At this time following attempts by the Lithuanian government to draft yeshiva students into the army , the Lithuanian Hebron Yeshiva ( Knesses Yisroel ) relocated to Hebron , after consultations between Rabbi Nosson Tzvi Finkel , Yechezkel Sarna and Moshe Mordechai Epstein . and by 1929 had attracted some 265 students from Europe and the United States . The majority of the Jewish population lived on the outskirts of Hebron along the roads to Be'ersheba and Jerusalem , renting homes owned by Arabs , a number of which were built for the express purpose of housing Jewish tenants , with a few dozen within the city around the synagogues . During the 1929 Hebron massacre , Arab rioters slaughtered some 64 to 67 Jewish men , women and children and wounded 60 , and Jewish homes and synagogues were ransacked ; 435 Jews survived by virtue of the shelter and assistance offered them by their Arab neighbours , who hid them . Some Hebron Arabs , including Ahmad Rashid al-Hirbawi , president of Hebron chamber of commerce , supported the return of Jews after the massacre . Two years later , 35 families moved back into the ruins of the Jewish quarter , but on the eve of the Palestinian Arab revolt ( April 23 , 1936 ) the British Government decided to move the Jewish community out of Hebron as a precautionary measure to secure its safety . The sole exception was the 8th generation Hebronite Ya'akov ben Shalom Ezra , who processed dairy products in the city , blended in well with its social landscape and resided there under the protection of friends . In November 1947 , in anticipation of the UN partition vote , the Ezra family closed its shop and left the city . Yossi Ezra has since tried to regain his family 's property through the Israeli courts
1929 Hebron massacre
1929 Hebron massacre
Hebron