hayot hanegev: my father's journey from the kibbutz to the palmach

8/17/2019 HaYot HaNegev: My Father's Journey From the Kibbutz to the Palmach

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FEATURE

There are few chapters in historythat have ever revealed the face ofevil—or that were wrought inmore human suff ering and deg-

radation—than the Holocaust, known asthe Shoah or “catastrophe” in Hebrew.What many do not realize, however, is thatthe poisonous barbs of Hitler’s Final Solu-tion were not conned solely to Europe butstretched far to the East, where my fatherand his father were born.

My “Abba” (father), Joseph Gabbay, was

an Israeli hero who served proudly andbravely in Israel’s 1948 War of Indepen-dence. From as early as I can remember, hewould tell me stories of his journey from alife of wealth and privilege in Iraq, wherehe was surrounded by the warmth of fam-ily and educated at the prestigious Allianceschool, to a humble, solitary existence oflabor and study on a kibbutz in Haifawhere herst learned to speak Hebrew andwould later prepare for war.

As I grew older and Abba felt I was ma-ture enough to handle greater truths, his

stories became more piquant,

lled withdetails of his pains and struggles, joys and

triumphs. Each retold memory was imbuedwith a sense of pride and humility, of rever-ence and awe at how he and his lonsmen inbattle, so severely outnumbered, were at themercy of the hand of God. For as much ashe witnessed and although his own bloodhad been spilled, my father would neverhave traded it for the world. He was a partof Israel—and so, too, became I.

Though it was clear Abba restrainedhimself a great deal, never wishing tofrighten me with the disturbing details of

the horrors he endured, he said enough. Iknew he suff ered.Tis man who was lledwith an infectious light and beloved by ev-eryone he met was forced to survive a bar-barism that few, save those who have facedevil in war, could fathom even in the dark-est recesses of the mind.

BABYLONIAN BEGINNINGS

My father was born in Baghdad, as was hisfather before him. In fact, our family lin-eage can be traced back to the times ofBabylon. Throughout history, various

forces came to rule over Iraq, from the Ot-tomans to the Mongols to the British, but

Israeli independence did not come cheaply or easily.

The life of Joseph Gabbay—an elite Jewish freedom

fighter—tells the world exactly what it took to ward

off an enemy determined to exterminate a nation.

B Y T I F F A N Y G A B B A Y

Joseph Gabbay, pictured here as a boy(white shirt with suspenders) with his family

in Iraq, became a warrior determined todefend Israel. (Gabbay family)

In the Handsof God and Men


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in all its incarnations, there was only oneconstant presence—that of the Jewish peo-ple. Indeed, since the 6th century BCE, theJewish people maintained a consistentpresence in Iraq, hundreds of years beforeIslam arrived in the 7th century.

In my grandfather’s prime followingWorld War I, Iraq fell under the auspices

of the British Mandate, and Jews, who un-til then were vehemently discriminatedagainst, nally became recognized as full-edged citizens.Tey were given the rightto vote, hold political office and attain theirrightful place in society.

Although the British Mandate of Iraq of-ficially ended in 1932, the Baghdad of myfather’s childhood was still highly inuencedby the monarchy and was a ourishing me-tropolis if ever there was one. Members of thecity’s established Jewish community, whichcomprised one-third of Baghdad’s popula-

tion, along with its Christian counterpart,played an indispensable role in shaping theland into a thriving paradise that enjoyed eco-nomic, agricultural and societal prosperity.

Still, the primitivism and tribalism, jeal-ousy and loathing, and, of course, anti-Semitism that have long-served as hall-marks of the Arab world reared their uglyheads eventually. It was not long before apro-Nazi prime minister took hold of thekingdom and the nearly three-millennia-old Iraqi Jewish community was faced withoutright extinction.

While Arabs certainly needed no helpfomenting hatred of their Jewish neigh-bors, it was Adolf Hitler who solidied, intheir minds, the belief that the genocidethey had always dreamed of was actuallyattainable. As the Final Solution raged inthe West, Muslims in the East saw Hitler’sTird Reich as the model to emulate. Andso they tried.

THE MUFTI AND THE FÜHRERJust as there is a pope in the Vatican whorepresents the whole of Catholicism, Mus-

lims, too, revere a singular spiritual leader,and that figure is called a “grand mufti.” In1941, Grand Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseinitook a shine to the teachings of Führer Hit-ler and began conspiring with the Nazis toexterminate another contingent of the Jew-ish population—this one in Baghdad.

In 1941, al-Husseini traveled to Ger-many to meet with Hitler, Heinrich Him-mler, Joachim Von Ribbentrop and otherprominent Nazis to enlist their help inbringing the Final Solution to the Arabworld. Trough no fewer than 15 drafs,

the muf

i told Hitler that the Jews were hisarchenemies and urged Germany and Ita-

ly to declare Jewish homes illegal in theBritish Mandate of Palestine. He also calledon the two fascist nations to grant Arabs“the right to solve the problem of the Jew-ish elements in Palestine and other Arabcountries, in accordance with the interestof the Arabs and, by the same method, that

the question is now being settled in theAxis countries.”Afer all, reasoned the mufi, “the Arabs

were Germany’s natural friends becausethey had the same enemies.”

Hitler replied that Germany would“furnish positive and practical aid to theArabs involved in the same struggle” andthat his country’s “objective [is] … solelythe destruction of the Jewish element re-siding in the Arab sphere.”

“In that hour the mufti would be themost authoritative spokesman for the Arab

world,” he concluded.In the end, despite their shared anti-Semitism, the führer was too much a racistto fully engage the Muslim world but none-theless proved to be a powerful ally for theArabs in some very measurable ways,namely by introducing them to the highlyeff ective tool of propaganda.

The German embassy in Iraq, until1941, was headed by famed Nazi diplomatDr. Fritz Grobba, who markedly increasedthe dissemination of anti-Semitic propa-ganda material throughout the Middle

East by purchasing Arab newspapers. Onesuch newspaper, Al-alam Al-arabi (The

Arab World ), published the rst Arabic-language translation of “Mein Kampf.”TeGerman embassy also supported the for-mation of “Al-Fatwa,” the Muslim counter-part of “Hitlerjugend” (Hitler Youth).

Of course, this all rings eerily familiar.How ofen have we seen children today

in Gaza or West Bank, indeed across theArab world, chant anti-Semitic slurs inmuch the same way Hitler Youth did de-cades earlier? From doctored photos of awounded or “killed” Palestinian child tomodeling children’s school textbooks afer“Mein Kampf,” the influence rings loudand clear.

Given the background, should it comeas a surprise then that, upon returning tothe Middle East in 1941, Grand Mufi al-Husseini helped to orchestrate the begin-nings his own Final Solution?

THE FARHUDOn June 1, 1941, as Jews in Baghdad werepreparing festive meals in preparation forthe holiday of Shavuot, a heavily armedmob of Iraqi Muslims took to the streets ina vicious rampage, targeting the city’s Jew-ish communities. Thousands of Islamicmen equipped with guns, swords, knives,homemade grenades and other crudeweapons searched out and slaughtered anyJewish man, woman or child they captured.

An image of a “hamsa,” or “Hand of

God,” was painted on Jewish homes to singlethem out for attack. Ironically, this symbol

Grand Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini (left) met with Adolf Hitler in Germany in 1941. The muftishared the Nazis' hope to wipe the Jews off the face of the earth. (Wikimedia Commons)


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is meant to be used as a talisman for protec-tion. Te families inside had no choice butto band together and steel themselves withwhatever weapons they could muster.

My father was there. He recalled thesavagery in complete detail for the dura-tion of his life. Although he was only achild at the time, the situation demanded

he become a man—and he did.Reliving the events for me on numerous

occasions, Abba said that, as the oldest son,he felt an onus to stand by his father andprotect the family.Tankfully, he was a hel-lion and as shrewd as they come, devisinga plan of ambush that, in the end, helpedsave him and his family from extinction.

Somehow numb to the fear that shouldhave overcome anyone at such tender age,my father resolved to fulll his duty andpositioned himself on the roof of his house,poised with metal buckets brimming with

scalding hot cooking grease, heavy stonesand bricks, knives, metal pipes and anyother makeshif weapons he could devise.

As several of the marauders rushed thegrounds of my family’s home, my fatherlaunched his defensive, dumping the buck-ets of piping hot grease and hurling theprojectiles he’d had on hand with all of thenerve and sinew in him. My “Saba” (grand-father), meanwhile, remained below,armed with a plan and weapons of his own.

How they managed to stave off that vio-lent mob and certain death remains one of

the great and many mysteries of my father’slife. To be sure, it would not be the last timethe hand of God would play a role in deliv-ering him to safe harbor.

In the end, British forces came in to dis-perse the rampaging mob and restore somesemblance of order, but it was too little toolate. According to the Babylonian HeritageMuseum, nearly 800 innocent Iraqi Jewswere killed—180 identied and 600 un-identied that were later found buried in amass grave. In addition, 1,000 Jews wereinjured, nearly 600 Jewish businesses were

looted and another 1,000 Jewish homesransacked and destroyed.The bloody, two-day massacre was

called the “Farhud,” Arabic for “violent dis-possession,” and came to be known as the

“forgotten pogrom of the Holocaust.”It was also the beginning of the end of

Iraq’s 2,700-year-old Jewish community.“From that point on, I was a Zionist,”

my father told me. “I saw evil. I saw howprimitive and barbaric they were. All theywanted, all they wanted, was to see us dead.I couldn’t live like that. I just couldn’t.”

Obsessed with the thought of Israel, myfather began begging his mother, my“Safa,” to send him to live with an uncle inJerusalem.

Tough he was only 9 nine years old,not much older than my youngest nephewis now, my father was indeed every bit theadult the times required him to be. Deter-mined, he set out to build a new life forhimself and his family in Eretz Israel, farfrom the murderous grip of Islamists benton annihilating them.

Little did he know at the time, his battle

had just begun.

FROM BAGHDAD TO

JERUSALEM TO HAIFA

Reeling from what he endured in the brutalNazi-inspired Farhud, and through muchcoercion, Abba finally convinced Safta, tolet him live with his uncle, a strict rabbi inJerusalem. Upon arrival, however, my fa-ther quickly learned that, while life mayhave seemed more secure within the con-fines of his new home, the peace he longsought still eluded him. With his irrever-

ent, mischievous nature and aversion toauthority, life with an austere rabbi wasbound to go over like a lead balloon.

As the days passed, whiled away by reli-gious study that my young father had nei-ther the patience nor the inclination for, theHolocaust raged on in Europe. News of theAllied and Axis powers—their defeats andtriumphs—would make its way to Jerusa-lem. My father’s anxious, unsettled naturewas spurred on by the stirring in the air ofthe new “Olim” (Jewish immigrants) mak-ing their way back home to Eretz Israel.

More than anything, my father wantedto be a part of what he viewed as “Tikkunha’Olam,” which in Hebrew means a re-pairing of the world. In this case, that rep-aration was manifest through the restora-

tion of the Jewish state. Tus, it was notbefore long the now-seasoned escape artisted again—this time to a kibbutz in thebeautiful coastal city of Haifa.

KIBBUTZNIK MEETS

PALMACHNIK

During the British Mandate of Palestine,

the second “aliyah” (wave of Jewish im-migrants) to the region spanning from1904 to 1914 established the very first kib-butzim. While the concept of the Israelikibbutz has become relatively familiar tosome, few realize what an integral rolethese communities played in preservingthe Jewish state, not just in terms of build-ing its agricultural infrastructure but alsoin enriching the cause of Zionism and inhelping to foster the growth of Israel’s de-fense forces.

Founded mainly as agrarian, and in

some instances industrial collective com-munities, the kibbutzim sought to fuseconcepts of communal life and work withZionism. Life on the kibbutz was in noway glamorous, but at that time, accord-ing to my father, they were effective intheir goals.

“They were different times,” and thetasks at hand were truly of one’s very sur-

vival, he relayed to me on numerous occa-sions. “We were all working together to-ward Israel’s freedom—our freedom.”

Days began at the wee hours of dawn

lled with agricultural labor and were fol-lowed by Hebrew and other academicstudies for the remainder of the morning.Later, those days would come to includerigorous military training, as many of thekibbutzim, particularly a select few in Hai-fa, including the one to which my fatherbelonged, became a base for the Haganah,an underground army of the “yishuv”(Jewish community), and its progeny, thePalmach, an elite commando ghting unit.

Te Palmach (a Hebrew acronym for“striking companies”) was born in 1941 in

anticipation of an Axis invasion that wasfeared to follow a potential British with-drawal from Palestine.

Te kibbutz would host a Palmach pla-toon, providing it with food and neces-sary resources in exchange for militaryprotection and shared agricultural work.Tis self-sustaining system of combinedmilitary training, farming and Zionist im-mersion was called “Hach’shara Meguye-set” and proved to be a great success.

THE PALMACH GENERATION

As news of the Haganah and later Palmachbrigades spread throughout the kibbutzim,

“From that point on, I was a Zionist. I saw evil.

I saw how primitive and barbaric they were.

All they wanted, all they wanted, was to see

us dead. I couldn’t live like that. I just couldn’t.”


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my father eagerly volunteered. Althoughdifficult to imagine in days when suppliesand arms were limited, the Palmachniks (aterm used to describe one who had joinedthe specialist unit) were ingenious in theirskills of improvisation and general war-time acumen, and in the end, each volun-teer received world-class training.

Certain recruits, like Abba, went on toreceive advanced training in sabotage, ex-plosives, reconnaissance, sniping and op-erating machine guns and mortars. Pla-

toon training was relentless, and in theend, the Palmach, with its rigorous tech-

niques and fortitude of its leader-ship, served as the backbone of Is-rael’s military.

Indeed, much of the Haganah

and later Israel Defense Force’shigh command comprised Pal-machniks, i ncluding YitzhakSedeh, Yitzhak Rabin, MosheDayan and Yigal Allon, the latterof whom my father would eventu-ally serve directly under.

For my father, service seemedto come naturally, and as the hardtimes of an impending wartrudged on, time and again heproved himself a resourceful andresilient solider. As a result, in

1948, Abba was given a place inthe newly formed elite Negev Brigade,which ultimately consisted of four Pal-mach battalions and carried out some ofthe war’s most crucial and successful op-erations.

THE HA’YOT HA’ NEGEV

As the war commenced, the 9th Battalion’s jeep company emerged into a very unique,elite motorized commando platoon affec-tionately (or perhaps not-so-affectionately)dubbed the “Ha’yot Ha’ Negev,” or “Beasts

of the Desert.” The platoon was mainlymade up of members from the former Haifa

Reserve Forces—and those who were notup to the “mission impossible” style raidsthe Ha’yot would one day come to be knownfor were sent to back to the 2nd battalion.Only the fittest, and bravest were given thechance to prove themselves as a member ofthe fearless Negev Beasts, and my father wasone of those fewer than four-dozen men.

My father recalled how inadequatelythe Beasts were armed—indeed with noth-ing more than a scant number of assaultweapons and improvised jeeps rigged to“sound” like imposing armored tanks—yetthis scant handful of men, perhaps by sheerdivine intervention, played a crucial role inliberating the Negev and in capturing Beer-sheva during Israel’s War of Independence.

While never fully certain as to the ori-gin of the name, a fellow Ha’yot veteranonce wrote that their moniker derivedfrom the men’s consistently unshaven,

ruddy appearance. My father, however, hada diff erent theory.

One evening, before dusk, Abba was enroute to his barracks when he happenedupon an image that would change his life andthe way he viewed war forever. What wasonce a group of “mahals,” or foreign volun-teers to the Haganah, had all been slaugh-tered in a fashion that dees description.

While the barbarism seemed senseless,there was a “method” to their murderers’madness. In the mind of the Egyptian sol-ider, a defaced body, according to Jewish

tradition, would be denied a proper Jewishburial. And in this warped reality, the as-sailants derived joy from their victims’ suf-fering and what they hoped would be theireternal damnation. This was—and, intruth, still is—the Islamist mindset.

All of the experiences my father hadhad to that point—from the injustice andpersecution he endured as a Jew in Iraq tohis ght for his and his family’s survivalduring the Farhud—cameooding back inthat very moment. He believed that thehumanity he and his countrymen had thus

far maintained despite the carnage, must,by war’s gruesome design, give way to theprimal in order to survive. Tus, men ofgood will such as my father were forced tofuse their humanity with the need to steelthemselves in a way that allowed them toght and defeat such a savage enemy.

From that day my father became a dif-ferent kind of soldier. He might even say “abeast.”

THE WAR

The Third Phase of the first Arab-Israeli

War, occurring between May and July of1948, was perhaps the most critical. Coor-

Above: An improvised jeep of theHa’yot Ha’ Negev. (Gabbay family)

Left: Members of the Palmach, anelite Israeli commando fighting unit.(The Palmach Archive via the PikiWiki)


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dinated assaults on the Jewish state werewaged simultaneously by five regular Arabarmies who outnumbered the Israelis inboth manpower and artillery. This led tothe Fourth and Fifth Phases, during whichtwo distinct and crucial operations wouldchange history forever.

On Oct. 15, High Command staged

Operation Yoav in the northern Negev des-ert. Its goal was to drive a wedge betweenthe Egyptian forces along the coast and theBeersheva-Hebron-Jerusalem road and,ultimately, to capture the Negev. Te op-eration was headed by the southern frontcommander, Yigal Allon, whom my fatherserved under.Te next sign (but not the last) of the

Divine Hand playing a role in the war—and specifically in my father’s fate—oc-curred during one the battles of OperationYoav when my father survived an Egyptian

artillery raid.“Yossi!” cried one of the soldiers from

the trenches, “Bo’i Ho’lech!”(“Come on,let’s go!”) A fellow solider urged my fatherinto the trench where three others had justtaken cover. Blasts resounded. Shrapnelbroke the sky with metal shards. Bullets,mortars and grenades streaked smoke andames towards the soil.

While in the trenches, the four Israelissoldiers lined up single le and spent thevaluable few minutes they had reloading

their weapons. My father was at the frontof this line when something—a voice in-side him—told him to move.

Heeding this internal warning, hemoved to the back of the line, and at thatvery moment, a bomb struck the exact spotwhere had been standing. All seemed blackuntil my father felt the pounding in hishead and the blood trickling down the sideof his cheek. He reached his shaking handto the top of his head and could feel wherethe shrapnel had lodged. As the adrenalinesurged, Abba noticed that he was the only

one to survive the assault.Gaining his composure, my father re-

mained, waiting for the shelling to diedown and at therst clear moment, foughthis way to the safety of his command post.

Afer his wounds were dressed, he re-joined the fighting forces. But while theoperation ended up demolishing the Egyp-

tian army ranks, forcing them to retreatfrom the northern Negev, Beersheba andAshdod, my father never forgot the pain ofhis fallen fellow countrymen or how Godhad been watching over him.

On Oct. 22, the Israeli Navy comman-dos sank the Egyptian agship, Amir Fa-ruk, which rendered the nal blow in this

staggering Israeli victory.Te next “mission impossible” style raid

the Ha’yot were asked to perform was toforce the Egyptian army, which had en-circled the Gaza Strip, to withdraw andaccept a cease-re.Te small, ill-equipped Ha’yot versus an

Egyptian battalion.My father and his counterparts posi-

tioned themselves in a kibbutz near Gaza,outtted with no more than uniforms, fourArmy jeeps, some hand grenades and ma-chine guns. During the Israelis’ prepara-

tion stages, the Egyptians on the oppositeside of the Gaza hills bombarded the re-gion, the force of each blow shaking theground beneath their feet.

Knowing they were clearly outnum-bered and out-weaponed, the Ha’yot un-derstood that it would be only throughintellect and a superior strategy that theywould prevail. As part of this strategy, theydevised a way to rig their four jeeps toback re in such a way to make them soundmore like massive army tanks unleashing

their fire. With their plan in place, theHa’yot advanced toward the Egyptians,pushing the jeeps by hand up the hills andat strategic moments—back red.

Along with the advancing mock-tanks,the Ha’yot launched their grenades and letrip a storm of gunre. Te farther the Is-raelis advanced, the louder and more omi-nous the deafening booms of their on-slaught became; and those few Israelisoldiers, including my father, convincedhundreds of Egyptians that doomsday hadarrived in the form of a massive Israeli raid.

Abba recalled advancing up the hillsthrough the shower of fire and shelling,forever determined, pushing the Egyptiansback. All the while, their bullets would zipby, explosions would set forth a rainstormof metal shards, and bombs were launchedand descended to the ground within inch-es of my father. Remarkably, he trudged on,

unfazed and unmarred, noticing only howthe Egyptian bullets ying by his head atdusk so resembled ‘’shooting stars.’’

On that night, not one of the membersof the Ha’yot Ha’ Negev fell. But the Egyp-tians, stupeed, terried and completelyoutwitted, retreated in fear.

How could such a feat be possible whenthe good were so clearly outnumbered?

THE HAND OF GOD

I have relived the battles over and over withmy father when he would sit and talk to meabout those days. All the while, tears wouldroll down my cheek, thinking of him thatway. I see his sweet face shining, as he ranamid the bullets, rockets and mortar fire. Iwish I could have taken his place.

Ofen, when remembering his experi-ence of war, my father used to say, “It is

impossible that I survived each time. Byrights, I should have died … but I saw theface of God there, and He would not letme.”Te Divinity that saved my father is the

same Divinity that has protected the Jew-ish state and those who have fought forher throughout the centuries, includingthe last 65 years of Israeli independence.May this anniversary finally usher in anew era of peace, so that the wars inwhich my father and other brave Israelisso valiantly fought will not have been in

vain—and so that their children will knowonly the sweet, and not the bitter, of allthey endured.

“It is impossible that I survived each time. By

rights, I should have died … but I saw the

face of God there, and He would not let me.”

A Ha’yot Ha’ Negev pin. (Gabbay family)

hayot hanegev: my father's journey from the kibbutz to the palmach

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