Death of four Jews over the week-end brought to 38 the Jewish death toll since August I and to 100 the toll for the July-August period. Two were killed in attacks by Arabs Friday night, while two others died of wounds sustained in previous disorders.
Three children of the kidnaped Leiserowitz family were found alive and well before dawn yesterday in the field of Mishmar Haemek, Jewish colony about ten miles southeast of Athlit, where they were abducted by an Arab band Wednesday during a raid on a prison labor camp.
The children were discovered by a patrol of Jewish special policeman. Blindfolded when found, they told the policemen that the band had separated them from their parents and uncle immediately after the kidnaping, and had treated them well.
Rachel, 13 and oldest of the trio, said that Joussef Abu Dura, leader of the band, had made the children sign in Hebrew a promise to publish in the Hebrew press the following letter bearing his signature and had given them five dollars to cover the cost of publication:
“The children were comfortable among the Arabs. As an honorable and just man, I am returning them, even paying expenses on condition that this letter be published in Davar and Haboker–otherwise the children will be killed even if they are in London.”
Grave fears were held for the children’s parents, Police Inspector Moshe Leiserowitz and his wife Bruria, and their uncle, Eliahu Kirchiner.
Following two days of fighting in which British troops suffered six and Arabs at least 75 killed, and snipings and ambuscades in which four Jews died and eight others were wounded, the authorities imposed a ten-hour curfew, starting at six p.m., on all roads and paths in Palestine outside of the urban areas.
Ghaffir Joseph Finkelstein, 35, of Rumania, was killed when an Arab band of ten ambushed a bus near Shaar Hamakin, Jewish colony south of Haifa, Friday night, Six Jews, three of them women, were wounded in the ambush. The wounded were: Raphael Buber, son of Prof. Martin Buber of Hebrew University; Miss Moa Tilman, 15; Alfred Lehman, 42; Zeev Sersohn, 38; Mrs. Natalia Tabenkin, 45, and Rivkah Weinstein, 35.
Moshe Lederer, 25, of Poland, was killed Friday night during an attack on Tel Sholom, new settlement founded Wednesday. He leaves a widow and child. Jacob Meir Wolzman, 65, (reported originally as Jacob Meir, 50) died yesterday of wounds received in an attack near the Evalina de Rothschild School in Jerusalem Friday. Ahuva Osterman, wounded in the Mt. Carmel ambush Monday, in which eight Jewish Ghaffir and a woman were killed, died yesterday. Her husband was one of the slain Ghaffir.
Other Jews wounded included Miriam Lipshitz, 23, shot while riding through an Arab quarter on the Tel Aviv-Jaffa boundary, and a Jewish Ghaffir named Lemberger, shot in an ambush of patrol hunting the Leiserowitz kidnapers.
The Jewish colony of Kfar Brandeis, named for the United States Supreme Court Justice, was heavily fired upon. Five Arab prisoners broke out of the prison labor camp at Nur-es-Shem. Guards killed one, the others escaping.
An official communique said a large Arab band invaded Hebron, in southern Palestine Friday, set fire to the Post Office and Barclay’s Bank, killed an Arab policeman, wounded a British constable and stole two rifles from the police station.
According to fuller accounts, the band hoisted the Arab national flag over the Government offices, rushed the Post Office and the bank and set fire to the buildings when they failed to open the bank’s vaults. A military detachment dispatched to the city met vigorous resistance and a three-hour pitched battle ensued. Soldiers off duty were summoned from Jerusalem cafes and rushed into the battle, forcing the band to retire south, taking with them four Arab constables as prisoners.
Hebron was put under 24-hour curfew following the battle. Troops are encamped in the hills surrounding the city.
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.
