Джеймс Миченер - The Source

“For good luck!” she said in Hebrew. “We’re going to need it.”

To the little rebbe, everything this brazen girl had done was an outrage. She appeared like a wanton. She carried a rifle. Obviously she was fighting for a state of Israel. She had touched the mezuzah as if it had been an ordinary Christian idol. She had referred to it as a mere good-luck omen. And she had addressed him in Hebrew. With contempt he turned his back on her and walked away.

Ilana Hacohen, reared on the fighting principles of her grandfather and her anti-rabbinical father, reacted on impulse. To the astonishment of the benevolent dictator, she grabbed him by the shoulder and wheeled him around so abruptly that his hat fell off. “Don’t you rebuke me,” she warned.

Rebbe Itzik was not accustomed to opposition, and the unprecedented action of the sabra stunned him. He stooped, tried to recover his hat but awkwardly kicked it farther from him. As he rose he found his eyes opposite the brazen bare knees, then staring up at the girl’s tanned, insolent face. Irrelevantly he cried, in Yiddish, “You’re not even married to that man in there, are you?”

“If you speak to me,” Ilana snapped, “use the language of the land.”

The infuriated rebbe started to reprimand her and she started to answer back. Her defiance attracted a group of the rebbe’s congregation, and an old man cried, “Whore! Don’t dare to address our rebbe.”

Ilana swung to face her accuser, and as she did so the butt of her rifle whipped close to the rebbe’s cheek, and he drew back. The newcomer thought his rebbe had been struck and he started to reach for Ilana. Deftly she grabbed her rifle with two hands and parried the clumsy effort.

The noise drew Gottesmann to the narrow street, and he quickly deduced what was happening. He knew Ilana’s feeling toward the ultra-orthodox, whom her grandfather and father had derided, and he could guess the rebbe’s reaction to her, a soldier of the emerging state. He caught his wife and pulled her back into the house. Then he took her place in the street and tried to mollify the outraged Jews.

Speaking Yiddish, which quietened things somewhat, he told the patriarch, “Rebbe, we’ve come to save your town—if we can.”

“Only God will determine whether Safad stands or falls,” the rebbe replied.

“That’s true,” Gottesmann agreed.

“But we’ll help Him along,” a young passing Palmach fighter cried in Hebrew.

Gottesmann, seeking to ease this new blow, assured the rebbe in Yiddish, “The important thing is, we must work together.”

The insulted rebbe retreated to the shoemaker’s house, where his loyal supporters consoled him. At the same time Gottesmann retired to the house next door, where he told Ilana, “We’re here for one job, Lan. Don’t be sidetracked.”

“We’re here for two jobs,” she corrected. “To win a nation and to see that it gets started right. You let that old fool …”

“That’s not the word,” her husband protested. “Just stay away from him.”

“I will, if he stays away from me.”

But on the next day fresh trouble broke out. It was April 16, 1948, and the English were evacuating Safad. The captain in charge of trucks, a fed-up veteran from one of the mill towns in England who understood neither Arab nor Jew, marched wearily into the heart of the Jewish section, attended by four tough Tommies with submachine guns. He summoned Rebbe Itzik and some of the other elders, while Mem-Mem Bar-El remained hidden behind a wall as Gottesmann translated the English for him.

The British officer shouted, “Jews of Safad, in one hour we’re leaving. Your situation is hopeless. You’re a thousand. The Arabs waiting over there are fourteen thousand. Fresh troops moved down last night from Syria. If you stay, dreadful things are going to happen. We offer you—all of you—safe-conduct to Acre.” He waited.

Rebbe Itzik moved forward, “We’ve held a meeting,” he said, indicating the ten Jews of his congregation. “And we have decided that the Vodzher Jews will stay here.” The British officer groaned and wiped his forehead. Then Itzik added, “But the people of Rabbi Goldberg and Rav Loewe are free to leave with you.”

The Englishman turned to these two rabbis and said, “You’ve made the right choice.” He started shouting orders under which all the Jews could ride his trucks into Acre, and after his instructions had been repeated in both Hebrew and Yiddish a few old men and some mothers with babies began preparing themselves to move through the Arab lines to the trucks.

“All of you!” the officer bellowed. “Get going!” He started pushing the people toward the protected exit route but he was peremptorily halted by Mem-Mem Bar-El, who appeared dramatically with a rifle, backed up by ten Palmach men.

“No Jew will leave Safad,” he announced quietly in Hebrew. There was consternation. When the British officer heard Gottesmann’s translation he showed his incredulity. As for the would-be refugees, they took the command as a death sentence, while Rebbe Itzik held it to be insulting for a man with no authority—a stranger in Safad—to contradict the decision of the rabbis that the old and young could leave.

“No Jew leaves Safad,” Bar-El repeated.

“This is highly irregular,” the Briton fumed. “Who are you?”

“Mem-Mem Bar-El,” Gottesmann interrupted. “Palmach.”

“How’d you get in?” the Englishman asked.

“Right through your lines,” Gottesmann laughed.

“But, man! You’re overwhelmed.” The tired Englishman indicated the four compass points. “Surrounded. Outnumbered. Starving.”

“That’s right,” Gottesmann said. “All the Arabs have to do is come in a few steps and capture us.”

The officer shrugged his shoulders and pleaded, “At least let us take out the children.”

“You heard him,” Gottesmann said, indicating Bar-El.

The Englishman ignored the Mem-Mem and asked Gottesmann, “You educated in England?”

“Norwich.”

This seemed to make a difference to the Englishman, and he pleaded, “You know they intend to kill you all? They’ve told us so.”

“We’re not evacuating.”

“Let us take the cripples and sick.”

Mem-Mem Bar-El understood the plea and snapped, “We stay together. As we did at Massada … at Warsaw.”

The Englishman licked his dry lips and said, “I’ve been trying to prevent a massacre. Now it’s on your head.”

“It’s on all our heads,” Bar-El replied simply. “Your mother’s and my uncle’s. You English have done everything possible to destroy Palestine. When you leave … in a few minutes … you’ll turn all the installations over to the Arabs, won’t you? Arms, food, everything.”

“I’ve been ordered,” the Englishmen explained apologetically. “It’s been agreed that the Arabs should have this town.”

“And you worry about a massacre.” Bar-El spat contemptuously.

“In these matters we have to be impartial.”

“Goddamn your impartial soul,” Bar-El said hoarsely. Gottesmann refused to interpret this, but one Englishman who understood Hebrew started forward. A Palmach girl stopped him.

Gottesmann said, “You’re so dreadfully wrong about Safad. It will not fall.”

Bitterly the Mem-Mem added, “Turn the keys over to the Arabs and when you’re back home remember the name. Safad. Safad. Safad.” He spat on the ground and led his men away.

Gottesmann walked with the Englishman to the edge of the Jewish quarter. “I meant what I said,” he repeated. “We’re going to take this town.”

“May God bless you,” the Englishman replied. He could say no more, for now he must turn all fortified positions, the food supplies, the field glasses and the extra armament over to the Arabs. Nearly two thousand additional troops had moved down from Lebanon and Syria to be in on the kill. Six thousand well-armed Arabs were determined that not one Jew should escape.