How Israelis repaid a brave Hebron family that saved Jews from massacre

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Published: 26 February 2018

Last updated: 4 March 2024

“DO YOU KNOW I have an Israeli ID?” the Jeweller inside Damascus Gate asks while he folds up his prayer rug and begins brewing sage tea.

“No. How’d you manage that?” I ask.

“My father is from Hebron and his father is from Hebron and his father is from Hebron,” he continues and rubs his eyes. “Do you know what happened in Hebron in 1929?”

“Yes, there was a massacre, and many Jews were murdered,” I reply.

“It was a genocide,” he corrects me. I would call it a pogrom – a hideous massacre that left nearly 70 people murdered.

“My grandfather, and his father saved 24 families during the genocide,” the jeweller tells me. “And afterwards, the Israelis offered us land – and we said ‘no, we have land, we have our olive trees,’ and then they offered us money and we said ‘no, we have money, and it is enough,’ so they gave us ID cards and travel documents to thank us, instead.”

FULL STORY Why the Palestinian jeweller from Hebron has an Israeli ID card (Times of Israel)