1949 Jewish LITHOGRAPH Commemo HAGGADAH Israel INDEPENDENCE WAR Lamed He JUDAICA

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1949 Jewish LITHOGRAPH Commemo HAGGADAH Israel INDEPENDENCE WAR Lamed He JUDAICA:
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DESCRIPTION : Herefor sale is a magnificently DESIGNED and ILLUSTRATED lithographicJewish - Judaica ZIONIST NATIONAL ARTHAGGADAH Shel PESSACH ( Passover ) whichwaspublished around 66yearsago, In 1949, In Eretz Israel, RIGHT aftertheestablishment of the INDEPENDENT STATE ofISRAEL and its 1948 WAR of INDEPENDENCE .The HEBREW ARTISTIC HAGGADAH , Withnumerous ILLUSTRATIONS andDECORATIONS , With HAND WRITTEN CALLIGRAPHY isindeed one of the most beautiful ART HAGGADOT which were ever created in EretzIsrael. It was pubished by "NEHAMA" Jerusalem Israel. ThroughoutILLUSTRATED and DECORATED . The HAGGADAH was designed by theIsraeli NAIVE artist M.COHEN as a COMMEMORATION to his only son Alexander Yehudah Cohen who was killed in action , Being one of the LAMED HE ( The 35 CONVOY) in one of the most painful and frustrating yet extremely heroic battles during the ISRAEL WAR OF INDEPENDENCE.Original NAIVE illustrated LITHOGRAPHIC HC. Original cloth spine . Around 6.5" x 9.5" . Throughout illustrated and decorated heavy stock 44 PP . Many fullpagecolorful lithographicplates. Very good condition . Practicaly unused. Perfectly clean. Tightyly bound. ( Please look at scan for actual AS IS images)Book will be sent in a specialprotective rigid sealed package.
AUTHENTICITY : Thisis anORIGINALvintage 1949 Haggadah , NOTa reproduction or a reprint , It holds a life long GUARANTEE for its AUTHENTICITY and ORIGINALITY.PAYMENTS : Payment method accepted : Paypal .SHIPPMENT : SHIPP worldwide via registered airmail is $18 .Haggadah will be sent inside a protective envelope . Handling within 3-5 days after payment. Estimated Int'l duration around 14 days.

TheConvoy of 35(or theLamed He, which stands for "thirty five" inHebrew numerals), was a convoy ofHaganahfighters sent during the1947–48 Civil War in Mandatory Palestineon a mission to reach by foot and resupply the blockadedkibbutzimofGush Etzionin January 1948, after earlier motorized convoys had been attacked. They were spotted before they could reach their target and killed in a prolonged battle by Arabirregularsand local villagers.Contents[hide]1 History2 Burial2.1 Names of the dead3 Commemoration4 See also5 ReferencesHistory[edit]On 16 January 1948, a convoy of 38 men was sent by the Haganah to deliver supplies to the four blockadedkibbutzimof Gush Etzion, south ofJerusalem, following anArabattack on January 14.[1]The unit, named in Hebrew "Machleket HaHar" (lit. Mountain Platoon), set out on foot fromHartuvat 11 p.m. on January 15, commanded by Daniel Mass. They took a detour around thePalestine Policestation, aTegart fort, to avoid detection by theBritish.[2]Three were sent back because one man sprained an ankle, and two accompanied him. The remaining 35 were killed by Arab villagers and militiamen between the villages ofJaba'andSurif.[3]January 1948 casualties of the "Convoy of 35" being brought to burialA monument commemorating the 35 fallen fightersThe fate of the 35 was reconstructed from British and Arab reports. The six hours of night that remained did not suffice for the trip. About an hour before the convoy reached their destination, it became light. Their presence was discovered by two Arab women who encountered two scouts of the group nearSurif.[4](An earlier version, that the soldiers were discovered by an Arab shepherd who they graciously let go, was based on a eulogy written by Ben-Gurion and is apparently apocryphal.[4]) A large number of armed villagers from Surif and other communities gathered to block the way. The battle was fought in two stages, four hours apart, with hundreds of Arabs from a nearby training base taking part.[5]The Haganah force battled until it ran out of ammunition. The last of the 35 was apparently killed at about 4:30p.m. Among the dead were Tuvia Kushnir, one of the country's most promising botanists,[6]Moshe Perlstein, anAmerican-bornWorld War IIveteran who had madealiyahin 1947, and three members of theHebrew Communist Party.[7][8]A phone conversation about the battle was intercepted by theIrgun, in which it was heard that many were killed and some were wounded.[5]After no word of the 35 had been received for a long time and wounded Arabs started arriving atHebron, the British dispatched a platoon of theRoyal Sussex Regimentto investigate. After threatening and exhorting the villagemukhtarsand notables, the British were led to the site of the battle where they found the bodies of the 35. According to some reports many of the bodies had been mutilated, some beyond recognition.[2]According to one account the last three Jews to die blew themselves up with a grenade. This account also reports that several Arab sources claimed a young woman was amongst those killed, and that to restore public confidence in the Jewish fighting forces thePalmachlaunched an attack on the village ofSa'sa'on 14 February in which 60 villagers were killed.[9]A contemporary report puts the number of casualties in Sa'sa at 11 killed and 3 wounded,[10]but official sources confirm the figure of 60 killed with 20 houses destroyed.[11]Burial[edit]After the1948 Arab-Israeli War, when the bodies of the 35 were returned toIsrael, only 23 of the 35 bodies could be identified. To solve the problem, RabbiAryeh Levinperformed the raregoral ha-gra(ha-gra =Vilna Gaon) ceremony, a process in which the reader of theTorahis led to certain verses which give hints as to the subjects in question.[12]They were buried inMount HerzlinJerusalem.Names of the dead[edit]Daniel Mass[13]Yisrael Aloni[14]Chaim Engel[15]Binyamin Bugoslavsky[16]Yehuda Bitensky[17]Oded Ben-Yamin[18]Benzion Ben-Meir[19]Yaakov Ben-Attar[20]Yosef Baruch[21]Eitan Gaon[22]Sabo Goland[23]Yitzhak Ginzburg[24]Yitzhak Halevi[25]Eliyahu Hershkovitz[26]Yitzhak Zvuloni[27]David Tish[28]Alexander Yehuda Cohen[29]Yaakov Cohen[30]Yehiel Kelev[31]Yaakov Caspi[32]Alexander Avraham Lustig[33]Yonah Levin[34]Eliyahu Mizrahi[35]Amnon Michaeli[36]Shaul Pinueli[37]Moshe Avigdor Perlstein[38]Binyamin Parsitz[39]Baruch Pat[40]David Sabarna[41]David Zwebner[42]Yaakov Kotick[43]Yosef Kofler[44]Tuvia Kushnir[45]Daniel Reich[46]Yaakov Shmueli[47]Commemoration[edit]In August 1949, a group of formerPalmachsoldiers founded akibbutz,Netiv HaLamed He(Hebrew:נתיב הל"ה‎,path of the 35) near the convoy's route. They built a memorial commemorating the fallen Haganah soldiers there (see picture). Prior to the 1967Six-Day War, it was assumed that the precise location of the final battle was on the Jordanian side of the armistice line. However, in 1967 the British police officer who had found the bodies in 1948 and Arab witnesses independently identified a hilltop on the Israeli side of the line.[48]The story of the 35 was immortalised in a poem,Here Our Bodies LiebyHaim Gouri.Yael Zerubavel analysed remembrance of the event using the number 35 as a prominent example of the Israeli practice of "numerical commemoration".[49]From November 1947 the roads to the fourkibbutzimofGush Etzion("The Etzion Bloc"), south ofJerusalemwere blockaded by militias from neighbouring villages. The Haganah used a strategy of armed convoys to get supplies to the outposts. The initial convoys to the bloc used open pickup trucks ("tenders"), since the British claimed that armored vehicles would irritate the Arabs. The convoys were accompanied by official mandate police "monitors" (notrim) in uniform.Contents[hide]1 11 December 19472 16 January 19483 27 March 19484 References11 December 1947[edit]Theconvoy of tenwas the first failed attempt using this method. Its four vehicles were ambushed on the main road north of King Solomon's pools on December 11, 1947. Ten of the convoy personnel were killed, four injured and only four escaped unhurt. On December 14 an additional person was killed in another attack on a convoy. The Haganah then decided that henceforth it would use armored "sandwich" vehicles in the convoys.16 January 1948[edit]As an alternative to the Jerusalem road thePalmachattempted to reach the settlements from the west.Thirty-fivemembers of the platoon were massacred when they were attacked by militiamen fromSurif.27 March 1948[edit]TheNeve Danielconvoy refers to a group ambushed on their return to Jerusalem on 27 March 1948The Scotsmannewspaper's correspondentEric Downtondescribed the incident:The first battle ended this evening when British troops rescued the survivors of the Jewish convoy which was trapped near Solomon’s Pools, a mile or so from Bethlehem. Greatly outnumbered, the Jews had fought off constant attacks. They received supplies and assistance from the Jewish planes, which went into action for the first time, attacking and bombing the Arabs and dropping food, water and ammunition to the defenders. Throughout Saturday night Haganah relief forces from Jerusalem tried to break past the Arabs, but the steep, boulder-strewn hills gave cover to the attacking guerrillas, and the relief forces were forced back. A British task force was also compelled to return to Jerusalem on Saturday night after encountering roads heavily mined and obstructed by many blocks. The battle near Bethlehem began on Saturday morning after a convoy of forty trucks with a heavy guard of Haganah troops - men and women - had made a surprise dash from Jerusalem to the isolated Jewish colony Kfar and Zion in the hills eight miles north of Hebron. They delivered their cargo of goods and munitions, but ran into a trap on the return journey. The Arabs had blocked the road with piles of rocks at short intervals, and also laid extensive minefields, while hundreds of guerrillas lay in wait on the steep hillsides. Half the convoy returned to Kfar and Zion, while the remainder tried to plough forward under heavy fire. The Jews made a stand in a large stone house in the valley near Solomon’s Pools, ranging some of their trucks around the building to form a defence perimeter. Armoured cars of the Light Guards with two-pounder guns and troops of the Suffolk Regiment broke through Arab road blocks to the scene of the fighting. Some 200 British troops took up position a mile and a half from the besieged Jews, but did not intervene. The Arabs warned the British if they tried to help the Jews they would be attacked. Meanwhile, British HQ in Jerusalem arranged a truce with Arab leaders. By this means 100 Haganah men and 10 women were rescued from the stone house. The Jews armed with rifles and sten guns, appeared cautiously at the doorway when the British reached the house. The Arab fire stopped, but hundreds of riflemen came from the surrounding hills. They were kept off by the British and the Jews came out and were protected by the British troops. The Jews had been in radio contact with the Jewish Agency in Jerusalem. They were told that the terms of the truce were that arms must be surrendered. At first they refused to give up their arms, but eventually handed them over to the British. The Jews in the besieged house had suffered 50 per cent casualties. Forty-five wounded lay crowded on the floors. There were also the bodies of four dead. The Haganah leader in the house said: ‘We had about ten women among us in the house, but none of them were hurt. Although bullets were whizzing all night long and causing mounting casualties. We had no food, as only seven or eight of our lorries managed to reach the house, and we formed them into a protective barrier. We started out with 35 lorries and 14 armoured cars, and now we are left with seven or eight lorries and about six armoured cars. The rest were wrecked by the Arabs.’ When the rescued Jews were loaded on to army lorries and ambulances there were found to be 210, according to a senior police officer with the army convoy.[1]TheKfar Etzion massacrerefers to a massacre of Jews that took place after a two-day battle in which JewishKibbutzresidents andHaganahmilitia defendedKfar Etzionfrom a combined force of theArab Legionand local Arab men on May 13, 1948, the day before theIsraeli Declaration of Independence. Of the 129 Haganah fighters and Jewish kibbutzniks who died during the defence of the settlement,Martin Gilbertstates that fifteen were murdered on surrendering.[1]Controversy surrounds the responsibility and role of the Arab Legion in the killing of those who surrendered. The official Israeli version maintains that the kibbutz residents and Haganah soldiers were massacred by local Arabs and the Arab Legion of the Jordanian Army as they were surrendering. The Arab Legion version maintains that the Legion arrived too late to prevent the attack on the kibbutz by men from nearby Arab villages, which was allegedly motivated by a desire to revenge themassacre of Deir Yassin, and the destruction of one of their villages several months earlier.[2]The surrendering Jewish residents and fighters are said to have been assembled in a courtyard, only to be suddenly fired upon; it is said that many died on the spot, while most of those who managed to flee were hunted down and killed.[3]Four prisoners survived the massacre and were transferred to Transjordan.[3]Immediately following the surrender on May 13, the kibbutz was looted and razed to the ground.[3]The members of the three other kibbutzim of the Gush Etzion surrendered the next day and were taken asPOWsto Jordan.The bodies of the victims were left unburied until, one and a half years later, the Jordanian government allowedShlomo Gorento collect the remains, which were then interred atMount Herzl. The survivors of the Etzion Bloc were housed in former Arab houses inJaffa.[4]Contents[hide]1 Background2 The Massacre3 Aftermath4 See also5 References5.1 BibliographyBackground[edit]Kfar Etzionwas akibbutzfounded in 1943, for military and agricultural ends,[5]about 2km west ofthe roadbetweenJerusalemandHebron. By the end of 1947, there were 163 adults and 50 children living there. Together with three nearby kibbutzim established 1945-1947, it formedGush Etzion(the Etzion Bloc). According to one member of the settlement, relations were good between settlers and local Arabs, with attendance at each other's weddings, until November 1949.[6]Funeral procession leaving fromJewish Agencybuilding,JerusalemTheUnited Nations partition plan for Palestineof November 29, 1947 placed the bloc, an enclave in a purely Arab area, inside the boundaries of the intended Arab state,[7]where, moreover, Jewish settlement was to be forofferden through a transitional period.[8]For Hebronite Arabs, the bloc constituted an 'alien intrusion' on ground that had been wholly Arab for centuries,' though it had been built on land either purchased by Jews (1928) or acquired by them through a complex circumvention of Mandatory law in 1942.[5]According toHenry Laurens (scholar), Kfar Etzion had started hostilities in the area in December by destroying a local Arab village.[9]On 10 December, a convoy from Bethlehem en route to the Gush Etzion bloc was ambushed and 10 of its 26 passengers and escorts were killed.[5][10]Though on January 5, the children and some women had been evacuated with British assistance, and thoughDavid Shaltielrecommended its evacuation,[5]theHaganah, onYigal Yadin's counsel, decided against withdrawing from the settlements for several reasons: they commanded a strategic position onJerusalem's southern approach from Hebron,[11]and were considered, in the words ofAbdullah Tall, a 'sharp thorn stuck in the heart of a purely Arab area'. Several relief convoys from theHaganahin Jerusalemhad been ambushed.[citation needed]In the months prior to May 15 Haganah militiamen in the bloc's kibbutzim repeatedly fired on Arab civilian, and British traffic, including convoys, moving between Jerusalem and Hebron, under instruction to do so in order to draw and drain Arab forces from the fight for Jerusalem.[12][13]On two occasions, April 12 and May 3, Arab Legion units were ambushed, and several legionnaires killed or wounded[13]by the bloc militias, - Kfar Etzion soldiers being directly involved in the incident on April 12[14]- Arab irregular forces made small-scale attacks against the settlements. An emergencyreinforcement convoyattempting to march to Gush Etzion under cover of darkness was discovered and its members killed by Palestinian Arab forces.[citation needed]Despite some emergency flights by anAusterfrom Jerusalem[5]andPiper Cubsout ofTel Avivonto an improvised airfield,[4]adequate supplies were not getting in.As the end of theBritish Mandatedrew closer, the fighting in the region intensified. Although theArab Legionwas theoretically in Palestine under British command, they began to operate more and more independently. On March 27, land communication with therest of the Yishuvwas severed completely when theNebi Daniel Convoywas ambushed on its return to Jerusalem, and 15 Haganah soldiers died before the remainder were extricated by the British. It was ambushes by the Etzion Bloc militias conducted against Arab Legion units on April 12 and May 4 that, according to a Hanagah analysis, tipped the Legion's policy towards the bloc from one of isolating it to destroying it.[15]On May 4, following the last ambush of a Legion convoy, a joint force of British, Arab Legion and irregular troops launched a major punitive attack on Kfar Etzion. The Haganah abandoned a few outposts but generally resisted, and the attack failed, leaving 12 Haganah soldiers dead,30 wounded, with a similar number of Arab legionnaires killed, and several dozen wounded. Units from the bloc may have attacked Arab traffic the following day, but the failure of the Legion's assault led Hebronites and Legion units to plan a final attack and destroy the Etzion Bloc militarily.[16]The final assault on Kfar Etzion began on May 12. Parts of two Arab Legion companies, assisted by hundreds of local irregulars, had a dozenarmored carsand artillery, to which the Jewish defenders had no effective answer. The commander of Kfar Etzion requested from the Central Command in Jerusalem permission to evacuate the kibbutz, but was ordered to stay. Later in the day, the Arabs captured theRussian Orthodoxmonastery, which the Haganah used as a perimeter fortress for the Kfar Etzion area, killing twenty-four of its thirty-two defenders.On May 13, an attack broke through Kfar Etzion's defences and reached the settlement's centre effectively cutting off the perimeter outposts from each other.[17]The Massacre[edit]Arab LegionMajorAbdullah el Tell(far right) with Captain Hikmat Mihyar (far left) pose with two of the four Jewish survivors of the Fall of Gush Etzion. Around May 13, 1948In the Israeli mainstream version, when the hopelessness of their position became undeniable on May 13, dozens of defenders, thehaverim, of Kfar Etzion laid down their arms and assembled in the courtyard, where they suddenly began to be shot at. Those not slain in the first volleys of fire pushed past the Arabs, and either escaped to hide, or gathered their weapons,[18]and were hunted down.[19]The number of people killed and the perpetrators, the Arab legion or local village irregulars or both, are in dispute. According to one account, the main group of about 50 defenders were surrounded by a large number of Arab irregulars, who shouted "Deir Yassin!" and ordered the Jews to sit down, stand up, and sit down again, when suddenly someone opened fire on the Jews with a machine gun and others joined in the killing. Those Jews not immediately cut down tried to run away but were pursued. According to Meron Benvenisti, hand grenades were thrown into a cellar, killing a group of 50 who were hiding there. The building was blown up.[3]According to other sources, 20 women hiding in a cellar were killed.[20][21]David Ohana writes that 127 Israeli fighters were massacred on the last day.[22]Arab losses during the two day battle, according to a Haganah estimate, numbered 69: 42 irregulars, and 27 legionnaires.[23]A number of Israeli histories of the Kfar Etzion massacre (such as Levi, 1986, Isseroff, 2005) state that the defenders had put out thewhite Flagand lined up to surrender in front of the school building of the German monastery. An Arab version recounts that a white Flag was flown, and drew the Arabs into a trap where they were fired on.[9]Benny Morris cites a Legion officer's statement that the defenders had not formally surrendered, that some resistance continued, with shooting at Arabs, after others had surrendered, that local villagers shot legionnaires trying to defend prisoners, and that legionnaires had to shoot some villagers engaged in the killings.[24]The figure of 127 massacred appears to include both those who surrendered only to be slain, and the defenders who had been killed in battle over 12–13 May.[25]In another account, after the 133 defenders had assembled, they were photographed by a man in akaffiyeh, and then an armored car apparently belonging to theArab Legionopened fire with its machine gun, and then Arab irregulars joined in. A group of defenders managed to crawl into the cellar of the monastery, where they defended themselves until a large number of grenades were thrown into the cellar. The building was then blown up and collapsed on them. About 129 persons died in the battle and its aftermath. Only three of the remaining Kfar Etzion residents and onePalmachmember survived. According to their own testimony, the circumstances of their survival were as follows.Yaacov Edelstein and Yitzhak Ben-Sira tried to hide amongst a jumble of boulders and branches, but they were discovered by a "wrinkled, toothless, old Arab" who told them "Don't be afraid." Then a group of Arab irregulars rushed up and threw them against a wall. The old Arab tried to shield them with his body. As they argued, two Arab Legionnaires came up and took the two Jews under their protection.Nahum Ben-Sira, the brother of Yitzhak, was away from the main group when the massacre started. He hid until nightfall then escaped to a nearby kibbutz.Alisa Feuchtwanger (Palmach) tried to hide in a ditch with several others. They were discovered and all were murdered except Alisa, who was dragged away by several Arab irregulars. As the group were trying to rape her, an Arab Legion officer (Captain Hikmat Mihyar) arrived, shot two of the perpetrators and sent the rest away. Afterwards the officer gave her bread, waited until she finished eating, and said to her (quote) "You are under my protection". She testified that while the officer took her to safety, he shot dead wounded Jews.[26]Both Alisaa and Nahum said that the Legion soldiers actively participated in the Massacre.[26]Names of fallen in Kfar Etzion MemorialA total of 157 defenders died in the battle ofGush Etzion(Levi, 1986), including those killed in the massacre at Kfar Etzion. About 2/3 of them were residents and the remainder were Hagana or Palmach soldiers.On the following day, the Arab irregular forces continued their assault on the remaining three Etzion settlements. Fearing that the defenders might suffer the same fate as those of Kfar Etzion,Zionistleaders in Jerusalem negotiated a deal for the surrender of the settlements on condition that the Arab Legion protected the residents. TheRed Crosstook the wounded to Jerusalem, and the Arab Legion took the remainder as prisoners of war. In March 1949 320 prisoners from the Etzion settlements were released from the "Jordan POW camp atMafrak", including 85 women.[27]Aftermath[edit]On October 28, 1948, the Arab villageal-Dawayimawas conquered by the IDF 89th Commando Battalion. TheAl-Dawayima massacrethen took place, as the villagers were blamed for the Kfar Etzion massacre. Estimates of the number of murdered Arab villagers range from 80–100 to 100–200, depending on the source.[28][29]The bodies of the murdered of Kfar Etzion were left at the site for a year and a half, until in November 1949, the Chief Military Rabbi,Shlomo Gorenwas allowed to collect their bones. They were buried in a full military funeral on November 17 inMount Herzlin Jerusalem. Their communal grave was the first grave in what is today the military cemetery of Mount Herzl.The Etzion Bloc became a symbol of Zionist heroism and martyrdom among Israelis immediately after its fall, and this importance continues. The date of the massacre was enshrined as Israel's Day of Remembrance.The site of the Etzion Bloc was recaptured by Israel during the1967 war. The children who had been evacuated from the Bloc in 1948 led a public campaign for the Bloc to be resettled, and Prime MinisterLevi Eshkolgave his approval. Kfar Etzion was re-established as a kibbutz in September 1967, as the firstIsraeli settlementin theWest Bankafter the war.Netiv HaLamed-Heh(Hebrew:נְתִיב הַל"ה,lit.Path of the 35) is akibbutzin centralIsrael. Located in theValley of Elah, it falls under the jurisdiction ofMateh Yehuda Regional Council. In 2011 it had a population of 564.[1]Contents[hide]1 History2 Notable residents3 References4 External linksHistory[edit]The village was established on 16 August 1949 by demobilised soldiers on land that had belonged to the depopulatedArabvillage ofBayt Nattif.[2]The soldiers had been members of the Daled Company of thePalmach'sHarel Brigade, and was initially namedPeled(an acronym forPlugotDaled, lit.Daled Company). It was later renamed after the 35Haganahsoldiers killed in aconvoy to resupplytheGush Etzionkibbutzim during the1947–48 Civil War(Lamed-Hehis 35 inHebrew numerals).[3]Notable residents[edit]Yiftah Ron-TalYa'akov TzurReferences[edit]Jump up^"Locality File"(XLS).Israel Central Bureau of Statistics. 2011.Jump up^Khalidi, Walid(1992).All That Remains: The Palestinian Villages Occupied and Depopulated by Israel in 1948.Washington D.C.:Institute for Palestine Studies. p.212.ISBN0-88728-224-5.Jump up^Netiv Ha-Lamed-HeJewish Virtual LibraryExactly sixty years ago, on a dark and cold January night, thirty five Israeli Palmach fighters went on a mission to assist the defenders of the besieged Etzion Block. Not one of them returned to tell the story.The details of that dreadful night and following morning were gathered from evidence given by the local Arab farmers, and from the British troops who arrived at the scene when the battle ended.Those of us who have traveled along road number 367 leading from Bet Shemesh to Gush Etzion, might have noticed a semi-circular memorial lookout point, immediately after the road begins its steep ascent up towards the Gush. This is the memorial for the 35 men of the “Mountain Platoon” who were sent on the night of January 15th 1948 by the Hagana headquarters in Jerusalem, to deliver supplies and ammunition to the residents of the Etzion Block.The Gush had been under siege for several months, the only paved road connecting the Gush to Jerusalem was blockaded by three Arab towns and hundreds of Arab villagers , and the only way to send supplies was by carrying them on the backs of young men, at night , bypassing the hostile villages through the steep slopes of the Judean mountains.Thirty eight young men, under the command of Danny Mass, left the outpost of Hartuv each carrying 100 pounds of supplies on their backs. Colonel Mass was chosen as he was the former commander of the Gush, and well acquainted with the terrain. The plan was to walk quietly through the night, bypass all the Arab villages on the way, and arrive at the Gush which was located twenty miles up the mountain, by dawn.But things did not work as planned. Immediately after leaving the outpost, a detour was needed to bypass the British police fort safely, then one man sprained his ankle, and two others accompanied him back to Hartuv. The remaining thirty-five started to ascend and were slowed down by the strenuous terrain, the steep mountains and the heavy weights on their backs.Before dawn they ran into two Arab women who were out gathering wood for fuel, the commander Danny Mass spared their lives, and perhaps they were the ones who delivered the news to the Arabs that a military unit was marching in the hills headed for the Gush.By sunrise, the platoon was surrounded by hundreds of armed Arab villagers. Danny Mass and his men climbed a small hill and tried to hold them off. More and more villagers joined the Arab mob. The fierce battle ended later that afternoon. All the thirty-five men were massacred, their bodies dishonored, and all the equipment and ammunition was looted.The terrible news reached the Hagana headquarters later that night, but there were no men to send. The British officer from the Hebron station supervised the gathering of the bodies. He had to pay Arab villagers to carry the bodies on their mules to the closest road. Twelve of the bodies could not be identified. All the thirty-five were buried in a temporary common grave in the Gush cemetery.The Yishuv, (The Jewish population in Israel before statehood) was in shock, not only was the Gush still under siege, but we had lost thirty-five of our very best men. Rumors about the terrible fate of the men spread all over Israel and abroad. The young Palmach poet, Chaim Gury who was then on a mission in Europe, wrote the famous poem- Hiney Mutalot Gufoteinu “Here lay our bodies….”Three further attempts to break the siege of the Gush were undertaken, but none succeeded. On May 1948, the fighters from the four Kibbutzim in the Etzion Block surrendered, and were taken captive by the Jordanian legion.One of the young men of the Lamed Hey was Tuvya Kushnir. Tuvya was a talented biology student from The Hebrew University and was also a Hagana volunteer and a member of the “Mountain Platoon” and as many young men during these times, devoted his time to both.By the age of 24 Tuvya had already achieved an honor many scholars never reach all their lives. An endemic rare Israeli wild flower is named after him. In one of his excursions in the Judean Desert before the war, Tuvya discovered a unique species of Crocus. After researching in Israel, and sending the specimen to major labs around the world it was agreed that this Crocus was indeed a new species for science. And as it was first revealed and identified by the young student, it should bare his name.The “Colchicum Tuviae” or the “Tuvya Crocus” is a gentle and delicate winter flower, that can be found only in the Judean dessert, the Negev and Sinai. It sprouts every November, and blossoms until February.The tragedy of the Lamed Hey was a great loss for the young Jewish state. After the war the bodies were transferred to mount Herzl, and were reburied in a special section for the Gush Etztion warriors.In 1949 a kibbutz was established south of Bet Shemesh, Kibbutz Netiv Ha Lamed Hey – “The route of the thirty five”, and in the summer of 1967, after the Six Day War ended, the former residents of the Gush returned to their land and homes and were able to once again rebuild one of the most beautiful, flourishing and exciting communities in Israel – The Etzion BlockThe loss of the thirty-five is commemorated in many ways: by the rebuilding of the Gush, by many songs and poems, some towns have streets named after them, and of course the Kibbutz. But for me the memory will always be through this little flower, bearing the name of this young man. Each year it will break through the hard dry crust of the desert and remind me of Tuvya and his friends, the Lamed Hey.Remembering the heroic saga of Gush Etzion, and the Lamed HehJANUARY 17, 2013, 7:29 AM12EmailPrintShareBLOGGERRobert WerdineRobert Werdine lives in Michigan City, Indiana, USA. He studied at Indiana University, Purdue University, and Christ Church College at…[More]Follow or contact:RSSBLOGS EDITOREmailMORE IN THIS BLOGThe Clear and Present Danger of a Trump PresidencyObama, the Crusades, and moral equivalenceFive years later: Operation Cast Lead and the Goldstone Report, revisitedThe Stranger Beside John Kerry: Palestinian RejectionismWhen Soldiers Kill: A MeditationThe days following the partition vote of November 29, 1947 found the folk of Gush Etzion in celebration leavened with sorrow. The diaries of those inside the bloc tell the story:Get The Times of Israel's Daily Edition by emailand never miss our top storiesFREE SIGN UP!“There is the sound of rejoicing and salvation among the hosts of Israel. The dream of many generations is being realized before our eyes. The State of Israel will soon become a reality, transforming the very foundations of our life in this country and our standing among the nations of the world…About midnight we heard the first news of how the voting had gone. A wave of joy swept through the village. We sang songs of rejoicing on the surrounding hillsides and danced in the farmyard…”And,“There is rejoicing in our hearts, but our joy is not complete. Our kibbutz is one of more than thirty Jewish settlements which have not been included in the borders of the Jewish state which is to arise…The painful partition of the Land causes every faithful Jew to feel a sense of distress in his heart. Jerusalem, the capital city of the Land of Israel, which has through the generations been the object of the yearnings and hopes of Israel, remains outside the borders…Nevertheless, we will not forget Jerusalem, nor Hebron nor Shechem nor hundreds of other Biblical sites that must be redeemed.”Zipporah Porath, a Jewish-American student who came in the fall of 1947 to study at the Hebrew University, wrote home to her parents about her visit to Etzion Bloc in October 1947:“About my tour to Gush Etzion. I went with G.I. Dov and Oded, a Sabra who lives in our student house and goes out of his way to bring the Americans closer to what he calls the real Eretz Yisrael [Land of Israel]. Oded, who served as our guide, joined the group when it went on hityashvut [settlement on the land] and was able to point out what had been accomplished in the two months since he had been there….The only problem is that they are smack in the heart of Arab territory. So what sense of security can there be?”Indeed. Situated south of the City of David (Jerusalem), north of the City of the Patriarchs (Hebron), east of the Valley of Elah, and west of the Judean Desert, the settlement had seen two previously unsuccessful attempts to put down communal roots, in 1927 and 1935, both aborted in the face of Arab violence. A third attempt in 1943 to settle Kfar Etzion took hold, the young pioneers persisting in the face of the harsh Environment, scarcity of resources, and Arab hostility. In time, the neighboring kibbutzim of Massuot Yitzchak, named in honor of the chief Rabbi Yitzchak Herzog, and those of Revadim and Ein Tzurim were established nearby, populating the bloc to some 470 at the time of the partition vote in late 1947, which placed them outside the Jewish state.In the days following the vote, the Arabs had already begun to lay siege to the bloc, on December 11 successfully ambushing a four-vehicle supply convoy in which ten of the bloc’s defenders were killed. Among the 10 were one of Kfar Etzion’s founding fathers, Shalom Karniel, formerly the famous leader of the Hashomer Hadati youth movement in Krakow, Poland. Just a few days earlier he had written,“Our homeland is the value without which we can expect ruin and constant degradation – we, in the land of our forefathers, and all the more so, our millions of brothers in the Diaspora who cry out for the Redemption.”Gush Etzion wept, and buried her slain. So read a Kfar Etzion diary:“Mourning. The sound of weeping is heard in the settlement. Two of our children have lost their fathers. Kfar Etzion’s first orphans…Psalms were recited. The grave diggers had performed their task. At evening we laid our fellow-members to rest. We hurried to wash before the Sabbath. The glow of the Sabbath candles and the knowledge that it was Hanukka seemed to lessen our grief a little…”Yet the bloc’s defenders defiantly banished all thought of withdrawal, and spent their time gearing for battle. Charismatic Palmach commander Danny Mas had been dispatched from Jerusalem to lead and organize the bloc’s defenses, and he attended these with his customary flair and attention to detail. On January 5, in anticipation of further hostilities, all mothers and children were evacuated from the bloc, leaving one defender to note:“The departure of the mothers and children has left an aching void in the village. The family quarters are sad. Everything recalls the life of the families that have now been rent in two…Kfar Etzion, humming with activity, thriving with its stone buildings, its gardens, now has the appearance of a fortified military camp”On January 8,1948 Mass was given a new command in Jerusalem, and was replaced by by Uzi Narkiss. On January 14, the long-awaited Arab assault was launched in earnest. It was led by the famed Palestinian war-chief Abd al-Qader al-Husayni, Jerusalem front commander of the Jaysh al-Jihad al-Muqaddas (“Army of the Holy War”), the Mufti’s primary proxy-army in Palestine. It was to consist of a 400 man assault against Kfar Etzion supplemented with simultaneous attacks on Masuot-Yitzhak and Ein Zurim, with 300 troops allotted to attack each kibbutz, and the attackers outnumbering the defenders by about seven or eight to one. It was to be the largest Arab attack on a Jewish settlement to date, the attackers oozing confidence, and bringing along hundreds of empty bags for the anticipated loot.Etzion Bloc was completely isolated. They had no route of retreat, and defeat would have meant the forfeiting of the settlement and their lives as well; such grim knowledge weighed on the shoulders of every defender. At Kfar Etzion, the Palmach defenders took up positions along the flanks of the attack routes on the very rim of the settlement–thus allowing the attackers to come dangerously close before opening fire.The attackers, confident that they had caught the settlement unawares, mobbed ever closer to the entrance shouting “allahu akbar.” A mere thirty yards from the gates of the settlement, a Palmach sniper nabbed the leader of the assault as expertly as a pool shark sinks an eight-ball in a corner pocket; this had the virtue of halting the momentum of the assault while the attackers paused to reflect upon their new-found danger. The teams of Palmach defenders, taking their cue, now opened up on the vanguard of startled attackers with everything they had, throwing them into fearful confusion. The first wave of the attack now fell back in disarray, and the second wave, inheriting the confusion of the first, met a similar fate. By nightfall, the Arab attack of 400 had been contained by a few Palmach squads numbering no more than thirty meagerly armed defenders.The situation in the other two settlements told a similar story. In each instance the Arab attackers got within striking distance only to be ambushed by the defenders, who placed their Palmach squads at wide intervals to bluff the attackers into thinking that they were far more numerous than they were. It worked; at first fire the Arabs, thinking they were about to be surrounded and cut to pieces, took to their heels and legged it back down to the plain, leaving some 150 dead behind them and a similar number of wounded. The defenders reckoned a loss of three of their own. By bluff and guile, combined with expert timing and marksmanship, the defenders had outfought their attackers to a wildly disproportionate casualty exchange ratio. And saved Gush Etzion. The few defeating the many; would that Orde Wingate had lived to see this magnificent feat of arms at Gush Etzion. He would have liked that one.The aftermath of the battle found the defenders victorious but exhausted of supplies and ammo. As all paved roads connecting the Gush to Jerusalem were blocked by armed gangs of Arabs and villagers, the only way to get the needed supplies in for now was to move them on foot with backpacks through the night circumventing British police posts and hostile Arab villages trekking through the steep slopes of the Judean hills.Colonel Danny Mas, former commander of the Gush, set out from Hartuv at night with a platoon of 38 to resupply the settlement. Two soldiers accompanied a third wounded man back to base, leaving thirty-five to continue the journey. Harsh terrain and the steep slopes combined with the heavy weights on their backs to slow the advance. By 6 am, the group stumbled upon two Arab women gathering firewood; the women, it is assumed, informed on the platoon to an Arab commander at Kafir Tsurif, who them set out with a contingent of troops to engage them.As the Arabs approached, Mas ordered his men to hide among the boulders, thus rendering them invisible to the Jewish spotter plane trying to locate them. Betrayed by the daylight, a mob of 2000 Arab soldiers and villagers fell upon them with unchecked fury. The platoon resisted to the last bullet, all killed, their bodies looted and cruelly dishonored beyond recognition.The tragedy shook the confidence of the Yishuv all throughout the land, and cast a dark shadow over the spirits of the Gush, whose isolation was brought home to them more forcibly than ever. The loss of Mas hit the bloc particularly hard, for he was beloved by all. As Uzi Narkiss, the Gush’s head commander later wrote,“After the funeral, the isolation was emphasized and clarified in all its starkness. With lowered heads and heavy hearts, we felt that we had lost live contact with Jerusalem, and our loneliness was underlined in all its cruelty.”Zipporah Porath wrote her parents on January 19, 1948 of the loss of her two friends among the thirty-five,“Jerusalem’s face was sad today. It isn’t easy to accept the fact of death, and even harder when you know personally many of those who died. But thirty-five boys is heartbreaking, all young wonderful people. I can imagine that the death of Moshe Pearlstein from New York, my friend Marsha’s brother, must have created a wave of shock. The first American to be killed here. The American group here is very grieved. Moshe was a great guy.Oded was also among the dead. You remember I mentioned him in earlier letters. He was one of the first sabras to befriend me. In fact, when I first arrived he took me on an excursion to that very area and hiked me over those hills to visit the kibbutzim in Gush Etzion so I would learn to love the land as he did. Just before he left for this assignment he came to say “hello” and we talked at length as always…”What the loss of theLamed Hehreally cost the the Yishuv was, in the truest sense, imponderable–the laughter unheard, songs unsung, poetry never written, the sons that were never born, and all the valor so cruelly cut down in the flower of youth. Like the five American Sullivan brothers who volunteered for service, and perished together when their ship sank in the Pacific during World War two, theLamed Hehbecame a symbol to the Yishuv and the Haganah for the “purity of arms” that was to become the guiding ethos of the future IDF, David Ben Gurion noting that he did not know “if there was in the Israel Defense Forces or in any army in the world, a platoon of such magnificence of humanity, heroism, innocence and richness of soul as was this platoon.” He believed that the platoon should not be commemorated only with stone monuments, but rather “in the true and ongoing will to be as much like them as possible.”***The epilogue to the tragic saga of Gush Etzion is soon told. After continuing to bravely resist for four more months, Gush Etzion, hopelessly surrounded and starved of arms and supplies, finally fell to an all-out assault by Jordan’s well-trained Arab Legion on May 14, 1948. (This second battle of the Gush was the subject of one of my first articles here at the TOI. It can be accessedhere.) After slaughtering all but four of the 133 prisoners, the local Arab militiamen and Legionaires looted and razed all of the houses and buildings of Kfar Etzion, as they were to do to the other three settlements of the Bloc, “leaving not one stone upon another,” so said a local commander, “to prevent the Jews’ return to the bloc.”But Gush Etzion remains. Reclaimed in the aftermath of the 1967 victory, rebuilt and lovingly nurtured back to health, it is today the jewel in the Path of the Patriarchs.I have never visited Gush Etzion. But I know it. Though far away, I am there, and I see its indomitable spirit as clearly as if it were before me.I see it in the faces of the pioneers who were drawn irresistibly, in the face of every hardship, to settle and resettle this stretch of land, I see it in the bloc’s intrepid defenders, who by guile and sheerélanoutfought and resisted their far more numerous attackers long after reason would have dictated a withdrawal or surrender. I see it in the sacrifice of theLamed Heh, and in those settlers who, when restored to the land by providence, re-planted the seeds of life in the land ‘round the Lone Tree, and made it bloom and bustle again. And yes, I even see it in the blog posts of TOI bloggers like Varda Epstein and Zahava Englard, who plunge into controversy spiritedly and unafraid of censure, and whose pronouncements proudly defending the land they and their families inhabit stand as a rebuke to all those who would call this “occupied” land.***Apollsome years ago found that some 50% of Israeli adults and some 65% of young adults had never heard of theLamed heh. This is sad. This was also lamented by the surviving relatives of the fallen platoon on the 60th anniversary of the tragedy in 2008 in anarticle in Ha’aretz.“It’s hard to find signs any more of the kind of spirit the fighters of that time had,” said Schlomo Doron, whose brother Alexander Lustig was in the platoon, and who attended the funeral of the Lamed Heh both at Gush Etzion and when they were reinterred at Mount Herzl.But he nonetheless saw reason for consolation. “My comfort,” Doron said, “is the existence of the State of Israel, for which theLamed Hehgave their lives, and in my son, who bears my brother’s name.”