NATHAN STRAUS AND FAMILY

Nathan Straus

American Jews, in the beginning dominated by the Sephardim, have maintained a connection to the Land of Israel since the mid 18^th century and through America’s early years. Then when the German Jewish community became dominant in the mid 19^th century, this connection continued.

Another aspect that both groups had in common was slavery. Jewish participation in the slave trade was miniscule, but that didn’t mean that no Jew participated in some aspect of it. There were German Jews, as well as Sephardi Jews who had slaves. Some were hypocrites – they opposed slavery even though they themselves were participants. Among this group was Lazarus Straus, a merchant and patriarch of the wealthy Straus family who came over from Germany and settled in the town of Talbotton GA. When the Southern states voted to secede from the Union, he refused to vote for secession. During the Civil War, Jews had experienced anti-Semitism in both the Union and the Confederacy, and even though Jews fought loyally on both sides, they still suffered accordingly. Because of this, the Straus family eventually had to leave Talbotton in 1863 and they settled in Columbus, about 35 miles to the west. After the Civil War, because of the financial ruin of the south, the family settled in New York where they engaged in business investments and enterprises. In 1888, Lazarus, including his sons Isidor and Nathan, acquired a general partnership with Macy’s Department Store. Five years later, they bought a dominant interest in the Wechsler & Abraham store and changed its name to Abraham & Straus. Eventually, Macy’s and Abraham & Straus merged into 1 entity – Macy’s, which later became owner of Bloomingdale’s. These business dealings made the family very rich which allowed Nathan to embark on philanthropic activities. Among these activities, assisting Jews in the ancestral homeland was not a very high priority but upon touring the Mediterranean with his wife Lina in 1904, the couple made a stop in Palestine, expecting it to be but one stop of many. But the country made such a deep impression on them, especially as Jews, that he and his wife decided to focus their philanthropic activities there. During the period 1912 to 1917, Nathan set about building soup kitchens for the aged and the blind and the physically disabled. He supported workrooms so that unskilled laborers could find employment. He built health stations that ministered to the victims of malaria and trachoma. But in the midst of all this, fate intervened. On a visit to Israel in 1912, he had intended to later join his brother Isidor and his wife on the RMS Titanic. But while in Israel, he broke his leg and couldn’t join him.

In 1927, he provided $250,000 for the establishment of the Nathan and Lina Straus Health Center in Jerusalem for the Hadassah Hospital, which opened 2 years later, and also made possible the founding of a local branch of the Pasteur Institute. In 1929, the city of Netanya, established to the north of Tel Aviv, was named in his honor. Rehov Straus in Jerusalem, which was Chancellor Avenue during the British Mandate, was also named for him. Nathan Straus had lived 2 more years to enjoy the legacy he left behind but died in New York in 1931 at the age of 82.

MEDIEVAL SPAIN PT. II, FROM ABRAHAM BAR HIYYA TO ABRAHAM IBN EZRA AND BEYOND

This posting is a continuation of the series of the Jews of medieval Spain and their connections to the ancestral homeland. In this article, we focus on the period from the latter 11^th century to the latter 12^th century (and a little after).

Although much of Spain had been ruled by Muslims since their conquest of the area in 711, a small part of the Iberian Peninsula was ruled by Christians. In the north, there was the Christian Kingdom of Aragon, created sometime in the late 10^th/early 11^th century. Its two major cities was Valencia and Barcelona, capital of the Principality of Catalonia. Before the beginning of the Crusader Period (1099), there was a brisk correspondence between the rabbis of Israel and those of Muslim and Christian Spain. When the Crusader Wars broke out, all such correspondences ceased. But Spanish Jews, as with many other Diaspora communities, still managed to maintain connections, of varying degrees, to the Homeland.

Abraham bar Hiyya

Abraham bar Ḥiyya ha-Nasi, a Catalan Jewish mathematician, astronomer and philosopher, was born in Barcelona in 1070, and died in 1136 or 1145 (the records aren’t very clear) in Narbonne in, what is today, the south of France, but at the time, a part of the Kingdom of Aragon. Many of his writings were written in Hebrew and he would often reference the Biblical text. Always concerning himself with Jewish affairs in the Land of Israel, he would often receive news of their situation. No doubt the Crusader rule and the resulting wars with the former Muslim rulers, and their disastrous effects on the Jews were foremost in his mind. It was at this time that Jewish messianic expectations, both in Israel and the Diaspora, were very strong and predictions and yearnings for the coming of the Messiah, who would defeat Israel’s enemies and finally gather the exiles back to their homeland, was constant. Bar Hiyya, himself, was no exception to this line of thinking. In one of his astrological works, “Megilat haMegaleh”, by way of scientific calculations, he predicted the coming of the Messiah would occur in 1358 – two centuries after his lifetime. Toward the end of his life, the news he received from Israel, and Jerusalem specifically, was apparently contradictory. Then, as now, messengers of news were not very reliable, especially given the fact that there were very few notices of Jews living in Jerusalem during this period, prompting bar Hiyya to conclude that in his day, no Jew lived there. Yet there must have been some there, as the street in which they lived was called "Judairia" in contemporary Latin documents.  

Abraham ibn Daud

Meanwhile, many of the most renowned Spanish Jews either visited Israel and wrote of their experiences, or moved there in order to die on its holy soil such as the philosopher/rabbi of Saragossa, Bahya ibn Paquda who died in 1120. The historian Abraham ibn Daud from the city of Cordoba in Muslim Spain, was a contemporary of Abraham bar Hiyya, and like bar Hiyya, he often received news and information on the affairs of the Jews in the Homeland. It is not clear if he actually visited the Land of Israel or just received information from those travelers who did, but in c. 1137, he had informed his co-religionists in Spain, that the Jews of Jerusalem would assemble in their synagogue, and also would engage in the ancient custom of gathering on the Mount of Olives with Jews from other places, on the festivals of Sukkot and Hosha'na Rabbah. He adds that the "Minim", the Karaites, were in tents opposite the other Jews.

About the year 1140, one of the greatest poets of the time, Judah ha-Levi visited Jerusalem and was inspired to compose his "Zionide" before its walls. According to tradition, he was killed by an Arab horseman while at prayer at the Western Wall. 

Mainomides

In 1148, the Almohad Caliphate expanded their North African domains and conquered Muslim Spain. They were not particularly friendly to Jews and an intense period of persecution set in. For this reason, a prominent rabbinic authority, Maimon, along with his sons David, and Moshe otherwise known as the RamBam or, more popularly, Maimonides, was forced to leave, eventually settling in Morocco. But Morocco was also under Almohad rule. Consequently, they experienced the same type of persecution as in Spain, and in 1165, the family made their way to Israel, arriving at Acre which had become a major Jewish center. Their arrival in Israel was thereafter designated, a family festival, to be observed for all time, by them and their descendants. The family remained in Acre for some five months, striking up an intimate friendship there with the dayyan Japheth b. Ali. Together with him they made a tour of the Holy Land, including a visit to Jerusalem. "I entered the site of the Great and Holy House and prayed there on Thursday the 6^th day of Marḥeshvan." Three days later they paid a visit to the Cave of Machpelah in Hebron. The days on which these two visits occurred, were, as well, designated as family festivals. Eventually, the family left Israel and sailed for Egypt, settling in Cairo and taking up residence in Fostat, the Old City of Cairo. It was here that Maimonides became a highly-respected physician and scholar of Jewish law. Eventually, he served as court physician to the ruling Ayyubid dynasty during which time, in 1187, the Sultan Saladin gained a military victory over the Crusaders in the Land of Israel. Afterwards, Saladin issued a decree for Jews to return to their ancient capital. Maimonides died in Egypt in 1204 and his body was brought to Tiberias for burial.  

Rabbi Avraham Ibn Ezra was known as one of the greatest of Bible commentators, philosopher and poet of sharp wit. He lived most of his life in Spain, but at the end of his life it is known that he immigrated to the land of Israel where he died. He was buried in the holy city of Tzfat. Since the death of ibn Ezra, Jewish travelers from Spain continued to visit Israel and write of their experiences. Two of the most prominent of these were Rabbi Binyamin ben Yonah, better known as Benjamin of Tudela, and Rabbi Yehuda al Harizi who came from Toledo. This close relationship between the Jews of Spain and the Land of Israel was to last until the 16^th century – after the expulsion of 1492 when the remaining Jews were forced into Christianity but very secretly, kept their Jewish traditions.

MODERN HEBRON

As the war against Hamas rages on in Gaza, so has Arab terrorism continued both within and from Judea and Samaria. In response, the army is often forced to conduct raids into the various Arab settlements throughout the area and in the process, soldiers are discovering hidden weapons caches, tunnels, etc., in residential, medical, and educational areas, just as in Gaza. Among these settlements raided is the Arab settlement in the Jewish holy city of Hebron. On November 16, a group of terrorists, two of which were from Hebron and who were affiliated with Hamas, carried out a terror attack at the Tunnels Checkpoint south of Jerusalem in which IDF soldier Corporal Avraham Fetena was killed. On January 18, soldiers, in pursuit of the terrorists, went into the settlement in Hebron and found many weapons and Hamas flags in their homes. On the 21^st, IDF reservists, and engineering and local Border Police forces destroyed the terrorists’ homes.

For a brief history of the holy city of Hebron, you have several choices. You can click here, here, here, here, or here.

MODERN SHILOH

Before the Hamas atrocities on October 7^th, the Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria were often victims of Arab terrorism and many were killed as a result. This did not stop after the events of the 7^th. There are still car and knife attacks, and stones are still thrown at Israeli motorists, putting people’s lives in danger. The people of the Jewish town of Shiloh, for example, have suffered its own fair share of terrorism over the years (though not necessarily in the town itself), and some have also made the ultimate sacrifice in defending the country. One such tragedy occurred on November 4^th when local resident Staff Sgt. Gilad Nehemya Nitzan of the Givati Brigade, was killed in battle in northern Gaza. He was 21. In reaction to this and the other terrorist attacks in the area, neighbors of the soldier blocked Arab traffic on the roads in the area to demand greater security from the government.

On December 17^th, a reserve IDF officer was injured during a stabbing attack at the gas station close to the Rantis checkpoint. Fortunately, the terrorist was wounded, and later apprehended by IDF forces. The perpetrator, Rami Hamza Belot, an Arab settler from Rantis, was also affiliated with Hamas. The Arab settlement of Rantis lies approximately 27 miles to the west of Shiloh but some of the Arab settlers had work permits to work there.

For a short history of Shiloh, please click here. 

THE AMERICAN JEWISH/ISRAEL CONNECTION

 

Historically, there has been no greater a friend of Israel than the United States. And this was made perfectly clear with recent events when President Biden publicly stood in solidarity with Israel, as did his predecessor President Trump. The two countries had never been in a state of war, or armed conflict, and Israel has never provoked the United States to have sanctions placed on it.

Even though the US has historically been plagued by anti-Semitism as with many other countries around the world, the American Jewish community has always been the largest (today, the second largest after Israel) in the world, as well as the most prosperous and influential. Not so surprising considering that the Jewish community in America has been in existence for over 450 years and has never suffered from pogroms or expulsions (although there has been some local attempts a couple of times during this entire period). In addition, the Jewish connection to their ancestral homeland was not much different than that of other Diaspora communities, and it’s this connection that this posting will focus on.

There is a legend that many of the Native American peoples are descended from the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel – the Chumash, for example, who inhabited the area in and around, what is today, Los Angeles. Is it possible that this tribe was named after the Five Books of Moses? Are they, and other such tribes, among those who are descended from the ancient Israelites?

But in order to begin with a definite beginning of a Jewish community on American soil, we would have to go back to the year 1654 when a group of Portuguese “New Christians” from Brazil arrived in New Amsterdam, later New York, and sought to establish a community. They were refugees who were fleeing the inquisition that had just been established in Brazil, but the then governor of New Amsterdam, Peter Stuyvesant, wasn’t very enthusiastic about having them. The problem was solved only with the intervention of the Dutch government and thus, the American Jewish community was established. In the first half of the 17^th century, halukkah activity was very brisk in Brazil until the inquisition stopped all that. The “New Christian” refugees, now settled in New Amsterdam, decided it would be better to wait before reestablishing a halukkah system in their new homes. Eventually, they were able to return to Judaism and in the same year as their settlement, established the first congregation, the Spanish/Portuguese Shearith Yisrael (which still exists), as well as other Jewish institutions. At the same time, they quickly adapted themselves to the freedoms of the new and burgeoning American society – as long as they weren’t black or red. In 1759, the local halukkah system was established with the visit of Rabbi Moshe Malkhi of Safed to Shearith Yisrael. The following year, Rabbi Malkhi arrived in Newport RI, one of the main mercantile centers in North America, and visited the Yeshuat Yisrael Synagogue. But it was New York that became the center of Halukkah from North America. Other halukkah centers were later established in Newport and Philadelphia.     

Rabbi Raphael Carigal

Mordecai Manuel Noah

Rabbi Malkhi was followed by Rabbi Raphael Carigal of Hebron who visited twice in 1771 and 1773, and then, two years later, by Rabbi Samuel Cohen of Jerusalem. Halukkah was suspended during the Revolutionary War, but afterwards, it resumed. In the early decades of the 19th century, American, and American Jewish interest in active Jewish Restoration to its homeland was first aroused. This “nationalist” idea was best personified by Philadelphia-born Mordechai Manuel Noah, playwright, editor, and diplomat. As editor of the National Advocate in 1818, he was the recipient of a letter written by President John Adams in which he stated his hope that the nation of Israel will soon return to its homeland. In the 1820s, Noah declared the island of Ararat in upstate New York as a place of refuge for Jews where they would all be gathered and then eventually brought to the Land of Israel. And as he considered the indigenous Americans to be descended from the ancient Israelites, indigenous Americans were invited to participate. The project failed, however, and thereafter, he advocated for the immediate settlement of the ancient Jewish homeland.

During this time, thousands of Jews had immigrated to the US from German-speaking countries. This community grew in numbers and began to dominate the previously dominant Sephardim. Most were reform, and some were orthodox, but American Jewry now became defined by these German Jewish immigrants. In 1832, two members of the orthodox part of this community, Rabbis Israel Baer Kursheedt of Congregation B’nai Yeshurun in New York and Isaac Leeser of Mikve Yisrael Congregation in Philadelphia, followed the lead of Western European Jewry and established the American branch of the Trumat Hakodesh Society which transferred halukkah funds to Palestine via Europe, bypassing the need of the emissaries. This was in reaction to the suspicious activities among some of the emissaries who began to arrive in the US. The Society lasted for 20 years.

The leaders of reform Jewry, on the other hand, were Rabbis Isaac Mayer Wise of Hebrew Union College and David Einhorn of Baltimore who preached that the best path for maintaining a Jewish presence in Palestine lay in “practical colonization” and away from the Halukkah method. They were also strong opponents of a national revival in the ancient homeland and when the Zionist movement was in its infancy, they, along with the orthodox, were among its most outspoken opponents. However, because of their long held beliefs in “practical colonization”, these reform, anti-Zionist, German-American Jewish immigrants, can be considered the first outspoken group of Zionists in the US. Gradually, though, mainstream Zionism made inroads even into this community. Among its first advocates was Rabbi Bernard Felsenthal of Chicago in 1900 resulting in the condemnation by many of his reform colleagues. Soon, three faculty members of Hebrew Union College who were also pro-Zionist - Henry Malter, Max Margolis, and Max Schlessinger – resigned in protest of the College’s newly-appointed president, Dr. Kaufman Kohler’s, anti-Zionist views.

Mendes Cohen

American Jewish pilgrimages to Palestine, made by both prominent and ordinary American Jews, began around the 1830s. Such pilgrimages would often raise their communal status in the Jewish community back in America. Among the earliest of the more prominent pilgrims were: Mendes Cohen of Baltimore, first American to explore the Nile; William Pollock of New York, a Halukkah activist, who went in 1834; Simeon Abrahams, Halukkah activist, who earned an honorary rabbinical degree in Jerusalem in 1848; James Nathan, leader in the Jewish community, who visited the Temple Mount area; and Edwin de Leon of South Carolina who as American Consul-General in Egypt in the 1850s also protected American missionary work in Jaffa.  

Warder Cresson (Michael
Boaz Israel)

 

Emek Rephaim neighborhood

The beginning of a settled American community, however, had an unusual start. In 1844, Warder Cresson, a Quaker from Philadelphia, had just been appointed American consul of Jerusalem. He had gone to Palestine in that capacity and also as missionary in order to convert Jews to Christianity, but on his way there, a rumor had circulated in the halls of Congress that he was mentally unstable. When Cresson reached Jerusalem, he was informed that his appointment had been withdrawn. Undeterred, he set about preaching the gospel. However, he became enamored with the piety of the local Jews in spite of conversion attempts by the Christian missionaries as well as the constant oppression by the Turkish rulers, who had controlled Palestine since 1516, and the Arab settlers. By 1848, therefore, he became Jewish and adopted the name, Michael Boaz Israel. He returned to the States the following year to settle some family affairs, and four years later, he went back to Palestine – permanently. Thus, the first American Jew to make aliyah was a convert to Judaism, and American Jews would make aliyah ever since. In 1852, Cresson, now Israel, attempted to establish, with the support of a Jewish-Christian Society in England, a Jewish farm settlement in Emek Rephaim in Jerusalem as a model for future Jewish farm settlements. It was unsuccessful.

From 1854-60, the Jerusalem neighborhood Mishkenot Shaananim was built. The building of this neighborhood, the bulk of which was paid for through the last will and testament of Judah Touro, New Orleans businessman, was led by the British philanthropist Sir Moses Montefiore, and Gershom Kursheedt, member of the New Orleans City Council, chief executor of the Touro will, and son of Israel Baer Kursheedt.

The Civil War affected Palestine on two levels – halukkah and cotton. During the War, all halukkah activity from the United States ceased. This would have adversely impacted the welfare of Palestinian Jewry were it not for the large contributions coming in from the centers in Europe and North Africa. At the same time, demand for cotton increased. This was the economic mainstay of the southern United States and American cotton was in high demand in Europe. During the War, its production plummeted and Europe was forced to look elsewhere to satisfy demand. Palestine and Egypt were, at that time, huge cotton producers and demand for Palestinian cotton skyrocketed. Unfortunately, of the few agricultural enterprises Palestinian Jews engaged in, cotton production was not one of them, being in the hands, mainly, of Arab fellaheen. Consequently, any income from the selling of cotton to Europe did not benefit the Jews, but it did not benefit the fellaheen either as they were “owned” by the Arab effendi nobles who took the lion’s share of the monies that came in. After the War, and during the Reconstruction period, southern American cotton production gradually resumed and demand for the Palestinian and Egyptian product decreased dramatically.

During this period, American interest in the Land of Israel resumed, spearheaded particularly by the Board of Delegates of American Israelites (est. 1859). The Board supported Palestinian Jewry during the cholera outbreak in 1865, and two years later, established a permanent fund for Jewish interests. They donated funding for the new Mikve Yisrael Agricultural School, built in 1870, established a Jewish hospital fund in Jerusalem, and worked with the American Consul in Jerusalem to aid Jews during the Russo-Turkish War (1877-78).

Aside from these activities, there were others who made their contributions to the Land of Israel. In 1866, a group of American evangelists from Maine and New Hampshire moved to Palestine and, with the help of the American vice-consul in Jerusalem Herman Leventhal, a convert to Christianity, founded the settlement Mount Hope outside of Jaffa. The settlers would employ local Jews, teaching them agricultural pursuits. It was their belief that such enterprises would be a first step in bringing about a massive Jewish return to Israel and with it, the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. Their efforts failed, however as their settlement was exposed to constant Arab attacks as well as the harsh elements of desert and marsh. After a year, most left Palestine disillusioned.

In 1870, Simon Berman, a Polish-born American Jew, had settled in Tiberias and founded the Holy Land Settlement Society. But despite its promising start and support from many Palestinian Jewish quarters, this enterprise, too, failed. Diplomat Benjamin Peixotto made a pilgrimage to Palestine in 1874 in an attempt to relieve the persecution of the Jews as he had in Romania as US Consul-General in that country.

By the late 1870s, the North American Relief Society for the Indigent Jews of Jerusalem (est. in 1853 by the Portuguese Jewish and orthodox German Jewish communities as the successor to the Trumat haKodesh) was contributing $750 a year to Palestine, by way of the halukkah center in London, with instructions to divide the amount equally between the Ashkenazim and Sephardim. The New York Society for the Relief of the Poor in Palestine forwarded about $1,250 a year. Baltimore congregations Chizook Emunah and the local Shearith Israel would send about $500 a year.

In 1879, a group of American Jews who settled in Jerusalem attempted to form an American kolel with the support of the US consul in Jerusalem J.G. Wilson. Presumably, this kolel would be supported by American Jewry at the expense of the other kolelim in Palestine, and the Vaad Clali, the umbrella halukkah organization in Jerusalem, made sure to block its establishment. The Vaad was initially successful and, instead, took responsibility for the Americans’ welfare. Despite this, under the initiative of Nahum Harris, an American retiree living in Jerusalem, an American kolel was finally formed in 1896, separate from the Vaad Clali, and they called it Kolel America Tif’eret Yerushalaim. The Brisker Rebbe Yehoshua Lob Diskin was persuaded to be its spiritual head and under his guidance, contributions to Kolel America increased yearly. By 1900, membership had reached almost 300. It still exists to this day.

Beginning in the 1880s, with the massive arrival of the Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe, New York's Lower East Side where the majority settled, became the major hub of the infant Zionist movement. In 1882, Joseph Bluestone, a prominent physician, established there the first such society, the New York Lovers of Zion. By 1900, 24 such organizations were located in New York alone, with a membership of 5000. These were the nucleus of the American Zionist Federation.

But this was also a time when the Ottoman Empire was experiencing the rise of non-Turkish nationalisms within its borders. Therefore, fearing the rise of Jewish nationalism, a communication from the minister of foreign affaris was sent to Gen. Lew Wallace, United States minister to Turkey, in which the statement was made that Jews would be made welcome anywhere in Turkey except in Palestine. This was strongly opposed by Gen. Wallace and in 1884 he took vigorous action against the threatened expulsion from Palestine of the Lubrowsky brothers, naturalized American citizens. In 1887 and 1888 attempts were made by the Turkish government to limit the sojourn of American Jews in Jerusalem to one month—later extended to three months. This was opposed, as well, by Wallace’s successor, Oscar Straus, a Jew. Due to the support given him by Secretary of State Bayard, (and later, by Secretaries Blaine, Gresham, and Hay) who contended that the United States, by reason of its Constitution, could not recognize any distinction between American citizens in respect to their religion, successfully halted any steps to expel American citizens who happened to be Jews.

Poriya, Galilee

In 1897, there was an American delegation to the First Zionist Congress that was held in Basle, Switzerland. Until 1914, American Aliyah, mainly of Eastern European Jews who had settled in the United States and held strongly socialist views, continued at a slow pace in spite of obstacles imposed by Turk and Arab alike. In 1908, an Ahuza society, whose purpose was to purchase land in Palestine in order to establish new Jewish agricultural communities, was formed in St. Louis by Simon Goldman, formerly, the leader of Hoveve Zion in England. Soon, other Ahuza societies were formed throughout the US, from New York to Los Angeles. Sometimes, Goldman, himself, purchased plots of land with his own money – for example, Poriya in 1911, first settled by members of American Hehalutz, thus, becoming the first settlement founded entirely by Americans. In 1913, the Los Angeles Ahuza, and later, the LA branch of the Nathan Straus Palestine Advancement Society, attempted to purchase 17 acres of land in Palestine. Such activity, however, was halted during World War I when the Turkish rulers in Palestine caused the Jews to suffer from oppression and starvation. Many were expelled from the country. During much of the war, the US officially declared its neutrality allowing American Jews to form emergency committees to aid the Jewish communities in the war-torn lands of Palestine and Europe. In 1915, due to the influence of Henry Morgenthau Sr., a Jew and ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, the situation eased, somewhat, and he arranged for a convoy of American warships to bring food supplies and medical equipment to Palestine. By 1916, some Americans volunteered to fight in the Zion Mule Corps which distinguished itself in the Dardanelles Campaign. Many of the Zionist leaders such as David Ben Gurion, Yitzkhak Ben Zvi, and Pinhas Rutenberg, found refuge in the US, particularly New York, where they continued their Zionist activities. (It was there that Ben Gurion met a young Zionist activist, Paula Munweis. She, later, became Mrs. David Ben Gurion.) The primary goals of these Zionist leaders were twofold: One, to prepare young Jews for settlement in Palestine. And two, to form a Jewish Legion of American, as well as Palestinian and other western Jews, to help the British fight the Turks for the liberation of Palestine. Chapters of Jewish Legion Committees were formed from New York to Los Angeles and four thousand volunteered to fight. They, eventually, arrived in Britain and formed into the 39th Battalion of the Royal Fusiliers. Some of the more prominent American Legionnaires who either made aliyah or contributed to other fields elsewhere were:

Gershon Agron who founded the Palestine Post in 1932, later becoming the Jerusalem Post in 1950; Nathan Ausubel who fought in the Jordan Valley in 1918, author of “A Pictorial History of the Jewish People”; Nehemiah Rabin, father of Yitzkhak Rabin, socialist activist during the Mandatory period.

By December 1917, Palestine was under full British control. The next year, a Zionist Commission was formed under Chaim Weizmann to advise the new British governing authorities on Jewish matters in Palestine, and Americans were well-represented. They included:

Dr. Harry Friedenwald, eye specialist who later, bought the land near Hadera that became the Yaar Shalom neighborhood; Robert Szold who was active in the Palestinian economy (see below); Rabbi David de Sola Pool, Rabbi of Shearith Yisrael, New York.

When the war had ended, many of the American members of the Jewish Legion made aliyah. They were later joined by other American pioneers and helped to make valuable contributions to Palestinian society and the rebuilding of Israel. During the economic crises in the 1920s when many Palestinians were unemployed, the American community was hard-hit. They could only barely make a living as manual laborers. Many returned to the US, but for those who stayed and persevered, their accomplishments in Palestinian society were impressive. In 1924, the American branch of Mizrahi purchased land near Jerusalem that became the settlement of Neve Yaacov. In 1931, Gan Yavne was founded by the New York Ahuza and later, 12 members of the Detroit Kvutzah settled in Ramat Yohanan. Avihayil was founded by former fighters in the Jewish Legion in 1932. 

During the 1930s, as the numbers of American halutzim increased, many settled on, and integrated into, the kibbutzim that were newly established. But many kibbutznikim considered Americans just too soft for the rigorous life of the kibbutz. Consequently, there were many cases of Americans being turned away from one kibbutz after another. Some became frustrated and disillusioned and either settled in the cities or returned to the US. But halutzim from America continued to arrive. In 1945, American Hashomer Hatzair established a dye-casting plant on land that later became the modern town of Hatzor. American halutzim also followed Palestinians in the settlement of the Negev (1946), in defiance of British law, and from that time and during the years immediately after independence, helped to settle Urim, Gal’on, and also Kfar Darom – totally obliterated by the Arab army of Egypt in 1948, obliterated for a second time by Ariel Sharon and his goons in 2005.

Since 1920, when 2 Americans were among those who fell defending the settlement of Tel Hai against Arab attackers, Americans have contributed greatly to the Yishuv’s defense - in the Haganah, Irgun, Lehi, Palmah, and Jewish Brigade. During World War II, many Jews in the US were active on behalf of the Zionist cause and of rescue efforts from Europe. As a result, the Emergency Committee for Zionist Affairs was established. The writer Ben Hecht, whose works were later banned in Britain due to his pro-Jewish activities, was active with the pro-Irgun Bergson Group under the Palestinian soldier/activist Peter Bergson, which sought to create a Jewish army of Diaspora and Palestinian Jews to fight the Nazis. Also due to his influence and Bergson’s, Hollywood and Broadway joined forces and organized the American League for a Free Palestine, and later, the American Arts Committee for Palestine. Because the Irgun played a major part in organizing these movements, and because Ben Gurion would often spread anti-Irgun propaganda, sometimes equating them with the Nazis, American Jewish organizations, in collaboration with the Roosevelt administration, would often attempt to silence them, both during and after the war. In spite of this, the Hecht/Bergson organizations had some influence with the US government. In 1944, the US War Refugee Board was established and sent one of its emissaries, Ira Hirschman, to neutral Turkey to help Jews escape from Europe. Several thousand were saved from certain death as a result, and many were helped to Palestine. Americans also aided in the struggle against the British blockade of “illegal” immigration, both during and after World War II, and also helped to fight off the impending British and Arab onslaughts in the months leading up to, and during, the War of Independence. New York Yiddish actress Stella Adler, in 1946, chartered a ship to take Holocaust refugees to Palestine. Other ships were also chartered by other sources. This activity was intensified later on and resulted in the formation of an organization known as the Machal – Diaspora Jewish and non-Jewish volunteers fighting for Israeli statehood and the right of Diaspora Jews to settle in their ancestral homeland. 3500 joined Machal including 1000 Americans.

The following is only a partial list of Americans who had made Aliyah (and those that didn’t necessarily) and who made their mark in the Land of Israel, both before and after Israeli independence:

Cyrus Adler, a Jew from Arkansas, came to Palestine in 1890 as Antiquities Commissioner for the proposed Columbian Exposition in Chicago to collect local archaeological exhibits; Julius Rosenwald, head of Sears Roebuck and one of the financial backers of Palestinian agronomist Aaron Aaronsohn’s experimental agricultural station in Atlit in 1909; Prof. Richard Gottheil of Columbia University headed the American School of Archaeology in Jerusalem beginning in 1909; Eliezer Joffe, led one of the earliest arrivals of American heHalutz that helped to found Poriya. Later, he became one of the founders of Nahalal (1921) where he was appointed director of the Tnuva agricultural cooperative company; Yehoash, Yiddish poet, lived for a while in Palestine in 1914 and translated the Bible into Yiddish; Justice Louis Brandeis of the US Supreme Court, though he did not make aliyah, visited Palestine in 1919 to advocate for free private enterprise both in Palestine and the US. The settlement Ein Hashofet was established and named after him, ironically, by the American branch of the socialist Hashomer Hatzair movement; Jacob Lipman was a soil expert and member of the Jewish Agency. In 1927, he took part in a commission that surveyed the soil of Palestine; Felix Warburg, businessman, member of the banking firm of Kuhn, Loeb & Co. in New York, was a non-Zionist member of the Jewish Agency, involved in the economic development of Palestine as well as the Hebrew University. The settlement Kfar Warburg was named after him; Golda Meir, one of the most prominent leaders of the Histadrut, made aliyah in 1921 along with her husband, Morris Myerson. In 1969, she was elected Prime Minister; Baruch Ostrovsky was a socialist member of Ahuza in New York that purchased a plot of land north of Tel Aviv that later became the town of Raanana. He became the town’s first mayor; Albert Einstein visited the Hebrew University in 1923, was long involved with its development. Upon the death of Chaim Weizmann in 1952, he was approached to succeed him as president of Israel. He politely turned down the request; The Benny Leonard Club, named after the famed American boxer, was founded in 1923 and for many years, it was the foremost club for champion Palestinian boxers; Jascha Heifetz, violinist, was a frequent performer in Israel beginning with a concert in Tel Aviv in 1925; Rabbi Judah Magnes became first Chancellor of the Hebrew University; The Slobodka Yeshiva, established in 1925 in Hebron, was American-supported and –funded and many American students who had already made aliyah, came to study there. Several were murdered by Arabs in the massacre that took place in the city in 1929 - Zeev Berman Halevy (NY), Aharon David Epstein (Chicago), Haim Krasner (Brooklyn), Aharon David Sheinberg (Memphis TN), Yaacov Weksler (Chicago), Benjamin Hurwitz (NY); Meir Bar Ilan, leader of the American branch of Mizrahi, moved to Palestine in 1926 and became one of Mizrahi’s leading representatives in the Vaad Leumi; Philanthropist Nathan Straus, after whom the town of Netanya was named (1929), though he did not make aliyah, was active in Palestinian society. He founded the Nathan and Lina Straus Health Center in Jerusalem (1929) of which, Dr. Ephraim Michael Bluestone, former director of Hadassah and son of Joseph Bluestone, was made chairman; Henrietta Szold, founder of Hadassah in the United States (1912). In 1913, this organization sent two nurses – Rose Kaplan and Rachel Landy – to lay the groundwork for Hadassah’s health and sanitation work in Palestine. During the Mandate, Szold was elected to the Vaad Leumi (1930), and established the Dept. of Social Welfare. She also led the Youth Aliyah organization (1934) to rescue Jewish children from Nazi Germany. The settlement of Kfar Szold (1935) was named after her; Robert Szold, 3^rd cousin of Henrietta Szold, along with Israel Brodie, established the American Economic Committee for Palestine (1932); Nelson Glueck, prominent American archaeologist, director of the Jerusalem branch of the American School of Oriental Research, conducted excavations in both western and eastern Palestine from the 30s to the 50s; In the first Maccabiah, Sybil Koff won four titles in track and field in the first Maccabiah. David White won the title for broad jump. In the 1935 games, Lillian Copeland won titles in shot put, discus, and javelin as did Yudy Finkelstein. Marty Frieden and Jim Sandler were prominent in the high jump as were Harry Hoffman and Abe Rosenkranz in track and field; Lilian Cornfeld was Palestine’s foremost nutritionist and culinary expert in the 30s; Cantor Yoselle Rosenblatt arrived in Palestine in 1933 to provide the musical accompaniment to the film “My People’s Dream”. He died shortly afterwards and was buried on the Mount of Olives; Irma Lindheim, writer, founded the Kedem Film Co. (1934) along with other local theater personalities at the time. She later became the second president of Hadassah; Leopold Jessner was often, a guest director at Habimah; Maurice Schwartz, Yiddish actor, was guest director at the Ohel Theater directing the play “Yoshe Kalb” in 1937; Paul Muni, Oscar-winning actor, performed the role of Emile Zola at the Habimah Theater in 1938; Emanuel Neumann founded the Committee of Palestine Survey (1943) to invest in various water projects; Richard Tucker, American cantor, life-long Zionist, provided the musical background for the 1946 Palestinian film “Behind the Blockade”; Abba Hillel Silver, who, as president of the Zionist Organization of America, was one of the most outspoken Zionists during and after the Holocaust. In 1947, he became an honorary citizen of Ramat Gan. One of his most famous quotes was, “Zionism is not refugeeism”; Leonard Bernstein conducted his first Israeli concert in 1947; thereafter, he often made guest appearances with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. Other musicians who often collaborated with the Orchestra since its founding in 1936 included Emanuel Feuerman, Leopold Godowsky, and Pierre Monteaux; Meyer Levin, journalist, wrote the screenplay for the first Palestinian feature film in 12 years “My Father’s House” (1947); Moshe Arens, former Foreign Minister under Prime Minister Shamir; Shimon Agranat was appointed to the Israeli Supreme Court in 1950 and became Chief Justice in 1965; Scholem Asch, Yiddish writer, made aliyah in 1956 and after his death the following year, the Scholem Asch Museum in Bat Yam was founded in his memory; Artur Rubinstein, American pianist, often played concerts in Israel whose proceeds went to the establishment of the Artur Rubinstein Chair of Musicology at the Hebrew University. The Rubinstein Forest outside of Jerusalem was named in his honor and this was where his remains were reinterred one year after his death; Isaac Stern, former president of the America-Israel Cultural Foundation, performed many concerts in Israel including a tour during the First Gulf War when a total of 39 missiles were bombarding Tel Aviv; David Sarnoff, chairman of NBC, became the first Honorary Fellow of the Weizmann Institute in Rehovot. While on a visit to Israel in 1951, he proposed to Ben Gurion that he help to create Israel’s own television broadcasting system; Herman Pomeranze, and Akiva Skidell, organized in 1952, the Hitahdut Olei America, a civic organization which advocated the option of dual nationality and job placement for American olim among other activities. It later became known as the Association of Americans and Canadians in Israel (AACI); Kirk Douglas starred in the first Hollywood feature to be filmed in Israel, “The Juggler” (1953); Nat Holman, introduced basketball to Israel in the early 50s; Paul Smith, actor, starred in many films, most notably “Exodus” and “Popeye”; Shlomo Riskin, Rabbi of Ephrat; Mike Burstyn, popular actor and entertainer. Famous for his Kuni Lemml character in the 70s; Ben Ami Carter, made aliyah in the mid 60s as leader of the Black Hebrew Israelites who claimed descent from the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel; Miriam Levinger, wife of YESHA leader Rabbi Moshe Levinger, one of the pioneers in the revival of the Jewish community of Hebron; Tal Brody, made aliyah during the 1968 Macabiah. He led Israel to the European basketball championship; The Kabbalah Centre, established in Jerusalem, in 1922 and then in Los Angeles under Phillip Berg in 1969, recently began to look into buying property in the town of Rosh Pina near the Kabbalah capital of Safed. Through the dissemination of its teachings by such celebrities as Roseanne Barr and especially Madonna (both of whom also looked into buying property in Israel), Kabbalah achieved great popularity in Hollywood and Hollywood Kabbalists have maintained close spiritual, if not physical ties, to Israel. Other present or former high-profile devotees include: David and Victoria Beckham (LA residents as of this writing), Sandra Bernhard, Naomi Campbell, Laura Dern, Sarah Ferguson Duchess of York (US resident), David Geffen, Jeff Goldblum, Linda Gray, Jerry Hall, Goldie Hawn, Paris Hilton, Diane Keaton, Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore, Lindsay Lohan, Courtney Love, Alanis Morissette, Gwyneth Paltrow, Guy Ritchie, Winona Ryder, Britney Spears, Barbra Streisand, Elizabeth Taylor; Meir Kahane, a rabbi from New York, founder of the Jewish Defense League in New York, which soon spread nationwide, settled in Israel in 1970 where he founded Kach. He was one of the most prominent figures in Hebron; David Mark Berger, weightlifter, died in the 1972 Olympics massacre in Munich; Baruch Marzel, pro-Land of Israel activist resulting in his arrest and incarceration numerous times by the Israeli police on orders from the Israeli government; Aulcie Perry, Israel State Cup Champion for Macabi Tel Aviv (1976-1981), an African-American convert to Judaism; Dr. Irving Moskowitz, successful businessman in Los Angeles who has worked to strengthen the Jewish presence in Israel’s heartland and Jerusalem in particular; Chaim Potok, author of “The Chosen”; Yaacov Kirschen, cartoonist for the Jerusalem Post; Sam Spiegel, Hollywood producer and life-long Zionist, the Sam Spiegel Film School in Jerusalem was named after him, paid for through part of his estate; LaVon Mercer, African-American basketball player. Played for Hapoel, and later Maccabi, Tel Aviv, and lifted Maccabi to the Euroleague Finals in the late 80s; Dore Gold, Israeli statesman and diplomat to the UN;. His brother is, and his father was, mayors of Miami Beach; David HaIvri, Land of Israel activist, hosts the Revava.org website; David Hartman, established the Shalom Hartman Institute; Prof. Col. Irving Kett, professor of civil engineering and technology and Cal State LA, long and distinguished military career who engaged in two tours of duty in Israel as an American officer. Former head of AFSI in the San Fernando Valley. Owned homes in Northridge CA and Netanya; Alan Beer, was a leader in the LGBT community in Israel who organized the first Gay Pride Parade in Jerusalem. He was murdered in the bombing of bus #14 in 2001; Dr. David Appelbaum, internationally respected Emergency Room Director of the Shaare Tzedek Hospital in Jerusalem when he was killed by an Arab suicide bomber at a café in Jerusalem in 2003. His death inspired a group of American doctors to make Aliyah; Prof. Yisrael Aumann, winner, Nobel Prize for Economics; Anita Tucker, Gush Katif activist, brutally expelled from her home under orders of PM Sharon in 2005; Ron Dermer, political consultant in Israel Eve Harow, spokeswoman for YESHA communities, a resident of Ephrat; David Wilder, spokesman for the Jewish community of Hebron; Stanley Fischer, governor of the Bank of Israel; Caroline Glick, journalist, contributor to the Jerusalem Post; Yossi Klein Halevy, author and journalist, a senior fellow at the Shalem Center in Jerusalem; Yishai Fleischer, former station manager of Arutz Sheva Radio, today, spokesman for the Jewish community of Hebron; Eytan Fox, film director. Openly gay, his films usually deal with gay subject matters. One of his most popular and successful films, “Yossi & Jagger”, dealt with homosexuality in the Israeli army during the Lebanon War; Tuvia Singer, rabbi and anti-missionary activist, host of “The Tuvia Singer Show” on Arutz Sheva Radio. Known as the “Chief Rabbi of Newstalk Radio”; Steven Spielberg, American producer and director, long involved in film projects in Israel, the Spielberg Film Archive of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem is one of the foremost film archives in the Middle East; Rabbi Yehoshua Fass and Tony Gelbart, founders of Nefesh b’Nefesh who, as of this writing, has succeeded in bringing 60,000 American olim to Israel.

THE TOMB OF ABEL AND THE ZABADANI VALLEY

 

The Nabi Habeel Mosque overlooking the Zabadani Valley,
illegally built on top of Abel's Tomb, banned to indigenous Syrians

On a hill in Syria near the Lebanese border, located in the mountains near the settlement of al-Husseineyah west of Damascus and overlooking the Zabadani Valley and the villages of the Wadi Barada, is a religious shrine, the Nabi Habeel Mosque. It was built in 1599 by the Wali Ahmad Pasha, a Bosnian subject of the Ottoman Empire, supposedly over the burial site of Abel, of Cain and Abel fame. As a Bosnian, Ahmad Pasha had friendly relations with the local Jewish and Christian communities, especially the indigenous Syrians, followers of the Aramaic-speaking Syriac Orthodox church. Had it been left to him, everyone would have been invited to pray at the mosque. But as the Arabs were the majority in the area and throughout the Middle East, and they were not necessarily tolerant of the indigenous peoples, in time, Nabi Habeel became a jealously guarded Arab Muslim shrine where no Jew, and certainly not an indigenous Syrian, would dare approach. 

According to legend, not mentioned in the Bible, after Cain murdered Abel, it was here, that he brought his body for burial. Putting aside the fact that Abel’s nationality bore no resemblance to any of the nationalities that were formed since, the fact still remains, he was buried in what later became “Aram Dimashq” – a non-Arab, non-Muslim country, inhabited by Aramean tribes, the descendants of whom, are the Syriac Orthodox, today, under Arab occupation. And the Nabi Habeel Mosque is just one symbol, of many, of that occupation, as well as that of Arab colonialism, and supremacism.  

But fortunately, the area isn’t totally empty of the indigenous inhabitants or other Christians. In the town of Zabadani, approximately 10 miles north of the mosque, Muslims and Greeks have lived together for centuries. The Greeks here, as with the rest of the Middle East, are the descendants (most of them) of Greek settlers who came when the area was under the Greek Hellenistic empire founded by Alexander the Great. (Arab settlers came 1000 years later.) For at least 1500 years, this community has followed mainly the Greek Orthodox church and today, those of Zabadani center around the local Church of the Dormition of the Virgin Mary. For the Melkite, or Greek Catholic church, it would be the nearby Church of Our Lady. To be sure, there are many other churches in the area, mainly to the north of the mosque, near the settlements of al Jourjaniyah and Bloudan, and they are also, in the main, Greek Orthodox or Melkite. The nearest non-Greek and indigenous churches could be found only in Damascus, the Arab-occupied capital of Syria, about 25 miles to the west, most notably the Armenian Catholic al Mazzeh Church, and St. George’s Church for the indigenous Syriac Orthodox.

As with the rest of Arab-occupied Syria, this area suffered during the local Arab civil war with crippling years-long sieges. The Four Towns Agreement reached between the armed factions and Iran in 2017, with Qatari mediation, provided for the evacuation of Zabadani and nearby Madaya, as well as Shiite-majority Foua and Kafarya in northwest Syria. For the residents who remained in Zabadani and Madaya, they had to contend with poor security, drug smuggling – facilitated by Hezbollah and the 4th Armored Division – and property seizures. (Local sources confirmed that the Arab Occupation Authorities arbitrarily seize private property.) But since the establishment of, what passes for, peace, a sense of normality has returned somewhat, and Zabadani and Madaya have even witnessed a revival of Christian orthodoxy.

THE REIGN OF ABDULLAH I

King Abdullah I, courtesy, Wikipedia

Have you ever wondered how “Jordan” got to be “Jordan”? Well in fact, one would have to go back only 100 years at a time when the Arabs were beginning their quest to take over the entire Middle East and North Africa at the expense of the region’s non-Arab indigenous peoples – something they hadn’t done since the 7^th century. (This quest, BTW, is still going on today, although to a somewhat lesser extent.) As far as Jordan was concerned, it was Abdullah bin Al-Hussein, the son of Hussein bin Ali, Sharif of Mecca, who led the Arab takeover of that part of the Middle East. In 1921, he became the founder and ruler of the, now separated, eastern portion of the British Mandate of Palestine, otherwise known as Transjordan, and was officially styled “Emir” beginning the local Hashemite dynasty. In 1946, Transjordan became independent and Abdullah was styled “King”, and ruled in that capacity until his assassination in 1951 in, what was then, Arab-occupied East Jerusalem.

Born in Mecca in the Hejaz region of Arabia, Abdullah was the second of four sons of Hussein bin Ali and his first wife, Abdiyya bint Abdullah and was educated in Istanbul and Hejaz. As a member of the Hashemites, Abdullah was a 38th-generation direct descendant of the prophet Muhammad. He had three wives – all at the same time. He married his first wife in 1904, Musbah bint Nasser at Stinia Palace in Istanbul. He married his second wife Suzdil Khanum, also in Istanbul, becoming a “sister wife” to the first. Finally, in 1949, he married his third wife Nahda bint Uman, in Amman, and she became “sister wife” to the other two. Altogether, Abdullah fathered six children.

Early in the 20^th century, Abdullah persuaded his father to stand, successfully, for Grand Sharif of Mecca, a post for which Hussein acquired British support. Hussein was known to advocate for independence from Ottoman rule and the creation of a free Arab state in the ancestral homeland Arabia but stretching from Yemen to Damascus, a historically Syriac city long occupied and colonized by Arabs. In 1909, Abdullah became deputy for Mecca in the Ottoman parliament, serving until 1914, and acting as an intermediary between his father and the government. In 1914, he paid a clandestine visit to Cairo to meet Lord Kitchener to seek British support for his father's ambitions in Arabia. Abdullah maintained contact with the British throughout the First World War and in 1915 encouraged his father to enter into correspondence with Sir Henry McMahon, British high commissioner in Egypt, about Arab independence from Turkish rule. This correspondence in turn led to the Great Arab Revolt against the Ottomans which lasted from 1916 to 1918. During the revolt, Abdullah commanded the Arab Eastern Army, and began by attacking the Ottoman garrison at Ta'if on June 10. The garrison consisted of 3,000 men with ten 75-mm Krupp guns. Abdullah led a force of 5,000 tribesmen but they did not have the weapons or discipline for a full attack. Instead, he laid siege to the town. In July, he received reinforcements from Egypt in the form of howitzer batteries manned by Egyptian Arab personnel. He then joined the siege of Medina commanding a force of 4,000 men based to the east and north-east of the town. In early 1917, Abdullah ambushed an Ottoman convoy in the desert, and captured £20,000 worth of gold coins that were intended to bribe the Bedouin into loyalty to the Sultan. In August 1917, Abdullah worked closely with the French Captain Muhammand Ould Ali Raho in sabotaging the Hejaz Railway. Abdullah's relations with the British Captain T. E. Lawrence, on the other hand, were not good, and as a result, Lawrence spent most of his time in the Hejaz serving with Abdullah's brother, Faisal, who commanded the Arab Northern Army. After the war, in March 1920, Faisal was proclaimed, in Damascus, king of Syria, a position he held until July of that year when French forces captured Damascus at the Battle of Maysalun and expelled him, thus proclaiming a French Mandate. Abdullah then moved his forces from Hejaz into eastern Palestine with a view to “liberating” Damascus. But having heard of his plans, Winston Churchill, at that time, British diplomat and minister serving in the cabinet of Prime Minister Lloyd-George, invited him to a famous "tea party", where he convinced him to abandon his plans, telling him that French forces were superior to his and that the British did not want any trouble with the French.

So on March 8, 1920, an Arab Congress in Baghdad proclaimed Abdullah King of Iraq, a newly-established kingdom created on top of Assyrian and Kurdish lands. He refused however so they therefore chose Faisal. Instead. Abdullah had his sights on the British Mandate of Palestine. With British assistance, he tore Palestine’s eastern section away from the west and established a separate emirate to be called “Transjordan”. He then set about the task of building this new, artificial country with the help of a reserve force headed by British Lieutenant-Colonel Frederick Peake, who was seconded from the Palestine police in 1921. The following year, the separation of east from west Palestine was approved by the League of Nations but still under a British Mandate. Illustrating the contradictions in his reign, both he and the British Mandate authorities banned Jews from living in “Transjordan”. On the other hand, he would often have a team of Jewish bodyguards, mainly members of the Sofer family, both the Palestinian and Yemenite Habani branches, who were known as tall, muscular and fierce warriors. (He also used Circassian bodyguards.) In 1932, he cooperated with the Jews in inaugurating the major hydro-electric power plant in Naharayim located on the Transjordan side of the Jordan-Yarmuk River confluence. This Jewish project was headed by Pinhas Ruttenberg, the founder of the Palestine Electric Company. The joint project required security cooperation between the two sides to protect the plant and power lines. 

Typical of many Arabs, both during that time and since, Abdullah believed the myth that there were no people on earth who were historically less anti-Semitic than the Arabs, stating that the persecution of the Jews was confined almost entirely to the Christian nations of the West. Holding up the example of medieval Muslim Spain, he claimed the Jews had never developed so freely and reached such high positions in society as they had under Arab and Muslim rule, ignoring the massacres that happened from time to time in Spain and other Muslim lands, preferring to call them “minor exceptions”.

In 1923, the Transjordan Arab army, which was made up of veterans of the Arab Revolt, was renamed the Arab Legion. Abdullah’s dream that, one day, his dynasty, who had ruled over Mecca for many centuries, would return there and take their rightful place over the holy places, was dashed in 1925 when Ibn Saud seized the Hejaz. Although he established a legislative council in Amman in 1928, its role remained advisory, leaving him to rule as an autocrat. His Prime Ministers formed 18 governments during the 23 years of the Emirate. Beginning in 1930, the Arab Legion was led by British Col. John Bagot Glubb, popularly known later as “Glubb Pasha”.  Abdullah supported the Peel Commission in 1937, which proposed that (western) Palestine be partitioned into a small Jewish state (20 percent) with the remaining land to be annexed into Transjordan. The Arabs within Palestine and the surrounding “Arab” countries objected to the Peel Commission while the Jews accepted it reluctantly. Ultimately, the Commission’s recommendation was not adopted.

Talal, courtesy, Wikipedia

During World War II, Abdullah was a faithful British ally, maintaining strict order within Transjordan, and helping to suppress a pro-Axis uprising in Iraq and Syria. At the same time, the Hashemites experienced a spate of royal family intrigues. Abdullah had two sons: Prince Talal, an outspoken advocate against the British, and Prince Naif, a very pro-British advocate. Talal, being the eldest, was considered the "natural heir to the throne". However, his troubled relationship with his father led to his removal from the line of succession in a secret royal decree. After the war however, their relationship improved and Talal was publicly declared heir apparent. On May 25, 1946, the Hashemite Kingdom of Transjordan proclaimed its independence. On the same day, Abdullah was crowned king in Amman. In the period 1946–48, he supported various partition plans for western Palestine. In 1947, when the UN voted for a partition, Abdullah was the only Arab leader supporting the decision. His desire was that the Arab allocated areas of western Palestine could be annexed into Transjordan as well as the territories of Arab-occupied Lebanon and Syria of which would result in a “Greater Syria”, ruled by the Hashemites with its capital in Damascus. He even went so far as to have secret meetings with Jewish Agency officials including Golda Meir and Ezra Danin, and they came to a mutually agreed upon partition plan independent of that of the UN and stated that he would prefer to annex all of Palestine but would settle for the Arab-populated parts as a minimum. This partition plan was supported by British Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin who preferred to see Abdullah's territory increase rather than risk the creation of another Palestinian state, headed by the Nazi-allied Mufti of Jerusalem Mohammad Amin al-Husayni. And it is possible that he might have been willing to sign a separate peace agreement with Israel, were it not for the Arab League's militant opposition to any independent Jewish state. Because of his dream for a Greater Syria, many Arab countries distrusted Abdullah and saw him as both a collaborator with the Europeans and a threat to the independence of their countries. As it turned out, the distrust was mutual.  

Meanwhile, tension between Abdullah and Talal resurfaced, especially after Talal had been "compiling huge, unexplainable debts". As a result, both Abdullah and Prime Minister Samir Al-Rifai were in favor of Talal's removal as heir apparent and replacement with his brother Naif. However, the British resident Alec Kirkbride warned Abdullah against such a "public rebuke of the heir to the throne", a warning which Abdullah reluctantly accepted. He then proceeded to appoint Talal as regent when he was on leave. Behind the scenes though, Kirkbride sent Talal to a Beirut mental hospital, stating that he was suffering from severe mental illness. Many local Arabs believed that there was "nothing wrong with Talal and that the wily British fabricated the story about his madness in order to get him out of the way." Because of the widespread popularity of Talal, Prince Naif was not given British support to succeed as Emir. The conflicts between his two sons led Abdullah to seek a secret union with Hashemite Iraq, in which his nephew Faysal II would rule Jordan after his death. This idea received some positive reception among the British, but it was ultimately rejected as Baghdad's domination of Transjordan was viewed as unfavorable by the British Foreign Office due to fear of "Arab republicanism".

On May 4, 1948, ten days before Israel’s declaration of independence and in the midst of the Arab war of annihilation against Israel, Abdullah, as a part of the effort to seize as much of Palestine as possible, sent in the Arab Legion to attack the Jewish area south of Jerusalem known as the Etzion Bloc. He met with Golda Meir one last time on May 11, 1948 when he said, "Why are you in such a hurry to proclaim your state? Why don't you wait a few years? I will take over the whole country and you will be represented in my parliament. I will treat you very well and there will be no war". Abdullah proposed to Meir the creation "of an autonomous Jewish canton within the Hashemite kingdom," but so soon after the Holocaust, Meir stood her ground for an independent Jewish state. Depressed by the unavoidable war that would come between Jordan and the Yishuv, one Jewish Agency representative wrote, "[Abdullah] will not remain faithful to the November 29 [UN Partition] borders, but [he] will not attempt to conquer all of our state [either]." Abdullah too found the coming war to be unfortunate, in part because he "preferred a Jewish state [as Transjordan's neighbour] to an Arab state run by the mufti." On May 14, 1948, 10 minutes after Israel declared its independence, the local Arabs, the neighboring Arab states, the promise of the expansion of territory and the goal to conquer Jerusalem finally pressured Abdullah into joining them in an "all-Arab military intervention". Their intention was to embark on a war of annihilation and finish what Hitler started. On May 29^th, welcomed by the local Arabs, Abdallah’s Arab Legion conquered the eastern parts of Jerusalem and proceeded to ethnically cleanse the city’s generations-old Jewish population. He used the military intervention to restore his prestige in the Arab world, which had grown suspicious of his relatively good relationship with Western and Jewish leaders. Abdullah was especially anxious to take Jerusalem as compensation for the loss of the guardianship of Mecca. He saw himself as the "supreme commander of the Arab forces" and "persuaded the Arab League to appoint him" to this position. His forces under Glubb Pasha did not approach the area set aside for the Jewish state, though they clashed with the Yishuv forces around Jerusalem, intended to be an international zone. After conquering the rest of Judea and Samaria at the end of the war, King Abdullah tried to suppress any trace of opposition to his rule.

In 1949, Abdullah entered into secret peace talks with Israel, including with Moshe Dayan, the Military commander of the liberated part of Jerusalem, and other senior Israelis. News of the negotiations provoked a strong reaction from other Arab States and Abdullah agreed to discontinue the meetings in return for Arab acceptance of his annexation of Judea and Samaria. With no acceptance forthcoming, in 1949, Abdullah officially annexed the occupied territories anyway and the kingdom was then renamed “Jordan”. The annexation angered the Arab and Arab-occupied countries including Syria, Saudi Arabia and Egypt. Abdullah’s popularity declined, and in 1951 he was assassinated in Jerusalem by an angry western Palestinian Arab while attending Friday prayers at the entrance to the Al-Aqsa mosque on Arab-occupied Temple Mount. He was succeeded briefly by his eldest son Talal. The following year, his brother Hussein succeeded to the throne.