Arriving in Jerusalem on the eve of Yom Kippur in 1947 — after months of incarceration in Cyprus — was an exhilarating experience. The bus from Haifa to Tel Aviv and later from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem was loaded with people and packages. Standing-room only and a “Speak only Hebrew” sign proved too much to absorb. It was like being on a long, overloaded roller coaster. Not only was the inside of the bus full, but the roof was packed with luggage and cartons and live animals.
In those days, the road to Jerusalem zigzagged. It was just wide enough for two compact cars to share. A bus or a truck meant that someone had to pull over. Navigating these turns with a clunky bus was no mean trick and those of us standing would be tossed from side to side.
In the midst of all this, the bus was stopped at a roadblock by British soldiers. We had to get off, unload our goods and show the officer our identity cards. Thanks to the excellent work of the Haganah, Israel’s pre-state army, I had received papers with a name and my photograph immediately upon leaving the prison camp where all veterans of the camps were taken before immigration was permitted.
Remembering my new name and the number they gave me was problematic. My luck, or British incompetence, got me through. It took an hour before we finally returned to the bus to continue our journey to Jerusalem, arriving before sunset. Even in those days, transportation was a challenge on the Sabbath and holidays.
For the remainder of the journey, all the cars coming toward us were strangely blinking their lights. Why blink lights during the day? Subsequently I learned that our bus had done the first blinking, to warn the oncoming cars that there was a roadblock ahead. Thus, people who may have been on a mission or with poor papers were warned. The locals all saw this immediately, but I, as a newcomer, was not yet up to the nuances of what it was to live under British rule.
Arriving in Jerusalem was like a crazy dream — people rushing every which way. We saw people carrying bath towels, running back and forth from public baths. Others were carrying pots of food to friends or relatives. I hurried to my destination before the city would be closed. Nothing moved. Even the British respected the Sabbath and holidays to the point that they minimized their driving.
How was I to know that this would be the last time Jews would be permitted to pray at the Western Wall for 20 years to come? If someone had told me that there would be a Jewish state in Palestine within nine months, I wouldn’t have been able to comprehend that either — but such was the situation on Yom Kippur day 1947.
I was a volunteer sailor from the United States, after several months’ internment on Cyprus. My crew of North American volunteers picked up some 1,500 ma’apilim (survivors of the Holocaust) off the coast of Italy in the dead of night to bring them clandestinely to Palestine. We had been intercepted and captured by the British, who considered such immigration illegal. During our internment, a man by the name of Harold Katz and I had become good friends because of our shared beliefs about Jewish tradition and the fate of our people.
Although the Jews of Palestine had been warned by the British to stay away from the Wall that Yom Kippur day, Harold and I felt it our duty and our right to be there. As we walked from Rehavia to the Wall in the Old City, we discussed the names we would give and the stories we would tell if we happened to be picked up by the British police. After all, we were in Palestine with false papers issued by the Haganah.
When we arrived at the Wall, the sun was setting and the singing, which sounded like crying, was loud and emphatic and could be heard for miles around. Everyone was crowded into a small space not more than 12 square feet. Many more Jews would have been there that day, but the British were being particularly nasty and the Arabs unfriendly.
Suddenly a shofar sounded loud and long — a defiant and illegal act in British-held Palestine. From the heights of the surrounding walls and from the narrow entrance, dozens of British police pounced on the crowd, using their batons indiscriminately. Harold and I tried to disappear into the crowd by standing still, but a policeman spotted me and lunged. Harold swung and hit him, but the policeman pushed him aside. He wanted only me. I was arrested and taken to the police station in the Old City where I was accused of being the one who blew the contraband shofar.
My brit in 1926 had taken place on Yom Kippur. As the family story goes, an Irish cop with the Bronx police had cleared the way from our home to the synagogue, where the brit took place. Twenty-one years later I was again involved with the police, but the British weren’t as cordial.
Having lived in Israel ever since the good ol’ days when we wondered how we’d just make it to the Kotel, this time, Harold and I would like to pray on our holiest site, Har Habeit, the Temple Mount. Not having been in prison for years, perhaps this time we’ll take a shofar.