Questions about Baruch Goldstein’s Path to the Hebron Massacre

article

Paul H. Elovitz

Abstract

This article poses a series of open questions about Baruch Goldstein, the Brooklyn-born physician and Hebron settler who on February 25, 1994, killed twenty-nine worshipers at the Cave of the Patriarchs Mosque and was himself killed by survivors. The author asks about his personal and ideological motives, and whether he intended suicide, sought martyrdom, meant to disrupt the Israeli-PLO peace talks, or hoped to provoke a cycle of revenge. Further questions concern his move to Hebron, the possible influence of black-white tensions in Brooklyn (as suggested by the New York Times), his abandoned ambition of fame through medical science, and whether a reaction formation broke down. The author notes that the event was discussed in a course, “War, Peace, and Conflict Resolution,” and that a student would present research at the International Psychohistorical Association convention in New York City on June 9, 1994. The author hopes psychohistorians will supply answers.

Keywords:

Baruch Goldstein, Cave of the Patriarchs Mosque, Hebron massacre, Jewish settler, psychohistory, violence, worshipers, wounded

On February 25, 1994, a Jewish settler from Hebron walked into the Cave of the Patriarchs Mosque and killed twenty-nine worshipers and wounded ninety others before being hit by a fire extinguisher, knocked down and killed by the unarmed surviving worshipers.

Why did Dr. Baruch Goldstein commit this crime? What were his personal and ideological reasons? Why did this doctor, sworn to preserve and restore life, destroy it? Did he intend to commit suicide in the process?

Was his primary intention to destroy the Israeli-PLO peace talks? Did he intend to assure a cycle of revenge between Jew and Arab? Could this act have some of its roots in troubled black-white relations in Brooklyn, New York, as suggested by the New York Times? Had he given up his childhood ambition of winning fame through medical science (he dreamed of a Nobel Prize) in favor of winning fame/notoriety as a martyr for the West Bank settlers in its place? I constantly have to remind myself that one man’s martyr is another man’s terrorist.

Why did Goldstein move to Hebron of all places? How could he have moved his family to an area where five-year-old Arab children would try to spit on them as a matter of course? Was the Brooklyn native seeking to join in death the relatives he never met who were killed in the Hebron massacres of 1929? Did he consciously seek martyrdom? How do we reconcile the thirteen-year-old Benjamin Goldstein’s assertion that Jews do not believe in war with the violent actions of the man in his thirties? If it was part of a reaction formation that broke down, why?

My class, “War, Peace, and Conflict Resolution”, discussed these issues immediately after the gruesome event and one of my students decided to research the issue and give a paper on it at the June 9, 1994, student panel of the International Psychohistorical Association Convention in New York City. As a Jew and a psychohistorian I hope my student and various psychohistorians will provide answers to these questions.

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About the author

Paul H. Elovitz

Dr. Paul H. Elovitz, PhD, began organizing scholarly meetings when he started as a faculty member at Ramapo College and then as convener of the Institute for Psychohistory Saturday Workshops (1975-1982). In 1982, he founded the Psychohistory Forum to nurture psychohistorical research and continues to lead its Executive Council. In 1994, he created Clio’s Psyche (cliospsyche.org) to publish its scholarship, of which he is Editor-in-Chief. Prof. Elovitz is a historian, psychoanalytic researcher, and author of well over 400 publications, covering presidential psychobiography, teaching, documenting the field of psychohistory, and much more. After taking his doctoral degree in history, he trained and practiced as a psychoanalyst for three decades, and in 2019 was made the first Research Psychoanalyst by the New Jersey Institute for Psychoanalysis. Elovitz is the author of The Making of Psychohistory, editor of The Many Roads of the Builders of Psychohistory, and edited or wrote eight other books. He is a founding member and past president of the International Psychohistorical Association (1978-) who held all but one of its offices and continues to serve on its leadership council. He is the sole founder of the IPhA who has attended and presented at all of its annual meetings. In recent years, he has devoted himself to editing, publishing, and writing psychobiography. Prof. Elovitz was a founding faculty member at Ramapo College who previously taught at Temple, Rutgers, and Fairleigh Dickinson universities. Aside from teaching Western and World Civilizations, his focus on teaching was on American, English, and European history; childhood; gender; genocide; the Holocaust; identity; leadership; psychobiography; psychohistory; the psychology of creativity and innovation; and war and peace. Presently, he teaches post-graduate courses on creativity, psychoanalysis, psychobiography, and other aspects of psychohistory online at psychoanalytic institutes. A Festschrift honoring him is scheduled for publication in Clio’s Psyche in 2024. He may be contacted at .

How to cite this article

Elovitz, P. H. (1994). Questions about Baruch Goldstein’s path to the Hebron massacre. Clio’s Psyche, 1(1), 2.

https://doi.org/10.70763/d9fea4ca7e4a74c318ec27c1deb0796c

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