Two Jewish workers, a United States citizen and a Canadian subject, were killed today when a large band of Arabs attacked a group of laborers traveling in horse-drawn wagons from one settlement to another in the Jezreel Valley.
The victims were Ephraim Titkin, 24 years old, of Detroit, married with no children, and Eliezer Korngold, 21, of Toronto, unmarried. Both belonged to the new Zionist youth colony of Ein Hashofet (Fountain of the Judge) named for Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis.
Jewish ghaffirs (auxiliary policemen) heard the shooting and rushed to the scene of the ambuscade, but the band had fled. Police and Royal Air Force planes hunted the band until nightfall.
The workers were traveling from Ramath Shavim to the American settlement of Juarrah when the band, hidden in a gully, attacked the wagons. One wagon escaped, but the other was halted. Titkin was immediately killed and Korngold disappeared, his body later being found by the police.
The Ein Hashofet settlement is one of the latest to be established by Zionist colonists. It was founded by the American Shomer Hatzair, Zionist young workers’ organization, and named in honor of Justice Brandeis’ eightieth birthday. It is located in the Jezreel valley on the northern coastal section of Palestine.
The attack climaxed renewed disorders which caused the death of an Arab terrorist and the derailing of a freight train. Attacks on police and bombings were also reported from various parts of the country.
The Arab was killed when a band fired on a military patrol on the Jenin-Nablus road and drew the return fire of the British soldiers. Three cars of a freight train from Egypt were derailed last night. A passenger train due in Jerusalem had not arrived this morning.
Meanwhile, Major-General Robert H. Haining, who arrived in Jerusalem Yesterday, prepared to take over the position of General Officer in Command of British troops in Palestine and Transjordan from Major-General Archibald P. Wavell, as part of the change in the British High Command announced by the War Office last December.
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