When the Six-Day War ended and Israelis began streaming to the West Bank, members of the Molchadsky-Wolfson family from Jerusalem decided to visit Hebron. Thirty eight years earlier, the family had fled from that city following the massacre of Hebron's Jewish residents.

Yonah Molchadsky had given up hope of finding the little apartment in which her family had lived in Hebron. But her daughter, Geula Wolfson, and the other family members and friends who went along on the 1967 visit, were not prepared to give up. Finally the apartment was located; it had been turned into a workshop for girls.

Yonah Molchadsky, however, did not say a word about the horrors of the massacre that had led them to leave. The family put no pressure on her. When they returned to Jerusalem that evening, Yonah went to the kitchen and prepared food, and when they sat down to eat, her friend, Sarah Novoplansky said: "Now you must talk. Tell us exactly what happened that day."

So after 38 years, the silence was broken and Yonah spoke, "from beginning to end, without a tear or a tremble in her voice," recounts Novoplansky, who wrote everything down.

It was the story of a family who had survived the terrible day on which 67 members of Hebron's Jewish community were massacred. The story of their survival is connected with the birth of Geula, Yonah's second daughter. Last weekend, Geula Wolfson celebrated her 80th birthday, and at the birthday party she told the story "so that the grandchildren will know."

more...