WITH THE TURKS IN
PALESTINE
BY
ALEXANDER AARONSOHN
[ILLUSTRATION: DJEMAL PASHA]
1916
TO MY MOTHER
WHO LIVED AND FOUGHT AND DIED
FOR A REGENERATED
PALESTINE
_What have I done, or tried, or said
In thanks to that dear woman dead_?
MASEFIELD
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
To the editors of the _Atlantic Monthly_,
to the publishers, and to the many
friends who have encouraged me, I
am and shall ever remain grateful
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
I. ZICRON-JACOB
II. PRESSED INTO THE SERVICE
III. THE GERMAN PROPAGANDA
IV. ROAD-MAKING AND DISCHARGE
V. THE HIDDEN ARMS
VI. THE SUEZ CAMPAIGN
VII. FIGHTING THE LOCUSTS
VIII. THE LEBANON
IX. A ROBBER BARON OF PALESTINE
X. A RASH ADVENTURE
XI. ESCAPE
ILLUSTRATIONS
DJEMAL PASHA
_Photograph by Underwood & Underwood_
SAFFÊD
_Photograph by Underwood & Underwood_
THE AUTHOR ON HIS HORSE KOCHBA
_Photograph by Mr. Julius Rosenwald, of Chicago, in March, 1911_
SOLDIERS' TENTS IN SAMARIA
NAZARETH, FROM THE NORTHEAST
_Photograph by Underwood & Underwood_
HOUSE OF THE AUTHOR'S FATHER, EPHRAIM FISHL AARONSOHN,
IN ZICRON-JACOB
IN A NATIVE CAFÉ, SAFFÊD
_Photograph by Mr. Julius Rosenwald_
A LEMONADE-SELLER OF DAMASCUS
_Photograph by Mr. Julius Rosenwald_
RAILROAD STATION SCENE BETWEEN HAIFA AND DAMASCUS
_Photograph by Mr. Julius Rosenwald_
CAMELS BRINGING IN NEWLY CUT TREES, DAMASCUS
_Photograph by Mr. Julius Rosenwald_
THE CHRISTIAN TOWN OF ZAHLEH IN THE LEBANON
_Photograph by Underwood & Underwood_
HAIFA
_Photograph by Underwood & Underwood_
HAIFA AND THE BAY OF AKKA. LOOKING EAST FROM
MOUNT CARMEL
_Photograph by Underwood & Underwood_
THE BAZAAR OF JAFFA ON A MARKET DAY
_Photograph by Underwood & Underwood_
STORMY SEA BREAKING OVER ROCKS OFF JAFFA
_Photograph by Underwood & Underwood_
THE AUTHOR'S SISTER ON HER HORSE TAYAR
_Photograph by Mr. Julius Rosenwald in March, 1914_
BEIRUT, FROM THE DECK OF AN OUTGOING STEAMER
_Photograph by Underwood & Underwood_
INTRODUCTION
While Belgium is bleeding and hoping, while Poland suffers and dreams of
liberation, while Serbia is waiting for redemption, there is a little
country the soul of which is torn to pieces--a little country that is so
remote, so remote that her ardent sighs cannot be heard.
It is the country of perpetual sacrifice, the country that saw Abraham
build the altar upon which he was ready to immolate his only son, the
country that Moses saw from a distance, stretching in beauty and
loveliness,--a land of promise never to be attained,--the country that
gave the world its symbols of soul and spirit. Palestine!
No war correspondents, no Red Cross or relief committees have gone to
Palestine, because no actual fighting has taken place there, and yet
hundreds of thousands are suffering there that worst of agonies, the
agony of the spirit.
Those who have devoted their lives to show the world that Palestine can
be made again a country flowing with milk and honey, those who have
dreamed of reviving the spirit of the prophets and the great teachers,
are hanged and persecuted and exiled, their dreams shattered, their holy
places profaned, their work ruined. Cut off from the world, with no
bread to sustain the starving body, the heavy boot of a barbarian
soldiery trampling their very soul, the dreamers of Palestine refuse to
surrender, and amidst the clash of guns and swords they are battling for
the spirit with the weapons of the spirit.
The time has not yet come to write the record of these battles, nor even
to attempt to render justice to the sublime heroes of Palestine. This
book is merely the story of some of the personal experiences of one who
has done less and suffered less than thousands of his comrades.
ALEXANDER AARONSOHN
WITH THE TURKS IN PALESTINE.
CHAPTER I
ZICRON-JACOB
Thirty-five years ago, the impulse which has since been organized as the
Zionist Movement led my parents to leave their homes in Roumania and
emigrate to Palestine, where they joined a number of other Jewish
pioneers in founding Zicron-Jacob--a little village lying just south of
Mount Carmel, in that fertile coastal region close to the ancient Plains
of Armageddon.
Here I was born; my childhood was passed here in the peace and harmony
of this little agricultural community, with its whitewashed stone houses
huddled close together for protection against the native Arabs who, at
first, menaced the life of the new colony. The village was far more
suggestive of Switzerland than of the conventional slovenly villages of
the East, mud-built and filthy; for while it was the purpose of our
people, in returning to the Holy Land, to foster the Jewish language and
the social conditions of the Old Testament as far as possible, there
was nothing retrograde in this movement. No time was lost in introducing
progressive methods of agriculture, and the climatological experiments
of other countries were observed and made use of in developing the ample
natural resources of the land.
[ILLUSTRATION: THE CEMETERY OF ZICRON-JACOB]
Eucalyptus, imported from Australia, soon gave the shade of its cool,
healthful foliage where previously no trees had grown. In the course of
time dry farming (which some people consider a recent discovery, but
which in reality is as old as the Old Testament) was introduced and
extended with American agricultural implements; blooded cattle were
imported, and poultry-raising on a large scale was undertaken with the
aid of incubators--to the disgust of the Arabs, who look on such
usurpation of the hen's functions as against nature and sinful. Our
people replaced the wretched native trails with good roads, bordered by
hedges of thorny acacia which, in season, were covered with downy little
yellow blossoms that smelled sweeter than honey when the sun was on
them.
More important than all these, a communistic village government was
established, in which both sexes enjoyed equal rights, including that of
suffrage--strange as this may seem to persons who (when they think of
the matter at all) form vague conceptions of all the women-folk of
Palestine as shut up in harems.
A short experience with Turkish courts and Turkish justice taught our
people that they would have to establish a legal system of their own;
two collaborating judges were therefore appointed--one to interpret the
Mosaic law, another to temper it with modern jurisprudence. All Jewish
disputes were settled by this court. Its effectiveness may be judged by
the fact that the Arabs, weary of Turkish venality,--as open and
shameless as anywhere in the world,--began in increasing numbers to
bring their difficulties to our tribunal. Jews are law-abiding people,
and life in those Palestine colonies tended to bring out the fraternal
qualities of our race; but it is interesting to note that in over thirty
years not one Jewish criminal case was reported from forty-five
villages.
Zicron-Jacob was a little town of one hundred and thirty "fires"--so we
call it--when, in 1910, on the advice of my elder brother, who was head
of the Jewish Experiment Station at Athlit, an ancient town of the
Crusaders, I left for America to enter the service of the United States
in the Department of Agriculture. A few days after reaching this country
I took out my first naturalization papers and proceeded to Washington,
where I became part of that great government service whose beneficent
activity is too little known by Americans. Here I remained until June,
1913, when I returned to Palestine with the object of taking
motion-pictures and stereopticon views. These I intended to use in a
lecturing tour for spreading the Zionist propaganda in the United
States.
During the years of my residence in America, I was able to appreciate
and judge in their right value the beauty and inspiration of the life
which my people led in the Holy Land. From a distance, too, I saw better
the need for organization among our communities, and I determined to
build up a fraternal union of the young Jewish men all over the country.
Two months after my return from America, an event occurred which gave
impetus to these projects. The physician of our village, an old man who
had devoted his entire life to serving and healing the people of
Palestine, without distinction of race or religion, was driving home one
evening in his carriage from a neighboring settlement. With him was a
young girl of sixteen. In a deserted place they were set upon by four
armed Arabs, who beat the old man to unconsciousness as he tried, in
vain, to defend the girl from the terrible fate which awaited her.
Night came on. Alarmed by the absence of the physician, we young men
rode out in search of him. We finally discovered what had happened; and
then and there, in the serene moonlight of that Eastern night, with
tragedy close at hand, I made my comrades take oath on the honor of
their sisters to organize themselves into a strong society for the
defense of the life and honor of our villagers and of our people at
large.
These details are, perhaps, useful for the better understanding of the
disturbances that came thick and fast when in August, 1914, the
war-madness broke out among the nations of Europe. The repercussion was
at once felt even in our remote corner of the earth. Soon after the
German invasion of Belgium the Turkish army was mobilized and all
citizens of the Empire between nineteen and forty-five years were called
to the colors. As the Young Turk Constitution of 1909 provided that all
Christians and Jews were equally liable to military service, our young
men knew that they, too, would be called upon to make the common
sacrifice. For the most part, they were not unwilling to sustain the
Turkish Government. While the Constitution imposed on them the burden of
militarism, it had brought with it the compensation of freedom of
religion and equal rights; and we could not forget that for six hundred
years Turkey has held her gates wide open to the Jews who fled from the
Spanish Inquisition and similar ministrations of other civilized
countries.
Of course, we never dreamed that Turkey would do anything but remain
neutral. If we had had any idea of the turn things were ultimately to
take, we should have given a different greeting to the _mouchtar_, or
sheriff, who came to our village with the list of mobilizable men to be
called on for service. My own position was a curious one. I had every
intention of completing the process of becoming an American citizen,
which I had begun by taking out "first papers." In the eyes of the law,
however, I was still a Turkish subject, with no claim to American
protection. This was sneeringly pointed out to me by the American Consul
at Haifa, who happens to be a German; so there was no other course but
to surrender myself to the Turkish Government.