by Ruth Gruber
In the 1960s, I was interviewing President Truman in his office in Independence, Missouri, when he described that meeting. “I loved Eddie like my own brother, and I was so impressed with Dr. Weizmann,” Truman said enthusiastically. “First he presented me with a Torah. Something I had always wanted. Then we went to my globe because he wanted to show me the Negev Desert and why the Jews needed that desert. That's why the UN voted to put the Negev Desert into the Jewish state.”
The Negev was Ben-Gurion's dream. It was a natural unbroken southern frontier, leading to the ports and the Red Sea. It was one of Israel's gateways to the world.
Yet, despite Eddie's and Dr. Weizmann's efforts, our official State Department policy was to oppose partition. Secretary of State George Marshall tried to persuade Jewish leaders not to declare an independent State of Israel. Truman adored Marshall, but others in his State Department irritated him. On March 21, three days after seeing Dr. Weizmann, Truman wrote a letter to his sister, Mary Jane Truman, complaining that the “striped pants conspirators” in the State Department had “completely balled up the Palestine situation.” But, he added, “It may work out anyway in spite of them.”
On Friday afternoon, May 14, 1948, Ben-Gurion stood up in a small museum in Tel Aviv and read the world's newest Proclamation of Independence.
“The Nazi Holocaust,” Ben-Gurion declared, “which engulfed millions of Jews in Europe, proved anew the urgency of the reestablishment of the Jewish State, which would solve the problem of Jewish homelessness by opening the gates to all Jews and lifting the Jewish people to equality in the family of nations.”
Israel was born.
President Truman became the first national leader to recognize Israel. He was followed by the Soviet Union and by most of the nations in the UN, while six Arab states attacked the newborn state.
Helen Reid telephoned me. “Ruth, we want you to go back to Israel and help cover the war.”
“I'll leave immediately,” I said.
Later I learned that L. L. Engelking, the city editor, had confronted Helen. “What does Ruth know about covering a war?”
“I'm sending her,” she said.
Helen had another assignment. “Before you leave, I want you to talk tomorrow morning to the General Federation of Women's Clubs at the Waldorf-Astoria. I'd like you to tell them about some of your experiences in the DP camps.”
I searched the faces of the women in the audience and saw boredom and restlessness. Whether the president of these clubs was annoyed that Helen Reid, one of the most powerful Republican women in the country, had asked her to rearrange the morning program and slip me in, or whether the audience was uninterested, I could not reach them. I felt it was the worst speech I had ever given.
The next day, I left for Israel aboard a small freighter carrying twelve passengers; airlines had canceled all their flights to Israel. On deck, I set up a small table and chair and spent each morning finishing a book called Destination Palestine: The Story of the Haganah Ship “Exodus 1947.” I stopped typing only when the loudspeaker came on, giving us the war's progress. Each time Israel won a battle, everyone aboard shouted, “Hurrah! Hallelujah! We're winning!”
The ship docked in Haifa, and soon I was in a taxi headed for Jerusalem. The driver was enthusiastic. “You're lucky. You've come just in time. The UN has just declared a ten-day truce, but it's still not safe to take the regular highway to Jerusalem. There are Arab snipers who keep shooting even during a truce. So I'm going to take you to Jerusalem on the Burma Road.”
“The Burma Road?” I repeated, wondering what the strategic road from Burma to China during World War II had to do with Israel's War of Independence.
He laughed. “Mickey Marcus—one of your Americans. He planned it. It's a secret road to Jerusalem. Jerusalem itself is surrounded by the Jordanian Army. But don't worry. I'll get you into Jerusalem all right. I know all the secret ways.”
“I'm not worried,” I said, as he drove carefully up the hills to Jerusalem and dropped me at the door of my friend Chana Ruppin. Chana, the widow of Arthur Ruppin, the founder of the kibbutz movement, embraced me.
“Look at you,” she laughed. “You're covered from head to toe with dust. The first thing you're going to do is take a shower.”
“Chana, you can't use up your precious water. I know how little water there is in Jerusalem. I'll manage.”
Pretending not to hear me, she led me to the bathroom and helped me undress.
“See?” she said, filling a basin. “We use water four ways. First for cooking, then for showers, then to sponge the floor, and the rest for the toilet.”
Clean and soon well fed, I left Chana and set off for the government press office to be photographed, pick up my press credentials, and meet old friends. The streets were calm. On my earlier trips to Jerusalem, the streets had been filled with British tanks and British soldiers; orange markers, called dragon's teeth, cordoned off whole areas of the city. Now all of that was gone. Jerusalem was, again, a beautiful city of hills, where the sun seemed to set not on the white stones, but inside of them.
As soon as the cease-fire ended, I began traveling with the Army, defending 650,000 Jews against an invasion by six Arab countries with a population of 40 million from Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Iraq, with help from Saudi Arabia. (Yemen was officially at war with Israel but sent no troops.)
One of the first battles I covered was a stunning defeat of the Israeli Army.
With excitement and apprehension, a group of journalists and cameramen traveled in private cars and buses, following a small Army unit. We were headed for Latrun, a vital crossroads on the major highway between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. It was the site of both a wine-making monastery of silent monks and one of Britain's prisons, built like a medieval fortress.
The Army unit was made up in part by a handful of seasoned soldiers and largely by newly arrived Holocaust survivors. Most of them had never held a gun until they enlisted.
The Arab armies were also disorganized and unprepared for battle, except for the Jordanian Arab Legion, who were trained and officered by the British.
The shooting began on both sides, but the Israeli Army unit was so outnumbered that soon they were ordered to turn back. The journalists followed them back to the Jerusalem government press office, where most of us sent cables describing the Israeli defeat.
A few days later, traveling with another Army unit as it prepared to capture an Arab village, I heard the captain order his troops, “We will not touch a single mosque.” The soldiers obeyed his command. The village was captured, but the mosques were left unharmed.
The next morning, Joe Barnes, the foreign editor of the Herald Tribune, cabled me, “Your story of protecting the mosques changed the vote at the United Nations. They were going to censure Israel. But when the Israeli delegate stood up and read your article to the General Assembly, the debate ended.”
The battle for Nazareth, where Jesus grew up, showed that even in the midst of war, armies can be humane. I decided to join a unit of the Seventh Armored Regiment of the Seventy-first Battalion when I learned that Nazareth was its mission. Its commander was someone I had met in Jerusalem. He was Joe Weiner, a red-haired former officer in the Canadian Army. I learned that Joe had sent orders to his troops: “I want no reporters and no photographers. If any show up, tell them they are barred.”
Paying no attention to his orders, I hailed a jeep with a fellow photographer and talked my way up the line, telling the soldiers I was a friend of Joe's, and if he didn't want me, I would turn back. I reached Joe at the head of his unit. He was furious. “What are you doing up here? Don't you know I said no reporters?”
“Joe, this is a battle I want to cover,” I said.
“Don't you realize you can get me into trouble? The Canadian government doesn't look with favor on anyone fighting for Israel.”
“You can trust me, Joe. I promise I won't tell your name.”
“Okay. Follow me.”
I
n our jeep, the photographer and I followed directly behind him as he led the convoy up a hill to the outskirts of Nazareth. Joe motioned to us to follow him. I watched him calmly knock on the door of an Arab home, calling out, “Open! This is the Israeli Army!”
“Don't shoot,” the owner of the house pleaded with his arms upraised.
“We're not going to shoot you,” Joe assured him. “Send two of your sons downtown and have them bring the mayor and the Muslim and Christian leaders up here to your house.”
Soon, the leaders came up the hill, carrying a white flag. After talking without apparent fear or anger for several hours in the living room, the men, sitting around a table, signed the document of peace.
Joe and his soldiers had taken Nazareth without firing a single bullet.
I ran into him again a few weeks later.
“You kept your promise. You didn't reveal my name,” Joe said. “But you described the captain as ‘a red-haired Canadian.' All my friends in Canada recognized me.”
“Do you forgive me?” I asked.
“Forgive you? You've turned me into a hero.”
The war was moving swiftly. It seemed that each time Israel won an important battle, the United Nations declared a truce. The ten or more days without fighting gave both the Arabs and the Israelis time to bring in more ammunition and to give the fighters a respite. It also gave civilians and soldiers an opportunity to travel and to visit their families and friends.
I was at a dinner party in Jerusalem when Maj. Memi de Shalit, a member of one of Israel's founding families, told a small group of us, “I'm taking a convoy to Tel Aviv tomorrow.”
“Can I go with you?” I asked. “There are some stories in Tel Aviv I want to cover.”
Memi agreed. “Sure. You can even ride with me in the lead jeep.”
The next morning, we drove at the head of a caravan of public buses, taxis, trucks, motorcycles, and private cars. When we reached the Latrun jail, Memi stopped the jeep. The whole convoy came to a halt.
Memi explained the delay. “This is no-man's-land. We have to wait here for a UN military officer to take us past the jail and the monastery, so we can continue on to Tel Aviv. I have to go inside. I have some messages for the Father Superior.”
“I'm perfectly happy to sit in your jeep,” I said.
“Still, if you want to get away from this heat, you can come with me up this little hill. I'll leave you sitting on the porch, while I go to meet with the Father Superior.”
“Don't worry about me,” I said as I jumped out of the jeep and followed him up the hill, settling comfortably on the wooden porch. Below the porch was a small field of freshly trimmed grass.
Suddenly, at the bottom of the hill, an Arab, his face half-hidden in a redand-white-checked kaffiyeh, began to climb the hill. He was moving on all fours with a shotgun in his right hand. As he approached, his shotgun began to grow until it looked like a cannon. He shouted in Arabic to me. I did not understand a word. His voice was so riddled with venom that it brought Memi out to the porch to see what was happening. The gunman motioned to Memi to sit next to me. Now both of us were under his gun.
He continued yelling until an intern—the only person except the Father Superior allowed to talk in this silent monastery—came out the door. I thought, with a brief sigh of relief, he's coming to save us. The intern began shouting at the gunman in Arabic, waving his arms wildly, motioning him to move back. But to no avail. The intern, who now looked as terrified as we were, dashed across the field and disappeared. The Arab looked more menacing than ever. I glanced sideways at Memi, wondering if this was our last day on earth.
Suddenly, a young British officer, standing up in a jeep, flew across the field and took command. He shouted at the Arab, who, still on all fours but now silent, crawled backward down the hill until he disappeared.
“Get in the jeep,” the officer beckoned to Memi and me, “and crouch on the floor. You never know what these guys will do.”
In the midst of all the excitement, I couldn't help thinking, “That officer is so gorgeous, he should be in Hollywood.”
He drove us through the no-man's-land, past the monastery, to the other side of the Latrun jail. The convoy of buses and cars followed us. “You're safe now.” The officers waved us out of his jeep. “Have a good time in Tel Aviv.”
Two days later, the Israeli newspapers carried the story of a convoy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem that had been attacked by a band of Arabs a few miles before Latrun. The papers described the ambush. The officer in charge had stood up in his jeep, shouting as loudly as he could, “Everybody, get out of your cars, jump in the ditch.”
An American engineer, who had been working on the railroad, stood up, waving his American passport: “My wife will never forgive me if I don't see Jerusalem.”
A bullet killed him.
The Arabs then attacked a young Dutch woman and killed her. She was the daughter of a Dutch banker. The Arabs fled.
I mourned for this young woman. I was filled with survival guilt. Why had I lived while she was killed? I had no answer.
Each time, as soon as the ten-day truce ended, the streets in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and Haifa became hazardous. In Tel Aviv one day, I was interviewing a family of Holocaust survivors in an apartment building when the sirens sent us racing down the stairs to the basement. It was serving as a bomb shelter with benches where we could rest.
Around us, parents with their children sat in silence and fear. It seemed to me I could hear their hearts thumping as loudly as mine when we heard the engine of a plane flying over us. A few minutes later, a bomb fell on the building. It dropped like a cannonball straight down from the roof to the basement, killing a rabbi on one floor and a mother and child on another. We were untouched. Sheer luck, but tears ran down our faces as we mourned the rabbi and the mother and her child.
A few days later, I received a cable from Joe Barnes: “Get an interview with Ben-Gurion.”
I telephoned Ben-Gurion's young aide, Nehemia, asking him to set up an interview. He called back minutes later: “Come at six today.”
The sun was setting in the window behind Ben-Gurion, throwing a golden halo around his white hair as I entered his office. I showed him the cable from the Trib.
“You know I'm not giving any interviews,” he said.
“I'm not going to ask you a single question about the war. I want you to tell me what Israel will look like when the blood has stopped flowing and the refugees have found a new home.”
He shut his eyes. “There will be no more desert. There will be no more sand. Everything will be fertile. Irrigation will make everything bloom. There will be trees on every hill. The sky will be full of planes. The sea will be full of ships.”
I wrote his words hurriedly in my notebook, while he stopped for a moment. Looking at him, I thought, “He is the Moses and the George Washington of Modern Israel.” His eyes still shut, he went on. “We'll have towns and villages filled with flowers and trees and lots of children. Children are our future. Our children will have every advantage of education and modern science. We will develop science to the last degree. We will use our only advantage—brains. We will use our brains and science for creation, not for destruction.”
I was in Israel when the war ended in 1949. The brilliant African-American UN ambassador, Ralph Bunche, arranged a separate truce between each Arab country and Israel. The only country that refused to sign the truce was Iraq.
The first Independence Day parade and celebration, 1949. Every eighteen-year-old man and woman must serve in the Israeli Army. For many new immigrants, the Army was their major influence in becoming integrated into Israeli life.
The war was not all victories. I covered the defeats as well. The greatest failure was that the Israelis couldn't get Latrun, the monastery of silent monks on the road between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. They were turned back by Arabs trained by the British. It was very important to the Jewish Agency—the shadow Jewish government— that they get that
prison, but they failed.
Ben-Gurion was awakened at about four in the morning after he had made the speech declaring independence. His aides in the Army came and said, “The real war has started.” The Egyptians had flown over and dropped bombs on a lot of the small villages but not on Jerusalem.
I was in an apartment building in Tel Aviv. Everyone was ordered to get into the bunkers. The Egyptians dropped a bomb on the building. It killed everybody in one line. Those of us who were down below were untouched. I could have been interviewing a rabbi or a mother and child who were killed; they were on my list of people I wanted to interview. When it was all clear, there was nothing left of that part of the building.
Dinah Blumenthal and her husband, Arnold, left Berlin and crossed Europe to Marseilles in 1947. Here, they waited for a truck to take them to the transit camp, Camp du Grand Arenas.
Camp du Grand Arenas is where the Holocaust survivors and DPs were brought on buses, trucks, cars, and trains. The refugees were kept there until they were sent to secret ports in southern France where “illegal ships” would break through the British blockade and take them to Israel.
One of the so-called illegal ships, the SS Orchidea, was a fishing schooner that carried Holocaust survivors and other refugees attempting to break through the British blockade in 1949.
Marseilles became a jumping-off place for immigrants boarding “illegal ships” to Israel undercover at night, 1949. Security was always a problem.
The immigrants knew the dangers ahead. British warships had been instructed by Parliament to seize the ships, take the refugees prisoner to Haifa, and transport them to the detention camps on the island of Cyprus.
The dangerous passage from Marseilles to Haifa, often trailed by British warships, terrified some travelers; for others, it was a great adventure. Though crammed in the hold on tiers of bunks reminiscent of the German death camps, they were all hopeful that they would eventually reach the Holy Land.