Baruch Goldstein

Who was Baruch Goldstein?

Baruch Kopel Goldstein was an American-born Israeli physician and religious extremist. He is well known for being the mass murderer who perpetrated the 1994 Cave of the Patriarchs massacre in the city of Hebron, killing 29 Palestinian Muslim worshipers and wounding another 125.

The Israeli government condemned the massacre and responded by arresting followers of Meir Kahane, forbidding certain settlers from entering Arab towns and demanding that those settlers turn in their army-issued rifles. Goldstein was denounced by mainstream Orthodox Judaism and was widely described as insane by Israelis.

Goldstein's gravesite became a pilgrimage site for Jewish extremists. In 1999, after the passing of Israeli legislation outlawing monuments to terrorists, the Israeli Army dismantled the shrine that had been built to Goldstein at the site of his interment.