Coexisting with the “Palestinians”

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bThe mob moves to the attack. Chesed L’Avraham is a place bof worship and study as well as a medical clinic for Jews and bArabs alike. That matters little to the inflamed Arab mob. bAmong those who attack are many who have received free treat- bment in this same building. They climb through windows and bsmash down doors. Inside they savagely destroy everything they bsee. Medical equipment, medicine, drugs—everything is shat- btered in a hate-filled frenzy. And now flames leap toward the bskies as the mob sets fire to the inside. The place is a raging binferno and the stones are blackened by the flames that lick at bthem. The synagogue is a scene of utter destruction, and the btorn Torah Scrolls, desecrated by the Arab mob, now burn and bbecome ashes. The building that served as a place of Jewish bworship and study as well as a place of mercy and charity is bgone. It does not matter to the howling Arabs that they will bnever again be able to heal their hurts and sicknesses as they did bevery day until now. Hatred perverts logic.

bNext door to the Hadassah building lives Ben Zion bGershon, a crippled druggist whose kindness to the Arabs is leg- bendary. We will never know how many Arabs he treated, most bfor free or for absurdly low fees. How many times did the Arabs bthank him by blessing his name as they left? Today the mob bshows the way it repays kindness. They burst into the apart- bment. Fingernails gouge out the crippled druggist’s eyes, and he bdies as knives pierce his body. His wife is assaulted, and both her barms are cut off (she dies later in the hospital in Jerusalem). The bArabs attempt to rape the daughter, but she struggles so suc- bcessfully that they kill her in a horrible way.

bThe streets of Hebron are a nightmare of shouting Arabs. bScreams are heard from dozens of houses—the screams of dying bmen, violated women, weeping children. And the pogrom con- btinues.

bOn the road to Beersheba stands Beit Burland, where many byeshiva students from the Hebron yeshiva stay. The mob sur- brounds the house and breaks down both the front and back bdoors. The yeshiva student Arvaham Dov Shapira stands and bfights bravely with a knife in his hand until he is dead. The byoung genius Zvi Heller is hit again and again, as he cries out: b“I am only a boy!” The mob redoubles its efforts. The young bstudent dies on the way to Jerusalem.