The horrors of the Holocaust did not pass over the Jews of North Africa, but theirs is a story that is rarely told. This is the story of those who were called “schwarze Juden” (“black Jews”) by the Nazis. Some were sent to concentration camps erected in the desert, and others shipped off to Europe as prisoners of war…
A Jewish couple from Libya, survivors of Bergen Belsen, wearing yellow stars. From the book "Temunot Zikaron" (Pictures of Memory, Hebrew), the Or Shalom Center for Libyan Jewish Heritage
Today there is a growing understanding that it was not only the Jews of Europe who experienced the horrors of the Holocaust, yet most people are still unaware of what happened to North African Jewry during the great catastrophe that befell the Jewish people during the Second World War
North African Jewry is not a monolith. Just as Algerian Jewry is different from Moroccan Jewry, the Jews of Libya are not the same as the Jews of Tunisia. The same is true of how each of these communities experienced the Holocaust.
There is no doubt that the North African Jewish community which most directly experienced the horrors of the Holocaust, and in the most brutal fashion, was the Libyan Jewish community. The Nazis, with the help of their allies the Italians, who controlled Libya from 1911 to 1943, conquered Libya from the British and established three concentration camps there. The largest and most well-known of these was Giado, and the others were Gharyan and Sidi Azaz. The Germans herded as many Jews as they could get their hands on into these camps, including women and children.
Giado concentration camp. Over 2600 Jews were imprisoned here, and about 600 died of hunger, exhaustion and disease. Courtesy of the Or Shalom Center for Libyan Jewish Heritage
The Jews of the region of Cyrenaica, with its Mediterranean capital of Benghazi, made up the majority of Libyan Jews who were sent to the camps at this stage. Yet many Jews from the city of Tripoli, the capital of the Tripolitania region and of Libya itself, were also placed in the concentration camps established in the heart of the Sahara Desert.
This, however, was not enough for the Nazis.
They also took a large group of upper-class Libyan Jews and sent them to concentration camps in Europe, to ensure that they would eventually be murdered alongside their Ashkenazi brethren. These Jews were forced to take part in a grueling, lengthy trek that took them from the searing heat of the African continent to the freezing European cold – to camps such as Bergen-Belsen and Mauthausen.
Clearing bodies in Bergen-Belsen near booth 210, where Libyan prisoners were held. Courtesy of the Or Shalom Center for Libyan Jewish Heritage
Unfortunately, my family members were among the Jews placed in these camps, and some of them ultimately perished in the Holocaust. When I wrote the book Benghazi Bergen-Belsen (cover below), I traced the history of my family and their community in the Holocaust. For the three years I wrote the book, I actually lived in the terrible places they passed through in Africa and Europe. I clung to the mind of Silvana Haggiag, who despite her young age, was able to lead my family and the entire Libyan-Jewish community, despite unimaginable degrees of suffering.
The character of Silvana is, if you wish, the image of my grandmother, who survived Bergen-Belsen. She and many members of the Libyan Jewish community who managed to survive the camps in Europe, provided me with firsthand accounts of their experiences. Through them and others, I became aware of the murderous machine that took North African Jews from the heart of the Sahara Desert into Europe, not sufficing with simply murdering them in Libya. They did this since these Jews had British passports, which they took to Europe as prisoners of war. But the Nazis did not treat them as such, and they were taken in cargo ships to Italy, where they endured an unsettling and arduous journey to the concentration camps in Europe.
When I wrote the book, I did it not only for my own family or community but for the sake of humanity. I wanted to bring back into public discourse, that which has been erased, perhaps unknowingly, by Israeli history. To my joy, the novel I wrote about my family and what they experienced in the camps has helped the Holocaust of Libyan Jewry to enter into the Israeli collective consciousness.
Left – Rachel Messika, murdered at Giado concentration camp at the age of 50. From the Yad Vashem Photo and Film Archives
But now I understand that along with the primary goal of writing this book, there was another purpose: my personal desire to reach a state where it would be easier for me to forget. I wanted to forget the Holocaust which my family and my people experienced, for a time. I didn’t want to allow the Holocaust to intervene in my day-to-day life, to influence my stance towards life – or my belief in the human race.
I wanted a break from the Holocaust, and I thought that if I wrote about it, I could meet the condition that might allow me to enjoy such a break. But it turned out this condition was necessary yet not sufficient. In order to take a break from the Holocaust, I had to avoid Israeli society, which is saturated with it.
The Holocaust is present everywhere in Israeli society, in every nook and cranny. The Holocaust is regularly used by everyone around us – leaders, politicians, media figures, and even ordinary citizens use it unnecessarily, bending it to their own needs, to the point that one day it will be flattened beyond recognition.
Libyan Jews, survivors of Bergen-Belsen, return to Libya. The train car says “To Tripoli” with a Union Jack drawn below
In our society, the Holocaust isn’t just above the surface. It can very often be found behind the scenes as well, guiding the behaviors of groups, communities, and individuals in a covert manner, to the point that it’s hard to even see its effects. There’s no break from it.
But what will become of us, those who don’t wish to live anywhere else, for whom Israel is the only place to be, and for whom Israeli life, with all its flaws, is the center of their world? Are we doomed to walk forever under the shadow of the Holocaust? Will we have to feel the ramifications of one of the most terrible events in the history of civilization so long as we live? Not necessarily.
This need not be. We must speak of the Holocaust sparingly, gently, with awe, turning our backs on those who make crude use of it for their own purposes. The moment that happens, the treatment of the Holocaust itself will change. Then will I also be able to put it aside, and take leave of my bloody family history. But until that day, I am doomed to live under the constant bombardment of those who speak in the name of the Holocaust, and I myself will continue to bleed.
Is it a good idea to raise children in a place constantly under enemy fire? How much joy can there be for a ten-month-old baby whose father has died for a cause? This is a story of childhood spent in Kibbutz Ma'ale HaHamisha – a story of love, laughter and dedication, alongside constant threat and loss
Yaara, the only surviving offspring of the five murdered men after whom Kibbutz Ma'ale HaHamisha was named. Courtesy of the Ma'ale HaHamisha archives.
“Crowds gathered once again, the same crowds that came to the funeral, but their purpose now was different. Instead of tears of sorrow, their eyes glistened with tears of light and happiness. The joy poured out from their hearts and took hold like a flame, spreading further and further afield. Shoulder to shoulder, hands on each other’s backs, the atmosphere was intoxicating, hands moving, feet pounding the ground in circles. The dance began. Eyes were closed, and the heaviness in our bodies dissipated. Everyone moving together in a circle, everyone trembling, in an ecstatic hora.”
(Description written by Yitzhak, one of the first members of the group, on 20 Tammuz 5699 [July 7, 1939] when the cornerstone was laid)
They didn’t originally call the place Ma’ale HaHamisha (“Ascent of the Five”) because the disaster hadn’t yet happened. They were “just” a group of young pioneers, one of the many from Europe who came to build a new home – for them as individuals and for their nation – in the Land of Israel.
The first core group of pioneers, which called itself BeMa’ale (“in the ascent”), consisted of members of two separate groups of Zionist activists – one from the Vitkinia movement and one from the Gordonia movement – who came together in temporary residences in Kiryat Anavim in the Jerusalem hills, west of the city. They were later joined by people who arrived with the Youth Aliyah organization.
The goal was to establish a new settlement point. The question under debate was whether they should settle in the valley or take on the heroic task of “conquering the mountain” – settling in a strategic elevated position under harsher conditions where it was more difficult to grow crops.
First members of the group at Ma’ale HaHamisha. This photo is preserved in the Ma’ale HaHamisha archives and is available online at the National Library of Israel (IL-MAHM-001-07-063-144)
These were the days of Arab revolt (1936-1939) in Mandatory Palestine, and in the meantime, the group answered the Histadrut’s [the Zionist labor union] call to take over the operation of the stone quarry in Nahalat Yitzhak that had been abandoned by its Arab owners. The work in the stone quarry was difficult and unfamiliar to these group members who had mainly been given agricultural training. The housing conditions were harsh and uncomfortable; they slept in one central hall and had to guard the area in shifts after work. They also worked simultaneously in forestry.
Within this group of pioneers still finding their feet, was a young couple, Yitzhak and Hanna Migdal. During that initial stage characterized by hard manual labor and frequent Arab attacks, with an as yet unclear future, Hanna gave birth to their daughter in the old Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem. Baby Yaara was the couple’s firstborn, but she was the third child born to the first core group.
Baby Yaara. Photo courtesy of the Ma’ale HaHamisha archives
Despite differences of opinion and the growing pains of those early days, it was clear to all the members that for the sake of the children and their future, they needed to decide where to settle.
In the end, this difficult decision was made for them.
On November 9, 1937, some members of the community went out to pave a road on Har Haruah (“The Mount of Wind”), just south of where the kibbutz is situated today. They arrived during the early hours of the morning with their tools loaded on a donkey, and walked straight into an Arab ambush. They were shot and murdered almost at point blank. The group that arrived right after them got there just in time to see the murderers flee.
Aharon Olishevsky, Aryeh Mordechovitz, Yehoshua Pochovsky, Moshe Bar Giora (Baumgarten), and Yitzhak Migdal – baby Yaara’s father – were brutally murdered.
The members of the small group were beside themselves, but the decision was made. They decided to settle on the mountain, despite the physical and security-related challenges this would pose. They felt they needed to do this to honor those who were murdered in the past and for the sake of their children’s future.
A page in the members’ book where Yitzhak Migdal’s death is noted, somewhat laconically – met, “dead”. Courtesy of the Ma’ale HaHamisha archives.
The Ma’ale HaHamisha archives, which have been operating for many years to preserve every piece of history related to the kibbutz, contain writings from this period, which reveal the feelings of the members and which document the pivotal moments of their pioneering days.
These writings are available digitally to the general public through the National Library website as part of the Archive Network Israel project. The project is a collaboration between the archives of different Israeli communities (such as Ma’ale HaHamisha), the Ministry of Heritage, and the National Library of Israel.
Towards the end of July 1938, the group left their temporary residences at Kiryat Anavim, accompanied by an auxiliary force of Jerusalemites and residents of other nearby towns. They headed uphill to the place where the five were buried and began their ceremony to lay the cornerstone for the new community at the top of the mountain.
The companions helped set up the first lodging arrangements and fortifications, but they ultimately departed, leaving behind the members of the BeMa’ale group, who were carefully chosen to be the first pioneers to prepare the land and buildings for the rest who would follow.
“15 members remained. Around a hard rock, they sat down for their first meal there. Such sublime contentment, such a pleasant feeling came over them when, after such tumult, they could see what they had accomplished with their own hands.
The summer breeze blew and swept away the footprints of the crowd that had been there, noisily blowing around the new shack, surrounding it all around, and when it realized that it could not be subdued, it went off in another direction toward the wilderness.
From this day on, on the high peak, the Ma’ale HaHamisha enterprise will continue to develop, nurtured by a few members who have formed bonds of life and death, eternal bonds, with this place. “
“In memory of the “BeMa’ale” members who sanctified the place with their blood” – A report in Davar describing the establishment of Ma’ale HaHamisha, July 22, 1938. From the Historical Jewish Press Collection at the National Library of Israel
The first group included a few members who “knew a bit about guarding and security.” The group organized itself with military discipline, in the heart of a hostile area prone to Arab attacks. The place didn’t yet have the character of a proper community. Women hadn’t even arrived yet, except for one young lady who filled a medical position.
They prepared the land around them for agricultural harvesting but mainly they focused on construction – everything from homes to fortifications to henhouses, as well as a water line connecting to nearby Kiryat Anavim.
“Just as they finished the first two [Jewish] agency houses, the children came up, along with their parents. How joyful the toddlers were, who also made the ascent. Their vision of Aliyah [immigration, ascent] was realized and manifested in a deep, childlike joy. And who among us can accurately express the feelings of children; and it is not easy for children, but they are pioneers. And so, step by step, the place was conquered, and it submitted to humans, the masters of nature and the creators of culture.”
(Leah, Ma’ale HaHamisha)
The first children of Ma’ale HaHamisha. This photo is preserved in the Ma’ale HaHamisha archives and is available online at the National Library of Israel ( IL-MAHM-001-07-063-055)
With the arrival of the children, the community transitioned from a semi-military outpost to a home, a place where the members could start families and raise future generations.
One might assume that children growing up next to combat positions, with their parents and all the other adults around them constantly busy with their daily tasks – toiling and working the difficult land while also taking on long and demanding guard duty shifts – would have to accept not being the primary focus of attention.
The opposite actually proved true; the children were a source of joy and hope for all the members – not just their parents or caretakers.
This is how Tzila Cohen-Rotblit described the first day in nursery school for Dalia, the kibbutz’s first newborn:
“This is an important event in our internal lives: Dalia is leaving [baby] care and moving over to nursery school. A new, more interesting, but also more difficult chapter is beginning for her… Despite our best wishes, we are unable to arrange for a nursery school here… At this moment, with the great changes in Dalinka’s young and tender life, we wish for ourselves, that this firstborn daughter won’t disappoint our hopes that we have placed in her, that she may grow and merit praise and renown.”
When Yaara was born to Hannah and the late Yitzhak, the nannies carefully monitored her development and growth. In a journal that was ahead of its time, predating contemporary baby wellness clinics’ records, her weight, what she ate, and any childhood illnesses she suffered were recorded in neat and meticulous handwriting.
Tracking baby Yaara’s development, courtesy of the Ma’ale HaHamisha archives
By the time she had grown a bit, a nursery school was set up in the kibbutz itself, and Yaara didn’t need to leave her natural environment every day like her older friend Dalia had. The teacher, Bedna, loved the children dearly, and they loved her back.
Their lives were full of songs and stories and they had dolls, games, books and an almost normal routine, just like any child anywhere in the world. It was as if they didn’t live on an exposed mountain opposite enemies who’d take every opportunity to break into their homes and murder them. As if a few dozen meters from the nursery school there wasn’t a guard post equipped with submachine guns and grenades. As if they had never heard the sounds of shells exploding or heavy bursts of gunfire while they were singing their morning songs.
They were almost like typical children, complaining about showers that were too cold, annoying things the adults demanded of them like taking off their shoes when coming inside (paved roads and sidewalks were nowhere to be found, and depending on the season, the shoes could be full of mud or dust), and the long 2-3 kilometer walk to school.
But was this cloak of normalcy enough to cover up the fact that Yaara’s father wasn’t waiting for her every evening at home? That Dalia, Gideon, Eitana and Gila’s parents left home every night for guard duty?
Parents and children on the kibbutz, 1938. This photo is preserved in the Ma’ale HaHamisha archives and is available online at the National Library (IL-MAHM-001-07-063-040)
On November 29, 1947, the parents and nannies tried to choose between maintaining normal routine and recognizing the magnitude of what was happening: The children weren’t allowed to stay up, but were promised that they’d be woken up with the results of the vote on the United Nations Partition Plan. In the end, they were dragged out of their beds to take part in the festivities in the kibbutz’s dining room, when it was announced that the UN had approved the decision to establish a Jewish state alongside an Arab one.
But the jubilation didn’t last long. Their surroundings began to become more and more dangerous. Some men from the Palmach (the elite Haganah fighting force) had come to stay at the kibbutz and assist in defending and training the members for the war that was now underway. The children observed their training and lifestyle with curiosity, and occasionally they’d hear from the nursery schoolteachers that this one had been killed or that one had been injured.
School was cancelled and the children now helped fill sandbags, practiced what to do during episodes of shelling (there was no safe room; usually they just lay down between the bed and the wall in their rooms) and mostly tried not to bother the preoccupied adults.
Children helping at the cow shed, 1946. This photo is preserved in the Ma’ale HaHamisha archives and is available online at the National Library ( IL-MAHM-001-07-013-006)
After the fall of Gush Etzion, the kibbutz received a warning to expect an attack by enemy forces who were no longer tied down in the fighting there. This was just around the time when construction of the first shelter was finished. One night in early May, when heavy shelling began, the children were moved into the shelter, which still contained remnants of construction materials.
“In the shelter, I dressed the children and managed to give them breakfast,” kibbutz member Edna Wexler explained:
“We hadn’t yet managed to organize the children inside the shelter when the order suddenly came to evacuate the place immediately. I have no idea where they came from but the Palmach guys suddenly appeared inside the shelter. They removed the mothers who had arrived so as to streamline the evacuation and speed it up. They didn’t let the mothers intervene and look for their children, but instead put one of the little children in each of the girls’ arms and ordered them to run towards Kiryat Anavim. The older kids ran after us themselves.”
In Kiryat Anavim, buses were already waiting to evacuate them to Jerusalem – first to homes in the Katamon neighborhood and then to the Ratisbonne Monastery, where they remained until the end of the war.
After the war, they returned. And to this day, they fill the lawns, orchards, and pathways of the kibbutz with the sounds of laughter and life.
The Appeal of the Brown Beret: The Story of the IDF’s Golani Brigade
“Every corner of the country is marked with the blood of Golani Brigade soldiers. That is the way of the brigade: to be wherever Golani soldiers are needed, to decide the battle, to bring victory, to give life to the State of Israel.” The words of Yitzhak Rabin describe the feelings of many today in Israel
Golani soldiers form the name of the Golani Brigade. From: “Brown Beret – The Story of the Golani Soldiers” [Hebrew], p. 122
How it all started: farmers protecting their land
The Golani Brigade was founded in February 1948, a few months after the breakout of Israel’s War of Independence. The name, of course, comes from the Golan Heights, which the brigade founders could see at a distance from their moshavim and kibbutzim in the country’s north. In its first few months, the brigade operated sporadically – soldiers would leave work on the farm for a specific mission assigned to the brigade and then go back to their daily routine as farmers.
Golani Brigade soldiers enjoying some downtime during training in the Galilee, 1950. Photo: Boris Carmi, the Meitar Collection, the Pritzker Family National Photography Collection, at the National Library of Israel
In the 1950s, many of the veterans of the War of Independence were discharged, and the ranks of the Golani Brigade were filled with new immigrants from the cities and the transit camps, people unfamiliar with the country’s conditions and customs. Rehavam “Gandhi” Ze’evi, who was commander of the brigade’s 13th “Gideon” Battalion, said of this time:
“We found that our soldiers came from some 30 different countries, and beyond preparing them for the army, there was a need to teach them Hebrew – reading, writing, and speech.”
“Golani,” he said, “was a real melting pot.”
Soldiers of Golani’s 12th Battalion, 1951. Photo: Boris Carmi, the Meitar Collection, the Pritzker Family National Photography Collection, at the National Library of Israel
Golani, despite its natural affiliation with Israel’s north, did not limit its operations to that region. Once the brigade completed its missions in its own sector during the War of Independence, it moved south to take part in a number of important operations, including the conquest of what would later become the city of Eilat.
Historic telegraph announcing the conquest of the Eilat area by the Negev and Golani brigades. From “Golani – A Family of Soldiers” [Hebrew], p. 38
Golani’s unique spirit was evident as early as 1956, during the Sinai Campaign that took place that year. The “First Breachers” Battalion (the 51st) contained many new immigrants who arrived in Israel without their families and who had nowhere to return to after the fighting was done. At a party that was held to celebrate their release from service following the war, many expressed fears that they had no home to go to, no job or family to support them. Battalion commander Shlomo Alton heard them and got up to say a few words:
“I am telling you, and I don’t care if this goes against General Staff orders – go out and live your lives, try to build something. Those who can’t make ends meet should know, here at the base, you always have a home. The ‘First Breachers’ Battalion will always take you in.”
A Golani soldier at rest following the end of an exercise, 1972. Photo: IPPA, from the Dan Hadani Archive, the Pritzker Family National Photography Collection, at the National Library of Israel
Even the color of the brigade beret, which was decided in 1976, expressed the connection between Golani soldiers and the land itself. The earthy brown also represented the founders of the brigade, the farmers who carried hoe and rifle to maintain the young State of Israel.
A few examples from among dozens of books on the Golani Brigade kept at the National Library of Israel
Yitzhak Rabin, who was Defense Minister at the time and who served twice as Prime Minister, described this connection nicely, in a speech he gave in memory of the brigade’s fallen in 1989:
“Every corner of the country is marked with the blood of Golani Brigade soldiers. That is the way of the brigade: to be wherever Golani soldiers are needed, to decide the battle, to bring victory, to give life to the State of Israel.”
Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin with Golani Brigade Commander, Col. Moshe Kaplinsky, attending an IDF exercise in the Golan Heights, 1995. Photo: Ofira Yochanan, from the Dan Hadani Archive, the Pritzker Family National Photography Collection, at the National Library of Israel
The early Golani Brigade was a parallel Zionist microcosm of the young state, an ingathering of the exiles connecting north and south, native-born workers of the land and new immigrants fleeing the European inferno, sabra city kids and recently-arrived newcomers from the peripheral “development towns”. All felt part of the Golani family. The brigade’s commanders understood over the years that this embracing spirit of unity was what attracted so many new recruits – the idea that Golani was more than just a training ground for soldiers and commanders, but a cohesive social unit bringing together all levels of society.
This spirit of acceptance can explain why so many young Israelis seek to enlist in Golani, to this day:
“A new recruit showed up when we were stationed on the northern border, it was freezing, snow. After two weeks, he came and told me he wanted to leave, that he can’t serve in these conditions,” recalled an officer was the brigade deputy-commander in the 1980s. “I told him: ‘You’re important to me, you are irreplaceable, stay. In Golani, everyone is important.’ He went home. Came back. He told me: ‘My whole life, no-one, anywhere – not at home, not at school – ever told me that I’m important. I always felt unnecessary. And I came here, to Golani, and you, a lieutenant-colonel, tell me I’m important. That’s why I’ll stay.’ And he stayed and went on to complete a squad commander course with honors.” (From: “Golani – A Family of Soldiers”, [Hebrew], p. 15)
Golani Brigade commander Gabi Ashkenazi at a brigade ceremony, late 1980s. From “My Golani” [Hebrew], p. 194
Service in the brigade was etched in the minds of many of its former soldiers as a significant experience. The well-known Israeli author Meir Shalev even wrote about it in the IDF magazine, Bamachaneh, when he came to visit a Golani Reconnaissance Unit base, 20 years after leaving the army. Shalev was wounded in a training accident just before completing his service in the elite unit. His writing, full of characteristic humor and wit, expressed the feelings he was left with after his intense time in the military:
“Jeeps dry my throat. I can’t stand to eat any kind of canned food. I hate when it rains on me. I’m ready to strangle any commander who abuses his soldiers. I hate hunters because I know what it feels like to take a bullet. I love travelling with a topographical map in hand.”
And despite all these ornery complaints, Shalev didn’t forget his service in the unit:
“The unit was an entire world. It was good friends, it was struggle and effort, it was also a first real acquaintance with pain and death. Of friends and enemies. At the time, the days of my youth, serving in the unit was the greatest thing that ever happened to me.”
From Meir Shalev’s article in Bamachaneh, September 7, 1988. “The equipment is improved, but the face of the unit greenhorn remains the same… that same miserable mixture of an aching, desperate body and a lack of sleep”
The history of the Golani Brigade is strewn with missions which seemed impossible at first but ended in highly significant victories for the State of Israel. At the Tel Mutilla battles north of the Sea of Galilee in 1951, a Golani reserve unit carrying out a training exercise encountered Syrian forces moving through a demilitarized zone. 40 soldiers were killed in difficult battles which took days, at the end of which, the Syrians were pushed back.
In the Six-Day War, Golani forces attacked the fortified position of Tel Faher in the Golan Heights. 34 Golani soldiers were killed, including admired battalion commander Moshe “Musa” Klein, but the outpost was taken by the brown brigade.
Towards the end of the Yom Kippur War, Golani forces stormed the peaks of Mount Hermon. In a long and difficult battle, and after the first effort to take the position failed, the brigade’s soldiers successfully regained control of the snow-capped mountain, which they dubbed – “the eyes of the state”.
In all these cases, and many others, Golani’s sense of pride and heritage stemmed from the belief carried by every soldier in the brigade – their insistence that they could succeed at any mission they were tasked with.
The brigade and its soldiers have paid a heavy price over the years, but nothing has been able to break its spirit. The brigade’s special nature has helped its troops cope with the difficult trials it has faced
The soldiers also frequently make use of dark humor to help deal with the dangers they face:
“One of their habits was to take bets on who wasn’t going to make it back. Sometimes they would sing El Malei Rachamim [prayer for the deceased], meaning me,” recalled Raviv Nir, the Recon unit commander. “I understood that this was a way to release fear and I allowed it. (From: “Night Predators – The Story of Golani Recon” [Hebrew], p. 212).
South we went, to the city among the fields
During the night we entered, crossing the sands,
We sunk to knee-depth, shivering with cold
Then we knew, we had come to the city of strife.
Translation of an excerpt from Gaza – a Hebrew poem by Itamar Oren, who served in the Golani Brigade’s 12th Battalion. Oren took part in the raids on Gaza City in the early 1970s and was killed in the Yom Kippur War. From: “Golani – A Family of Soldiers”” [Hebrew], p. 150
Some 1450 of Golani’s soldiers have fallen in service over the years, and they are commemorated at the memorial site at Golani Junction in northern Israel. 71 of them were killed on October 7, 2023, when they suddenly found themselves on the front lines. Their heroic efforts helped prevent an even higher civilian death toll. Many more Golani soldiers, far too many, have since fallen in the fierce battles in Gaza. The spirit of the Golani soldiers has not fallen, however, and their strong sense of pride continues to accompany them, wherever they go:
“Ask a soldier where he serves and he will tell you: this or that battalion, this or that company, or this or that corps; ask a Golani soldier where he serves, and he’ll only have one answer: ‘I’m from Golani.’” (From: “Golani – A Family of Soldiers”)
The Jewish WWI Soldiers Who Fought in Gaza in 1917
During the First World War, the British Army waged three bloody battles to capture the city of Gaza from the Ottoman Turks. Many of the soldiers who fell were buried in the British Gaza War Cemetery, and among them were Jews with names such as Morris, Wilfrid and Hyman. We set out on a journey to share their stories.
The ruins of Gaza City after its occupation by the British. This photograph is part of the Archive Network Israel project and is made available thanks to the collaboration of Yad Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, the Ministry of Jerusalem and Heritage, and the National Library of Israel
As is the way of world wars, World War I took place not only in Europe where it broke out in 1914, but also in the Middle East and even right here in the Land of Israel. The main role of the British military force stationed in Egypt was to protect the Suez Canal, the vital sea passage between the British colonies in the East and the European continent, via the Mediterranean Sea. In 1916, the British force that fought in the region expanded into a multinational military force under British command called the Egyptian Expeditionary Force (EEF).
In order to keep the Turks and their German allies away from the Suez Canal, and also to step up the pressure on the Turks and thus prevent them from diverting any forces to fight in other arenas of the war, the British decided to advance north towards the Land of Israel – then still Ottoman Palestine.
The British started the year 1917 with their first success along these lines. The city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip was conquered in just one day, on January 9, 1917. But the British command realized it would be difficult to defend Rafah from the Turks, and thus the British Army would have to conquer the largest city in the area – Gaza City itself. In fact, Gaza City was seen as the key to conquering the entire Land of Israel from the south.
But Gaza has never been easily conquered. In March and April 1917, two British attempts to conquer Gaza from the south failed. These costly failures led to the replacement of the EEF’s commanding officer. General Edmund Allenby, who until then had been commanding the Third Army in France, was appointed to the position. His mission was to conquer Jerusalem before Christmas 1917, as a gift of encouragement to the British people whose spirits were low after three long years of war.
Allenby, who would go down in history as the celebrated conqueror of the Holy Land who put an end to 400 years of Ottoman rule, chose a surprising strategy including a series of deceptive maneuvers. He understood that Gaza must be cut off from Be’er Sheva and that the series of outposts connecting the cities must be demolished. While the Turks were expecting an attack on Gaza, Allenby decided to first capture Be’er Sheva and then surprise the Turks by attacking Gaza from the east, thus hindering their ability to bolster their forces there.
The Australian cavalry charge on Be’er Sheva
Zero hour was set for October 27, 1917. The Third Battle of Gaza began with a heavy artillery bombardment of the city using 68 large-caliber artillery guns firing from British and French ships. In the meantime, and as secretly as possible, many forces advanced towards Be’er Sheva, which the Turks had not yet finished fortifying. Apart from the trenches on the southern and western borders, most of the city was without any effective defense. The British surrounded the southwest part of the city with 24,000 soldiers and began shooting and capturing enemy positions.
In the meantime, cavalry units from Australia and New Zealand (ANZAC) and other mounted forces, comprising 11,000 soldiers, headed east of Be’er Sheva. They all reached their destination on the night between October 30-31.
The British planned to take Be’er Sheva by beginning with a mounted assault by the Australian cavalry from the east.
The attack began at 4:30 PM from a distance of about 6.5 kilometers from the city. The horsemen slowly increased their speed until they charged the Turkish defenders, who were not properly armed and were also in the midst of fleeing the city. The forces of the 4th Light Horse Regiment jumped over the Turkish positions; the soldiers dismounted their horses and began face-to-face combat. Meanwhile the 12th Light Horse Regiment moved on to take over the city. Within a short time, Be’er Sheva had fallen.
After taking some time to rest and water the horses, Allenby began to advance the infantry and cavalry forces westward from Be’er Sheva. But the Turks still held several positions between Be’er Sheva and Gaza, and there was substantial resistance. One of the challenging targets was the military logistics center at Tel a-Sheria (today Tel Shera near Rahat). After fierce battles, the position and the nearby railway station were finally captured by the brigades of the 60th London Division with the help of additional forces.
In southern Gaza, the Turks had dug in a series of trenches that reached the Mediterranean Sea, with a number of control posts between them. The British forces captured part of their fortifications and went up along the coastline into Turkish territory as far as the village of Sheikh Hassan (today the area of the Al-Shati refugee camp), but they were stopped, and the capture of Gaza was delayed. The Turks realized that Gaza could no longer withstand the shelling and stop the advancing British forces, and on November 6, 1917, they evacuated the city. When the British entered Gaza, they found it abandoned and in ruins. The road north to the Land of Israel was now open. The British forces advanced towards Jaffa, and within a few weeks they reached Jerusalem and liberated it from the Turks without a fight.
Most of the British soldiers who were killed in the battles for Gaza were buried in the military cemetery that was established there after World War I, in the area that is now the Tuffah neighborhood near Saleh al-Din Road. The cemetery has 3,691 graves, most of them belonging to soldiers who fell in the three attempts to conquer Gaza.
The Jewish soldiers who fell in Gaza
About one and a half million Jews fought in World War I. Of these, about 50,000 were Jewish soldiers from the British Empire. Some fought in the Land of Israel. 8,600 Jewish soldiers from the British Army fell during the war. It is safe to assume that some of them took part in the battles for Gaza.
As of the writing of this article, IDF soldiers are currently fighting in Gaza as part of the Swords of Iron War. The fierce battles and heavy, heartbreaking losses made me think of the Jewish soldiers of the British Army who fell in Gaza in 1917. I decided to try to delve deeper into some of their stories.
The names of Jewish soldiers who fought in the British Army were collected after the war and published in the British Jewry Book of Honour, which also includes a list of those who fell. About a year ago, I had a conversation over Zoom with a Jewish couple from London who researched the book, how it was edited, and the soldiers listed in it. It is not possible to search for a fallen soldier by date or place of death in the book, so I tried my luck on the Commonwealth War Graves Commission website.
I didn’t know the fallen Jewish soldiers’ names, ID numbers, or the units in which they served, so in the advanced search, I typed in “Gaza War Cemetery” and got 2,696 results. The only method, albeit not a scientific one, for finding a Jewish soldier is by looking for a name that sounds a bit Jewish. I tried “Cohen” first. One result came up: Lance Corporal Frederick Arthur Cohen, who fell during the Second Battle of Gaza, in April 1917, but his name wasn’t listed in the British Jewry Book of Honour. I then tried “Levy” and got one result: Sgt. J. Levy, but his name wasn’t listed in the book either. It’s possible that there are some inaccuracies in the book and that they hadn’t managed to collect the names of all the Jews who had fought. It’s also possible that despite the names, these people weren’t Jewish.
So, I started going through the list of 2,696 names of people buried in the British military cemetery in Gaza.
After a while, I came across a soldier with a Jewish name: Hyman Goodfriend. It’s likely his original name was Haim Godfried. He fell on November 7, 1917, on the last day of the Third Battle of Gaza. The location of the grave is listed by plot, and on the website, you can download an old map of the cemetery. Hyman is buried near the front of the cemetery on the right. His name also appears in the book, but with a different date. The date on the site, as also appears on his tombstone, is probably the correct one.
A few years ago, there was an initiative to collect information about British Jews during World War I. The initiative, called “We Were There Too”, became a website where you can search for names of soldiers, among other things. I found Hyman with a photo of him in uniform and the names of his family members. His date of death was taken from the book and not from the tombstone. He was 25 years old when he fell in battle.
Hyman served in the 17th Battalion of the London Regiment, which was attached to the 180th Brigade of the 60th Division and which fought here in the Sinai and Palestine Campaign, among other campaigns. During the Third Battle of Gaza, their mission was to work together with other forces to conquer Tel a-Sheria. The battalion stormed Turkish machine gun positions and it was probably during this battle that Hyman fell.
From the grave numbers, I could see that next to Hyman’s grave is the grave of a Jewish officer named Wilfrid Gordon Aron Joseph. He was killed during the Second Battle of Gaza in April 1917. He was 21 years old when he fell and was survived by his wife.
Private Sam Bernstein, a 40-year-old soldier who worked as a tailor in Leeds, England and served in the 39th Battalion of the Royal Fusiliers, is buried not far from them. Although buried in Gaza, he was killed in Egypt a year after the battle, in October 1918.
The home page of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission website, features a large, pastoral image of the cemetery and its well-kept lawns. Above the picture, there’s currently an unsurprising announcement:
“November 2023 – This cemetery is currently closed to visitors.”
At the right end of the photo, there’s a tombstone with a Jewish star.
You can’t make out the soldier’s name in the picture, but by comparing the picture with the map, I discovered that this is grave no. XIV B 1.
On the Find a Grave website, you can search for graves in about 250 countries, also by grave number. With the help of this database, I found the name of the person who is buried in grave XIV B 1 in the picture from Gaza. His name was Maurice Magasiner and he served in the 11th Battalion of the London Regiment. This battalion was attached to the 54th Division that General Allenby placed near the coastal strip south of Gaza. The soldiers of this battalion moved up along the coast amid heavy fighting with the Turks, until they were stopped at the village of Sheikh Hassan. The Turks responded by shelling the area on November 2, and it appears that that is how Morris fell. He was born in Berdychiv, Ukraine and immigrated to England at the age of 4. He was 21 years old when he died and was survived by his wife.
It’s safe to assume that there are other Jews buried in the British military cemetery in Gaza, as well as the other military cemetery in Deir al-Balah. It’s hard to imagine the last time a Jewish memorial service was held for them.
Many battles have been fought in Gaza since the three fought by the British in 1917. May the Swords of Iron War be the last war in Gaza.
