AnalysisLetter to the editor October 13

Letter to the editor October 13

By Rocky Wice October 15, 2017, 12:02 pm 0 Edit

Negative portrayal
Ivan Frank’s Oct. 6 Chronicle column “A political journey” presents a very negative picture of the Jewish presence in Hebron. Hebron, a city with 215,452 Arab residents (as of 2016) seems to be a ghost town as Frank describes it. But Hebron is one of the largest Arab cities in the West Bank and the home of two universities — Hebron University and Palestine Polytechnic. There is also a small Jewish population there. One of Judaism’s most sacred sites, the Cave of the Patriarchs, is in Hebron. So even without the Jewish residents, the IDF would be needed to protect the site and allow Jewish access.

We all know how well Jews had access to the Kotel from 1948 to 1967. But readers of the column were not informed about the 1929 Hebron Massacre, where more than 60 Jews were murdered by marauding Arabs, homes were ransacked, and synagogues were burned. From 1936 to 1939, the British did not allow Jews to live in Hebron due to the Arab rebellion. One massacre does not justify another, but to leave it out of the narrative makes this a political agenda not a journey.

Rocky Wice
Squirrel Hill