The Nili Spies

by Anita Engle

An extraordinary tale, much-neglected by historians, of courage, bravery and eventual tragedy which took place during the First World War in the Middle East. It is the story of a small group of people, of whom Sarah and Aaron Aaronsohn were the core, who were devoted to the Yishuv, the Jewish community in Palestine, and who were convinced that it was in imminent danger of extinction from the Turks.They resolved to help the British in Egypt by collecting military intelligence. Unfortunately, as Peter Calvocoressi points out, their understanding of the British position was quite wrong...[their] miscalculations created the tragedy which this book recounts...'

256 pages, Hardcover

First published April 30, 1997

Reviews

[Jim Long · Rating 5 out of 5]

During World War I, the Ottoman Turks had committed numerous atrocities, notably a campaign of ethnic cleansing that led to deaths of over a million innocent Armenians. Sarah Aronsohn, a newly-wed living in Turkey had learned of what is now known as the Armenian Genocide and wrote her to brother, Aaron, telling him that she believed the Jews under Ottoman rule would certainly be the next target. Aaron decided to take action and, along with Sarah formed an espionage unit of Jewish twenty-somethings, headquartered in the coastal town of Zichron Yakov, near Haifa. The group gathered intelligence on the Turkish army and surreptitiously dispatched the information to the British High Command in Cairo. In her book, The NILI Spies, author Anita Engle engages the reader from the first page detailing the exploits of the brave young untrained Jewish souls who managed to keep the Brits constantly updated on the Turkish military via a sophisticated network that used carrier pigeons, clever disguises, coded messages and bribery. It's a true story full of bravery and tragedy that will leave you wondering why we don't know more about the NILI Spies.