Lawrence And Aaronsohn

The rivalry that presaged the world's most tenacious conflict As the Arab-Israeli conflict continues to plague the Middle East, historian Ronald Florence offers extraordinary new insights on its origins. This is the story of T. E. Lawrence, the young British officer who became famous around the world as Lawrence of Arabia, Aaron Aaronsohn, an agronomist from Palestine, and the antagonism that divided them over the fate of the dying Ottoman Empire during World War I--a clash of visions that set Arab nationalism and Zionism on a direct collision course that reverberates to this day.

One of the Best Books of the Year: The Christian Science Monitor NPR The Seattle Times St. Louis Post-Dispatch Chicago Tribune A New York Times Notable Book Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in Biography The Arab Revolt against the Turks in World War I was, in the words of T. E. Lawrence, “a sideshow of a sideshow.” As a result, the conflict was shaped to a remarkable degree by a small handful of adventurers and low-level officers far removed from the corridors of power. At the center of it all was Lawrence himself. In early 1914 he was an archaeologist excavating ruins in Syria; by 1917 he was riding into legend at the head of an Arab army as he fought a rearguard action against his own government and its imperial ambitions. Based on four years of intensive primary document research, Lawrence in Arabia definitively overturns received wisdom on how the modern Middle East was formed.

"The Woman Who Fought an Empire" tells the improbable odyssey of a spirited young woman--the daughter of Romanian-born Jewish settlers in Palestine--and her journey from unhappy housewife to daring leader of a notorious Middle East spy ring.

Scientist, diplomat, and spy, Aaron Aaronsohn was one of the most extraordinary figures in the early struggle to create a homeland for the Jews.Born to Jewish settlers in Palestine, he ran a spy network that enabled the British to capture Jerusalem during World War I and made him the rival of his contemporary, T.E.Lawrence-who may also have been his flamboyant sister Sarah's lover.A rugged adventurer, Aaronsohn became convinced during his explorations of the Middle East that water would govern the region's fate.He compiled both the area's first detailed water maps and a plan for Palestine's national borders that predicted and-in its insistence on partnership between Arabs and Jews-might have prevented the decades of conflict to come.And he paid for his devotion to the new nation with his life.A history that speaks directly to the present, Aaronsohn's Maps reveals for the first time Aaronsohn's key role in establishing Israel and the enduring importance of Aaronsohn's maps in Middle Eastern politics today.

In this unique book first published in 1916, Romanian Jew ALEXANDER AARONSOHN documents for the world the struggle that went on in Palestine during the early years of the Zionist movement, when his parents helped found the village of Zicron-Jacob and worked to transform the desert into a fertile garden. Aaronsohn tells the story of his life, from his early trip to America to being pressed into military service for Turkey. His personal account covers the imposition of Germany into Turkish politics and the effect of German propaganda on Turkish attitudes towards outsiders, including himself. In the events that follow, Aaronsohn struggles to save his home and his family from growing oppression of the Turks.

Aaron Aaronsohn was one of the most extraordinary figures in the early struggle to create a homeland for the Jewish people. Brought to Palestine at age five, as a young man Aaronsohn was a rugged adventurer who became convinced during years of solo explorations that water should govern the region's fate. He compiled both the area's first detailed water maps and a plan for Palestine's national borders that predicted and—in its insistence on partnership between Arabs and Jews—might have prevented the decades of conflict to come. In World War I, he ran a spy network with his sister, Sarah, that enabled the British to capture Jerusalem but also made him the rival of his colleague T.E. Lawrence. There is evidence that beautiful, rebellious Sarah, who died tragically in 1917, was the only woman the enigmatic Lawrence ever loved. Ultimately, Aaron Aaronsohn also paid for his devotion to the new nation with his life. A history that speaks directly to the present, Aaronsohn's Maps reveals for the first time Aaronsohn's key role in establishing Israel and the enduring importance of Aaronsohn's maps in Middle Eastern politics today.

A celebrated botanist, who had won world fame as the discoverer of 'wild wheat, ' Aaron Aaronsohn (1876 1919) created the first Jewish Agricultural Experiment Station in Palestine then under Turkish rule in 1910. His venture was supported and funded from the u.s. by a group which included Julius Rosenwald, Justices Louis D. Brandeis and Felix Frankfurter (both later on the u.s. Supreme Court), Judah L. Magnes (later President of the Hebrew University), and Henrietta Szold, the founder of Hadassah. In World War I, reacting against the oppressive Turkish regime, Aaronsohn founded a Jewish spy organization, nili, to help the British in the forthcoming battle for Palestine. Here is told the story of Aaronsohn, who is revealed as a master of strategy, and his sister Sarah, whose self-sacrificing devotion to the cause shows her to be a great historic personality in her own right. Historian Shmuel Katz here rectifies the absence of a comprehensive biography of Aaronsohn and the nili spy ring. Meticulously researched British War Office intelligence documents and the letters and field reports of nili s central figures illustrate the crucial contribution made by nili to the British conquest of Palestine. Powerfully written, with deep sensitivity to the emotional lives of the people portrayed, The Aaronsohn Saga is both solid history and a marvelous read.

Sarah Aaronsohn was a twenty–first century woman in a nineteenth–century world. She and her siblings were born as part of the first wave of Jewish immigrants who fled the pogroms of Russia and Eastern Europe in the 1880s, settling in the province of Syria–Palestine. By the outbreak of World War I in 1914 the settlers had come a dramatic distance in creating the Eretz Israel of their Biblical prophecies. Sarah's home village of Zichron Ya'akov brought prosperity to their lands between the Mediterranean coast and the Mount Carmel range. But when the Ottoman Turkish Empire sided with Kaiser Wilhelm II and the other Central Powers in World War I, the Jewish settlements faced cruel oppressions. This book describes how the Aaronsohns, one of the most prominent families in the province, came to commit themselves and their comrades to the Allied side and how they formed the NILI espionage organization to spy against the Turkish Army. Late in the war, in 1917, Sarah assumed command of the spy network as the group's penetration of the Turkish army reached a critical juncture. Sarah was idolized by T.E. Lawrence, the fabled Lawrence of Arabia who dedicated his flowery biography, The Seven Pillars of Wisdom, to her.