Moshe Levinger

Moshe Levinger (Hebrew: משה לוינגר‎‎‎; 1935 – May 16, 2015) was an Israeli Religious Zionist and an Orthodox Rabbi who since 1967 had been a leading figure in the movement to settle Jews in the territories occupied by Israel during the 1967 Six-Day War. He is especially known for leading Jewish settlement in Hebron in 1968 and for being one of the principals of the now defunct settler movement Gush Emunim founded in 1974, among whose ranks he assumed legendary status. Levinger was reportedly involved in violent acts against Palestinians.

Levinger was born in Jerusalem in 1935 and studied at the Mercaz haRav yeshiva in Jerusalem under the guidance of Rabbi Zvi Yehuda Kook. In his own words, he learned "that the Land of Israel must be in the hands of the Jewish people—not just by having settlements, but that it's under Jewish sovereignty".

At the time of the 1967 war, Levinger was the rabbi of the Nehalim religious moshav near Petah Tikva. Together with the Movement for Greater Israel, he organized the resettlement by Jews of the Etzion Bloc evacuated in 1948 following the Kfar Etzion massacre. There was disagreement on whether to wait for government approval, with Levinger taking the position that settlement should go ahead regardless. In the event, the government approved a Nahal military outpost at the site and kept secret that it was not military at all. Levinger himself was not one of the settlers.

Levinger first came to Hebron in 1968 after the West Bank was occupied by Israel in the Six-Day War. He rented rooms in Al-Naher Al-Khaled Hotel (which belonged to the family of former Mayor of Hebron, Fahed Al-Qwasmeh) at Ein-Sarah, on the main street of Hebron, in order to hold a Passover Seder, and then refused to leave. In a deal with the Israeli government, he moved with his family and followers to a former army base on a hill just northeast of Hebron, where, with the state’s cooperation, they established the settlement of Kiryat Arba.

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