29 Years Later . . .

 

29 Years Later: Haredi rabbi lauds Baruch Goldstein
'Thanks to him, a great danger was averted,' says Rabbi Meir Mazuz, dean of the Kisse Rahamim yeshiva.

A prominent haredi Israeli rabbi praised Baruch Goldstein, telling followers that the late doctor’s shooting attack in the Tomb of the Patriarchs 29 years ago spared Hebron Jews from an impending danger.

Rabbi Meir Mazuz, spiritual leader of the Tunisian Jewish community in Israel, dean of the Kisse Rahamim Yeshiva in Bnei Brak and rabbi of former minister Eli Yishai’s Yahad party, referenced Goldstein during his weekly lecture last week, on the eve of the Purim holiday, Walla reported.

Goldstein, Rabbi Mazuz argued, “prevented a very great danger,” referencing reports prior to Goldstein’s shooting at the Tomb of the Patriarchs of a planned Arab terror attack in Hebron.

“The Arabs were bringing in axes and hiding them under the rugs in the Tomb of the Patriarchs, along with rifles, knives – there was a terrible danger at the time.” “Thanks to this Jew [Goldstein], that danger was averted.”

“On the day of Purim, one Jewish man went in that morning to the Tomb of the Patriarchs and shot thirty Arabs to death, which made quite a stir across the country.”

“The Prime Minister at the time, Yitzhak Rabin, called him a ‘dirty Jew’. When they [Arab terrorists] kill many people, they are clean. Its fine for the gentiles, but the Jew is ‘dirty’. Why ‘dirty’?”

“What do you call a ‘gold stone’ in Yiddish? Goldstein. That is what this man was. He did it by himself, he didn’t ask anyone, he did it all by himself. They investigated and investigated and investigated, but found that he had acted alone. He told his wife: ‘I am going to pray.’ He went, carrying a rifle.”

Goldstein, a 37-year-old New York-born doctor and IDF reservist, was beaten to death during Purim in February 1994, after he opened fire with his army-issued assault rifle on Arab worshippers who had gathered in the Tomb of the Patriarch.

Twenty-nine Arabs were killed, and over 100 more were wounded.

A resident of the neighboring town of Kiryat Arba, Goldstein had been a supporter of the late Rabbi Meir Kahane, founder of the Jewish Defense League and the right-wing Kach party, which had advocated the transfer of Israel’s Arab population.

While the Israeli government and the Yesha Council (the umbrella organization representing Israeli towns in Judea and Samaria) strongly condemned the shooting, Goldstein received praise from some on the Right, including Rabbi Dov Lior – the chief rabbi of Hebron - and many other Jewish residents of Hebron and Kiryat Arba, who claimed that Goldstein’s attack had prevented a large-scale terrorist attack planned by Hamas.

A government inquiry into the shooting attack, the Shamgar Commission, found some evidence for claims of an impending Hamas attack.