Hebron Jews: Memory and Conflict in the Land of Israel

by Jerold S. Auerbach

In this first comprehensive history in English of the Jews of Hebron, Jerold S. Auerbach explores one of the oldest and most vilified Jewish communities in the world. Spanning three thousand years, from the biblical narrative of Abraham's purchase of a burial cave for Sarah to the violent present, it offers a controversial analysis of a community located at the crossroads of the Israeli-Palestinian struggle over national boundaries and the internal Israeli struggle over the meaning of Jewish statehood.

Hebron Jews sharply challenges conventional Zionist historiography and current media understanding by presenting a community of memory deeply embedded in Zionist history and Jewish tradition. Auerbach shows how the blending of religion and nationalism―Orthodoxy and Zionism―embodied in Hebron Jews is at the core of the struggle within Israel to define the meaning of a Jewish state.

240 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2009

Reviews

[Gary · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hebron Jews by Jerold Auerbach is a profoundly moving and meticulously researched account of the Jewish community in Hebron, tracing their centuries-long presence, spiritual devotion, and ultimate vulnerability. Auerbach focuses on the 1929 Hebron massacre, showing how an entire community — devout, tight-knit, and largely powerless — was devastated by violence and incitement. The narrative conveys not only the historical facts but also the moral and human dimensions of life in Hebron, highlighting the courage, piety, and resilience of Jews living in the city despite constant danger.

Reading this book inevitably recalls more recent tragedies, such as the 2001 murder of baby Shalhevet Pass, illustrating that the threats to Jewish life in Hebron have persisted across generations. These events underscore the ongoing moral and historical challenges of maintaining a Jewish presence in the city. They remind the reader that vulnerability and courage coexist and that living in the land carries both deep rights and serious responsibilities.

Auerbach’s account reinforces for me that Jews have a profound right to live in Hebron and across the land of Israel, rooted not only in history but also in enduring commitment and ethical principles. At the same time, the book is a sober meditation on the cost of hatred, the fragility of community, and the moral obligations that power and survival demand.

Auerbach’s prose is clear, compassionate, and scholarly, making the tragedies of Hebron accessible without sensationalizing them. Hebron Jews is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the human cost of communal vulnerability, the moral weight of historical memory, and the enduring ethical responsibilities of Jewish life in its ancestral heartlands.

[Kristine S-Z · Rating 2 out of 5]

If you want a perspective of Hebron Jews, this is an excellent work. However, please be sure to read with a critical eye, as it is immensely biased towards Hebron Jews. (Note: I am a PhD Student focusing on shared religious spaces in Palestine/Israel). From a short, quick essay I wrote about this book describing this bias:

While the reader can find this bias throughout the entire book, especially when realizing that Auerbach skipped the Deir Yassin massacre in 1948, it becomes especially apparent from chapter six through the end of the book. In particular, Auerbach presents Arabs as terrorists but considers Israelis having “retaliated against terrorism” (p. 115). He further writes both Jewish victims of Arab violence and Jewish perpetuators of violence against Arabs under the same lens of humanity, while rarely naming Arabs or considering their perspectives of the violence. He even labels the Ibrahimi Mosque Massacre as the “solitary instance of mass murder by a Jewish settler,” which ignores all over forms mass murder and violence the Israeli state and IDF has done to Palestinians. Furthermore, Auerbach does not reference any forms of violence that are not directly killing or maiming that Hebron Jews have committed against their Arab neighbors, such as throwing bleach and trash down on the Arab market.

Auerbach also problematically removes all Arab perspectives and humanity from the narrative. He describes the Moroccan Quarter of Old Jerusalem as “a ramshackle neighborhood built adjacent to the Western Wall primarily to impede the access of Jews” (p. 82). This is historically untrue and his constant references of the quarter as “ramshackle” and “dilapidated” imply that the residents there deserved to have their homes stolen from them and destroyed. He also provides about five pages to humanizing the murderer Baruch Goldstein but does not name a single of Goldstein's nearly one hundred fifty victims (with twenty-nine dead). Auerbach worsens as he provides various names for this massacre, including the Goldstein Massacre, the Machpelah Massacre, and the Purim Massacre, all of which are Jewish-focused names that the people massacred do not use.