During the fateful days of the First World War, members of the Jewish Legion from around the world enlisted to fight as a Jewish army alongside allied forces for the liberation of the Land of Israel from the four hundred year old control of the Ottoman Turks. The celebrations of the holidays of Passover for this unique army in 1918, was marked by hopeful anticipation, in 1919, disappointment, and in 1920, tragedy.
Some members of the Jewish Legion were veterans of the Zion Mule Corps, which was formed in 1915 as a Jewish
In...[a] hostile measure, the British military administration placed Jerusalem out of bounds to all Jewish soldiers, during the holiday of Passover.
force whose task was to transport supplies to Allied forces. Stationed at the campaign in the Gallipoli Peninsula, the Zion Mule Corps served with distinction until the unit disbanded following the Allied withdrawal from the area. Others were Jewish refugees in Alexandria Egypt, forced from Eretz Yisrael by the Turkish Governor Tjemal Pasha during the war. Others enlisted from around the world, answering the calls of Zionists leaders Zev Jabotinsky, and Joseph Trumpeldor. The leader of the Jewish Legion was Lieutenant-Colonel John Henry Patterson, who had also led the Zion Mule Corps two years earlier.
On November 2, 1917 British Foreign Secretary Lord Arthur Balfour had issued the Balfour Declaration which called for a “national home for the Jewish people.” It was a time of euphoria for Jewry. Would the successful conquest of Eretz Yisrael by the British lead to a declaration of Jewish Statehood?
During the Passover of 1918, members of the 38th Battalion of the Jewish Legion were stationed in Helmieh, Egypt and would soon to join British forces already engaged in the Palestine Campaign. It was a time of great anticipation. That Passover represented the dreams of the unit who, as their forefathers had done, was exiting the land of enslavement to enter the Promised Land. By the end of the month, the next battalion of the Jewish Legion, the 39th, arrived from England. On June 5, 1918, the two battalions left Egypt and headed toward the Land of Israel.
Colonel Patterson did his utmost to defend the rights of his soldiers against anti-Semitic discrimination which was rife in the army. The Jewish Legion was supported by Christian Zionists in Great Britain which included Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour and British Prime Minister Lloyd George. But a sudden change in British policy under the British military administration over Palestine signified a shift away from the principles of the Balfour Declaration. Anti-Semitism within British ranks and Arab pressure significantly impacted policy.
The Passover of 1919 would vastly differ from the enthusiasm of the prior year. Following victories at Es Salt, near the Jordan River, in which the Jewish Legion engaged the enemy, they would now be dealt a great disappointment.
In one of many hostile measures towards the Zionists, the British military administration placed Jerusalem out of bounds to all Jewish soldiers, during the holiday of Passover from the 14th to the 22nd of April. This measure was aimed at the Zionist movement and against the very troops who risked life and limb in the Palestine campaign. Colonel Patterson strongly protested the measure to his superiors, but to no avail. He later put it in perspective. “Jewish soldiers for the first time in their lives in Palestine and barred from the Temple Wall of Jerusalem during Passover!....How provocative and insulting this order will be better understood when it is realized that the majority of the population of Jerusalem is Jewish, and, therefore there could be no possible reason for excluding Jewish troops belonging to a British unit, while other British troops were freely admitted, more especially as the conduct of the Jewish soldiers was, at all times, exemplary.”
From Rafa, the troops observed Passover at a far distance from the city for which they so longed.
The following year on Pesach, disappointment turned to terror. A pogrom similar to the horrors of those in Eastern Europe broke out. It was perpetrated by local Arabs with the permission of British authorities.
The months prior to the horrors, a spate of anti-Zionist rallies were held inciting violence in the presence of the British police. At that time, Arab newspapers leveled outrageous accusations against the Jews. Arab mobs were primed for violence.
On April 4, during the intermediary days of the Passover holiday, thousands of Arabs, fully aware of the current British policy of complicity, gathered in the Jerusalem to hear impassioned speeches against the Jews. The British police ignored the weapons they were brandishing. With the cries, “slaughter the Jews,” “we will drink the blood of the Jews”, and “the government is with us,” they proceeded toward the Jewish quarter. The Arab police participated in the attack.
Jewish self defense units largely comprised of former Jewish legionnaires attempted to intervene but they were located outside the Old City walls. The British prevented their entry. For three days the outrages continued until noon Thursday, April 6. The pogroms had a severe cost. Five Jews were murdered and hundreds were wounded-18 critically. Synagogues were desecrated, shops were looted, and homes were ransacked. The British military authorities rejected the Jews’ demands to dismiss the Arab police who participated. The Jews as a whole condemned the response by the British, and accused them of complicity in the pogrom. They attributed British inaction to their own anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic behavior.
The British subsequently arrested twenty members of the group of Jewish defenders including the leader Zev Jabotinsky. Three-year jail sentences were meted out to 19 members of the Jewish Defense Units. The organizer, Zev Jabotinsky, was tried on the trumped up charges of possession of a handgun, as well as “banditism, instigating the people of the Ottoman Empire” and received a fifteen year sentence. The sentences were eventually dropped.
Just weeks later at the San Remo conference in Italy, a mandate was given to the British over “Palestine,” on both sides of the Jordan. The new civilian administration which replaced military rule gave cause for hope. However, soon after, the British government buckled under pressure and its own prejudice to again renege on its commitments to the Balfour Declaration.
The events of the Passovers in 1918, 1919, and 1920, were mired in hope, disappointment and tragedy. When reflecting upon the past brutal rule of the Egyptian Pharaoh, members of the Jewish Legion and the Jews of Eretz Yisrael could contemplate their own present predicament. Just as their ancestors in Egypt never lost hope, their times were also bitter but that did not silence those who fervently prayed, dreamed, and sacrificed, on behalf of the goal of the redemption of the Jews to Zion.