Anzac Day from a Jewish Australian perspective

ANZAC Day that falls this Shabbat marks 111 years since the fateful unsuccessful attack on Gallipoli remembered as the event that forged a uniquely Australian psyche in which mateship predominated even under fire.

The attack – albeit doomed – was part of the British strategy that would in the end lead to the downfall of the Ottoman Empire. Sadly, the terrain at the shores of Gallipoli was such that after significant casualties were incurred the initiative was abandoned and the troops were withdrawn back to base in Egypt.

But the following year 1916 – 110 years ago – was to see the unfolding of events culminating in the Allied success in the capture of what would initially  become Palestine – and thus the events leading to establishment of our State of Israel.

Because of the significance of the Suez Canal to communication between Britain and the Mediterranean with India, Australasia and the Far East, Egypt had become the initial destination for forces from those locations, especially the Anzacs destined to participate in the war effort generally. Egypt now served as the point to which those who survived the initial battles with Ottoman troops were sent. From there many were sent to the Western Front in Europe where sadly casualties abounded and only John Monash’s strategy changed the tide of war. However others remained – and then became a key to renewed fighting with the Ottomans. They now approached Ottoman territory from Egypt – located below its southernmost extent.

Having spent the first half of 1916 on the defensive to ensure the Turks could not advance to and capture the Suez, August saw the first successes of northwards movement with the battles at the decrepit oasis villages of Romani (August 4) and Katia (August 9) – some 35km East of the Suez. Approaching the northern limit of Sinai, El Arish was taken on December 21 and Rafah – the southern extremity of what we now know as the Gaza Strip and famously now the crossing point between the Strip and Egypt  – was taken on January 8. Egyptian territory was now free of Turkish forces as troops advanced away from the desert sands.

Following the coast road, which had its origins in antiquity (the way of the Plishtim that was not taken by the Israelites after the Exodus – Shemot 13:17), they moved northwards towards Gaza just as Napoleon’s troops had done some 120 years earlier. Regrettably, the first battle of Gaza on March 26, 1917, and further battle on April 19 were both unsuccessful.
However, those failures led to reorganisation of the force including (in June) appointment of General Sir Edmund Allenby to head the forces. After a considerable period of reorganisation and training, the momentum and pace of the advance in which Australian troops (including I should add, many Jews) played a key role, quickened. Beersheba was now famously taken by the historic charge of the 4th Australian Light Horse on October 30 and Gaza finally captured on November 7. Issuance of the Balfour Declaration occurred in the context of these movements. That pivotal document in the history of the move to establishment of our state three decades later was a November 2, 1917, letter from British foreign secretary Arthur Balfour to Lord Walter Rothschild, pledging British support for a “national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine.

The initiative of northward advance continued with Jaffa occupied on November 16 and finally Yerushalayim on Erev Chanukah, December 9. Australian forces were crucial to that capture. However the formal credit was inevitably given to the British leadership.  General Edmund Allenby entered Jerusalem on December 11, marking the end of 400 years of Ottoman rule and establishing British military control. At the Jaffa Gate he dismounted from his horse and entered the city on foot as a gesture of respect, and declared protection over the city’s religious sites. Inter alia Allenby is remembered across contemporary Israel by street names includingTel Aviv’s major thoroughfare.

The following year Jericho was taken on February 21. Haifa and Amman were both taken in September and during October troops advanced beyond what was to be known as Palestine to Damascus, Beirut and Aleppo. In all these battles the mounted Australian Light Horse Brigades played a significant role.

Volume eight of HS Gullet’s The Official History of Australia in the war of 1914–1918  is entitled “The AIF (Australian Infantry Force) in Sinai and Palestine”. There we read that in November 1917 Australian troops had been on the move northward and the weather had been (perhaps unseasonably) cold and rainy. “The Jews were the first white Europeans the troops had seen since leaving home” and their settlements (Rishon and Rehovot) “contained large supplies of various fruits, wines and bread. Already by the middle of November the oranges of the famous groves extending towards Jaffa were flushed with gold and were eaten greedily by the men.”

Gullet also describes the way the local Jews welcomed the troops and the beginning of a relationship between Australian troops and Palestinian Jews that would be renewed and strengthened during the Second World War.
Thus on a personal note I would add that during the 1980s I was one of an Australian team working with Keren Hayesod on an urban renewal project in Rishon LeZion financed by Australian Jewry. The mayor at the time told us of the positive memories he and his family had of the Australian troops who camped in Sarafand – more recently IDF base Zerifin – during World War II.
Indeed, on Anzac Day each year, both as Jews and Australians, as per the Ode of Remembrance we recognise that:

“They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.”

Shabbat shalom,

Yossi

Yossi Aron OAM is The AJN’s religious affairs editor