Source

by James A. Michener

  At dusk on the afternoon of Tuesday, April 13, the Palmach men roused Ilana and her two well-rested companions. In the small village there was an air of commitment. Teddy Reich’s command to move forward, infiltrate Safad and take over the local defense forces had been so thoroughly discussed, and its difficulties so accurately assessed, that excitement and fear were pretty well spent. Now everyone knew that a platoon of thirty-three men and girls would creep through the countryside at midnight, crawl on its belly for about three miles and try to sneak into the town through Arab patrols. If the maneuver degenerated into a pitched battle, the Palmach were to return fire but to keep moving forward.

  The unit was led by Mem-Mem Bar-El, a sinewy young man who wore a beard and prided himself on his somewhat flashy appearance, his sabra birth and the fact that he spoke no language but Hebrew. He was blue-eyed and red-headed, with the controlled instincts of a true fighting man. His title, Mem-Mem, was derived from the Hebrew initials for platoon commander, and for this job he was nearly ideal. His judgments were swift and clearly communicated; in their execution he was usually in the lead. In normal times Bar-El might have been a lady-killer chewing a toothpick; now he was a battle-tested leader, twenty years old.

  He was accompanied by a beautiful girl of seventeen, thin, with dark eyes and clear skin. In all respects she was small; her face and body seemed more a child’s than a young woman’s, and she came only to Ilana’s shoulder, but she piled her hair high on her head, like a Frenchwoman, hoping thereby to make herself look taller. She also wore a boxlike soldier’s cap which always seemed about to topple backward, for she kept its visor pointed skyward to steal additional height. She was unlike Ilana in that she dressed with the flair of a girl who enjoyed clothes, but she was obedient to the other rules of the sabra: no lipstick, no rouge, no shaving. She served as Palmach secretary and was known simply as Vered, the Hebrew word for rose. She had joined Bar-El’s unit in the simplest way: she appeared one morning, volunteering to serve in any capacity, and now she lived in whatever quarters the Mem-Mem could find for her. When questioned she insisted, “At the end of the war I shall attend university.” Bit by bit the men pieced together the fact that she had come from the family of some important doctor in Tel Aviv, but her parents did not know where she was and she intended not to tell them until victory had been won. Sometimes the men found her crying, and this embarrassed her, but the improbable thing was that delectable as she was, she had no boy friend and permitted none to touch her; Bar-El served merely as her watchdog. Gottesmann was surprised, therefore, when this frail child slammed shut the folding table-desk used by the Palmach as its headquarters, hefted it easily in her left hand, then reached with her right for a rifle and loaded on her back additional gear until she had the normal thirty-kilo marching load for girls. He felt an impulse to lean down and kiss her as he would a child, and say, “You can put the toys down, Vered,” but she let him know that she intended marching through the wadis to the relief of Safad.

  The Jews ate a late meal, then closed down the village as if they had gone to bed normally. Some members who were not making the assault on Safad paced the outskirts on normal guard duty, stopping occasionally so that they could be seen by Arab patrols. A few dogs raced through the alleyways, barking sharply, and in all possible respects the village was kept ordinary; but shortly before midnight Mem-Mem Bar-El assembled his unit and with swift, quiet movements the twenty-six men and seven girls disappeared from the village and lost themselves in a deep wadi running north and south from Safad. No Arab had seen them.

  Working silently the Palmach moved single file down the steep banks of the wadi, lugging one Sten gun, a Vickers machine gun stolen from the English, a Mauser, a Garand, an armful of Czech rifles and revolvers from many sources. In the middle of the unit plodded a small donkey loaded with four Hotchkiss guns. Three of the younger boys were covered with web equipment stolen from a Scottish unit. Gottesmann, in charge of the rear, thought: I’d enjoy hearing what an English sergeant-major would say of this troop. Then he looked up to see the lofty lights of Safad as he had seen them the night before, and he realized that the unit was well below the elevation of its starting point and far below its objective. The rest of the operation would be uphill with eighty-eight pounds of equipment.

  Now came the first danger. All the Jews were in the bottom of the gully, working their way cautiously southward toward the Jewish section of Safad, and if anything went wrong they would be trapped, with the enemy holding all the high positions. Furthermore, the bottom of the wadi was a natural pathway, so that any patrols that might be operating from the Arab part of Safad must surely intercept them. Yet Gottesmann approved the perilous disposition of the Jews. If they were going to penetrate Safad, they could do so only by this method. In the meantime, if one were religious, he could pray. None of the men Gottesmann knew was doing so, but each held his rifle at the ready.

  Silently the Jews moved down the wadi. At one point Bar-El muttered to Gottesmann, “Now for the hellish part. Maximum stringing out.” If the Arabs were alerted, this would be the time for them to strike.

  Bar-El jumped. Gottesmann felt his throat tighten in an involuntary spasm. A weird, terrifying cry sped through the wadi, echoing back and forth from one wall to the other. Ilana gasped and reached out to grab Gottesmann’s arm. The sound was sickening, fearful. Only Bagdadi was at ease. He chuckled: “Jackals. They smell the donkey.” Any Arabs who were listening found the sound familiar and in no way suspicious. Sweating, the Jews moved forward.

  They were now ready for the quick move toward Safad, and it was necessary to consolidate the strung-out troops, so the Mem-Mem halted while the rear caught up. After consulting with his guides Bar-El whispered, “Cemetery.” The prior briefing had been so thorough that each segment of the platoon knew what to do.

  In three units the Jews fanned through the old cemetery: one to the left past the tomb of Rabbi Abulafia, the greatest of the Kabbalists; one to the right past the tomb of Rabbi Eliezer of Gretz, who had codified the law; and another toward the honorary tomb of the greatly loved Rabbi Zaki the Martyr, who had died in Rome. Perhaps it was because these long-dead saints protected the Jews, perhaps it was because the Arabs could not believe that such an attempt could be made, but more likely it was because the Arabs had been lulled by the British announcement that they were withdrawing on April 16—the day after tomorrow—and taking all Jews with them … for one of these reasons Mem-Mem Bar-El was able to sift his men silently across the cemetery without detection.

  Crash! A shot rang out from the Jewish sector. It came from the sturdy old synagogue of Rabbi Yom Tov ben Gaddiel. From the Arab quarter random replies were made, and Gottesmann thought: Damn, there’s going to be a real fusillade. The Palmach men, cursing, dropped. Bar-El dispatched two guides into the town to halt the Jewish firing.

  Silence. The men and girls inched forward. They were almost safe … almost in Safad.

  “Now!” Bar-El shouted, and the remaining thirty-one scrambled madly out of the cemetery and into the sanctuary of Safad.

  As soon as the Jews hit the narrow alleys Vered’s high, girlish voice broke into song, wild, exulting:

  “From Metulla to the Negev,

  From the desert to the sea,

  Every youth is bearing arms,

  Every boy should be on guard.”

  Up and down the streets of the Jewish quarter the Palmach went, shouting its battle songs.

  “Break into three groups!” Bar-El cried, and toward the edges of the Arab quarters the soldiers marched, singing the song of the Jewish fliers:

  “Batsheva, Batsheva, the song is for you,

  From Dan to Beersheba we shall not forget.

  From the heights we will send you a song.

  Let us drink ‘L’hayim’ with the whole Palmach.”

  “Start someone shouting that two thousand Palmach have arrived,” the Mem-Mem directed, and little Vered went running through the streets, her childish voice cr
ying, “We’re saved! Two thousand brave men. Through the Arab lines.” Soon the citizens of Safad were repeating the cry, but Isidore Gottesmann was standing silent, his eyes and ears filled with love as Ilana Hacohen and Nissim Bagdadi directed a group of Palmach and Safad youngsters in a parade led by the donkey. Ilana sang the song which so hauntingly caught the spirit of the Jewish movement in which girls like Vered, no more than children, offered their lives for freedom:

  “Danny-leh, Danny-leh,

  Eat your banana-leh.”

  It was the pleading voice of the indulgent Jewish mother, coaxing her fat little boy to stuff himself one mite more. As she sang the nonsense words Ilana’s voice was like that … filled with love and the joy of having made it to Safad.

  As dawn broke that Wednesday morning a surge of hope echoed through the narrow streets of Safad: “The soldiers have arrived!” And Jews who the previous afternoon had been choosing between massacre or exile were now free to weigh a third alternative, victory, and throughout the town men resolved to hold out a little longer. In all Safad there was rejoicing.

  In all Safad, that is, except in the Ashkenazi synagogue controlled by Rebbe Itzik of Vodzh. In its narrow confines ten old men with long black cloaks and curls dangling beside their ears stood praying. The previous afternoon the British government had offered them safe-conduct to Acre, but they had determined not to leave Safad.

  Their leader was a thin, small man, a Russian Jew who forty years before had brought his flock from Vodzh to Israel so that its members could die in the Holy Land and, when the Messiah came, escape the dark and tedious underground burrowing from Russia. He had piercing blue eyes and bushy eyebrows, long white curls and beard. His flattened hat was trimmed with fur and his drooping cloak repeated in every detail the garment decided upon by Polish Jews three hundred years before. His hands were white and wrinkled, and when a young boy came bursting into the synagogue, shouting, “Rebbe! Rebbe! Jewish soldiers have arrived. A whole army,” the little man ignored the news, merely clasping his hands more tightly and bowing his head. His nine followers did likewise, their ankles and knees pressed closely together, as the Talmud directed. They prayed that the children of Israel might be patient when the Arabs fell upon them. They prayed that God would accept their souls when the long knives flashed. And they prayed that they might soon be one with Moses our Teacher, with great Akiba and with the gentle Rabbi Zaki, who had known the meaning of God.

  After a moment the boy shrugged his shoulders and ran off to cry his good news elsewhere.

  … THE TELL

  Excavating was interrupted, insofar as Cullinane was involved, when a team of archaeologists from Columbia University dropped down from a dig they were conducting at the ruins of Antioch in southern Turkey to check the finds at Makor. At a luncheon meeting at the kibbutz the director of the Columbia team caused considerable pleasure by stating, “Word of what you’re doing down here has circulated through the profession. What with levels reaching all the way back from Crusader times to the beginnings of agriculture, you have a good chance to make this a classic dig.”

  Cullinane nodded and said, “With two assistants like Eliav and Tabari we’re not going to lose much material that could be salvaged.”

  “Are you an Arab, Mr. Tabari?” one of the Columbia men asked.

  Cullinane deferred to his Arab assistant, and when Tabari merely smiled, he explained, “If you understand Arab names you’ll appreciate it when I tell you that Mr. Tabari’s real name is Jemail ibn Tewfik ibn Faraj Tabari. His family gave him those names to remind the world that he was not only the son of Sir Tewfik Tabari, the top leader of the Arab community during the English occupation, but also the grandson of the great Faraj Tabari, the governor of Akko. He was famous for having rebuilt much of that city.”

  “Doesn’t Tabari come from the same root as Tiberias?” one of the Columbia men asked.

  “In Turkish it’s the same word,” Jemail explained.

  “But you decided to stay with Israel?” the New York professor continued.

  “Yes,” Tabari said abruptly. He had no objection to discussing the matter of his allegiance, but he knew that to Cullinane and Eliav it was old hat, and he himself was bored with it.

  The New Yorker studied the three archaeologists in charge of the Makor dig and changed the line of conversation completely: “Don’t you men find it … Well, with fifty-five million Arabs or whatever it is breathing down your neck … Well, I’ve been reading the inflammatory pronouncements coming out of Cairo and Damascus and Baghdad. That they’re going to drive you into the sea? Massacre every Jew. If they did this, wouldn’t it go pretty hard on an Arab like you, Tabari?”

  And suddenly Cullinane realized that this reasonably intelligent professor was aware that those who worked in Israel lived under the hammers of history, under the constant threat of annihilation, but he seemed not to be aware of the parallel fact that he in New York and his brother in Washington lived under precisely the same threat.

  • • •

  Next afternoon began the long debate that would determine the character of the state that was struggling to be born. It started because Ilana Hacohen and Isidore Gottesmann were assigned living quarters in a small house that stood next to the historic shoemaker shop that had once been used by Rabbi Zaki the Martyr. By the people of Safad this shop was regarded with affection, and by tradition it was reserved for the home of some rabbi. In 1948, when the Jewish-Arab conflict was drawing to its climax, it was occupied by the Rebbe of Vodzh.

  The Yiddish word rebbe had originally signified an elementary-school teacher who taught religious classes in Hebrew in the villages of Poland and Russia; but later it had become a specialized word identifying those gifted rabbis who operated within the tradition of Rabbi Abulafia of Safad: the mystics, charismatic leaders and inspired tzaddikim of eastern European Hasidism, the unique rabbis who gathered about them devoted followings. Two men would speak: “My rebbe can uproot mountains with his interpretations.” “Yes, but my rebbe can cure all manner of sickness.” The Jews of Vodzh said, “Our rebbe understands the Talmud better than any other rebbe. He is the well that gives water without losing a drop.”

  Even as a young man in Vodzh the rebbe had been recognized as one specially destined for a holy life, and word spread among the Jews of Russia and Poland that a worthy successor had finally been found to the great Rebbe of Vodzh, who had died a martyr in the pogroms of 1875. The young man’s piercing blue eyes seemed to cut through to the essential moral problems that men faced, and he became widely known as Itzik, Little Yitzhak. At twenty-four Little Isaac felt no hesitation in condemning the richest Jew in Vodzh for a miserly act which contravened the teaching of the Talmud, and it had been his energy alone that had organized the mass exodus of his loyal followers to Safad. How difficult that had been, to bring those seventy people back to Eretz Israel, except that thirty years later most of the Jews who had not followed him from Vodzh were dead in the gas chambers of Oswiecim.

  In Safad, Rebbe Itzik had established a new home for his followers. Along the narrow alleys his Jews had found abandoned houses which they rebuilt into clean homes. Living on alms from America they had acquired one of the ancient Ashkenazi synagogues, not the sturdy one of Rabbi Yom Tov Gaddiel’s but an adequate refuge, and through the years they had prospered in their modest way. The Vodzher Jews they were called, and although some of the younger people had left for livelier towns, the rebbe’s group still contained some sixty people determined to worship God according to the Torah as interpreted by their Vodzher Rebbe.

  His theology was simple. He believed literally the great commandment of Moses our Teacher: “Now therefore hearken, O Israel, unto the statutes and unto the judgments, which I teach you … Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish ought from it, that ye may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you.” To Rebbe Itzik this commandment was lucid and all-embracing. It meant exactly what it said. A J
ew should keep the law as handed to Moses by God. That law was found in the Torah, which contained 613 specific orders ranging from the first noble words at the beginning of Genesis, “Be fruitful, and multiply” to the last tragic commandment to Moses our Teacher as he lay dying in sight of the promised land: “Thou shalt not go over thither.” Encompassed between this nobility and tragedy lay all the law that man required, the lists in Leviticus, the repetitions in Numbers, the final summations in Deuteronomy. These laws Rebbe Itzik knew by heart and their words were sweet: “And if a stranger sojourn with thee in your land, ye shall not vex him.” “If a man vow a vow unto the Lord, or swear an oath to bind his soul with a bond; he shall not break his word, he shall do according to all that proceedeth out of his mouth.”

  Upon these laws of the Torah a man must build the general pattern of his life. The ritual to accompany his birth was explained and the manner of his burial was laid out. His love for a woman was hedged with decent precautions, and his relations with his son, his business and his king were set forth; and Rebbe Itzik was satisfied that a Jew must live precisely within this body of law, and he had put together a congregation of sixty people prepared to do so.

  The life that Rebbe Itzik had devised for them was somewhat different from that followed by the other Jews of Safad. In dress they were conspicuous; they looked like archaic ghosts in long black cloaks, flat fur-rimmed hats, shortened trousers and heavily ribbed stockings. They wore beards and black skullcaps and for some perverse reason preferred walking with the stoop that had characterized them when they were forced to live furtively in ghettos. Their daily life was much the same as that followed by Jews in Safad four hundred years before, with frequent synagogue attendance and strict devotion to complex dietary laws. And on Shabbat, starting on Friday afternoon, they stood especially apart from the rest of Safad, a little group of devout Jews living around Rabbi Zaki’s old shop.