Yitzhak Ben-Hebron escaped Arab riots as a child and later returned to rebuild the Jewish community in the city.
( May 22, 2026 / JNS ) Yitzhak Ben-Hebron, believed to be the last surviving eyewitness to the 1929 Hebron Massacre, died on Thursday at the age of 100.
Born Yitzhak Halali in Hebron on Dec. 1, 1925, he later adopted the name Ben-Hebron in honor of the city in which his family had lived for generations and whose Jewish community he helped rebuild after Israel regained control of it in 1967.
He was just 4 when Arab rioters murdered 67 Jews and wounded dozens more during attacks that devastated the city’s centuries-old Jewish community and led to its expulsion.
Speaking at a family gathering at his son’s home in Kiryat Arba in 2019, Ben-Hebron recalled how his mother had pushed a heavy sewing machine against the front door of their home near the Avraham Avinu Synagogue to keep the attackers out.