Finding the Aaronsohns

When my cousin Gayle sent her weekly e-letter this week, she noted the Gutenberg site, a digital collection of literature that predates the web, at least I remember reading it in the early 90s when everything on the net was text. She provided the link so I clicked over and started to browse, finding the Aaronsohns, first Alexander's memoir in 1916 of being a Jew born in Palestine conscripted into the Turkish military, then through Google a recent book about Sarah, his sister who was a spy against the Turks in Palestine, and then finally through a blogger, an account of a popular Israeli children's book about Sarah.

Title: With the Turks in Palestine; Author: Alexander Aaronsohn; Written in 1916 From the introduction which this week has a familiar ring as we watch what's happening in Georgia:

"While Belgium is bleeding and hoping, while Poland suffers and dreams of liberation, while Serbia is waiting for redemption, there is a little country the soul of which is torn to pieces—a little country that is so remote, so remote that her ardent sighs cannot be heard.

It is the country of perpetual sacrifice, the country that saw Abraham build the altar upon which he was ready to immolate his only son, the country that Moses saw from a distance, stretching in beauty and loveliness,—a land of promise never to be attained,—the country that gave the world its symbols of soul and spirit. Palestine!"

Then when I googled the author and worked through bunches of wikis and reviews all using the same information, I came across a review of a book by Hillel Halkin.

Halkin in a reworked and stunning new edition of The Liar, [which had been serialized] "A Strange Death" (Public Affairs, 400 pages, $26). He tells the story as he learned it, starting with the day in 1970 that he and his wife, Marcia, arrived in the town of Zichron Ya'akov in northern Israel. . . the story of a Jewish spy ring that aided the British against the Turks in Palestine during World War I. It was an incredible conspiracy, led by a beautiful woman, Sarah Aaronsohn.

And Miriam Shaviv writes that he is on sacred ground because

Of-course, no matter how original, provoking and sophisticated Halkin's book is, for an entire generation of Israeli kids, the only book which will ever really count on the subject is Sarah Giborat Nili ('Sarah the Heroine of Nili), Dvorah Omer's heart-breaking account of the affair for children. I first learned Hebrew by reading an abridged version in easy language, and still remember getting upset over Avshalom Feinberg's death. I hope Halkin knows he's treading on hallowed ground!

Then I found another book (via Google) about the Aarohnsons just published last year, called The Aarohnson Saga, which covers his post-war Zionist activities and death.

Isn't the internet fun! You could go to Gutenberg.org every day, pick an author you've never read, and then take a peek at how she or he has fared over time.

There are also digitized sheet music and audio books, so I also stopped to listen while looking around, although Jane Austen wasn't within my theme of WWI spies.