Following the massacre: funeral of the murderer doctor The leadership of the radical right praised Dr.

Goldstein at his funeral:

"Hero, martyr, saint"

The funeral procession marched through driving rain yesterday from Jerusalem to Kiryat Arba. Hundreds came to identify with the murderer Ilana Baum and Zvi Singer, Yediot Ahronoth, February 28, 1994 The rumor that Baruch Goldstein's funeral was going to leave from the Sanhedria funeral home in Jerusalem rather than Kiryat Arba spread through the crowd. Despite the short notice, hundreds of people wearing skullcaps, silk robes and fur hats came to escort Goldstein on his last journey. The district military commander strongly opposed burying Goldstein in Hebron. There is already enough trouble there from the sticky proximity of Jews and Arabs. All he needs now is to establish a new friction site, let alone in a cemetery. Beit Hadassah in the middle of Hebron gives him enough trouble. Goldstein's grave is not just the grave. It is clear to the security forces: this grave will have to be secured 24 hours a day. If they abandon the grave they are concerned Arabs will snatch the body and take their revenge on it. If they abandon the body the fire might flare up again. The family and the army reached a compromise: Goldstein will be buried in Kiryat Arba temporarily, near the industrial area and a square named after Rabbi Meir Kahane at Dr. Goldstein's initiative. When the time is right the body will be moved to a permanent grave in Hebron. At noon the body was brought by private ambulance to the funeral home in Sanhedria. Most of the mourners were from Jerusalem. Only a few of them knew him personally. Most of them admired his action, praised his work, without knowing him personally. "He was a hero," "he was a saint," "he acted on behalf of all of us," seminary students, men in skullcaps, members of Kach, Chabadniks, Satmar and Belzer hassids, all whispered to each other. In events like this the individual loses his private identity. As if by a stroke of magic they belong to a collective. And yesterday that collective was united against the media, against the evil government, against anyone who dared criticize the murder. First of all, before they got started, they beat up the photographers and journalists who were present. Only then did they attend to the short walk from the Sanhedria funeral home to the Shamgar funeral home. The distance between the two funeral homes is less than one kilometer but it took an hour and a half in driving rain, under heave guard of the security forces.

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At the head of the procession like a vanguard marched the gang, ready to tear into anyone they could. "Death to the Arabs," they shouted once in a while, warming up, but there were no Arabs around. "Here is the head of the Shabak," shouted the first one, functioning as the crier. "Here is a journalist!" They run towards a television photographer who dared approach them. The photographer runs for his life. A border policeman notices an Arab walking towards the funeral procession, jumps over a fence towards him and moves him away, before anybody can figure out what happened, saving him from a certain lynch. "Let's get them, let's get them," cries the crowd and starts running towards the imaginary enemy, because there is no enemy. Behind the gang drives the ambulance with Goldstein's corpse. "He will have a funeral of martyrs. He will be buried without shrouds. Just the way he is, with the blood on him. Because a martyr does not need to be washed," explains Tiran Pollack, one of the heads of Kahane Chai. "Dr. Goldstein never treated Arabs. Even in the Lebanon war he refused to treat Hezbollah prisoners. The chief military Rabbi Gad Navon called Rabbi Kahane and asked him to convince Baruch to treat Arabs. Kahane refused. He said it was against the Torah," continues Pollack, a friend of Goldstein and a wanted man who has managed to evade the police. I was the only journalist in the procession. I tried to speak to him. "Protect me," I asked him, dying with fear. If they only knew I was a journalist I don't know if I would have been more afraid if it were Khomeini's funeral. It was clear to me that if things get out of control here I would not come out in one piece. Eulogies were made for a long time in the Shamgar funeral home. Eulogies as a cover for political sermons. Rabbi Yisrael Ariel, who was the Rabbi of Yamit, compared Goldstein to Judah Maccabee and Samson, who killed 30 Philistines. "He was a martyr. And martyrs are above saints and righteous men. Not everyone can stand with them." "Baruch Goldstein," said Rabbi Ariel, "will be our advocate in heaven." The Rabbi added: "This was not the act of an individual." According to the Rabbi, Goldstein "heard the cry of the land being stolen every day by the Ishmaelites and acted to quell that cry." In conclusion, said the Rabbi: "Our land will not be acquired by peace agreements but by blood." The last eulogizer Jerusalem was Goldstein's friend, Ben Shushan Yeshua. While counting the praises of the deceased, he raised his voice in a bitter cry: "What a disgrace that Jews pay money to Jews to spy on us. Here among us are two members of the security forces in disguise who came to spy on us. What a disgrace!" A rustle went through the crowd. Two police officers out of their positions outside of the funeral home into the hall. The crowd calmed down. At four o'clock Goldstein's body was returned to the ambulance. From there the funeral procession traveled in three buses to Kiryat Arba.
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The coffin and mourners reach Kiryat Arba under a barrage of hail and rain. In the last stretch Dr. Goldstein was followed by several hundreds of residents of the Kirya. In the Nir hesder yeshiva he was eulogized by rabbis and friends. Michael Ben Horin, who called himself "president of the State of Judea," came especially from the settlement of Nov in the Golan Heights to eulogize his friend. He compared him to Samson, who cried out before his death: "Let me die with the Philistines." "In his death, Baruch saved more Jews than in his life as a doctor," he said. And as if the comparison to Samson were not enough, Ben Horin went on to compare Dr. Goldstein to the partisans and the ghetto fighters who rebelled against the Nazis and called out: "In ten years it will be evident that Baruch Goldstein set out to save us all." Ben Horin called the dead doctor a "Nazirite, a saint, a martyr and a hero," and ended with a vow: "We promise you Baruch that your blood will boil until the evil government is averted." Rabbi Dov Lior, the Rabbi of Kiryat Arba, described Dr. Goldstein as a person full of love for his fellow man, consideration for his fellow man and help to his fellow man. But, according to the Rabbi, "he could no longer tolerate the humiliation and debasement. Everything he did was for the glory of Israel and sanctification of the Lord." Hundreds of mourners walked from the Nir yeshiva to the site of Dr. Goldstein's burial, near Kiryat Arba's small commercial center. The grave was prepared there in advance. A tractor dug the hole. Goldstein's coffin was laid in the hole and covered with mud under heavy rain and hail. An hour later there was nothing left there but a mound of mud with three stones on top and a soldier who stayed there, alone in the rain, to guard the grave.

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