of Arabs. The situation in the outlying neighborhood of Bayit br

V’Gan was especially critical. All the women and children were br

evacuated and the defenders concentrated in homes near the br

woods. All the other homes were looted by Arabs from Ein br

Kerem, Malha, and Walaja. Three Jews—a student, David Vil- br

nai; a guard, Mordechai Ben-Menashe; and a policeman, Gudel br

Yudelevitz—were killed.

The fighting continued for days. Saturday night, August br

24, the first seventeen Jewish victims were taken from Hadassah br

Hospital to be buried. The British had provided only three po- br

licemen, who were weary and nervous. The burial ceremony was br

hurried as it came under attack from Arabs in Talpiot.

The next day, Arabs from Bet Tzefafa, Tzur Bahir, and br

other villages overran, looted, and burned to the ground the set- br

tlement of Ramat Rahel on the southern border of Jerusalem. br

Never had there been such a lengthy and widespread pogrom in br

Jerusalem. Coexistence was not working, despite the absence of br

a “legitimate grievance” known as “the occupied territories.”

Just outside Jerusalem, astride the road to Tel Aviv, sat the br

small Jewish settlement of Motza. For decades its residents br

thought that they had enjoyed the best of relationships with the br

neighboring Arab village of Kolonia. On Saturday night, Au- br

gust 24, as the Jews of Jerusalem were being buried, thirty vil- br

lagers from Kolonia, longtime acquaintances, “visited” the br

home of the Maklaf family (the house was the last one in the br

settlement). They slaughtered everyone, including eighty-five- br

year-old Rabbi Zalman Shach, a guest for the Sabbath. The br

women were first raped and then murdered, and the house was br

burned down.

The small settlement of Hartuv was wiped off the face of the br

earth. Friday night, August 23, as the men huddled together in br

one house (the women and children had been evacuated), a mob br

of Arabs from the nearby villages of Dir Aban, Eshtaol, and br

Tzar’a attacked. They looted everything in the spacious farm of br

Y. L. Goldberg. Cows, horses, wheat, furniture—everything br

was plundered by the crazed mob. At midnight, two British ar- br

mored cars arrived to rescue the men from a massacre. The set- br

tlement was left for the mob, who literally razed it to the ground.

Destruction was also the fate of Migdal Eder, between br

Bethlehem and Hebron, as well as Kfar Uria near Hartuv. The br