Diaries - 1948

To Rachel

6th June 1948

I never thought it would come to this – for your father to say he hasn’t got the energy to chew a toffee, one of his favourite sweets. But then the heat is something terrible, and after the pleasant English summers, it feels like being in an over-heated oven.

Thank heavens you do not seem to notice it, lying peacefully in your bed, with a mosquito net all round you. You are quite an old lady now – getting on for seven weeks!

When you came home from hospital your proud mother said you looked exactly like a ball of wool with two needles stuck through it. But owing to your auntie Matty’s excellent care and to your mother’s excellent milk, you have developed into an energetic young lady with fat cheeks, a double chin and a lovely round behind. Your energy is something remarkable, you throw off your clothes, you crawl to the top of the bed where you usually bump your head against the wood, you try to stand up in the bath and you yell so loudly that your uncle Jack? calls out to me from the roof top two houses away  to see what the matter is.

But all in all you are an adorable little puss and I love you very much. Your papa has actually had the courage now to pick you up when you were crying and made all sorts of cooling noises to pacify you. You were so impressed that you actually quietened down and your papa, although he would have been the last to admit it, felt awfully proud.

Once you let him down very badly. As a rule you start crying shortly before 5am and we came to look upon you as a sort of alarm clock. Your father had to leave home shortly after five to prepare the news bulletin. One morning however, you decided to sleep through until seven! You should have seen the old boy (that’s what I call your papa) rush out of the house unshaven, unwashed and half dressed!!

The day you were born another baby came into the world – the magazine Labour Palestine today, this was your father’s work with a little help from me and I think it was harder labour than giving birth to you. I shall keep the magazine for you as a souvenir.

Talking about souvenirs the flowers you see here were at my bedside in hospital. The colour has faded now but they were simply beautiful at the time, and then there is a talisman for you from your great-grandmother.

The ribbon here with your name on was tied around your wrist until you came home from hospital.

The times into which you were born are difficult but they are historically significant, On 15th May the Jewish state came into being and I hope that you will have a country that you can call your own.

Almost immediately the state was set up, Egyptian planes bombarded Tel-Aviv and since then there have been many raids, though nothing like those on London during the Second World War (thank goodness)

All the children are collecting war souvenirs and are talking about the war like old generals. But I am glad that you are too small to know about such things and can spend your time eating, sleeping and crying.

The ship you see here gave us a lot of trouble it belongs to the Etzel and allegedly carried a fair quantity of ammunition. Owing to the truce with the Arabs, the Jewish Government was under obligation to prevent the unloading but alas, the Etzel thought ‘to hell with the truce agreement – we want our ammunition’ so this is what happened. The Haganah started fighting the Etzel – or vice-versa, (who knows?) an incident which brought headlines such as “Jew fights Jew on Tel Aviv Beach” into the London Papers. During the fighting an Army plane dropped a bomb onto the ship which resulted in a glorious fire. All Tel Aviv waited for the explosion – the terrible shattering explosion- and everyone living the front was evacuated further inland.

You, my little pet were amongst those refugees. We bundled you into a taxi and off we went to Tante Dora’s. A neighbour, who had fallen in love with you at first sight, produced a pram where you settled down very comfortably.

We sure were a crowd at Tante Dora’s. Nearly all the family were there (and that is saying something) We were all on tender hooks waiting for the bang, and then, to make things better still, the sirens went. Out of your pram I took you, down the stairs into somebody else’s flat, where I sat down at the edge of the bed with you in my arms. The room was dark with at least 20 people in it- all talking politics, not that I understood much with my little Hebrew- but I felt like banging them all on the head.

Meanwhile all was quiet outside. We waited and waited and waited with me getting stiffer and stiffer, for you were quite a good weight to hold. Eventually we decided to go up and settle down for the night.

This tale, little girl, does not have a climax. There was no explosion. Great columns of smoke – yes, but that was all, and a couple of days later crowds of people went down to the beach to look at the skeleton ship.

It makes you think, doesn’t it, whether there was any ammunition worth speaking of left on board? The true story would be very interesting to know, but at least, it gave rise to your first outing.

In case you want to know what your father did that night I will tell you: he slept on a glass topped table in a journalists club.

Etzel is the common Israeli name for Irgun Tzvai-Leumi, or Irgun, a militant group operating in the British Mandate of Palestine from 1931 to 1948.

Haganah (Hebrew: "The Defense", ההגנה HaHagana) was a Jewish paramilitary organization in what was then the British Mandate of Palestine from 1920 to 1948, which later became the core of the Israel Defense Forces

Historical note:

Ben-Gurion passed a resolution to declare the independence of Israel on may 14 1948, by vote of 6 to 4, against strong opposition from both sides of the political spectrum of the Jewish community in Palestine, even in his own party.

During the first weeks of Israel's independence, it was decided to disband all resistance groups and replace them with a single formal army. To that end, Ben-Gurion gave the order to open fire upon and sink a ship named Altalena, which carried ammunition for the Irgun (also called Etzel) resistance group. That command remains controversial to this day.