Baruch Goldstein

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American-born Israeli settler, physician and Kach activist who killed 29 Palestinian worshippers in Hebron in 1994

Baruch Goldstein

Born 1956 or 1957 Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, New York
Died 25 February 1994 Cave of the Patriarchs, Hebron, occupied West Bank
Residence Kiryat Arba, occupied West Bank
Occupation Physician
Known for The Cave of the Patriarchs massacre of 25 February 1994
Spouse(s) Miriam Goldstein
Children Four
Education Yeshiva of Flatbush; Yeshiva University; Albert Einstein College of Medicine (MD, 1981)

Baruch Goldstein (born Benjamin Carl Goldstein; 1956 or 1957 – 25 February 1994) was an American-born Israeli physician, settler and activist in Meir Kahane's Kach movement. On 25 February 1994 he shot dead 29 Palestinian Muslims at prayer in the Cave of the Patriarchs in occupied Hebron and wounded 125, before survivors beat him to death.[1][2] The historian Sara Yael Hirschhorn calls it "the most dramatic and deadly terrorist act committed by a Jewish-American settler to date".[3]

An Israeli state commission of inquiry chaired by Supreme Court President Meir Shamgar found that Goldstein bore "direct responsibility", that the attack was premeditated and that he acted alone.[4] Within three weeks the Israeli government outlawed Kach and Kahane Chai as terrorist organisations.[5] His grave in Kiryat Arba became a pilgrimage site for admirers. The army dismantled the shrine built around it in December 1999 after the High Court of Justice upheld its removal.[6][7]

Early life and education

Goldstein was born Benjamin Carl Goldstein and grew up in the Bensonhurst district of Brooklyn.[2] The historian Shaul Magid writes that he "was born and raised in the Modern Orthodox community of Brooklyn".[8] Accounts of his birth year differ. Hirschhorn gives 1957 and says he emigrated "at the age of twenty-six in 1983". She writes that his Orthodox family traced its lineage to victims of the 1929 massacre of Jews in Hebron.[3] The historian Motti Inbari writes that he "was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1956".[9] The day after the massacre the Los Angeles Times called him "the 38-year-old father of four".[10] He attended the Yeshiva of Flatbush and graduated summa cum laude from Yeshiva University. He then took his medical degree at the university's Albert Einstein College of Medicine in 1981 and completed a residency at Brookdale Hospital in Brooklyn.[3][11] A fellow student at Einstein told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) that by 1979 Goldstein quoted "Rabbi Kahane as his spiritual mentor".[11]

During his studies he became active in Kahane's Jewish Defense League (JDL) in Brooklyn.[3][12] Hirschhorn, citing The New York Times, writes that Goldstein first came to police attention in 1980, when he was given a summons for disturbing a rally for Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin at Hunter College.[13] In a piece in The New York Times, he called for the transfer of the Arab population of the occupied territories. He warned that Israelis "will soon have to choose between a Jewish state and democratic one". Hirschhorn dates the piece to 1982 in her text, but her note cites a letter of 30 June 1981.[3] Tablet identifies his first known publication as an article in the Jewish Press of 22 January 1982, "'Democracy' and Halacha".[14]

Kiryat Arba and Kach

Hirschhorn says Goldstein emigrated to Israel in 1983, aged 26; Tablet says he moved by the end of 1982.[3][14] Inbari, citing the journalist Haggai Segal, writes that Goldstein was among the Kach supporters who barricaded themselves in a shelter in the Sinai settlement of Yamit in 1982, threatening suicide during the evacuation, until an anti-terror unit stormed it.[15] After active service as a doctor in the Israel Defense Forces he settled in Kiryat Arba, the settlement next to Hebron in the occupied West Bank, as its general practitioner and emergency physician. He was Kahane's campaign manager in the successful 1984 Knesset campaign, and Kahane officiated at his wedding to Miriam on the steps of the Temple Mount that year.[3] The couple had four children.[2]

In the late 1980s he served as Kach's representative on the Kiryat Arba local council. He often appeared in public with a yellow star pinned to his chest to protest at what he saw as the government's neglect of settlers.[3][16] Kach had pushed a resolution through the council in 1986 barring the hiring of Arab workers, which the attorney general declared "null and void".[17] The Los Angeles Times reported that two years before the massacre, when presenting a Torah scroll to the synagogue at the Cave of the Patriarchs, he told friends: "The day will come when a Jew will kill dozens of Arabs in the Cave of the Patriarchs to get rid of them."[10]

Treatment of Arab patients

Accounts differ. Hirschhorn writes that supporters and opponents described him as a talented and dedicated doctor who treated Jewish and Palestinian patients. In a note she adds that he "on occasion" refused to treat Palestinians and admitted as much in an interview: "I declined in some cases but I don't want to get into it."[18] Israel Shahak and Norton Mezvinsky, citing Yedioth Ahronoth and Davar reports from March 1994, write that as an army doctor he repeatedly refused to treat non-Jews, including Druze soldiers, and was moved between units rather than disciplined. They also say a Maariv report stated he was due a ceremonial promotion from captain to major in April 1994.[19]

The massacre

On the evening of 24 February 1994, the Jewish festival of Purim, Goldstein attended the reading of the Book of Esther at the Cave of the Patriarchs.[1] Hirschhorn reports claims by his defenders of a planned Palestinian attack and of chants of "death to the Jews". She says she found no evidence for them and considers them "conspiracy theories".[1]

Before dawn on 25 February he went to the site in his army captain's uniform, carrying his army-issue Galil rifle. The Shamgar Commission found that he arrived at about 05:20 and opened fire at about 05:30.[1][20] The commission found that he exploited "the prestige and trust he had acquired while serving as a doctor and reserve officer". It said his "appearance at the Tomb, in uniform, bearing the insignia of his rank, created an impression designed to remove all obstacles from his path".[4] He fired more than 100 rounds into the backs of worshippers kneeling in prayer in the Isaac Hall, killing 29 and wounding 125. Survivors beat him to death with a fire extinguisher.[1][14] At least ten more Palestinians were killed in the clashes that followed in the West Bank.[21]

Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin told the Knesset: "You are a foreign implant. You are an errant weed. Sensible Judaism spits you out." President Ezer Weizman called the massacre "the worst thing that has happened to us in the history of Zionism". Foreign Minister Shimon Peres called Kiryat Arba "a breeding ground for murder".[21] The Shin Bet raided Kahane sympathisers across the West Bank.[21]

Shamgar Commission

On 27 February 1994 the cabinet set up a state commission of inquiry. Its members were Meir Shamgar, Justice Eliezer Goldberg, Judge Abed el-Rahman Zouabi, Professor Menachem Ya'ari and Lieutenant General (res.) Moshe Levy. It began hearings on 8 March, held 31 sessions, heard 106 witnesses and received 1,140 exhibits.[22] Its report, signed on 26 June 1994, found Goldstein solely responsible. The commission found that his wife had not known of his plan. It also found security at the site lax, but held no government official or senior officer negligent.[4][23] Soldiers told the commission they had understood their open-fire orders to bar them from shooting at settlers. The commission recommended complete separation of Jewish and Muslim worshippers at the site and a larger police role in the occupied territories.[24][23] The JTA reported that, as a result of its findings, settlers' weapons permits would be reviewed annually.[23] Its epilogue called the massacre "a base and murderous act, in which innocent people bending in prayer to their maker were killed" and "one of the harshest expressions of the Jewish-Arab conflict".[25]

On 13 March 1994 the cabinet declared Kach and Kahane Chai terrorist organisations; see Kach.[5]

Funeral and grave

Citing Haaretz, Shahak and Mezvinsky describe negotiations involving President Weizman, Chief of Staff Ehud Barak, General Danny Yatom, Kach leaders and Kiryat Arba settlers. These ended in a funeral procession through Jerusalem and burial in Kiryat Arba.[26] The army had refused burial in the Jewish cemetery in Hebron.[7] Shahak and Mezvinsky quote the Kiryat Arba rabbi Dov Lior as saying that "since Goldstein did what he did in God's own name, he is to be regarded as a righteous man". In a funeral eulogy, Rabbi Israel Ariel called Goldstein "the holy martyr".[26] The tomb, in a park on the edge of Kiryat Arba, became a pilgrimage site.[26][6]

After a law sponsored by the Knesset member Ran Cohen barred memorials to perpetrators of terrorist acts, Central Command ordered the removal of the structures around the grave. In November 1999 the High Court of Justice rejected an appeal against the order by Goldstein's parents. Globes quoted the court: "The opulence and elegance of the site insinuates praise of the terrible deed Baruch Goldstein did."[7] Troops dismantled the shrine on 29 December 1999. The gravestone, calling him "the saintly doctor... who gave up his soul for his people, his Torah, his land", was left in place.[6] The Israel Supreme Court, quoting the inscription in HCJ 6195/98 (Justice Cheshin, 7 September 1999), recorded that it also claimed he was "seventh generation to the Alter Rebbe, 'author of the Tanya', R. Shneur Zalman of Liadi". This is a claimed descent and is not in itself proof of Chabad affiliation.[27]

Veneration

Magid writes that "a small but vocal group of Jewish extremists influenced by Kahane viewed him as a hero and his massacre as a sanctification of God's name", and that his grave lies next to Kahane Park.[28] In 1995 admirers published Baruch HaGever ("Baruch the man"), edited by Mikhael Ben-Horin; Hirschhorn calls it a "hagiography".[18] Its central essay is by the Chabad rabbi Yitzchak Ginsburgh, who presents the massacre in mystical terms as an act of sanctifying God's name and calls vengeance "a kind of natural law". Tablet notes that the essay ends by acknowledging the view that the shooting was an inexcusable murder of innocents.[14] Hirschhorn records settlers in Hebron and Kiryat Arba praising the massacre, among them Baruch Ben-Yaakov and the former Kahanist David Axelrod (Ha'Ivri).[29] Tablet reported in 2019 that Itamar Ben-Gvir, then running for the Knesset with Otzma Yehudit, had Goldstein's portrait on his living-room wall.[14]

Chabad

Israel Shahak and Norton Mezvinsky write: "Among the religious settlers in the Occupied Territories the Chabad Hassids constitute one of the most extreme groups. Baruch Goldstein, the mass murderer of Palestinians, was one of them."[30] In their account of his funeral they state, in a parenthesis of their own and not as a quotation from Yedioth Ahronoth, that "Goldstein, a follower of Kahane, was also a follower of the Lubovitcher rabbi", and that this was "Not mentioned in the English-language press".[31] Citing a Yedioth Ahronoth report by Ilana Baum and Tzvi Singer of 28 February 1994, they write that at the Jerusalem stage of the funeral "a large group represented the Chabad Hassidic movement".[31] Contemporary profiles in the Jewish Telegraphic Agency and The Independent describe a modern Orthodox upbringing in Bensonhurst, and education at the Yeshiva of Flatbush and at Yeshiva University.[11][2] The inscription on his tomb claims a descent from Shneur Zalman of Liadi, the Alter Rebbe and author of the Tanya; this is a claimed descent and is not in itself proof of Chabad affiliation.[27] The links between Kahanism and Chabad in Kiryat Arba and Hebron, including Chabad of Kiryat Arba and Chabad of Hebron, are covered at Chabad and Kahanism.

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 Sara Yael Hirschhorn, City on a Hilltop: American Jews and the Israeli Settler Movement, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2017, p. 196.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Peter Pringle, Hebron Massacre: Brooklyn doctor with a prescription for hatred The Independent, 27 February 1994, accessed 10 November 2026.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 3.7 Sara Yael Hirschhorn, City on a Hilltop, 2017, pp. 194–195.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, Documents submitted in compliance with a special decision of the Committee: Israel (CERD/C/282) United Nations, 3 May 1995 (submitted 8 August 1994), excerpts from the report of the Commission of Inquiry into the massacre at the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron, chapter 8, paras 9–10, pp. 6–7, accessed 10 November 2026.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Gad Yaacobi, Permanent Representative of Israel to the United Nations, Letter dated 14 March 1994 transmitting the Israeli Government decision on Kach and Kahane Chai United Nations Information System on the Question of Palestine, 14 March 1994, accessed 10 November 2026.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 Israeli army breaks up shrine to killer of 29 Palestinians The Irish Times, 30 December 1999, accessed 10 November 2026.
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 HCJ Orders Baruch Goldstein Memorial Destroyed at Kiryat Arba Globes, 15 November 1999, accessed 10 November 2026.
  8. ↑ Shaul Magid, Meir Kahane: The Public Life and Political Thought of an American Jewish Radical, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2021, ISBN 978-0-691-17933-9, p. 157.
  9. ↑ Motti Inbari, Messianic Religious Zionism Confronts Israeli Territorial Compromises, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012, p. 134.
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 John J. Goldman and Michael Parks, Healer and Militant, Killer Chose Violence Los Angeles Times, 26 February 1994, accessed 10 November 2026.
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Behind the Headlines: Murderer of Dozens in Hebron Described As Caring Person, but Devoted to Kahane JTA Daily Bulletin, 2 March 1994, accessed 10 November 2026.
  12. ↑ Colin Shindler, The Rise of the Israeli Right: From Odessa to Hebron, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015, pp. 335–336.
  13. ↑ Sara Yael Hirschhorn, City on a Hilltop, 2017, p. 194 n. 47, citing Alison Mitchell, "A Killer's Path of Militancy", The New York Times, 26 February 1994.
  14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 14.2 14.3 14.4 Liel Leibovitz, The Mystery of Baruch Goldstein Tablet, 22 March 2019, accessed 10 November 2026.
  15. ↑ Motti Inbari, Messianic Religious Zionism Confronts Israeli Territorial Compromises, 2012, p. 48.
  16. ↑ Israel Democracy Institute, Kach Party Israel Democracy Institute, accessed 10 November 2026.
  17. ↑ Robert I. Friedman, The False Prophet: Rabbi Meir Kahane, From FBI Informant to Knesset Member, Brooklyn: Lawrence Hill Books, 1990, ISBN 1-55652-078-6, p. 259.
  18. ↑ 18.0 18.1 Sara Yael Hirschhorn, City on a Hilltop, 2017, p. 195 n. 50, citing Mikhael Ben-Horin (ed.), Baruch Ha-Gever, Jerusalem: Golan, 1995, p. 340.
  19. ↑ Israel Shahak and Norton Mezvinsky, Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel, new edn, London: Pluto Press, 2004, pp. 96–100.
  20. ↑ Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, CERD/C/282, 1995, Shamgar Commission excerpts, p. 12.
  21. ↑ 21.0 21.1 21.2 Sara Yael Hirschhorn, City on a Hilltop, 2017, pp. 197–198.
  22. ↑ Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, CERD/C/282, 1995, pp. 3, 6.
  23. ↑ 23.0 23.1 23.2 Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Hebron Massacre Inquiry Exonerates Government, IDF; Blames Goldstein Only JTA Daily Bulletin, 27 June 1994, accessed 10 November 2026.
  24. ↑ Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, CERD/C/282, 1995, pp. 28–29.
  25. ↑ Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, CERD/C/282, 1995, pp. 32–33.
  26. ↑ 26.0 26.1 26.2 Israel Shahak and Norton Mezvinsky, Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel, 2004, pp. 101–102.
  27. ↑ 27.0 27.1 Israel Supreme Court, HCJ 6195/98 Israel Goldstein and Miriam Goldstein v. GOC Central Command and others (Justice M. Cheshin), 7 September 1999, accessed 11 November 2026.
  28. ↑ Shaul Magid, Meir Kahane, 2021, p. 150.
  29. ↑ Sara Yael Hirschhorn, City on a Hilltop, 2017, pp. 200–201.
  30. ↑ Israel Shahak and Norton Mezvinsky, Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel, 2004, p. 61.
  31. ↑ 31.0 31.1 Israel Shahak and Norton Mezvinsky, Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel, 2004, p. 102.
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