When Jewish Girls Were Molested in Jerusalem - in 1927-1928

Following the incident last week at Zion Square and claims that the beating of an Arab was due to the boys being incited by a girl who told them she was a victim of a sexual assault by (that?)(an) Arab, which does not justify the criminal violence, I recalled a similar incident from 1928.

Here is the report from Davar, June 10 and the second item informs the readers of the murder of two Arabs near the Betzael School (the report has one wounded but he subsequently died):

The next day, the paper carried an editorial (at the left, encircled in brown) which complained of many months of incidents when Arabs harassed Jewish girls with inadequate police response for a variety of reasons:

The History of the Hagana, Sefer Toldot HaHagana, Vol. II, Part 1, p. 296, provides the details:

that throughout late 1927 and early 1928, there was a noticeable upsurge in molestation attacks comitted by Arabs against Jewish females ('hunters of kisses' they were called) mostly in the area of the Schneller Camp and the end of King George Street which at the time continued to the area of Liberty Bell Park of today.



Despite organized Hagana attacks against loitering Arabs, including beatings with sticks filled with lead.  The purpose was to indicate to an Arabs that he should think seven times about how he should behave when entering a Jewish neighborhood and how he should act therein so as to preserve the honor of the location.  It seems the Arabs of Haifa were copying the Arabs of Jerusalem in this regard.  The Hagana members felt they had to institute an "atmosphere of security".

In the end, two Arabs were shot dead on June 8, 1928, a Friday night.

The explanatory notes

add that drunken British soldiers who attempted to accost Jewish girls merited the same treatment.

The testimony is corroborated by Avraham Meshorrer, Meir Sharvit and Avraham Tehomi.

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