over the balcony into the streets to the howling mob.

The mob now turns to the home of the revered scholar Rab- br

bi Meir Kastel. The sixty-nine-year-old Haham, also born in br

Hebron, watches as the mob breaks down his door. He is br

murdered brutally. The mob loots his house and then burns it br

down over his body. On to the next . . .

Rabbeinu Hason, sixty-five, is one of the heads of the br

Sephardic rabbinate in Hebron. He is also a son of the city. He br

and his wife, Clara, fifty-nine, watch in terror as the mob burns br

down their door and then storms in. Both die a horrible death at br

the hands of the mob, which loots and then turns to Beit br

Hadassah. . . .

Beit Hadassah. The building that in years to come will br

rouse the anger of the world and of too many Jews when br

“seized” by the Jewish “militants.” Rabbi Meir Kahane will br

receive a sentence after “seizing” the building three times. br

Women from Kiryat Arba along with their children will “seize” br

it and be forced to remain for months without their husbands. It br

is a building in which the Israeli government will refuse to allow br

Jews to live. And six innocent Jews will be shot down in cold br

blood outside its doors. But it is also a building with a past that br

few know. . . .

In 1909 the cornerstone was laid in Hebron for a building br

that was to serve as both a medical clinic and synagogue for the br

Jews of the city. The pious and wealthy Baghdadian Jew (who br

later moved to Calcutta) Yosef Avraham Shalom gave the mon- br

ey both to build and to keep up this institution, which came to br

be known as Chesed L’Avraham. It was officially registered un- br

der the Ottoman Empire laws. The Haham bashi, chief rabbi of br

Hebron, Rabbi Suliman ben Eliyahu Mani, traveled to India to br

raise money from wealthy Iraqi Jews for the yeshiva. The Sason br

family was especially generous. Eventually the Hadassah or- br

ganization took over the clinic. (This is the same Hadassah br

women’s organization that decades later will condemn the br

“takeover” of the building by the women of Kiryat Arba.)

This institution, which did so much for both the Jews and br

the Arabs of Hebron and which in later years is to serve as the br

symbol of Jewish shame as Jewish governments bar Jews from br

returning to the scene of the massacres, is the next to feel the br

wrath of the crazed Arab mobs. . . .