Sarah Aaronsohn | |
|---|---|
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| Born | January 5, 1890 |
| Died | October 9, 1917 (aged 27) |
| Nationality | Ottoman |
| Occupation | Spy |
| Family |
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Sarah Aaronsohn; 5 January 1890 – 9 October 1917) was a member of Nili, a ring of Jewish spies working for the British in World War I, and a sister of agronomist Aaron Aaronsohn. She is often referred to as the "heroine of Nili." [1]
Sarah Aaronsohn was born in Zichron Yaakov, which at the time was part of Ottoman Syria. Her parents were Zionists from Romania who had come to Ottoman Palestine as some of the first settlers of the First Aliyah and were founders of the moshava where Aaronsohn was born. [2] Encouraged by her brother Aaron, she studied languages and was fluent in Hebrew, Yiddish, Turkish and French, had reasonable command of Arabic and taught herself English. [2] On 31 March 1914, she was married in Atlit to Haim Abraham, an affluent merchant from Bulgaria, and Zionist activist [3] and lived briefly with him in Istanbul; but the marriage was an unhappy one and she returned home to Zichron Yaakov in December 1915.
On her way from Istanbul to Haifa, Aaronsohn witnessed part of the Armenian genocide. She testified to seeing hundreds of bodies of Armenian men, women, children, and babies; sick Armenians being loaded onto trains; with the dead being tossed out and replaced by the living. [4] After her trip to Haifa, any allusions to Armenians upset her greatly. [4] According to Chaim Herzog, Aaronsohn decided to assist British forces as a result of what she had witnessed. [5]
Aaronsohn, her sister Rivka Aaronsohn, and her brothers Aaron Aaronsohn and Alexander Aaronsohn, with their friend (and fiancé of Rivka) Avshalom Feinberg formed and led the Nili spy organization. Aaronsohn oversaw operations in Palestine of the spy ring and passed information to British agents offshore. Sometimes she travelled widely through Ottoman territory collecting information useful to the British, and brought it directly to them in Egypt. In 1917, her brother Alexander urged her to remain in British-controlled Egypt, expecting hostilities from Ottoman authorities; but Aaronsohn returned to Zichron Yaakov to continue Nili activities. Nili developed into the largest pro-British espionage network in the Middle East, with a network of about 40 spies. [2]
In September 1917, the Ottomans intercepted her carrier pigeon carrying a message to the British and decrypted the Nili code. In October, the Ottomans surrounded Zichron Yaakov and arrested numerous people, including Aaronsohn. Her captors tortured her father in front of her. She endured four days of torture herself, but she gave no information beyond what she thought of her torturers. [6] [ unreliable source? ] Before she was to be transferred to Damascus for further torture, she asked permission to return to her home in Zichron Yaakov to change her blood-stained clothes. While there, she managed to shoot herself with a pistol concealed under a tile in the bathroom. [7] [8] According to Scott Anderson, in his book Lawrence in Arabia, Aaronsohn shot herself in the mouth on Friday 5 October 1917. "Even this did not end the torment of Sarah Aaronsohn. While the bullet destroyed her mouth and severed her spinal cord, it missed her brain. For four days she lingered in agony." In Spies in Palestine, James Srodes quotes the diary of Dr. Hillel Yaffe as saying that Sarah pleaded with him, "For heaven's sake, put an end to my life. I beg you, kill me…I can't suffer any longer…." Instead, Dr. Yaffee administered morphine. [9] She died on 9 October 1917. [10] In her last letter, she expressed her hope that her activities in Nili would bring nearer the realization of a national home for the Jews in Eretz Israel.
Because of the Jewish views on suicide, Aaronsohn was denied a traditional burial in a Jewish cemetery. However, refusing a Jewish burial for her was unpopular. As a compromise, a small fence was placed around her grave in the cemetery (symbolically removing her grave from the surrounding hallowed ground).
Aaronsohn was the first example of a "secular, active death of a Jewish-Zionist woman for the nation, unprecedented in both religious martyrdom and in the Zionist tradition established in Palestine." [2] Annual pilgrimages to her tomb in Zikhron's cemetery started in 1935. After the Six-Day War of 1967, the memory of Aaronsohn and of Nili became a part of Israel's cult of heroism, officially recognized by the Labor Party and celebrated in children's literature. [11]
NILI was a Jewish espionage network which assisted the United Kingdom in its fight against the Ottoman Empire in the Mutasarrifate of Jerusalem between 1915 and 1917, during World War I. NILI was centered in Zikhron Ya'akov, with branches in Hadera and other Moshava. Nili is an acronym which stands for the Hebrew phrase: "Netzah Yisrael Lo Yeshaker", which translates as "the Eternal One of Israel will not lie". The British government code-named NILI the "A Organization", according to a 1920 misfiled memorandum in the British National Archives, as described in the book "Spies in Palestine" by James Srodes.
Chaim Azriel Weizmann was a Russian-born Israeli statesman, biochemist, and Zionist leader who served as president of the Zionist Organization and later as the first president of Israel. He was elected on 16 February 1949, and served until his death in 1952. Weizmann was instrumental in obtaining the Balfour Declaration of 1917 and convincing the United States government to recognize the newly formed State of Israel in 1948.
Chaim Herzog was an Israeli politician, military officer, lawyer and author who served as the sixth president of Israel between 1983 and 1993. Born in Belfast and raised primarily in Dublin, the son of Ireland's Chief Rabbi Yitzhak HaLevi Herzog, he immigrated to Mandatory Palestine in 1935 and served in the Haganah Jewish paramilitary group during the 1936–1939 Arab revolt. He returned to Palestine after the war and, following the end of the British Mandate and Israel's Declaration of Independence in 1948, fought in the Battles of Latrun during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. He retired from the Israel Defence Forces in 1962 with the rank of major-general.
Zikhron Ya'akov is a Moshava (town) in Israel, 35 kilometres (22 mi) south of Haifa, and part of the Haifa District. It is located at the southern end of the Carmel mountain range overlooking the Mediterranean Sea, near the coastal highway. It was one of the first Moshavot of Halutzim in the country, founded in 1882 by Romanian Jews, who in 1883 received support from Baron Edmond James de Rothschild and renamed their town in honor of his father, James Mayer de Rothschild. In 2022 it had a population of 24,145.
Aaron Aaronsohn was a Romanian-born Ottoman agronomist, botanist, and political activist, who lived most of his life in Ottoman Syria. Aaronsohn was the discoverer of emmer, believed to be "the mother of wheat." He founded and was head of the NILI espionage network.
Yitzhak HaLevi Herzog, also known as Isaac Herzog or Hertzog, was the first Chief Rabbi of Ireland, his term lasting from 1921 to 1936. From 1936 until his death in 1959, he was Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of the British Mandate of Palestine and of Israel after its creation in 1948. He was the father of Chaim Herzog and grandfather of Isaac Herzog, both presidents of Israel.
Avshalom Feinberg was one of the leaders of Nili, a Jewish spy network in Palestine that helped the British fight the Ottoman Empire during World War I. He was killed during a mission for the organization while attempting to cross the Ottoman-British front line with Yosef Lishansky, aiming to reconnect with British forces in the Sinai Peninsula for intelligence exchange between them and NILI.
The First Aliyah, also known as the agriculture Aliyah, was a major wave of Jewish immigration (aliyah) to Ottoman Palestine between 1881 and 1903. Jews who migrated in this wave came mostly from Eastern Europe and from Yemen, stimulated by pogroms and violence against the Jewish communities in those areas. An estimated 25,000 Jews immigrated. Many of the European Jewish immigrants during the late 19th-early 20th century period gave up after a few months and went back to their country of origin, often suffering from hunger and disease.
Olei Hagardom refers to members of the two Jewish Revisionist pre-state underground organisations Irgun and Lehi, most of whom were tried in British Mandate military courts and sentenced to death by hanging. Most of the executions were carried out at Acre Prison. There were 12 Olei Hagardom.
Alexander Aaronsohn was an author and activist who wrote about the plight of people living in Palestine in his book, With the Turks in Palestine.
Prior to and during World War I, the area of Palestine was controlled by the Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman regime, since late 19th century, imposed many harsh demands on the Yishuv, and was ended in 1918 when Britain occupied the territory, followed by the establishment of the British Mandate in 1922.
Ruhama is a kibbutz in the Negev desert in southern Israel. The original settlement, established in 1912, is considered the first modern Jewish settlement in the Negev. Located around ten kilometres east of Sderot and surrounded by a nature reserve, it falls under the jurisdiction of the Sha'ar HaNegev Regional Council. In 2022 it had a population of 761.
Hillel Yaffe (1864–1936) was a Russian Jewish physician and Zionist leader who immigrated to the Land of Israel in the First Aliyah during the Ottoman Empire. In the early 20th century he was instrumental in curing Malaria, which at that time was the main cause for death of Jews, and helped improve the medical infrastructure of the Yishuv during the same period. The Hillel Yaffe Medical Center in Hadera is named after him.
Yosef Lishansky was a Jewish spy for the British in Ottoman Palestine. Upon making Aliyah, Lishansky sought to join HaShomer but, denied membership, he founded a rival organization, HaMagen. Several years later, he joined the Jewish espionage organization, Nili.
Following are timelines of the history of Ottoman Syria, taken as the parts of Ottoman Syria provinces under Ottoman rule.
Tel Aviv and Jaffa deportation was the expulsion on April 6, 1917, of 10,000 people from Jaffa, including Tel Aviv, by the authorities of the Ottoman Empire in Palestine. The evicted civilians were not allowed to carry off their belongings, and the deportation was accompanied by severe violence, starvation, theft, persecution and abuse. It is thought that about 1,500 of the evicted people died as a result of the deportation. Shortly after the deportation, the Muslims affected were able to return to their homes, but the Jewish population was not able to return until the summer of 1918.
Rabbi Chaim Dov Kantor (1865–1944) was born in Pinsk to his father R. Shlomo, the town cantor. The family was descended from Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin. At the age of four his father died, and Kantor's mother traveled around with her four children until she settled in Jerusalem in 1871.
James Srodes was an American journalist and author. In 2015 and 2016, the Virginia Press Association awarded Srodes its first prize for critical writing for his series of book reviews for The Washington Times.
Sarah Herzog was an Israeli rebbetzin (rabbanit) and diplomat. She was also the mother of Chaim Herzog, 6th President of Israel, and Yaakov Herzog, Israeli diplomat.
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