Should I stay or should I go now????

Should I stay or should I go

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First Prime-Minister of Israel trained at Windsor's Fort Edward

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Human Interest

First Prime-Minister of Israel trained at Windsor's Fort Edward
first printed in The Valley Today: Independent News for the Annapolis Valley
January 07

Most Valley residents know of Fort Edward as part of the 18th century British network of blockhouses that dotted Nova Scotia, providing protection for early settlers. But did you know that Fort Edward was still used by the military into the 20th century? During World War I the British Army used the fort to establish a training depot for Jewish men training to fight against the Ottoman Turks in Palestine.

Known as The Jewish Legion, this unit, was "stood up" for service in 1917 manned by Jews from around the world who came to Windsor for training on the slopes of the fort under Major W.F.D Bremner. Bremner lived in Castle Fredericks and is an ancestor of Falmouth’s James Bremner, who still lives on the family farm. Pictures and first-hand accounts of the time indicate that the men lived in tents on the hillside below the blockhouse.

Many of these recruits came with Zionist ideals and dreams of a restored Palestinian homeland for the Jews. 1,100 Non-commissioned officers were trained in Windsor, Nova Scotia. The first arrived in Egypt on April 29, 1917 aboard the steamer Empress of India, with General Sir Edmund Allenby.

By September 1917 the Jewish Legion composed 4 scout battalions, 2 signals battalions, and one infantry brigade.

"The Son of the Young Lion"

One Zionist who trained here was a man named David Green. Green was born on October 16, 1886 in Plonsk, Poland. In his childhood he was inspired by his father, a Zionist, to dream of someday living in Palestine. Young Green studied biblical history, politics and geography, and he learned Hebrew. By the time he was fourteen he had organized a Zionist youth group in Plonsk.

In 1906 Green, then 20, set out for Palestine as a pioneer settler. He found work as a farm labourer and continued to promote the ideal of an independent homeland. In 1910 Green became the editor of the Palestinian Labour Party’s magazine. One day he signed one of his articles "Ben-Gurion" or "son of the young lion"; a name that he would later be best known by.




"I will never forget Windsor where I received my first training as a soldier and where I became a corporal."
-David Ben-Gurion, former prime-minister of Israel.




   When world war broke out in 1914, Palestine was ruled by the Ottoman Turkish Empire. The Turks, who had allied with Germany, arrested Green and expelled him from the country. He first found refuge in Egypt and then eventually found his way to the United States.

By 1915 he had begun encouraging Jews to immigrate to Palestine as settlers.Since the Turks still occupied the region it would have to be liberated before any settlers could attempt to make homes there. So in 1917 Green played a lead role in organizing The Jewish Legion. It was a long hard road from Poland to a liberated Palestine and Windsor was just one stop along the way.

Not long after the unit was formed recruits began to flood into Fort Edward to be trained as soldiers; Green was one of them.Within a year Corporal David Green was in Palestine fighting the Turks. When the war ended in 1918, he threw himself into Zionism and politics. Over the next 20 year he would promote the Jewish dream of an independent Palestine; a home for the Jews.

In May 1948, that goal was realized when the British Mandate governing the region expired and Palestine declared its independence as the fledgling nation, Israel. The same day Arab Palestinians declared war on the Jewish settlers; a war that threatened the establishment of the new country. The Arabs were swiftly defeated by a Jewish army that Green helped build. A year later, in 1949, Green, now known as David Ben-Gurion, was sworn in as the first prime minister of Israel and a national hero.

In 1966, a 70 year-old Ben-Gurion fondly recalled his days at Fort Edward in a letter to then Windsor mayor Robert C. Dimock.He wrote, "I will never forget Windsor where I received my first training as a soldier and where I became a corporal."

David Ben-Gurion died in 1973.

He was 97.

"Altalena"

Another Zionist who trained here in Windsor was a young Ukrainian journalist named Ze’ev Jabotinsky. Born in Odessa, Ukraine in October 1880, Jabotinsky was raised in a traditional Jewish community. As a youth he became fascinated with the Zionist movement in the city.

Jabotinsky also began writing as a youth and his first writings were printed in Odessa papers when he was just 16. After his schooling Jabotinsky went to Switzerland and then Italy where he reported for the Russian press. It was there that he first wrote under the pseudonym "Altalena"; the Italian word for "swing".

In 1903 he joined the Zionist movement. He quickly gained notoriety for his talent at speaking. When World War I broke out Jabotinsky conceived the idea of forming Jewish units to fight with the British Army against the Ottomans. With another Zionist, Joseph Trumpeldor, he founded the Zion Mule Corps; a unit which fought with distinction in Gallipoli.

The mule corps was disbanded soon after and Jabotinsky traveled to London to continue to lobby for the formation of Jewish fighting units for service in Palestine.In 1917 the British government approved the establishment of three units. The Jewish Legion was one of them and Jabotinsky served as its Regimental Sergeant-Major.He fought in the Jordan Valley and in 1918 was decorated for bravery. At the end of the war Jabotinsky was discharged from the British Army for being and "indiscreet political speaker". He then led an open effort in Palestine to train and arm Jewish men for self- defense against the Arabs.

In 1920 the British searched Jabotinsky’s home and found weapons and ammunition. An inquiry blamed unrest in the region on Zionist provocation of the Arab population. He continued to promote a Zionist state in Palestine with such fervour and militancy that the British eventually exiled him from the region in 1929.

He died in New York on August 4 1940.

Copyright 2007 Kel Hancock

Travelling Man: Part I

My journey in Freemasonry started, I suppose, long before I petitioned for initiation into the First Degree of Masonry. When I was a boy hanging around my father's service station I spent time talking to an old man who  wore a fascinating gold ring with the Square and Compasses set into a jet black stone. I"m not sure of the exact nature of the relationship between he and my father; business, personal or both. But I do remember that he had owned and operated the Dyke Restaurant at one time in a building adjacent to my father's station. He and his wife, Bessy, also lived in a quaint little house behind the businesses on the edge of the Avon River.
His name was Sam Gold. He was a Mason. He was also an amputee with an artificial or "wooden leg" as most people still called it back then. Sometimes Sam walked with the aid of canes; sometimes he was in an old wheelchair. I have no idea where Sam came from or how he came to live in Falmouth. But I do know that his life seemed to have been very interesting and had a certain mystique about it. Sam was always very well dressed for a man of his age in those times. How old he was then I couldn't say. But as a boy, I saw him as ancient. I remember that he was balding with tufts of white hair around the sides and that he wore dark-rimmed glasses. He smoked cigars....a lot. And a pipe too if I remember. He was the first person to show me a fountain pen. He wore a lot of gold jewelry.
Sam was a well spoken; albeit gruff man. And I remember him being quite short and surly with some of the employees and even customers in the garage. Some of the other men around the place used to like to torment him a bit and get him "wound up". But Sam was always very nice to me. He had a way of captivating your attention, drawing you closer and making you feel like he was about to impart the secrets of the universe to you. No matter what he said, his words sounded wise and profound. And he always looked directly into your eyes as if he were trying to see right into your brain.
Sam Gold was likely the first Mason that I met. The first, to be sure, that I knew was a Mason; even though I had no idea whatsoever what that meant. Sam seemed very unique and out-of-place. He didn't talk like the rest of the menfolk around Hants County. He didn't dress like them or act like them. And although they sometimes teased him for a bit of fun; they always seemed to have a certain respect for him.
As I look back now, there is no doubt that old Sam was "from away". From where, as I've said, I have no idea. I know that he has a son who lives in Halifax that was a friend of my father's and around the same age.
His name was Johnny Gold and for awhile he was quite an aspiring country singer here in the Maritimes. Later he was a DJ with Country 101FM in Halifax. I don't remember much about Sam's wife Bessy, except that she was very sweet and died sometime before my father sold the service station and packed us off to Yarmouth in 1979. Shortly after, Sam went to live at the Nova Scotia Home For Freemasons on Wentworth Road by the new Hants Community Hospital. That was the last that I ever saw of him and I remember that his little house was torn down. Sam and the "Masonic Home" , as it was called around here, are both long gone.

Beta Israel

One thing that I remember Sam telling me got locked away in my sub-conscious vault until many years later when I was a man. Sam once told me, and why I'm not sure, that he was descendant of Ethiopian Jews. He stressed that fact as if it was very important; not in the sense that it made him special, but rather that there was something mystical about a race of Ethiopian Jews. Most of the others scoffed at this. They told him he was full of shit and that there was no such thing. Jews are from Israel and Ethiopians are from Africa, they told him. And besides, he may be Jewish but he sure as hell wasn't black. These were all good points to a young lad of 6 or 7 years old and I didn't pay very much mind to it after that. That is until I was a soldier in Ethiopia many years later. That's when I learned that there is actually a race of Ethiopian Jews, and they claim a very ancient descent.

DeMolay

off to Jurisdictional Obligation Ceremony. I'm really proud of our boys in Hants-County Crusader Chapter.

More to follow.

Nightingale

"Jesus!  he screamed. The light was so intense it was painful. His eyes tried their best to focus but soon gave up and shut their lids tight.

"Where am I?"

He tried to sit up...nothing.

"What is this?" he thought.

"Ok. This is a dream"

Then he wondered why it felt like he had awoke when obviously he was still inside the dream.

"Ok dammit! Enough!"

His eyes allowed themselves to open and he willed them to focus on something....anything.

Shapes! And movement.

"Who's there?" he demanded panicked now. No sound.

“Why is there no sound? How can I hear my own voice, but only in my head and nothing else; like my head is under water?

And Christ! What is that awful smell?"

The shapes continued to move and cast shadows above him but they became no clearer or identifiable.

“Shit! I have to get up. I must be on my back....but....why don't I feel anything?"

He felt neither heavy nor weightless. He somehow knew he was lying flat but felt no pressure against his back. Nor did he feel like he was floating. He felt....nothing. 

“Why can't I move???"

He tried to calm himself and take inventory of his senses. 

“Christ the light is bright...but at least I see it. Where the fuck am I?"

The shapes, they must be human but  why couldn't they hear him?

"Hey!" he screamed. 

"Who are you? Where am I? Will somebody please tell me what the hell is going on?!?"

This was the worst dream he ever had. Somehow he knew that, even though he had no memory of any other dream....or indeed, no memory of anything.

And godammit what was that wretched smell? Some things about it were familiar; like he should know them. But his brain was at a loss to recognize why and from where.

"Somebody help me up please!!!" he bellowed “I need help! My name is....."

His name was what? He didn't know.

"What is happening to me? What is this shit?"

"Ok....calm down" he told himself “this is either one really messed up dream or there is some other perfectly good explanation for all this. Right?"

He tried his best to focus and breathe deeply. He thought he was taking a deep breath but again....nothing. No feeling of his lungs filling, his chest expanding...nothing. Suddenly, he was aware of something. At last a shape was appearing and beginning to block out the searing light....but what was it? As it loomed nearer he was able to make out the outline of a human face.

"Who are you?" he croaked "Please help me!"

The face was becoming more defined and he suddenly realized that it was the face of a woman; just inches from his own.

"Who are you?" he tried again.

Her lips did not move but the sound of the sweetest voice he could imagine spoke inside his head. 

"You know me. I am Love."

He saw the face in clear definition now. It was the most beautiful face he had ever seen.

"No I don't know you. You can't be Love. I've never known Love. "

"You know me. But you have denied me. Here, let me show you"

Love's face came closer still and his eyes were fixed on her deep beautiful eyes. They were as deep as pools, as blue as the sky and twinkled like the shimmer of sun on the water.

He watched as her eyes began to well up with tears like the coming of a tide; and saw a single tear begin to overflow the rim of an eyelid. It swelled until its weight caused it to drop. It fell slowly in a motion that seemed like an eternity. It fell upon his bottom lip and.....he felt it! He felt it and he tasted it. Yes he tasted the salt of the sea and felt its wetness.

"Just relax” Love said to him 

"Everything is going to be ok"  

"My God! What is happening???" he cried.

The watery rush in his ears was now replaced by the drumming of his heartbeat....louder and faster it sped toward a crescendo. And in a crash of light and sound he begin to see what Love wanted him to see. In her eyes he saw every wonderful thing in the world, the beauty of the universe....flashing...flashing...everything his own eyes ever recorded.....every smile on every face........every sunrise and sunset....flashing flashing....himself as a child, a boy, a man....and every moment he denied himself feelings of love, joy and pride. There were many. He always denied his emotions. But now he felt them all. All at once they washed over him in a cleansing wave. 

And then he was standing on a rocky beach looking out to sea at the last golden arc of the sun dipping below the horizon.

"Thank you" he told her.

She smiled. Love smiled upon him.

Then....a thundering flash and he was tumbling through space....knocked from his feet by an unseen force, by a blast that burst his ear drums and blinded his eyes...hot with piercing, scorching, sharp winds that tore at him as he rolled over and over in the air.

And pain. So much pain....tearing, ripping, and stabbing pain.

"Make it stop!!!! Please make it stop!!!! Oh God please take away the pain!!!"

"Don't worry. I will" Love said to him.

 "Everything is going to be ok" 

The pain subsided and he was aware that he was breathing softly...peacefully.

Love's eyes were still fixed upon him and he asked her "What should I do? What do you want me to do?"

"Rest now Sergeant. Just rest"

"What did you call me? What was that name?"

But Love did not answer him.

She just smiled.

He felt two soft unseen fingers gently force his eyelids closed and he was in darkness. Not the terrifying darkness behind enemy lines on a night patrol. No. It was a peaceful darkness. A silent darkness but for one sound. One sound that he heard as clearly as ringing crystal.                                                           The song of a Nightingale.  

                                                                    .............................................................................

"Captain!...Captain!"

"Yes sir....sorry sir!"

"Captain I need you to focus ok? You're my best nurse and I need you to stay with me. Now get this one moved out and reset. There are more wounded inbound and it's gonna be another long goddam night! Roger that?"

She turned to respond to her  blood-soaked  Medical Officer.

"Roger that sir!"

Is this ever going to get any easier?, she thought as she motioned to medical orderlies and wiped her eyes, on a bloodless spot of her scrubs.                 She watched as they wheeled  the broken lifeless form away on a gurney. And she turned to see another had already been pushed in its place.

"Don't worry" she said.

 "Just relax. Everything is going to be ok. "

 

© 2011 Kel Hancock