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1917 Jaffa deportation

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Tel Aviv and Jaffa deportation
DateApril 6, 1917; 107 years ago (1917-04-06)
LocationJaffa, Tel Aviv, Ottoman Palestine
TypeDeportation
CauseOttoman suspicion of Jewish collaboration with the British
PerpetratorOttoman Empire
Deaths1,500
Displaced10,000 (including 8,000 Jews)
Jamal Pasha, who ordered the expulsion

Tel Aviv and Jaffa deportation was the expulsion on April 6, 1917, of 10,000 people from Jaffa, including Tel Aviv, by the authorities of the Ottoman Empire in Palestine.[1][2] The evicted civilians were not allowed to carry off their belongings, and the deportation was accompanied by severe violence, starvation, theft, persecution and abuse.[3][4][5][6][7] It is thought that about 1,500 of the evicted people died as a result of the deportation.[8] Shortly after the deportation, the Muslims affected were able to return to their homes, but the Jewish population was not able to return until the summer of 1918.[6]

Prior events

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In November 1914, the Ottoman Empire entered World War I on the side of the Central Powers. Many people who were citizens of opposing Allied countries lived in Palestine, and its Turkish officials considered them a threat to military security.[9]

Shortly after entering the war, the Ottomans abolished the Capitulations which allowed foreigners to live within the empire without taking citizenship.[9] The Ottoman governor made public statements against various foreign citizens throughout the empire considered to be potential spies. In December they expelled up to 6,000 Russian citizens who resided in Jaffa (all were Jewish).[10] They were resettled in Alexandria, Egypt.[11] The Ottoman Empire issued forcible draft of its population into the army, demanding non-citizens (including Jews) to either take Ottoman citizenship before 15 May 1915 or be expelled from the region. Following the devastating effect of the Lebanese famine, situation worsened.[12] Aaron Aaronsohn described the situation,

"Meanwhile, people are literally starving. Horrified sights have seen our eyes: old women and children wandering, hunger and nightmare-madness in their dying eyes, no food falling under them and dying."

An unnamed eyewitness stated,

"Even wealthy people in Jerusalem are becoming recipients (of alms) and even courting the remaining."[13]

The evacuations

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Graves of unknown victims of the Tel Aviv and Jaffa deportation

By January 1917, British forces had crossed the Sinai Desert and were about to invade Palestine, which alarmed the Turkish authorities. The Ottoman Empire began to become skeptical of the residents in the region, mostly Jews, as the Ottomans disdained them for alleged collaboration with the British following the discovery of the Nili spy ring.

At the start of March, all the inhabitants of Gaza were expelled, a town of 35,000–40,000 people, mostly Arabs.[14][15] They had 48 hours to leave "even if crawling on their knees".[14] Many of the men were conscripted and the rest scattered around Palestine and Syria, first to nearby villages and then further afield as those villages were also evacuated.[14] Death from exposure or starvation was widespread.[14] Gaza did not recover its pre-war population until the 1940s.[14]

On 28 March 1917, Djemal Pasha ordered the evacuation of the inhabitants of Jaffa.[16][15] They could go wherever they liked except Jerusalem or Haifa.[16] Farmers with crops in their fields, the workers of the winery in Rishon Lezion, and the teachers and students of the Mikveh Israel school and the Latrun estate were excluded.[16] Djemal Pasha, who was in charge of the Greater Syrian Theatre of the war, was forced to provide explanations.[17]

Isaiah Friedman holds that the treatment of Jews was worse than for non-Jews, because Djemal Pasha was against the Zionist project in Palestine.[18] Sheffy regards that it is more reflective of cultural and behavioral differences: the Arabs had no central organization, and with their experience of how government decrees were enforced, just remained nearby until the storm had passed, whereas the Jews obeyed the evacuation decree as a group.[15] In any case, when New Zealand troops entered Jaffa in November 1917, only an estimated 8,000 of the previous population of 40,000 was present.[15]

Jewish population

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Response

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The procession to return the exiled Torah scrolls back to Tel Aviv and Jaffa in 1918.

The Jews of Jaffa and Tel Aviv organized a migration committee, headed by Meir Dizengoff and Rabbi Menachem Itzhak Kelioner. The committee arranged the transportation of the Jewish deportees to safety, with the assistance of Jews from the Galilee, who arrived in Tel Aviv with carts. The exiles were driven to Jerusalem, to cities in central Palestine (such as Petah Tikva and Kfar Saba) and to the north of Palestine, where they were scattered among the different Jewish settlements in the Lower Galilee, in Zichron Yaacov, Tiberias, and Safed. Up to 16,000 deportees were evacuated from Tel Aviv, which was left with almost no residents.[19]

The homes and property of the Jews of Jaffa and Tel Aviv were kept in the possession of the Ottoman authorities, and they were guarded by a handful of Jewish guards. Djemal Pasha also released two Jewish doctors to join the deportees. Nonetheless, many deportees had perished during the harsh winter of 1917–1918 from hunger and contagious diseases due to negligence by the Ottoman authorities: 224 deportees are buried in Kfar Saba, 15 in Haifa, 321 in Tiberias, 104 in Safed, and 75 in Damascus.[20][19]

Destination

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Many Jewish deportees ended up in Zichron Yaacov, Hadera, Petah Tikva and Kfar Saba, with few choosing to go to Jerusalem despite being forbidden by the Ottoman authorities. Sympathizing with the situation, some members of the population decided to provide needed medical and financial support. But when winter 1917–1918 arrived, the situation worsened for many deportees and many died by hunger, famine, starvation and maltreatment, as several Yishuvs didn't receive them and thought they could be Ottoman spies.[21] Deterioration of condition had prompted many Jews to flee and several of them had migrated to Egypt, or Europe and the United States.[22][19]

Aftermath and memorials

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Gravestones of the deportees in Kinneret cemetery.
The sign placed in the victims' compound of the Tel Aviv deportation in Kfar Saba.

The deportation and subsequent deaths of so many Jewish deportees were not properly documented.[20]

After Shragai's address, the Kfar Saba City Council voted to change the name "Pilots Street" in the city to "Tel Aviv-Jaffa" Street in October 2009 to commemorate the victims of the deportation. The Tel Aviv Founders' Families Association has been working for years with a burial society to establish a gilad in the Trumpeldor Cemetery in Tel Aviv in memory of those who perished among the deportees from Tel Aviv.[23]

In literature

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Deborah Barun's book, "The Exiles", published in 1970 after her death, centered around the deportation.[24]

Two of Nahum Guttman's books mentioned the deportation, both when it began and after the deportation.[25][26]

Israeli writer Yosef Chaim Brenner, who was deported and survived, wrote "The Origin" about the deportation which he experienced.[27]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ When Tel Aviv was a wilderness Archived 2019-06-24 at the Wayback Machine, Haaretz
  2. ^ Alroey, Gur (2016-09-06). "The Expulsion of the Jews from Tel Aviv-Jaffa to the Lower Galilee, 1917-1918". Orient XXI. Archived from the original on 2021-09-14. Retrieved 2021-09-14.
  3. ^ "THREATENS MASSACRE OF JEWS IN PALESTINE; Turkish Governor Said to Have Declared for Slaughter Like That in Armenia". New York Times. May 4, 1917. p. 7.
  4. ^ "CRUEL TO PALESTINE JEWS.; Turks Loot and Slay Victims Deported as a "Military Measure."". New York Times. May 8, 1917. p. 4.
  5. ^ "TURKS KILLING JEWS WHO RESIST PILLAGE; Washington Gets Confirmation of Reports of Atrocities in Palestine". New York Times. May 19, 1917. p. 7.
  6. ^ a b "CRUELTIES TO JEWS DEPORTED IN JAFFA; Alexandria Consul Says They Were Robbed, Assaulted, and Some Were Slain. POPULATION WAS STARVED Tale That Same Fate Awaits All Jews In Palestine--Djemal Pasha Blamed". New York Times. June 3, 1917. pp. Section E, page 23.
  7. ^ "The Banality of Indifference: Zionism and the Armenian Genocide". Routledge & CRC Press. pp. 82–83. Retrieved 2023-11-09.
  8. ^ "1917: Ottoman Authority Orders Jews to Evacuate Tel Aviv". Haaretz. Retrieved 2023-11-09.
  9. ^ a b Abramson, Glenda (2022-08-19). "The 1914 deportation of the Jaffa Jews: 'a little footnote of war'?". Israel Affairs. 28 (5). Informa UK Limited: 706–723. doi:10.1080/13537121.2022.2112388. ISSN 1353-7121. S2CID 251708940.
  10. ^ Mary McCune (July 2005). The Whole Wide World, Without Limits: International relief, gender politics, and American Jewish women, 1893–1930. Wayne State University Press. p. 46. ISBN 978-0-8143-3229-0. Archived from the original on May 13, 2020. Retrieved November 26, 2010.
  11. ^ Jonathan R. Adelman (2008). The Rise of Israel: A history of a revolutionary state. Routledge. pp. 58–59. ISBN 978-0-415-77510-6. Archived from the original on May 2, 2014. Retrieved November 26, 2010.
  12. ^ "Israeli history photo of the week: The locusts of 1915". The Jerusalem Post | JPost.com. 5 January 2012. Archived from the original on 2020-10-29. Retrieved 2020-10-26.
  13. ^ מרדכי בן הלל הכהן, "גיוס בני הארץ לצבא הטורקי", בתוך: במצור ובמצוק, עורך: מ. אליאב, ירושלים, 1991, עמ' 444
  14. ^ a b c d e Doton Halevy (2015). "The rear side of the front: Gaza and its people in World War I". Journal of Levantine Studies. 5 (1): 35–57.
  15. ^ a b c d Yigal Sheffy (2009). "?גירוש יהודי תל אביב 1917: התעמרות פוליטית או כורח צבאי (Deportation of the Jews of Tel Aviv 1917: Political abuse or military necessity?)". Fighting at the entrances of Jaffa and the Yarkon victory : 8th Annual conference of the WW1 Heritage Association in Israel. pp. 22–30.
  16. ^ a b c Gur Alroey (2006). "גולים באתם? פרשת מגורשי תל־אביב ויפו בגליל התחתון, 1918-1917 (Exiles in their country? The Case of the Deportees of Tel Aviv and Jaffa in the Lower Galilee, 1917–1918)" (PDF). Cathedra (120): 135–160. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2020-10-29. Retrieved 2020-10-26.
  17. ^ Hasson, Nir. "The 1917 Expulsion of Tel Aviv's Jews, Seen Through Turkish Eyes". Haaretz. Archived from the original on December 24, 2016. Retrieved December 25, 2016.(subscription required)
  18. ^ Friedman, Isaiah (1971). "German Intervention on Behalf of the Yishuv, 1917". Jewish Social Studies. 33 (1). Indiana University Press: 23–43. eISSN 1527-2028. ISSN 0021-6704. JSTOR 4466625. Retrieved 2023-02-19.
  19. ^ a b c "A Beginning Expulsion of Jews from Tel Aviv by the Turks in 1917 | Institute on the Holocaust & Genocide in Jerusalem". Archived from the original on 2021-07-10. Retrieved 2021-07-10.
  20. ^ a b Nadav Shragai (September 12, 2007). מדוע לא מנציחה עיריית תל אביב את נספי גירוש 1917? [Why doesn't the municipality commemorate the deportation victims of 1917?]. Haaretz (in Hebrew). Archived from the original on October 28, 2020. Retrieved August 14, 2014.
  21. ^ Bar-El, Dan; Greenberg, Zalman, חולי וכולרה בטבריה במלחמת העולם הראשונה
  22. ^ זה את הפרק "היישוב הישן וההתיישבות החדשה" בתוך יהושע קניאל, המשך ותמורה: היישוב הישן והיישוב החדש בתקופת העלייה הראשונה והשנייה, עמודים 102 – 128
  23. ^ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2020-10-29. Retrieved 2020-10-26.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  24. ^ "חנות הספרים של איתמר". Archived from the original on 2021-05-16. Retrieved 2020-10-26.
  25. ^ "עיר קטנה ואנשים בה מעט - נחום גוטמן". Archived from the original on 2020-10-29. Retrieved 2020-10-26.
  26. ^ "שביל קליפות התפוזים". Archived from the original on 2021-07-10. Retrieved 2021-07-10.
  27. ^ The origin, archived from the original on 2018-01-28, retrieved 2020-10-26
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