Of course, the housewife was no ordinary woman. She was Sarah Aaronsohn. The daughter of Romanian immigrants, she had grown up in Zichron Ya'akov, a settlement community about 22 miles south of Haifa.
Sarah happened to be on the train from Constantinople (modern Istanbul) to Haifa to visit her family. In March 1914, she’d married Haim Abraham, a Bulgarian Jewish businessman who lived in Constantinople. But she was unhappy, and missed the freedom and autonomy she had managing her father's household in Zichron and working with her brother Aaron, an internationally renowned agronomist. Her visit was supposed to last only a few months, but she never returned.
The train took her directly through the horrors of the Turkish massacres of the Armenian people. What she saw convinced her that Jews in Palestine would sooner or later have the same fate.
To prevent that, she, her brothers Aaron and Alex, her sister Rivka and Rivka's fiance Avshalom Feinberg began gathering information that they hoped to get to the British. With the outbreak of World War I in the late summer of 1914, the Ottomans allied themselves with the Germans. The Aaronsohns and Feingberg expected an eager and grateful response from the British. In reality, it was far easier to gather information secretly than it was to connect with the British.
Initially Aaron, but later Sarah, began recruiting spies, collecting information and preparing reports. The result was a spy ring called Nili. Its members were young, adventurous, idealistic men and women, Jews and Christians. None had training in espionage, although some had paramilitary training.
Aaron's agricultural station, funded by a number of wealthy and influential American Jews, provided good cover for field trips throughout the area. He had trained Sarah and those who worked for him to be detailed, scientific observers.
Other Nili members who had been drafted into the Ottoman army had front row seats to Turkish military activities. Engineer Nahum Wilbushevits was assigned to manage the water system supplying Turkish forces in Damascus. Moshe Neumann, MD, worked at a hospital near an important train junction in Afula. Not only could he observe what the Turks were shipping, he could pick up information from officers and soldiers about troop movements and supply issues.
In Cairo, however, British intelligence officers were suspicious of Aaron’s offer of information. They couldn't understand why citizens of the Ottoman Empire were making such an offer. They feared that Aaron and Nili might be double agents observing the British and feeding that information back to the Turks. Aaron eventually had to make a circuitous journey around war-torn Europe to meet with British officials in London, who then put him in touch with more open intelligence officers in Cairo.
In the meantime, Sarah was running Nili. An attractive woman, she inspired committed recruits who often fell in love with her. She also distributed the money that the British provided to members of the group, packaged the information they collected and worked to rendezvous safely with British ships that approached the coast when weather permitted on moonless nights.
Discovery was inevitable. Nili members had so many relatives and friends in the area that the spy ring was an open secret. Local leaders feared that the Turks would retaliate against the Jews if Nili ever became known. While they demanded that Sarah cease her efforts, she ignored them.
The Turks were alerted to Nili when a messenger pigeon Sarah had sent went astray and end up with its capsule of coded messages in Turkish hands. They surrounded Zichron Ya'akov and arrested many people, including Sarah, in October 1917.
Her captors tortured her father in front of her and then tortured her for four days without getting any information. The Turks planned to take her to Damascus for more interrogation and torture. She was given permission to go home and change her blood-stained clothes. There she attempted suicide but did not die for four days. She was buried beside her mother's grave in Zichron. She was 27.
The British, who battled their way across Sinai to Jerusalem and then northern Palestine to Damascus and beyond in late 1917 and 1918, greatly benefited from Nili’s data about Turkish armaments, airplanes, supply lines and protocols. British General Gilbert Clayton claimed that the information supplied by Nili saved the lives of 30,000 British soldiers.
Author Gregory Wallance has done a great job of telling this complex story and the tumultuous world events happening in the background. The story never loses momentum as he tells first Sarah’s story, then Aaron’s efforts to engage the British, and then the challenges that Sarah faces in Palestine gathering information and getting it to the erratically arriving British ships along the coast.
He doesn't end the story with Sarah's death. He carries the story forward. Sarah Aaronsohn wasn’t a forgotten heroine. Her sister maintained the family home as a shrine that drew visitors from the early 1930s onward. Sarah’s story resonates today as a symbol of courage and loyalty to her people.
About the Author: Gregory J. Wallance
A lawyer, former federal prosecutor and a writer, Gregory J. Wallance is the author of several books including the Edgar Award-nominated Papa's Game, about the theft of the French Connection heroin.
He also wrote Two Men Before the Storm: Arba Crane's Recollection of Dred Scott and the Supreme Court Case That Started the Civil War (2012) and America's Soul in the Balance: The Holocaust, FDR's State Department, and the Moral Disgrace of an American Aristocracy (2013).
He is actively involved in human rights issues and has traveled for Amnesty International and Helsinki Watch. He was a producer of an HBO film "Sakharov," which starred Jason Robards and Glenda Jackson.
His essays and opinion pieces have appeared in The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, the Chicago Tribune and the Wall Street Journal. In addition, he has appeared as a commentator on CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, C-SPAN and NBC's "The Today Show."
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