On Dec. 9, 1917, 12-year-old Anna-Grace Lind stood on the balcony of a hotel just inside the Jaffa Gate and watched Gen. Edmund Allenby, commander of the British forces, march into Jerusalem and proclaim British martial law.
As a mark of respect, Allenby dismounted and entered Jerusalem on foot, a symbolic gesture remembered by Jews who saw him as their liberator from the Turkish yoke.
Seventy-five years later to the day, Anna-Grace Lind again watched Allenby stride through the Jaffa Gate. Only this time it was the 3rd Viscount Allenby, the general’s great-nephew, who entered the city in the company of Mayor Teddy Kollek.
The British aristocrat was taking part in events commemorating the 75th anniversary of the Ottoman surrender to the British Egyptian Expeditionary Forces in World War I.
“My uncle was determined to capture the city intact and maintain it as the center of the three major religions,” Allenby told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
While Kollek acknowledged that the relationship between the Jews of Palestine and the British was sometimes problematic, he said Israel remembered the many benefits of British rule, some of which remain to this day.
He said the British were welcomed equally by Jews, Christians and Moslems, all of whom had suffered under 400 years of Turkish rule.
Indeed, Jerusalem historian Ya’acov Gross told JTA the British arrival at that time probably saved the Jewish community. Six months later, the Jews would either have fled or been expelled by the Turks.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
