Hebron Massacre

On Shabbat, 24 August 1929, amid riots fueled by false rumors that Jews planned to seize the Temple Mount, Arab mobs attacked the Jewish community of Hebron, which had lived for centuries near the Cave of the Patriarchs. Sixty-seven Jews were murdered, among them women, children, the elderly and two dozen students of the Slabodka (Hebron) Yeshiva; pharmacist Ben-Zion Gershon, who had treated Arab and Jewish patients alike, was among the dead. Homes and synagogues were looted. Some Arab families sheltered their Jewish neighbors and saved dozens of lives.

The British evacuated the survivors to Jerusalem. About 35 families returned in 1931 but were evacuated again at the outbreak of the 1936 Arab Revolt, and Jewish life in Hebron resumed only after 1967. In the same week of riots, 18 Jews were killed in Safed and 133 across the country. The massacre is remembered as a turning point that convinced the Yishuv it could not rely on British protection, strengthening the Haganah.