Piper flight. At the airfield, he was told that guns and ammunition-and matzah for Passover-would take his place in the airplane." — Gorenberg (2007), p. 20.
  16. Morris (2003), pp. 135–138
  17. Erickson et al., p. 149
  18. Kremer (2003), p. 1266
  19. Moshe Dayan, “The Story of My Life”. ISBN 0-688-03076-9. Page 130.
  20. Kfar Etzion: the community of memory and the myth of return
  21. The death and rebirth of Kfar EtzionHaaretz.
  22. Ohana (2002), pp. 149–153
  23. Ohana (2002), pp. 153–160
  24. Rosenzweig (1989), p. 203
  25. Gershom Gorenberg (2012). The Unmaking of Israel. Harper Collins. pp. 73–75.
  26. Katz and Reichmann (1993), pp. 145–149
  27. Katz and Reichmann (1993), pp. 149–152
  28. Gush Etzion museum information
  29. "Table 3 – Population of Localities Numbering Above 2,000 Residents" (PDF).Israel Central Bureau of Statistics. June 30, 2009. Retrieved 2009-10-10.
  30. Peace Now • Settlements in Focus Gush Etzion - November 2005
  31. Bar-Am, Aviva (17 September 2010). "Take a Tour of Gush Etzion"The Jerusalem Post. Retrieved 30 May 2011.
  32. Rebacz, Mark (16 July 2010). "Cornering the Supermarket?". The Jerusalem Post. Retrieved 30 May 2011.
  33. "Gush Etzion Wineries". Gush Etzion. Retrieved 30 May 2011.
  34. Fendel, Hillel (21 July 2010). "Gush Etzion Foresees 50 Percent Growth Rate".Arutz Sheva. Retrieved 30 May 2011.
  35. Ben Gedalyahu, Tzvi (13 December 2009). "Arab Terrorist Stabs Jewish Woman at Gush Etzion"Arutz Sheva. Retrieved 30 May 2011.
Bibliography
  • Ben-Yehuda, Nachman (1995). The Masada Myth: Collective Memory and Mythmaking in Israel. University of Wisconsin Press. ISBN 0-299-14834-3.
  • Erickson, Mark Daryl; Goldberg, Joseph E.; Gotowicki, Stephen H.; Reich, Bernard; Silverburg, Sanford R. (1996). An Historical Encyclopedia of the Arab-Israeli Conflict. Greenwood. ISBN 0-313-27374-X.
  • Gorenberg, Gershom (2007). The Accidental Empire: Israel and the Birth of the Settlements, 1967-1977. Macmillan. ISBN 0-8050-8241-7.
  • Katz, Yossi; Reichmann, Shalom (1993). Ginossar, Pinhas, ed. The Jewish Settlement in the Etzion Bloc 1967–1970: Action with Prior Thought?. Studies in Zionism, the Yishuv, and the State of Israel, Volume 3 (in Hebrew). Ben Gurion University.
  • Kremer, S. Lillian (2003). Holocaust Literature: An Encyclopedia of Writers and Their Work. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 0-415-92984-9.
  • Morris, Benny (2003). The Road to Jerusalem: Glubb Pasha, Palestine and the Jews. I. B. Tauris. ISBN 978-1-86064-989-9.
  • Naor, Mordechai, ed. (1986). Gush Etzion from its Beginning to 1948. 7th of Idan Series (in Hebrew). Yad Ben Tzvi Publishers.
  • Ohana, David (2002). "Kfar Etzion: The Community of Memory and the Myth of Return". Israel Studies. Indiana University Press. 7 (2). ISSN 1084-9513.
  • Rosenzweig, Rafael N. (1989). The Economic Consequences of Zionism. BRILL.ISBN 90-04-09147-5.
  • Vilnai, Ze'ev (1976). "Kfar Etzion". Ariel Encyclopedia (in Hebrew). Volume 4. Tel Aviv, Israel: Am Oved.
External links

1929 Hebron massacre by Arabs


 1929 Hebron massacre 
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The Hebron massacre refers to the killing of sixty-seven or sixty-nine Jews (including 46 yeshiva students and teachers) on 24 August 1929 in Hebron, then part of Mandatory Palestine, by Arabs incited to violence by rumors that Jews were planning to seize control of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.[1] The event also left scores seriously wounded or maimed. Jewish homes were pillaged and synagogues were ransacked. Many of the 435 Jews who survived were hidden by local Arab families.[2] [3] Soon after, all Hebron's Jews were evacuated by the British authorities.[4] Many returned in 1931, but almost all were evacuated at the outbreak of the 1936–39 Arab revolt in Palestine. The massacre formed part of the 1929 Palestine riots, in which a total of 133 Jews and 110 Arabs were killed, and brought the centuries-old Jewish presence in Hebron to an end.[5] [6][7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12]
The massacre, together with that of Jews in Safed, sent shock waves through Jewish communities in Palestine and around the world. It led to the re-organization and development of the Jewish paramilitary organization, the Haganah, which later became the nucleus of the Israel Defense Forces.[13] In the metanarrative of Zionism, according to Michelle Campos, the event became 'a central symbol of Jewish persecution at the hands of bloodthirsty Arabs'[14] and was 'engraved in the national psyche of Israeli Jews', particularly those who settled in Hebron after 1967.[15] Hillel Cohen regards the massacre as marking a point-of-no-return in Arab-Jewish relations, and forcing the Mizrahi Jews to join forces with Zionism.[16]
Background
Simmering tensions
The city of Hebron holds special significance in Islam and Judaism, it being the site of the Tomb of the Patriarchs. In 1929, the population numbered around 20,000, the majority of whom were Muslim Arabs. A small community of around 700 Jews, consisting of a few dozen inside Hebron and a majority that rented houses from Arab proprietors on the outskirts,[17] [18] also lived there. The Jewish community was divided between recent Ashkenazi immigrants and an older population of descendants of Sephardim who had inhabited the town for centuries. AshkenaziJews had been established in the town for at least a century.[19] The two communities, Sephardim and Ashkenazi, maintained separate schools, worshipped in separate synagogues, and did not intermarry. The Sephardim were Arabic speakers, wore Arab-dress and were well-integrated, whereas many of the Ashkenazi community were yeshiva students who maintained 'foreign' ways, and had difficulties and misunderstandings with the Arab population.[20] Since theBalfour Declaration of 1917, tensions had been growing between the Arab and Jewish communities in Palestine.[21] The Muslim community of Hebron had a reputation for being highly conservative in religion. Though Jews had suffered numerous vexations in the past, and this hostility was to take an anti-Zionist turn after the Balfour Declaration,[22] a peaceful relationship existed between both communities.[23] During the riots of 1920 and 1921, Hebron's Jews had been spared the violence that broke out elsewhere.[24]
In mid-August 1929, hundreds of Jewish nationalists marched to the Western Wall in Jerusalem shouting slogans such as The Wall is Ours and raising the Jewish national flag.[19] Rumours spread that Jewish youths had also attacked Arabs and had cursed Muhammad.[25] [26] Following an inflammatory sermon the next day, hundreds of Muslims converged on the Western Wall, burning prayer books and injuring the beadle. The rioting soon spread to the Jewish commercial area of town[27] [28] and the next day, August 17, a young Jew was stabbed to death.[29] The authorities failed to quell the violence. On Friday, August 23, inflamed by rumors that Jews were planning to attack al-Aqsa Mosque, Arabs started to attack Jews in theOld City of Jerusalem. The first murders of the day took place when two or three Arabs passing by the Jewish Quarter of Mea Shearim were assassinated.[30] Rumours that Jews had massacred Arabs in Jerusalem arrived in Hebron by that evening.[17]Hillel Cohen frames his recent narrative of the incident in terms of the murder of the Jaffa Awan family by a Jewish police constable called Simcha Hinkis.[16]
Haganah offers protection
Former Haganah member, Baruch Katinke, recalled that he had been informed by his superiors that 10–12 fighters were needed to protect the Jews in Hebron. On August 20, a group travelled to Hebron in the middle of the night and met with a Jewish community leader, Eliezer Dan Slonim. Katinke said that Slonim was adamant that no protection was needed as he was on good terms with the local Arabs and he trusted the a'yan (Arab notables) to protect the Jews. According to Katinke, Slonim postulated that the sight of the Haganah might instead cause a provocation. The group was soon discovered and Police Superintendent Raymond Cafferata, an officer recruited from the Black and Tans,[31] ordered them to return to Jerusalem. Two others remained in Slonim's house, but the day after, they too returned to Jerusalem as requested by Slonim.[32]
Hebron police force
Hebron's police force was headed by Superintendent Raymond Cafferata of thePalestine Police Force and consisted of two Arab officers and another 40 policemen, only one of whom was Jewish. A number of the force were elderly and in a poor physical condition. Cafferata was later to explain that it was impossible to keep the situation under control, as he was the only British officer stationed in the town, and the reinforcements he had sent for never arrived. The Hebron police were greatly relieved, on the morning of the 24th, to note that a contingent of armed Arab locals had departed the city to lend strength to forces in Jerusalem.At the same time however, many peasants from surrounding villages began to flow into Hebron.[33]
Prelude
On Friday, August 23, after hearing reports of rioting in Jerusalem in the afternoon, a crowd of 700 Arabs gathered at the city's central bus station intending to travel to Jerusalem. Cafferata attempted to placate them, and as a precaution, asked the British authorities to send reinforcements to Hebron.[19] He then arranged for a mounted patrol to be sent to the Jewish quarter, where he encountered Rabbi Yaakov Yosef Slonim who asked for police protection after Jews had been attacked with stones. Cafferata instructed the Jews to stay in their homes while he tried to disperse the crowds.[19] Jewish newspaper accounts carried various claims by survivors that they had heard Arab threats to "divvy up [Jewish] women", Arab homeowners had told their Jewish neighbours "today will be the great slaughter," and several of the victims took tea with so-called friends who, in the afternoon, became their killers.[34]
At around 4:00 pm, stones were thrown through the windows of Jewish homes. TheHebron Yeshiva was hit, and as a student tried to escape the building, he was set upon by the mob, which stabbed him to death. The sexton, the only other person in the building at the time, survived by hiding in a well. Some hours later Cafferata attempted to get the local mukhtars to assume responsibility for law and order, but they told him that the Mufti had told them to take action or be fined because of the 'Jewish slaughter of Arabs' in Jerusalem. Cafferata told them to return to their villages but, expecting some disturbances, he slept in his office that night.[19]
Attack
Rampage and killing
At about 8.30 am Saturday morning, the first attacks began to be launched against houses where Jews resided,[17] after a crowd of Arabs armed with staves, axes and knives appeared in the streets. The first location to be attacked was a large Jewish house on the main road.Two young boys were immediately killed, and the mob entered the house and beat or stabbed the other occupants to death.
Cafferata appeared on the scene, gave orders to his constables to fire on the crowd and personally shot dead two of the attacking Arabs.[17] While some dispersed, the rest managed to break through the pickets, shouting "on to the ghetto!" The requested reinforcements had not arrived in time. That later became the source of considerable acrimony.[19]
According to a survivor, Aharon Reuven Bernzweig, "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…. They were going from door to door, slaughtering everyone who was inside. The screams and the moans were terrible. People were crying Help! Help! But what could we do?"
Soon after news of the first victim had spread, forty people assembled in the house of Eliezer Dan Slonim. Slonim, the son of the Rabbi of Hebron, was a member on the city council and a director of the Anglo-Palestine Bank. He had excellent relations with the British and the Arabs and those seeking refuge with him were confident they would come to no harm. When the mob approached his door, they offered to spare the Sephardi community if he would hand over all the Ashkenazi yeshiva students. He refused, saying "we are all one people," and he was shot dead along with his wife and 4-year-old son.[35] From the contemporary Hebrew press it appears that the rioters targeted the Zionist community for their massacre. Four-fifths of the victims were Ashkenazi Jews, but some had deep roots in the town, yet a dozen Jews of eastern origin, Sephardim and Maghrebi, were also killed.[34] Gershon Ben-Zion, for example, the Beit Hadassah Clinic pharmacist, a cripple who had served both Jews and Arabs for 4 decades, was killed together with his family: his daughter was raped and then murdered, and his wife's hands were cut off.[19]
Account of Raymond Cafferata
After the massacre, 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[n Arab] police constable named Issa Sheriff from Jaffa. 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 am a policeman." ... I got into the room and shot him.[19] [36] [37]
Account of Jacob Joseph Slonim
Jewish child victim of Arab riots
Rabbi Jacob Joseph Slonim, the Ashkenazi chief rabbi of Hebron, stated that after his Arab acquaintances had informed him that local hooligans intended to attack the talmudical academy, he had gone to ask for protection from District Officer Abdullah Kardus, but was denied an audience with him. Later on after being attacked in the street, he had approached the chief of police, but Cafferata refused to take any measures, telling him that "the Jews deserve it, you are the cause of all troubles." The next morning, Slonim again urged the District Officer to take preventative measures, but he was told there was "no ground for fear. A great number of police is available. Go and reassure the Jewish population." Two hours later, a mob incited by speeches started breaking into Jewish homes with cries of "Kill the Jews." The massacre lasted an hour and a half, and only after it had died down, did the police take action, firing shots into the air, whereupon the crowds immediately dispersed. Slonim himself was saved by a friendly Arab.[38]
Looting, destruction and desecration
Synagogue desecrated during the riots
A ransacked house in the Jewish quarter of Hebron
The attack was accompanied by wanton destruction and looting. A Jewish hospital, which had provided treatment for Arabs, was attacked and ransacked. Numerous Jewish synagogues were vandalised and desecrated.[39] According to one account, Torah scrolls in casings of silver and gold were looted from the synagogues and manuscripts of great antiquity were pilfered from the library of Rabbi Judah Bibas.[40] The library, founded in 1852, was partly burned and destroyed.[41] In one instance, a rabbi who had saved a Torah scroll from a blazing synagogue later died from his burns.[42]
Arabs shelter Jews
About two dozen Arab families hid Jews in their homes.[43]
Aharon Reuven Bernzweig related that an Arab named Haj Eissa El Kourdieh, saved a group of 33 Jews after he insisted for them to hide in his cellar. There they waited with a "deadly fear" for the trouble to pass, worrying that the "murderers outside would hear [the little children who kept crying]." From the cellar, they heard cries of "today is a day that is holy to Mohammed. Anyone who does not kill Jews is a sinner." Meanwhile, several Arab women, stood guard outside, repeatedly challenging the claims of the screaming mob that they were sheltering Jews.[2]Yonah Molchadsky gave birth while taking refuge in an Arab basement. Molchadsky later related that when the mob demanded for the Arabs to give up any Jews they were hiding, her host told them "we have already killed our Jews," whereupon the mob departed.[44] The family of Abu Id Zaitoun rescued Zmira Mani and other Jews by hiding them in their cellar and protecting them with their swords. They later found policeman to escort them safely to the police station at Beit Romano.[45]
Survivors
Around 435 Jews, or two-thirds of the community, survived. Most were reportedly saved by Arab families, and around 130 saved themselves by hiding or by taking refuge in the British police station at Beit Romano on the outskirts of the city.[2] Israeli historian Benny Morris has disputed the account that most survivors were saved by Arab families. He wrote, that "in fact, most were rescued by British police intervention and by the fact that many Jews successfully fended off their assailants for long hours – though to be sure, Arab neighbors did save several families".[46]
After order had been restored, all the Jews were gathered at the British police station where hundreds of people were confined for three days, without food or water. They were also forbidden from making telephone calls. All the survivors were then evacuated to Jerusalem.
Aftermath
The Baltimore News header reads: "Massacre of women, children at Hebron told by refugees"
Numbers killed and injured
In total, 67 Jews and 9 Arabs were killed.[47] Of the Jews killed, 59 died during the rioting and 8 more later succumbed to their wounds. They included a dozen women and three children under the age of five.[17] Twenty-four of the victims were students from the Hebron yeshiva, seven of whom were American or Canadian. The bodies of 57 Jewish victims were buried in mass graves by Arabs, without regard to Jewish burial ritual. Most of the murdered Jews were of Ashkenazi descent, while 12 were Sephardi. 58 are thought to have been injured, including many women and children. One estimate put the figure at 49 seriously and 17 slightly wounded.[2] A letter from the Jews of Hebron to the High Commissioner described cases of torture, mutilation and rape.[48] Eighteen days after the massacre, the Jewish leadership requested that bodies be exhumed to ascertain whether deliberate mutilation had taken place.[49] [50] But after 20 bodies had been disinterred and reburied, it was decided to discontinue. The bodies had been exposed for two days before burial and it was almost impossible to ascertain whether or not they had been subject to mutilations after or during the massacre.[51]No conclusions could therefore be made.[52] [53]
Reaction and response
Commission of Enquiry
The Shaw Commission was a British enquiry that investigated the violent rioting in Palestine in late August 1929. It described the massacre at Hebron:
"About 9 o'clock on the morning of the 24th of August, Arabs in Hebron made a most ferocious attack on the Jewish ghetto and on isolated Jewish houses lying outside the crowded quarters of the town. More than 60 Jews – including many women and children – were murdered and more than 50 were wounded. This savage attack, of which no condemnation could be too severe, was accompanied by wanton destruction and looting. Jewish synagogues were desecrated, a Jewish hospital, which had provided treatment for Arabs, was attacked and ransacked, and only the exceptional personal courage displayed by Mr. Cafferata – the one British Police Officer in the town – prevented the outbreak from developing into a general massacre of the Jews in Hebron."[39]
Cafferata testified to the Commission of Enquiry in Jerusalem on 7 November. The Times reported Cafferata's evidence to the Commission that "until the arrival of British police it was impossible to do more than keep the living Jews in the hospital safe and the streets clear [because he] was the only British officer or man in Hebron, a town of 20,000".[54]
On September 1, Sir John Chancellor condemned:-
'the atrocious acts committed by bodies of ruthless and bloodthirsty evildoers... murders perpetrated upon defenceless members of the Jewish population... accompanied by acts of unspeakable savagery.'
Trials and convictions
Sheik Taleb Markah was charged with being one of the chief instigators of the Hebron massacre.[55] In giving its verdict, the judge said that the evidence tended to show not that the prisoner had incited the Arabs of Hebron to murder the Jews of Hebron but that he had incited them to attack the Jews of Jerusalem.[56] He was fined and sentenced to two years imprisonment.[56] Two of the four Arabs charged with the murder of 24 Jews in the house of Rabbi Jacob Slonim were sentenced to death.[57]
In Palestine overall, 195 Arabs and 34 Jews were sentenced by the courts for crimes related to the 1929 riots. Death sentences were handed down to 17 Arabs and two Jews, but these were later commuted to long prison terms except in the case of three Arabs who were hanged.[58] Large fines were imposed on 22 Arab villages or urban neighborhoods.[58] The fine imposed on Hebron was 14,000 pounds.[59]Financial compensation totaling about 200,000 pounds was paid to persons who lost family members or property.[58]
Decline of Jewish community
Some Hebron Arabs, amongst whom the President of Hebron's Chamber of Commerce, Ahmad Rashid al-Hirbawi, favoured the return of Jews to the town.[60]The returning Jews quarrelled with the Jewish Agency over funding. The Agency did not agree to the idea of reconstituting a mixed community, but rather pressed for the establishment of a Jewish fortress wholly distinct from the Arab quarters of Hebron.[61] In the spring of 1931, 160 Jews returned together with Rabbi Chaim Bagaio. During the disturbances of 1936 they all left the town for good, except for one family, that of Yaakov Ben Shalomn Ezra, an eighth generation Hebronite who was a dairyman, who eventually left in 1947, on the eve of the 1948 Palestine war.[62]
Yeshiva relocates to Jerusalem
After the massacre, the remainder of the Hebron yeshiva relocated to Jerusalem.[19]
Jewish re-settlement after 1967
During the 1967 Six-Day WarIsrael occupied Hebron when it captured the West Bank from Jordan. Residents, terrified that Israeli soldiers might massacre them in retaliation for the events of 1929, waved white flags from their homes and voluntarily turned in their weapons.[63] Subsequently, Israelis settled in Hebron as part of Israel'ssettlement program, and the Committee of the Jewish Community of Hebron was established as the municipal body of the settlers. Today, about 500-800 Israelis live in the city's old quarter. The Israeli military controls about 20% of Hebron to protect the settlers, with the rest of the city falling under Palestinian Authority rule. Most Jewish settlers in the area live outside the municipality of Hebron, in the adjacent town of Kiryat Arba.
Descendants of the survivors are divided, with some claiming they wish to return, but only when Arab and Jewish residents can find a way to live together peacefully. In 1996, 37 descendants of the pre-1929 community of Hebron, including seven members of the Slonim family, published a statement repudiating the new Hebron settlers, writing that "these settlers are alien to the way of life of the Hebron Jews, who created over the generations a culture of peace and understanding between peoples and faiths in the city".[64] Other survivors and descendants of survivors support the new Jewish community in Hebron.[65]
1999 documentary film
Noit Gevas, daughter of a survivor, discovered that her grandmother, Zemira Mani (who was the granddaughter of Hebron's chief Sephardic rabbi, Eliyahu Mani), had written an account of the massacre, published in the Haaretz newspaper 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 also 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.
In the film, What I Saw in Hebron[66] 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 followers of the Jerusalem Mufti as well as local chapters of the (Arab) Muslim-Christian Societies.
According to Asher Meshorer (Zemira Mani's son and Noit Geva's father), his aunt (Zemira Mani's sister, who was not present in Hebron during the massacre) had told him that the Arabs from the villages essentially wanted to kill only the new Ashkenazim. According to her, there was an alienated Jewish community that worestreimels, unlike the Sephardi community, which was deeply rooted, speaking Arabic and dressing like Arab residents.
When the riots started, representatives of the Arabs came to Rabbi Slonim, with a proposal: if he allowed them to kill 70 students from the yeshiva in Hebron, they would not 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.[67]
The Mani family was saved by an Arab neighbour, Abu 'Id Zeitun, who was accompanied by his brother and son. In 1999, according to Abu 'Id Zeitun, the house in which the Jews were hidden, his father's house, had been confiscated by the IDF, and today, it houses a kindergarten for the settlers.[67]
See also
References
  1. Segev, Tom (2000) p. 319
  2. The Hebron Massacre of 1929: A Recently Revealed Letter of a Survivor
  3. "A rough guide to Hebron: The world's strangest guided tour highlights the abuse of Palestinians" The Independent 26 January 2008
  4. Troops Seize Arab Chiefs at Gates of Jerusalem, NY Times, August 30, 1929
  5. "Arab discontent". BBC. Retrieved 17 April 2012.
  6. Great Britain, 1930: Report of the Commission on the disturbances of August 1929, Command paper 3530 (Shaw Commission report), p. 65.
  7. Newberg, Eric Nelson (2008). The Pentecostal Mission in Palestine, 1906--1948: A Postcolonial Assessment of Pentecostal Zionism. Proquest LLC. p. 265.ISBN 0549517383.
  8. Kotzin, Daniel P. (2010). Judah L. Magnes: An American Jewish Nonconformist. Syracuse University Press. p. 222. ISBN 0815651090.
  9. Levin, Marlin (2002). It Takes a Dream: The Story of Hadassah. Gefen Publishing House Ltd. p. 116. ISBN 9652293008.
  10. Armstrong, Karen (2001). Holy War: The Crusades and Their Impact on Today's World. Random House Digital, Inc. p. 101. ISBN 0385721404.
  11. Armstrong, Karen (2011). Jerusalem: One City, Three Faiths. Random House Digital, Inc. p. 382. ISBN 0307798593.
  12. Ross, Stewart (2004). Causes and Consequences of the Arab-Israeli Conflict. Evans Brothers. p. 22. ISBN 0237525852.
  13. Itamar Rabinovich, Jehuda Reinharz (eds.), Israel in the Middle East: Documents and Readings on Society, Politics, and Foreign Relations, Pre-1948 to the Present, UPNE 2008 p.85
  14. Michelle Campos, 'Remembering Jewish-Arab Contact and Conflict,' in Sandra Marlene Sufian, Mark LeVine, (eds.) Reapproaching Borders: New Perspectives on the Study of Israel-Palestine, Rowman & Littlefield 2007 p. 41 of pp. 41-65.
  15. Matthew Levitt Negotiating Under Fire: Preserving Peace Talks in the Face of Terror Attacks, Rowman & Littlefield, 2008 p. 28
  16. Moshe Sakal, 'The real point of no return in the Jewish-Arab conflict,' at Haaretz, January 4, 2014, reviewing Hillel Cohen, Tarpat: Shnat Ha’efes Ba’sihsuh Hayehudi-Aravi(1929: Year Zero of the Jewish-Arab Conflict), Keter Publishing & Ivrit,2013:'No factor contributed more to the gathering under a joint political roof of [both] the veteran Jewish communities and the Zionist Yishuv [the pre-state Jewish community in Palestine] that was then being renewed, than the riots of 1929. The Arab attacks forced the Eastern and Maghrebi Jews who were living in the country, including those who had previously recoiled from doing so, to join the Zionists, take shelter beneath their wings and ask for their protection. Or, to put it more sharply: The Arabs created in 1929 the Jewish Yishuv in Palestine.'
  17. Laurens 2002, p. 174
  18. Segev, Tom (2000) p. 318...A few dozen Jews lived deep within Hebron, in a kind of ghetto where there were also several synagogues. But the majority lived on the outskirts, along the roads to Be'ersheba and Jerusalem, renting homes owned by Arabs, a number of which were built for the express purpose of housing Jewish tenants.
  19. Segev, Tom (2000). One Palestine, Complete. Metropolitan Books. pp. 314–327.ISBN 0-8050-4848-0.
  20. Michelle Campos, 'Remembering Jewish-Arab Contact and Conflict,' in Sandra Marlene Sufian, Mark LeVine, (eds.) Reapproaching Borders: New Perspectives on the Study of Israel-Palestine, Rowman & Littlefield 2007 pp.41-65 pp.55-56.
  21. Segev, p. 298.
  22. Henry Laurens, La Question de Palestine, Fayard, Paris, vol.2 2002 p.174
  23. 'Hebron had, until this time, been outwardly peaceful, although tension hid below the surface. The Sephardi Jewish community in Hebron had lived quietly with its Arab neighbors for centuries.' Shira Schoenberg ‘The Hebron Massacre of 1929,’ Jewish Virtual Library
  24. John Bowyer Bell,Terror Out of Zion, (1976) Transaction Publishers 2nd ed. 2009 p.3.
  25. Levi-Faur, Sheffer and Vogel, 1999, p. 216.
  26. Sicker, 2000, p. 80.
  27. Report of the Commission on the Palestine Disturbances of August 1929, Command paper Cmd. 3530
  28. Gilbert, Martin (1977). "Jerusalem, Zionism and the Arab Revolt 1920-1940". Jerusalem Illustrated History Atlas. London: Board of Deputies of British Jews. p. 79. ISBN 0-905648-04-8.
  29. J.Bowyer BellTerror out of Zion: The Fight for Israeli Independence, Transaction ed.Prologue p.1 name
  30. Laurens 2002, p. 172
  31. Charles Smith, "Communal conflict and insurrection in Palestine, 1936–1948," in David Anderson, David Killingray (eds.) Policing and Decolonisation: Politics, Nationalism, and the Police, 1917–65, Manchester University Press, 1992 pp. 62–83, p. 79.
  32. Baruch Katinke (1961). מאז ועד הנה [From then until now] (in Hebrew). קרית ספר. p. 271. and testimony in the Haganah archives
  33. Laurens & 2002 p_174
  34. Michelle Campos, "Remembering Jewish-Arab Contact and Conflict", in Sandra Marlene Sufian, Mark LeVine, (eds.) Reapproaching Borders: New Perspectives on the Study of Israel-Palestine, Rowman & Littlefield 2007 pp.41-65, pp55-56
  35. The Hebron Massacre of 1929 by Shira Schoenberg (Jewish Virtual Library)
  36. Morris 2001, p. 114
  37. It should be noted that some survivors testified that more than one of the Hebronite Arab policemen joined the riot.
  38. Jewish Telegraphic Agency 1929/09/01
  39. Commission on the Palestine Disturbances of August 1929 (The Shaw Commission). March 1930. p. 64.
  40. Zeitlin 1956, p. 72
  41. Adler 1952, p. 142
  42. Rubinstein 2000, p. 113
  43. The original lists underwritten by rabbis Meir and Slonim attested to 19 rescuer families, which is believed to underestimate the number. Modern historical figures vary. David T.Zabecki, 'The Hebron Massacre' at Spencer C. Tucker, Priscilla Mary Roberts (eds.) The Encyclopedia of the Arab-Israeli Conflict: A Political, Social, and Military History , ABC-CLIO 2008 p.437 gives the figure of 28 families who saved their Jewish neighbours.
  44. Haaretz. Survivor of 1929 Hebron Massacre recounts her ordeal by Eli Ashkenazi. Last accessed: 12 August 2009/
  45. Zmira Mani (later renamed Zmira Meshorer), "What I saw in Hebron" ("ma shera'iti beħevron"), Haaretz, Sep 12, 1929, reprinted in: Knaz, Yehoshua (ed.) (1996).Haaretz - the 75th Year, Schocken Publishing, Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, pp. 33–34 (in Hebrew).
  46. Morris, Benny: One State, Two States: Resolving The Israeli–Palestinian Conflict (2009)
  47. Segev (2000), p.324.
  48. Segev (2000), p. 324.
  49. Jewish Telegraphic Agency September 12, 1929
  50. Examiners at Hebron found no mutilations, NY Times, September 24, 1929
  51. Jewish Telegraphic Agency September 13, 1929
  52. Tom Segev (2000) p. 330. The Department of Health report to the Shaw Commission said: "A complete post mortem record of the cause of death in the case of the killed was not obtainable at the time, in view of the large number of wounded that had to be dealt with by the limited medical staff. As a result of external inspection by the Senior Medical Officer and British Police Officer no mutilation of bodies was observed. A subsequent exhumation demanded by the Jewish authorities with the object of proving or disproving deliberate mutilation took place on September 11th. Twenty bodies were exhumed and examined by a specially appointed Committee consisting of the Government Pathologist, Dr. G. Stuart, and two non-official British doctors, Dr. Orr Ewing and Dr. Strathearn. The representatives of the Jewish authorities asked that the remaining bodies not be exhumed. The alleged mutilation of bodies was not confirmed by the Committee." Minutes of Evidence, Exhibit 17 (page 1031).
  53. Mutilations Issue at Hebron revived, NY Times, December 13, 1929
  54. "The Hebron Tragedy. Mr. Cafferata's Evidence", From Our Correspondent. The Times, Friday, November 8, 1929; pg. 13; Issue 45355; col D.
  55. Jewish Telegraphic Agency October 25, 1929
  56. "Two Years for Sheikh Taleb Markah". The Palestine Bulletin. October 25, 1929.
  57. Jewish Telegraphic Agency May 18, 1930
  58. Report by his Majesty's Government...to the Council of the League of Nations on the Administration of Palestine and Trans-Jordan for the year 1930. Sections 9–13.
  59. Palestine Post, Dec 15, 1932
  60. 'The Tangled Truth' The New Republic, by Benny Morris, May 7, 2008, book review of Hillel Cohen's (2008) Army of Shadows: Palestinian Collaboration with Zionism, 1917-1948 Translated by Haim Watzman University of California Press,ISBN 0-520-25221-7
  61. Michelle Campos, "Remembering Jewish-Arab Contact and Conflict", in Sandra Marlene Sufian, Mark LeVine, (eds.) Reapproaching Borders: New Perspectives on the Study of Israel-Palestine, Rowman & Littlefield 2007 pp. 41-65 p. 56.
  62. Tom Segev (2000) p. 347
  63. Oren, Michael (2002): Six Days of War: June 1967 and the making of the modern Middle East
  64. "Descendants of the Families of Hebron's Jewish Community, Statement on Jewish Settlement in Hebron, Tel Aviv, 6 December 1996". Journal of Palestine Studies. 26 (3): 159–160. 1997. doi:10.2307/2538175These settlers are alien to the way of life of the Hebron Jews, who created over the generations a culture of peace and understanding between peoples and faiths in the city.
  65. "Hebron Jews' offspring divided over city's fate" Jerusalem Post. Verified 27 Apr 2008.
  66. "What I Saw in Hebron", The National Center for Jewish Film, Israel, 1999, 73 min, color, Hebrew & Arabic w/ English subtitles. Verified 27 April 2008.
  67. Hebron Diary, Neri Livneh, Haaretz, 9 July 1999
Bibliography
  • Morris, Benny (2001). Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict, 1881-1998. Knopf Doubleday. ISBN 0679744754.
  • Rubinstein, Amnon (2000). From Herzl to Rabin: the changing image of Zionism. Holmes & Meier.
  • Segev, Tom (2000). One Palestine, Complete. Henry Holt and Company.
  • Zeitlin, Solomon (1956). "The Dead Sea scrolls and modern scholarship". Jewish Quarterly Review. Monograph series. Philadelphia: Dropsie College for Hebrew and Cognate Learning (3).
External links

 Hebron massacre 
Hebron massacre may refer to: