Hidden Pathways

                              by Yani Avidov

Every night the immigrants would gather in Beirut and leave secretly, by car, for the border. About 20 miles from the border, the cars would drop their passengers and return to Beirut. The leader of the operation, Akiva, then divided the people into three groups: the women first, behind them the weary and the old, with the young men bringing up the rear. He himself marched at the head. From time to time he would stop and count his charges, give a helping hand or an encouraging word where needed and, often, carry one of the wearier of his people on his shoulders.

More than once such a convoy was held up at the border. In such cases we usually succeeded in obtaining their release by bribing the border police. Sometimes this did not help and the prisoners would be taken to the nearby town for trial. When this happened, we would have to offer larger bribes to the judges themselves...

The crossing of the border was carried out with the aid of a special unit of the "Palmach" which moved out of Kibbutz Ayelet Hashachar every night to receive the immigrants at the border. All the immigrant convoys reached their destination, until one day there was a mishap. That evening our people left Beirut with the Aleppo children. Sixty of them were crowded into a truck hidden under a tarpaulin. The children were driven by Akiva, they lined up in two columns and started marching - two Arab smugglers in the lead and Akiva this time bringing up the rear. Ahead of them were several hours of walking. Suddenly the two Arabs disappeared from sight and as the children stood wondering and frightened, a group of policemen came up and arrested the group. Akiva took cover nearby.

The children were held in a nearby police-station and did not inform the police who had brought them together and how, in the middle of the night, they had found their way to the hidden pathways near the border. In the end, the police decided to return the children to their parents. As soon as Akiva learned that the children would be returned to Beirut, he hurried to meet them in the Lebanese capital.

He and I watched them as they were led through the streets of the capital - red-eyed, perspiring, depressed, their bundles thrown over their shoulders. On either side were policemen and behind them followed a mob of hundreds of Arabs - shouting insults, threatening, throwing stones and spitting.

As I watched this spectacle, I decided that come what may these children would get to the Land of Israel. I tried to think of all kinds of tricks to get these children out of the hands of the police.

It was Friday evening, Shabbat. I hurried to the home of the rabbi and told him that he must persuade the police to allow the children to stay in Beirut and not travel on the Sabbath day. He would have to take responsibility for turning over the children to their parents in Aleppo. Finally, the authorities agreed to release the children into the hands of the Jewish community for the Sabbath.

The children were taken to the synagogue, and none of us "aliyah" people were allowed near them. My brain worked feverishly. All I had left was one night in which to act. It is difficult enough for a man under suspicion, like myself, to keep clear of the watchful eye of the police. But it is even more difficult to keep out of the way of fellow-Jews who fear for their own skin.

In Beirut at that time there was a company of Palestinian Jewish soldiers working for the British Army. I made my way to them and we worked out a plan to save the children.

Ten of our soldiers took two trucks stopping near the entrance to the synagogue, as Shabbat began. The soldiers got off the trucks and mingled with the children. As the prayers began, the soldiers managed, playfully, to draw the children out into the courtyard. The trucks backed up close to the gate of the synagogue courtyard; in fact, the space remaining was barely wide enough to allow one child to squeeze past.

The soldiers arranged the children in a singing-and-dancing chain that wound its way innocently towards the gate. Then suddenly the gate swung open and the children were passed from soldier to soldier and lifted, one by one, up into the trucks. They were caught by surprise of course, but they had the good sense, all of them, to keep silent: no one uttered a sound. The trucks then drove off.

The worshippers now began coming out of the synagogue ready to take the Jewish children into their homes for the Sabbath. But when they saw that the children had disappeared, the entire congregation burst into tears.

My heart bled to see their distress. The rabbi was convinced that the Arabs had taken the children. I went over to him quietly and whispered in his ear: "Rabbi, I am the one who took the children."

Apparently my words, spoken in Hebrew, were like some strange melody in his ears, like a voice from another world. "Where are they?" he asked tearfully. "They are on their way to Eretz Yisrael," I answered. His eyes glistened with tears - but this time with tears of joy. He turned to me and said with great feeling: "Bless you, in the name of the Lord!" He then gathered the worshippers around him and explained that "the Prophet Elijah has taken the children to Zion!"

Soon after, I hurried to Aleppo to collect the signatures of the children's parents, as certfication, for the police, that the children had been returned to their homes. All along the way my heart pounded with joy: I felt complete confidence in our boys - who at that very moment were driving the children to Palestine under the protection of the British flag - that they would arrive safely in Dan.

Upon my arrival in Aleppo, a telegram awaited me from our soldiers, announcing that all had gone according to plan and they had returned safely to their camp in Beirut. The children had finally arrived at their destination: they were in the Land of Israel.
 

These extracts were taken from "Hidden Pathways," which deals with the work of the section of the "Aliyah Bet" organization which brought Jews from the Arab countries to Palestine. It describes the aliyah-by-land movement across the northern border in the closing of World War II.

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