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Jerold S. Auerbach

Jerold S. Auerbach is the author of 12 books, including Print to Fit: The New York Times, Zionism and Israel (1896-2016) and Israel 1896-2016, selected for Mosaic by Ruth Wisse and Martin Kramer as a “Best Book for 2019.”

It was in Hebron where David became king of Israel, ruling for seven years before relocating his throne in Jerusalem.
I had begun to imagine that I might write a history of the Jewish community there, by now home to 700 passionate Zionists.
For author Tamara Neuman, the return of Jews to Hebron demonstrates how “the aggrandizement of maternal roles” was used to claim rights in “Palestinian areas that have little remaining material evidence of a Jewish past.”
Why was it, wondered author Walid Shoebat of Bethlehem, “that on June 4, 1967, I was a Jordanian and overnight I became a Palestinian.”
I found an empty chair next to someone who was seated alone. We exchanged a few words before lapsing into the silence that we both clearly preferred.
No one calls the Temple Mount the “Mosque” Mount.
Readers are told that “much of the world” considers Old City Jerusalem to be “occupied,” but no supporting evidence is provided, largely because there is none.
When it comes to conflict and terror, the Palestinians are somehow never the villains.
In 1979—one week after Passover and 50 years after murderous Arab rioters destroyed the millennia-old Hebron Jewish community—a momentous decision was made.