How Dr. Benjamin C. Goldstein Became a Mass Murderer in Israel

 Nadene Goldfoot                                          

                     Dr. Benjamin Goldstein;  Baruch Kopel  was born on December 9, 1956, as Benjamin Goldstein in Brooklyn, New York, to an Orthodox Jewish family. He attended the Yeshiva of Flatbush religious day school. He studied medicine at Yeshiva University, receiving a medical degree from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. He belonged to the Jewish Defense League (JDL), a militant Jewish organization founded by his boyhood acquaintance Meir Kahane.  I'd add that he was a highly impressive man, impressed with Kahane's  ideals.                      

 Benjamin while attending Yeshiva University in New York

Goldstein (Hebrew: ברוך קופל גולדשטיין; born Benjamin Carl Goldstein; December 9, 1956 – February 25, 1994) was an Israeli-American mass murderer, religious extremist, and physician who perpetrated the 1994 terrorist attack on a mosque attended by Palestinians, known as the Cave of the Patriarchs massacre in Hebron

My husband and I made aliyah in September 1980 from Portland, Oregon.  Benjamin Goldstein immigrated to Israel in 1983. He served as a physician in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), first as a conscript, then in the reserve forces. Following the end of his active duty, Goldstein worked as a physician, and lived in the Israeli settlement of Kiryat Arba near Hebron, where he worked as an emergency doctor, and was involved in treating victims of Arab-Israeli violence. He changed his name from Benjamin to Baruch, married a Soviet immigrant named Miriam, and had four children.

Israeli press reports claimed that Goldstein refused to treat Arabs, even Arab soldiers serving in the IDF, believing it was against Jewish laws to treat non-Jews even for payment. This was also reflected in comments by his acquaintances. 

         American Rabbi Meir Kahane from Brooklyn, NY(1 August 1932-5 November 1990) Manhattan,NY. buried in Jerusalem 

Goldstein was active in Kahane's Kach party, and was third on the party list for the Knesset during the 1984 elections. My 3rd cousin, Stanley Goldfoot, had also been friends with Kahane and had driven him about in Israel, if my memory hasn't failed me.  Stanley was from South Africa.  Our grandparents had come from Lithuania. Rabbi Meir Kahane was a militant and founder of the Jewish Defense League. Kahane was born August 1, 1932 – November 5, 1990) and was an American-born Israeli ordained Orthodox rabbi, writer, and ultra-nationalist politician who served one term in Israel's Knesset before being convicted of acts of terrorism. 

Jewish Religious Leader. At age 15, he was arrested in a protest against the British policy on Jewish immigration to Palestine. Ordained as an Orthodox rabbi, he earned a law degree from New York University, and became a synagogue rabbi and editor of the Jewish Press. In the 1960s he founded the Jewish Defense League, which advocated the use of violence to defend Jewish rights. 

                  Kahane in 1975

After moving to Israel (1971), Kahane founded Kach, a movement aimed at removing Arabs from Israel. He earned a seat in the Israeli parliament (1981), but his party was later barred from office. He was assassinated in New York, and his alleged assailant, an Egyptian-born American citizen, was found not guilty. He was the author of The Jewish Stake in Vietnam and Never Again.  

The late Rabbi Meir Kahane was the founder and leader of the American Jewish Defense League (JDL), a militant Jewish organization in the United States which was very active in struggles against anti-Jewish activities there. After emigrating to Israel, Kahane run for elections to the Knesset in his Kahane to the Knesset whose initials formed the word KAKH. Kahana got one seat in the Knesset and was quite bold in his ultra-right views.

Four years later the Supreme Court banned his movement from running again, basically because the movement was against the democratic character of the state. Kahane kept his activities outside the Knesset. Kahane was eventually killed in the USA, and his movement split into two fractions. One kept the old name, the other one called Kahane Chai (meaning Kahane is alive) led by his son. Both were declared illegal few years ago, and the use of their symbols is banned (even if you can still see them).
Dov Gutterman, 13 November 2001

 Goldstein  compared Israel's democracy to the Nazi regime, and was in the habit of wearing a yellow star with the word JUDE on it.  Perhaps it's why Israel reacted with shock at such an anti-Jewish act by a Jew.  

The Israeli government and the international community condemned the massacre. Israel arrested followers of Meir Kahane, criminalized the Kach movement and affiliated movements as terrorist, forbidding certain Israeli settlers to enter Palestinian towns, and demanding that those settlers turn in their army-issued rifles, although rejecting a Palestinian Liberation Organization demand that all settlers in the West Bank be disarmed and that an international force be created to protect  Palestinians.             

                  This act was not good for any Jews, not good for Israel, and certainly not good for Goldstein--good heavens---a doctor!  He was certainly not WOKE to his own Jewish religion, that's for sure, even though he waseducated  in it.    

I match 75 Goldsteins with FTDNA and that's 3 pages worth.7 were 3rd to 5th cousins, the rest were 4th cousins. One of my immigrant friends was a Goldstein.  

Resource:

https://www.nytimes.com/1990/11/06/obituaries/meir-kahane-58-israeli-militant-and-founder-of-the-jewish-defense-league.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meir_Kahanehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baruch_Goldstein#:~:text=On%20February%2025%2C%201994%2C%20that,and%20wounding%20more%20than%20125.

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/12601381/meir-kahane

https://www.fotw.info/flags/il%7Dkakh.html