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value.” Certainly, Jews who prayed, 
recited prayers for an eventual return 
to Zion. That does not necessar-
ily include the practical goals of 
mass immigration to the land, or of 
establishing an independent nation 
there. The Jews of Hebron had more 
modest goals. Mizrahi Jews had long 
lived there peacefully among their 
Arab neighbors; Ashkenazi Jews had 
come to escape pogroms in Eastern 
Europe, and to continue their lives as 
a minority community. 
“That the pogrom followed them 
to the city of their forefathers was 
both devastating and galvanizing,” 
Schwartz writes. 
After the massacre, many who 
had opposed Zionism “now agreed 
that Jews could only be safe in their 
own country, protected by their own 
army.” 
British authorities proved unable, 
or unwilling, to protect Jews during 
the massacre. Many Jews decided to 
rebel against British rule in Palestine. 
 
The massacre amounted to a 
successful example of ethnic cleans-
ing. Hebron, which held a Jewish 
community for centuries, became 
Judenrein, free of Jews. Forty years 
after the massacre, Jews returned 
to Hebron intent on undoing that 
result, and the settler movement had 
its rationale: resettling the homeland 
of the Jews. 
That same success at ethnic 
cleansing became a model for those 
who envision throwing Jews out of 
Palestine. It gives substance to the 
notion that Jews do not belong in 
any part of Palestine, even to the 
historical claim that Jews never 
belonged in Palestine at all. 
Before the massacre, Hebron 
seemed the safest place for Jews 
in the Holy Land and a model for 
peaceful coexistence. Now, it seems 
the opposite: It has a small, austere 
Jewish community, protected by 
barbed wire, guarded by soldiers, 
populated by “some of the most 
violent members of the settler com-
munity,” those who admire the late 

Rabbi Meir Kahane. And it contains 
a lively, thriving, sprawling Arab 
city, except where the Arab section 
gets too close to the Jewish section. 
There, restrictions on Arab mobil-
ity and activities impinge on their 
lives every day. There, soldiers and 
Jewish civilians can treat Palestinians 
roughly with impunity. 

THAT DAY IN 2023
The Arab section of Hebron, 80% of 
the city, is under the control of the 
Palestinian Authority; but Schwartz 
tells us that many of the inhabitants 
ally with Hamas. On Oct. 7, 2023, 
when Hamas and its allies perpe-
trated the deadliest attack on Jews 
since the Holocaust, Palestinians in 
the West Bank broke out in euphoric 
celebrations. Even though Hamas 
released videos applauding its own 
violence, Schwartz reports that 
“according to Palestinian polls, the 
majority of the West Bank and Gaza 
deny that Hamas murdered children, 
raped women or killed any innocent 
civilians.” 
Schwartz, however, interviewed 
survivors of the events of Oct. 7. As 
in her unflinching description of the 
1929 massacre, her description of the 
“Al-Aqsa Flood” looks straight at the 
unbearable details. The Hamas mas-
sacre on Oct. 7 in many ways seems 
to Schwartz a rerun of the Hebron 
massacre of 1929. Hamas called it 
“The al-Aqsa Flood,” in effect pro-
claiming, as Haj Amin al Husseini 
had in 1929, that killing Jews would 
protect the mosque from Jews. 
Both massacres involved acts of 
terrifying cruelty to victims, includ-
ing many civilians and even peace 
activists. In both instances, heroic 
Muslims saved the lives of Jews. 
Hamas operatives shot Kaid 
Farhan Alkadi for not revealing 
where Jews were hiding; then they 
took him into captivity in Gaza. 
Massacres, and communities cel-
ebrating the perpetrators serve 
to empower the most distrustful 
extremists on all sides. 

Schwartz asks, “For if the massacre 
of 1929 set the stage for the world’s 
most intractable conflict, what will 
the long-term impact of Oct. 7 be?”
Yardena Schwartz unflinchingly 
interviewed a wide swath of those 
involved in modern Hebron. She 
listened to Palestinians who com-
plained about the actions of Israelis, 
and who lauded the heroism of 
Hamas fighters. She interviewed the 
current mayor of Hebron, who was 
convicted of murdering Jews in a 
terrorist attack, jailed, released in a 
prisoner exchange, then exiled, but 
somehow returned home as part of 
the Oslo Accords. 

She just as unflinchingly inter-
viewed Jews in Hebron who lauded 
Baruch Goldstein, the physician who 
murdered 29 worshippers at prayer 
inside the Tomb of the Patriarchs in 
Hebron.
As I read Ghosts of a Holy War, I 
learned to trust Yardena Schwartz. I 
do not easily trust commentators on 

the relations between Arabs and Jews 
in general, or between Palestinians 
and Israelis specifically. Journalists, 
political analysts and historians, ide-
ally aim to tell “the truth, the whole 
truth, and nothing but the truth,” but 
on this topic, far too often, they tell 
what they wish were true or what 
part of true fits their preconceptions, 
what part vilifies their enemies or 
glorifies their heroes. 
Commentators all too often sup-
press inconvenient information. Not 
so Yardena Schwartz. She finds ways 
to interview participants on all sides 
of a conflict, giving them the oppor-
tunity to express their viewpoints 
freely. 
If a reader of this book reaches 
conclusions, those conclusions come 
with all the contradicting evidence. 
The author seems more committed 
to truth than to comfort. 
I highly recommend this book if 
you want an honest understanding of 
what Israelis call “the situation.” 

