Editing Sarah Aaronsohn

{{Short description|Jewish spy working for the British in World War I (1890–1917)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=February 2019}}
{{Infobox person
| name          = Sarah Aaronsohn
| image         = Sarah Aaronsohn, portrait 2.jpg
| alt           =
| caption       = 
| birth_name    =
| birth_date    = {{birth date|1890|1|5}}
| birth_place   = [[Zikhron Ya'akov]], [[Haifa District]], [[Ottoman Syria]]
| death_date    = {{death date and age|1917|10|9|1890|1|5}}
| death_place   = [[Zikhron Ya'akov]], [[Haifa District]], [[Ottoman Syria]]
| nationality   = Ottoman
| other_names   = 
| occupation    = Spy
| years_active  = 
| known_for     = 
| notable_works = 
| family        = *[[Aaron Aaronsohn]] (brother)
*[[Alexander Aaronsohn]] (brother)
*[[Avshalom Feinberg]] (brother in-law)
}}
'''Sarah Aaronsohn'''; 5 January 1890 – 9 October 1917) was a member of [[Nili]], a ring of [[Jew]]ish [[spy|spies]] working for the [[United Kingdom|British]] in [[World War I]], and a sister of [[agronomist]] [[Aaron Aaronsohn]]. She is often referred to as the "heroine of Nili."<ref>{{cite book | last = Herzog | first = Chaim | title = Heroes of Israel | publisher = Little, Brown | location = Boston | year = 1989 | isbn = 0-316-35901-7 | author-link = Chaim Herzog | url = https://archive.org/details/heroesofisraelpr00herz }}</ref>

==Biography==
[[File:Sarah Aaronsohn and her husband.jpg|thumb|Aaronsohn with Abraham in 1914]]
Sarah Aaronsohn was born in [[Zichron Yaakov]], which at the time was part of [[Ottoman Syria]]. Her parents were Zionists from Romania who had come to Ottoman Palestine as some of the first settlers of the [[First Aliyah]] and were founders of the [[moshava]] where Aaronsohn was born.<ref name="jwa.org">{{cite web|url=http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/aaronsohn-sarah|title=Sarah Aaronsohn – Jewish Women's Archive|website=jwa.org|accessdate=5 October 2017}}</ref> Encouraged by her brother Aaron, she studied languages and was fluent in Hebrew, Yiddish, Turkish and French, had reasonable command of Arabic and taught herself English.<ref name="jwa.org"/> On 31 March 1914, she was married in [[Atlit (modern town)|Atlit]] to Haim Abraham, an affluent merchant from Bulgaria, and Zionist activist <ref>{{Cite web|title=Haim Abraham|url=http://www.danielabraham.net/tree/abraham/haim/|access-date=2020-12-12|website=www.danielabraham.net}}</ref> and lived briefly with him in [[Istanbul]]; but the marriage was an unhappy one and she returned home to Zichron Yaakov in December 1915.

On her way from Istanbul to [[Haifa]], Aaronsohn witnessed part of the [[Armenian genocide]].  She testified to seeing hundreds of bodies of Armenian men, women, children, and babies; sick Armenians being loaded onto trains; with the dead being tossed out and replaced by the living.<ref name="god's name">{{cite book |first1 = Omer|first2= Phyllis | last1 = Bartov|last2= Mack | title = In God's Name: Genocide and Religion in the Twentieth Century | publisher = Berghahn Books | pages = 274–275 | year = 2001 | isbn = 1-57181-214-8}}</ref> After her trip to Haifa, any allusions to Armenians upset her greatly.<ref name="god's name"/> According to [[Chaim Herzog]], Aaronsohn decided to assist British forces as a result of what she had witnessed.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.genocide1915.info/research/view.asp?ID=8|title=Armenian Genocide Research – The First World War : A Complete History<!-- Bot generated title -->|accessdate=5 October 2017|url-status=dead|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20070928001629/http://www.genocide1915.info/research/view.asp?ID=8|archivedate=28 September 2007}}</ref>

==Pro-British espionage==
[[File:Avshalom Feinberg and Sarah Aaronsohn, 1916.jpeg|thumb|Feinberg and Aaronsohn in 1916]]
Aaronsohn, her sister Rivka Aaronsohn, and her brothers Aaron Aaronsohn and [[Alexander Aaronsohn]], with their friend (and fiancé of Rivka) [[Avshalom Feinberg]] formed and led the [[Nili]] spy organization. Aaronsohn oversaw operations in Palestine of the spy ring and passed information to British agents offshore. Sometimes she travelled widely through Ottoman territory collecting information useful to the British, and brought it directly to them in Egypt. In 1917, her brother Alexander urged her to remain in British-controlled [[Egypt]], expecting hostilities from Ottoman authorities; but Aaronsohn returned to Zichron Yaakov to continue Nili activities. Nili developed into the largest pro-British espionage network in the Middle East, with a network of about 40 spies.<ref name="jwa.org"/>

==Torture and suicide==
[[Image:SarahAaronsohnGrave.jpg|thumb|right|Sarah Aaronsohn's (right) and her mother's graves at the Zikhron cemetery in Israel]]
In September 1917, the [[Ottoman Empire|Ottoman]]s intercepted her [[carrier pigeon]] carrying a message to the British and decrypted the [[Nili]] [[code (cryptography)|code]]. In October, the [[Ottoman Empire|Ottoman]]s surrounded Zichron Yaakov and arrested numerous people, including Aaronsohn. Her captors tortured her father in front of her. She endured four days of [[torture]] herself, but she gave no information beyond what she thought of her torturers.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.think-israel.org/pollack.lonepalmtree.html|title=Think-Israel|website=www.think-israel.org|accessdate=5 October 2017}}</ref>{{unreliable source?|date=May 2018}} Before she was to be transferred to Damascus for further torture, she asked permission to return to her home in Zichron Yaakov to change her blood-stained clothes. While there, she managed to shoot herself with a pistol concealed under a tile in the bathroom.<ref>Auron, Yair (2001). ''The Banality of Indifference''. Routledge. pp. 179–80. {{ISBN|978-0765808813}}</ref><ref>Kahana, Ephraim (2006). ''Historical dictionary of Israeli intelligence''. Scarecrow Press. p. xix. {{ISBN|978-0810855816}}</ref>  According to [[Scott Anderson (novelist)|Scott Anderson]], in his book ''Lawrence in Arabia'', Aaronsohn shot herself in the mouth on Friday 5 October 1917.  "Even this did not end the torment of Sarah Aaronsohn.  While the bullet destroyed her mouth and severed her spinal cord, it missed her brain.  For four days she lingered in agony." In ''Spies in Palestine'', [[James Srodes]] quotes the diary of Dr. [[Hillel Yaffe]] as saying that Sarah pleaded with him, "For heaven's sake, put an end to my life. I beg you, kill me…I can't suffer any longer…." Instead, Dr. Yaffee administered morphine.<ref>Srodes, James (2016). ''Spies in Palestine''. Berkeley: Counterpoint Press, p. 175. {{ISBN|978-1619026131}}.</ref> She died on 9 October 1917.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Anderson|first1=Scott|title=Lawrence In Arabia: War, deceit, imperial folly and the making of the Modern Middle East|url=https://archive.org/details/lawrenceinarabia00ande|url-access=registration|date=2013|publisher=Doubleday|location=New York & Canada|edition=First}}</ref> In her last letter, she expressed her hope that her activities in [[Nili]] would bring nearer the realization of a  national home for the Jews in [[Land of Israel|Eretz Israel]].

Because of the [[Jewish views on suicide]], Aaronsohn was denied a traditional burial in a [[Jewish cemetery]]. However, refusing a Jewish burial for her was unpopular. As a compromise, a small fence was placed around her grave in the cemetery (symbolically removing her grave from the surrounding hallowed ground).

==Legacy==
Aaronsohn was the first example of a "secular, active death of a Jewish-Zionist woman for the nation, unprecedented in both religious martyrdom and in the Zionist tradition established in Palestine."<ref name="jwa.org"/> Annual pilgrimages to her tomb in Zikhron's cemetery started in 1935. After the [[Six-Day War]] of 1967, the memory of Aaronsohn and of Nili became a part of Israel's cult of heroism, officially recognized by the [[Israeli Labor Party|Labor Party]] and celebrated in children's literature.<ref>https://www.ithl.org.il/page_14448| short text summarizing book by Dvora Omer "Sarah, Hero of Nili" or "Sarah Aharonson, Heroine"</ref>

==See also==
*[[Balfour Declaration]]
*[[Zionism]]
*[[Ot me-Avshalom]] by [[Nava Macmel-Atir]], 2009 (Hebrew). {{ISBN|978-965-482-889-5}}

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==Further reading==
*''Aaronsohn's Maps: The Untold Story of the Man Who Might Have Created Peace in the Middle East'' by [[Patricia Goldstone]] (2007, Harcourt Inc.)  {{ISBN|978-0-15-101169-8}}
*''Heroes of Israel'' by [[Chaim Herzog]] (1989, Little, Brown) {{ISBN|0-316-35901-7}}
*''A Spy For Freedom: The Story of Sarah Aaronsohn'' by [[Ida Cowan]] and [[Irene Gunther]] (1984, Lodestar Books) {{ISBN|0-525-67150-1}}
*''The Nili Spies'' by [[Anita Engle]] (1959, The Hogarth Press) 
*''[[:HE:שרה, גיבורת ניל"י|Sarah, the Hero of Nili]]'' by [[Dvora Omer]] (1967; Hebrew)
*''Spies in Palestine: Love, Betrayal and the Heroic Life of Sarah Aaronsohn'' by [[James Srodes]] (2016, Counterpoint Press)  {{ISBN|978-1619026131}}
*''A Strange Death'' by [[Hillel Halkin]] (2005, Weidenfeld & Nicolson) {{ISBN|0-297-85095-4}}
*''The Woman Who Fought an Empire: Sarah Aaronsohn and Her Nili Spy Ring'' by [[Gregory J. Wallance]] (2018, Potomac Books) {{ISBN|978-1612349435}}

==External links==
{{Commons category|Sarah Aaronsohn}}
*{{in lang|he}} [http://www.izkor.gov.il/izkor86.asp?t=505277 שרה אהרנסון] Sarah Aaronsohn (izkor.gov.il)
* Prof.  Billie Melman, [http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/aaronsohn-sarah Sarah Aaronsohn] (''Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia,'' Jewish Women's Archive)
* Biography on [http://www.myjewishlearning.com/israel/History/Before_the_State/Sarah_Aaronsohn.shtml MyJewishLearning.com]

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Aaronsohn, Sarah}}
[[Category:1890 births]]
[[Category:1917 suicides]]
[[Category:1917 deaths]]
[[Category:20th-century spies]]
[[Category:Ashkenazi Jews from Ottoman Palestine]]
[[Category:Female wartime spies]]
[[Category:People of Romanian-Jewish descent]]
[[Category:People from Zikhron Ya'akov]]
[[Category:Suicides by firearm in Mandatory Palestine]]
[[Category:Torture victims]]
[[Category:Witnesses of the Armenian genocide]]
[[Category:Women in war in West Asia]]
[[Category:Women in World War I]]
[[Category:World War I spies for the United Kingdom]]
[[Category:Zionist activists]]