1929 Safed pogrom

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Coordinates: 31°46′59″N 35°12′58″E / 31.783°N 35.216°E / 31.783; 35.216

Safed pogrom
Sign directing to the section in Safed's cemetery where the Jews killed in 1929 are buried
Location	Safed
Date	29 August 1929
Deaths	18
Injured	80

The 1929 Safed pogrom took place on 29 August during the 1929 Palestine riots. Eighteen Jews were killed (some sources say twenty) and eighty wounded.^[1] The main Jewish street was looted and burned.^[2][3] The members of the Commission of Inquiry visited the town on 1 November 1929.^[4]

History

The first Jews arrived in Safed around 1000 B.C.E, and since then Safed has had a Jewish population.^[5] The Crusaders arrived in Safed in the 11th century, and stayed until the 13th century. During the Crusader era, an Arab community began to grow in Safed and the Arab Quarter was established.^[6] Both the Arab and Jewish communities in Safed grew, and they lived together relatively peacefully, despite some periods of unrest. Arab unrest grew, as many Arabs began to be aggravated by the immigration of Jews to Palestine. Following the 1929 Jewish demonstration in Jerusalem, tensions rose. The Mufti of Jerusalem, told his followers that Jews were preparing to take over the Al Aqsa Mosque. This, among the other rising tensions across Palestine, caused the 1929 Palestine riots, which the 1929 Safed pogrom was a part of.^[7]

Personal account

David Hacohen was a resident of Safed and witnessed the aftermath of the Safed pogrom. He documented his observations in his diary.

"We set out on Saturday morning. . . I could not believe my eyes. . . I met some of the town's Jewish elders, who fell on my neck weeping bitterly. We went down alleys and steps to the old town. Inside the houses I saw the mutilated and burned bodies of the victims of the massacre, and the burned body of a woman tied to the grille of a window. Going from house to house, I counted ten bodies that had not yet been collected. I saw the destruction and the signs of fire. Even in my grimmest thoughts I had not imagined that this was how I would find Safed where "calm prevailed."

The local Jews gave me a detailed description of how the tragedy had started. The pogrom began on the afternoon of Thursday, August 29, and was carried out by Arabs from Safed and from the nearby villages, armed with weapons and tins of kerosene. Advancing on the street of the Sefardi Jews from Kfar Meron and Ein Zeitim, they looted and set fire to houses, urging each other on to continue with the killing. They slaughtered the schoolteacher, Aphriat, together with his wife and mother, and cut the lawyer, Toledano, to pieces with their knives. Bursting into the orphanages, they smashed the children's heads and cut off their hands. I myself saw the victims. Yitshak Mammon, a native of Safed who lived with an Arab family, was murdered with indescribable brutality: he was stabbed again and again, until his body became a bloody sieve, and then he was trampled to death. Throughout the whole pogrom the police did not fire a single shot."^[8]

See also

• 1929 Palestine riots
• List of massacres in Israel
• Timeline of Zionism
• Timeline of Jewish History
• Riots in Palestine of May, 1921

References

1. ^ Kaplan, Neil (1983) Early Arab-Zionist Negotiation Attempts, 1913-1931. London: Routledge, ISBN 0-7146-3214-7, p. 82.
2. ^ 'Arab Attack At Safed', The Times, Saturday, August 31, 1929; pg. 10; Issue 45296; col D.
3. ^ 'The Safed Disorders', The Times, Monday, September 2, 1929; pg. 12; Issue 45297; col D.
4. ^ 'Palestine Inquiry Commissioners To Visit Safed', The Times, Saturday, November 2, 1929; pg. 11; Issue 45350; col E.
5. ^ http://rslissak.com/content/safeds-jewish-population-first-temple-modern-times-drrslissak.
6. ^ http://www.zissil.com/topics/Safed-History.
7. ^ http://www.zissil.com/topics/Tarpat-1929-Arab-Riots-in-Safed.
8. ^ David Hacohen (1 Jun 1985). "Time to Tell: An Israeli Life, 1898-1984". Associated University Presses. pp. 37,38. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=LDxPY1QvJWcC&pg=PA37&lpg=PA37&dq=david+hacohen+safed+pogrom&source=bl&ots=XivAJ_Mbex&sig=EOE2ksvobw6V-h1sYfHwbhFypMM&hl=en&sa=X&ei=GvyLT73fN-mv0QWEi93UCQ&ved=0CCcQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q&f=false. Retrieved April 16, 2012. 

External links

• Minutes of the Seventeenth (Extraordinary)Session of the Permanent Mandates Commission
• Report of the Commission appointed by His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, with the approval of the Council of the League of Nations, to determine the rights and claims of Moslems and Jews in connection with the Western or Wailing Wall at Jerusalem

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