96 Years Later: The Dramatic Return to a Historic Hebron Home

A significant and highly symbolic event unfolded this week in the Old City of Hebron, as a group of Israeli yeshiva students and their families entered and occupied a historic Jewish-owned house for the first time in nearly a century. The move marks a dramatic return to a property that had been out of Jewish hands since the infamous 1929 riots, which led to the brutal massacre of 67 Jews and the expulsion of the city's entire Jewish community.

The building, known as the Valero house, was owned by a Jewish family before the 1929 pogrom. The students, who are affiliated with the Yeshiva Shavei Hebron, announced their presence on Tuesday morning. In a statement released by the yeshiva, they declared the house "liberated from the Arab occupiers" and affixed a mezuzah to the door, symbolically reclaiming it as a Jewish home.

The yeshiva stated that the students plan to renovate the property and use it as dorm rooms. The event has reignited tensions over property ownership and historical claims in the city, which is a focal point of the Israeli-Arab conflict. While the Jewish presence in Hebron was re-established after the 1967 Six-Day War, access to the Old City has remained a complex and highly restricted issue.

The symbolic reclamation of the Valero house is a powerful message to those who see the return as an act of historical justice, connecting the contemporary Jewish community to its pre-1929 ancestors. It is a moment that underscores the deep-seated and often volatile struggle over land and identity in one of the most contested cities in the world.