1929 Hebron massacre

1929 Hebron massacre
Part of the 1929 Palestine riots
From top-left, clockwise: Young boy crying from wounds; The Holy Ark of the Sephardi Synagogue of Abraham is ransacked; A survivor reflecting in the aftermath of the massacre; Kolstein family recover from their injuries.
Bottom: Memorials to murdered rabbinical students in the old Jewish cemetery.
LocationHebron, Mandatory Palestine
DateSaturday, 24 August 1929
Deaths67
Injured58
PerpetratorsArabs
MotiveFalse rumours that Jews were slaughtering Muslims in Jerusalem and were planning to attack Al-Aqsa

The Hebron massacre was the killing of sixty-seven or sixty-nine Jews on 24 August 1929 in Hebron, Mandatory Palestine. The event also left scores seriously wounded or maimed. Jewish homes were pillaged and synagogues were ransacked.

The massacre was perpetrated by Arabs incited to violence by rumors that Jews were planning to seize control of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.[1] Some of the 435 Jews in Hebron who survived were hidden by local Arab families,[2] although the extent of this phenomenon is debated.[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, the majority of the latter by British police and military,[5] and brought the centuries-old Jewish presence in Hebron to an end.

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.[6]

  1. ^ Segev (2000), p. 319
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference Greenberg was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference onestatetwostates was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ Troops Seize Arab Chiefs at Gates of Jerusalem Archived 2019-07-26 at the Wayback Machine, The New York Times, August 30, 1929
  5. ^ Shaw Commission 1930, p. 65a with the Shaw report noting that "many of the Arab casualties and possibly some of the Jewish casualties were caused by rifle fire by the police or military forces."
  6. ^ Itamar Rabinovich, Jehuda Reinharz (eds.), Israel in the Middle East: Documents and Readings on Society, Politics, and Foreign Relations, Pre-1948 to the Present Archived 2017-02-28 at the Wayback Machine, UPNE 2008 p. 85