Baruch Goldstein
Baruch Kopel Goldstein (born Benjamin Goldstein; 9 December 1956 – 25 February 1994) was an American-Israeli physician, religious extremist, a follower of Kahanism, and a mass murderer, who perpetrated the 1994 Cave of the Patriarchs massacre in Hebron, killing 29 and wounding 125 Palestinian Muslim worshippers. He was beaten to death by survivors of the massacre.
The Israeli government condemned the massacre, and responded by arresting followers of Meir Kahane, criminalizing the Kach movement and affiliated movements as terrorist.
Goldstein's gravesite became a pilgrimage site for Jewish extremists. The following words are inscribed on the tomb: "He gave his life for the people of Israel, its Torah and land." In 1999, after the passing of Israeli legislation outlawing monuments to terrorists, the Israeli Army dismantled the shrine that had been built to Goldstein at the site of his interment. The tombstone and its epitaph, calling Goldstein a martyr with clean hands and a pure heart, was left untouched. After the flagstones around it were pried away under the eye of a military chaplain, the ground was covered with gravel.
