This is a letter written for the children’s newspaper Davar Layeladim by a 10-year-old girl from Netanya named Aviva Sharoni, describing a visit to the Arab village of Umm Khaled (near Netanya).
Aviva writes of her regret regarding the fate of the Arab villagers who fled from the village during the War of Independence and that “feelings of pity fill our hearts” At the same time, she also express her happiness at seeing the new residents of the village, new immigrants from different countries.
Aviva makes it clear that this was not a visit just to look at the ruins of the village but to celebrate the opening of a new branch of our school in the village” for the immigrant children. After the ceremony, she describes the village, the filth, the old rickety houses, and the old mosque (that reminded her of a synagogue) as well as some old pottery utensils that used to belong to the Arab citizens of the village.
Aviva closes with a description of the Arab prisoners that she saw. She writes: “our hearts were filled with a feeling of joy and victory but also of mercy because who more than the Jewish people knows the feeling of being exiled and expelled from their home.”
Aviva’s mixed feelings of victory and empathy for the Arab prisoners are intensified by recalling the fate of the community of Gush Etzion and Bialik’s poem “In the City of Slaughter.” She is referring to is the massacre of 127 residents of Kfar Etzion and its defenders during the War of Independence. The poem was written by Chaim Nachman Bialik following a visit to Kishinev after the pogrom of 1903 that resulted in 49 murdered Jews, many more injured and raped, and more than 1,500 destroyed homes.
The letter illustrates the dilemmas faced by the State of Israel in its early years. One issue was the situation of the Arabs who had lived in villages like Umm Khalid before the War of Independence and left their homes during the war . After the war there was a need to find homes for the many new Jewish immigrants, and they thus became the new residents of these villages. The letter demonstrates some of the steps taken by the general population to help the new immigrants to adapt to their new lives.
The village of Umm Khalid has been inhabited since prehistoric times, and it houses the remains of a first-century building and a crusader castle and village. The village appears on maps from the Ottoman era and in 1922 about 300 Muslim residents lived there. The village was evacuated on March 20, 1948 since the area was viewed as central to the planned Jewish State. Today, the village of Umm Khaled is part of the city of Netanya in the Shikun Sela area, east of the city centre. The settlement of Beit Yitzhak-Sha’ar Hefer is also located on part of the land of the former village.
Would You Like to Know More?
War of Independence – Israel’s War of Independence began after the 1947 UN vote on the Partition Plan, dividing Palestine into two separate states: a Jewish and an Arab state. The Jewish side accepted the plan, while the Arab side rejected the plan and launched a war to annihilate the Jewish state. The war was fought along the entire border of Israel. The first stages took place from November 29, 1947 until the creation of the State of Israel on May 14, 1948. During this stage Arabs from within the borders of Israel fought against the Yishuv (the pre-state Jewish community). Control of the roads was crucial, and the Arab fighters had the upper hand, although the Haganah had some success in the weeks leading up to independence. The next stage of the war began after the declaration of the State of Israel. The various military groups that had been operating previously, such as the Haganah, Etzel, and Lehi, were combined to form the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). Once Israel was an independent country, the surrounding Arab countries declared war and fought alongside the local Arab militias. The IDF defeated the Arab forces, setting the borders of the state. In 1949, Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, and Egypt signed armistice agreements with Israel, and the war officially ended on July 20, 1949. The War of Independence spanned the entire country and consisted of 39 military operations. Over 6,000 Israelis were killed and 15,000 were wounded. Many of the soldiers were new immigrants to Israel and Holocaust survivors.