Hebron massacre 1929

Hebron in Judea, where the tombs of the Patriarchs are has been always considered the next most important Jewish place after Jerusalem.
There has been constant Jewish presence for 3500 years with a small break in the XX century. And this small break has started with extremly gruesome crime.
In 1929 Hebron was in the British mandate and there have lived both Jews and Arabs in the city. Yet the only British policeman involved in police forces only Arabs with just one exception.
The relationship between Jewish and Arab neighbours was generally considered to be one of the best and however the tentionas were already great in the whole protectorate with Arabs viciously protesting against arriving Jews Hebron was believed to be one of the places where neighbours could live happily side by side.
At the time the great mufti of Jerusalem was al-Hussaini, driven by raging anti-semitism and appointed to this position by British high commisionare despite his prison sentence for stirring anti-Jewish tumults in 1920. Al-Husseini distributed leaflets and gossip that Jews are going to take Temple Mount and that Albert Einstein himself wants to demolish Dome of Rock and build giant synagogue.
In August 1929 in Hebron more and more was being said about possibility of massacre of Jewish residents. On 20th of August Hagana offered Jewish residents of Hebron safe evacuation but the residents declined the offer not believing in their neighbours turning in bloody way against them.
The massacre has started on the afternoon of August 23 1929. The mob has broken into yeshiva where two people were at the time - one managed to hide in the well, the other, young student, tried to run away and was stabbed to death.
Next morning the mob attacked again starting with stoning 2 Jewish boys. The only British policeman, Cafferata,  tried to disperse mob and protect people but he couldn't do much. Some of Arab policemen joined the rioters. Here is a part of Cafferata statement given during trial:
"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 an Arab police constable named Issa Sherif 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."

Some people tried to hide in rabbis' houses but many were slaughtered inside them. Many were tortured or raped before having been killed and the American journalist Van Paassen, one of the first to see the city after massacre, described mutilated bodies and cut women's breasts in the streets. Later when he tried to prove it confronted with Arab denials and British authorities not willing to pursue the investigation into mutilations he has been banned from entering Hebron again.

Here is the memory of one of the survivors:

In August 1929, Yonah was nearing the end of her pregnancy when, on August 23, the disturbing news reached them that there had been attempts to harm Jews in Jerusalem. The following day, Yonah started to feel labor pains and a doctor was called. "Don't give birth yet, wait a bit," he told her. But the pains got worse and the birth approached, so the family went to the neighboring family, an Arab family, who put them up in their basement.
As Yonah gave birth to her second daughter in the basement of the Arab family's house, the masses outside began looking for Jews. Yonah related, after many years of silence, that the mob came to the home of the Arab family, looking for the Molchadskys. "We have already killed our Jews," the Molchadskys' hosts and saviors told the mob, who believed them and departed.

 Indeed there were few Arab families who tried to protect (and sometimes succeeded) their Jewish neighbours. 8 years old at the time Rivka Slonim Burg recalls: "God, blessed be He, in His great mercy, sent us an Arab who lived in back of our house. He insisted that we come down from the doctor's apartment and enter his house through the back door. He took us to his cellar, a large room without windows to the outside. We all went in, while he, together with several Arab women, stood outside near the door. As we lay there on the floor, we heard the screams as Arabs were slaughtering Jews. It was unbearable. As for us, we felt that the danger was so great that we had no chance of coming out alive.
Five times the Arabs stormed our house with axes, and all in the while those wild murderers kept screaming at the Arabs who were standing guard to hand over the Jews. They, in turn, shouted back that they had not hidden any Jews and knew nothing. They begged the attackers not to destroy their homes". But there were only 19 such families.

In total 67 Jews were killed that day in Hebron including children under 3 years. In subsequent trial sheikh Talab Maraka, the leader of the mob, was sentenced to 2 years imprisonment of which he served 1 month!!!!! 3 perpetrators were hung - they are now considered heroes by Palestinian Autonomy authorities!

After the massacre few Jews tried to returned to Hebron but finally they have given up in 1948 and only after six days war in 1967 Jewish families returned to Hebron. Intrestingly enough Hebron Arab residents in 1967 were so sure that Jewish forces will vengence the 1929 massacre that they surrendered the city as soon as soldiers approached it. Not a single shot was given in 1967 in Hebron. There was no vengance.

Chillingly and horrifyingly here is a part of  interview with 92 years old Palestinian woman that took place in Al-Aksa TV station on 13 May 2010.
The woman gives her name as Sara Muhammad Awwadh Jaber, from Hebron, and says among other things: "I have lived through British time and through the massacre of Jews in Hebron. We, the people of Hebron, have massacred Jews. My father has been massacring them and has brought back some belongings".

It is important to remember the story of Hebron and many others where one days neighbours turned against neighbours. And it is important to never again let those things happen. It is our responsibility - all of us!