THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

40—Friday, December 22, 1967

THE SONG THAT ENCHANTS
ISRAEL AND THE JEWISH WORLD

JERUSALEM,THE GOLDEN

";17.;

tn i

tO

f71

Mountain air as clear as wine,
And the scent of pines
Soaring in the evening breeze
With the call of bells.

In the slumber of tree and stone.
The city which is solitary,
Lies captive in its reverie.
In its heart: a wall!
0 Jerusalem of Gold and of
bronze
And of light!
Am I not the harp
For all thy songs?

We've come back to water cisterns,
To market-place and square.
The Shofar calls on Temple hill
In the Old City.

In the caves within the rock
Shine a thousand suns
And again we go down Jericho road
Toward the Sea of Salt.

Special Feature from Tarbut Foundation

<,..Q 00 Q0 Q 2

Holiday Greetings

BASIC READY MIX

21400 W. S Mile Road

Southfield, Mich.

444-1177

Holiday Greetings to All Our Friends

CONTINENTAL FOOD BROKERAGE CO.

17501 West Eight Mile Road

533-2055

Detroit, Michigan 48235

A Happy and Healthy Hanuka

Maurice and Irene Batchko

MAU-RENE INC.

COUTURIER FASHIONS
17592 Wyoming Ave.

UN 3-4777

Happy Hanuka

LESTER, HAROLD, RAYMOND GREENSPAN

NOR-LES SALES

3915 Greenspan Street, Detroit, Mich.

Hanuka Greetings

NORTHLAND LAWN
SPRINKLING SYSTEM

Ronald Block

May your Hanuka Candles

Burn Brightly and safely

With hope of freedom

For all humanity.

A Hero Is Laid to Rest

By DR. JOSEPH NEDAVA
In the heat of the Six-Day War
the soldiers came across a lonely
date palm flourishing in the des-
sert sands halfway between Rafa
and El Arish. The local bedouin
pointed it out as sprouting from
the grave of a Jew. After thorough
investigation, it was established
that the bones dug up from under
that palm are none other than those
of Avshalom Feinberg, hero of the
Nili underground movement. The
Israel government accorded them
a military funeral, and the reburial
took place in the military cemetery
on Mount Herzl, Jerusalem.
The life and death of Avshalom
Feinberg are closely bound up
with a glorious epic of over 50
years ago. It was this young Jew
who had conceived the idea of es-
tablishing the first Jewish Under-
ground in Eretz Israel in the dawn
of Jewish national revival in order
to assist the British Army in the
capture of Palestine from the
Turks.
Born at Gedera in October 1889.
Avshalom Feinberg was a typical
son of the new Jewish generation
that rose in Eretz Israel at the
time. and came to be known as
the first "Sabra." The scion of a
Biluite family who had come to
Eretz Isra -1 Loin Russia some 80
years ago. his spiritual roots were
deeply set in the soil of the holy
t. and and in the historical con-
sciousness of the Jewish people,
!oing back to the time of Gideon
and Samson the Macabees and Bar-
Kochba.

Unlike the recently-arrived "im-
migrants." Avshalom's heart was
imbued with a sense of ownership
of the land and a deep-set convic-
tion that the Jews are legal owners
returning to their land. His father
Israeli (or "Lulik" as he was called
by his friends) was also a legen-
dary figure in the small Yishuv of
the day. He was an idealist to the
core, one of the founders of Rishon-
le-Zion and among the builders of
other Jewish villages in the Sl:ar-
on. His fearlessness was known
far and wide among the Arabs
whom he taught many a lesson
whenever they tried to harrass the
Jewish settlers. On his mother's
side Avshalom was a scion of the
Belkind family which had played
such a prominent role in the up-
building of the modern Yishuv.
Imbued with unbounding love for
his fatherland, which came to him
largely from a study of the Bible,
of strong physique and of a fear-
less temperament, Avshalom
roamed the length and breadth of
the country in order to become ac-
quainted with every nook and cran-
ny of his native land. A remarkable
horseman, he was greatly admired
as well as feared by the Arabs to
whom he was known as "Sheikh
Salim." Having studied Arabic and
the Koran under an Arab Sheikh,
he had an unsurpassed command
of the language and was often seen
in the company of Arab youths
around the Jewish settlements.
Avshalom knew them well but
placed no confidence in them, the
Arabs being treacherous by nature.
Of a romantic turn of mind, he
spent five years in study in Paris
where he succeeded in imbibing
the spirit of French culture.
* * •
But Avshalom was not only a
dreamer; he was a practical, hard-
to-fact man as well, and his great-
est aspiration was to witness the
revival and independence of his
nation. He was only 12 when, to-
gether with friends of his age, he
founded an association known as
"The Standard Bearers of Zion,"
for the express purpose of estab-
lishing a "Free Jewish Palestine."
His aspiration was to kindle the

Hanuka Best Wishes

0.74e. .g ins gamily

spark of revolt, because he knew
that "without running danger one
does not gain anything." While still
a lad he planned to raise the flag
of revolt against the Turks from
Caesaria where he wished to bar-
ricade himself for several days in
order to arouse world public opin-
ion in favor of the Jewish
people. But he failed to raise suf-
ficient support for the idea.
In 1914. when World War I broke
out and Turkey was aligned with
Germany, the Jews in Palestine
found a unique opportunity. Av-
shalom Feinberg harbored a deep-
seated hatred for the Turkish re-
gime which had surpressed the
country for 400 years and had
left it in its desolation. He was
imbued with the belief that no
good would come to the Jews from
the Ottoman regime which was
rotton to the core. Together with
scores of thousands of Zionists
throughout the world Avshalom
dreamt of the coming of the Brit-
ish, "the Bible-loving people," pre-
pared to assist the "return to
Zion." It was Avshalom's plan,
therefore, to help the English
break the Turkish front and cap-
ture Palestine in order that they
may hand it over to the Jews
Since there was no possibility to
raise Jewish battalions in the
country itself, Avshalom conceived
the idea of helping the British
through espionage.

MORRIS
KOSHER POULTRY

.

601 E. 8 Mile Rd.
Hazel Park, Michigan

the desert and to sneak through

the frontlines in the south. In Jan-
nary 1917 he set out, together with
his friend Joseph Lishaniky, for
Rafa and El Arish, accompanied
by a Bedouin guide. Unfortunately,
they came across a group of Bed-
ouin smugglers who attacked them
and in the exchange of fire Av-
shalom was killed at a place known
as Sheikh Zuweid. Lishansky was
wounded and was later picked up
by an Australian patrol and
brought to Cairo, where he met
Aharonsohn. He was returned to
Athlit shortly afterwards in order
to continue the Nili activities.
Avshalom was buried by the Bed-

ouins where he fell, and for many
years no man knew the where-
abouts of his grave. In fact, no
serious attempts were made to dis-
cover its location after the British
governor of Sinai, to whom a re-
quest was addressed for assistance
in the search, explained that there
was no point in looking for the
remains because the roaming des-
ert sands generally carry way the
bones and scatter them in all dir-
ections. Apparently, the desert has
laws of its own for heroes' graves.
The writer of these lines discov-
ered in the archives of the Ahar-
onsohn family in Zichron Ya'acov
a postcard written in 1931 by a cer-
tain Benjamin Ran, an engineer
employed at the Rafa Railway Sta-
tion, mentioning the fact that at
Sheikh Zuweid the bedouins are
wont to call the solitary date palm
there "the grave of the Jew" and
that it was feasible that Avshalom
was buried there. When Major
Shlomo Ben-Elkana read my book
on the Nili group, he determined
to divest the Avshalom episode of
its mystery. At long last he has
succeeded. In the year of victory
1967, 50 years after the fall of
Avshalom Feinberg his remains
have been discovered, and the Jew-
ish people have been able to repay
their debt to one of their freedom
fighters.

And so the Nili movement was
set on foot. His close friend, Aaron
Aharonsohn the botanist, who had
set up an agricultural experimental
station at Athlit through American
funds, and whose aim it was to
rebuild the country from its ruins,
heartily supported the plan and
became the leader of the group.
He enjoyed many tics with the
Turks by virtue of his appointment
by the notorious Jamal Pasha, com-
mander-in-chief of the Turkish
forces in the region, to combat the
locust plague that spread in Pales-
tine and Middle East countries.
Under cover of the anti-locust cam- VULSULSUL.RJUL9-RSIARRWRCUL-111:
0
paign, the Nili group was able to
Best Wishes on Hanuka
gather important military informa-
0
tion. Time without number at- 0
0
tempts were made to contact the
0
British auhorities in Egypt, but
Complete
Beauty
Service
without success. Finally, Aharon-
sohn succeeded in reaching Egypt
18215 Livernois UN 3-4516
0
indirectly, through Germany, Den- 0
0 0 0 0 0 0 0
mark and England, and so towards 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
the end of 1916, the contacts be-
tween the British in Egypt and the
members of the Nili group at Ath-
lit and Zikhron Ya'acov were firm-
ly established. A small boat would
make its way on moonless nights
to the remain of the Crusaders
Castle on the shores of Athlit, put
13080 Capital Ave., Oak Park
on shore one of the Nili members
541-4060
who would receive any information
that his comrades had to give, and
return to Egypt with it.
• * •
Holiday Good Cheer
But many months had passed be-
fore Aharonsohn succeeded in es-
Mike's 9 Mile-
tablishing contact with British
headquarters, and members of the
Majestic Service
Nili Organization in Eretz, Israel
10200 W. 9 Mile Rd.
grew impatient. Feinberg in par-
ticular was itching for activity. He
LI 7-9170
decided to trek to Egypt through

LLOYD'S BEAUTE ARTS

Happy Hanuka To AU Our
Friends and Customers

PARADISO CAFE

Fine American-Italian Foods

17630 Woodward, near 6 Mile

TO 9-3988

Best Wish For A Happy Hanuka

MIMCO-SARJAC

BUILDERS SUPPLY, INC.

24200 Telegraph

353-2100

Southfield, between 9 and 10 Mile Roads