1929 Hebron massacre

Coordinates: 31°31′59″N 35°05′42″E / 31.533°N 35.095°E / 31.533; 35.095

The Hebron massacre refers to the killing of sixty-seven or sixty-nine Jews (including 46 yeshiva students and teachers) on 24 August 1929 in Hebron, then part of Mandatory Palestine, by Arabs incited to violence by rumors that Jews were planning to seize control of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. The event also left scores seriously wounded or maimed. Jewish homes were pillaged and synagogues were ransacked. Many of the 435 Jews who survived were hidden by local Arab families. Soon after, all Hebron's Jews were evacuated by the British authorities. Many returned in 1931, but almost all were evacuated at the outbreak of the 1936–39 Arab revolt in Palestine. The massacre formed part of the 1929 Palestine riots, in which a total of 133 Jews and 110 Arabs were killed, and brought the centuries-old Jewish presence in Hebron to an end.

The massacre, together with that of Jews in Safed, sent shock waves through Jewish communities in Palestine and around the world. It led to the re-organization and development of the Jewish paramilitary organization, the Haganah, which later became the nucleus of the Israel Defense Forces. In the metanarrative of Zionism, according to Michelle Campos, the event became 'a central symbol of Jewish persecution at the hands of bloodthirsty Arabs' and was 'engraved in the national psyche of Israeli Jews', particularly those who settled in Hebron after 1967. Hillel Cohen regards the massacre as marking a point-of-no-return in Arab-Jewish relations, and forcing the Mizrahi Jews to join forces with Zionism.