by Meyer Levin
Such a fervor of wonder had seized them all, Leah felt some token must burst out from her, to mark the event, and suddenly she knew. Pulling aside the quickest of her girls, Shoshana, Leah instructed her to hurry as far back as the crossroad to Jerusalem, and from there the girl would come running with her lighted torch!
The eight girls in their white sheaths Leah had arranged on the steps of the synagogue. And now Shoshana could be seen from far, torch aflame. The multitude divided for her. Up the broad steps the girl ran, to where the mayor stood amongst the group of notables and British officers. Into the hands of the startled mayor Shoshana thrust the torch, crying “Yerushalayim!”
“Jerusalem is free!”
What sobbing, what exultation broke out! As though they had truly only this instant heard the news. At a whisper from Leah, the mayor knew what to do. He stepped before the row of girls, and lighted each candle, torch to torch.
Then in chorus her girls sang out the psalm of jubilation:
Were our mouths filled with song as the sea is with water, Were our tongues loud with exaltation as the roaring billows of the sea—
Yet we would be incapable of rendering sufficient thanks to Thee, O Eternal, our God and God of our fathers—
They were living again in the days of Yerushalayim. Nothing had happened in all the centuries between.
Now the Yemenites began to chant and clap hands, their women began to ululate, and the whole population jubilated.
The congregation’s leader, Reb Gedalia Feitelbaum, began to chant the Kaddish for the fallen. “Yisgadal,” and the voices fell in with him, a sea of solemn voices. Captain Hardin too knew the Kaddish in Hebrew, and the unbelievers half-remembered, many women knew the words and even children from religious homes solemnly moved their lips.
With each word, Leah repeated in her mind a name: first, this Major James Rothschild who had fallen; then Sara Aaronson’s name rose in her mind, praised and exalted; and her own baby brother Avramchick who had died of malaria, extolled and revered; and Dvora’s fallen beloved Yechezkiel, and Zev’s name hovered there, and Avshalom Feinberg too, and the murdered American settler of Mishkan Yaacov, Joe Kleinman, then all, all, each huge Australian who had fallen, and the English soldiers, and the passive, dark little souls from India, and even the wretched, famished Turks.
* * * *
All the churchbells in England, in France, in Rome rang out the victory, Jerusalem, Jerusalem. In Notre Dame special services were held: it was as though the Crusades had triumphed again, the Holy City was restored to Christendom, and in the most perfect, the most meaningful time, as a divine gift, for Christmas.
31
ONE COULD not yet go up to Jerusalem. The British were even stricter than the Turks. It was Yosi the sculptor who could tell of the capture of the city; coming down with Araleh’s supply train “for a breath of the sea,” Yosi regaled the girls with his irreverent account.
Though he did not pretend to be a military authority, Yosi said, he knew every stone in the ancient walls and fortifications. As the British fought their way up the wady, the Turks mounted the thick walls rebuilt four hundred years ago when they themselves had conquered the city. At this, wailing and woe broke out in Mea Shearim, the bearded ones calling to mind the days of the ancient Roman siege, when for three years Jerusalem starved, and, as related in Josephus, a demented mother devoured her own child.
And what Jew did not know the brutal words uttered in the face of the British advance by Bahad-ad-Din—“Let the bridegroom come, he’ll find no bride.”
And so Yosi had prepared himself a hiding place in a cellar beneath a cellar, had brought water there, and all the food he could lay his hands on, though more than three months of siege he could not have managed.
Then came the weeks of intensive battle for the approaches to Jerusalem. Why was it, Yosi mused in an aside, that the world’s cleverest generals always selected the worst weather for their greatest battles? Napoleon had defied the Russian winter. And here the British high strategist was assaulting Jerusalem in the season of torrential rains.
Nevertheless it was related in the city that the assaulting soldiers clung to the rocks, lay uncovered in the mud, but did not fall back. And then the German commander, Von Falkenhayn himself, took over the defense of Jerusalem. A change of commanders in the midst of battle was, as even a peaceful artist knew, a bad military sign. Or should he say, for the Jews it was a sign of hope? The outcome of the looming battle Yosi knew for certain when a certain German officer, a client of his named Von Papen, came and roused him from his cellar. A fight had been raging back and forth for days on the heights of Nebi Samwil. Now this Von Papen had no time for bargaining and hastily paid, and in gold too, for one last ancient statuette, a genuine one, whose price he had for months been trying to bring down. Thus Yosi knew the siege was all but over.
Next came the day of the high-piled motorcars, carts, even overloaded camels and donkeys. Last sweeps of pillaging. And after that the day of strange quiet. Would there indeed be no crushing bombardment, no hunger? From a military point of view, after all, what was Jerusalem? The German strategist, Von Falkenhayn, had decided to withdraw and rebuild his tattered forces on a more suitable line.
And so, Yosi related, the mayor of Jerusalem, removing his Turkish tarbush, went out with a white flag along Jaffa road, seeking to surrender the city, but found no one very near. At last, in the defile, the mayor espied a British soldier darting from rock to rock. But the modest sergeant declared it was not for him to accept so historic a surrender, and sent the mayor further down the vale. After several such encounters, the wandering mayor reached a colonel who bade him wait while an inquiry was sent back to General Allenby’s headquarters. At last came permission for the colonel to receive the historic surrender. Jerusalem was free.
The official entry did not yet take place, but by late afternoon shop-shutters in the souk rattled upward; in Mea Shearim, Jews were venturing out of their cellars, boys with flying ear-curls darted through the lanes, a few stalls opened—it was the eve of the first night of Chanukah. And that night, Yosi said, was more beautiful even than—than what? all he could think of was a fantastic opera-ballet with candle-tips dancing in the dark, that he had seen in Vienna before coming to Eretz. Where the Hasidim had all managed to get candles, after these years of darkness, who knew? But you walked through the lanes of Mea Shearim and from behind each half-open shutter you saw the first Chanukah candle burning. Even he, atheist that he was, was led to believe that in each house there took place a miracle like the cruse of oil in the Temple. All those tiny points of light, many of them from half-cellars and dungeons where the poorest lived, were, as a Hungarian Hasid had once explained to him, like sparks of the universal soul of God. In some of the half-cellars were the shtiblach, the homey prayer-houses, of the small congregations; they were packed full on this Chanukah night, and as though from within the ground, singing arose. Courtyard gates stood ajar, all around the yards on every floor, candle-lights shone. Yosi had then made his way into the Old City and followed a pair of Jews in their fur hats and long capotes down to the Wailing Wall. Two and three deep along the narrow stone corridor before the Wall, Jews stood, each wrapped in his tallis, swaying; the Wall rose high into darkness, and along its base, little Chanukah lamps had been placed, and the tips of light caught the hollow cheeks of the praying Jews, their ear-curls, their eyes. “Ah,” Yosi said, enjoying the girlish faces with their parted lips, “on such a night I have the soul of a Hasid!”
And two days later, Yosi had witnessed the official ceremony for the liberation of Jerusalem. It was not as though the bridegroom had arrived to find the bride missing, he declared wryly—it was simply as though the Jews were at the wrong wedding.
True, a full-bearded rabbi in a fur-rimmed hat had been procured from the Jewish quarter within the Old City walls, and the rabbi was flanked by long-beards in their gabardines. But what were they, as against the phalanx of white-robed priests, and black
-robed priests, and the troops of kadis in white abayas, each with the ribbon-wound turban of a haj, and the bishops, and the Greek and Armenian and Russian popes with broad sashes and bejeweled crosses and silver and gold embroidery, all assembled in the square by the Tower of David—which, he reminded them, was after all a Moslem minaret.
And the Arab notables in western suits, and the English bishop, and the Roman Catholics, and more friars in white cowled gowns, and even a few Jewish notables who had escaped arrest by Bahad-ad-Din, wearing high silk hats.
Then up Jaffa Road came the parade of conquerors, liberators of the Holy City, the generals on their steeds, dismounting before the gate. True, they might have ridden through it, using the gash once opened in the wall for Kaiser Wilhelm on his visit, the time when Theodor Herzl had hurried to Jerusalem for a sign that Wilhelm the Messiah would persuade the Turkish Sultan to open Palestine to the Jews. But no Britisher would be so crass as to enter the holy area astride a horse. Dismounting before the gate, the new proconsuls entered respectfully, on foot.
And there before the Tower of David, as orations were made and tokens of honor exchanged and blessings offered and bells tolled, with a rabbi also reciting a blessing, there Yosi said, he could see a strange comprehension dawning on the faces of the Jewish notables. Why, this was a great Christian event. The Christians had returned as in the days of the Crusades, and driven out the Moslem rulers from the City of David.
—Cynic! Idiot! The girls fell on him angrily.—And the Declaration? And the Jewish army that was on the way from England? And the volunteers here in Eretz who were being officially enregistered now, to clear the divided land of the Turk? How could he be so cynical at a time like this!
“Chaveroth! Chaveroth!” Leah cried out, laughing. “Don’t tear him to pieces! I happen to know that Yosi himself has volunteered!”
All the church bells in England had rung out the victory, Jerusalem! Jerusalem! On the barracks map, the pins had been moved from the Yarkon river-mouth outside Tel Aviv, up beyond Petach Tikvah, then back to Ramleh as the Turks seized it again, then forward again, and up to Jerusalem and down to the Jordan at Jericho.
Along the coastal plain the line bulged forward as far as Kfar Saba, and there it angled across the hills of Samaria, and reached as far as the Jordan, and stopped. So it was not all ended. There was still time. Gidon’s own part of the land was still to be freed, and he could still envision himself, at the head of his London tailors, bursting into Mishkan Yaacov!
His schneiders were not so bad now. Even among them, many kept avowing, “At least they left us half of the job!” In training, the same thing had happened to the conscripts as to the volunteers before them. After a few weeks, their bodies were different; one day the feel of a rifle got into their hands.
Through the worst of the winter the front would not move, Gidon felt sure. General Allenby had learned his lesson in the December rains, crawling his way up to Jerusalem; now he would wait. And before Palestine’s rainy season was over, the 38th Fusiliers might at last be on the move.
So it was. One day the Irishman assembled the entire battalion. From Herscheleh they already knew, but for the good Irishman they shouted their joy as if he brought the news fresh to them, announcing that their movement orders had arrived.
A fever of packing began, while Nathan Pekovsky snorted, “Congratulations! We can still have the privilege of dying in the Holy Land!”
Yet when they entrained to London for the send-off parade, there was Private Nathan Pekovsky polishing his buttons. “I wouldn’t do this for Lenin himself,” he groaned. “Next thing you’ll even have me putting on tfillim.”
With bayonets shining, as Pekovsky said, “like a flock of outsize needles to advertise the trade,” they formed up, the mounted Irishman at their head, his medals covering his entire chest. Jabotinsky, a lieutenant now, led off Gidon’s platoon, tossing back proud little ironic remarks when he could.
Ah, the Irishman cried down to him, “Josef Trumpeldor should be with us!”
“Don’t worry, he’s right now parading his Jewish army through St. Petersburg. He’ll meet us in Tiberias!”
There in the reviewing stand was the Mayor of London himself, for were they not a battalion of the Londoners, and beside him stood a bald beanpole in striped trousers—that was Lord Balfour of the Balfour Declaration—and the most British-looking nabob was Sir Herbert Samuel, and there was the ruddy Lionel Rothschild, the same frightened Jew who had kept them from getting their Star of David insignia, cheering now as though the whole Jewish fighting force was his own idea.
And all along Whitechapel, in the windows, on the roofs, Jewish girls throwing kisses, Jewish wives weeping, children waving blue and white flags, Jewish mothers dashing into the ranks with packets of cookies. Across an entire house-front was a banner of the Jewish Trade Unions, the same fellows that had passed a resolution against the forming of a Jewish unit—“Hail to our Jewish Fighters!”
“Your old comrades must think we’re off to defend St. Petersburg!” Herscheleh remarked to Pekovsky.
The surprise came in their passage across France to the Mediterranean. Wherever the train halted, morning or night, Jews appeared, girls with flowers and cigarettes and coffee. Groups of middle-aged French Jews alongside the tracks sang “Hatikvah,” uncertain of the Hebrew words. At each stop the Irishman would make his speech about his pride in leading the first Jewish army since Bar Kochba!
In one city—Nancy—some Jews even called out the name of Jabotinsky, and he too made a speech—in French. And what now came over Jabotinsky! In the Italian port where they waited to take ship, Taranto, he went off with the English rabbi, their chaplain, and sought out the town synagogue, and there they unearthed an ancient Torah, to carry along, Jabotinsky declared, to protect them from U-boats!
Thus they arrived safely in Alexandria, still in time to rush to the front and free Mishkan Yaacov.
Instead they entrained for Cairo, and again the parade to the Great Synagogue, and the parade before the British High Commissioner, a General Wingate, and again the Jewish community’s hullabaloo, and one-two-three they were in a tent camp outside the city. What for? For training.
How long?
“How long were the Jews slaves in Egypt?” Herscheleh retorted. If Herscheleh had no news, he had jokes.
There had not even been time for Gidon to seek out Araleh and Saraleh in Alexandria. Perhaps they had already gone home to Jaffa? But almost at once, Araleh appeared in the encampment, grinning, filled with news for Gidon, for all the old Zion men from Eretz. Only a week ago Araleh had seen Leah! In Rehovot, in her kvutsa where she trained girls in agriculture, “She’s training up a wife for you,” he laughed to Gidon. “She’s got one all picked out.” No, to Leah herself nothing had happened, though a big Australian wanted to marry her. About the rest of the family he couldn’t say. “The land is sliced down the middle like with a knife.” But probably on the farm things weren’t so bad; throughout the whole war the Galilee had not fared too badly. No, no one could get through to them, the Turks were solidly entrenched on their line. But things could soon be moving; he was here to buy more camels. Oh, Araleh had learned his way around with the British, he was well paid. Saraleh was fine, the children were blooming. Did Gidon and the men know—in Eretz too a battalion was forming, everybody was trying to volunteer, thousands. And what madness, what disputes! Some argued that with half the Yishuv still in the hands of the Turks, then if Jews in the British half joined their army, Djemal Pasha would kill every Jew in Galilee. And there were still hundreds of prisoners in Damascus over the Nili affair. The entire Shomer was destroyed—
Menahem—?
Araleh hadn’t heard. But few had escaped capture. Everything had to be started again from the beginning.
They remained in Egypt, training. In the damp, debilitating heat of the season in Egypt, a disintegrating spirit set in among the men. With half of Palestine already freed, why at least couldn’t they be sent to
train there, in Eretz?
From day to day, incidents ate into them. Each occurrence could be explained as a mistake, an oversight, an army entanglement—like the lack even of sufficient rifles. And why could they not be supplied with a Victrola for their recreation tent when the Gurkha battalion alongside had two? For the Jews, even chessboards were unobtainable! Restiveness and resentment grew, each incident became proof of anti-Semitism. It wasn’t General Allenby himself, went the rumors, but his adjutant, and a whole inner circle among the officers.
From the Irishman’s headquarters, Simon Levitas, the typist-clerk, a “real English” volunteer, brought a report. “Our Moses has asked to see Pharaoh.” The Irishman, Simon could tell them, was an old chum of Allenby’s, from service in India.
“And what was Pharaoh’s answer?”
“Not Pharaoh answered. His servant, the Keeper of the Door, answered that the answer would come, as soon as Pharaoh had time to deal with the Jews.”
As for Gidon, he fell back into the inured emptiness he had learned in these years of soldiering. “War is waiting,” he would repeat. Oddly, here in Egypt he had been seized with an eagerness to read. It had come on him after a number of taunts from Nathan Pekovsky, who one evening flung a book at his head, “Here! Maybe something will penetrate.” It was in Russian, by Maxim Gorky, about his own childhood, and to Gidon’s surprise he couldn’t stop reading.
The men had pooled their books, making a tent into a library, and there he sought for things he liked. Political books, theories, were not for him, and Dostoyevsky, that everyone said he should read, he didn’t like—there was too much talk, talk, talk, with philosophic discussions that were meaningless to him. Pushkin—even Tolstoy—these were schoolbooks from other days. But real books about real people’s lives, of these Gidon couldn’t find enough. Pekovsky brought him the memoirs of Kropotkin. And the books of the American, Jack London. And also he liked books about traveling, about different places in the world, America, Africa. And a book about Palestine, too, he devoured; it had been written by an Englishman who had lived among the Druze in a house in Dahliat el Carmel near Haifa, and had wandered everywhere.
