prophets have commanded you to avenge the blood of your dead br

brethren in Jerusalem! Allah is great! Come with me and kill br

the Jews! Inside are beautiful Jewish women; take them!”

The mob attacks the home of the Cheichal family near the br

hotel. The yeshiva students, inside, fight wildly to hold the br

doors. At the very moment that they begin to splinter, the stu- br

dents see what they take to be a miracle: a British officer with br

five Arab policemen suddenly appears on horseback! The two br

Cheichal sons, Yisrael-Aryeh, twenty, and Eliyah Dov, seven- br

teen, rush out past the surprised mob to the policemen. They br

plead with them to save the Jews inside. The policemen stare. br

The mob now angrily rushes at the two Jews who are standing br

and imploring the British officer to save their lives. They attack br

Yisrael-Aryeh. Bloodied, he turns like a madman on his at- br

tackers, smashing them with his fists, until he falls dead at the br

feet of his “rescuers.”

The younger brother seizes the reins of the Britisher’s horse br

and pleads for his life. At he does so the mob stabs him again br

and again, one Arab laughing and shouting, “Does it hurt, br

Jew?”

The two brothers die, but their deaths enable the other br

Jews, whose presence the Arab murderers have momentarily br

forgotten, to flee to safety.

And in the Jewish quarter, the Jewish ghetto, every house is br

looted, every synagogue destroyed. Reb Alter Platshy, the br

twenty-nine-year-old Sephardic sexton, is brutally murdered. br

He is a poverty-stricken plasterer, sole supporter of his six chil- br

dren and elderly widowed mother. Another pauper, elder- br

ly Yitzhak AbuHana, sixty-nine, dies a terrible death, and br

two other destitute Jews, Avraham Yani, fifty-nine, and his br

wife, Vida, both born in Constantinople, also fall victim to the br

killers.

The famous Sephardic synagogue, Avraham Avinu, built in br

the year 1501, is totally destroyed. The Arabs take the Torah br

Scrolls and with shouts of animal joy rip them to pieces and br

burn the shreds. This is the synagogue that will later be turned br

into a sheep pen. It is the synagogue that, after Israeli liberation br

of Hebron, will remain a sheep pen for years, with the Arab br

shepherd paying IL 60 a year for the “privilege” to the Israeli br

military government! It is the synagogue that the Israeli govern- br