The rampage and the killing
At about 8.30 am Saturday morning, the first attacks began to be launched against houses where Jews resided,[16] after a crowd of Arabs armed with staves, axes and knives appeared in the streets. The first location to be attacked was a large Jewish house on the main road. Two young boys were immediately killed, whereupon the mob entered the house and beat or stabbed the other occupants to death.
Cafferata appeared on the scene, gave orders to his constables to fire on the crowd and personally shot dead two of the attacking Arabs.[16] While some dispersed, the rest managed to break through the pickets, shouting "on to the ghetto!" Requested reinforcements had not arrived in time. This later became the source of considerable acrimony.[18]
According to a survivor, Aharon Reuven Bernzweig, "right after eight o'clock in the morning we heard screams. Arabs had begun breaking into Jewish homes. The screams pierced the heart of the heavens. We didn't know what to do… They were going from door to door, slaughtering everyone who was inside. The screams and the moans were terrible. People were crying Help! Help! But what could we do?"
Soon after news of the first victim had spread, forty people assembled in the house of Eliezer Dan Slonim. Slonim, the son of the Rabbi of Hebron, was a member on the city council and a director of the Anglo-Palestine Bank. He had excellent relations with the British and the Arabs and those seeking refuge with him were confident they would come to no harm. When the mob approached his door, they offered to spare the Sephardi community if he would hand over all the Ashkenazi yeshiva students. He refused, saying "we are all one people," whereupon he was shot dead along with his wife and 4-year-old son.[33] From the contemporary Hebrew press it appears that the rioters targeted the Zionist community for their massacre. Four-fifths of the victims were Ashkenazi Jews, though some had deep roots in the town, yet a dozen Jews of eastern origin, Sephardim and Maghrebi, were also killed.[32] Gershon Ben-Zion, for example, the Beit Hadassah Clinic pharmacist, a cripple who had served both Jews and Arabs for 4 decades, was killed together with his family: his daughter was raped and then murdered, and his wife's hands were cut off.[18]
Account of Raymond Cafferata
After the massacre, Cafferata testified:
On hearing screams in a room, I went up a sort of tunnel passage and saw an Arab in the act of cutting off a child's head with a sword. He had already hit him and was having another cut, but on seeing me he tried to aim the stroke at me, but missed; he was practically on the muzzle of my rifle. I shot him low in the groin. Behind him was a Jewish woman smothered in blood with a man I recognized as a[n Arab] police constable named Issa Sheriff from Jaffa. He was standing over the woman with a dagger in his hand. He saw me and bolted into a room close by and tried to shut me out-shouting in Arabic, "Your Honor, I am a policeman." ... I got into the room and shot him.[18][34][35]
Account of Jacob Joseph Slonim
Rabbi Jacob Joseph Slonim, the Ashkenazi chief rabbi of Hebron, stated that after his Arab acquaintances had informed him that local hooligans intended to attack the talmudical academy, he had gone to ask for protection from District Officer Abdullah Kardus, but was denied an audience with him. Later on after being attacked in the street, he had approached the chief of police, but Cafferata refused to take any measures, telling him that "the Jews deserve it, you are the cause of all troubles." The next morning, Slonim again urged the District Officer to take preventative measures, but he was told there was "no ground for fear. A great number of police is available. Go and reassure the Jewish population." Two hours later, a mob incited by speeches started breaking into Jewish homes with cries of "Kill the Jews." The massacre lasted an hour and a half, and only after it had died down, did the police take action, firing shots into the air, whereupon the crowds immediately dispersed. Slonim himself was saved by a friendly Arab.[36]
Looting, destruction and desecration
The attack was accompanied by wanton destruction and looting. A Jewish hospital, which had provided treatment for Arabs, was attacked and ransacked. Numerous Jewish synagogues were vandalised and desecrated.[37] According to one account, Torah scrolls in casings of silver and gold were looted from the synagogues and manuscripts of great antiquity were pilfered from the library of Rabbi Judah Bibas.[38] The library, founded in 1852, was partly burned and destroyed.[39] In one instance, a rabbi who had saved a Torah scroll from a blazing synagogue, later died from his burns.[40]
Arabs shelter Jews
About two dozen Arab families hid Jews in their homes.[41]
Aharon Reuven Bernzweig related that an Arab named Haj Eissa El Kourdieh, saved a group of 33 Jews after he insisted they hide in his cellar. There they waited with a "deadly fear" for the trouble to pass, worrying that the "murderers outside would hear [the little children who kept crying]." From the cellar, they heard cries of "today is a day that is holy to Mohammed. Anyone who does not kill Jews is a sinner." Meanwhile, several Arab women, stood guard outside, repetitively challenging the claims of the screaming mob that they were sheltering Jews.[2] Yonah Molchadsky gave birth while taking refuge in an Arab basement. Molchadsky later related that when the mob demanded that Arabs give up any Jews they were hiding, her host told them "we have already killed our Jews," whereupon the mob departed.[42] The family of Abu Id Zaitoun rescued Zmira Mani and other Jews by hiding them in their cellar and protecting them with their swords. They later found policeman to escort them safely to the police station at Beit Romano.[43]
Survivors
Around 435 Jews, or two-thirds of the community, survived. Most were reportedly saved by Arab families, and around 130 saved themselves by hiding or by taking refuge in the British police station at Beit Romano on the outskirts of the city.[2] Israeli historian Benny Morris has disputed the account that most survivors were saved by Arab families, writing that "in fact, most were rescued by British police intervention and by the fact that many Jews successfully fended off their assailants for long hours – though to be sure, Arab neighbors did save several families".[44]
After order had been restored, all the Jews were gathered at the British police station where hundreds of people were confined for three days, without food or water. They were also forbidden from making telephone calls. All the survivors were then evacuated to Jerusalem.
