This individual is one of the most perplexing in memory for me. He was a doctor and a Frum Jew, indeed an idealist or rare commitment, and he was a bludgeoned to death in 1994 by a group of Arabs. This… after he had mass murdered 29 people.
Until then Baruch Goldtsein’s behavior had seemed exemplary. He was a doctor who lived in Kiryat Arba near Chevron. His level of commitment to his people is the stuff of which legends are made. He came from a Modern Orthodox background having attended Yeshiva of Flatbush and Yeshiva University. He received his MD from the Abert Einstein College of Medicine. But he was also a member of the Jewish Defense League, a miltant vigilante group of the late sixties and early seventies founded by Rabbi Meir Kahane. Rabbi Kahane’s group was controversial from the start, but it had some very mainstream supporters since it was looked at as protective of a Jewsih community that needed more than it was getting from the police department.
Baruch Goldstein took his took his Religious Zionism seriously and turned it into action. He not only made Aliyah, He joined the IDF medical corps and rose to the rank of Major. After his service he settled in Kiryat Arba close to the volatile Chevron area where he thought his services as a doctor would be most beneficial.
People who knew him had only praise for him… both past in the form of teachers, parents, and mentors, and just before his death, in the form of family, friends, and patients. He was always available and constantly giving of his time. The love of his people was palpable. But his love of the Jewish people was distorted. Clearly ignoring Halacha, he was once quoted as saying, "I am not willing to treat any non-Jew. I recognize as legitimate only two religious authorities: Maimonides and Kahane".
On Purim day February 25, 1994, Goldstein entered Maaras Ha machpelah (the Tomb of the Patriarchs). He wore his army uniform with the insignia of rank, creating the image of a reserve officer on active duty. He then opened fire, killing 29 people and wounding 150. He kept shooting people until he was subdued by some of the Arabs and was then beaten to death.
In that one moment, in my view, he “fried” his Olam Habah. In that one moment, he went from hero to villain. No matter what his motive was. And that is key. There are stories about how he had heard during Megilla reading that there was some sort of Arab Pogrom about to take place and he was goig to pre-empt it. But it doesn’t matter. There is no other way to look at him except as a mass murderer. The Arabs he killed were in no way doing anything but praying at Machpela. He was a mass murderer, unless he was completely insane and had a psychotic break with reality, a mental condition there was and is no evidence of.
But the story unfortunately does not end there. Baruch Goldstein is buried at the Meir Kahane Memorial Park in Kiryat Arba. The inscription on his gravestone reads:
“Here lies the saint, Dr. Baruch Kappel Goldstein, blessed be the memory of the righteous and holy man, may the Lord avenge his blood, who devoted his soul to the Jews, Jewish religion and Jewish land. His hands are innocent and his heart is pure. He was killed as a martyr of God on the 14th of Adar, Purim, in the year 5754 (1994).”
His gravesite had become a shrine. The Religious Council of Kiryat Arba declared the gravesite a memorial. Sidewalks, spotlights, streetlights, a cupboard with prayer books and pedestals with candles were installed by supporters. So here we had the disgusting phenomenon of a sizable segment of Jewry treating a mass murderer as a hero
In 2000, with the support of the Israeli courts, the Israeli governement who to its credit consdered Baruch Goldstein a terrorist, dismantled the shrine.
But altough the shrine has been dismantled, it still attracts yearly pilgrimages by people who think him a hero. And there are a great many more who don’t visit his gravesite but consider what he did heroic. And that is shocking. I have expressed this sentiment before and I will do it again. Any individual who thinks Baruch Goldstein is a hero ought to re-examine his Yiddishkeit. And any rabbinic leader that offers even the slightest excuse for him are in effect aggrandizing a mass murderer. I cannot imagine a Chilul HaShem too much greater than that.
Let there be no mistake about it. Baruch Goldstein was a Rasha Gamur. Or he was so completely insane with such a break from reality that he was not responsible for his actions. No one can massacre indiscriminately and be considered anything but a Rasha. The people he killed were not attacking us and were not about to. It doesn’t matter that they wished us ill, or that they would if they could. They didn’t. They couldn’t. He just went up there and killed people.
Yet I have found over the years that many people consider him a hero. AsI said there even those who still make pilgrimages to his gravesite!
And that is the purpose of this post. I want to make clear in no uncertain terms that Baruch Goldstein was a Rasha Gamur (either that or completely insane). He should not be worshipped. His gravesite should not be visited. And he should not be spoken of in positive terms in any way shape of form. Furthermore, there should be no apologetics. There cannot be any excuses for what he did. Nothing like, “Well, he was wrong but you have to understand…”. There is no way any act like this can be justified at any level.
But I fear that there are still those who stand by him. To those people I say, stop. You are participating in one of the greatest Chilul Hashems imaginable.
