Exodus

“It means ‘to life,’” David answered, “and to Jews that is no small request.”

“ ‘To life,’ ” Mandria repeated. “That is nice.” Ari walked up to Mandria and hugged him in the Palmach manner. “You have been a friend,” he said. “I must go meet Parker now.”

Mandria stood there with tears streaming down his cheeks for he knew that this kind of affection was reserved for one of their own and to receive it from Ari Ben Canaan meant that he had been accepted fully as one of them.

A half hour later Ari, dressed as Captain Caleb Moore, met Mark on the terrace of the King George Hotel. Mark was a bundle of nerves.

Ari seated himself, refused a cigarette, and ordered a drink. “Well?” Mark asked impatiently. “Tomorrow. We will be at Caraolos at nine.” “I thought you were going to wait until the British started cleaning out the children’s compound.”

“It would have been better but we can’t wait. A friend at CID tells us that Alistair is on to something. But relax,” Ari said. “It is almost over. The British still don’t know what they’re looking for. Now you understand everything.”

Mark nodded. He would send a cable asking for an extension of his vacation. Bradbury in London would know by the signature, Mark, that Operation Gideon had been a success and would turn loose the story Mark had sent with a commercial pilot a week earlier.

“Suppose I don’t get a phone call from Mandria at ten.”

Ari smiled. “Then I’d suggest you get the hell off Cyprus unless you want to cover my hanging.”

“That might be nice,” Mark said. He finished his drink.

“By the way,” Ari said, looking out to the water, “Kitty hasn’t been in the camp since we were forced to put Karen on the Exodus list.”

“That’s right. She’s with me at the Dome.”

“How is she?”

“How in hell do you think she is? She’s miserable. She doesn’t want Karen to go on the Exodus. Do you blame her?”

“I don’t blame her but I feel sorry for her.”

“That’s nice. I didn’t know you felt sorry for anyone.”

“I feel sorry that she has let her emotions get the best of her.”

“I forgot. You don’t know anything about human emotions.”

“You’re nervous, Mark.”

Mark was angry at Ari’s placidness. He remembered Kitty’s anguish when she returned to Kyrenia and told him that Karen was going on the ship. “What do you want? Kitty has suffered more than one person has a right to suffer.”

“Suffered?” Ari said. “I wonder if Kitty Fremont knows the meaning of the word.”

“Damn you, Ben Canaan, damn you. What makes you think that Jews own a copyright on suffering?”

“Fortunately you’re not being paid to like me and I couldn’t care less.”

“How could you? You see, I like people with human weaknesses.”

“I never have them during working hours.”

Mark stood up to leave. Ari grabbed Mark’s arm in his powerful hand. For the first time Mark saw Ben Canaan shaken from his complacency. There was anger in Ari’s eyes. “What the hell do you think this is? A tea party on the duchess’s lawn? We’re butting heads with the British Empire tomorrow.”

He relased his grip on Mark’s arm and regretted the short display of temper. At that instant Mark felt a tiny bit sorry for Ari. Perhaps he had a better way of disguising it but the pressure was beginning to tell on him too.

A few hours later Mark had returned to the Dome Hotel in Kyrenia. He knocked on Kitty’s door. She managed to greet him with a half smile, but it could not disguise her red-rimmed eyes.

“Tomorrow.”

Kitty froze an instant. “So soon?”

“They are afraid the British are on to something.”

Kitty walked to the window and looked out at the pier and the island. It was a crystal-clear evening and she could even see the faint outline of the Turkish coast. “I’ve been trying to get up enough courage to pack up and leave Cyprus.”

“Look,” Mark said, “as soon as this blows over, you and I are going to head for the Riviera for a few weeks.”

“To pick up the pieces? I thought you were supposed to go to Palestine.”

“I doubt if the British will let me in after this. Kitty, I feel pretty rotten about dragging you into this thing.”

“It isn’t your fault, Mark.”

“You read that line well but it’s not quite true. Are you going to get over this?”

“Yes, I think so. I should have known better. You tried to warn me. At least I knew all the time that I was on thin ice. You know, Mark, it’s funny, but we argued the night I met Ben Canaan. I told you there was something different about Jews. They aren’t like us.”

“They have an unlimited capacity for getting into trouble. It’s their favorite sport,” Mark said, spinning off the bed and rubbing his temples. “Well … one way or the other we might as well eat and I’m hungry.”

Kitty leaned against the doorframe as Mark splashed his face with cold water. He groped for a towel. She handed him one.

“Mark. It’s going to be very dangerous on the Exodus, isn’t it?”

He hesitated a moment. There was no use trying to fool her at this point. “It’s a floating bomb.”

Kitty’s heart sank. “Tell me the truth. Can they get away with this?”

“They have a fair chance with that mechanical monster, Ari Ben Canaan, running the show.”

The sun went down and it was night.

Mark and Kitty sat wordlessly in her room.

“No use sitting up all night,” he said at last.

“Don’t go,” Kitty said; “I’ll just stretch out over the covers.” She reached into the night stand and took out a couple of sleeping pills, turned off the light, and lay back.

Mark sat by the window and watched the surf slap against the shore.

Twenty minutes passed. He looked over at Kitty and saw

she had fallen into a restless and thrashing sleep. He walked to the bed and stood over her for several moments, then covered her with a blanket and returned to the chair.

At Caraolos, Dov and Karen sat on his cot, too excited to sleep. They spoke in whispers. They were the only ones among the children who knew what the new clay would bring.

Karen tried to calm Dov. He kept whispering what he was going to do when he got to Palestine. How he was going to join the terrorists and kill British soldiers. She hushed him up as only she could and finally induced him to lie down.

As he closed his eyes Karen stood up and a strange sensation swept through her body. Odd and frightening. Dov meant more to her than she had realized until this moment. First it had been pity. Now Dov had a hold on her. She did not understand it. She wanted to be able to go and talk it over with Kitty. But Kitty was gone.

“Karen?”

“I am here, Dov.”

The hours of darkness ticked by.

At the 23rd Transportation Company HMJFC three men lay on their cots wide-eyed.

Zev Gilboa dared think about springtime in Galilee for the first time in nearly a year. He thought of his wife and child and of the farm. His baby had been only a few months old when the Palmach sent Zev to Cyprus.

Joab Yarkoni thought of his farm too. It was different from Zev’s, for it hugged the sea just a bit north of the Plain of Sharon. His farm was called Sdot Yam and it meant Fields of the Sea, for its main crop was fish. Yarkoni loved to walk for hours through the abandoned ruins of Caesarea and dig for antiquities, and he hoped that the Palmach might let him return there for a while. He would go out on his trawler fishing and he would see his brother and sister again.

… and David Ben Ami thought of his beloved Jerusalem. He loved Jerusalem almost as much as he loved Ari’s sister Jordana. Now he would see them both again until they reassigned him to another mission. The rocky hills of Judea where his six brothers lived and the city rose out of stone. David propped on an elbow and reread the worn letter that Ari had brought him. Jordanal Jordana! His heart raced wildly. Jordana, my love!

The three men knew that their stay in Palestine might be brief because they belonged to the Palmach and Mossad and they might be needed anywhere in the world. But this night they thought of home….

Brigadier Bruce Sutherland had another of his nightmares. He dressed and went out of his house alone and walked through Famagusta in the depth of night. He walked along the old wall of Famagusta and stared into the old city with its hundreds of churches and cathedrals and ruins of castles and memories of past glory. He walked until he came to Othello’s Tower and he climbed it and looked down at the harbor. He was tired, very tired, and he wondered if there would ever be a night again in which he could close his eyes and fall into a peaceful sleep.

Major J. J. Alistair fell asleep over his desk. Most of the night he continued to pore through reports and bits and scraps of information in an attempt to put together exactly what the Jews were up to at Caraolos.

Mandria paced back and forth in the room where the Mossad and Palmach had held so many meetings. Yes, it had been only a few weeks since Ari Ben Canaan and David Ben Ami had stood on that balcony outside and watched a convoy of Jews being taken from their illegal runner, Door of Hope, Tomorrow he would stand on the balcony and another convoy would pass. This one would climax Ari Ben Canaan’s fantastic scheme. The imagination of the Greek Cypriots had been tremendously stirred by the daring of the Mossad. Those of them, like Mandria, who worked with the Jews, were beginning to think in terms of an underground movement of their own against British rule on Cyprus.

One man slept soundly. Ari Ben Canaan slept like a well-fed baby without a care in the world.

A ray of light fell over Mark Parker’s face. He opened his eyes and yawned. He had dropped off by the window with his feet propped on the sill. He was stiff and his mouth tasted foul from cigarettes and scotch. He glanced around and saw Kitty in a deep and quiet slumber on the bed. He pulled the window shade down and tiptoed from the room and shaved and spent several moments under an icy shower and he felt better. He dressed and returned to Kitty’s room and sat gently on the edge of her bed and stroked her hair softly. She stirred and opened her eyes slowly. She smiled when she saw Mark and stretched and purred. Then her expression changed to one of fear.

At twenty minutes to nine, Ari Ben Canaan, dressed as Captain Caleb Moore, entered the lead jeep in the convoy of twelve trucks of the 23rd Transportation Company. Each

truck had a Palmachnik dressed like a British soldier as driver. They sped out of their camp and twenty minutes later halted before the administration building at Caraolos, outside the barbed-wire compounds.

Ari entered the administration building and knocked on the door of the commanding officer, whose acquaintance he had carefully made during the past three weeks.

“Good morning, sir,” Ari said.

“Good morning, Captain Moore. What brings you up here?”

“We received a special dispatch from headquarters, sir. It seems that they are getting the Larnaca camp ready faster than they expected. They want me to transfer some children today.” Ari lay the forged papers on the officer’s desk.

The CO thumbed through the sheets. “This isn’t on the schedule of transfers,” he said. “We didn’t expect to start moving the children for three days.”

“That’s the Army for you, sir,” Ari said.

The CO bit his lip and meditated and stared at Ari and looked through the transfer papers again. He reached for the phone. “Hello. Potter here. Captain Moore has orders to move three hundred children out of Compound 50. Dispatch a detail to help get them moved.”

The CO picked up his pen and initialed the papers. He signed half a dozen other sheets authorizing entrance into the compound and removal of the children. “Move them along, will you, Moore? We have another load to be transferred in an hour and the roads could be clogged.”

“Yes sir.”

“Oh, uh … Moore. Many thanks, old man, for the whisky you sent up to the club.”

“My pleasure, sir.”

Ari gathered up the papers from the CO’s desk. The CO sighed. “Jews come and Jews go,” he said.

“Yes sir,” Ari said. “They come … and they go.”

The breakfast table was set in front of the window in Mark’s room. He and Kitty nibbled at their food. Mark’s ash tray brimmed over. “What time is it now?” Kitty asked for the fifteenth time.

“Almost nine-thirty.”

“What would be happening?”

“If they’re running on schedule they’re loading the children aboard the trucks right now. Look,” Mark said, pointing out to sea. The salvage trawler Aphrodite/Exodus turned and moved slowly toward the harbor entrance,

“Good Lord,” Kitty said, “is that the Exodus!”

“That’s her.”

“My God, Mark. It looks like it’s ready to fall apart.”

“It is.”

“But how on earth are they going to get three hundred children on her?”

Mark lit another cigarette. He wanted to pace the room but he did not wish to show Kitty how frightened he was.

Nine-thirty.

Nine-forty.

The Exodus passed between the lighthouse and the castle, through the narrow opening of the two arms of the sea wall, and into the Kyrenia harbor.

Nine-fifty.

“Mark, please sit down. You’re making me nervous.”

“We should be getting a call from Mandria soon. Any minute now … any minute.”

Ten o’clock.

Five past ten.

Six past ten.

Seven past ten.

“Dammit! Where is that coffee I ordered? Kitty, phone from your room, will you. Tell them to get that coffee up here.”

A quarter past ten. The fresh pot of coffee arrived.

Seventeen past ten. Mark’s jitters abated. He knew that if he did not hear from Mandria in the next ten minutes something had gone wrong.

Ten-twenty. The phone rang!

Mark and Kitty looked at each other for an instant. Mark wiped the sweat from the palm of his hand, sucked in his breath, and lifted the receiver.

“Hello.”

“Mr. Parker?”

“Speaking.”

“Just a moment, sir. We have a call for you from Famagusta.”

“Hello … hello … hello.”

“Parker?”

“Speaking.”

“Mandria here.”

“Yes?”

“They have just passed through.”

Mark replaced the receiver slowly. “He got them out of Caraolos, all right. They’re moving down the road to Larnaca now. In about fifteen minutes they’ll fork off and make a dash north. They’ve got about fifty miles, mostly flat country with only one mountain pass if they don’t have to use alter-

nate roads. They should be here a little after noon … if everything goes all right.”

“I’m almost hoping that something will go wrong,” Kitty said.

“Come on. No use waiting here.”

He took his field glasses and walked with Kitty downstairs to the reception desk and asked for a cable blank.

KENNETH BRADBURY

CHIEF, AMERICAN NEWS SYNDICATE

LONDON

HAVING A BALL. REQUEST TWO WEEK EXTENSION OF MY VACATION. ADVISE.

MARK

“Send this through, urgent. How long will it take?”

The receptionist read it over. “It will be in London in a few hours.”

They walked from the Dome toward the quay.

“What was that about?” Kitty asked.

“My story should be on the wires from London tonight.”

They stood on the quay for several moments and watched the rickety salvage tug tie up at dockside. Mark led Kitty away. They crossed the harbor and climbed to the ramparts of the Virgin Castle. From here they could see both the harbor and far down the coastal road where the convoy was due to pass.

At eleven fifteen Mark focused his field glasses on the coast road. He slowly scanned the road that hugged the shore and wove in and out of the hills. The mountain pass was too far off to see. He froze! He had sighted a tiny trail of dust and a line of trucks which appeared as small as ants. He nudged Kitty and handed her the glasses. She held them on the trucks as they wove in and out the snake-like turns and inched toward Kyrenia.

“They are about half an hour away.” ,

They came down from the rampart, crossed the harbor once again, and stood at the end of the quay, which was only five walking minutes from the Dome Hotel. As the convoy passed the hospital at the edge of town Mark took Kitty’s hand and started back to the hotel.

In a phone booth at the Dome, Mark put in an urgent call to British Intelligence in Famagusta.

“I wish to speak to Major Alistair,” Mark said, disguising his voice by putting a handkerchief over the mouthpiece and speaking with a British accent.

“Who is calling, please, and what do you wish to speak to Major Alistair about?”

“Look, old boy,” Mark said, “three hundred Jews have escaped from Caraolos. Now just don’t ask any damned fool questions and give me Alistair.”

The phone on Major Alistair’s desk rang.

“Alistair here,” he said in his whispery voice.

“This is a friend,” Mark said. “I am advising you that several hundred Jews have broken out of Caraolos and are boarding a ship in the Kyrenia harbor at this very moment.”

Alistair clicked the receiver several times. “Hello … hello … who is this? I say … hello.” He closed his own phone and opened it again. “Alistair here. I have a report of an escape of Jews. They are supposed to be boarding a ship at Kyrenia. Sound an alert, blue. Have the Kyrenia area commander investigate at once. If the report is true you’d better advise naval units to move for that area.”

Alistair put down the receiver and rushed down the hall toward Sutherland’s office.

The convoy rolled to a stop on the quay. Ari Ben Ctnaan got out of the lead jeep and its driver drove it off. One by one the lorries rolled up to the Exodus. The youngsters responded automatically as a result of Zev’s training. They moved quickly and quietly from the truck to the ship On board, Joab, David, and Hank Schlosberg, the captain, moved them into their places in the hold and on deck. The operation was effected calmly and wordlessly.

Along the quay a few curious onlookers stood and gaped. A few British soldiers shrugged and scratched their heads. As quickly as each truck was unloaded it was driven off toward the mountains around St. Hilarion to be abandoned. As of that moment, the 23rd Transportation Company had fulfilled its purpose and was going out of existence. Joab left a note in his truck thanking the British for the use of their lorry.

Ari boarded the Exodus and went up to the wheelhouse. One by one the lorries discharged the children. It took only twenty minutes to load the boat. Zev, David, Joab, and Hank Schlosberg reported that the boarding had been completed. Ari gave the order to Hank and he cast off and started the engines.

“Get to the children,” Ari said, “and tell them exactly what we are doing and what will be expected of them. Any child who feels he cannot go through with it will advise me in the wheelhouse and he will be returned to Caraolos. Explain to them that their lives are in danger if they stay.

There is to be no pressure from you or the children to induce others to remain who wish to go.”

As the Palmachniks went down to brief the children the Exodus backed into mid-harbor and dropped anchor.

In an instant the entire Kyrenia area was alive with the shriek of sirens! Ari turned a pair of field glasses on the hills and coastal road and saw dozens of British lorries and jeeps converging on Kyrenia. He laughed out loud as he saw the trucks of the late 23rd Transportation Company rushing up the hills to be abandoned. They were rushing away from Kyrenia and passed the convoy of British soldiers coming in the opposite direction.

Ari looked below him. The children on deck were calm.

The British poured into the harbor area! Lorry after lorry of soldiers erupted onto the quay. Several officers were pointing at the Exodus and shouting orders. Soldiers began racing along both arms of the sea wall and setting up machine guns and mortars at the narrow harbor opening so that if the Exodus were to try it could not get out to sea.

More lorries poured into the area. The quay was roped off and curious spectators pushed back. Ari watched the British strength grow by the moment. Inside of an hour the harbor was swarming with five hundred fully armed soldiers. A pair of torpedo boats stationed themselves outside the harbor. On the horizon Ari could see a trio of destroyers rushr ing to the scene. The sirens shrieked on! The peaceful little town was turning into an armed camp! Then tanks rumbled onto the quay and artillery replaced the machine guns and mortars guarding the harbor entrance.

Another blaze of sirens brought a car bearing Brigadier Sutherland, Caldwell, and Alistair onto the quay. Major Cooke, the area commander of Kyrenia, reported to Sutherland.

“That’s the ship out there, sir. It’s loaded with Jews all right. It can’t possibly get away.”

Sutherland studied the harbor. “You’ve got enough here to fight a Panzer division,” he said; “they must be insane on that boat. Get a public-address system hooked up right away.”

“Yes, sir.”

“If you asked me, we’d blow them out of the water,” Caldwell said.

“I didn’t ask you,” Sutherland snapped. “Cooke . .,, get this area cordoned off. Organize a boarding party. Tear gas, small arms, in case they won’t come back by themselves. Freddie, hop over to the Dome and inform headquarters I want a news blackout.”

Alistair had remained quiet and was studying the tugboat

“What do you make of it, Alistair?”

“I don’t like it, sir,” he said. “They aren’t pulling a daylight escape like this unless they have something else in mind.”

“Come now, Alistair. You’re always looking for sinister plots.”

Mark Parker pushed his way past the guards and approached the two officers.

“What’s all the noise about?” Mark asked Alistair.

The instant Alistair saw Mark he knew his suspicion was correct. “Really, Parker,” Alistair said, “do be a good sport and tell us. You know, old man, you ought to brush up on your British accent the next time you telephone me.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Major.”

Brigadier Sutherland was beginning to catch on. He looked from the tug to Parker and to Alistair and he knew that the Mossad Aliyah Bet had caught him unprepared. He flushed. Major Cooke, the Kyrenia area commander, reported. “We’ll have boarding parties formed in ten minutes, sir. Two hundred men and we’ll commandeer some trawlers here to take them out.” Sutherland did not even hear him.

“Where is the loudspeaker, damn it all!”

Ten minutes later Sutherland grabbed a microphone. A silence fell over the harbor. The boarding parties stood by to go out into the middle of the harbor after the Exodus.

“Hello, out there! This is Brigadier Bruce Sutherland, the commander of Cyprus, speaking,” his voice shot out in a series of echoes. “Can you hear me out there?”

In the wheelhouse of the Exodus, Ari Ben Canaan opened his public-address system. “Hello, Sutherland,” he said, “this is Captain Caleb Moore of the 23rd Transportation Company, His Majesty’s Jewish Forces on Cyprus. You can find your lorries up at St. Hilarion.”

Sutherland turned pale. Alistair’s mouth dropped open,

“Hello, out there!” Sutherland’s voice snapped angrily. “We are going to give you ten minutes to return to dockside. If you do not we are going to send out a heavily armed boarding party and bring you back.”

“Hello, Sutherland! This is the Exodus speaking. We have three hundred and two children aboard this boat. Our engine rooms are loaded with dynamite. If one of your troops sets foot on this boat or if one round is fired from any of your guns we are going to blow ourselves up!”

At that instant Mark Parker’s story was being cabled from London to every corner of the world.

Sutherland, Alistair, and the five hundred British soldiers on the quay stood speechless as a flag was run up on the mast

of the Exodus. It was a British Union Jack and in its center

was painted a huge Nazi swastika. The battle of the Exodus was on!

CHAPTER THIRTY

EXCLUSIVE! DAVID VERSUS GOLIATH: MODEL 1946 BY AMERICAN NEWS SYNDICATE CORRESPONDENT MARK PARKER KYRENIA, CYPRUS: (ANS)

I am writing this story from Kyrenia. It is a tiny, jewel-like harbor on the northern coast of the British Crown Colony of Cyprus.

Cyprus has been rich in the pageantry of history. The island is filled with reminders of its vaunted past, from the ruins of Salamis to the cathedrals of Famagusta and Nicosia to the many castles of Crusader glory.

But none of this colorful history can match for sheer naked drama the scene that is being played at this very moment in this quiet, unknown resort town. For some months Cyprus has been a detention center for Jewish refugees who have tried to run the British blockade into Palestine.

Today, three hundred children between the ages of ten and seventeen escaped the British camp at Caraolos in an as-yet-undetermined manner, and fled across the island to Kyrenia where a converted salvage tug of about two hundred tons awaited them for a dash to Palestine.

Almost all the escapees were graduates of German concentration and extermination camps. The salvage tug, fittingly renamed the Exodus, was discovered by British Intelligence before it could get out of the harbor.

With its three hundred refugees the ship is sitting at anchor in the center of the harbor, which measures a mere three hundred yards in diameter, and has defied all British efforts to have the children debark and return to Caraolos.

A spokesman for the Exodus has announced that the hold of the boat is filled with dynamite. The children have joined in a suicide pact and they will blow up the boat if the British attempt to board her.

LONDON

General Sir Clarence Tevor-Browne dropped the copy of the newspaper on his desk. He lit a cigar and studied the reports, Mark Parker’s story was creating a sensation not only in Europe but in the United States. Tevor-Browne had a request

for instructions from Sutherland, who refused to take the responsibility of issuing an order to board the Exodus.

Tevor-Browne knew that part of the blame was his. He had chosen Bruce Sutherland for the job of commander himself, and he had failed to act on the letter from Alistair which had warned that something was going to happen unless Sutherland was replaced.

Humphrey Crawford entered Tevor-Browne’s office. Crawford was a pasty-faced career man in the Middle East section of the Colonial Office, and served as liaison between the army and the policy makers at Whitehall and Chatham House. “Afternoon, Sir Clarence,” Crawfo d said nervously. “It is time for our meeting with Bradshaw.”

Tevor-Browne arose and gathered some papers together. “Mustn’t keep old Cecil Bradshaw waiting.”

Cecil Bradshaw’s office was in the Institute of International Relations at Chatham House. For thirty years he had been one of the top men in formulating British Middle East policy.

At the end of World War I, Britain and France competed for influence in the Middle East. When the British got the Palestine mandate, Bradshaw had been one of those, with Winston Churchill, who had pushed for the creation of an Arab state out of half the mandate. The state they were instrumental in forming was Trans-Jordan. The entire purpose for bringing it into being was to turn it into a British military base. British subsidies made possible the establishment of Britain’s Arab army, the “Arab Legion,” and the choosing of a king for Trans-Jordan. He was the Hashimite Arab Abdullah, mortal enemy of Saud of Saudi Arabia.

At the end of World War II the Labour party swept into power with promises-among others-to help establish a Jewish homeland in Palestine and a refuge for the survivors in Europe. Cecil Bradshaw led that strong faction in Chatham House which convinced the new Foreign Minister that these promises were charming but not very practical and that Britain’s interests lay with the Arabs. The Arabs’ ten million square miles were rich in oil and included a vital canal.

General Sir Clarence Tevor-Browne and Humphrey Crawford were ushered into Cecil Bradshaw’s office. The latter, a fat man in his sixties, stood looking at the wall with his back to them, his pudgy hands clasped behind him. Humphrey Crawford sat down nervously on the edge of a seat. Tevor-Browne made himself comfortable in a deep leather chair and lit a cigar.

Bradshaw talked to the wall. “Congratulations, gentlemen,” he said in a voice filled with sarcasm and quivering with

anger. “I see we made the news today.” He turned and patted his rotund stomach and smiled. “You expected to find me in a lather. No indeed, no indeed. Whitehall called this morning. As expected, the Minister has dumped this Exodus business into my lap.” Bradshaw sat behind his desk, glanced at the reports, and snatched off his thick horn-rimmed glasses with a quick gesture. “Tell me, Sir Clarence… was your Intelligence staff dead or merely out for tennis? And I believe you have a bit of explaining to do about Sutherland. He was your idea.”

Tevor-Browne refused to be bullied. “I believe the establishment of camps on Cyprus was your idea. What is your explanation?”

“Gentlemen,” Crawford said quickly to avert a clash, “we are faced with a peculiar situation in this Exodus affair. This is the first time any publicity has carried into the American press.”

Bradshaw laughed a wheezy laugh. His big apple cheeks reddened. “With all of Truman’s talk the Americans have only allowed ten thousand Jewish refugees into the country since the end of the war. Certainly Truman is for Zionism … as long as Palestine isn’t in Pennsylvania. Everyone talks idealistically but we are still the ones with a million Jews on our hands, a million Jews who could ruin our entire position in the Middle East.” Bradshaw replaced his glasses. “Star of David, Moses, Palmach, Gates of Zion, Door of Hope, and now the Exodus. The Zionists are very clever people. For twenty-five years they have made us the villains in Palestine. They write words into the mandate articles and the Balfour Declaration that were never meant. They can argue a camel into thinking he is a mule. Good Lord … two hours with Chaim Weizmann and I’m about ready to join the Zionists myself.” Cecil Bradshaw took off his glasses again. “We know your sympathies, Tevor-Browne.”

“I resent the implications, Bradshaw. Perhaps I am one of a few hardheads who say the only way we are going to hold the Middle East is by building a powerful Jewish Palestine. I don’t speak of Jewish interest but I speak of British interest.”

Bradshaw interrupted. “Now let’s get to this Exodus affair. The implications are absolutely clear. We gave in on the Promised Land but this time we will not give in. This boat is in our waters and not in French waters. We will not go on board, we will not send them to Germany, we will not sink them. They will sit in Kyrenia until they rot. Rot-do you hear that, Tevor-Browne?-rot.” His hand began to shake as he grew angrier.

Tevor-Browne closed his eyes. “We cannot fight this out on moral grounds. We have no cause to keep three hundred

children who were raised in concentration camps from entering Palestine. Oil … canals … Arabs be damned! We have no cause! We made ourselves look ridiculous by sending the Promised Land refugees to Germany.”

“I know your sympathies!”

“Gentlemen!”

Tevor-Browne stood up and leaned over Bradshaw’s desk. “There is only one way we can win this Exodus affair. The Jews have planned this whole incident to create propaganda. Turn the tables on them. Let the Exodus sail this minute. That is what they don’t want.”

“Never!”

“Can’t you see, sir, that we’re playing right into their hands?”

“That ship will not sail as long as I am in Chatham House!”

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

MARK PARKER DOME HOTEL KYRENIA, CYPRUS

STORY GAINING MOMENTUM. KEEP THEM COMING. KEN BRADBURY, ANS LONDON

KYRENIA, CYPRUS (ANS), BY MARK PARKER

It is a ridiculous sight. One thousand armed soldiers, tanks, artillery, and a naval task force all looking helplessly out at an unarmed salvage tug.

The battle of the Exodus ends week one in a draw. Both the British and the refugees are holding fast. To date no one has boarded the illegal runner which has threatened to blow itself up, but from the quay it is only a few hundred yards distant and a pair of field glasses bring the boat an arm’s length away.

The morale of the three hundred children on the Exodus seems to be phenomenal. They spent the week in the harbor alternately singing and catcalling to the British troops on the quay and sea wall.

Mark’s reports went out daily, each new one adding new and interesting details.

When Cecil Bradshaw made the decision to make a test case of the Exodus he knew there would be a barrage of adverse criticism. The French press staged its usual uproar, although this time the insults were so terrible that the likes of them had not been heard in the history of the Anglo-French alliance. The story spread throughout Europe, and even the British press became split and questioned Whitehall’s wisdom in not letting the Exodus sail for Palestine. .

Bradshaw was a wise politician and he had weathered many storms. This one was a storm in a teacup and it would blow over, he was sure. He sent a trio of friendly journalists to Kyrenia to counter Parker’s reports, and a half dozen experts worked full time to explain the British position. The British had a case and it was being presented well, but it was difficult to offset natural sentiment for a group of refugee children.

// the Zionists are so sincere, why are they endangering the lives of three hundred innocent children? The whole thing is a sinister and coldblooded plot to create sympathy and becloud the real issues of the Palestine mandate. It is obvious we are dealing with fanatics. Ari Ben Canaan is a professional Zionist agitator with a record of years of illegal operations.

Newspapermen from half a dozen countries landed at the Nicosia airport and demanded permission to enter the Kyrenia area. Several large magazines also sent in teams. The Dome Hotel began to look like a small political convention headquarters.

In cafes in Paris the British were denounced.

In pubs in London the British were defended.

In Stockholm there were sermons.

In Rome there were debates.

In New York bookies were laying four to one that the Exodus would not sail.

At the end of the second week Ari granted Mark permission to board the ship. Mark picked what he believed to be the ripe moment and arranged it by preset signals. Since he was the first outsider to board the Exodus his next three reports were carried by every newspaper on the front page.

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH EXODUS SPOKESMAN ARI BEN

CANAAN:

KYRENIA, CYPRUS (ANS).

Today I became the first correspondent to interview Ari Ben Canaan, the spokesman for the children on the Exodus. I confronted Ben Canaan with the barrage of British reports maintaining that he was a professional Zionist troublemaker and with other Whitehall accusations. We spoke in the wheelhouse of the boat, the only place aboard not teeming with

humanly Today the children seem still to be in top spirits but are starting to show physical effects of their two-week siege.

Ben Canaan, thirty, and a strapping six-footer with black hair and ice-blue eyes, could be mistaken for a movie leading man. He expressed his gratitude to well-wishers around the world and assured me the children were holding up fine. In reply to my questions he answered, “I don’t care about the personal attacks on me. I wonder if the British added that I was a captain in their army during World War II. 1 admit I am a Zionist troublemaker and I will continue to be one until they keep” their promises about Palestine. Whether my work is legal or not is a matter of opinion.”

I pressed him about the British arguments and the importance of the Exodus. “We Jews are blamed for many things and we are used to it. In anything concerning the Palestine mandate that cannot be explained logically and reasonably they drag out the old excuse that it is some sinister plot of Zionism. I am really amazed that they haven’t blamed the Zionists for the trouble they are having in India. Fortunately for us, Gandhi is not Jewish.

“Whitehall is using that tired whipping boy, the mysterious Zionists, to cover three decades of dirty work, lies to both Jews and Arabs, sellouts, double crosses, and betrayals in the mandate. The first promise they broke was the Balfour Declaration of 1917 which promised a Jewish homeland, and they have been breaking promises ever since. The latest double cross has come from the Labour party, which, before the elections, promised to open the doors of Palestine to survivors of Hitler’s regime.

“I am astounded at Whitehall’s crocodile’ tears over our victimizing of children. Every child on the Exodus is a volunteer. Every child on the Exodus is an orphan because of Hitlerism. Nearly every child has lived in either German or British concentration camps for six years.

“If Whitehall is so concerned about the welfare of these children then I challenge them to throw open the gates of Caraolos to inspection of the newsmen. It is nothing more or less than a concentration camp. People are kept behind barbed wire at machine-gun point with insufficient food, water, and medical care. No charges have been brought against these people. But they are being forcibly detained in Caraolos.

“Whitehall talks of our trying to bully them into an unjust solution of the mandate. There are a quarter of a million Jews in Europe who survived out of six million.

“The British quota of Jews allowed into Palestine is seven hundred a month. Is this their ‘just solution’?

“Finally, I argue the right of the British in Palestine. Have they more right to be there than the survivors of Hitler? Let me read you something.”

With that, Ben Canaan took a Bible from the desk of the wheelhouse, opened it to Ezekiel, and read:

“Thus saith the Lord God; When I shall have gathered the house of Israel from the people among whom they are scattered, and shall be sanctified in them in the sight of the nations, then shall they dwell in their land that I have given to my servant Jacob wherein your fathers abode and they shall abide therein and even they and their children and their children’s children forever.”

Ari Ben Canaan put the Bible down. “The gentlemen at Whitehall had better study their claims further. I say the same thing to the Foreign Minister that a great man said to another oppressor three thousand years ago-LET MY PEOPLE GO.”

The day after his “Let my people go” report Mark followed up with the inside story of Operation Gideon, including details of how British trucks had been used in the escape. British prestige hit a low-water mark.

On Mark’s advice, Ari allowed other newsmen to board the Exodus and they clamored to be let into the Caraolos camp.

Cecil Bradshaw had expected criticism, but he had not reckoned on the furor that had been created. Meeting followed meeting, as for that moment in time the eyes of the world focused on Kyrenia harbor. To allow the Exodus to sail would be completely disastrous now.

General Sir Clarence Tevor-Browne flew secretly to Cyprus to take command and see whether something could be done.

His plane landed in the small hours of the morning under security measures at the Nicosia airdrome. Major Alistair met him and they quickly entered a staff car and it whisked off toward Famagusta headquarters.

“I wanted to speak to you, Alistair, before I took over from Sutherland. Of course I received your letter and you are free to speak.”

“Well, sir,” Alistair said, “I would say that the strain has got Sutherland down. Something has happened to the man. Caldwell tells me he has one nightmare after another. He walks all night long, till dawn, and he spends most of his days reading the Bible.”

“Damned shame,” Tevor-Browne said. “Bruce has been a corking good soldier. I trust what is said will never leave this car. We must protect the man.”

“Of course, sir,” Alistair said.

KYRENIA, CYPRUS (AP) EXCLUSIVE

General Sir Clarence Tevor-Browne of desert fame landed anonymously at Nicosia airdrome last night. Sir Clarence was dressed in civilian clothes and his arrival was marked by secrecy. Tevor-Browne’s appearance on the scene confirms Whitehall’s concern over the Exodus. It could indicate a change in policy if not a change in command.

Mark boarded the Exodus and asked that Karen be sent to the wheelhouse. He was worried as he pushed his way over the crowded deck. The children were looking gaunt and they smelled bad from the lack of water to wash with.

Ari was in the wheelhouse as placid as ever. Mark gave him cigarettes and a few bottles of brandy. “How’s it going out there?” Ari asked.

“Doesn’t look like any change in policy with Tevor-Browne in. The story is still tops all over. Bigger than I expected. Look, Ari, this thing has worked perfectly for you and me both. You’ve done what you started out to do, given the British a black eye. The word I got is that the British are not going to back down.”

“What’s the point?”

“The point is you can top this whole thing off by making a humanity move and taking the ship to dock. We’ll make a big story when the British march them back to Caraolos. It will tear the people’s hearts out.”

“Did Kitty send you in with this?”

“Aw, cut it out, will you. Just look down there at those kids. They’re starting to come apart.”

“They knew what they were in for.”

“There’s another thing, Ari. I’m afraid we’ve hit the mark with this story. We’re on top now, but tomorrow Frank Sinatra may unload a left hook on some columnist in a night club and we’re off page one.”

Karen entered the wheelhouse. “Hello, Mr. Parker,” she said softly.

“Hello, honey. Here’s a letter from Kitty and a package.”

She took the letter and gave Mark one for Kitty. She refused the package as she had refused all the other packages.

“Christ, I haven’t got the heart to tell Kitty she won’t

take the packages for herself. That girl is sick. Did you see the circles under her eyes? You’re going to have real trouble on this ship in another few days.”

“We were speaking of maintaining public interest. Get one thing straight, Parker. We don’t go back to Caraolos. There are a quarter of a million Jews in Europe waiting for an answer and we are the only ones who can answer1 them. Starting tomorrow we will declare a hunger strike. Anyope who passes out will be placed on deck for the British to look at”

“You ghoul … you stinking ghoul,” Mark snarled.

“Call me what you want, Parker. Do you think I like starving a bunch of orphans? Give me something else to fight with. Give me something to shoot at those tanks and those destroyers! All we’ve got is our guts and what we believe in. We’ve had the hell knocked out of us for two thousand years. This is one fight we’re going to win.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

HUNGER STRIKE CALLED ON EXODUS!

Children vow starvation rather than return to Caraolos.

After allowing the story to build up over a two-week period, Ari Ben Canaan fooled everyone by launching an offensive. It was no game of “wait and see” now; the children were forcing a decision.

A huge sign was tied to the sides of the Exodus with lettering in English, French, and Hebrew. The sign read:

Hunger Strike/Hour #1

Hunger Strike/ Hour #15

Two boys and a girl, aged ten, twelve, and fifteen, were brought on the forward deck of the Exodus and laid out, unconscious.

Hunger Strike/Hour #20

Ten children were stretched out on the forward deck.

“For Christ’s sake, Kitty, stop pacing and sit down!”

“It’s over twenty hours now. How much longer is he going to let this go on? I just haven’t had the courage to go to the quay and look. Is Karen one of those children unconscious on deck?”

“I told you ten times she wasn’t.”

“They aren’t strong children to begin with and they’ve been cooped up on that ship for two weeks. They have no stamina

left.” Kitty pulled nervously at a cigarette and tugged at her hair. “That man is a beast. An inhuman beast.”

“I’ve been thinking about that,” Mark said. “I’ve been thinking about it a lot. I wonder if we really understand what is driving those people so hard. Have you ever seen Palestine? It’s worthless desert in the south end and eroded in the middle and swamp up north. It’s stinking, it’s sunbaked, and it’s in the middle of a sea of fifty million sworn enemies. Yet they break their necks to get there. They call it the Land of Milk and Honey … they sing about water sprinklers and irrigation ditches. Two weeks ago I told Ari Ben Canaan that the Jews don’t have a patent on suffering but I’m beginning to wonder. I swear I wonder. I wonder how something can hurt so badly that can drive them so hard.”

“Don’t defend them, Mark, and don’t defend those people.”

“Try to remember one thing. Ben Canaan couldn’t do this without the support of those kids. They’re behind him one hundred per cent.”

“That’s what hurts,” Kitty said, “this loyalty. This fantastic loyalty they have for each other.”

The phone rang. Mark answered, listened, and hung up.

“What is it? I said what is it, Mark!”

“They’ve brought some more kids up on the deck unconscious. A half dozen of them.”

“Is … is … Karen… ?”

“I don’t know. I’m going to find out.”

“Mark.”

“What?”

“I want to go on the Exodus.”

“That’s impossible.”

“I can’t take it any more,” she said.

“If you do this you’re finished.”

“No, Mark … it’s different. If I knew she were alive and well I could bear it. I swear I could. I made myself know that. But I can’t just sit idly and know she’s dying. I can’t do that.”

“Even if I can get Ben Canaan to let you on the Exodus the British won’t let you.”

“You must,” she said fiercely, “you must.”

She stood with her back to the door and blocked his exit Her face determined. Mark lowered his eyes. “I’ll do what I can,” he said.

Hunger Strike/Hour #35

Angry crowds in Paris and Rome demonstrated before the British embassies. Fierce oratory and placards demanded the release of the Exodus. Police clubs and tear gas were used in Paris to disperse the mob. In Copenhagen and in Stockholm

and in Brussels and in The Hague there were other demonstrations. These were more orderly.

Hunger Strike/Hour #38

A spontaneous general strike swept over the island of Cyprus in protest against the British. Transportation stopped, businesses shut down, and ports closed, theaters and restaurants locked their doors. Famagusta, Nicosia, Larnaca, and Limassol looked like morgues.

Hunger Strike!Hour #40

Ari Ben Canaan stared at his lieutenants. He looked into the somber faces of Joab, David, Zev, and Hank Schlosberg.

Zev, the Galilee farmer, spoke up first. “I am a soldier. I cannot stand by and watch children starve to death.”

“In Palestine,” Ari snapped, “youngsters this same age are already fighters in Gadna.”

“It is one thing to fight and it is another to starve to death.”

“This is only another way of fighting,” Ari said.

Joab Yarkoni had worked with Ari for many years and had served with him in World War II. “I have never gone against you, Ari. The minute one of these children dies this whole thing is liable to boomerang on us.”

Ari looked over to Hank Schlosberg, the American captain. Hank shrugged. “You’re the boss, Ari, but the crew is getting jittery. They didn’t bargain for this.”

“In other words,” Ari said, “you want to surrender.”

Their silence confirmed it.

“David, what about you? I haven’t heard from you.”

David, a scholar, was steeped in the Torah and in the holy books. He had a closeness to God that none of the rest of them had and they respected it.

“Six million Jews died in gas chambers not knowing why they died,” he said. “If three hundred of us on the Exodus die we will certainly know why. The world will know too. When we were a nation two thousand years ago and when we rebelled against Roman and Greek rule we Jews established the tradition of fighting to the last man. We did this at Arbela and Jerusalem. We did this at Beitar and Herodium and Machaerus. At Masada we held out against the Romans for four years and when they entered the fort they found us all dead. No people, anywhere, have fought for their freedom as have our people. We drove the Romans and the Greeks from our land until we were dispersed to the four corners of the world. We have not had much opportunity to fight as a nation for two thousand years. When we had that opportunity at the Warsaw ghetto we did honor to our tradition. I say if we leave this boat and willingly return to barbed-wire prisons then we will have broken faith with God.”

“Are there any further questions?” Ari said.

Hunger Strike/Hour #42

In the United States, South Africa, and England mass prayer meetings were being held in synagogues, and in many churches there were prayers for the safety of the children on the Exodus.

Hunger Strike/Hour #45

The Jews in Argentina began to fast in sympathy with the children aboard the Exodus.

Hunger Strike/Hour #47

It was getting dark as Kitty boarded the Exodus. The stench was overpowering. All over the deck, in the lifeboats, on the superstructure she saw the crush of humanity. Everyone was lying down and absolutely motionless to conserve energy.

“I want to see those children who have passed out,” she said.

David led her to the bow of the ship where there were three rows of unconscious children, sixty in number. David knelt and held his lantern close to the bodies as Kitty moved from one to the other, feeling their pulses and looking into the pupils of their eyes. Half a dozen times she thought she would faint as her heart pounded and she rolled over a child who looked like Karen.

David led her around the packed deck, stepping over the prostrate bodies. The children stared listlessly at her with dazed eyes. Their hair was matted and dirt caked their faces.

David led her down the steep ladder onto the hold. She nearly vomited as the stink enveloped her. In the half light she saw the ghastly sight of the children packed in shelves one atop the other.

On the deck of the hold they lay piled against each other. She found Karen in a corner, enmeshed in a tangle of arms and legs. Dov was asleep next to her. They lay on a pile of rags and the deck was slimy beneath them.

“Karen,” she whispered. “Karen, it’s me, Kitty.”

Karen’s eyes fluttered open. There were huge black circles beneath them and her lips were caked dry. She was too weak to sit up.

“Kitty?”

“Yes, it’s me.”

Karen held her arms open and Kitty held her tightly for many moments. “Don’t leave, Kitty. I’m so frightened.”

“I’ll be near,” Kitty whispered, releasing the girl.

She went to the hospital and examined the limited supply of drugs and sighed despondently. “There is very little that can be done,” she said to David. “I’ll try to make them as

comfortable as possible. Can you and Joab work with me?”

“Of course.”

“Some of those unconscious are in serious condition. We’ll have to try to sponge them to get their fevers down. It is chilly up on deck. We’ll keep them covered. Then I want everyone who is capable of working to get this ship clean.”

Kitty labored feverishly for hours to ward off death. It was like trying to fill an ocean with a thimble. As soon as one child was brought under control three more became seriously ill. She hadn’t the drugs, water, or other facilities to do very much. Food, the one weapon, could not be used.

Hunger Strike/Hour #81

Seventy children in coma lay on the deck of the Exodus.

On the quay of Kyrenia harbor there were angry grumbles of insubordination from the British ranks. Many of the soldiers could stand it no longer and asked to be removed, even at the risk of court-martial. The eyes of Cyprus fastened on Kyrenia.

Hunger Strike/Hour #82

Karen Hansen Clement was carried to the bow of the ship, unconscious.

Hunger Strike/Hour #83

Kitty walked into the wheelhouse and slumped exhausted into a chair. She had worked for thirty-five straight hours and her mind was muddled and dazed. Ari poured her a stiff brandy.

“Go on and drink,” he said. “You aren’t on strike.”

She swallowed it down, and a second drink brought her to her senses. She stared at Ari Ben Canaan long and hard. He was a powerful man. He showed almost no effects of the siege. She looked into his cold eyes and wondered what thoughts, what plots, what tricks were running through his brain. She wondered if he was frightened or even knew fear. She wondered if he was sad or shaken.

“I was expecting you to come up here to see me much sooner,” he said.

“I won’t beg you, Ari Ben Canaan. Ben Canaan and God … in that order … isn’t that right? Well, there are a dozen children on the verge of death. I am merely reporting to you like a good Palmachnik. They’re going to die, Mr. Ben Canaan. How do you rule?”

“I’ve been insulted before, Kitty. It doesn’t bother me. Is this humanity of yours so great that it cries out for all these children or does it appeal for the life of one child?”

“You have no right to ask that.”

“You are begging for the life of one girl. I am begging for the lives of a quarter of a million people.”

She rose. “I had better get back to work. Ari, you knew

why I wanted to come on board the Exodus. Why did you let me?”

He turned his back to her and looked from the window out to sea where the cruiser and destroyers stood watch. “Maybe I wanted to see you.”

Hunger Strike/Hour #85

General Sir Clarence Tevor-Browne paced up and down Sutherland’s office. The smoke from his cigar clouded the room. He stopped several times and looked out the window in the direction of Kyrenia.

Sutherland tapped out his pipe and studied the array of sandwiches on the tray on the coffee table. “Won’t you sit down, Sir Clarence, and have a bite to eat and a spot of tea?”

Tevor-Browne looked at his wrist watch and sighed. He seated himself and picked up a sandwich, stared at it, nibbled, then threw it down. “I feel guilty when I eat,” he said.

“This is a bad business to be in for a man with a conscience,” Sutherland said. “Two wars, eleven foreign posts, six decorations, and three orders. Now I’ve been stopped in my tracks by a band of unarmed children. A fine way to end thirty years of service, eh, Sir Clarence?”

Tevor-Browne lowered his eyes.

“Oh, I know you’ve been wanting to talk to me,” said Sutherland.

Tevor-Browne poured some tea and sighed, half embarrassed. “See here, Bruce. If it were up to me …”

“Nonsense, Sir Clarence. Don’t feel badly. It is I who feel badly. I let you down.” Sutherland rose and his eyes brimmed. “I am tired. I am very tired.”

“We will arrange a full pension and have the retirement as quiet as possible. You can count on me,” Tevor-Browne said. “See here, Bruce. I stopped over in Paris on my way here and I had a long talk with Neddie. I told her about your predicament. Listen, old boy, with some encouragement from you, you two could get together again. Neddie wants you back and you’re going to need her.”

Sutherland shook his head. “Neddie and I have been through for years. All we ever had between us that was meaningful was the Army. That’s what held us together.”

“Any plans?”

“These months on Cyprus have done something to me, Sir Clarence, especially these past few weeks. You may not believe this, but I don’t feel that I’ve suffered a defeat. I feel that I may have won something very great. Something I lost a long time ago.”

“And what is that?”

“Truth. Do you remember when I took this post? You told

me that the only kingdom that runs on right and wrong is the kingdom of heaven and the kingdoms of the earth run on oil.”

“I remember it well,” Tevor-Browne said.

“Yes,” Sutherland said, “I have thought so much about it since this Exodus affair. All my life I have known the truth and I have known right from wrong. Most of us do. To know l the truth is one thing. To live it… to create the kingdom of heaven on earth is another. How many times in a man’s life does he do things that are repulsive to his morality in order to exist? How I have admired those few men in this world who could stand up for their convictions in the face of shame, torture, and even death. What a wonderful feeling of inner peace they must have. Something that we ordinary mortals can never know. Gandhi is such a man.

“I am going to that rotten sliver of land that these Jews call their kingdom of heaven on earth. I want to know it all … Galilee, Jerusalem … all of it.”

“I envy you, Bruce.”

“Perhaps I’ll settle down near Safed … on Mount Canaan.”

Major Alistair entered the office. He was pale and his hand shook as he gave Tevor-Browne a note to read. Tevor-Browne read it and reread it and could not believe his eyes. “Great God, save us all,” he whispered. He passed the note to Bruce Sutherland.

URGENT

Ari Ben Canaan, spokesman for the Exodus, announced that beginning at noon tomorrow ten volunteers a day will commit suicide on the bridge of the ship in full view of the British garrison. This protest practice will continue until either the Exodus is permitted to sail for Palestine or everyone aboard is dead.

Bradshaw, with Humphrey Crawford and half a dozen aides, sped out of London to the quiet of a peaceful, isolated little house in the country. He had fourteen hours to act before the suicides on the Exodus began.

He had badly miscalculated the entire thing. First, the tenacity and determination of the children on the ship. Second, the powerful propaganda the incident created. Finally, he had not imagined that Ben Canaan would take the offensive and press the issue as he had. Bradshaw was a stubborn man but he knew when he was defeated, and he now turned his efforts to making a face-saving settlement.

Bradshaw had Crawford and his aides cable or phone a

dozen of the top Jewish leaders in England, Palestine, and the United States to ask them to intervene. The Palestinians, in particular, might possibly dissuade Ben Canaan. At the very least they could stall the action long enough to enable Bradshaw to come up with some alternate plans. If he could get Ben Canaan to agree to negotiate then he could talk the Exodus to death. Within six hours, Bradshaw had his answers from the Jewish leaders. They answered uniformly: WE WILL NOT INTERCEDE.

Next Bradshaw contacted Tevor-Browne on Cyprus. He instructed the general to inform the Exodus that the British were working out a compromise and to delay the deadline for twenty-four hours.

Tevor-Browne carried out these instructions and relayed Ben Canaan’s answer back to England.

URGENT

Ben Canaan informed us there is nothing to discuss. He says either the Exodus sails or it doesn’t sail. He further states that complete amnesty to the Palestinians aboard is part of the conditions. Ben Canaan summarized: Let my people go.

Tevor-Brewne

Cecil Bradshaw could not sleep. He paced back and forth, back and forth. It was just a little over six hours before the children on the Exodus would begin committing suicide. He had only three hours left in which to make a decision to hand to the Cabinet. No compromise could be reached.

Was he fighting a madman? Or was this Ari Ben Canaan a shrewd and heartless schemer who had deftly led him deeper and deeper into a trap?

LET MY PEOPLE GO!

Bradshaw walked to his desk and flicked on the lamp. URGENT

Ari Ben Canaan, spokesman for the Exodus, announced that beginning at noon tomorrow ten volunteers a day will commit suicide …

Suicide… suicide … suicide …

Bradshaw’s hand shook so violently he dropped the paper.

Also on his desk were a dozen communiques from various European and American governments. In that polite language that diplomats use they all expressed concern over

the Exodus impasse. He also had notes from each of the Arab governments expressing the view that if the Exodus were permitted to sail for Palestine it would be considered an affront to every Arab.

Cecil Bradshaw was confused now. The past few days had been a living hell. How had it all begun? Thirty years of formulating Middle Eastern policy and now he was in his worst trouble over an unarmed salvage tug.

What queer trick of fate had given him the mantle of an oppressor? Nobody could possibly accuse him of being anti-Jewish. Secretly Bradshaw admired the Jews in Palestine and understood the meaning of their return. He enjoyed the hours he had spent arguing with Zionists around conference tables, bucking their brilliant debaters. Cecil Bradshaw believed from the bottom of his heart that England’s interest lay with the Arabs. Yet the Mandate had grown to over half a million Jews. And the Arabs were adamant that the British were fostering a Jewish nation in their midst.

During all the years of work he had been realistic with himself. What was happening? He could see his own grandchildren lying on the deck of the Exodus. Bradshaw knew his Bible as well as any well-brought-up Englishman and like most Englishmen had a tremendous sense of honor although he was not deeply religious. Could it be that the Exodus was driven by mystic forces? No, he was a practical diplomat and he did not believe in the supernatural.

Yet-he had an army and a navy and the power to squash the Exodus and all the other illegal runners-but he could not bring himself to do it.

The Pharaoh of Egypt had had might on his side too! Sweat ran down Bradshaw’s face. It was all nonsense! He was tired and the pressure had been too great. What foolishness!

LET MY PEOPLE Go!

Bradshaw walked to the library and found a Bible and in near panic began to read through the pages of Exodus and about the Ten Plagues that God sent down on the land of Egypt.

Was he Pharaoh? Would a curse rain down on Britain? He went back to his room and tried to rest, but a staccato rhythm kept running through his tired brain … let my people go … let my people go … “Crawford!” he yelled. “Crawford!” Crawford ran in, tying his robe. “You called?” “Crawford. Get through to Tevor-Browne on Cyprus at once. Tell him … tell him to let the Exodus sail for Palestine.”

BOOK 2

The land is mine

CHAPTER ONE: The battle of the Exodus was over!

Within seconds, the words “Exodus to sail” were on the wires. Within minutes they blazed in headlines around the world.

On Cyprus the joy of the people was boundless and around the world there was one long sigh of relief.

On the Exodus the children were too exhausted to celebrate.

The British urged Ari Ben Canaan to bring the salvage tug to dockside so that the children could be given medical care and the ship restocked and inspected. Ben Canaan agreed, and as the Exodus pulled in, Kyrenia turned into a mad scramble of activity. A score of British army doctors swarmed onto the ship and quickly removed the more severe cases. A hastily improvised hospital was established at the Dome Hotel. Rations and clothing and supplies poured onto the dock. In addition, hundreds of gifts from the people of Cyprus deluged the ship. Royal engineers combed the ancient tug from stem to stern to patch leaks, overhaul the motor, and refit her. Sanitation teams made her spotless.

After an initial survey Ari was advised it would take several days to get the children strong enough and the ship fit enough to make the day and a half run to Palestine. The small Jewish community on Cyprus sent a delegation to Ari to appeal to him to allow the children to celebrate the first night of Chanukah, the Festival of Lights, on Cyprus before sailing; the holiday was to begin in a few days. Ari agreed.

Only after Kitty had been assured and reassured that Karen’s condition was not serious did she allow herself the luxury of a steaming hot tub, a thick steak, a half pint of Scotch, and a magnificent, deep, seventeen-hour sleep.

Kitty awoke to a problem she could no longer avoid. She had to decide either to end the episode with Karen forever or to follow the girl to Palestine.

Late in the evening when Mark came into her room for tea she appeared none the worse for her ordeal. In fact, the long sleep had made her look quite attractive.

“Newsroom still hectic?”

“Matter of fact, no,” Mark answered. “The captains and the kings are departing. The Exodus is day-old news now … the kind they wrap fish in. Oh, I suppose we can drum up a final page-one picture when the boat lands in Haifa.”

“People are fickle.”

“No, not really, Kitty. The world just has a habit of moving on.”

She sipped her tea and sank into silence. Mark lit a cigarette and propped his feet on the window sill. He pretended his fingers were a pistol and pointed over his shoe tops out at the pier.

“What about you, Mark?”

“Me? Old Mark Parker has worn out his welcome in the king’s domains. I’m going Stateside and then maybe take a crack at the Asian beat. I’ve had an itch to go there anyhow … I hear it runs crosswise.”

“The British won’t let you into Palestine?”

“Not a chance. I am held in very low esteem. In fact if they weren’t proper Englishmen I’d say they hate my guts. Frankly, I don’t blame them.”

“Give me a cigarette.”

Mark lit one and handed it to her. He bided his time, continuing to take target practice with his imaginary pistol.

“Damn you, Mark! I hate that smug way you have of reading my mind.”

“You’ve been a busy little girl. You went to the British authorities to ask permission to enter Palestine. Being the gentlemen they are, they opened the door for you and bowed. You were just a clean-cut American girl doing her duty. Of course, CID doesn’t know about your little rumrunning act for Aliyah Bet. Well … are you going or not?”

“God, I don’t know.”

“You mean you haven’t talked yourself into it yet.”

“I mean I don’t know.”

“So which side do you want me to take?”

“You could stop acting like a worldly Buddha looking down on the poor tormented mortals. And you could stop sniping at me, Mark.”

Mark dropped his feet from the window sill. “Go on. . , go to Palestine. That’s what you want to hear, isn’t it?”

“I still don’t feel right around Jewish people , . I can’t help it.”

“You feel fine around that girl though, don’t you? Does she still remind you of your daughter?”

“Not really, not any more. She is too much of herself to be anyone else. But I love her and want her, if that’s what you mean.”

“I’ve got a loaded question for you, Mrs. Fremont . .”

“Go on.”

“Are you in love with Ari Ben Canaan?”

Love Ari Ben Canaan? She knew that he affected her whenever he was near or spoke or looked at her or even when she thought of him. She knew she had never met another man exactly like him. She knew she had a certain fear of his dark quietness and his tremendous power. She knew she admired

his daring and courage. She knew there were moments she loathed him as she had never loathed another human being. But love … ?

“I don’t know,” she murmured. “As much as I cannot walk into it … I can’t seem to be able to walk away from it and I don’t know why … I don’t know why.”

Later, Kitty spent over an hour with Karen in the hospital ward that had been set up on the second floor of the hotel. Karen had made a remarkable recovery. In fact, the doctors were amazed with the near magic effect the two words “Eretz Israel” had on all the children. It was more potent than any medicine. As Kitty sat with Karen she looked out over the faces of the children in the ward. Who were they? Where did they come from? Where were they going? What strange, strange people … what a strange, strange obsession they carried.

There were long periods of silence between Kitty and Karen in which neither of them dared broach the subject of her coming on to Palestine. At last Karen fell asleep. Kitty stared down at the girl. How lovely she was … how very lovely. She kissed Karen’s forehead and stroked her hair and Karen smiled in her sleep.

She walked out to the corridor where Dov Landau was pacing back and forth. They both halted, stared at each other, and Kitty passed on wordlessly.

The sun was setting as Kitty walked out to the quay. Across the street Zev Gilboa and Joab Yarkoni were supervising the loading of materials aboard the salvage tug. She looked about quickly to catch a glimpse of Ari. He was not in sight.

“Shalom, Kitty!” they called to her.

“Hi!” she called back.

She walked on down the quay toward the lighthouse. It was getting chilly. She put on her sweater. “I must know … I must know … I must … I must” she repeated over and over to herself. Out on the edge of the sea wall sat young David Ben Ami. He seemed lost in thought, looking out over the water and flipping pebbles.

She came up alongside him and he looked up and smiled.

“Shalom, Kitty. You look rested.”

She sat beside him. For several moments they admired the sea.

“Thinking of home?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Jordana … that’s her name, isn’t it … Ari’s sister?”

David nodded.

“Will you see her?”

“If I am lucky we will have a little time.”

“David.”

“Yes.”

“What is going to become of the children?”

“We will take good care of them. They are our future.”

“Is there danger?”

“Yes, there is great danger.”

Kitty was quiet again for many moments… .

“Are you sailing with us?” David asked.

She felt her heart skip a beat. “Why do you ask?”

“It is beginning to seem natural to have you around. Besides, Ari mentioned something or other about it.”

“If … if Ari is interested then why doesn’t he ask?”

David laughed. “Ari doesn’t ask for anything.”

“David,” she said abruptly, “you must help me. I am terribly puzzled. You seem to be the only one who understands a little…”

“I will help you if I can.”

“… I haven’t been around many Jews in my life. You people bewilder me.”

“We bewilder ourselves even more,” David said.

“Can I say something honestly? I feel so much like an outsider …”

“That is not at all strange, Kitty. Most people do. Even those few we call “friend,” even though they have a loyalty bordering on fanaticism. Some, I believe, feel guilty for all the crimes committed against us. Others want to be Jews … although Lord only knows why. We are a confusing lot.”

“But a man like Ari Ben Canaan. Who is he? Who is he really? Is he a real person?”

“Ari is quite real. He is the product of a historic abortion.”

They began walking toward the hotel, for it was supper-time. “It is difficult to know where to begin,” David said. “I suppose to really tell the story of Ari Ben Canaan we must start with Simon Rabinsky in the Jewish Pale. The Pale was an area in southwest Russia that included the Ukraine. I suppose we’d have to start before the turn of the century. I think the year of the great happening was 1884.”

CHAPTER TWO

ZHITOMIR, RUSSIA, 1884

Simon Rabinsky was a bootmaker. His wife’s name was Rachel. She was a good and a devout woman. Simon had two sons who were his greatest treasures.

Yakov, the younger, was fourteen years of age. He was a fiery lad with a whiplash tongue and a quick mind. He would argue at the slightest provocation.

Jossi, the older of the brothers, was sixteen. Jossi’s appearance was distinctive. He was a powerful giant who stood over six feet tall and had a head of flaming red hair like his mother, Rachel. Jossi was as mild as Yakov was wild. Jossi was quiet and meditative and gentle; in fact, Yakov’s fertile brain in Jossi’s powerful body could well have created a superman.

The Rabinsky family was extremely poor. They lived in that part of western Russia which included Bessarabia, the Ukraine, the Crimea, and parts of White Russia and which was known as the Jewish Pale of Settlement. The boundaries of the Pale were established in 1804 as the only place in Russia where Jews could reside. It was, in fact, one enormous ghetto, with Moscow and Petrograd off limits except to those few wealthy Jews who could bribe their way into sending a son or a daughter beyond the boundaries.

Establishment of the Jewish Pale was merely one event in a long history of discrimination. Jews first settled in Russia in the Crimea area as far back as the first century. The Khazars who ruled in that area were so taken with Judaism that they adopted it as their own religion. The Khazars’ kingdom was, in fact, a Jewish state. By the tenth century the Russians in the north had ascended to power and they swept down on the Khazars, dispersed them to oblivion, and began a sordid record against the Jews.

As Russia came to power, the flaming sword of Islam came up from the south. During those periods when the Moslems held parts of Russia the Jews knew their greatest times of peace and prosperity, for Jews had been a potent factor behind the rise of Islam.

With the final defeat of the Moslems, full power over all Russia went to the Czars and to the Greek Church. Jewish “heretics” were burned at the stake by the hundreds during the Middle Ages. The ignorant peasantry was well instructed in the fable that these Jews were magicians and witches and used Christian blood in their rituals.

Centuries of unrelieved abuse reached a climax during the reign of Catherine I. A series of pogroms-anti-Jewish riots-was unloosed against those who would not accept the Greek Orthodox religion. But attempts to convert the Jews failed utterly, so Catherine I expelled a million Jews from Russia. Most of them went to Poland.

After this came the era of war and conquest in which Poland was conquered and reconquered, partitioned and re-partitioned. Catherine II inherited a million of the Jews who had previously been expelled by Catherine I.

These events led directly to the establishment of the Jewish Pale. In 1827 Jews were driven ruthlessly from the smaller villages into the already overcrowded Jewish quarters in the larger cities. In the same year the Czar instituted a quota of Jewish youths to be turned over each year to the army for twenty-five years of military service.

Simon Rabinsky, the bootmaker of Zhitomir, his good wife Rachel, and his sons Yakov and Jossi were prisoners of the Pale and of a unique way of life. There was no social and very little commercial contact between these Jewish communities and the rest of the Russian people. The only regular visitor from the outside was the tax collector who might make off with anything from sacred candlesticks to beds and pillows and shoes. Frequent but less regular callers from the outside were the wild mobs of Cossacks and peasants and students who screamed for Jewish blood.

Divorced from the greater society, the Jews had little or no loyalty for “Mother Russia.” Their spoken and written language was not Russian but Yiddish, which was a bastard German. Their language of prayer was ancient Hebrew. The Jews even dressed differently. They wore black hats and long gabardine coats. Although it was forbidden by law, many of them wore side curls, and it was a great sport among the Russians to catch a Jew and cut off his curls.

Simon Rabinsky lived the way his father and his father’s father had been forced to live inside ghetto walls. Because they were so poor there was endless haggling over a few kopeks. Yet, despite the desperateness of their daily existence, Simon and all other Jews adhered to rigid codes of business ethics inside the ghetto. No man was allowed to infringe on the livelihood of his neighbor or to cheat or to rob.

Community life pivoted around the Holy Laws, the synagogue, and the rabbi, who was at once teacher, spiritual leader, judge, and administrator of the community. The rabbis of the Pale were all great scholars. Their wisdom was far-reaching and their authority rarely questioned.

Within the ghetto the Jews organized their own government under the over-all leadership of the rabbis. There were a hundred different lay offices and wardenships. There was a score of Biblical and Talmudic societies. There was an organization for the care of orphans and a society to pay the dowries of the poorer girls. There were societies to care for the sick, the aged, and the lame. There were administrators of marriage contracts and an elected synagogue summoner, as well as a dozen other synagogue posts. There was an ecclesiastical court, there were psalm readers, and administrators over the ritual baths. Indeed, the community moved as one for the existence of all.

The poor donated to the poorer. The poorer-to the poorer yet. Charity was the eleventh, the unwritten commandment. Leading scholars and religious leaders had to be cared for. Nothing was allowed to interfere with the pursuit of wisdom.

Many people said that Simon Rabinsky, the bootmaker, was second in wisdom only to the rabbi himself. In the Pale where nearly everyone was destitute the measure of man’s wealth was his knowledge. Simon served as a deacon of his synagogue. Each year he was elected to one or two other high offices in the community. It was Simon’s dream to fill his sons with the wonders of the conquest of the mind.

Jews called their Talmud a “sea.” They claimed it was so vast that one could read it and study it for a lifetime without ever looking at another book and never swim from one side of the “sea” to the other. The Rabinsky brothers studied this great collection of laws and customs, which contained information on everything from social behavior to personal cleanliness.

In addition to studying the Talmud the Rabinsky brothers spent hours learning the Pentateuch, the first five books of Moses which make up the Torah and were considered the holiest of all works.

They learned the Bible. They learned the oral laws of the Mishnah. They learned the folk legends, wise sayings, and commentary on the Bible of the Midrash. They learned the Cabala, the book of mystics, and they learned the prayers and songs and customs and holidays.

Jossi and Yakov studied the great post-Talmudic scholars -Moses Maimonides and Rashi.

Although the Rabinsky family lived a grim existence it was not entirely a life without hope or joy. There was always talk and debate, a tempting scandal to discuss or a wedding or a death or a confirmation or a birth to celebrate. There were the holidays to look forward to. The matchmakers were constantly busy and there was the Sabbath.

On one night each week, Simon Rabinsky and every other ghetto Jew became a king. The traditional horn would sound in the ghetto, and Simon would lay down his tools and prepare for his day with God. How he loved the sound of the horn! It was the same sound that had called his people to prayer and to battle for four thousand years. Simon would go to the ritual bath while his good wife Rachel lit the Sabbath candles and recited a benediction.

He would dress in his Sabbath finery, a long black silk coat and a beautiful fur-rimmed hat. He would walk proudly to synagogue with Jossi on one arm and Yakov on the other.

At home there was traditionally a family poorer than his in to share the Sabbath meal. Over the candles and the

blessed bread and wine he spoke a blessing and a few words of gratitude to God.

Rachel served stuffed fish and noodles and chicken broth, and in the evening they would stroll through the ghetto calling upon the sick or receiving visitors in their shop, as they had no parlor.

On Saturday, Simon Rabinsky prayed and meditated and spoke with his sons and reviewed their lessons and learnings and discussed religion and philosophy.

As the sun set ending the Sabbath, Simon sang the song of the ghetto with Rachel, Yakov, and Jossi: “Rejoice to Israel… banish despair.”

With the day over he returned to the realities of his bitter life. In the dingy cellar he called home and shop, Simon Rabinsky would crouch over his workbench in the candlelight, with his wrinkled hands drive a knife deftly through leather. Simon then said the same lament that had been said by Jews since their captivity in Babylon… .

“If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning … let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy.”

There was solace in prayer, and Simon Rabinsky was a believer among men. But even one so devout could not shut his eyes to the misery around and about him. “How long, O Lord … how long … ?” he would ask. “How long must we live in this abysmal darkness?” And then his heart would grow light and he would become exalted as he repeated his favorite passage of the Passover Prayer-“Next year in Jerusalem.”

Next year in Jerusalem? Would it ever come? Would the Messiah ever come to take them back … ?

CHAPTER THREE: Yakov and Jossi walked home from the seminary. Jossi’s head was bowed; he was deep in thought, wondering about the meaning of certain passages of the Torah he had studied that afternoon. Young Yakov danced around on his toes flinging rocks at various objects in the street. He always carried a pocket full of rocks in case they ran into some bullies.

As they approached the corner near home, Yakov grabbed Jossi’s wrist. “There is going to be another meeting tonight in Hacohen’s shop,” he said.

“I heard all about it,” Jossi said.

“Will you go this time?”

“No.”

“You should go tonight,” Yakov said; “there is going to be a real Bilu from Palestine to speak.”

Jossi’s heart pounded! A real Bilu from Palestine! How he would love to see and hear someone who had actually been to Palestine. Secretly Jossi envied his younger brother, who had been sneaking off to Lovers of Zion meetings. His curiosity was aroused by this new organization which spoke of the defense of the ghetto and a return to the Holy Land. A real Bilu! No-he would not yield to temptation-never so long as his father objected to the Lovers of Zion.

They turned the corner and entered the shop, first kissing the mezuzah, a tiny prayer scroll nailed to the doorpost. The place smelled strongly of leather. Simon looked up from his workbench and smiled.

“Hello, Papa,” they both said quickly, and drew a curtain over the alcove which served as their bedroom in one corner of the shop. Simon knew by their manner that they had been discussing something in secret and he also knew full well what young Yakov had been up to, but he did not say a word. The boys must have their fling, Simon thought-I will not impose my will on them in this matter nor will I speak to them unless they speak to me first.

Simon could be considered among the more fortunate Jews of the ghetto. His family was in good health and he had a trade which allowed him to exist, however meagerly. The mortality rate of Jews in the Pale was more than twice that of the rest of the population of Russia.

Not only the Jews were near starvation. Most of Russia, especially the peasantry, hovered on the brink of destitution. The country wallowed in the backwash of feudalism, refused to industrialize, and was exploited by the aristocracy.

Bread, land, and reform movements sprang up all over the nation. Because their own plight was the worst, there were always Jews to be found in any organization which strived to alleviate the wretched conditions.

Unrest mounted throughout Russia. An undercurrent which spelled revolution was brewing. Only then did Czar Alexander II institute some long overdue reforms. His first move was to free the serfs and he relaxed some of the stringent anti-Jewish statutes. The new laws even allowed a limited number of professional and artisan Jews to live in Moscow. In Bessarabia a few Jews could purchase land. However, the reforms were mere crumbs.

In trying desperately to divert the people’s attention from the real issue of tyranny, the masterminds behind the Czar found a new and convenient use for the old scapegoats, the Jews. Hatred for the Jew in Russia had been based on religious

bias, ignorance, and superstition, coupled with the peasants* blind hostility due to their inferior status. The Russian government decided to make anti-Semitism a deliberate political weapon. They launched a campaign in which the number of Jewish members in the Bread and Land movements was exaggerated and they claimed it was all a plot of Jewish anarchists out to seize the government for their own profit.

It was furthered as the Russian government secretly drummed up, sponsored, fostered, and condoned bloody pogroms in which ghettos of the Pale were sacked, the women raped, and blood flowed freely. As the mobs tore through the ghettos the Russian police either turned their backs or actively engaged in the affairs.

On March 13, 1881, an awesome catastrophe befell the Jews. Czar Alexander II was assassinated by a rebel’s bomb, and one of the convicted revolutionaries was a Jewish girl!

This paved the way for years of horror.

The power behind the new Czar Alexander III was the sinister Pobiedonostsev. He handled the weak-minded new ruler like an infant. Pobiedonostsev regarded the principles of equality, bread, and democracy as extremely vulgar and set out to crush them ruthlessly.

As for the Jews, Pobiedonostsev had special plans. As procurator of the Holy Synod he received a silent nod from the Greek Church for his scheme which called for the elimination of the Jewish population. One third would go through government-sponsored pogroms, starvation, and other forms of murder. One third would go through expulsion and exile. One third would be converted.

Easter week, 1881. The coronation of Czar Alexander III was the signal to begin. Pobiedonostsev’s pogroms erupted and spread to every city of the Pale.

After the first outbursts, Pobiedonostsev quickly had a dozen laws enacted that either eradicated any previous gains made by the Jews or aimed to destroy the rest of the Jewish population.

In the wake of the awful happenings of 1881 the Jews of the Pale groped desperately for an answer to their problems. A thousand ideas were advanced-each more impractical than the last. In many corners of many ghettos a new voice was heard by a group who called themselves Hovevey Zion -the Lovers of Zion.

Along with the Lovers of Zion came a document from the pen of Leo Pinsker which seemed to pinpoint the causes and solution of the Jewish plight. Pinsker’s document called for auto-emancipation as the only way out for the Jews of the Pale.

Late in the year 1881 a group of Jewish students from

Romny bolted from the Pale and made for Palestine with the motto on their lips, “Beth Yakov Leku Venelkha-House of Jacob, let us go up!” This daring band of adventurers, forty in number, became known far and wide by the initials of their motto, which in transliteration became the “Bilu.”

The Bilus started a small farming village in the Sharon Valley of Palestine. They named it Rishon le Zion: First to Zion.

The pogroms in the Pale increased in fury, reaching new heights of bloody destruction on Easter morning 1882 in the town of Balta.

As a result new groups of Bilus struck out for the Promised Land and the Lovers of Zion grew by leaps and bounds.

In the Sharon the Bilus founded Petah Tikva: the Gate of Hope.

In the Galilee they founded Rosh Pinna: the Cornerstone.

In Samaria they founded Zichron Yakov: the Memory of Jacob.

By the year 1884 a half dozen small, weak, and struggling Bilu settlements had been begun in the Holy Land.

Each night in Zhitomir and in every other city of the Pale there were secret meetings. Youths began to rebel and to be diverted from the old ways.

Yakov Rabinsky, the younger of the brothers, was swept up in the new ideology. Often during the night he lay awake, staring into the darkness in the alcove of the shop he shared with his brother Jossi. How wonderful it would be to be able to fight! How wonderful to strike out and really find the Holy Land! Yakov’s head was filled with the past glory of the Hebrews. Often he pretended he fought alongside Judah “the Hammer” as the Maccabees swept the Greeks from Judea. He, Yakov Rabinsky, would be there as Judah Maccabee entered Jerusalem and rededicated the Temple.

Yakov Rabinsky would be there with Simon Bar Giora, who held Jerusalem against the might of Rome for eighteen long months. He would be there in chains alongside Giora as the proud Hebrew warrior was led off to Rome to the lions’ den.

Yakov would be there with the greatest of them all-Bar Kochba, the scourge of the Romans.

He would be there at the stands at Herodium and Machaerus and Masada and Beitar, where they fought to the last man after several years of siege.

And of all his heroes, Yakov wanted most to be with Rabbi Akiva when he met his martyrdom at Caesarea, for Akiva was teacher, scholar, and fighter all in one.

When the Lovers of Zion came around to Zhitomir, Yakov

ran off to the meetings immediately. Their message of auto-emancipation was music to his ears. The Lovers of Zion wanted his brother Jossi because of his size and strength; but Jossi out of respect for his father as commanded by God was slow to move toward these radical ideas.

The day after the Bilu from Palestine spoke in Hacohen’s candle shop, Jossi could stand it no longer. He wanted to know everything from Yakov-how the Bilu looked-every word he said-every gesture.

“I think, Jossi, the time has come for you to attend a meeting with me.”

Jossi sighed. It would mark the first time in his life he had openly gone against his father’s wishes. “Very well,” he whispered, and all that day asked forgiveness for what he was about to do.

The brothers told their father they were going to say Kaddish, a mourner’s prayer, for a friend who had recently died. They sped off to the shop of Hacohen, the candlemaker. It was a tiny basement shop like their own home. It smelled of wax and sweet scents. Curtains were drawn over the windows. Guards were posted outside on the street. Jossi was surprised at how many familiar faces he saw in the packed room. The speaker was a man from Odessa named Vladimir.

Vladimir neither looked nor acted like them. He had no beard or side curls. He wore boots and a black leather jacket. As he began to speak Yakov became entranced, and around the room a half dozen hecklers started up.

“Are you the Messiah who has come to lead us back?” someone called.

“Did you find the Messiah under your bed when you hid during the last pogrom?” Vladimir rejoined.

“Are you sure you are not one of the Czar’s spies?”

“Are you sure you are not one of the Czar’s next victims?” Vladimir retorted.

The room quieted down. Vladimir spoke softly. He reviewed the history of the Jews in Poland and in Russia and then expanded his summary to include Germany and Austria as well. Then he spoke of the expulsions from England and France-then of the massacres at Bray and York and Spires and Worms.

Vladimir spoke of how the Pope had called upon the Christians to regain the Holy Land from the Moslems and of how five Crusades over three hundred years were directed against the Jews in the name of God.

Vladimir spoke of one of the most horrible periods of all -the Spanish Inquisition, during which unbelievable atrocities against the Jews were committed in the name of the Church.

“Comrades, every nation on the face of this earth has derided us. We must arise again as a nation. It is our only salvation. Pinsker has seen it and the Lovers of Zion see it and the Bilus see it. We must rebuild the House of Jacob!”

Yakov’s heart was pounding as the boys left the meeting. “See, Jossi! What did I tell you! You saw tonight that even Rabbi Lipzin was there.”

“I must think about it,” Jossi said defensively. But even as he spoke he knew that Vladimir was right and Yakov too. It was their only salvation. The street was quiet and dark and they walked briskly. They reached their home, quickly kissed the mezuzah, and went in.

A candle was burning on Simon’s bench. He stood behind it in his long nightshirt with his hands clasped behind him.

“Hello, Papa,” they said quickly, and tried to duck into their alcove.

“Boys!” Simon commanded. They walked slowly before his bench.

Their mother walked into the room and squinted. “Simon,” she said, “are the boys home?”

“They are home.”

“Tell them they shouldn’t be on the streets so late.”

“Yes, Mama,” Simon said. “Go to sleep and I shall speak to them.”

Simon looked from Yakov to Jossi and back to Yakov.

“I must tell Mrs. Horowitz tomorrow that her husband can surely rest in peace because my sons joined in a minyan for him tonight.”

It was impossible for Jossi to lie to his father. “We weren’t at minyan for Reb Horowitz,” he mumbled.

Simon Rabinsky feigned surprise and held his hands aloft. “Oh … so! I should have known. You boys were courting. Just today Abraham, the matchmaker, was in the shop. He said to me, ‘Simon Rabinsky,’ he said, ‘you have a fine boy in Jossi. Jossi will bring you a handsome dowry from the family of some very fortunate girl.’ Can you imagine … he wants to make a shiddoch for you already, Jossi.”

“We were not courting,” Jossi gulped.

“Not courting? No minyan? Perhaps you went back to the synagogue to study?”

“No, Father,” Jossi said almost inaudibly.

Yakov could stand it no longer. “We went to a Lovers of Zion meeting!”

Jossi looked up at his father sheepishly, bit his lip, and nodded red-faced. Yakov seemed glad it was in the open. He stood defiant. Simon sighed and stared at both his sons for a full five minutes.

“I am hurt,” he announced at last.

“That is why we did not tell you, Father. We did not want to hurt you,” Jossi said.

“I am not hurt because you went to a Lovers of Zion meeting. I am hurt because the sons of Simon Rabinsky think so little of their father they no longer confide in him.”

Now Yakov squirmed too. “But if we’d told you,” he said, “you might have forbidden us to go.”

“Tell me, Yakov … when have I ever forbidden you to pursue knowledge? Have I ever forbidden a book? God help me … even the time you took the notion into your head that you wanted to read the New Testament? Did I forbid that?”

“No, sir,” Yakov said.

“I think a talk is long overdue,” Simon said.

The candlelight seemed to blend with the red of Jossi’s hair. He stood half a head taller than his father and now as he spoke he did not falter. Although Jossi was slow in making up his mind, once it was made up he rarely changed it. “Yakov and I did not want to hurt you because we know how you feel about the Lovers of Zion and the new ideas. But I am glad I went tonight.”

“I am glad you went too,” Simon said.

“Rabbi Lipzin wants me to sign up for ghetto defense,” Jossi said.

“Rabbi Lipzin departs from so many traditions I am beginning to wonder if he is a Jew,” Simon said.

“That is just the point, Father,” Jossi said. “You are afraid of the new ideas.” It was the first time Jossi had ever spoken thus to his father and he was immediately ashamed.

Simon walked around the counter and put his hands on his sons’ shoulders and led them into their alcove and bade them sit down on their beds. “Don’t you think I know what is going through your minds? New ideas, indeed. There was exactly the same talk about auto-emancipation and ghetto defense when I was a boy. You are only coming to a crisis that every Jew comes to … to make your peace with the world … to know your place. When I was a boy I even thought once of converting … don’t you think I know how it feels?”

Jossi was astonished. His father had thought of conversion!

“Why is it wrong for us to want to defend ourselves? Why is it made a sin by our own people to want to better our conditions?” Yakov demanded.

“You are a Jew,” his father answered, “and being a Jew entails certain obligations.”

“To hide under my bed while people try to kill me?”

“Don’t raise your voice to Father,” Jossi admonished.

“No one said it is easy to be a Jew. We were not born on this earth to live from its fruits. We were put here to guard

the laws of God. This is our mission. This is our purpose.”

“And this is our reward!” Yakov snapped back.

“The Messiah will come and take us back when He is good and ready,” Simon said, unruffled, “and I do not believe it is for Yakov Rabinsky to question His wisdom. I do believe it is for Yakov Rabinsky to live by the laws of the Holy Torah.”

There were tears of anger in Yakov’s eyes. “I do not question the laws of God,” he cried, “but I question the wisdom of some of the men who interpret those laws.”

There was a brief silence. Jossi swallowed. Never had anyone spoken so harshly to his father. Yet he silently applauded his brother’s courage, for Yakov was daring to ask the very questions he himself dared not ask.

“If we are created in the image of God,” Yakov continued, “then the Messiah is in all of us and the Messiah inside me keeps telling me to stand up and fight back. He keeps telling me to make my way back to the Promised Land with the Lovers of Zion. That is what the Messiah tells me, Father.”

Simon Rabinsky would not be shaken. “In our history we have been plagued with false messiahs. I fear you are listening to one of them now.”

“And how do I recognize the true Messiah?” Yakov challenged.

“The question is not whether Yakov Rabinsky recognizes the Messiah. The question is whether the Messiah will recognize Yakov Rabinsky. If Yakov Rabinsky begins to stray from His laws and listens to false prophets, then the Messiah will be quite certain that he is no longer a Jew. I suggest to Yakov Rabinsky that he continue to live as a Jew as his father and his people are doing.”

CHAPTER FOUR: “Kill the Jews!”

A rock smashed through the seminary window. The rabbi hurried the students out through the back to the safety of the cellar. In the streets, Jews scampered wildly for cover ahead of a frenzied mob of over a thousand students and Cossacks.

“Kill the Jews!” they screamed. “Kill the Jews!” It was another pogrom inspired by Andreev, the humpbacked headmaster of a local gymnasium-high school-and foremost Jew hater in Zhitomir. Andreev’s students swaggered down the streets of the ghetto, smashing up store fronts and dragging any Jews they could find into the streets and beating them mercilessly.

“Kill the Jews … kill the Jews … kill the Jews!” Yakov and Jossi raced from the seminary. Using a route

through back alleys, they sped over deserted cobblestone streets to reach their home and protect their parents. They ducked frequently for cover and worked away from the sounds of hoofbeats of Cossack horses and from the bloodcurdling screams of the students.

They turned the corner into their street and ran head on into a dozen hoodlums wearing university caps-disciples of Andreev.

“There go two of them!”

Yakov and Jossi turned around and fled, leading the pack of pursuers away from their own home. The students howled with glee as they sprinted after the brothers. For fifteen minutes they wove in and out of streets and alleys until the students trapped them against a dead-end wall. Jossi and Yakov stood with their backs to the wall, dripping sweat and panting for breath as the students formed a semicircle and closed in on them. His eyes gleaming, the leader stepped forward with an iron pipe and swung on Jossi!

Jossi blocked the blow and snatched up the student, spun him around, lifted him over his head, and hurled him at the rest of his companions. Yakov, whose pocket full of rocks was for just such occasions, bounced two stones off the heads of two students, sending them to the ground unconscious. The other students scattered in flight.

The boys dashed home and flung open the door of the shop.

“Mama! Papa!”

The shop was a shambles.

“Mama! Papa!”

They found their mother cowering in a corner in a state of hysteria. Jossi shook her hard. “Where is Papa?”

“The Torah!” she shrieked. “The Torah!”

At that instant, six blocks away, Simon Rabinsky staggered into his burning synagogue and fought his way gagging to the end of the room where the Holy Ark stood. He threw back the curtains with the Ten Commandments inscribed on them and pulled down the Sefer Torah, the Scroll of the Laws of God.

Simon pressed the holy parchment against his breast to protect it from the flames and staggered back to the door. He was badly burned and choking. He staggered outside and fell onto his knees.

Twenty of Andreev’s students were waiting for him.

“Kill the Jew!”

Simon crawled a few yards and collapsed, covering the Sefer Torah with his body. Clubs smashed his skull. Hobnailed boots ripped his face….

“Kill the Jew!”

In mortal agony Simon Rabinsky screamed out… “Hear, O Israel… the Lord is our God … the Lord is one!”

When they found Simon Rabinsky he was beyond recognition. The Sefer Torah, the laws which God had given Moses, had been burned by the mob.

The entire Zhitomir ghetto mourned his passing. He had died in the noblest way a Jew could meet death-protecting the Sefer Torah. Simon was put to rest along with a dozen others who had been murdered in Andreev’s pogrom.

For Rachel Rabinsky, the death of her husband was but another tragedy in a life which had known little else but sorrow. But this time her strength and will were gone. Even her sons could not comfort her. Rachel was taken off to live with relatives in another town.

Jossi and Yakov went to synagogue twice each day to say Kaddish for their father. Jossi remembered how his father had wanted to live as a Jew so that the Messiah would recognize him. His whole mission in life had been to protect God’s laws. Perhaps his father had been right-perhaps it was not theirs to live from the fruits of the earth but to serve as the guardians of God’s laws. In his sorrow Jossi probed to find a reason for bis father’s brutal death.

Yakov was different. His heart was full of hatred. Even as he went to say the mourners’ prayers, his soul demanded revenge. He seethed and smoldered-he was restless and angry. He muttered time and again that he would avenge his father’s death.

Jossi, knowing his brother’s state of mind, barely let him out of his sight. He tried to soothe and comfort Yakov but Yakov was inconsolable.

A month after the death of Simon Rabinsky, Yakov slipped from the shop in the middle of the night as Jossi slept. He took from his father’s bench a long sharp knife and hid it in his belt and ventured from the ghetto toward the school where Andreev the Jew hater lived.

Jossi awoke instinctively a few minutes later. The instant he saw Yakov was gone he dressed hurriedly and ran after him. He knew where his brother would be going.

At four o’clock in the morning, Yakov Rabinsky pulled the brass knocker on the door of Andreev’s house. As the demented hunchback opened the door, Yakov sprang from the shadows and plunged the knife deep into his heart. Andreev emitted one short shriek and rolled to the ground, dead.

A few moments later Jossi rushed onto the scene to find his brother standing hypnotized over the body of the slain man. He pulled Yakov away and they fled.

All the next day and night they hid in the cellar of Rabbi

Lipzin’s house. Word of Andreev’s murder spread quickly throughout Zhitomir. The elders of the ghetto met and came to a decision.

“We have reason to fear that you two were spotted,” the rabbi said when he returned. “Your red hair, Jossi, was seen by some students.”

Jossi bit his lip and did not reveal that he had only been trying to prevent the crime. Yakov showed no remorse for his deed. “I would do it again, gladly,” he said.

“Although we understand well what drove you to this deed,” said the rabbi, “it cannot be forgiven. You may well have started another pogrom. On the other hand … we are Jews and there is no justice for us in a Russian court. We have reached a decision you are to abide by.”

“Yes, Rabbi,” Jossi said.

“You are to cut off your curls and dress like goyim. We will give you food and money enough to travel for a week. You must leave Zhitomir at once and never return.”

In 1884, Yakov and Jossi Rabinsky, aged fourteen and sixteen, became fugitives. They used the roads only by night and hid during the day, moving east to Lubny, a distance of a hundred-odd miles from Zhitomir. At Lubny they found the ghetto immediately and sought out the rabbi, only to learn that their notoriety had preceded them. The rabbi and the elders of Lubny met and agreed to give the boys enough food and money for another week’s travel. This time their destination was Kharkov, some two hundred miles away, where the search for them might not be so intense. Advance word was sent to the Kharkov rabbi that the Rabinsky boys were on the way.

The entire countryside was on the alert for the Rabinsky brothers. It took twenty days of cautious moving for them to get to Kharkov.

Their fame had spread throughout the Pale, and their capture was being turned into a holy mission. For two weeks they hid in the clammy basement beneath the synagogue in Kharkov, their presence known only to the rabbi and a few elders.

At last the Rabbi Solomon came to them. “It is not safe, even here,” he said. “It is only a matter of time until you boys are discovered. Already the police have been prowling around asking questions. But with winter coming on it will be near impossible to move.”

The rabbi sighed and shook his head. “We have also tried to get you papers to enable you to travel beyond the Pale, but I am afraid that is impossible. You are too well known by the police.”

He paced back and forth. “We have decided there is but one thing to do. There are some Jewish families in this district who have passed as gentiles and who own small farms. We feel it would be the safest plan for you to hide with one of them until spring at least.”

“Rabbi Solomon,” Jossi said, “we are very thankful for everything that has been done for us, but my brother and I have made a plan of our own.”

“What is that?”

“We are going to Palestine,” Yakov said.

The good rabbi looked stunned. “To Palestine? How?”

“We have a route in mind. God will help us.”

“No doubt God will help you but let us not press Him for a miracle. It is over three hundred hard cold miles to the port of Odessa. Even if and when you reach Odessa you cannot get a boat without papers.”

“We are not going by way of Odessa.”

“But there is no other way.”

“We intend to walk.”

Rabbi Solomon gasped.

“Moses walked for forty years,” Yakov said; “it will not take us that long.”

“Young man, I am well aware that Moses walked for forty years. That does not explain how you are going to walk to Palestine.”

“I’ll tell you our plan,” Jossi said. “We will go south. The police won’t be looking for us so strenuously in that direction. We will cross out of the Pale into Georgia and then over the Caucasus Mountains into Turkey.”

“Madness! Insanity! It cannot be done! Do you mean to tell me you will walk over two thousand miles, through the cold of winter, across strange lands and fifteen-thousand-foot mountain ranges without papers … without knowledge of the country … with the police after you? Why, you are but little more than children!”

Yakov’s eyes were burning with passion; he looked at the rabbi. “Fear not for I am with thee. I will bring thy seed from the east and gather thee from the west. I will say to the north, give up and to the south, keep not back; bring my sons from far, and my daughters from the ends of the earth.”

And so it came to pass that the Rabinsky brothers who were wanted for murder fled from Kharkov and moved to the east and to the south through an inhumanly bitter winter.

They trudged through waist-high snow during the night, bending their young bodies against howling winds and fighting off the numbness of frostbite. Their bellies rumbled with hunger. They stole from the countryside and in the hours of daylight they hid in the forests.

Through those tortured nights it was Yakov who filled Jossi with the spirit of their mission. It was Yakov who urged another step and another and yet another when all strength was gone. It was Jossi with his powerful body who held his younger brother up. Between their two strengths they somehow managed to keep alive and moving.

Many a night Jossi had to carry Yakov on’ his back for eight hours because the younger brother’s feet were raw and bleeding and he could not walk. Many a day Jossi had to sleep on top of Yakov to pass his warmth on to his weaker brother. Often they crawled the last few yards to a hiding place.

Over the ice and the snow they staggered south with but cloth wrappings around their feet-yard after yard-mile after mile-week after week.

In the spring they reached Rostov and collapsed.

They found the ghetto and were taken in and fed and sheltered. Their rags were exchanged for new clothing. They had to rest several weeks before they were fit enough to continue the journey.

Late in the spring they went on again, fully recovered from their winter’s flight.

Although they did not now have to contend with the elements they had to move with greater caution, for they had left the Pale behind and could no longer depend on protection, food, and shelter from the Jewish communities. They skirted the Black Sea south of Rostov and moved deep into Georgia. All their food now was stolen from the fields -they never let themselves be seen by daylight.

As winter came on again they were faced with a tremendous decision. To hole up in Georgia, to try to get through the Caucasus Mountains in winter, or-to attempt a boat across the Black Sea.

Each plan had its dangers. Although trying the mountains in winter seemed the most foolhardy their urge to leave Russia behind was so great that they decided to risk it.

At Stavropol at the base of the mountains they staged a series of robberies which completely outfitted them with clothing and food for the assault over the mountains. Then they fled into the Caucasus toward Armenia with the police on their track.

Through another brutal winter they moved deep into the mountains, walking by day, climbing the treacherous passes in the dark, and pillaging the countryside. The first year had hardened them and made them wise-the obsession to get to Palestine was greater than ever and drove them onward. Yakov would babble passages from the Bible by the hour to

drive their bodies forward. They made the last part of their push instinctively, in a numbed daze.

And in spring they received their second miracle of rebirth. One day they stood up and for the first time breathed free air-as they left “Mother Russia” behind them forever. As Yakov passed the border marker into Turkey he turned and spat into Russia.

Now they could move in daylight, but it was a strange land with strange sounds and smells and they had no passports or papers. All of eastern Turkey was mountainous and the going was slow. They went to work in the fields in places where they could not steal food, but twice that spring they were caught and thrown into prison briefly.

Jossi reckoned they would have to give up thievery, for it was too dangerous being caught; they might be sent back to Russia.

In the middle of summer they passed the base of Mount Ararat where the Ark of Noah had landed. They pressed on to the south.

In each village they asked, “Are there Jews here?”

In some there would be Jews and they would be fed and clothed and sheltered and sent along their way.

These Jews were different from any they had known. They were peasants filled with ignorance and superstition, yet they knew their Torah and kept the Sabbath and the Holy Days.

“Are there Jews here?”

“We are Jews.”

“Let us see your rabbi.”

“Where are you boys going?”

“We are walking to the Promised Land.”

It was the magic password. “Are there Jews here?”

“There is a Jewish family in the next village.”

Never once were they refused hospitality.

Two years went by. The brothers pressed on doggedly, stopping only when exhaustion overcame them or they had to work for food.

“Are there Jews here?”

They pressed over the Turkish border into the province of Syria and another strange land.

In Aleppo they received their first taste of the Arab world. They passed through bazaars and dung-filled streets and heard Moslem chants from the minarets––-

They walked on until the blue-green of the Mediterranean Sea burst suddenly before them and the howling winds and cold of the past years were exchanged for a blistering heat of one hundred and twenty degrees. They plodded down the Levantine coast wearing Arab rags.

“Are there Jews here?”

Yes, there were Jews, but again they were different. These Jews looked and dressed and spoke like Arabs. But yet they knew the Hebrew language and the Torah. Like the Jews of the Pale and the Jews of Turkey, the Arab-like Jews took the Rabinsky brothers in without question and shared their homes and their food. They blessed the brothers as they had been blessed before for the sacredness of their mission.

On into Lebanon they walked-through Tripoli and the wildness of Beirut-they neared the Promised Land.

“Are there Jews here?”

The year was 1888. Forty months had passed since that night Yakov and Jossi fled the Zhitomir ghetto. Jossi had grown into a lean and leathery giant six feet three inches tall with a frame of steel. He was twenty years of age and he wore a flaming red beard.

Yakov was eighteen and also hardened by the more than three years of travel but he was still of medium height with dark sensitive features and was filled with the, same intenseness he had had from childhood.

They stood upon a hill. Below them was a valley. Yakov and Jossi Rabinsky stared down at the Huleh in northern Galilee. Jossi Rabinsky sat down upon a rock and wept. Their journey was over.

“But the Lord liveth,” Yakov said, “which brought up and led the seed of the house of Israel out of the north country and from all the countries whither I had driven them, and they shall dwell in their own land.”

Yakov put his hand on Jossi’s shoulder. “We are home, Jossi! We are home!”

CHAPTER FIVE: From the hill they looked down onto the land. Across the valley in Lebanon rose the towering snow-capped peak of Mount Hermon. Below them stretched the Huleh Lake and marshes. There was an Arab village nestled in the hills to their right. Jossi Rabinsky experienced the greatest exaltation he had ever known! How beautiful the Promised Land looked from here!

He vowed to himself, as young men will at such times, that he would return someday and from this very spot would look down on his very own land.

They stayed there for a day and a night and the next morning began the descent in the direction of the Arab village. The white-colored mud houses clumped together in a saddle of the hill were dazzling in the morning sun. The

farmlands and olive orchards sloped from the village toward the swamp of the Huleh Lake. In the fields a donkey pulled a wooden plowshare. Other donkeys carried small harvest upon their backs. In the vineyards the Arab women labored among the grapes. The village was as it must have been a thousand years before.

The distant beauty of the village faded with each step they took nearer and was soon replaced by an overwhelming stench. Suspicious eyes watched the brothers from the fields and the houses of the village as they entered the dirt street. Life moved in slow motion in the blistering sun. The road was filled with camel and donkey excrement. Swarms of giant flies engulfed the brothers. A lazy dog lay motionless in the water of the open sewer to cool himself. Veiled women ducked for cover into squalid one-room houses made of mud; half the huts were in a state of near collapse and held a dozen or more people, as well as pigs, chickens, mules, and goats.

The boys stopped at the village water well. Straight-backed girls balanced enormous urns of water on their heads or were busy kneeling and scrubbing clothing and exchanging gossip.

The appearance of the travelers brought immediate silence.

“May we have some water?” Jossi asked.

No one dared answer. Haltingly they drew a bucket of water, splashed their faces, filled their canteens, and made off quickly.

Further on they came upon a dilapidated shack which served as a coffeehouse. Listless men sat or lay around on the ground as their wives tilled the fields. Some played backgammon. The air was foul with the mixed aroma of thick coffee, tobacco, hashish smoke, and the vile odors of the rest of the village.

“We would like directions,” Jossi said.

After several moments one of the Arabs pulled himself off the ground and bade them follow. He led them out of the main area to a stream; on the other side of the stream was a small mosque and a minaret. On their side was a nicely built stone house set in the shade, and near it a room which served as the village reception room. They were taken to the room, told to enter and be seated. The high walls of the room were whitewashed, and thick, well-placed windows made it quite cool. A long bench ran around the walls. The bench was covered with bright pillows. On the walls hung an assortment of swords and trinkets and pictures of Arabs and visitors.

At last a man in his mid-twenties entered. He was dressed in an ankle-length striped cloth coat and a white headdress

with a black band. His appearance immediately indicated that he was someone of wealth.

“I am Kammal, muktar of Abu Yesha,” he said. He clapped bis ringed hands together and ordered fruit and coffee to be brought to the strangers. As his brothers went off to carry out the order a cold half silence pervaded the room as the village elders filed in one by one. ’

To the boys’ surprise, Kammal spoke some Hebrew.

“The site of this village is the traditional burial place of Joshua,” he told them. “You see, Joshua is a moslem prophet as well as a Hebrew warrior.”

Then, following the Arab custom of never asking a direct question, Kammal set out to find out who the visitors were and what their mission was. At last he suggested that perhaps the boys were lost-for no Jews had ventured into the Huleh before.

Jossi explained that they had entered the country from the north and sought the nearest Jewish settlement. After another half hour of roundabout questions Kammal seemed satisfied that the two Jews were not, scouting for land in the area.

Then Kammal seemed to relax a bit; he confided that he was not only the muktar and owned all the land in Abu Yesha but the spiritual leader as well and the only literate person in the village.

Jossi somehow liked this man-for what reason, he did not know. He told Kammal about their pilgrimage from Russia and their desire to settle down and farm in the Holy Land. When the last of the fruit had been eaten, Jossi asked bis leave.

“You will find Jews thirty kilometers south. You can walk the distance by nightfall if you stay on the road. The place is called Rosh Pinna.”

Rosh Pinna! How exciting! He had heard the name many times in the Pale.

“Rosh Pinna is halfway between the Huleh Lake and the Sea of Galilee. On the way you will pass a large tel. Beneath the tel lies the ancient city of Hazor… . May God protect you on your journey.”

The road took them past the fields of Abu Yesha and skirted the forbidding Huleh swamplands. Jossi looked back over his shoulder. He could see the spot from which they had crossed earlier that day. “I’ll be back,” he said to himself. “I know I’ll be back––”

At midday they came upon the large man-made hill Kammal had described. As they climbed upward they realized that beneath them lay buried the ancient city of Hazor. Jossi was elated. “Do you realize that Joshua may have been

standing on this very spot when he conquered the city from the Canaanites!” Jossi went about collecting bits of broken pottery which were strewn all about. Since his very first sight of the Holy Land, Jossi had been in such a state of joy that he was completely unaware of the bad mood that had been overtaking Yakov. Yakov did not want to spoil his brother’s happiness so he remained silent, but his sullenness grew by the minute.

At dusk they reached Rosh Pinna, the Cornerstone, the farthest northern settlement of Jews. Their arrival produced a great furor. In a small building which served as the meeting room they were eagerly questioned. But it was forty months since they had left Zhitomir and they could only say that the pogroms that had started in 1881 were getting progressively worse.

Although both boys concealed their feelings, Rosh Pinna was a terrible disappointment. Instead of flourishing farms they found a rundown village. There were but a few dozen Jews living midst conditions not much better than those of the Arabs of Abu Yesha.

“Sometimes I think it would have been better to have stayed in Russia,” one of the Bilus opined. “At least in the ghetto we were among Jews. We had books to read, music to hear, and people to speak to … there were women. Here, there is nothing.”

“But all those things we heard at the Lovers of Zion meetings––” Jossi said.

“Oh yes, we were filled with ideals when we arrived. One soon loses them in this country. Look at it … so ruined that nothing can grow. What little we do have is stolen by the Bedouins, and the Turks take what the Bedouins leave. If I were you boys I’d keep on going to Jaffa and get on the next boat to America.”

An. outlandish idea, Jossi thought.

“If it were not for the charity of Rothschild, De Hirsch, and De Schumann we would all have starved long ago.”

They left Rosh Pinna the next morning and set out to cross the hills to Safed. Safed was one of the four holy cities of the Jews. It sat on a beautiful cone-shaped hill at the entrance to the Huleh area of the Galilee. Here, Jossi thought, their dejection would soon fade because here there were second-, third-, and fourth-generation Jews who lived and studied the Cabala, the book of mystics. The shock of Rosh Pinna was repeated in Safed. They found a few hundred aged Jews who lived in study and from the alms of coreligionists around the world. They cared nothing about the rebirth of the House of Jacob-but wanted only to live quietly, studiously, and in poverty.

The Rabinsky brothers set out again from Safed the next morning, and crossed to nearby Mount Canaan, and stopped to get their bearings. From Mount Canaan the vista was magnificent. From here they could look back at Safed on its cone-shaped hill and beyond it to the Sea of Galilee. To the north they could see the rolling hills of the Huleh from whence they had come. Jossi loved this view-for before him was the land he had first trod. Yes, he vowed again that someday-someday it would be his.

Yakov’s bitterness began to show. “All our lives, all our prayers… and look at it, Jossi.”

Jossi put his hand on his brother’s shoulder. “Look how beautiful it appears from here,” he said. “I tell you, Yakov, someday we will make it look just as beautiful from the bottom of the hill as it does from the top.”

“I don’t know what to believe any more,” Yakov whispered. “All through those winters as we walked through the mountains blue with cold … all through those blistering summers.”

Jossi said, “Now cheer up. Tomorrow we begin our journey to Jerusalem.”

Jerusalem! The magic word caused Yakov’s flagging spirits to soar.

The next morning they came down from Mount Canaan and moved south along the Sea of Galilee into the Genossar Valley, past Arbel and the Horns of Hattin on the plains where Saladin the Kurd had once crushed the Crusaders in mortal combat.

But as they trudged on, even Jossi became dismayed. Their Promised Land was not a land flowing with milk and honey but a land of festering stagnated swamps and eroded hills and rock-filled fields and unfertile earth caused by a thousand years of Arab and Turkish neglect. It was a land denuded of its richness. It was a land that lay bleeding and fallow.

After a while they came to Mount Tabor in the center of the Galilee, and climbed up this hill which had played such a great part in the history of their people. It was here that the Jewish Joan of Arc, Deborah, and her General Barak hid with their armies and swooped down to crush the invading host. Atop Tabor they could see for miles in every direction. Around them stood Crusader ruins and a tiny monastery; it was here that Jesus was transfigured and held communion with Moses and Elijah.

From Tabor they could see the entire sorrowful picture. A fruitless, listless, dying land.

… and they trudged on with heavy hearts. The seeds of the past were all around them. They passed Mount Gilboa

where Saul and Jonathan fell in battle and where Gideon lies-and they passed Bethel and Jericho––

As they moved into the hills of Judea their spirits rose again! The ancient terraces still stood from the time when hundreds of thousands of Jews took richness from the earth. There was no richness left, the hills were eroded, but the elation of the Rabinsky brothers could not be dimmed as they ascended higher and higher and higher.

Arriving at the peak of the ridges, Jossi and Yakov saw fee City of David!

Jerusalem! Heart of their hearts-dream of their dreams! In that second all the years of privation and all the bitterness and suffering were erased.

They entered the old walled city through the Damascus Gate and wended their way through the narrow streets and bazaars to the mighty Hurva Synagogue.

“If only Father were with us now,” Jossi whispered.

“If I forget thee, O Jerusalem …” Yakov prayed the lament of the captives.

From the synagogue they went to the one remaining wall of their great ancient temple. It stood on the site of the Mosque of Omar, the Dome of the Rock. This wall was the holiest place in all Jewry.

When at last they sought hospitality from the Jews they lost their illusions. The Jews in Jerusalem were Hasidim, ultra-Orthodox fanatics whose interpretations of the Laws were so strict they could be lived up to only by complete withdrawal from the civilized world. Even in the Pale these groups had separated themselves from the rest of the ghetto.

For the first time since they left Zhitomir, Jossi and Yakov were refused the hospitality of a Jewish home. The Jerusalem Jews did not like the Bilus, and the Lovers of Zion were berated for their ungodlike ideas.

The boys then saw themselves as intruders in their own land. They walked away from Jerusalem shrouded in sadness-down from the hills of Judea toward the port of Jaffa.

This ancient port, which had been in constant use since Phoenician times, was another version of Beirut, Aleppo, or Tripoli-narrow alleys, filth, degradation. However, there were a few Jewish settlements nearby at Rishon le Zion, Rehovot, and Petah Tikva. In Jaffa itself there was some Jewish commerce as well as an agency for Jewish immigrants. Here they learned the full story. There were but five thousand Jews in the entire Palestine Province of the Ottoman Empire. Most of these were ancients who lived in study and prayer in the four holy cities of Safed, Jerusalem, Hebron, and Tiberias. The dozen or so agricultural colonies established by Jews were all in dire straits. They were kept

going through the philanthropy of wealthy European Jews, the Barons de Hirsch, Rothschild, and the Swiss multimillionaire De Schumann. Much of the idealism of the Bilus had disappeared. It was one thing to speak of rebuilding the House of Jacob from a cellar in the Pale-it was another to face the realities of the hardships and the cornplete disintegration that had befallen Palestine. The Bilus were all inexperienced in agriculture. The philanthropists sent over experts to help them, but it was a matter of using cheap Arab labor and settling on two or three crops for export: olives, grapes, and citrus. No attempt at self-labor had been tried nor were there attempts to balance the agriculture. The Jews, in fact, had become overseers.

Both the Arabs and the ruling Turks stole from the Jews mercilessly. Crops were taxed to the limit-there were all sorts of restrictive stumbling blocks. The roving bands of Bedouins looked upon the Jews as “Children of Death” because of their refusal to defend themselves.

There were, however, a few hundred Jewish boys like the Rabinsky brothers who stayed around Jaffa, and these kept the spark of the Bilu movement alive. They talked night after night in the Arab cafes. The task of regenerating this miserable land seemed nearly impossible, but it could be done if there were only more Jews with a fighting spirit. Jossi reck— oned that more Jews had to come to Palestine sooner or later, for there were bound to be more and worse pogroms in Russia and the entire Pale was stirring. Everyone recognized that something was missing that was not in the Talmud or the Torah or the Midrash or the Mishna. Most of the boys, like Yakov and Jossi, had escaped from Russian military service or had fled out of misery or poverty or some idealistic hopes. The Jews already in Palestine treated them as “outsiders.” Further-they were stateless wanderers.

It took a year for an answer to come back from Rabbi Lipzin. They learned that their mother had died of incurable and bottomless grief.

For the next four or five years Yakov and Jossi grew to manhood. They worked around the docks in Jaffa and in the fields of the Jewish settlements either as laborers or overseers. When the Jews began moving out of the old walled city in Jerusalem with the aid of the British Jewish philanthropist, Moses Montefiore, they worked as stonemasons. Everything in Jerusalem was being built of that hauntingly beautiful limestone quarried from the hills of Judea.

They lived from job to job. Little by little they lost contact with their deep religious training which had been the dominating force of ghetto life. Only on the high holy days did

they travel to Jerusalem. Only on the Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur, did they search their souls and their lives-and, too, on the Day of Judgment, Rosh Hashana-the new year. Yakov and Jossi Rabinsky became typical of a new type of Jew. They were young and strong and they were free men tasting of a freedom they had never known in the Pale. Yet they longed for a purpose and they longed for contact with the Jews of Europe.

The years 1891, 1892, and 1893 came and went.

A few more settlers straggled in to burden the pocket-books of the philanthropists.

But as Yakov and Jossi lived in apparent aimlessness in Palestine, dramatic events were taking place in another part of the world which were to shape their destiny and the destiny of every Jew for all time.

CHAPTER SIX

FRANCE 1894-97

The Jews of France and of most of western Europe were better off than the Jews of eastern Europe. After the massacres and expulsions of the Middle Ages, the vicious side of Jew-hating abated in both France and England.

A great day came for the Jews with the French Revolution. After fifteen hundred years there was at last a country in Europe which accepted them as equal human beings. France was the first country in Europe to grant Jews the full rights of citizenship without qualification. Their position was further enhanced by Napoleon, according to whom Judaism was a religion, not-a nationality. So long as French Jews regarded it only as a religion and gave their loyalty to France, they ought to be granted full and equal status.

The early 1800s were the beginning of a golden era for the Jews of France. The Jewish community produced a host of brilliant doctors, lawyers, scientists, poets, writers, musicians, and statesmen who seemed to justify the Napoleonic concept of assimilation.

There were discreet forms of anti-Semitism in France, of course. But the unpleasantnesses associated with being Jewish were at a minimum there. Never before had Jews in Europe known such freedom or held such a position in society. By the middle of the 1800s they were well integrated into all walks of French life and had formed the powerful Universal Alliance as their voice and philanthropic arm.

Jew hating is an incurable disease. Under certain democrat-

ic conditions it may not flourish well. Under other conditions the germ may even appear to die, but it never does die even in most ideal climate.

In France there lived a young career army captain. He came from a well-to-do family. In the year 1893 he was hauled into a military court on trumped-up charges of selling secrets to the Germans. The trial of this man shook the world, and became an irremediable blotch on the cause of French justice. The man was found guilty of treason and sentenced to life on Devil’s Island.

His name was Alfred Dreyfus,

In the bitter winter of 1894 Alfred Dreyfus stood in disgrace in a courtyard. In a ceremony of public ostracism the epaulets were cut from his shoulders, his cheeks were slapped, his sword broken, and the buttons pulled from his cloak. He was denounced above an ominous drum roll as a traitor to France. As he was taken off to begin life in a penal hell he cried, “I am innocent! Long live France!”

Alfred Dreyfus was a Jew.

The dormant disease of anti-Semitism erupted in France. Goaded on by Edouard Drumont, the arch Jew hater, mobs of Frenchmen ran through the streets of Paris screaming the age-old cry-“Death to the Jews!”

In later years the great novelist Emile Zola took up the case of Dreyfus. In an open letter to the President of France he branded the horrible miscarriage of justice in immortal prose.

A certain man witnessed Dreyfus’ hour of disgrace in the Paris courtyard. Although Dreyfus was freed, this man could not forget the cry, “I am innocent!” Moreover he could not forget the Parisian mobs screaming, “Death to the Jews!” It haunted him day and night.

The man who could not forget was Theodor Herzl.

Theodor Herzl was also a Jew. He was born in Hungary, but his well-to-do family moved to Austria and he grew up in Vienna. His training in formal Judaism was superficial. He and his family firmly believed in the prevalent theories of assimilation.

Herzl was a brilliant essayist, playwright, journalist. Like so many creative men of his school he was hounded by an incessant restlessness. He was married to a good woman but one completely incapable of giving him the compassion and” understanding he needed. Fortunately for Herzl his restless ventures were well financed by a generous family allowance.

Herzl drifted to Paris and eventually became Paris correspondent for the powerful Viennese New Free Press. He was

relatively happy. Paris was a carefree city and his job was good and there was always that wonderful intellectual exchange.

What had brought him to Paris, really? What unseen hand guided him into that courtyard on that winter’s day? Why Herzl? He did not live or think as a devout Jew, yet when he heard the mobs beyond the wall shout, “Death to the Jews!” his life and the life of every Jew was changed forever.

Theodor Herzl pondered and thought, and he decided that the curse of anti-Semitism could never be eradicated. So long as one Jew lived-there would be someone to hate him. From the depths of his troubled mind Herzl wondered what the solution could be, and he came to a conclusion-the same conclusion that a million Jews in a hundred lands had come to before him-the same conclusion that Pinsker had written about in his pamphlet about auto-emancipation. Herzl reasoned that only if the Jews established themselves again as a nation would all Jews of all lands finally exist as free men. They had to have a universal spokesman-they had to command respect and dignity as equals through a recognized government.

The paper in which he set down these’ideas was called “The Jewish State.”

Galvanized into action by this sudden calling, Herzl drove himself unmercifully to gather support for his ideas. He went to those enormously wealthy philanthropists who were supporting the colonies of Jews in Palestine. They ridiculed the Jewish state idea as nonsense. Charity was one thing-as Jews they gave to less fortunate Jews-but talk of rebuilding a nation was madness.

But the Jewish state idea caught on and spread through a hundred lands. Herzl’s idea was neither novel nor unique, but his dynamic drive would not let it die.

Important support began to gather around him. Max Nor-dau a transplanted Hungarian in Paris with an international reputation as a writer, rallied to his support, as did Wolfsohn in Germany and De Haas in England. Many Christians in high places also expressed their approval of the idea.

In the year 1897 a convention of leading Jews throughout the world was called in the town of Basle, Switzerland. It was, indeed, a parliament of world Jewry. Nothing like it had happened since the second Temple had been destroyed. Assimila-tionists were there and Lovers of Zion were there. Orthodox Jews were there and Socialists were there. No matter what their leanings, they all had a common bond, and to a man they were prepared to stage a rebellion against two thousand years of unspeakable persecution. The Basle convention

called for a return of Jews to their ancient historic homeland, for only through the establishment of a Jewish state could all Jews of all lands achieve freedom.

They called the movement Zionism.

As blood riots against the Jews were increasing in Russia, Poland, Rumania, Austria, and Germany and, as Jew baiting was reborn in France, the Basle convention made its historic proclamation:

THE AIM OF ZIONISM IS TO CREATE A HOMELAND FOR THE JEWISH PEOPLE IN PALESTINE SECURED BY PUBLIC LAW.

Theodor Herzl wrote in his diary, “In Basle I established a Jewish State. If I were to say that aloud today, universal laughter would be the response. Maybe in five years, certainly in fifty, everybody will recognize it.”

After the formal declaration of Zionism, Theodor Herzl plunged into the arduous work like a man possessed. He was a dynamic leader and inspired all those around him. He consolidated his support, gained new adherents, raised funds, and built an organization.

Herzl’s immediate objective, however, was to obtain a charter or some other legal basis upon which Zionism could be built.

There was a split within Jewry itself. Herzl was constantly harassed by an element which considered his “political” Zionism impure. Many of the old Lovers of Zion balked. A part of the religious element decried him as a false Messiah, just as another segment had praised him as the true Messiah. But the Herzl train would not and could not be derailed. Hundreds of thousands of Jews carried an imprinted “shekel” in their pockets as proof of membership.

Still without a charter, Herzl began visiting heads of state to obtain a hearing for his ideas.

Herzl worked beyond his capacities. He depleted his personal finances, neglected his family, and impaired his health. Zionism had become a great obsession with him. At last he obtained an interview with the Sultan of the crumbling Ottoman Empire, Abdul Hamid II, “Abdul the Damned.” The aging old despot fenced with Herzl and gave half promises to consider a charter for Palestine in exchange for desperately needed money. Abdul was a corrupt human being. His vast holdings in the Middle East ran from the Mesopotamian Province and included Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, and much of the Arabian Peninsula. He tried to play the Zionist proposal off against better gains and finally refused Herzl’s appeal. It was a terrible setback.

In the year 1903 matters reached a new low in Russia. In the city of Kishinev the Jews were charged once again with using Christian blood for their rituals, and on Easter of that year the government secretly spurred on a wanton slaughter that left the ghetto of Kishinev in ruins.

Finally England lent a sympathetic ear. At the turn of the century the British were expanding their influence in the Middle East and were already becoming a challenge to the failing Ottomans. They were entrenched in Egypt as well as in half a dozen sheikdoms on the Arabian Peninsula, and they were anxious to gain the favor of world Jewry in order to further their own aspirations. They offered the Zionists a part of the Sinai Peninsula for Jewish immigration and colonization. It was the understanding that this area stood at the door of the Promised Land and the door would open when the British took over. The plan was vague and ill advised and Herzl still hoped to gain a charter for Palestine, so the plan collapsed.

More attempts to gain a charter failed. The pogroms were overrunning a great part of Europe. Herzl became certain that a temporary haven had to be obtained to ease the situation. The British came forth with a second proposal. They offered the African territory of Uganda to the Zionists for Jewish colonization. Herzl desperately agreed to take it up before the next convention.

When the Uganda plan was proposed by Herzl, a fierce opposition developed, led by the Russian Zionists. The basis of their resistance was the fact that they could find no mention of Uganda in the Bible.

Twenty-five solid years of pogroms in Russia and in Poland were now causing the Jews to pour out from eastern Europe by the thousands. By the turn of the century fifty thousand had found their way to Palestine. Abdul Hamid II saw this influx of Jews as potential allies of the British and decreed that no more Jews from Russia, Poland, or Austria would be allowed.

However, the Sultan’s empire was rotten to the core. The Zionists had a world headquarters in England and a growing bank to back them up. Zionist bribe money kept the door of Palestine open for all who would enter.

This was the First Aliyah of the Jewish exodus!

Along with the return of the exiles to their Promised Land another event was taking place in the Arab world. After centuries of subjugation there was a rankling of unrest among the Arabs that spelled the beginnings of Arab nationalism. In all the Arab world there existed not a single independent or autonomous state.

Arab nationalism sprang first from liberal elements in

Lebanon as a progressive movement bent on instituting long overdue reforms. The ideas grew until a first conference was held in Paris and the call was given for the sleepers to awake.

These ideas not only frightened the colonials but they frightened the oppressors within the Arab world, and the well-meaning movement was grabbed up by tribal leaders, sheiks, religious leaders, and effendi landowners, under whose influence the original ideals degenerated into hate-filled dogma as each maneuvered to gain control of the dying Ottoman Empire.

The twentieth century!

Chaos in the Middle East. Zionism! Arab nationalism! The Ottoman’s decline and the British ascent! All these elements stewing in a huge caldron were bound to boil over.

Theodor Herzl’s comet streaked over the sky with blinding light and speed. It was a mere ten years from the day he had heard Alfred Dreyfus cry, “I am innocent!” to the day he dropped dead of a heart attack at the age of forty-four.

CHAPTER SEVEN: By the time the Zionist movement came into being the Rabinsky brothers were old-timers in Palestine. They knew almost every corner of the land and had worked at almost every job. They had lost most of their illusions.

Yakov was restless and bitter.

Jossi tried to find a measure of contentment in his existence. He appreciated his relative freedom. Moreover, he never stopped dreaming of the land in the Huleh Valley above Safed.

Yakov held both the Arabs and Turks in contempt. He looked upon them as enemies as he had looked upon the Cossacks and students of the gymnasium. It was quite true that the Turks would not tolerate murder, but everything else against the Jews seemed justified. Many a night Yakov and Jossi sat up arguing.

“Certainly we should obtain land through legal purchase but where are we going to get farmers and what is going to make the Bedouins and Turks leave us alone?”

“We will get farmers when the pogroms get bad enough again,” Jossi answered. “As for the Turks … you can buy them. As for the Arabs, we must learn to live side by side with them in peace. This will happen only if we understand them.”

Yakov shrugged. “One thing an Arab understands”-and

he held up his fist and shook it-“he understands this.”

“Someday they will hang you on the gallows,” Jossi said.

The brothers grew further and further apart. Jossi maintained his desire for peace and understanding and Yakov continued to be a proponent of direct action to counter the injustices against the Jews.

At the beginning of the new century Yakov joined a group of fifteen men who set out on a daring venture. One of the philanthropic funds purchased a small piece of land deep in the Jezreel Valley where no Jews had penetrated for centuries. Here the fifteen pioneers established an agricultural training center and experimental farm. The place was called Sde Tov, Field of Goodness. Their position was extremely dangerous, for they were locked in on four sides by Arab villages and at the mercy of Bedouin tribes who would not hesitate to murder for anything of value.

By 1900 there were fifty thousand Jews in Palestine and a bit more social life for Jossi. Most of those who fled the pogroms wanted nothing to do with the floundering agricultural colonies but were content to become merchants or tradesmen in Jaffa. A few of them settled in the tiny port town of Haifa. However, there were too many coming in for all of them to be absorbed as merchants and there were too many who owned just the clothes they wore; soon there was a good deal of talk of land redemption.

The Zionists opened their first land-buying office, the Zion Colonizing Society, in a dingy rundown hotel in Jaffa which was the local headquarters for Jewish itinerants. Rothschild’s Palestine Investment Corporation and the De Schumann Foundation also stepped up land-buying operations to open new villages for the “returnees.”

In the middle of 1902 the De Schumann Foundation contacted Jossi Rabinsky and offered him a job as their chief buyer of land. He knew the country as well as any Jew and was noted for his courage in going into Arab territory. Further, he was wise enough to deal with the Turks, for land buying by Jews was severely restricted. Also, one had to be shrewd to trade with the Arab effendis, or landowners. Jossi had his doubts about the new colonies. Living by means of philanthropy and using the fellaheen labor did not seem to him to be the way to redeem the Promised Land, but the opportunity of obtaining land for Jews made him decide to accept the job.

There were other motives behind Jossi’s decision. He could get to see Yakov more often this way. He could also learn every inch of the land. Jossi never tired of steeping himself in past glories, and every bit of Palestine held another ghost

of the former Jewish greatness. Finally Jossi wanted to be able to travel beyond Rosh Pinna, the last Jewish settlement, to see again the land of the Huleh near Abu Yesha.

Jossi was indeed a handsome figure on his white Arabian stallion. He was a man of thirty now, tall, lean, and muscular. His fiery beard set off the white robes and Aral] headdress he was wearing. There were bandoleers of bullets across his shoulders and a bull whip at his side as he rode deep up into the Hills of Samaria and through the Plains of Sharon and into the Galilee to search out land.

Most of the land throughout Palestine was owned by a few dozen powerful effendi families. They charged the fellaheen rent amounting to from half to three quarters of all their crops, and they did absolutely nothing for these poor miserable souls.

Jossi and buyers from the other foundations could obtain land only at outrageous prices. The effendis sold the worst properties-unproductive swamps-to the Jews. They did not believe that anything could or would ever be done with this land, and at the same time the “Hebrew gold” was a windfall.

Jossi took many trips beyond the last Jewish settlement of Rosh Pinna, often to visit Kammal, the muktar of Abu Yesha. The two men became friends.

Kammal was a few years older than Jossi and a rarity among the effendis. Most of the effendis lived as absentee landlords in pleasure spots such as Beirut and Cairo.

This was not so with Kammal. He owned all the land in and around Abu Yesha and he was absolute monarch within its boundaries. As a youth he had had a tragic love affair with the daughter of a poverty-stricken fellah. His father had ignored his pleas to provide medical care for the girl; she was suffering from trachoma. Kammal’s father reasoned that his son could have four wives and innumerable concubines, so why trouble himself with one miserable fellah woman. The girl went blind of the dread disease and died before her eighteenth birthday.

This event made Kammal a hater of his own class. It cut a scar so deep in his heart that he developed a social conscience. He went off to Cairo, not to enjoy its wild pleasures, but to study advanced farming methods, sanitation, and medicine. When his father died he returned to Abu Yesha determined to live among his people and to better their wretched conditions.

Kammal fought a losing battle. The Turks would not give him a school or medical facilities or any social services. Conditions in the village were just about as they had been a thousand years before. Most heartbreaking for the Arab was the fact that he was unable to translate what he had learned into practical applications for his villagers; they were so illiterate

and so backward that they simply could not comprehend.

Since he had become muktar, Abu Yesha had fared better than any Arab village in the Galilee, but conditions there were still primitive.

Kammal was puzzled by the strange coming of the Jews to Palestine. Because he wanted to learn its meaning, he intentionally cultivated the friendship of Jossi Rabinsky.

Jossi tried to get Kammal to sell him a parcel of land which was not being worked to begin a colony, but Kammal balked. These Jews confused him. He did not know whether they could be trusted or not, for certainly they were not all like Jossi Rabinsky. Besides, he was not going to be the first effendi to sell land in the Huleh Valley.

Just as Kammal learned from Jossi, so Jossi learned from Kammal. Despite Kammal’s enlightenment he was heart and soul an Arab. He never spoke of his three wives, for the servitude of woman was traditional. Kammal was always polite, but he was a great man to bicker when bartering. Jossi watched him exercising his authority. Although he had compassion for his people he could not comprehend any means of rule that was not absolute. On occasion Kammal even consulted Jossi in some typical double-dealing scheme which seemed perfectly legitimate to the Arab.

Through Kammal, Jossi Rabinsky learned about the magnificent and tragic history of the Arab people.

In the seventh century the dogma of Islam had erupted upon the wild semicivilized Bedouin tribes in the deserts. Inspired by Mohammed’s divine teachings, they swept out of the sand and with fire and sword spread their gospel from the doorsteps of China to the gates of Paris. During a hundred years of holy persuasion, hundreds of millions of the world’s peoples had gathered to the banner of Islam. The heart and soul of Islam were the Arabs, who were bound together by a common language and a common religion of submission to God’s will. During the meteoric rise of Islam, Jews held the highest positions of esteem in the Arab-speaking world.

A magnificent civilization arose from the deserts. It was the light of all mankind while the Western world wallowed in the morass of the Dark Ages and feudalism. Bagdad and Damascus became the Athens of their day. The Moslem culture was dazzling. For five hundred years the most advanced thinking, the greatest scientific efforts, the most magnificent artisans belonged to the Arab-speaking world.

Then came the Holy Wars of the Crusaders, who sacked and raped and killed in the name of the very same God who was shared by Moslem and Christian.

After the Crusaders came a century-one hundred unrelieved years-of Mongol invasions. The Mongols swooped in

from Asia and the wars were so cruel and so bloody that they defied any known bounds of brutality. Pyramids of Arab skulls stood as the monuments of the Mongols.

The Arabs so exhausted themselves in ten decades of fighting that their once mighty cities were decimated and a dry rot fell on the flowering oases. The beautiful islands of fruit and plenty were eaten up by seas of sand and erosion. The Arabs turned more and more against themselves and a bitter and desperate struggle ensued in which blood feuds pitted brother against brother. Divided against themselves, their land ruined, and their culture all but destroyed, they were unprepared to defend themselves against the final disaster.

This time it was brought about by fellow Moslems as the mighty Ottomans gobbled up their lands. Five centuries of corruption and feudalism followed.

A drop of water became more precious than gold or spices in the unfertile land. The merest, most meager existence was a series of tortured, heartbreaking struggles from birth to death. Without water the Arab world disintegrated into filth; unspeakable disease, illiteracy, and poverty were universal. There was little song or laughter or joy in Arab life. It was a constant struggle to survive.

In this atmosphere cunning, treachery, murder, feuds, and jealousies became a way of life. The cruel realities that had gone into forming the Arab character puzzled outsiders.

Cruelty from brother to brother was common. In parts of the Arab world thousands of slaves were kept, and punishment for a thief was amputation of a hand, for a prostitute, amputation of ears and nose. There was little compassion from Arab to Arab. The fellaheen who lived in abysmal filth and the Bedouin whose survival was a day-to-day miracle turned to the one means of alleviating their misery. They became Moslem fanatics as elements of the Jews had become fanatics in their hour of distress.

It was small wonder that the Arabs mistrusted all outsiders. The restless movement for freedom originated with the ruling classes, for the Bedouins and fellaheen were far too demoralized even to comprehend freedom and better conditions. The masses were but pawns in the schemes of the effendis and sheiks. They could be stirred into religious hysteria at the least provocation and were thus useful as a political weapon.

Jossi Rabinsky became fascinated by the many-sided Arab character. He could stand for hours around the shops in Jaffa and watch the endless bickering and boisterous trading. He observed as the Arab ran his life as though it were a game of chess. Every move was made with an astuteness designed to

outfox those he was dealing with. In the cafe’s and dens Jossi watched violent passions erupt. During his land-buying expeditions he observed the unscrupulous ethics of the Arab. Yet he enjoyed entering an Arab home where hospitality was unsurpassed. He was confounded by the fantastic reasoning that condoned every crime short of murder. He thought the position of women intolerable; they were held in absolute bondage, never seen, never heard, never consulted. Women often sought quick and vicious revenge by dagger or poison. Greed and lust, hatred and cunning, shrewdness and violence, friendliness and warmth were all part of that fantastic brew that made the Arab character such an enormous mystery to an outsider.

Kammal introduced Jossi Rabinsky to the Koran, the Holy Book of Islam. Jossi learned that Abraham was the father of the Arabs as well as of the Jews. From Ishmael, the cast-out son of Hagar, came the seed of the Arabs.

Jossi learned that Moses, the Jews’ great lawgiver, was also the chief prophet of the Moslems, and that all of the prophets of the Bible were also prophets of the Koran. Even many of the great rabbis were looked upon as holy men in Islam.

Kammal eyed the return of the Jews to the Promised Land with suspicion. The Jews puzzled him, for they had come in peace, purchased their land legally, and spoke only in lofty terms of redemption. Kammal, in understanding the basic drive behind the “return,” admitted to himself that it was a just and true move-but yet his mind could not believe that the newcomers would not eventually engulf and exploit the Arabs as all the others before them had done.

Yakov left Sde Tov. The experimental farm had not been a success. In much the same state he had been in before, Yakov continued to wander around from one end of the country to the other trying to find his niche.

In the year 1905 the revolution long brewing in Russia took place. It was crushed.

The failure of the 1905 revolution was a signal for new pogroms. These were so fearful that the entire civilized world stood aghast. Leo Tolstoy was so moved that he wrote a blistering condemnation of the Czar, his Minister of the Interior Count Plehve, and of the Black Hundreds whose specialty was murdering Jews. The Black Hundreds, protected by the Russian secret police, continued the pogroms until hundreds of thousands of Jews poured out of Russia. Most of them fled to America. Some went to Palestine.

Those who came to the Promised Land were of a new breed. They were not refugees like the Rabinsky brothers nor were they of a mind to become merchants. These were youngsters

indoctrinated in Zionism and filled with idealism and a determination to redeem the land.

The year 1905 ushered in the Second Aliyah of the exodus.

CHAPTER EIGHT: The need for idealism in Palestine was satisfied by the coming of the Second Aliyah. These newcomers were not content to be merchants in Jaffa nor did they wish to live off the alms of coreligionists. They were fired with a mission to redeem the land.

They set out in groups for the land the effendis had sold and tried to dry up the swamps. It was terrible work. To many of the old-timers the thought of Jews laboring in the fields like Arabs was unbelievable. In Palestine they had been the overseers. In the Old Country they did not work the land at all. Of all the gifts the Second Aliyah brought with them the greatest, perhaps, was the pronouncement of self-labor and the conquest of labor. Through their chief spokesman, A. D. Gordon, labor was made something dignified. Gordon was an older man and a scholar but he gave up scholarship for the greater task of working the soil with his own hands.

These were stimulating days for Yakov. He went out to another new experimental farm in the Galilee called Sejera. In Sejera the excitement never died as the young Jews of the Second Aliyah got down to work. One day Yakov came into Jaffa to see Jossi and he was filled with excitement over a new idea.

Yakov spoke with that fiery exuberance that was his own. “As you know, the Bedouin tribes use extortion to get our settlements to hire them as guards … against themselves. Well … they tried it at Sejera. They came in and made threats of what they’d do unless we hired them … and we didn’t. And we’ve defended ourselves very well. It was precarious for a while, but we set a trap and killed their leader and they haven’t come back since.

“We have talked it over,” Yakov continued. “If we can defend one settlement we can defend them all. We have made plans to form a roving guard and we want you to take over one of the units.”

A Jewish guard! What an astonishing idea! Jossi was excited but he answered in his usual way: “I will have to think it over.”

“What is there to think over?”

“You are making it too black and white, as usual, Yakov. First of all the Bedouins are not going to give up this important source of income without a fight. Then there are the

Turks. They will make it nearly impossible for us to carry arms.”

“I’ll be blunt,” Yakov said. “We wanted you, Jossi, because no one knows the country better and no one has had more experience in dealing with both Arabs and Turks.”

“Oh,” Jossi mocked, “so all of a sudden my dear brother realizes that my years of friendship with the Arabs hasn’t been a complete waste of time.”

“What do you say, Jossi?”

“I say I’ll consider it. Our own farmers may need a lot of convincing to let us guard them. And one thing that really annoys me … if we carry loaded guns it may be interpreted to mean we are looking for a fight.”

Yakov threw up his hands. “Challenging a fight by defending your own property! After twenty years in Palestine you still think like a ghetto Jew.”

Jossi refused to be rattled. “We came in peace. We have purchased our land legally. We have built our settlements without disturbing anyone. Now if we start to arm, it will he a compromise with the basic idealism of Zionism and don’t pretend there is no risk in that.”

“But he stood in the midst of the ground, and defended it … and the Lord wrought a great victory.”

“Still quoting …”

“You make me sick,” Yakov snapped. “Sure, Jossi … redeem the land under the magnanimous protection of the Bedouin cutthroats. Very well. I shall tell them my brother is deep in meditation. With or without you the Guardsmen are forming. The unit we want you to command is leaving next week for our base camp.”

“Where?”

“On Mount Canaan.”

Mount Canaan! Jossi’s heart skipped a beat. He wetted his lips and tried to conceal his excitement. “I will think it over,” he said.

Jossi did think it over. He was tired of buying land for the De Schumann Foundation and of establishing more colonies to live on charity.

A dozen armed Jews who were as hotheaded as Yakov could cause a great deal of trouble. Restraint and wisdom were needed in an armed guard. But the thought of living around Mount Canaan with the chance to spend time in the Huleh Valley proved too great a temptation.

Jossi resigned from the De Schumann Foundation and joined the new group as they arrived at Mount Canaan. They called themselves Hashomer: the Guardsman.

Jossi’s company was to work in a circle from Mount Canaan

from Rosh Pinna in the north to the Genossar Valley along the Sea of Galilee in the south and west to Safed and Meron.

Jossi knew that it would be only a matter of time until trouble broke out. As soon as the Bedouins learned they had lost their jobs they were certain to strike. He concocted a plan designed to avert trouble. The most troublesome of the Bedouin tribes in the area was led by an old renegade and smuggler named Suleiman whose encampments were generally in the hills above Abu Yesha. Suleiman extorted one fourth of Rosh Pinna’s crops in return for “protection.” The day after his arrival, before the Arabs were aware of the presence of the Guardsmen, Jossi rode out alone and unarmed to find Suleiman’s camp.

He located it late in the evening beyond Abu Yesha, near Tel Hai on the Lebanon side. The camp consisted of goatskin tents scattered about the browned-out hills. These eternal nomads considered themselves the purest and freest of all Arabs. They looked down contemptuously at the lowly fellaheen and the city dwellers. Life was indeed hard for the Bedouin but he was a free man with strong tribal ties, fiercest of the Arab fighters, and the most cunning of the Arab traders.

The sight of the giant red-bearded stranger caused a general alarm. The women, dressed in black Bedouin robes with chains of coins forming masks over their faces, hastened for cover as Jossi rode in.

When he had ridden halfway through the camp a Negro Arab, obviously from the Sudan, came toward him. The Negro introduced himself as Suleiman’s personal slave and led him to the largest of the tents near the largest flock of goats.

The old brigand stepped outside his tent. The Arab wore black robes and black headdress. Two magnificent silver daggers hung from his waist. He was blind in one eye and his face was scarred from many battles with men armed with knives and women armed with claws. Suleiman and Jossi sized each other up quickly.

Jossi was ushered into the tent. The earthen floor was covered with rugs and cushions. The two men made themselves comfortable. Suleiman ordered his slave to bring fruit and coffee to the guest. The two men smoked from a long-stemmed water pipe and exchanged meaningless amenities for half an hour. Dishes of curried rice and lambs’ testicles were served and they had melons for dessert as they maneuvered the conversation for another hour. Suleiman realized Jossi was no ordinary Jew and on no ordinary mission.

At last he asked Jossi the purpose of his visit and Jossi informed him that Hashomer was taking up his guarding duties. He thanked Suleiman for his past loyal services. The

Arab received the news without batting his good eye. Jossi requested a handshake upon a pact of friendship. Suleiman smiled and offered his hand.

Late that night Jossi rode into Rosh Pinna and called a meeting of farmers. Everyone was terrified by the whole idea of the Guardsmen. They were certain that Suleiman would slit their throats when he heard about it. The appearance of Jossi Rabinsky and his promise to remain at Rosh Pinna did much to calm them down.

In the rear of the meeting room a new girl of twenty watched and listened to Jossi Rabinsky. She had only arrived from Silesia in Poland a short time before. Her name was Sarah. She was as tiny as Jossi was huge, and her hair was as black as his was red. She was absolutely entranced as she watched him and listened to him talk.

“You are new here,” he said after the meeting.

“Yes.”

“I am Jossi Rabinsky.”

“Everyone knows of you.”

Jossi remained at Rosh Pinna for a week. He was certain that Suleiman would make a call but he knew the Bedouin was crafty enough not to be reckless. Jossi was in no hurry for the Arab to come, because he was greatly taken by Sarah. But in her presence he became tongue-tied and shy, for he had had little or no experience with Jewish girls in his adult life. The more Sarah teased and prodded, the more he turned into a shell. Everyone in Rosh Pinna, except Jossi, knew that he was a marked man.

On the ninth day a dozen Arabs slipped into Rosh Pinna in the middle of the night and made off with several hundred pounds of grain. Jossi was standing guard and saw them coming and observed every move they made. He could easily have caught them red-handed, but it was no crime to catch a Bedouin stealing. Jossi had a different strategy in mind.

The next morning Jossi rode off once more for Suleiman’s camp. This time he was armed-with his ten-foot bull whip. He galloped into the camp at full speed and made directly for Suleiman’s tent and dismounted. The Sudanese slave came out and smiled sweetly and welcomed Jossi and invited him to enter. Jossi hit the slave with the back of his hand as though he were flicking a fly from his arm and sent him sprawling to the ground.

“Suleiman!” his big voice boomed out for the whole camp to hear. “Step outside!”

A dozen kinsmen appeared from nowhere with rifles in their hands and surprise on their faces.

“Outside!” Jossi roared again.

The old brigand took a long time to make his appearance.

He stepped from the tent and put his hands on his hips and smiled menacingly. Ten feet of ground separated the two.

“Who is it who howls outside my tent like a sick goat?” Suleiman asked. The tribesmen were seized by a fit of laughter. Jossi did not take his eyes off the Arab for a second.

“It is Jossi Rabinsky who howls like a sick goat,” he said, “and says that Suleiman is a thief and a liar!” ’

The smile on Suleiman’s lips turned into an ugly scowl. The Bedouins tensed and waited for the signal to pounce on the Jew and devour him.

“Go on,” Jossi challenged softly, “call all your nephews. Your honor is no greater than a pig’s and I hear you have no more courage than a woman.”

No more courage than a woman! This was the deadliest insult he could hear. Jossi had issued him a personal challenge.

Suleiman raised his fist and shook it. “Your mother is the biggest whore in the world.”

“Go on, woman … keep talking,” Jossi answered.

Suleiman’s very honor was at stake. He drew one of his silver daggers and with a bloodcurdling shriek charged at the red-bearded giant.

Jossi’s bull whip whistled out!

It wrapped around the Arab’s feet picked him up, and sent him smashing to the earth. Jossi was at him like a cat. He brought the whip down on Suleiman’s back with such terrifying speed and strength that the snap echoed through all the hills.

“We are brothers! We are brothers!” Suleiman cried for mercy at the end of five lashes.

Jossi pointed at his frantic foe. “Suleiman, you gave me your hand in a bargain of honor and you lied. If you or your kinsmen ever again set foot in our fields I will cut your body apart with this whip and feed the pieces to the jackals.”

Jossi turned and his eyes pierced the astonished Bedouins. They were all too stunned to move. Never had they seen a man so powerful and fearless and angry. Showing utter disdain for their rifles, Jossi turned his back on them, walked to his horse, mounted, and rode off.

Suleiman never touched a Jewish field again.

The next morning when Jossi mounted up to rejoin his company at Mount Canaan, Sarah asked when he would be back. He mumbled something about getting to Rosh Pinna each month or so. As he swung onto his horse, saluted, and galloped off, Sarah thought her heart would burst apart. There was never a man like Jossi Rabinsky-Jew, Arab, Cossack, or king! She swore as she saw him ride away that she would dedicate the rest of her life to loving him.

‘ For a year Jossi commanded his Guardsman company in their territory with such skill that little or no trouble occurred. He never had to resort to firearms. When there was trouble he would go to the Arabs for a friendly consultation and warning. If it happened again-the bull whip. The bull whip of Jossi Rabinsky became as well known through the northern Galilee as his red beard. The Arabs called it “lightning.”

All this proved too dull for Yakov. He was bored with the lack of action. After six months in the Guardsman he left again to go on the prowl, hoping somehow to fill the constant void in his life.

Jossi was neither sad nor happy as a Guardsman. It gave him more pleasure than buying land and it established an important principle by demonstrating that the Jews could and would defend themselves and were no longer “children of death.” He looked forward to his northern swing so that he could have a visit with his friend Kammal and then travel up to his hill to keep his dream alive.

Secretly he eagerly anticipated those moments when he rode into Rosh Pinna. He would straighten up to look even more elegant and gallant on his white steed, and his heart would beat more quickly for he knew that Sarah, the dark-eyed girl from Silesia, was watching. But when it came to conversation or action, Jossi was lost.

Sarah was perplexed. She simply could not break down Jossi’s shyness. If it had been the Old Country the matchmaker would have gone to Jossi’s father and arranged everything. Here there was not only no matchmaker but not even a rabbi.

This went on for a year.

One day Jossi rode into Rosh Pinna unexpectedly. It was all he could do to ask Sarah if she would like to ride with him to see the country north of the settlement in the Huleh Valley.

How thrilling! No Jew but Jossi Rabinsky dared wander up that far! They galloped past Abu Yesha, on up the road, and then into the hills. The trail ended atop his hill.

“I crossed into Palestine right here,” he said softly.

As Jossi looked down into the Huleh Valley he did not need to say another word. Sarah knew how deeply he loved this earth. The two of them stood and gazed for ever so long. Sarah barely reached his chest.

A warm flood of love passed through her. This was Jossi’s only way of sharing his most intimate longing.

“Jossi Rabinsky,” Sarah whispered, “would you please, please marry me?”

Jossi cleared his throat and stammered, “Ahem … uh … how strange of you to mention it. I was about to say something of the sort myself.”

There had never been a wedding in Palestine to compare with Jossi’s and Sarah’s. They came from all over the Galilee and even from as far away as Jaffa, even though it was a two-day journey to Safed. The Guardsmen came and Yakov came and the settlers of Rosh Pinna came and Turks came and Kammal came and even Suleiman came. Everyone watched as Jossi and Sarah stood beneath the canopy and exchanged vows and drank the blessed wine. Jossi crushed the wineglass beneath his foot in remembrance of the bitterness of the fall of the Temple. There was food enough for an army and there was dancing and gaiety and celebration that lasted nearly a week.

When the last guest had gone home Jossi took his bride to his tent on the side of Mount Canaan and consummated their marriage.

Jossi took his bride down from Mount Canaan to Jaffa where there was much work to be done for the Zionists. His fame left him well equipped to take charge of settling newcomers and to deal with the many intricacies of this strange land. He signed on with the Zionists as one of the chief men in the Zion Settlement Society.

In the year 1909, Jossi was consulted in a very important matter. Many of the Jews of Jaffa’s growing community wanted better housing, sanitation, and a cultural life that the ancient Arab city could not offer. Jossi was instrumental in purchasing a strip of land north of Jaffa, which consisted mostly of sand and orange groves.

On this land the first all-Jewish city in two thousand years was built. They called it the Hill of Spring: Tel Aviv.

CHAPTER NINE: The agricultural colonies were failing miserably.

There were many reasons. Apathy and lethargy and complete lack of idealism, for one. They still planted only export crops and continued to use the cheaper Arab labor. Despite the influx of Jews and the desire of these Jews to work the land the Zionists could barely convince the colonies to use them.

The over-all situation was discouraging. Palestine was not much better off than it had been when the Rabinsky brothers came twenty years before. There was a measure of culture

around Tel Aviv, but all other progress was too small to be measured.

The energy and idealism which had come in with the Second Aliyah was going to waste. Like Yakov and Jossi, the immigrants drifted from place to place without cause and without putting down roots.

As the Zion Settlement Society purchased more and more land it became increasingly obvious that some drastic change in the entire thinking about colonization was necessary.

Jossi and others had long concluded that individual farming was a physical impossibility. There was the matter of security, there was the ignorance of the Jews in farming matters, and, worse, there was the complete wastage of the land.

What Jossi wanted with this new land was villages whose inhabitants would work the soil themselves, plant balanced crops to become self-sustaining, and be able to defend themselves.

The first principle involved was to keep all land in the name of the Zion Settlement Society-all-Jewish land for all the Jewish people. Only self-labor would be allowed on the land: the Jew had to do the work himself and could hire no other Jew or Arab.

The next dramatic step was taken when Jews of the Second Aliyah pledged to work only for the redemption of the land and build a homeland with no thoughts of personal gain or profits or ambition. Their pledge, in fact, came close to later communal farming ideas. The communal farm was not born of social or political idealism. It was based on the necessities of survival; there was no other way.

The stage was set for a dramatic experiment. The year was 1909. The Zion Settlement Society purchased four thousand dunams of land below Tiberias at a point where the Jordan River flowed into the Sea of Galilee. Most of it was swamp or marshland. The society staked twenty young men and women to a year’s supplies and money. Their mission was to reclaim the land.

Jossi traveled out with them as they pitched their tents at the edge of the marshland. They named their place Shoshanna after the wild roses which grew along the Sea of Galilee.

The Shoshanna experiment on national land could well be the key to future colonization and was the most important single step taken by the Jews since the exodus.

Three clapboard sheds were erected. One was a communal dining and meeting hall. One was a barn and tool shed. The third served as a barracks for the sixteen men and four

women.

In the first winter the sheds collapsed a dozen times in the winds and floods. The roads were so muddy they became isolated from the outside world for long stretches. At last they were forced to move into a nearby Arab village to wait it out till springtime.

In the spring Jossi returned to Shoshanna as the work began in earnest. The marshlands and swamps had to be rolled back foot by foot. Hundreds of Australian eucalyptus trees were planted to soak up the water. Drainage ditches were carved out by hand; the work was backbreaking. They labored from sunup till sundown, and a third of the members were always bedridden with malaria. The only cure they knew was the Arab method of cutting the ear lobes and draining blood. They worked in waist-deep muck through the terrible heat of the summer.

By the second year there was some reclaimed land to show for their toil. Now the rocks had to be dragged from the fields by donkey teams and the thick brush hacked down and burned.

In Tel Aviv, Jossi continued to fight to continue support for the experiment, for he was discovering an amazing thing. He was discovering that the drive to build a homeland was so great that there were at least twenty people willing to do this thankless, backbreaking work without pay.

The hardships endured at Shoshanna never ceased, but by the end of two years enough land had been readied to lay in a crop. This was a crucial stage, for most of the group did not know how to farm or what to farm or the difference between a hen and a rooster. They worked by trial and error, and the results were mostly errors. They did not know how to sow or plow in a straight line or how to get milk from cows or how to plant trees. The earth was a gigantic mystery.

They attacked the problem of farming with the same dogged determination with which they had attacked the swampy land. With the swamp water drained off, irrigation water had to be brought in. At first it was carried from the river in water cans on donkey back. Next came an experiment with an Arab water wheel, and after that several attempts at wells. Finally they put in irrigation ditches and built a network of dams to trap the winter rains.

Little by little the land yielded its secrets. On many of his visits Jossi held his breath and wondered and marveled at the morale at Shoshanna. They had nothing but what they wore on their backs and even that belonged to the community. They ate the meagerest of meals in a community dining hall, had common showers and toilets, and slept everyone under the same roof. The Arabs and Bedouins watched the slow steady growth of Shoshanna with amazement. When the Bedouins saw several hundred acres of land under cultivation they set out to dislodge the Jews.

All work in the fields had to be done under cover of armed guards. Along with sickness, overwork-security became a problem. After a torturous day in the fields the tired farmers had to stand guard throughout the night. But they carried on at Shoshanna through isolation and ignorance and threats of attack and swamps and murderous heat and malaria and a dozen other calamities.

Yakov Rabinsky came to Shoshanna to try his luck there.

Joseph Trumpledor arrived. Trumpledor had been an officer in the Russian Army and was famous for his valor in the Russo-Japanese War during which he lost an arm. The call of Zionism brought Trumpledor to Palestine and the path led to Shoshanna. With Trumpledor and Yakov handling security the Bedouin raids soon ceased.

There were more problems in communal living than they had imagined.

There was the governing of the community. This was completely democratic, but Jews were traditionally independent and no two Jews ever agreed on any given subject. Would the governing turn into endless conversation and haggling?

There was the division of work. There was community responsibility for health, welfare, and education. And what of the members who could not or would not do a full day’s work? What of those who were disgruntled over their assignments? What of those who objected to the cooking or to living in such tight quarters? What of the clash of personalities?

One thing seemed to overrule all else. Everyone in Shoshanna had a violent hatred for the things which had made him a ghetto Jew. They were going to destroy those things and they were going to build a homeland. Shoshanna had its own code of ethics and its own social laws. They made the marriages and the divorces by common consent. They ran the village in such a way as not to be bound by the old traditions. They threw off the shackles of their past.

So long had their oppression been and so great their desire that here at Shoshanna was the birth of a true free Jewish peasantry. They dressed like peasants, and they danced the hora by firelight. The earth and the building of the homeland had become a noble cause for existence. As time went on flowers and trees and shrubs and lawns were set in and new and fine buildings were erected. Small cottages were built for the married couples and a library was begun and a full-time doctor was hired.

Then came the rebellion of the women. One of the four original women settlers was a stocky unattractive girl named

Ruth. She was the leader of the women’s rebellion. She argued in the community meetings that the women had not ventured from the Pale and from Poland and certainly not to Shoshanna to become domestics. They demanded equality and responsibilities on the farm. They broke down the old taboos one by one and joined the men in all phases of the work, even plowing the fields. They took over the chickens and the vegetable fields and proved equal in ability and stamina to the men. They learned how to use weapons and stood guard during the nights.

Ruth, the ringleader of the women’s uprising, really had her eye on the five-cow dairy herd. She wanted very badly to have the cows. But the votes of the men squashed that ambition. The girls were going too far! Yakov, the most boisterous of the men, was sent into battle with Ruth. Surely she must know that the cows were too dangerous for women to handle! Besides, those five cows were the Shoshanna’s most prized and spoiled possessions.

Everyone was astounded when Ruth coyly quit her fight. It was so unlike her! She did not mention another word about it for another month. Instead she slipped out of Shoshanna at every opportunity to the nearby Arab village to learn the art of milking. In her spare time she studied everything she could get her hands on concerning dairy farming.

One morning Yakov went into the barn after a night of guard duty. Ruth had broken her word! She was milking Jezebel, their prize cow.

A special meeting was called to chastise comrade Ruth for insubordination. Ruth came armed with facts and figures to prove that she could increase the milk yield with proper feed and common sense. She accused the men of ignorance and intolerance. They decided to put her in her place by letting her take charge of the herd.

Comrade Ruth ended up as permanent keeper of the cows. She increased the herd twenty-five times over and became one of the best dairy farmers in all of Palestine.

Yakov and Ruth were married, for it was said that she was the only person in the world who could win an argument with him. They loved each other very much and were extremely happy.

The greatest crisis came at Shoshanna with the birth of the first children. The women had fought for equality and gained it and in so doing had become important in the farm’s economy. Many of them held key positions. The point was argued and discussed. Should the women quit their jobs and become domestics? Could some other way be found to keep a family going? The members of Shoshanna argued that

because they had a unique way of life they could find a unique way to handle the children.

Children’s houses came into existence. Certain members of Shoshanna were chosen for the job of raising the children under supervision during the day. This allowed the women to be free to work. In the evenings the families stayed together. Many outsiders cried that this would destroy family life, which had been the saving factor of the Jewish people through centuries of persecution. Despite the detractors, the family ties at Shoshanna became as powerful as those in any family anywhere.

Yakov Rabinsky had found happiness at last. Shoshanna grew until it had a hundred members and over a thousand dunams of the land reclaimed. Yakov did not have money or even clothing to call his own. He had a snippy, sharp-tongued woman who was one of the best farmers in the Galilee. In the evenings, when the day’s labor was done, he and Ruth would walk over the lawns and through the flower gardens or to the knoll and look down at the lush green fields-and Yakov was content and fulfilled.

Shoshanna, the first kibbutz in Palestine, seemed to be the long-awaited answer for Zionism.

CHAPTER TEN: Jossi came home one evening from a special meeting of the Vaad Halashon and he was steeped in thought. Because of his position in the community they had made a special appeal to him.

Sarah always had tea ready for Jossi, no matter what time of day or night he returned from his meetings. They sat on the balcony of their three-room flat on Hayarkon Street overlooking the Mediterranean. From here Jossi could look down the curve of coastline to Jaffa which joined Tel Aviv.

“Sarah,” he said at last, “I have come to a decision. Tonight I was at the Vaad Halashon and they have asked me to take a Hebrew name and speak Hebrew exclusively. I heard Ben Yehuda speak tonight. He has done a tremendous job in modernizing Hebrew.”

“Such nonsense,” Sarah replied. “You told me yourself that never in the history of the world has a language been revived.”

“And I have come to think that never before have a people tried to revive a nation as we are doing. When I see what has been done at Shoshanna and the other kibbutzim …”

“Speaking of Shoshanna … you only want to take a Hebrew name because your brother, the former Yakov Rabinsky, has done so.”

“Nonsense.”

“Just what do we call the former Yakov Rabinsky now?” “Akiva. He named himself after his childhood idol …”

“And maybe you want to call yourself Jesus Christ after a boyhood idol.”

“You are impossible, woman!” Jossi snorted and stomped in from the balcony.

“If you ever went to a synagogue any more,” Sarah said, following him, “you would know that Hebrew is for communication with God.”

“Sarah … I sometimes wonder why you bothered to come from Silesia. If we are to think like a nation, we had better speak like a nation.”

“We do. Yiddish is our language.”

“Yiddish is the language of exiles. Yiddish is the language of the ghetto. Hebrew is the language of all the Jews.”

She pointed her finger up at her giant of a husband. “Don’t recite Zionist propaganda to me, Jossi. You will be Jossi Rabinsky to me till the day I die.”

“I have made the decision, Sarah. You had better study your Hebrew because that is what we will be speaking from now on.”

“Such stupidity, your decision!”

Jossi had been slow in agreeing with Ben Yehuda and the others. Hebrew had to be revived. If the desire for national identity was great enough a dead language could be brought back. But Sarah was set in her ways. Yiddish was what she spoke and what her mother had spoken. She had no intention of becoming a scholar so late in life.

For a week Sarah locked Jossi out of the bedroom. He refused to break down. Then for three weeks he spoke to Sarah only in Hebrew and she answered him in Yiddish.

“Jossi,” she called one night, “Jossi, come here and help me.”

“I beg your pardon,” Jossi said. “There is no one in this house by the name of Jossi. If you happen to be speaking to me,” he continued, “my name is Barak. Barak Ben Canaan.”

“Barak Ben Canaan!”

“Yes. It took much thought to select a proper name. The Arabs used to call my whip ‘lightning,’ and that is what Barak is in Hebrew-lightning. It is also the name of Deborah’s leading general. I call myself Canaan because I happen to like Mount Canaan.”

The door slammed.

Jossi shouted through it. “I was happy living on Mount Canaan! I did not have a hardheaded woman then! Get used to it, Sarah Ben Canaan … Sarah Ben Canaan!”

Jossi, now Barak, was again locked out of his bedroom. For a solid week neither adversary spoke.

One night, a month after their warfare had started, Barak returned from a grueling three-day meeting in Jerusalem. He came in late at night, exhausted, and looked around, hoping that Sarah might be up to talk things over and have a cup of tea. The door to her room was closed. He sighed and pulled off his shoes and lay back on the sofa. He was so large his legs hung over the arm. He was tired and wished he could sleep in his own bed and was sorry for starting the whole business. He began to doze but was awakened by a crack of light under the bedroom door. Sarah tiptoed to him and knelt by his huge frame and put her head on his chest.

“I love you, Barak Ben Canaan,” she whispered in perfect Hebrew.

Life was busy for Barak Ben Canaan in the brand-new city of Tel Aviv. As the community grew the Jews of Palestine became known by the literal definition of the term-the Yishuv-and Hebrew was revived as the language of the Yishuv. Barak Ben Canaan had risen high among the Zionists and in the Zion Settlement Society. His life was a constant round of meetings and delicate negotiations with the Turks and Arabs. He wrote many papers of importance in the formulation of policy and he and Sarah traveled many times to London to Zionist headquarters and to Switzerland to the international conferences. Yet Barak did not know the true happiness that his brother Akiva had found at Shoshanna. Barak’s heart was always north of Mount Canaan in the land of the Huleh Valley. Sarah was a wise and devoted wife. She wanted badly to compensate for his hunger for the land by trying to give him children. This ended in sadness. For five consecutive years she lost children through early miscarriages. It was indeed bitter, for Barak was already in his mid-forties.