Qualla: Cave of the Patriarchs Massacre

Cave of the Patriarchs Massacre: Introduction

Fri, 27 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Gideon Markowiz, CC BY 4.0. It was 5:00 a.m. on February 25, 1994 -- the overlap of two holy calendars, the Jewish festival of Purim and the Muslim month of Ramadan. Approximately 800 Palestinian Muslims had passed through the east gate of the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron to perform Fajr, the first prayer of the day. The cave was under Israeli military guard, but of the nine soldiers assigned to duty that morning, four were late and only one officer was present. Baruch Goldstein, an American-born physician living in the nearby settlement of Kiryat Arba, dressed in his Israeli army reserve uniform and carrying an assault rifle, walked through the Hall of Abraham and into the Hall of Isaac, where the worshippers knelt facing Mecca. He opened fire. By the time someone hurled a fire extinguisher that struck him in the head, allowing the crowd to overpower and kill him, twenty-nine people were dead and one hundred twenty-five were wounded. Among the dead were six children aged fourteen and younger.

Image: Gideon Markowiz | CC BY 4.0

Cave of the Patriarchs Massacre: A Man with Warnings Attached

Fri, 27 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Eman, Public domain. Goldstein was not an unknown quantity. Born and raised in Brooklyn, he had been a charter member of the Jewish Defense League before emigrating to Israel in 1983. He settled in Kiryat Arba, a settlement adjacent to Hebron, where he worked as an emergency physician and became deep...

Image: Eman | Public domain

Cave of the Patriarchs Massacre: The Morning of Purim

Fri, 27 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit NordNordWest, CC BY-SA 3.0. On the eve of the massacre, Goldstein attended a reading of the Scroll of Esther in the Hall of Abraham and spoke to others about the need to act like the biblical Esther. In the tradition of Jewish extremism, the Purim holiday carries associations with the ancient enemy Amalek, ...

Image: NordNordWest | CC BY-SA 3.0

Cave of the Patriarchs Massacre: Condemnation and Its Exceptions

Fri, 27 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit The original uploader was Effib at Hebrew Wikipedia., CC BY-SA 3.0. The Israeli response was swift and largely unambiguous. Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin stood before the Knesset and called Goldstein 'a degenerate murderer,' 'a shame on Zionism and an embarrassment to Judaism.' He addressed not just Goldstein but the settler movement that had prod...

Image: The original uploader was Effib at Hebrew Wikipedia. | CC BY-SA 3.0

Cave of the Patriarchs Massacre: Shattering the Peace

Fri, 27 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mustafa Bader, CC BY-SA 3.0. The massacre struck the Oslo peace process like a hammer. Protests erupted throughout the West Bank, and in the ensuing clashes between Palestinian demonstrators and Israeli forces, twenty to twenty-six more Palestinians were killed and one hundred twenty wounded. In the weeks th...

Image: Mustafa Bader | CC BY-SA 3.0