The Prime Ministers: An Intimate Narrative of Israeli Leadership (9 page)

“Will I? You are completely insane. Keeping company with a messianic saint like you is even worse than being one.”

Esther and I exchanged glances. Clearly this was not their first duel on matters of theology and politics, sharing lodgings as they did at the
YMCA
.

McAdam, blazing with sincerity and injured rectitude, responded by saying that, true, he may well be insane; he would not deny that. After all, insanity was a relative thing and, in his case, it was madness put to good use. But by that same logic Mahler, too, was insane. For were they not both zealots, each in pursuit of perfection, on a quest for transcendence? And was there ever zealotry free from madness? Did not he, Mahler, worship his violin, just as he, McAdam, worshipped his God? When Mahler played did not his strings respond, just as when he, McAdam, prayed, did not God answer?

Never in my life had I heard such vainglory. No one could accuse Jock McAdam of lacking in self-belief. Or spirit. Or certitude. Or pontification. And as if to illustrate this disposition, the Scotsman sat back and drove a clenched fist into his palm, his eyes like fire, and added, “And I pray to God, Mahler, that you will never go to Australia, that you will never leave this Holy Land.”

The musician, at a loss for words, sat there, a picture of tired, haggard dignity, looking into empty space. Finally, he asked, “Why do you pray I shall never leave this place? What’s it to you?”

“To speed his coming,” replied McAdam, calm as a rock.

“Who’s coming?”

“Christ’s.”

Mahler shook his head in the deepest exasperation. “I don’t understand a word you’re saying.”

“Then let me spell it out. You are a Jew. Your place is here. This is where you belong. This is where all Jews belong. All Jews should live in Palestine. There can be no Second Coming until all Jews leave Gentile lands and return to Jerusalem.”

“Utter rot!”

“Shut your trap, Yid!” snapped the British corporal, swinging about to face us. “Can’t you see we’re trying to listen to the radio?”

Nelson Eddie was singing,
There’s a song in the ai
r
. The corporal’s speech was warped with whisky.

Leopold Mahler cringed.

Jock McAdam rose, flicked a crumb of
khubeiza
from his jacket sleeve, smoothed his kilt, and walked over to the servicemen. Reaching their table, he stood and gazed pensively at them. Then he smiled at the corporal. “I’m Jock McAdam from the Scottish Highlands. You didn’t mean what you just said, did you? It was a slip of the tongue.”

The soldier took a swig of his courage, shook a cigarette from the pack, lit it and, rosetting his lips, blew a smoke-ring into McAdam’s face.

McAdam closed his eyes for a flutter of a moment, coughed, and said: “I turn the other cheek. Just tell me you didn’t mean it.”

“Sorry Mister,” said the corporal, taking another puff. “Too late. Already said it.”

“Yes, but you can take it back.”

“Can’t take it back.”

“Why is that?”

“Because Jews should shut their traps. They talk too much. Mouthy lot.”

“Are they now?”

“And they’re murderers, terrorists, like Begin.”

“Are they now?”

“And they’re double-crossers, too. Judases. Jesus killers.”

“Are they now?”

“And they do other things, too.”

“Like what?”

“Like hanky-panky.”

“What kind of hanky-panky?”

“You know
–
their
kind.”

Jock McAdam smiled down benignly on the slouching corporal and, with the back of his hand, swiped him hard across the cheek. The corporal, utterly shaken, shot upright, holding his face. There were tears in his eyes.

The waitress, leaning against the wall, emitted a little shriek.

Still with the same smile, the Highlander eased the whisky flask from the soldier’s grip and calmly poured its contents over his head. At this, the other lad, the private, jumped to his feet and began circling the table like a nervous boxer. The drunk, sniffing at himself and examining his stained uniform, mouthed a profanity.

“Now, now, none of that bad language,” said McAdam amiably. “Perhaps you’d like to get up and leave now.”

The corporal grumbled to his feet. His mate hurriedly shouldered his Sten gun and, slipping his hand though the crook of his arm, led him to the door. There he paused, turned, and called out to us in a contrite voice, “We’re not all like him, you know. You can’t judge us all by the likes of him.”

“SKEDADDLE! SCRAM!” roared McAdam, making as if to rush the door.

We sat frozen, gazing at the Highlander, our mouths open. He dusted his hands in satisfaction and was moving to rejoin us when he was stopped mid-stride by an announcement coming over the radio which grabbed the attention of us all. Speaking as imperturbably as if he was reading cricket scores, the English announcer read a bulletin to the effect that initial steps for the British withdrawal from Palestine were under way, and to expedite the evacuation of materiel, sections of downtown Jerusalem would be sealed off at six the following morning until twelve midday. He detailed the streets to be closed, and by what authority.

Esther, rising to leave, said she had a ride back to Schneller from the nearby Zion Square, and handed Mahler and McAdam chits attaching them to my motley band of fortification diggers. She wished them the best of luck, and asked me to accompany her with the suitcase. As we entered Zion Square, housewives with bottles, tea kettles, pots and pans, were silently lining up in front of a donkey-towed water tank for their water ration. A couple of tin-helmeted British soldiers guarding the adjacent government compound dubiously eyed Esther’s suitcase and uniform, but then went on tramping their beat. From the direction of the Old City came the sudden clatter of machine-gun fire, setting off a return stutter, followed by a dull explosive thud. Then everything went mute again.

Esther, checking her watch, breathed an exasperated sigh, and said, “My ride should have been here by now.”

“So, tell me, where are you off to? Why the suitcase?” I was avidly curious.

She looked at me for what seemed a long time, her hands deep inside her battledress pockets. “I’ve got my new posting,” she said finally, in a matter of fact way. “I’m going into the Jewish Quarter of the Old City.”

I was dumbfounded. The Jewish Quarter of the Old City was the most imperiled place in the whole of imperiled Jerusalem. It was a place from which people fled, not one they entered. So I told her to be sensible and normal, stay out of trouble, stay at Schneller. But there was no point. She had made up her mind, and I felt totally inadequate.

Uncharacteristically, she gave me an affectionate squeeze of the hand, grinned
–
whether nervously or genuinely I could not tell
–
and said, “I wangled a police permit from the British to go in as a teacher. All I need now is a place on one of their supply convoys. There aren’t that many, so every day I go to their assembly point in the hope of being taken. They select people at random, without rhyme or reason. It’s all a matter of pot luck. That’s why I carry my suitcase around with me every day, on the off chance I’ll strike it lucky.” And then, matter-of-factly, as if to make light of it, she added, “The Old City’s Jewish Quarter defenders are in desperate need of reinforcements.”

I knew that. I knew there were about two thousand Jews left in that ancient walled-in world, most of them old and pious. Arab irregulars had been hammering at them incessantly for months, and a bare three hundred poorly armed Jewish fighters
–
less than two hundred Hagana and less than one hundred Irgun
–
stood between them and certain massacre. British soldiers and police manned the Old City gates, effectively blocking reinforcements, ostensibly on the grounds of strict neutrality.

A lone car, smeared with crudely applied camouflage paint, its engine in full throttle, swung into Zion Square and screeched to a halt. Esther climbed in, and I dumped her suitcase in the back. The driver, a dusty fellow, revved the engine, released the brake, hugged the wheel, and roared off.

There was not even time for a decent goodbye.

Esther Cailingold learning to fire a rifle, December 1947

Esther finally got a seat on a convoy into the Old City on 7 May 1948, and went straight into battle with the Hagana.

Historians of the battle for the Old City attest that there was much mutual mistrust between the Hagana and the Irgun at first, but as their common lot sank in they began to collaborate closely. By 14 May, all contact between the Jewish Quarter of the Old City and the rest of Jewish Jerusalem was severed, and the final hopeless combat began.

Survivors would later testify how Esther Cailingold fought this last battle with grim and undaunted courage as the enemy closed in. They told of how she scrambled through the rubble from outpost to outpost, trying to maintain communication between the exhausted defenders, bringing them whatever little food was left, and delivering the dwindling ammunition. They also told of how, though injured, she tried to keep people’s spirits up amid the dead and the wounded, the stench, the flies, and the crashing debris.

By 28 May there was nothing left to fight with. Most of the defenders were dead or injured. Esther Cailingold lay mortally wounded, and on the day the white flag was raised she died.

One of her last acts was to scribble a letter to her family in London, never knowing if it would reach its destination. Eventually, it did. This is what she wrote:

Dear Mummy and Daddy, and Everybody,

If you get this at all, it will be, I suppose, typical of all my hurried, messy letters. I am writing it to beg of you that whatever may have happened to me, you will make the effort to take it in the spirit that I want and to understand that for myself I have no regrets. We have had a bitter fight: I have tasted of Gehenom
–
but it has been worthwhile because I am quite convinced that the end will see a Jewish state and the realization of our longings.

I shall be only one of many who fell in sacrifice, and I was urged to write this because one in particular was killed today who meant a great deal to me. Because of the sorrow I felt, I want you to take it otherwise
–
to remember that we were soldiers and had the greatest and noblest cause to fight for. God is with us, I know, in His Holy City, and I am proud and ready to pay the price it may cost us to reprieve it.

Don’t think I have taken ‘unnecessary risks.’ That does not pay when manpower is short. I hope you may have a chance of meeting any of my co-fighters who survive if I do not, and that you will be pleased and not sad of how they talk of me. Please, please, do not be sadder than you can help. I have lived my life fully if briefly, and I think this is the best way – ‘short and sweet.’ Very sweet it has been here in our own land. I hope you shall enjoy from Mimi and Asher the satisfaction you missed in me. Let it be without regrets, and then I too shall be happy. I am thinking of you all, every single one of you in the family, and am full of pleasure at the thought that you will, one day, very soon I hope, come and enjoy the fruits of that for which we are fighting.

Much, much love, be happy and remember me in happiness.

Shalom and Lehitraot,

Your loving Esther

Esther Cailingold is buried in the military cemetery on Mount Herzl, Jerusalem. She was twenty-two. Her sister Mimi later became my wife, and her brother, Asher, one of my dearest friends.

The fourteenth of May 1948 was a Friday, and unbearably hot. A desert wind blew from the east, fanning the countryside like a blow dryer. For three consecutive sun-grilled days and restless nights we had been taking turns hacking trenches out of a chalky Jerusalem mountainside on the city’s western edge, overlooking the Arab village of Ein Karem. There were about twenty-five of us, armed with pickaxes, shovels, and a dozen World War I Lee Enfield rifles
–
an untrained, inglorious bucket brigade of diggers and hackers fortifying a narrow sector of Jerusalem’s western front.

In truth, there was no real frontline where we were, and, other than sporadic sniper fire and an occasional mortar shell, it was quiet. But rumor had it that an offensive would be launched from Ein Karem that night, against besieged Western Jerusalem. We’d heard that Iraqi irregulars were infiltrating Ein Karem to join up with a Jordanian brigade coming up from Jericho. We were supposed to stop them, but nobody knew how, least of all the man in charge, a fellow called Elisha Linder. With twelve obsolete rifles and a motley crew like ours, what was he supposed to do?

One insuperable problem was that he had no means of communication with the outside world
–
no field phone, no Intelligence, not even a radio. So in the absence of solid facts, rumor piled upon rumor: David Ben-Gurion had capitulated to Washington and would not declare independence; Menachem Begin was planning an uprising; Arab armies were invading; the United Nations was in emergency session to pass a resolution asking the British to stay.

In truth it was not the Arabs, but thirst, that was our principal foe that day. I was on the water-carrying detail with Leopold Mahler (Jock McAdam had gone off to the Red Cross as an ambulance driver).With the mountainside cisterns contaminated, the nearest water was in an abandoned orchard a mile away. To get to it we had to run a sniper’s gauntlet – sprint up a steep zigzag path to the crest of the mountain, and then down to the orchard on the other side. There, in the shade of the trees, was a well, its water grubby but cool. We hauled it back in jerry cans, two to a man. The only way to drink it was through a handkerchief, so as not to swallow the bugs.

Under the noon sun the detail was punishing. Each jerry can seemed to weigh a ton and, dragging them, we stumbled over rocks and tripped through thickets of dry thistles, our half-naked bodies tormented by flies and mosquitoes. Try as he might, Leopold Mahler found it difficult to maintain the pace. He stopped frequently to catch his breath, drink, and put a wet cloth on his blistered hands as he painfully lugged his load, his violin case strapped into the knapsack on his back. Early in the afternoon, as we still were making our way back, a sniper’s bullet whistled past Mahler’s face and sliced clean through a tree branch just above his head. With a brittle crack, the branch struck his violin case so sharply it forced him to his knees. He looked up at me, dazed. “My violin,” he gulped. “It’s shattered. I’m finished.”

I grabbed him by the shoulders and exhorted him to pull himself together. But he brushed me off, raised himself awkwardly onto a rock, unstrapped the knapsack, and very gently pulled out his wooden violin case. It was cracked. Cautiously, he opened the lid and lifted out the instrument, turning it this way and that, sliding his eyes very slowly over every inch of it. It looked to me as exquisite and delicate as a butterfly. He cradled the violin under his chin and, with closed eyes, meticulously tuned each string. Delicately, he replaced the instrument, returned the case to his knapsack and strapped it onto his back. While so doing he said in an exhausted voice, “My violin is perfect. If I don’t survive, give it to the Philharmonic. And do me another favor, too. Tell God in your daily prayers, if there is a God, to save my soul, if we have souls,” and he laughed, a thin and bitter laugh.

“That’s daft talk,” I said, helping him to pick up his load and, together, we stumbled back to the diggers on the mountainside. There, the medic, a retired
x
-ray technician, checked Mahler over and diagnosed dehydration and fatigue. Elisha Linder filled us in on the latest batch of rumors to come his way from a nearby emplacement: the Arabs were plundering downtown Jerusalem; a coordinated Arab offensive was under way; the British were siding with the Arabs; Ben-Gurion had put off the declaration of independence; Begin was rallying for a showdown against him.

As proof of the Irgun leader’s intentions, Linder showed us an editorial in Begin’s underground news-sheet, Herut, passed on to him by one of the diggers. It read:

If, on Shabbat, the message goes out: “The Jewish State is hereby established,” the whole people, the youth, will rally and fight shoulder to shoulder for our country and people. But if on that day a declaration of shameful surrender is issued, if the leadership succumbs to the tactics of the enemy and Jewish independence is destroyed before it comes to life
–
we shall rebel.

Groused Linder, “We have to find out what Begin’s up to. We’re totally blind up here,” and he instructed Mahler to rest up and then hitch a ride into town any way he could, and find out what was actually going on. “Come back with hard news,” he commanded.

Daylight was fading fast. Far to the west, the sun’s last rays were receding behind the hilltops of Judea, heralding the Sabbath. Grimy, exhausted diggers assembled in the glow of a hurricane lamp hanging on the door of a stone ruin, hidden from enemy view, to recite the Sabbath prayers
–
Kabbalat Shabbat
. It was a heavenly pause; Shabbat stillness suddenly seemed to reign over everything. But then, a series of dry, sluggish shots echoed across the hills and, seconds later, an angry rumble growled from Ein Karem and a shell shrieked and blasted the lower reaches of our mountainside, convulsing it into dust. A headlight briefly cut through the cypress trees at the approaches to the village, illuminating a group of Arabs with miscellaneous rifles, dressed in kaffiyehs and khakis. Elisha Linder screamed, “That’s an armored car. To the trenches! Fire!”

We rolled, crawled, and scrambled wildly through the thistles, searching for cover, and everyone with a gun fired blindly into the night. I have no idea how long this went on for. Eventually, a command was passed from trench to trench to hold fire, and we all wondered what had happened. Was it just another skirmish, another probe, or an ignoble retreat? Nobody had an answer.

The Sabbath silence resumed, broken only by the crunch of
rushing
feet, panting breath, and the winded cry of Leopold Mahler running out of the blackness into the light of the hurricane lamp, shouting, “I have news! I have news!”

To a man, we raced back toward the flickering glow. Elisha Linder grabbed Mahler and snapped, “Well
–
talk. What did you find out? Is Begin rebelling? Has Ben-Gurion declared statehood? Are Arabs plundering downtown Jerusalem – what?”

Mahler wheezed that he had heard nothing about Begin. And as for the Arabs taking over downtown Jerusalem, the opposite was the case. The Jews were in control of the whole area. And to substantiate his claim he opened his shabby coat wide and displayed a Union Jack tied around his waist. He then began pulling from his bulging pockets forgotten luxuries; triangles of Kraft cheese, Mars Bars, and Cadbury chocolate. Then he unstrapped his knapsack, and from its side pockets spilled out cans of peaches, jars of Ovaltine, and a bottle of Carmel wine.

We watched, eyes popping, as Mahler told how he had come by his booty: it was from the abandoned officer’s mess of the British police headquarters near Zion Square. The English had evacuated the area that morning, and the Jews had simply walked in without firing a shot. Moreover, he had heard with his own ears on the radio at Café Atara that all Union Jacks across the country had been hauled down at ten that morning when the British High Commissioner, Sir Alan Cunningham, reviewed a farewell guard of honor outside the King David Hotel. Cunningham had then been flown from Atarot airport, north of Jerusalem, to Haifa, where he boarded a cruiser that was due to cross the three-mile limit into international waters at midnight, formally ending the British rule of Palestine.

“Has Ben-Gurion declared independence, yes or no?” asked Elisha Linder, beside himself.

Mahler took a deep breath and solemnly said, “David
Ben-Gurion
declared independence this afternoon in Tel Aviv. The Jewish State comes into being at midnight.”

There was a dead silence. Even the air seemed to be holding its breath. Midnight was minutes away.

“Oh, my God, what have we done?” cried one of the women diggers, fitfully rubbing her chin with the tips of her fingers. “What have we done? Oh, my God, what have we done?” and she burst into tears, whether in ecstasy or dismay I will never know. And then the air exploded in joyful tears and laughter. Every breast filled with exultation as we pumped hands and embraced, and roared the national anthem at the tops of our voices.

“Hey, Mahler!” shouted Elisha cutting through the hullabaloo. “Our state
–
what’s its name?”

The violinist stared back blankly. “I don’t know. I didn’t think to ask.”

“You don’t know?”

Mahler shook his head.

“How about Yehuda?” suggested someone. “After all, King David’s kingdom was called Yehuda
–
Judea.”

“Zion,” cried another. “It’s an obvious choice.”

“Israel!” called a third. “What’s wrong with Israel?”

“Let’s drink to that,” said Elisha with delight, breaking open the bottle of wine and filling a tin mug to the brim. “A
l’chayim
to our new State, whatever its name!”

“Wait!” shouted a Chasid whom everybody knew as Nussen der chazzan
–
a cantor by calling, and a most diligent volunteer digger from Meah Shearim, the ultra-Orthodox area of Jerusalem. “It’s Shabbos. Kiddush first.”

Our crowd gathered around him in a hush, as Nussen der chazzan clasped the mug and, in a sweet cantorial tone began to chant
“
Yom hashishi
”
–
the blessing for the sanctification of the Sabbath day.

As Nussen’s sacred verses floated off to a higher place of Sabbath bliss his voice swelled, ululated, and trilled into the night, octave upon octave, his eyes closed, his cup stretched out and up. And as he concluded the final consecration
–
“
Blessed art thou O Lord who has hallowed the Sabbath
”
–
he rose on tiptoe, his arm stiffened, and rocking back and forth, voice trembling with emotion, he added the triumphantly exulted festival blessing to commemorate this first day of independence
–
“
shehecheyanu, vekiyemanu vehegiyanu lazman hazeh
”
–
Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the Universe, who has given us life, sustained us, and brought us to this time.

“
Amen!
”

Not a squeak came out of Ein Karem throughout the rest of that night, and by morning we were replaced by a batch of trained fighters, relieved for a twenty-four-hour rest. We returned to a town that was bursting with excitement. As Sabbath noon became afternoon, and afternoon became evening, the mood grew from excitement to tumult. Despite the threat of shells, clusters of people roamed the streets, rejoicing. In the giant crater that had been blasted into the top of Ben Yehuda Street by a bomb a few weeks before, a bonfire was ablaze, and youngsters were leaping around it in a feisty folk dance
–
the
horah
. One young man, alight with the joy of the day, cartwheeled over to Mahler and me and slapped our backs. In Zion Square, an old man with a trombone and a girl with a guitar were playing a spirited rendition of
hava nagilla.
Spying Leopold Mahler’s violin, the musicians persuaded him to join in. Picking up the beat, Mahler began reworking it into wildly spiraling variations, his notes fluttering this way and that, improvisation upon improvisation, as if man and instrument were rediscovering each other in shared pleasure after a long separation.

Café Atara, still lit only by candles and hurricane lamps, was offering a free glass of wine to all comers. Four dusty-looking fellows with pistols at their belts
–
whom I learned were Irgun fighters, out and about openly for the first time
–
were fiddling with the battery-powered radio on the counter until they finally found the station they had been searching for.

“Keep the noise down everybody,” one of them yelled. “Begin’s about to speak.”

“Where from?” somebody asked.

“The Irgun’s secret radio station in Tel Aviv.”

“What’s he going to offer us
–
civil war?” shouted Mahler provocatively.

“Shut your trap and listen,”

A husky voice, rising and falling through the crackling airwaves, solemnly began addressing the nation:

“Citizens of the Jewish homeland, soldiers of Israel, Hebrew youth, sisters and brothers in Zion! After many years of underground warfare, years of persecution and moral and physical suffering, the rebels against the oppressor stand before you with a blessing of thanks on their lips and a prayer in their hearts. The blessing is the age-old benediction with which our fathers and forefathers have always greeted the Holy Days. Today is a true holiday, a Holy Day, and a new fruit is visible before our eyes. The Jewish revolt of nineteen forty-four to nineteen forty-eight has been blessed with success.”

“Hurray,” people yelped, but Leopold Mahler snorted for all to hear, “What’s there to cheer about? Begin is about to launch his second revolt, this time against his own people.”

“Shut up or you’ll get this in your face,” threatened an Irgunist, fist clenched, his features distorted with anger.

Mahler retreated, as Begin spoke on.

“The rule of oppression in our country has been defeated, uprooted; it has crumbled and been scattered. The State of Israel has arisen in bloody battle. The highway for the mass return to Zion has been opened. The foundation has been laid
–
but only the foundation
–
for true independence. One phase of the battle for freedom, for the return of the whole people of Israel to its homeland, for the restoration of the whole Land of Israel to its God-covenanted owners, has ended. But only one phase.

“The State of Israel has arisen through blood, through fire, with an outstretched hand and a mighty arm, with suffering and with sacrifice. It could not have been otherwise. And yet, even before our State is able to establish its normal governing institutions, it is compelled to fight satanic enemies and bloodthirsty mercenaries on land, in the air, and at sea.”