"Rescuers of 1929"

On January 10th the Pluralistic Spiritual Community Center hosted an evening to launch the new book, "Rescuers of 1929: Stories of Rescued Jews and Palestinians in Hebron and Jerusalem"(מצילי 1929 – סיפורי הצלה של יהודים ופלסטינים בחברון). The anthology, compiled by NSWAS member, Prof. Yair Auron tells stories of heroic acts of 1929, where individuals risked their lives to rescue the other. These types of stories, in all conflicts, are rarely remembered or documented.

The evening was attended by over 40 members of the community and surrounding area and was addressed by Mr. Ashraf Eid al-Ajrami, from the Palestinian Authority and former Minister for Prisoner Affairs; Professor Hillel Cohen, member of the Faculty of Islam and Middle East Studies at Hebrew University and head of the Cherrick Center for the Study of Zionism and the State of Israel; and Prof. Auron an expert in the fields of genocide, genocide education, contemporary Judaism and Israeli-Palestinian relations. .

The evening opened with the testimonies of Rachel Admoni, who was saved during the 1929 riots, followed by the stories of families of survivors and residents of NSWAS, Yuval Admoni, Boaz Kitain, and researcher Shai Wineapple.

Prof. Auron has established the Garden of the Rescuers at Neve Shalom-Wahat al Salam to memorialize rescuers from around the world. He sees the act of saving the lives of others from members of the rescuers’ own ethnic or national group, while risking their own lives and lives of their family, as "possibly the noblest, most exalted human deed.” He hopes to have the book translated into Arabic and English.