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THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

Friday, September 21, 1979 91

Reminiscing About Neila at Kotel Hamaravi

Shofar Blowers Defied British Restrictions

By YITSHAQ BEN-AMI

horse ascended to heaven
(Editor's note: Ben-Ami . . . Forgotten was the fact
was an early leader of the that since 1518, when the
Irgun Zvai Leumi.)
Turks conquered Palestine,
Every year, beginning Sultan Selim granted the
with 1930, at the close of Jews the privilege to wor-
Neila ending the services of ship there.
Yom Kippur, the shofar was
Also forgotten was the
blown at the Kotel — the fact that after centuries of
Western Wall. The young Arab rule, the Turkish Sul-
TT-, brew patriot who raised tan had to order the Kotel to
s hofar for the long, pow- be dug out from the dung
erful sounding, was always heaps that covered it .. .
arrested by the British
Over 100 years ago, Sir
police and jailed.
Moses Montefiore ob-
This continued through tained permission to
1947, when Jordanian oc- pave the area in front of
cupation replaced the the Kotel. That is the way
YITSHAQ BEN-AMI
British mandatory ad- 'remembered it, when, at
ministration, and Jews the age of 10, our second commission of inquiry,
were unable to pray at the grade of the Tel Aviv appointed by the League
Kotel.
gymnasia "Herzlia" vis- of Nations, concluded
that the area of the Kotel
There is a proud story be- ited the Kotel.
hind this tradition. Ten-
Even as a young child, was owned by Moslems;
sions among the Jews of and till 1947 when I last vis- that the Jews had the
Palestine in the summer of ited it, prior to the Jorda- right to worship and
1929 were building up nian occupation, the physi- place seats in the street;
gradually and steadily. Re- cal presence of the Kotel that the Jews could not
cent years, from 1921 on- evoked mixed emotions.
blow the shofar in front
wards, were, by our tradi-
The sight of old, poor, frail of the Kotel
It was this last prohibi-
tional standards, peaceful.
Jewish men and women,
Of course, the Mufti, some beggars, was not an tion that the nationalist
Haj Amin El Husseini, inspiring one. The chants of youth set out to break. It be-
had throughout those prayers, the outstretched came a symbol of indepen-
years murdered a hands of the poor, con- dence and national pride.
So, every year, beginning
number of opponents, trasted with the magnifi-
mostly from the Nas- cence of the large stones, the in 1930, a battle of wits took
sashibi clan and consoli- "Herodian" blocks weighing place between the British
dated his hold on the 100 tons, a reminder of administration and the
Arab community. Arabs greatness and physical young Hebrew generation
clashed with Arabs. strength, millenia away that was laying the ground
Arabs attacked Jews — from the pitiful appearance for the coming War of Inde-
but not on any serious of the "usual" _worshippers. pendence. We always pro-
scale.
Eventually, routine tor- duced at the Kotel a young
Arabs
sporadically menting and harassment man who, when the services
flocked across the Syrian, were not enough for the of Neila came to an end, pul-
Transjordanian and Egyp- Mufti. A gate was opened at led out from under his gar-
.. tian borders to seek work in the south end of the street, ment a shofar and blew it
Palestine. The numbers of making it into a
Neila is a very important
Jews was gradually increas- thoroughfare for people and part of the holiest day in
ing, from 82,000 in 1927 to animals.
Jewish tradition. It is the
– 180,000 in 1929.
By August 1929, the final hour of soul-searching,
Obviously this went nationalist youth and a and accountability, for the
against the Mufti's plans. number of leaders, in- believing Jew, within him-
The most attractive route to cluding Prof. Joseph self and towards God. It
- inflame Arab mobs would Klausner, had enough of culminates the holidays of
be to introduce a religious this creeping degrada- rededication and weeks of
element in the growing eco- tion. On Tisha b'Av, self-examination that the
nomic and embryonic demonstrations were traditionalists engage in,
nationalistic antagonism of held throughout the beginning in the month of
the Arabs of Palestine country, including one in Av.
towards the Jews.
front of the Kotel, to pro-
Even the non-Orthodox
This was done under the test the encroachments Jew pauses and looks
benevolent eyes of the on Jewish rights for inwardly during these
British Mandatorial Ad- peaceful, traditional holy days. Neila actually
ministration. The Colonial worship in front of the closes the books and the
office's policy of divide and Kotel.
gates above, on this an-
rule was functioning well.
The Mufti answered with nual Heshbon Hanefesh
The narrow passage in a peaceful demonstration (the spiritual accounta-
front of the Western Wall, the following day. But this bility of the individual).
a" the one historic relic of was an interim reaction. By
The blowing of the shofar
the ancient Temple and the following Friday, Aug.
one of the few, in the 23, his gangs launched a is the final act. It symbolizes
1.0le of Palestine, to country-wide assault, many things; the final at-
:1 Jews still had ac- mostly on the elderly, de- tempt to pierce the skies
s, was chosen by the fenseless Jews of Hebron, and reach to God for for-
Mufti as an effective ob- Safed and the Old City of giveness; it expresses a cry
. ject in his anti-Jewish Jerusalem. The casualties of joy and hope; it signifies
the turning of a new leaf in
drive.
numbered in the hundreds. one's life, bearing a message
On Yom Kippur, 1928,
The Arab attacks were a of hope and courage.
the British police at the turning point in the history
According to Jewish tra-
Mufti's behest, broke into of Hebrew national rebirth. dition and heritage, the
the services in front of the They forced on part of the shofar was blown at the end
Kotel and removed benches youth the realization that of the Yom Kippur service
on which fasting elderly Britain was definitely em- ever since a record was
iP were resting, as well as the
barked on a course aiming maintained of Yom Kippur
flimsy partition between at the liquidation of Jewish services. Wherever Jews
men and women.
hopes for independence and gathered to communicate
This climaxed a series of statehood, and they laid the with God on that holiest of
harassments, including ground for revolutionary days they blew the shofar.
physical attacks on wor- action as a basis of reaching
In their Galilean
shippers on their way to the independence.
synagogues, under Roman
Kotel. Now the Mufti de-
They brought about the and Byzantine rule, under
clared theKotel a holy place formation of the Irgun Zvai Islamic Caliphs in Damas-
_alspAor Muslims, the spot Leumi, in April 1931._, _
cus ,and Cairo,underghsris-
from which'
The- — international tian Crusaders
and

medieval church rule
throughout Europe, and
when my grandfather came
back to Jerusalem in 1890,
in the synagogues, inside
the walls of Jerusalem, they
blew the shofar.
And for centuries they
blew the shofar in that
tiny area, the narrow
courtyard in front of the
Western Wall, that the
Moslem rulers of Pales-
tine, the Caliphs and the
Turkish Sultans so
generously alloted to
those weaklings, the et-
ernally "wailing" minor-
ity, the heretic and de-
spised Jews.
But then in 1929, the
Mufti and the British ad-
ministrators of the Mandate
for Palestine agreed that it
should not be done any-
more. The shofar was
banned from the few
hundred square feet, the
holiest ground allocated to
the descendents of the kings
and people whose glory, this
city, this temple, once were.
If you visit today the
Chabad Synagogue in the
Old City of Jerusalem, you
may meet, at prayer time,
Rabbi Moshe Segal. He was
one of the first Hebrew revo-
lutionaries, a veteran
leader of the Irgun, and he
was also the first of the
shofar-blowers.
In 1928, the Mufti of
Jerusalem, the leader of the
country's Moslems, de-
manded that traditional
practices at the Kotel be
halted. The British concur-
red. Moshe disagreed. And
once he asserted the right of
the new Hebrew to act on
his land according to his
right, this "new" tradition
was unbroken until King
Hussein's grandfather
wiped out Jewish life and
tradition from Jerusalem
(1948 to 1967).

From 1930 till 1947, the
shofar was always blown
at the Kotel. The young
men were immediately
grabbed by the British
policemen and locked up,
first for a few months,
later for years, as exiles
in British camps in Af-
rica.

small table, and without a
word handed me the shofar.
I raised it, I blew it with all
my might . . ."
Thus, the tradition was
re-established. There were
more volunteers that were
needed. Young men and one
young woman came from all
over the country. They were
laborers,
students, profes-
If you visit Reb Moshe at
his home, he may search sionals. They were usually
among the heavy, ancient in their teens or early twen-
Talmud volumes on his ties.
Reb Moshe remem-
shelves and produce a folder
with a list of the shofar- bered that he taught
blowers year by year, by many of them the art of
blowing the Shofar. He
organization.
First came several years smiled when recalling
of Brit Habirionim, that that some didn't know
tiny group of Hebrew revo- which end one blew into.
The people of the country
lutionaries, followers of Aba
Hachimeir. Then Betar, the came to expect the annual
Jabotinsky youth move- occurrence. They felt pro-
uder on the day after upon
ment. Then the Irgun.
Reb Moshe will explain learning that the tradition
the background, point to the was being carried on.
The "establishment," of
names. And when I visited, I
added my reminiscences. course, frowned. The
How I guided Shraga "Labor" camp smirked.
Yet the idealistic,
Haikin and others through
the maze of the old city in nationalistic youth vied for
the opportunity to serve
the early 30s, till we man-
aged to mingle in the crowd their people at the Kotel
and later, when the time
before the Wall.
The arrests, the inter- would come, in the wars for
rogations, the dragnets independence.
Five of them eventually
out for associates.
fell in the wars against the
Reb Moshe will probably occupying forces. One, Dov
tell you, "I didn't know in Gruner, went to the British
1930 that I would break the gallows.
British ruling. As Neila was
In 1967, when Jerusalem
progressing and we were at last became the united
coming to the words: 'We open city of today, the
sound a great Shofar . . . for shofar sounded again on
the glory of Adonai, our Neila and on Rosh
God! . . I realized that we Hashana. As a matter of
would not do so, here on the fact, it is now blown daily at
holiest day on that holiest. the Kotel by anyone who
place of our people. That wishes to express his
strangers decreed that it people's joy and faith and
should not be done.
hope.
"I accosted the shamash
of the Kotel and asked him
He that guards his mouth
if he had a shofar. He looked keeps his life; but for him
at me quizzically and then that opens wide his lips
opened the drawer of his there shall be ruin.

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