With the Turks in Palestine

With the Turks in Palestine

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Title: With the Turks in Palestine
Author: Alexander Aaronsohn
Release Date: November 30, 2003 [EBook #10338]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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WITH THE TURKS IN PALESTINE
BY
ALEXANDER AARONSOHN

[ILLUSTRATION: DJEMAL PASHA]
1916
TO MY MOTHER
WHO LIVED AND FOUGHT AND DIED FOR A REGENERATED PALESTINE
_What have I done, or tried, or said In thanks to that dear woman dead_?
MASEFIELD

ACKNOWLEDGMENT
To the editors of the Atlantic Monthly, to the publishers, and to the many friends who have encouraged me, I am and shall ever remain grateful

CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
I. ZICRON-JACOB
II. PRESSED INTO THE SERVICE
III. THE GERMAN PROPAGANDA
IV. ROAD-MAKING AND DISCHARGE
V. THE HIDDEN ARMS
VI. THE SUEZ CAMPAIGN
VII. FIGHTING THE LOCUSTS
VIII. THE LEBANON
IX. A ROBBER BARON OF PALESTINE
X. A RASH ADVENTURE
XI. ESCAPE

ILLUSTRATIONS
DJEMAL PASHA Photograph by Underwood & Underwood
SAFF��D Photograph by Underwood & Underwood
THE AUTHOR ON HIS HORSE KOCHBA Photograph by Mr. Julius Rosenwald, of Chicago, in March, 1911
SOLDIERS' TENTS IN SAMARIA
NAZARETH, FROM THE NORTHEAST Photograph by Underwood & Underwood
HOUSE OF THE AUTHOR'S FATHER, EPHRAIM FISHL AARONSOHN, IN ZICRON-JACOB
IN A NATIVE CAF��, SAFF��D Photograph by Mr. Julius Rosenwald
A LEMONADE-SELLER OF DAMASCUS Photograph by Mr. Julius Rosenwald
RAILROAD STATION SCENE BETWEEN HAIFA AND DAMASCUS Photograph by Mr. Julius Rosenwald
CAMELS BRINGING IN NEWLY CUT TREES, DAMASCUS Photograph by Mr. Julius Rosenwald
THE CHRISTIAN TOWN OF ZAHLEH IN THE LEBANON Photograph by Underwood & Underwood
HAIFA Photograph by Underwood & Underwood
HAIFA AND THE BAY OF AKKA. LOOKING EAST FROM MOUNT CARMEL Photograph by Underwood & Underwood
THE BAZAAR OF JAFFA ON A MARKET DAY Photograph by Underwood & Underwood
STORMY SEA BREAKING OVER ROCKS OFF JAFFA Photograph by Underwood & Underwood
THE AUTHOR'S SISTER ON HER HORSE TAYAR Photograph by Mr. Julius Rosenwald in March, 1914
BEIRUT, FROM THE DECK OF AN OUTGOING STEAMER Photograph by Underwood & Underwood

INTRODUCTION
While Belgium is bleeding and hoping, while Poland suffers and dreams of liberation, while Serbia is waiting for redemption, there is a little country the soul of which is torn to pieces--a little country that is so remote, so remote that her ardent sighs cannot be heard.
It is the country of perpetual sacrifice, the country that saw Abraham build the altar upon which he was ready to immolate his only son, the country that Moses saw from a distance, stretching in beauty and loveliness,--a land of promise never to be attained,--the country that gave the world its symbols of soul and spirit. Palestine!
No war correspondents, no Red Cross or relief committees have gone to Palestine, because no actual fighting has taken place there, and yet hundreds of thousands are suffering there that worst of agonies, the agony of the spirit.
Those who have devoted their lives to show the world that Palestine can be made again a country flowing with milk and honey, those who have dreamed of reviving the spirit of the prophets and the great teachers, are hanged and persecuted and exiled, their dreams shattered, their holy places profaned, their work ruined. Cut off from the world, with no bread to sustain the starving body, the heavy boot of a barbarian soldiery trampling their very soul, the dreamers of Palestine refuse to surrender, and amidst the clash of guns and swords they are battling for the spirit with the weapons of the spirit.
The time has not yet come to write the record of these battles, nor even to attempt to render justice to the sublime heroes of Palestine. This book is merely the story of some of the personal experiences of one who has done less and suffered less than thousands of his comrades.
ALEXANDER AARONSOHN

WITH THE TURKS IN PALESTINE.
CHAPTER I
ZICRON-JACOB
Thirty-five years ago, the impulse which has since been organized as the Zionist Movement led my parents to leave their homes in Roumania and emigrate to Palestine, where they joined a number of other Jewish pioneers in founding Zicron-Jacob--a little village lying just south of Mount Carmel, in that fertile coastal region close to the ancient Plains of Armageddon.
Here I was born; my childhood was passed here in the peace and harmony of this little agricultural community, with its whitewashed stone houses huddled close together for protection against the native Arabs who, at first, menaced the life of the new colony. The village was far more suggestive of Switzerland than of the conventional slovenly villages of the East, mud-built and filthy; for while it was the purpose of our people, in returning to the Holy Land, to foster the Jewish language and the social conditions of the Old Testament as far