Last Wednesday, Israel held a day-long state ceremony at the Tomb of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs in Hebron. They gathered to commemorate the 90th anniversary of the Hebron massacre—an early act of terrorism in 1929 that left sixty-nine Jews dead and dozens more seriously wounded. Hebron’s Jewish library, hospital, synagogue, and long-standing yeshiva were all either burned or trampled.
According to the Jewish community leadership in Hebron, the ceremony was the first time in Israel’s history that the prime minister, president and speaker of the Knesset were in the ancient city on the same day.