The Bloody Day in Jaffa

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The Bloody Day in Jaffa (Hebrew: יום הדמים ביפו) refers to a spate of violent attacks on Jews that began on 19 April 1936 in Jaffa. The event is often described as marking the start of the 1936–39 Arab revolt in Palestine.

Jaffa old part of the city of Tel Aviv-Yafo

Jaffa, in Hebrew Yafo, or in Arabic Yaffa, the southern and oldest part of Tel Aviv-Yafo, is an ancient port city in Israel. Jaffa is famous for its association with the biblical stories of Jonah, Solomon and Saint Peter as well as the mythological story of Andromeda and Perseus, and later for its oranges.

Contents

Prelude

The immediate prelude to this riot began on 15 April 1936 with the Anabta shooting in which Arab followers of Izz ad-Din al-Qassam set up a roadblock on the Nablus to Tulkarm road, stopping about 20 vehicles to demand cash and weapons; separating out 3 Jews from other occupants of the vehicles. The Arabs then shot the 3 Jewish men; only 1 survived. [1] [2] The two murdered Jewish drivers were Israel (or Yisrael) Khazan, who was killed instantly, and Zvi Dannenberg, who died five days later. [3] [4] The following day members of Irgun shot and killed two Arab workers sleeping in a hut near Petah Tikva. [5] On 17 April, the funeral for Khazan, one of the Jews shot at Anabta, was held in Tel Aviv, attracting a crowd of thousands, some of whom beat Arab passersby and vandalized property. [6]

Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Mujahid, teacher, Imam

Izz ad-Din Abd al-Qadar ibn Mustafa ibn Yusuf ibn Muhammad al-Qassam was a Syrian Muslim preacher, and a leader in the local struggles against British and French Mandatory rule in the Levant, and a militant opponent of Zionism in the 1920s and 1930s.

Nablus City in Nablus

Nablus is a city in the northern West Bank, approximately 49 kilometers (30 mi) north of Jerusalem,, with a population of 126,132. Located between Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim, it is the capital of the Nablus Governorate and a Palestinian commercial and cultural center, containing the An-Najah National University, one of the largest Palestinian institutions of higher learning, and the Palestinian stock-exchange.

Tulkarm City in Tulkarm Governorate

Tulkarm or Tulkarem is a Palestinian city in the West Bank, located in the Tulkarm Governorate. The Israeli city of Netanya is to the west, the Palestinian Nablus and Jenin to the east. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, in 2007 Tulkarm had a population of 51,300 while its adjacent refugee camp had a population of 10,641.

On 19 April, rumors spread in the Arab community that "many Arabs had been killed by Jews", and Arabs began to attack Jews in the streets of Jaffa. [1] [7] An Arab mob marched on the Jewish-owned Anglo-Palestine Bank. The British Mandatory police guarding the bank defended themselves by firing into the mob, killing two of the rioters. This incited the mob to "fury" and Jews began to be killed in the streets. [1]

Bank Leumi is an Israeli bank. It was founded on February 27, 1902, in Jaffa as the Anglo Palestine Company as subsidiary of the Jewish Colonial Trust Limited formed before in London by members of the Zionist movement to promote the industry, construction, agriculture, and infrastructure of the land hoped to ultimately become Israel. Today, Bank Leumi is Israel's largest bank, with overseas offices in Luxembourg, US, Switzerland, the UK, Mexico, Uruguay, Romania, Jersey, and China.

British Mandatory authorities [8] and other sources date the 1936–39 Arab revolt in Palestine to the day's incidents. [9] [10] [11] [12]

In her 2006 book, Mussolini's Propaganda Abroad: Subversion in the Mediterranean and the Middle East, 1935-1940, Manuela Williams describes this as the "peak" event in a series of violent attacks leading up to the declaration of a general strike by the Arab Higher Committee. [13]

Arab Higher Committee

The Arab Higher Committee or the Higher National Committee was the central political organ of the Arab Palestinians in Mandatory Palestine. It was established on 25 April 1936, on the initiative of Haj Amin al-Husayni, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, and comprised the leaders of Palestinian Arab clans and political parties under the mufti's chairmanship. The Committee was outlawed by the British Mandatory administration in September 1937 after the assassination of a British official.

Riot

According to Aryeh Avneri, citing the History of the Haganah, the rioting broke out first among the Haurani dockworkers in Jaffa Port. [14] A mob of Arab men rampaged through the mixed Muslim, Christian and Jewish streets of Jaffa, killing and beating Jews and wrecking Jewish homes and businesses. [15] [16] [17] [18]

Hourani also written Hawrani, Haurani, Howrani and Hurani is a common Arabic surname. Haurani is also a reference to inhabitants of Hauran, a region in southwestern Syria.

11 people were reported dead in the first day's rioting. These included 2 Arabs "shot by British police in self-defense," and 9 Jews, with dozens of others wounded, "most of the Jewish injured bore knife woulds. [1] The rioting went on for a total of 3 days, it was finally suppressed by the British military. [11]

Impact

Refugees

The continuing threat of violence combined with the destruction of Jewish property and arson attacks that destroyed Jewish homes forced 12,000 Jews to flee Jaffa as refugees. 9,500 were housed by the Tel Aviv municipality, imposing a heavy financial burden on the city. Seventy-five temporary shelters were created in schools, synagogues, government and industrial buildings. [11] During May and June the Haganah was able to stabilize the security situation to the point where about 4,000 of the refugees were able to return to their homes. [11] Others found housing privately, so that by July only 4,800 remained in public refugee camps; 3,200 of these were utterly destitute. [11] By November, Jewish charities had placed even the destitute refugees in housing, and the refugee camps were closed. [11]

Annexation of Jaffa to Tel Aviv

One impact of this pogrom was the start of a political demand that Jaffa be incorporated into the city of Tel Aviv. [19]

Literary references

Chapter 11 of Leon Uris's bestselling 1984 novel, The Haj, is entitled Jaffa - April 19, 1936. [20] [21] In The Blood of His Servants, Malcolm MacPherson writes of 19 April as the day when the Arab revolt on Palestine began, and a "campaign of armed attacks" started. [22] [ page needed ] In his 1968 book, Days of Fire, Shmuel Katz, a senior member of the Irgun, wrote of arriving in Tel Aviv from Jerusalem on 19 April to find the town in turmoil with reports of stabbing in nearby Jaffa. [23]

See also

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Al-Shaykh Muwannis, also Sheikh Munis, was a small Palestinian Arab village in the Jaffa Subdistrict of Mandatory Palestine, located approximately 8.5 kilometers from the center of Jaffa city in territory earmarked for Jewish statehood under the UN Partition Plan. The village was abandoned in March 1948 under pressure from Jewish militia, two months before the 1948 Arab–Israeli war. Today, Tel Aviv University lies on part of the village land.

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Abu Kabir was a satellite village of Jaffa founded by Egyptians following Ibrahim Pasha's 1832 defeat of Turkish forces in Ottoman era Palestine. During the 1948 Palestine war, it was mostly abandoned and later destroyed. After Israel's establishment in 1948, the area became part of south Tel Aviv. Officially named Giv'at Herzl, the name of an adjacent Jewish neighborhood, the name Abu Kabir continued to be used. Part or all of Abu Kabir was officially renamed Tabitha by the Tel Aviv municipality in 2011.

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1947 in Mandatory Palestine Palestine-related events during the year of 1947

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The 1933 Palestine riots were a series of violent riots in Mandatory Palestine, as part of the intercommunal conflict in Mandatory Palestine. The riots erupted on 28 October 1933, initiated by the Arab Executive Committee. The riots came as the culmination of Arab resentment at Jewish migration after it surged to new heights following the rise of Nazi Germany, and at the British Mandate authorities for allegedly facilitating Jewish land purchases. The second mass demonstration, at Jaffa in October, turned into a bloodbath when police fired on the thousands-strong crowd, killing 19 and injuring some 70. The "Jaffa massacre", as Palestinians called it, quickly triggered further unrest, including a week-long general strike and urban insurrections that resulted in state security forces killing 7 more Arabs and wounding another 130 with gunfire.

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The 1936 shooting of two Jews on the road between Anabta and Tulkarm took place in British Mandatory Palestine. Jews retaliated the next day against Arabs in Tel Aviv killing two in Petah Tikvah.

Black Sunday, 1937 refers to a series of acts undertaken by Jewish militants of the Irgun faction against Arab civilians on 14 November 1937. It was among the first challenges to the Havlagah policy not to retaliate against Arab attacks on Jewish civilians.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 "9 Jews, 2 Arabs Dead, 54 Hurt In Jaffa Riots: Moslems Slain by British Police, Foes Knifed in Batlle (sic) Following Killing of a Jew by Bandits," New York Herald Tribune, 20 April 1936, p. 1.
  2. ↑ 'Nablus Bandits Seen as Izz ed Din's followers', Palestine Post, Friday, 17 April 1936.
  3. ↑ "Highwaymen's Second Victim Dead", Palestine Post, 21 April 1936.
  4. ↑ 'Turk Killed by Hold-up Men', Palestine Post, 16 April 1936.
  5. ↑ Gilbert, Martin (1998), Israel: A History Black Swan, p. 80.
  6. ↑ Bar-On, Mordechai (2004). A Never-ending Conflict: A Guide to Israeli Military History, Greenwood, p. 23.
  7. ↑ Schlör, Joachim (1999). Tel Aviv: From Dream to City. Reaktion Books. p. 203.
  8. ↑ Anglim, Simon (2015). Orde Wingate and the British Army, 1922-1944. Routledge. p. 63. ISBN   1317324285.
  9. ↑ Bauer, Yehuda. "The Arab Revolt of 1936," New Outlook, Vol.9 No. 6 (81), 1966, p. 49.
  10. ↑ Hillel Cohen, Army of Shadows: Palestinian Collaboration with Zionism, 1917–1948, University of California Press, 2008, p. 95.
  11. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Marginal Populations and Urban Identity in Time of Emergency: The Case of the 1936 Refugees in Tal Aviv," Arnon Golan, Journal of Modern Jewish Studies, Vol. 9 , Iss. 2, 2010.
  12. ↑ Segev, Tom (2001-10-01). One Palestine, Complete: Jews and Arabs Under the British Mandate. Macmillan. p. 366. ISBN   9780805065879.
  13. ↑ Williams, Manuela (2006). Mussolini's Propaganda Abroad: Subversion in the Mediterranean and the Middle East, 1935-1940. Routledge. p. 60. ISBN   113424441X.
  14. ↑ Avneri, Aryeh (1982). The Claim of Dispossession: Jewish Land-Settlement and the Arabs, 1878-1948. Transaction Publishers. p. 32. ISBN   1412836212.
  15. ↑ Viton, Albert (3 June 1936). "Why Arabs Kill Jews". The Nation . Retrieved 24 August 2016.
  16. ↑ Rose, Norman. "The Debate on Partition, 1937-38: The Anglo-Zionist Aspect: I. The Proposal", Middle Eastern Studies 6, no. 3 (1970): 297-318. .
  17. ↑ Townshed, Charles (7 July 1989). "The First Intifada: Rebellion in Palestine 1936-39". History Today. 39 (7). Retrieved 25 August 2016. [In] neighbouring Jaffa two days later dozens of Jews were attacked in the streets. Nine were beaten, stoned or stabbed to death.
  18. ↑ "2 More Jews Die of Riot Wounds; 10 Wounded in New Jaffa Attacks". Jewish Telegraphic Agency. 21 April 1936. Retrieved 25 August 2016.
  19. ↑ Tamir Goren (2016) "The Jews of Jaffa at the Time of the Arab Revolt: the emergence of the demand for annexation," Journal of Modern Jewish Studies, 15:2, 267-281, DOI: 10.1080/14725886.2015.1090113.
  20. ↑ Leon Uris, "The Haj 1984.
  21. ↑ Ted Swedenberg, Popular Memory and the Palestinian National Past, in Jay O'Brien, Golden Ages, Dark Ages: Imagining the Past in Anthropology and History, University of California Press, 1991, p. 161.
  22. ↑ McPherson, Malcolm (1984). The Blood of His Servants. Times Books.
  23. ↑ Katz, Shmuel (1968). Days of Fire. Doubleday. p. 4.
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