Exodus - Leon Uris [322]
The protectorates along the Arabian Peninsula consisted of a complex of large and small Arab kingdoms, sheikdoms and Bedouin tribes which skirted the shores from the Red Sea along the Gulf of Aden on through to the Arabian Sea and Persian Gulf. The British controlled the area by a hundred different treaties which paid tribute in arms or money to the tribes for oil rights. In turn, the British attempted to keep the feuds down and give protection and passage.
The key place in this holding was the Crown Colony of Aden in the Western Protectorate. The port of Aden was a passageway between East and West, settled by Greeks, British, Arabs, and Jews, and a blend of oriental filth, Asiatic exoticness, British rigidity, traces of industrial progress, and the wildness of a port of call. It was at once an exciting and disgusting place.
The port of Aden was the goal of the Yemenite exodus. At first the British did not quite know what to do with these people pouring in over their border in caravans that seemed right out of the Bible. They were still at odds with the Jews over the mandate, yet they could feel no hatred for the Yemenites. The British gave conditional approval to the Yemenites to enter and establish camps, provided the Israelis came down and got them out.
They were tragic figures as they came from Yemen, dressed in rags, filthy and half dead from starvation and thirst. Almost all their possessions had been stolen from them by the Arabs. But each man still carried his Bible and each village still carried the Holy Torah of the synagogue.
A hasty camp was set up at Hashed near the port of Aden. The Israelis covered the border between the Western Protectorate and Yemen. As soon as there was news of another group arriving, they rushed transport to the border to bring them to Hashed. There was a shortage of personnel and supplies at Hashed. The organization badly lagged behind the needs of the numbers coming through.
The immigration people faced the additional difficulty of having to deal with a semiprimitive people. The Yemenites could not comprehend things like water taps, toilets, or electric lights. This was a community who had suddenly caught up with almost three thousand years of progress in hours. Motor vehicles, medicine, western dress, and a thousand things were strange and awesome to them. It was a frightening experience.
The women shrieked as doctors and nurses tried to remove their lice-filled rags to exchange them for clean clothing. They refused to have their bodies examined for sores and diseases, and rebelled against shots and vaccinations. There was a continuous fight against the workers who tried to remove temporarily the infants who badly needed treatment for malnutrition.
Fortunately there was a partial solution that kept the workers and doctors from complete frustration. The camp workers, mostly Israelis with an intimate knowledge of the Bible, quickly learned to go to the Yemenite rabbis with appropriate Biblical passages, and thereby nearly anything could be accomplished. So long as it was written in “the Book,” the Yemenites would accede.
The Hashed camp grew, and reports along the Western Protectorate frontier told of more Yemenites coming. Under agreement with the British, the Israel Provisional Government had to get them out of Aden. So Arctic Circle Airways became Palestine Central and Foster J. MacWilliams unwittingly answered an age-old prophecy by dropping from the sky with the first of the great “eagles.”
The arrival of the plane created tremendous excitement. The first group picked up their Torah and their water bottles and