The Battle of Beer Sheba by Batsheva Pomerantz
The crucial Battle of Beer Sheba in October 1917, the intelligence officer
responsible for its success, and the memory of three Jews all come together in a
fast-paced historical fiction.
Although the battlefront was mainly in Europe, World War One wreaked havoc on
the nascent Yishuv (Jewish community) in Palestine under Turkish rule. Turkey
had joined up with the Germany to fight the Allied forces.
The Jews in the agriculture-based settlements, settled by pioneers of the
first and second aliyot, suffered from deteriorating economic conditions as well
as persecutions. They were heavily taxed to support the Turkish army. Contact
with Europe was disrupted, so fruit export decreased. European Jewish
communities weren't able to send funds and necessary items to their brothers in
Palestine. Jewish settlers, who were citizens of countries like Russia were
forced to leave Palestine or enlist in the Turkish army.
Meanwhile, the British wanted to rule the strategically located country which
links together three continents. Capture of Palestine would mean continuous
British rule until India, thus fortifying the British political position.
While the official Zionist leadership tried to maintain neutrality between
the warring blocs, some Jews hoped the British would capture Palestine from the
Turks. They saw this as a step to gaining political clout for building a Jewish
state. Some formed a spy ring, the NILI, to expedite and assist the British
invasion. Others like Dr. Haim Weizmann, destined to be Israel's first
president, conducted negotiations with British leaders, which led to the Balfour
Declaration.
These historical facts to the book "The Colonel's Team: A Tale of World
War I", by Jay Shapiro, form the background for the plot, also based on
fact.
British General Edmund Allenby's wish to have Jerusalem captured by December
1917 depended on entering Palestine from the southern front. A successful
military triumph would enhance the British army after its painful failures in
the Western Front in Europe and at Gallipoli in Turkey.
Like all generals, Allenby relied heavily on his intelligence unit to collect
information about the position of the enemy's troops.
The head of military intelligence in Cairo was Col. Richard Meinertzhagen. A
career intelligence officer during the peak of the British Empire, he was one of
the few British officials to sincerely believe that the Jewish people needed a
homeland in the land of Israel. He witnessed on his 32nd birthday in 1910 a
pogrom against defenseless Jews in Odessa, Russia, deeply impressing upon him
the Jewish need for a homeland in Palestine.
After the British entry through coastal Gaza had failed twice, Meinertzhagen
and Allenby planned to feign another attack from Gaza, while at the same time
actually attacking from inland Beer Sheba. Meinertzhagen successfully planted a
ruse that the attack would again take place in Gaza. The Germans (who assisted
the Turks) bought the ruse.
Today Beer Sheba, the capital of the Negev in southern Israel, is a sprawling
city with commercial centers, a prestigious academic institution and broad
boulevards. Back in 1917, Beer Sheba was a muddy, drab village at the very edge
of the collapsing Turkish Empire.
On October 31, 1917, various divisions attacked Beer Sheba from different
directions. Finally, the Australian Light Horse Brigade, which suffered
tremendous losses in Galipoli, charged the entrenched Turks with all their
might. In addition to possible defeat, they faced a major catastrophe - their
beloved horses would probably die from a lack of water. Victory in this crucial
battle enabled General Allenby to fulfill his wish - to enter Jerusalem by
December.
We must fast-forward seventy years to find out why Jay Shapiro, a retired
consultant for the Israeli Aircraft Industries researched and wrote the book.
In 1987, the dog of American oleh Shapiro was quarantined for biting a child.
Shapiro went to get the dog from quarantine in Ramle (central Israel), only to
be told to return another day. With spare time on his hands, Jay visited the
nearby British Military Cemetery, one of 23,000 throughout the world for the
1,700,000 British soldiers who fell overseas fighting for their country.
In the sections from both World Wars, the rows of graves of Jewish soldiers
have tombstones marked with Stars of David. Jay noticed that the tombstone of
Private Gershon Finklestein, in the Jewish row of the World War One section, was
marked with a cross.
Jay then notified the British Commonwealth War Graves Commission to find out
why a tombstone in the Jewish section was marked with a cross. Finklestein was
originally registered as a Jew in their records. However, according to
procedure, the British had tried after his death to contact his family and find
out what to put on the grave. The request went unanswered, so he was buried
under a cross, the default marker.
Upon learning this, over seventy years after Finklestein's death, Jay
recommended that the cross be replaced with a Star of David. The British
complied with this request.
Every year, Jay marks Finklestein's yarzheit (date of death) with lighting a
candle and saying Kaddish. Coincidentally, the yarzheit is the same Hebrew date
as the wedding anniversary of Jay and his wife Naomi. The date is also close to
Armistice Day, marking the end of WWI.
Some years later, Jay set out to write a historical fiction, whose plot
revolved around Gershon Finklestein and two French Jewish soldiers, Henri
Valabregue and Louis Naquet. Jay learned about these soldiers, who fell in World
War I, during a visit to Avignon, in Provence, France. In medieval times, Jewish
scholarship flourished in Provence.
The result of Shapiro's research and writing is the fascinating book
"The Colonel's Team: A Tale of World War I", which highlights the Beer
Sheba battle, an overlooked chapter in the creation of a state for the Jews. The
book was published last year.
In the book, the team of Col. Meinertzhagen included the three Jewish
soldiers, Finklestein, Valabregue and Naquet, and their driver Pierre, who meet
in Cairo for their assignments. They meet up with the influential da Silva
family, based on a true family of Spanish Jewish descent.
Thus Shapiro breathed life into these soldiers, while presenting the
arguments prevalent in the world and among Jewish circles those days regarding
the Jewish right to settle in Palestine. The reader should remember that while
these soldiers were real personalities, their characters and actions are fiction
developed by the author. The research into Meinertzhagen was based on books and
his diaries.
According to Shapiro, if General Allenby had lost this battle, in most
probability, the history of the region, the return of Jews to Palestine and
today's geopolitical situation would have been completely different.
Eliezer (Laizy) Shapiro, Jay's son, is a filmmaker, graduate of Jerusalem's
Ma'ale School of Television, Film and the Arts, which teaches the skills and art
of filmmaking to religious students. He produced and directed the award-winning
film "Saving Private Finklestein" as his graduate project.
Laizy documented his father's quest to find out about Finklestein. The film
depicts Jay's investigating the soldier's identity, changing the cross to a Star
of David, and memorializing Finklestein.
After writing the book and during production of the film, the Shapiros found
out that the real Gershon Finklestein was from Leeds, England. They even located
his relatives in Seattle, Washington, from whom they received a photograph of
Gershon in uniform. The Shapiros are still in touch with the American relatives.
Apparently, Gershon's family had gone to the United States some time before
his death. Unable to locate his family to notify them of his death and request
an appropriate marker for the tombstone, the British placed a cross on his grave
Meinertzhagen, who died in 1967, one week after the Six Day War, became a
voluntary advisor to the heads of the Zionist movement and argued their cause
before statesmen like Balfour and Churchill. He met with Hitler twice during the
1930's and pleaded for the Jews, to no avail. In the late 1940's, when the UN
voted for the partition of Palestine and the creation of an independent Jewish
sovereignty, Chaim Weizmann, sent him the following in a telegram: "To you
our dear friend we owe so much…"
As he wrote in his diary while head of Military Intelligence in Cairo: "…The
world is certainly too anti-Semitic and too suspicious of Jewish brains and
money. In any case, I find myself alone out here, among gentiles, in upholding
Zionism…"
While Col. Richard Meinertzhagen is a mere footnote in British history books,
in Shapiro's book his wit and courage for the Jewish people shine through.
To find out more information about "The Colonel's Team: A Tale of World
War 1," contact the author, Jay Shapiro, at e-mail: Jayerno@netvision.net.il.
