{"id":151553,"date":"2024-04-04T15:15:35","date_gmt":"2024-04-04T12:15:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.nli.org.il\/?p=151553"},"modified":"2024-06-06T12:18:17","modified_gmt":"2024-06-06T09:18:17","slug":"the-first-night-of-captivity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blognli2026.moonsite.co.il\/en\/the-first-night-of-captivity\/","title":{"rendered":"The First Night of Captivity: Memories From the Fall of the Jewish Quarter"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Udi Edery<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jerusalem has many names, and even more books have been written about this famous city. When you type the word “Jerusalem” into the search bar on the National Library of Israel website, over a million results come up. Somewhere among them, we came across a Hebrew pamphlet<\/a> titled “Jerusalem Sinned a Sin” (\u05d7\u05d8\u05d0 \u05d7\u05d8\u05d0\u05d4 \u05d9\u05e8\u05d5\u05e9\u05dc\u05d9\u05dd), <\/a>containing a manuscript that describes in rare, moving detail the battles for the Old City of Jerusalem during Israel’s War of Independence. It also describes Haganah soldier Aharon Liron’s first night in captivity, following his capture by the Arab Legion when it seized the Jewish Quarter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The late Aharon Liron was captured by Abdullah al-Tall (sometimes spelled el-Tell), the commander of the Arab Legion in Jerusalem, after the defenders of the Jewish Quarter surrendered on May 28, 1948. An Arab Legion platoon entered the Quarter at about five in the afternoon, to accept the surrender of the Jewish defenders. Aharon was wounded in the fighting. After the uninjured soldiers were transferred from the quarter to “The Kishle” (the old Ottoman police station, built on the ruins of King Herod’s palace), and the residents of the quarter were moved to the area of the Zion Gate, where they were to be handed over to the Palmach, Aharon remained with the rest of the wounded soldiers at “Batei Mahse”, a 19th<\/sup> century apartment complex in the Jewish Quarter. Liron found himself “in a long structure, parallel to the wall [of the Old City]. The building’s rooms and entranceway served as a hospital.”<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"
The Jewish Quarter’s houses on fire<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

With his memories still fresh, Aharon sat and wrote down everything he remembered from his first night of captivity in the Old City, in extremely vivid detail: “The last rays of the sun have faded on the red-tiled roofs. The walls, gray with age, are shrouded in darkness. The pillars supporting the stone arches cast their shadows on the long entranceway of ‘Batei Mahse’ in Old Jerusalem, and in the shadows of its arches, descending and merging with the walls, we lay on abandoned mattresses, right and left, dozens of wounded soldiers.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When he opened his eyes and looked outside, he remembered that the first thing he saw was the looting that was taking place in the Jewish houses along the street, and how the soldiers demanded that their captors do something about it. It was at that moment that he realized the Old City had fallen: “First, we protested before our captors and demanded that they disperse the mob. When we saw their indifference, we realized that we had to accept the fact that the houses were no longer in our possession, and what the looters were doing was no longer any of our business.”<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"
The first page of the manuscript “Jerusalem Sinned a Sin” (\u05d7\u05d8\u05d0 \u05d7\u05d8\u05d0\u05d4 \u05d9\u05e8\u05d5\u05e9\u05dc\u05d9\u05dd)<\/a>, written and edited by Aharon Liron<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

After that, a silence fell on the room, allowing the sounds of gunshots and exploding shells to creep in from the fighting that was still ongoing in the distance. Aside from the wounded soldiers, the others appeared indifferent. Aharon recalled that one of the guards leaned his rifle against the door and seemed to be dozing off. Nurses, in their pristine white uniforms, entered and left the rooms freely as they tended to the wounded. “One of them walked slowly among the injured soldiers and hung an oil lamp on a nail in the wall.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They began to accept the situation, and even started dozing off, but then they began hearing different sounds coming from outside. Not shelling, but cries of revelry, which seemed to be getting closer. In the beginning, the captives were alarmed: “We thought we were hallucinating, hearing voices, but then they became clearer and louder. Then we heard the clear, monotonous sounds of cheering. The villagers of the surrounding area surged toward the Old City when they heard that the Jewish Quarter had been seized.” The Arab Legion officer shot twice in the air and dispersed the crowd. Then, when Aharon thought they were safe from danger, he noticed a reddish glow outside, which was getting brighter.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"
“Fighters of the Old City, 1948” \u2013 a pin awarded to Aharon Liron<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

A burning house! Another house was set on fire and then another one! They were setting fire to the quarter. We looked at the light flickering on the walls and were silent. I thought to myself: ‘My mother and father must be standing on the balcony of our apartment on Jaffa Street in new Jerusalem, watching the flames and fearing for my life. Who knows what they’re thinking?'”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As he watched the flames flicker on the wall and thought about his family, several doctors and soldiers suddenly entered the room, bringing with them Rabbi Mordechai Weingarten and his two daughters. They updated the soldiers about the efforts to evacuate the Jews from the quarter, the attacks and the shooting, and told them that the fire was raging throughout the entire Jewish Quarter. By the end of the night, they would also have to evacuate the captives from the area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yehudit, the Rabbi’s daughter, then issued a plea: “Anyone who has a hand or a leg to help, let them come and help!” Their mission was clear. During the fighting, the big iron gate of Batei Mahse was blocked up with stone, and if the obstacle wasn’t cleared in time, they wouldn’t be able to leave the quarter in one piece. Aharon documented how they performed the task:<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"
Aharon and the prisoners in the detention camp in Jordan, waiting for their release<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

By the light of an oil lamp, we carried away the stones, one after another, but we weren’t very strong. And then, the Arab Legionnaires joined the effort. We worked together. But all of a sudden, we heard pounding on the iron gate, curses, and threats of gunfire.” An angry mob outside demanded the Legionnaires hand over the Jews, but the Legion officer in place chased them off through a side alley, firing at them until he succeeded, once again, in scaring them away. “We watched them anxiously. The Legion soldiers alone dealt with the removal of the stones.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Aharon would never forget the sight of destruction that met his eyes when the captives were led in threes from Batei Mahse. “The Jewish Quarter was illuminated by the flames that destroyed its buildings… The scene looked as though it was taken from ‘The Scroll of Fire’ by Bialik. ‘All night the seas of flame raged and tongues of fire leapt scorching over the Temple Mount.’ <\/em>We looked at everything, tormented by the destruction we saw, trying to burn in our memories the sight of every house and every corner.”<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/a>
“The First Night of Captivity in Ancient Jerusalem”, Aharon Liron’s text<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Aharon, who was wounded, was taken from the Jewish Quarter to the Armenian school. On Sunday morning, he and the rest of the captives were taken out of the city through the Lions’ Gate, and placed on a convoy of trucks that took them to Amman, and then to a detention camp in Jordan. He described, with profound sadness, the last time he saw Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives, on his way to Jordan: “It was three days since our surrender, and from the Mount of Olives, we saw the Jewish Quarter’s synagogues, full of floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, rising in flames. I sang in my heart the song of Avigdor HaMeiri, ‘From the top of Mount Scopus, I will bow to you, from the top of Mount Scopus, Shalom Jerusalem.'”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Aharon Liron was a prisoner of war in Jordan for a period of nine months and one week. He was released on March 3, 1949. After being freed, he worked in education and studied the history of Christianity in the Land of Israel. He wrote books about this subject and about the battles for Jerusalem in 1948. Aharon Liron passed away in 2010. After contacting his widow Sarah and daughter Yardena, Sarah sent us his memoirs<\/a>, while Yardena helped us find the photo of the pin he was awarded and the images of her father as a POW.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A text found at the National Library unearthed the story of Aharon Liron, a young soldier captured by the Arab Legion during the battle for Jerusalem’s Old City in 1948. 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