Remember Hebron 77 Years Later

By Shelomo Alfassa

(August 13, 2006) In yet another solemn day of mourning sorrowfully integrated into the Jewish calendar, we remember August 13, 2006 as the day 77 years ago that rampaging Arab mobs went on the offensive against Jewish civilians in Hebron and throughout the holy land. On this day, Arabs, under direction of their Islamic religious leaders (muftis), initiated attacks against the Jews with a most savage zeal. Arabs not only murdered Jews, but they utilized ghastly methods of torture, including rape, castration and limb amputations. They wielded axes, knives, and other weapons upon a community that was defenseless. They assailed Jews throughout the holy land, from Hebron to Safed, killing 67 and maiming and torturing hundreds.

Scores of Jews were murdered during this gory rampage. In Hebron, the Islamic murderers killed Hakham Hanokh Hasson, the chief Sephardic rabbi, and his entire family. The prominent Hakham, Yosef Castel, locked himself in his home, but Arab mobs broke in-murdering him and his family-then setting the home ablaze.

The last Sephardic rabbi in Hebron, subsequent to the 1929 pogroms, was Hakham Meir Franco, who had lost his son-in-law in the murderous frenzy. Shortly after the massacre, Hakham Franco, with a number of other rabbis, produced a small brochure in Ladino (Judeo-Spanish), the language of the community. It was an appeal to fellow Sephardic Jews throughout the world to assist financially in the rebuilding of the community of Hebron. The brochure detailed the destruction, and contained pictures of the synagogues and holy places before the Arab destruction. It educated the reader about the holy city where their forefathers were buried and about the ancient Jewish community. The Spanish language volume expressed urgency for help, communicating that the community desperately needed funds for rebuilding.

Partially because the British had no great love for Jews, as well as the fact the British did not want to provoke the Arab world, the British government was unwilling to subsidize the costs for a large police force in Palestine to control the Arabs. In addition, the British adamantly did not allow any independent legal Jewish self-defense force. Thus, the Jews were disarmed and had virtually no protection against rioting Arabs.

Later, in a bizarre twist of fate, the British helped the Arabs become the undeserving masters over the Jews. The British essentially sided with the Arabs and issued a set of discriminatory regulations. One restricted Jewish rights to pray at the Western Wall in Jerusalem. Pierre Van Paassen an eyewitness recorded in his memoirs: "On the same day of the Hebron massacre, the Arabs had rioted in Jerusalem, crying, 'Death to the Jews! The government is with us!'”

The riots of 1929 were investigated internationally and reported in the Hope Report. According to the report, the riots were instigated by none other than Amin al-Husseini, the same man who, one decade later, would be working hand-in-hand with Adolph Hitler to murder the Jews in Arab countries and the Balkans during the Holocaust. The Shaw Commission would later report (in March 1930) that the violence occurred due to “Racial animosity on the part of the Arabs…”

The Jewish community in Hebron was able to rebuild, and indeed they did. Progress was quickly made, and a letter issued in 1931 from the World Sephardic Confederation points this out, “After 20 months of morning and frustration, the victims of the land began to return to their national lands and to live again in the Jewish settlement…Encouraged and protected by the Communal Council of Hebron, a few dozen families have already returned to their homes…Today 125 people live in the city and many others are being readied to return in order to make the Jewish settlement grow that has never ceased to be.”

Avraham, the father of the Jewish people, selected Hebron as the first home for the Jewish people. There, Avraham purchased the historic Cave of the Makhpela. Other than Jerusalem, Hebron is indeed the holiest location for the Jewish people. Today, Hebron boasts more than 600 Jews living in a strong community. The city is bordered to the east by the large settlement of Kiryat Arba that has a population of 6,000. While 1929 stands out as a dark year in the dark history of the Jewish people, today, attacks persist against Jews in modern-day Hebron as the norm, not the exception.