“Look how beautiful Yad El is from here, Father ”
The irrigation sprinklers were whirling and a school was under construction. They could see an enormous shed where the community had put a dozen pieces of heavy machinery There were paths of rose bushes and flowers and lawns and trees.
There was sadness, too, for the Yad El cemetery had already claimed five members,
As Kammal had hoped, the establishment of Yad El had a tremendous effect upon the Arabs of Abu Yesha. The creation of the moshav was in itself a startling revelation. Barak was true to his agreement and set up special schools for the Arabs to teach them sanitation, the use of heavy machinery and new farming methods. Their school was open to any Arab youngster of Abu Yesha who would attend. The Yad El doctor and nurse were always at the call of the Arabs.
Kammal’s favorite son was a youngster named Taha who was a few years younger than Ari. From the time of his birth Kammal had ingrained into Taha his own great desire to better the conditions of the fellaheen. As the coming muktar of Abu Yesha, Taha spent more time at Yad El than in his own village. He was the personal ward of the Ben Canaan family. Taha and Ari became close friends.
While Yad El and Abu Yesha lived in peace and proved Arab and Jew could exist side by side despite their cultural differences a slow mantle of fear was falling over many of
the other effendi families in Palestine. They were becoming
frightened at the spirit and progress of the Third Aliyah.
In the beginning the effendis had sold the Jews worthless swamps and rock-filled and eroded hills, eager to get their hands on Jewish gold and certain the land would continue its dormancy. The Jews turned around and performed miracles of redemption. Not only had the farms grown, tout cities were springing up all over Palestine.
The example of the Jews could be disastrous. What if the fellaheen began demanding education, sanitation, and medical facilities? What if the fellaheen, God forbid, were to take a fancy to the way the Jews governed themselves by equal votes of both men-and women! It could well wreck the perfect feudal system of the effendis!
To counter the progress of the Jews, the effendis harped on the ignorance, fears, and religious fanaticism of the fellaheen. They pounded the theme that the Jews were invaders from the West out to steal their fellaheen’s lands-even though the effendis had themselves sold this land. They maintained tension so that the fellaheen would not come into too close contact with the new ideas.
After many years without a major incident Haj Amin el Husseini moved again. This time he concocted a coldblooded fraud aimed at driving the Arabs wild. The year was 1929.
The site of the Dome of the Rock or the Mosque of Omar in Jerusalem was worshiped as holy ground by the Moslems as the point where their prophet Mohammed ascended to heaven. On this very site stood the one remaining wall of the Great Jewish Temple which had been destroyed for a second time in a.d. 76 by the Romans. This wall of the Temple was the holiest of all Jewish holy places. Pious Jews gathered before the wall to pray and to weep for the past glory of Israel. From their tears it became known as the “Wailing Wall.”
The Mufti circulated faked pictures showing Jews at the Wailing Wall preparing to “desecrate” the Arab holy place of the Dome of the Rock. The fanatic Moslem fellaheen started another outbreak supported by effendi and Husseini Jew baitings. Again the riots hit the defenseless old Jews of the holy cities. The slaughter was far greater than the Mufti-inspired riots of a decade before. The rioting spread against some of the weaker settlements and on to the roads, and casualties mounted into the thousands on both sides. The British again appeared helpless to stop the slaughter.
They sent a commission of inquiry. The commission squarely placed the blame on Arab shoulders. Then, by great paradox, they completely ignored the Balfour Declaration and the
articles of mandate and suggested that Jewish land buying and irnmigration be restricted to “soothe Arab fears.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN: In the same year as the riots, 1929, the farmers of Yad El made an agreement with the grain miller of the Arab village of Aata, some ten kilometers away.
Barak gave Ari the job of going to Aata to have their grain milled. Sarah objected to sending a fourteen-year-old boy out on the roads alone with the tension of the riots all around. Barak was adamant on the subject. “Neither Ari nor Jordana is going to live in fear like ghetto Jews.”
Ari felt very proud of the trust as he jumped onto the seat of the donkey cart. It was loaded with a dozen bags of grain. He set out down the road for Aata.
He was spotted the instant he entered the village by a dozen Arab boys who were lying around near the coffeehouse. They waited till he turned the corner, then trailed him to the miller’s.
Ari went about his business, flushed with his own importance. He carried on his transactions in perfect Arabic, which he had learned from his good friend Taha. The grain was crushed to flour. Ari watched closely to make certain that the sacks were filled full and with the same grain, not inferior Arab wheat. The miller, hoping to gain a sack on the deal, was perplexed by the youngster’s sharpness. Ari headed back toward Yad El.
The Arab boys who had been waiting quickly made a deal with the miller to steal all Ari’s wheat and sell it to him. The boys scampered out of Aata by a short cut and set up an ambush and road block.
In a few moments Ari rode along the road right into the trap. They sprang out from cover, hurling stones at him. Ari whipped the donkey but moved only a few feet before the road block stopped him. He was stoned from the cart and knocked half senseless to the ground. Four of the attackers pounced on him and pinned him down while the others pulled the grain from the cart and made off with it.
The boy returned to Yad El late that night.
Sarah opened the door, took one look at his blood-streaked face and torn clothing, and screamed. He stood there wordless for a moment, then clenched his teeth and pushed past his mother and went into his room and locked the door.
He refused to open it despite her pleas until Barak returned home later from a moshav meeting.
He stood before his father. “I let you down … I lost the wheat,” he said through puffed and distorted lips.
“It is I who have let you down, son,” Barak said.
Sarah rushed over to Ari and threw her arms around him. “Never, never, never send this boy out alone …” She led him off’ to clean him up. Barak did not answer.
The next morning after breakfast, before Barak headed for the fields, he took Ari by the hand and led him out to the barn. “I have neglected some of your education,” Barak said, and pulled down his old bull whip from a peg.
Barak built a dummy and nailed it to the fence. He showed Ari how to judge distance, aim, and swing. With the sound of the first crack Sarah came running from the house with Jordana in her arms.
“Have you gone mad teaching a boy like that to use a bull whip?”
“Shut up, woman!” Barak roared in a tone she had never heard in over twenty years of marriage. “The son of Barak Ben Canaan is a free man! He shall never be a ghetto Jew. Now get out of here … we have business.”
From morning to night Ari practiced using the bull whip. He cut the dummy to shreds. He aimed at rocks and tins and bottles until he could whirl around and split them with a flick of the wrist. He threw the whip so often that by the end of each day he could barely lift his arm.
At the end of two weeks, Barak loaded up the donkey cart with another dozen bags of grain. He put his arm around his son’s shoulder and led him to the cart and handed him the bull whip. “Take the grain to Aata and have it milled.”
“Yes, Father,” Ari said softly.
“Remember one thing, son. You hold in your hand a weapon of justice. Never use it in anger or revenge. Only in defense.”