News Brief

In the first comparatively quiet hours which Jerusalem enjoyed today before the new attacks in the Old City started, it was possible for the correspondent of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency to gather authentic information from eye witnesses as to how the trouble started in the Holy City five days ago.

The first act which effectively strikes an investigator is the circumstance that the Moslem Arabs alone were the perpetrators of the crimes and massacres against the Jews. Unlike the situation in 1921, the Christian Arabs have stood aloof and in some localities the Christians mark their houses with crosses to warn both Moslem attackers and Jewish self-defenders of the neutrality of those within.

The second observation made on the basis of testimony of eye witnesses was that Jerusalem Moslems took a small part in the first riots on Friday. (Continued on Page 7)

The disturbances were started Friday noon by outsiders, mainly villagers from Lifta and Hebronites. After leaving the Mosque of Omar where they gathered for the Moslem Sabbath prayers, excited by inflammatory addresses and propaganda which was carried on previously, the Liftaites marched in a procession along Jaffa Road, Jerusalem’s main street. In the first attack, Ittamar Ben Avi, Hebrew publicist and editor of the English “Palestine Weekly.” Dr. Wolfgang von Weisl, correspondent of the Berlin “Vossische Zeitung” and Engineer Raitan were wounded.

Simultancously the Hebronites broke into the largest quarter of Jerusalem, Meyer Shearim.

FIRST CLASH WITH JEWISH SELF-DEFENSE

Here the Hebronites met for the first time with the Jewish self-defense body. Not only youths, but all Orthodox Jews seized whatever weapon they could get hold of and offered heroic resistance.

Gradually the movement spread into the suburbs when the Moslems of the neighboring villages, incited by newly arrived propagandists, joined the marauders, who were armed with sticks, clubs, daggers and knives.

FRIENDSHIP AND HUMANITY AMIDST RAGING HATRED

Single cases in which humanity and friendship of old neighbors survived the raging hatred of racial warfare were recorded in Jerusalem’s Arab-Jewish mixed quarters. There were cases when Arab families invited their Jewish neighbors to seek shelter in Arab houses and Jewish families protecting neighboring Arabs against the vengeance of the Jewish self-defense warriors.

JEWISH YOUTHS VOLUNTARILY GUARD MINARET

A tragic feature of the Jerusalem bloodshed and disorders was the action of a group of Jewish youths who risked their lives constituting themselves into a voluntary guard to protect a Moslem minaret situated near the densely populated Jewish quarter, Zichron Moshe.

FATE PLAYS HAVOC WITH VICTIMS

Fate played havoc with some of the victims of the Moslem atrocities. Benjamin Goldberg, son of the well known Russian Zionist I. L. Goldberg, participated in the Jewish self-defense action on Friday in Jerusalem. Although he fought in the front ranks, he emerged at the close of the hostilities uninjured Friday night and returned on Saturday to Tel Aviv, believing to be out of danger in the all-Jewish city. He was slain the following day, on Sunday, during the first attack of the infuriated Moslems on Tel Aviv. He fell in the action of the self-defense corps.

Rabbi Schach, who was killed at Motza, was 85 years old. He had come to the colony outside Jerusalem to spend the summer.

Three thousand cablegrams from all (Continued on Page 8)