During Kislev 5708, five הארגון HAʾIRGUN members entered and burned the Rex Cinema in ירושלים YERUŜALAYIM while Arab rioters attacked nearby shops owned by יהודים YEHUDIM. The cinema's Arab-Christian owner, Joseph Pascal Albina, had a business partner who was a יהודי YEHUDI, and its audience included Arabs, יהודים YEHUDIM, and English Empire personnel. Its destruction was an attack on a civilian cultural venue with ties across the city's communities, even if its perpetrators saw it as retaliation for the riot against יהודים YEHUDIM.1

Who set the fire?

Early reporting did not settle the arsonists' identity. A later account by הארגון HAʾIRGUN participant Moshe Solomon, reproduced by the National Library of Israel from Herut, says that five members acted without advance orders, forced entry, damaged the building, and ignited the projection booth. Solomon said his superiors approved the action afterward. His recollection is direct participant testimony transmitted through a later newspaper and library article; the original Herut page has not been inspected. It supports הארגון HAʾIRGUN responsibility more strongly than the contemporary uncertainty supports any assignment to the Arab rioters.2

We set fire to the projection booth and the rest of the building […].3

Solomon's words identify the action his group claimed. They do not establish its hour or independently verify his claim that no order preceded it.

Solomon's retrospective description also matters for command responsibility. An assertion that he lacked prior orders does not mean the הארגון HAʾIRGUN had no responsibility for the attack, particularly given his report of later approval. Equally, it does not establish that the הסוכנות היהודית HAʾSOḪNUT HAʾYEHUDIT or ההגנה HAʾHAGANA ordered it. The armed organizations of יהודים YEHUDIM had different commands and policies.

What was lost in the fire?

The Rex had opened in 1938 and served audiences across the city's political and communal divisions. Its destruction shows how retaliation could strike property whose owners and users did not fit a simple two-sided map. The NLI account says the building did not reopen after this fire. A separate 1939 הארגון HAʾIRGUN bombing of the same cinema caused deaths and injuries; those casualties do not belong to the 1947 fire.4

How is this dated?

The NLI reconstruction places the burning on the civil date 2 December 1947, after the morning attack on the commercial center, but it does not provide the fire's hour. The civil day's daylight portion was 19 Kislev and its evening was 20 Kislev. The exact Hebrew event day is therefore unresolved, and this companion uses Kislev-month precision. Solomon's later testimony and the NLI article have separate, later publication dates. An original fire brigade or police log has not been checked.5

Guided reflections

  • How does the Rex's mixed ownership and audience change what its destruction meant?
  • What can a later participant's account establish about responsibility, and what remains to be checked in contemporary records?

Footnotes

  1. https://blog.nli.org.il/en/hoi_jerusalems-rex-cinema/ Shir Aharon Bram, National Library of Israel, “The Rise and Fall of Jerusalem's Rex Cinema,” 29 September 2021. ↩
  2. https://blog.nli.org.il/en/hoi_jerusalems-rex-cinema/ section on the second attack, quoting Solomon's later account. ↩
  3. https://blog.nli.org.il/en/hoi_jerusalems-rex-cinema/ NLI English rendering of Solomon's later Herut account; original Hebrew page uninspected. ↩
  4. https://blog.nli.org.il/en/hoi_jerusalems-rex-cinema/ sections on the 1939 bombing and 1947 fire. ↩
  5. https://blog.nli.org.il/en/hoi_jerusalems-rex-cinema/; https://www.hebcal.com/converter?cfg=json&g2h=1&gd=2&gm=12&gy=1947 ↩