A. The Jewish People’s Deepest Roots

Jewish history begins in Hebron. The Patriarch Abraham, the first Hebrew, chose Hebron as the first place of settlement in the Land of Israel. It was here that he purchased the first legacy, the Cave of Machpelah, where the Patriarehs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and the Matriarchs Sarah, Rebecca and Leah are buried. Throughout all generations. Jews have referred to Hebron as the City of the Patriarchs.

During the Biblical Era, Hebron was King David’s first capital, where he reigned during the first seven years of his kingdom before proceeding to Jerusalem. Remnants of the City from Biblical times - the days of the Patriarchs and the Kingdom of Israel - were uncovered in archaeological excavations at Tel Rumeida, the ancient Tel Hebron.

During the First and Second Temple Periods (the tenth to the first centuries BCE), Hebron was one of the major-Jewish cities in the Land of Israel.

After the destruction of the Second Temple, the Hebron Hills were a center of Jewish revolt against the Romans. Here, Bar Kochba’s soldiers fought valiantly against the Roman conqueror but were ultimately defeated and routed.

For centuries, under Byzantine, Arab, Crusader and Mameluke rule, Jews lived in Hebron and even prayed at the Cave of Machpelah. During the Mameluke Era (the thirteenth century). Jews were prohibited from entering the building and were restricted to the seventh step leading to the eastern entrance. Although banned from the Tomb of the Patriarchs for about 700 years, Jews continued coming to Hebron throughout history, offering their fervent prayers at the seventh step.

B. The Jewish Quarter

During the sixteenth century, Jews exiled from Spain came to Hebron, purchased large tracts of land in the city center and established a kind of ghetto, known as the Jewish Quarter. Here, Jews lived for some 450 years, enjoying a full and rich community life, with synagogues, yeshivas, schools, public institutions and charitable associations, as well as shops, factories and other facilities.

The focus of the Jewish Quarter was the Avraharn Avinu Synagogue. According to legend, one Yom Kippur Eve, worshippers found that they were one man short of a minyan. Then, the Patriarch Abraham himself visited the Synagogue so that services could be held. This was one of the most beautiful and renowned synagogues in the Land of Israel. Jews from all over the world contributed Torah scrolls and crowns, oil lamps and brilliantly crafted Torah Ark curtains.

Many noted rabbis and Torah scholars lived in the Jewish Quartet of Hebron, including R. Shlomo Adani, author of Melechet Shlomo, R. Eliyahu Di Vidash (Reishit Hochma), R. Avraham Azoulai (Hesed I’Avraham), his grandson R. Haim Yosef David Azoulai (Known as the Hida) and others. Veteran Sephardic families, Such as the Castels, Begaios, Hassons, Fiancos, Manys, Aboulafias, Gozlans, Aboushadids, Arhas and others, produced numerous religious and community leaders.

During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the Jewish Quarter was built very densely. The community grew and the Jews avoided Moving Outside the neighborhood for reasons of security. Consequently, houses of several stories were built, until the buildings reached 4-5 stories, with narrow alleys between them. Sources from that period describe the Jewish Quarter as follows: “…Inside, there are courtyards and houses of on amazing construction style in which the few support the many, doubled and tripled. (Rabbi A.M. Lunz, Hibeit Yerushalalyim) When a family is added. they add a courtyard on a rooftop, one courtyard on top of the other, one story on top of another, filling them with children. Happy is he whose home is among the upper ones, for he enjoys the sunlight and fresh air, and woebetide he whose home is among the lower ones, who has never seen a ray of light in his life. (Oded Avisar, Sefer Hevron). Despite the crowding, all accounts report that cleanliness and order prevailed in the Jewish Quarter, where the alleys were washed down weekly and whitewashed periodically. Hospitality was also commended by travelers and visitors: Despite the poverty, every guest who came to Hebron received several days’ hospitality at the community’s expense.

Besides its renowned Sephardic inhabitants, the Jewish Quarter was also home to Habad (Lubavitcher) Hasidim, who came to Hebron at the behest of their Rebbe, Rabbi Dov Bet (the Mittler Rebbe) in the early eighteenth century. The Rebbe even purchased a room near the Avraham Avinu Synagogue and established his own synagogue there. Later, many Habad Hasidim came to Hebron, including Rabbanit Menuha Rachel, daughter of the Mittler Rebbe, with her husband R. Yaakov Slonim and their family. She was an outstanding personality, well known for her intelligence and benevolence Habad Hasidim constituted a majority in the Ashkenazic community of Hebron. Key Habad families included the Slonims, Schmierlings and Rivlins.

C. The Nineteenth Century
Beyond the Walls of the Jewish Quarter

In the mid-nineteenth century, the Jews began venturing beyond tile walls of their “ghetto,” constructing expansive homes Outside the Old City of’ Hebron. In 1879, Avraham Romano, a wealthy Jewish philanthropist from Turkey, built a spacious and elegant house, known as Beit Romano, that served as a family residence and hospitality center for the visiting Turkish Jewish community elders. The building included a synagogue, called the Istanbuli Synagogue.

In 1991, funds raised among wealthy North African Jews enabled construction of the basement floor of a community charitable institution, Hesed I’Avraham, that provided medical assistance, aid to the needy and hospitality.

When R. Haim Hizkiyahu Medini came to the Holy Land in 1901, he was invited by the elders of the Hebron Community to serve as its Chief Rabbi. Ribbi Medini, called the Gaon, lived at Beit Romano where he established a yeshiva for outstanding local youngsters. Here he completed the writing of the Sdei Hemed, a comprehensive Talmudic Encyclopedia. Rabbi Medini, an exemplary spiritual inspiration for his students and the community at large, passed away in 1903 and was buried in the ancient Jewish cemetery of Hebron.

The Fifth Lubavitcher Rebbe, R. Shalom Ber Schneerson (the Rashbash), purchased Beit Romano and the surronriding land in 1912, where he established the Torat Emet Yeshiva, the chief Habad yeshiva in the Land of Israel.

In 1909, the Hesed I’Avraham facility was expanded. Thanks to contributions from Jews of Baghdad and India, an additional story was added and a clinic was opened. The Hadassah Wornen’s Zionist Organization was responsible (or the medical staff and the entire building came to be known as Beit Hadassah. The clinic offered free medical care to Jews and Arabs alike.

During the First World War, the Jews of Hebron suffered considerably, as did all Jews living in the Lind of Israel. Famine, disease and other afflictions befell the community. After the British conquest of 1917, community life gradually began to return to normal. The British authorities seized Beit Rornano and established their government and police headquarters there.

In 1925, the world’s most outstanding institute of higher Jewish learning. the Yeshiva of Slobodka, moved from Lithuania to Hebron. The rabbinic academy, its faculty and students added vibrancy and activity to community life in Hebron, enhancing Torah scholarship and improving overall conditions. The Yeshiva, headed by R. Moshe Mordechai Epstein, boasted renowned Talmudic scholars such as R. Yehezkel Sama and R. Nalan Zvi Finkel, known as the Saba of Slobodka. In 1929, the Sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe, R. Yosef Yitzhak, visited Hebron and was granted special permission to pray inside the building atop the Cave of Machpelah.

In 1929, just before the riots, the Jewish Community of Hebron numbered about 1,500 persons.

D. Devastation: The Riots of 1929

The 1929 massacres, in which dozens of Jews were slaughtered all over the country, constituted one of the cruelest chapters in the history of Jewish settlement in the Holy Land.

The Jewish Community of Hebron was dealt a mortal blow, from which it did not recover until its restoration in 1981.

Relations between the Jews of Hebron and their Arab neighbors fluctuated throughout history, but just before the riots broke out, the city had experienced a long period of peaceful coexistence and well-being. The force behind the impending evil was Haj Amin al-Hussemi, appointed by the British authorities as Mufti of Jerusalem and later discovered to be actively pro-Nazi. He fabricated accusations against the Jews of the Land of Israel, claiming they sought to “usurp” the Western Wall from the Muslims. The British authorities were silent partners in his nefarious scheme, as they displayed hostility towards the Jewish community and tried to weaken it in every possible way. When riots broke out throughout the country, the Jews of Hebron refused to believe that any such incidents could take place in the city of the Patriarch Abraham, where Jews and Arabs lived together for centuries. A company of Haganah soldiers offered its protection, but a Community Council Member asked the troops to leave so that tempers would not be stirred up unnecessarily. The next day, the slaughter occurred and the Jews were left unprotected.

The riots started on Friday afternoon, August 23. Inflammatory sermons were preached at the local mosques and hordes of marauders began to advance towards the houses of the Jews, attacking every Jew they encountered with stones and clubs, including the aged Rabbi Slonim, who was on his way to the British Governor to summon assistance. The British Police reacted in an ignominiously hostile manner and the Jews were offered virtually no protection. The British police commander rudely instructed the Jewish delegation to have people barricade themselves inside their homes, sealing the fate of many Jews whose houses became death traps as, throngs of Arab murderers attacked them and brutally tortured them to death.

The first fatality was Shmuel Rosenholz, a yeshiva student, who was killed that afternoon. Jews who sought protection were told by the British to lock themselves up inside their homes. Terror-stricken they obeyed the order and awaited developments that Friday evening.

The next day, Saturday, August 24, 1929, the great slaughter occurred. Thousands of Arabs gathered, armed with knives, axes, pitchforks and anything else they could find, launching a systematic assault on Jewish homes. The Jews, locked inside their houses, were easy prey for the wild, blood thirsty mob.

The marauders did not spare anyone, murdering every Jew they could lay their hands on. They broke into the home of the aged Rabbi Yosef Castel, slaughtered him cruelly and set his house on fire. Rabbi Hanoch Hasson, the Chief Sephardic Rabbi of Hebron, was killed together with his entire family. Ben-Zion Gershon, the pharmacist at the Beit Hadassah clinic, who had extended so much assistance to the infirm, Jews and Arabs alike, was tortured and killed along with his daughters. His wife’s hands were Cut Off and she died in anguish. Hundreds of rioters stormed the home of Eliezer Dan Slonim, Manager of the Anglo-Palestine Bank branch and a member of the Hebron Municipal Council. Many Jews fled to this house, expecting to find refuge there, but their hopes were in vain. The marauders broke into the house, chopping, shishing, stabbing. torturing and butchering every Jew they found. Slonini’s family was wiped out, including his wife, a son, a daughter and his father-in-law Rabbi Orlansky, Chief Rabbi of Zichron Yaakov. Only Shlonio, their one-year-old son, miraculously remained alive, wounded and drenched with blood, hidden beneath the corpses of his martyred family.

The slaughter continued, from house to house. Jews cried out for mercy from their Arab acquaintances, who generally responded with a cry of “Kill the Jews!” and a brandished knife. While the murderers numbered in the thousands, there were also a handful of Arabs who protected their Jewish neighbors and saved their lives. The remainder, including Arabs who were treated like family members by the Jewish population, went on a rampage of torture, rape and murder, mercilessly assaulting the elderly, infants, women and children.

The blood-soaked rioting went on for several hours and British policemen just stood by as the Jews were butchered before, their eyes. One British mounted policeman, who watched dispassionately as two Jewish brothers, Eliyahu Dov and Israel Arye Chaichel were murdered, feared that the killers were about to attack him as well. When he fired in the air summon his comrades, the crowds began to retreat and the riots died down.

The remaining Jews began to come out of hiding. Shattered by the horrible sights they witnessed, they were ordered by the British to assemble at police headquarters. The wounded, slashed and tortured victims were brought there as well, but could not be provided with medical care as the Beit Hadassah clinic was totally destroyed. That day, 59 Jews were killed; another eight died of their Wounds some time later. The British allowed the Jews to conduct a quick funeral for the victims, with only a bare minyan permitted to attend and recite Kaddish. Another grave was dug for the cutoff body parts, soil, clothing, and other items drenched with blood that were removed from Jewish homes. Three days later, the British decided to evacuate the Jewish community of Hebron. The Jews were loaded onto trucks that brought them to Jerusalem. All their belongings and their homes were left as booty for the murderous rioters.

A brutal riot, with the tacit cooperation of the British Government - that completed the job of deportation - thus annihilated the oldest Jewish community in the Land of Israel.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 1st, 2001 and is filed under history.