1929 Hebron Massacre - Hebron Massacre

Hebron Massacre

All officials in the Hebron civil administration were Arabs. Of its 40 policemen, only one was Jewish. Raymond Cafferata, the Assistant District Superintendent of the Palestine Police Force, had at his command 18 mounted policemen and 15 on foot, of whom 11 were elderly men in poor physical condition. On the early afternoon of Friday, August 23, upon hearing from car-drivers of fighting in Jerusalem, Cafferata deployed special pickets to report any unusual movement from the city and issued a request to headquarters for reinforcements. Intending to travel to Jerusalem, a crowd of 700 gathered at the city's central bus station, and one man gave a speech. Cafferata addressed the crowd, trying to calm them by denying anything happened in Jerusalem. He then took eight mounted officers to patrol the Jewish homes, where he encountered the city's Rabbi, Yaakov Yosef Slonim Dwek. The Rabbi asked him for protection, while he came under a hail of stones from an Arab crowd. Cafferata told Rabbi Dwek and other Jews to return to their homes and stay there. After the Rabbi had obliged, Cafferata tried to disperse the crowd using clubs.

At 4:00 pm, an Arab crowd gathered outside the Hebron Yeshiva and threw stones through the windows. Only two people were inside, a student and the sexton. Upon being hit, the student tried to leave, only to find himself facing the Arab crowd, who grabbed him and stabbed him to death; the sexton survived by hiding in a well. Some hours later a group of mukhtars came to Cafferata. Cafferata attempted to get the mukhtars to assume responsibility for law and order, and asked for reinforcements. Some hours later a group of regional mukhtars came to Cafferata, and they relayed that the Mufti had told them to take action or be fined due to the 'Jewish slaughter of Arabs' in Jerusalem. Raymond Cafferata promised that all was well and bid them return to their villages and stay there. He slept in his office that night.

Early the following Saturday morning, a crowd armed with staves and axes appeared in the streets and attacked and killed two Jewish boys, one stoned to death and the other stabbed. Cafferata shot two of the attacking Arabs and emptied his revolver into the crowd, but his saddle slipped and he fell to the ground, whereupon the crowd began attacking every Jewish house. Cafferata instructed his men to fetch rifles and to open fire, which they did, dispersing a portion of the crowd, but some of the remaining rioters, shouting "on to the Ghetto", managed to break through the pickets. Cafferata continued shooting, hitting many of the rioters, but his efforts were in vain; repeated calls for reinforcements from Jerusalem, Jaffa and Gaza did not produce help in time. Both Jewish and Arab businesses in the Bazaar were looted. A consignment of police was sent from Jerusalem but was delayed by other violence on the way to Hebron and arrived hours too late. This later became the source of considerable acrimony.

Cafferata testified to the Commission of Enquiry in Jerusalem on 7 November. The Times reported Cafferata's evidence to the Commission that "until the arrival of British police it was impossible to do more than keep the living Jews in the hospital safe and the streets clear was the only British officer or man in Hebron, a town of 20,000".

Around 435 Jews survived, with around 280-300 Jews being saved by around 20 Arab families, and another 130 or so, saving themselves by hiding or by taking refuge in the British police station at Beit Romano on the outskirts of the city. The surviving Jews were later evacuated to Jerusalem. One third of the killed were students of the Hebron yeshiva. After the massacre, the remainder of the yeshiva was also moved to Jerusalem.

On September 1, Sir John Chancellor condemned:-

'the atrocious acts committed by bodies of ruthless and bloodthirsty evildoers... murders perpetrated upon defenceless members of the Jewish population... accompanied by acts of unspeakable savagery.'