David Wilder Jewish Israeli Magazine

Shalom.

A few years ago, an older man, together with a younger woman, walked into my office here in Hebron. Seeing them, I asked how I could be of assistance. The gentleman said to me, “My name is Salom Goldshmidt. My father Moshe Goldshmidt was murdered here in Hebron in 1929. I’m here with my daughter, who has never yet visited Hebron. I was told that perhaps you could take us up to the cemetery, so that we might visit my father’s grave.”

Of course, I agreed, and drove them up to the acient Jewish cemetery adjacent to the Tel Rumeida neighborhood. There Rabbi Moshe Goldshmit’s son and granddaughter stood silently by his final resting place, at the plot where 58 of 67 massacred Hebron Jews were interred.

The Goldschmidt family, Rav Shalom, his son Moshe, who lives here in Israel, and his daughter Bassy became close friends of mine. Every Shabbat Chayai Sarah they spend with us in Hebron. A couple of years ago, Rav Shalom spent another Shabbat with us. The date was the 18th of Av, exactly 70 years after the slaughter when his fater was killed. That day, too, was a Shabbat. But it was not a day of rest. It was a day of blood.

Rav Shalom was only four and a half years old at the time. Yet he described the events that had happened that day, as if he had then been a teenager. He told me how he and his family libed in a house above an Arab family.

“Other families came up to our house. One of the women was pregnant. The Arab murderers started banging on our windows and front door. The other families starting jumping down to the back courtyard, begging the Arab landlord for mercy. Seeing the pregnant woman, the landlord’s wife took pity and allowed them in.

“Meanwhile, my father was trying to hold the door closed, preventing the Arabs from breaking in. But they used axes and broke down the door. They stabbed my mother and one of my sisters. I ran into a room with my other sister and hid under the bed. Nobody had to tell me to be quiet. I was petrified. The Arabs grabbed my father stretched out, dead. The Arabs tortured him and killed him, buring his hdead over a kerosene stone.

“My mother was badly hurt, but recovered, as did my sister. We later moved to Jerusalem, where my mother opened a store. She refused to remarry until all of us had grown up.”

Today is the 72nd anniversay of the 1929 - Tarpat massacre. I ask all of those who would “trust” Hebron’s Arabs:

What about two nights ago, when Techiya Blumberg, 35 year old mother of five, pregnant with her sixth child, a nurse, shot down in cold blood, with her husband and 14 year old daughter critically injured? Do you remember two 12 year old boys from Tekoa, stoned to death by Arabs only weeks ago? Do you remember the two Israeli soldiers, murdered and mutilated, only a few months ago. Do you remember 10 month old Shalhevet, shot in the head by Arab terrorist forces here in Hebron, this past March. Or the Kahane couple or the Gilad Zar or Dr. Shmuel Gillis, or the shephard Yair Har Sinai?

Almost 140 Jews, murdered in cold blood. The year is not 1929. It is 2001, seventy two years later. Yet the deeds are identical. The people are the same. And the lessons are yet to be learned.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 5th, 2001 and is filed under history.