was killed. Five dead Jews and forty injured ones were brought br

to the hospital, the victims of Arab demands for an end, not to br

Jewish “occupation,” but the Jewish existence in the land per br

se.

The Pogroms of 1929

On Yom Kippur in the year 5689 (1928), the Arabs of Eretz br

Yisrael discovered the Wailing (Western) Wall. More precisely, br

they discovered that the one remnant of the Holy Temple of the br

Jews was really a Muslim holy place. For hundreds of years, br

Jews had come freely to the symbol of their exile and suffering, br

to shed bitter tears and to plead with the Almighty to redeem br

them from the four corners of the earth. But on Yom Kippur, br

5689, a British policeman barged into the midst of the wor- br

shipers to forcibly remove the partition that separated the men br

and women, and thus he put into motion the forces of pogrom.

For years the British had claimed that they would keep the br

“status quo” for religious sites in Jerusalem. The Wall had no br

standing as a Muslim religious site at all, but the Muslims did br

not wish to see it granted Jewish religious status. The British br

viewed the partition between the sexes at the Yom Kippur ser- br

vices as an attempt to convert the Wall into a “synagogue.”

The incident gave birth to Jewish indignation and to an br

Arab myth. The Mufti of Jerusalem at the time, the supreme br

Muslim leader, carved a historic niche for himself as a treach- br

erous and murderous individual (he later spent the years of br

World War II in Berlin calling upon Muslims to join in a holy br

war on behalf of Adolf Hitler). His name was Haj Amin Al- br

Husseini (a member of a Jerusalem family of “notables”), and br

in 1929, in his position as Muslim theologian, he decreed that br

the Wall was in reality a Muslim holy place. The reason? When br

Muhammad allegedly went up to heaven from Jerusalem on his br

wondrous horse, Al-Burak, he chose a spot near the Wall to br

tether it. This wondrous tale of a wondrous horse had, of course, br

not prevented Muslims, for centuries, from wondrously riding br

through the area on horses and donkeys who left their un- br

mistakably wondrous presence behind, on the ground. But no br

matter. A political-religious legend was born, and for almost a br

year the Arabs incited, lied, and heated the atmosphere that led br

to the deadly pogroms of 1929.