Moshe Levinger (Hebrew: משה לוינגר‎; 1935 – May 16, 2015) was an Israeli Religious Zionist activist 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[1] settler movement Gush Emunim, founded in 1974, among whose ranks he assumed legendary status.

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.

[citation needed] Levinger was arrested and charged at least 10 times, starting in 1975, in relation to incidents in Hebron or Kiryat Arba.

[9] In July 1985, Levinger was fined approximately $15,000 and given a three-month suspended sentence for trespassing in the house of a Hebron woman and attacking her six-year-old son.

On September 30, 1988, Levinger, who had been hit a week before by a rock, was attacked by stoners who smashed his windshield, injuring his son.

Levinger pulled out his pistol, turned round, and went back down the streets shooting at shop windows, killing Palestinian store owner Hassan Abdul Azis Salah.

[19] Six weeks after Levinger's release from prison on his separate negligent homicide conviction (see above), the Jerusalem District Court overturned his acquittal on the earlier assault charges.

The court found that Levinger had pulled down the partition separating Jewish and Muslim worshippers and assaulted an IDF officer.

He was found guilty of rioting in the Hebron market, of overturning stalls, forcing other merchants to close their shops, and of firing his pistol.

[25] In December 1997, Levinger was sentenced to six months jail and fined $2,300 for disturbing Muslim prayers at Hebron's Tomb of the Patriarchs in 1994, and of blocking an army commander from entering Kiryat Arba.

[28] In a condolence letter sent to the family, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described Rabbi Levinger as “an outstanding example of a generation that sought to realize the Zionist dream, in deed and in spirit, after the Six-Day War.”[27]