Abstract
In this chapter, Yankelevitch evaluates the work of the Galilee migration committee that operated in the northern region of Palestine toward the final phase of the First World War, the withdrawal of the Ottoman army and the advancement of the British forces. During this period, the Jewish community was confronted with deportation from the Jaffa-Tel Aviv region to the Galilee and the surrounding area, including the mixed towns of Tiberias and Saffet and the Jewish colonies. The expelled population depended on the support of the migration committee, and the research outlined in this chapter illuminates the steps taken by the committee’s board in order to aid both the exiled and local population in a time of acute crisis.
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Notes
- 1.
Shehechiyanu is a Jewish blessing thanking God for enabling a new experience or on a special occasion.
- 2.
Minutes of the joint meeting that took place after the occupation of Tiberias, Central Zionist Archives (hereafter CZA), L2/216-144, September 25, 1918.
- 3.
Yishuv is a general term designating the Jewish community in Ottoman and British-ruled Palestine prior to the establishment of the State of Israel. It was made up of individuals from various backgrounds.
- 4.
Nathan Efrati (1991), The Jewish Community in Eretz-Israel During World War I (1914–1918) (Jerusalem, Yad Ben-Zvi), 284–285 [in Hebrew].
- 5.
Cemal Paşha (1872–1922), was one of the leaders of the Committee of Union and Progress. See, Djemal Paşha (1973), Memories of a Turkish Statesman, 1913–1919 (New York); M. Talhat Ҫiçek (2014), War and State Formation in Syria: Cemal Paşha’s Governorate During World War I, 1914–1917 (New York, Routledge).
- 6.
The Jewish population in Tiberias in 1914 numbered 5700. There were also about 2300 Moslems. In 1916, there were approximately 3000 Jews. In Safed in 1914, there were 7500 Jews out of a total of 13,500.
- 7.
The old yishuv refers to all the Jews living in Palestine before the Zionist immigration wave of 1882. This community lived mainly in Jerusalem, Safed, Tiberias, and Hebron, and was supported by the haluka, the traditional system of distribution charity within the Jewish community in Palestine, while the new yishuv were the newcomers ideologically related to the Zionist movement.
- 8.
Isaiah Friedman (1971), ‘German Intervention on Behalf of the Yishuv, 1917’. Jewish Social Studies 33:1, 23–43.
- 9.
Oded Neuman (1993), ‘A Battle for Survival: The Struggle of the Jewish Yishuv for Existence during World War I, 1914–1918,’ (PhD diss., University of California).
- 10.
Friedman (1971), German Intervention, 29–30; Fruma Zachs (2012), ‘A Transformation of Memory of a Tyranny in Syria: From Djemal Pasha to ‘Id al-Shuhada’, 1914–2000,’ Middle Eastern Studies 48:1, 75–76.
- 11.
Neuman (1993), ‘Battle for Survival’, 91–135; Efrati (1991), Jewish Community, 16–33.
- 12.
Arieh Bitan (1982), Changes of Settlement in the Eastern Lower Galilee (1800–1978) (Jerusalem, Yad Ben Zvi), 81–96 [in Hebrew].
- 13.
In 1908 the Palestine Office (Palaestinaamt) was established, with its seat in Jaffa, by the executive of the Zionist Organization. Headed by Arthur Ruppin, it served under the Ottoman regime as the central agency for Zionist settlement activities, including land purchase and aiding immigration.
- 14.
Etan Bloom (2011), Arthur Ruppin and the Production of Pre-Israeli Culture (Leiden, Brill), 148–232.
- 15.
Yossei Kats (2009), The Business of Settlement: Private Entrepreneurship in the Jewish Settlement of Palestine, 1900–1914 (Jerusalem and Ramat Gan, Magness Press and Bar-Ilan Press), 298–301.
- 16.
Estie Yankelevitch (2014), ‘The Jewish Community in Tiberias, from the Jewish Committee to the Tiberias Hebrew Committee’, in Religion Nationalism: The Struggle for Modern Jewish Identity, Jewish Studies, an Interdisciplinary Annual, Yossi Goldstein, ed. (Ariel, Ariel University), H18–H23 [in Hebrew].
- 17.
Menachem Sheinkin (1935), ‘Galilee’, in Menachem Sheinkin Letters, Aron Hermoni, ed. (University of Michigan), 21 [in Hebrew].
- 18.
Zeev Perel (1999), ‘Crisis in Jewish Safed During World War I’ (PhD diss., Bar Ilan University), 29–49 [in Hebrew].
- 19.
Friedman (1971), German Intervention, 23–43.
- 20.
Ҫiçek (2014), War and State, 86–89.
- 21.
Meir Dizengoff (1921), ‘Eem Tel-Aviv Ba-golah’, [With Tel-Aviv in Exile] (Tel-Aviv), 50–51 [in Hebrew].
- 22.
CZA, L 6/2/I, Thon to Zionist Executive. 18 April 1917; Mordechai Ben Hillel Ha’Cohen (1929), Milhemet Ha’amim [War of the Nations] (Tel-Aviv, Yad Ben-Zvi), 124–125.
- 23.
Friedman (1971), German Intervention, 25.
- 24.
Conde de Ballobar (2011), Jerusalem in World War I, Eduardo Manzano Moreno and Roberto Mazza, eds. (London, I.B. Tauris), 148.
- 25.
Friedman (1971), German Intervention, 28–29.
- 26.
Yuval Ben-Basat (2015), ‘Enciphered Ottoman Telegrams from the First World War Concerning the Yishuv in Palestine’, Turcica 46, 279–299.
- 27.
Meir Dizengoff (1861–1936), was among the founders of the Association of Builders of Jaffa. The association’s objective was to build a new and modern Jewish neighborhood outside the walls of Jaffa. In 1911, Dizengoff was elected head of the committee, a role he held until he was elected first mayor of Tel-Aviv in 1921. During the 1917 Ottoman exile from Tel-Aviv, Dizengoff went to Haifa and later to Damascus, as head of the migration committee.
- 28.
Friedman (1971), German Intervention, 25–26; CZA, L 6/2/I, Thon to Zionist Executive. 18 April 1917; Dizengoff (1921), Tel-Aviv, 45–52; and Ha’Cohen (1929), Milhemet, 124–125.
- 29.
Yacov Thon, a native of Lwow, Poland, settled in Palestine in 1907 and served as deputy to Dr. Arthur Ruppin, head of the Zionist movement’s Palestine Office. During the war, Thon replaced Ruppin who was expelled from the country, and later served as managing director of the Palestine Land Development Company.
- 30.
Yakov Thon (1919), Eretz-Israel During the World War [in Hebrew] (Jaffa, Typewritten Report), 194.
- 31.
Ibid.
- 32.
Ibid.
- 33.
Ibid., 195.
- 34.
Efrati (1991), Jewish Community, 287–291, 295–297.
- 35.
CZA J90/142, The Migration Committee to the Jewish Communities, April 1917 [emphasis in original].
- 36.
Efrati (1991), Jewish Community, 291–295.
- 37.
CZA, J90/141, April (Passover) 1917, Dizengoff to the Migration Committee in Tiberias; Gur Alroey (2006), ‘Exiles in Their Own Land? The Expelled from Tel Aviv and Jaffa in Lower Galilee 1917–1918’ [in Hebrew], Cathedra 120, 135–160.
- 38.
Thon (1919), Ertz Israel, 197; CZA L2/553-253, Central migration committee to Thon and Hoofien, 19 September 1917. Eliezer Siegfried Hoofien (1991–1957), born in Utrecht, Holland immigrated to Palestine in 1912, after serving as director of the Cologne office of the Zionist Central Office. During the war, he was the manager of the Anglo-Palestine Bank. Nathan Efrati (1991), ‘Eliezer S. Hoofien, Director of A.P.C Bank: His Role within the Yishuv during World War I and its Aftermath’, in Mordechai Eliav, ed. Siege and Distress (Jerusalem, Yad Ben-Zvi), 84–96.
- 39.
Siegfried Hoofien (1917–1918), Report to the Joint Distribution Committee of the American Funds for Jewish War Sufferers (New York, American Jewish Committee), 19.
- 40.
Friedman (1971), German Intervention, 34.
- 41.
Efrati (1991), Jewish Community, 295–299.
- 42.
Ha’Cohen (1929), Milhemet, iv. 5, 30–33, 65, 76; Dizengoff (1921), Tel-Aviv, 76–80; CZA, L 6/211, Dizengoff (1917), ‘Rapport sur les Emigres de Jaffa’, 1 July 1917 (submitted to Djemal Paşha); Ibid., Thon to Ruppin, July 6, 9; and Thon to Hantke, July 11; K179122, Thon to Warburg, 4 July 1917.
- 43.
CZA, J90/141, 15 April 1917, Glikin to Erlich.
- 44.
The special committee for relief of Jews in Palestine to Judah Magnes, [no date] Central Archive for the History of the Jewish People, Jerusalem, Magnes Archive, P/1033. [Hereafter CAHJP MA]. The head of the committee was Jack Mosseri, a banker and a member of an affluent and influential Sephardic family in Egypt; the other members were representatives of the yishuv that were deported to Cairo shortly after the war broke out.
- 45.
Bezalel Jaffe was a Zionist pioneer in procurement of land for Tel-Aviv, industrialist and irrigation expert, and a leader in political organization of the Jewish community in Tel-Aviv.
- 46.
CAHJP MA, P/1033, Synopses of four circulars issued by the “Central Evacuation Committee in Judea”, April 1917.
- 47.
Ibid.
- 48.
Nili, known as the Aaronsohn group, was a small but efficient spy-ring in Palestine. The group supplied information mostly on military matters. Aaron Aaronsohn, an agronomist, was working at the time for the British Military Intelligence in Egypt. NILI: acronym in Hebrew for the biblical expression “The Glory of Israel Does Not Deceive or Change” (1 Samuel 15:29).
- 49.
Neuman (1993), ‘Battle for Survival’, 305–325; Efrati (1991), Jewish Community, 31–33.
- 50.
CZA, J90/116, Circular No. 7, Central Committee in the Galilee, 21 August 1917.
- 51.
CZA, J90/252, 26 June 1917, Sejera Secretary’s Report to the Migration Committee.
- 52.
CZA, J90/162, 1917–1918, Letters sent by Yanovski in Tiberias to Thon, Yaffe and Dizengoff.
- 53.
CZA, J90/252, 6 August 1917, Dizengoff to the Migration Committee in Safed.
- 54.
CZA, J90/143, 29 June 1917, Glikin to the Galilee Central Committee.
- 55.
The Zionist Organization was founded by Theodor Herzl at the First Zionist Congress in Basle in 1897. Its goals were set forth in the Basle Program: “Zionism Seeks to Establish a Home for the Jewish People in Palestine, Secured Under Public Law.” CZA, L 6/2/I Ruppin to Warburg, 9 August 1917 in Friedman (1971), German Intervention, 37.
- 56.
Ibid., A sum equivalent to 2,459,815 francs was contributed by the Jewish communities in Russia, Germany, and Holland. American Jewry contributed the equivalent of 1,359,946 francs.
- 57.
Ibid.; CZA A249/33, Dizengoff (in Damascus) to Jacobson 12 August 1917; Ibid., A249/36 Meir Moshaiof to Jacobson, 20 November 1917.
- 58.
Zeev Liebovitch (1943), Immigration and Building (Jerusalem, Reuven Mass), 118–119 [in Hebrew].
- 59.
CZA A249/33, Dizengoff to Jacobson, 31 August 1917.
- 60.
Ibid., Dizengoff to Jacobson, 3 August 1917.
- 61.
See for example, CZA, J90/135 Karniel’s resignation, 2 September 1917; The Resignation of All the Committee’s Members, 20 November 1917; and A249/25 Dr. Green’s resignation, 13 April 1918.
- 62.
Ibid., J90/139, Galilee Committee to Thon, 11 October 1918.
- 63.
Dr. Yehuda Leib Pochovski (1869–1963) was born in Russia, immigrated to Palestine in 1906, and worked as a physician, first in Rehovoth and later in Jaffa. During the war he was recruited to the Ottoman army and served as an officer in army hospitals. Later he was released from active service and was sent to Tiberias to help out with the outbreak of the cholera epidemic.
- 64.
Efrati (1991), Jewish Community, 327.
- 65.
Dr. Abraham Green sent his blood samples to be examined in Tiberias and a few days later, he passed away. Beit HaMerie Archive, Safed, A.11.03, 18 April 1918, Green to the Committee in Tiberias.
- 66.
CZA, J90/112, Dizengoff to the Local Committees, 7 May 1918.
- 67.
CZA, A153/146/6, Yalin to Hoofien, Damascus, 3 October 1917.
- 68.
Yaron Harel (2015), The Beginnings of Zionism in Damascus (Jerusalem, Zalman Shazar Center), 91–97.
- 69.
Ibid., 101.
- 70.
CZA, A249/17, The Galilee Migration Committee’s Call to the Farmers, 24 October 1918.
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Yankelevitch, E. (2019). War and Nationalism in Palestine: The Jewish Migration Committee in the Galilee During the First World War. In: Madigan, E., Reuveni, G. (eds) The Jewish Experience of the First World War. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-54896-2_5
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