Historical Dictionary of Israeli Intelligence

The Dictionary

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AARONSOHN, AHARON (1876–1919).A Romanian-born Jew,

Aaronson immigrated with his parents to Palestine in 1882 and be-

came a botanist. During War World I, he received approval from the

British to monitor the conditions of the terrain and the movements of

the Turkish army in Palestine. In 1915, Aaronsohn formed a secret in-

telligence network, known as Netzah Yisrael Lo Yeshaker(NILI), to-

gether with his sister Sarah Aaronsohn,Avshalom Feinberg, Naa-

man Belkind, and others. The aim of the organization was to assist

the British forces, under General Edmund H. H. Allenby, to capture

Palestine from the Ottoman Turks.

However, soon afterward, Aharon Aaronsohn became active in

diplomacy, and then most of the burden of running NILI fell on the

shoulders of Sarah. In 1916, Aaronsohn visited London, where he cir-

culated a memorandum on the future of Palestine. His paper con-

tributed to solidifying the British idea of a Jewish National Home in

Palestine as part of British policy in the Near East. In January 1919,

Aaronsohn cooperated with the Zionist delegation to the Versailles

Peace Conference, with the aim of determining the boundaries of

Palestine. He was killed several months later in a suspicious plane

crash over the English Channel on 15 May 1919.

AARONSOHN, SARAH (1890–1917).The sister of Aharon Aaron-

sohn, she was one of the cofounders of Netzah Yisrael Lo Yeshaker

(NILI), the espionage group that succeeded in collecting vital military

information to help the British forces capture Palestine from the Ot-

toman Turks. In the spring of 1917, while on a secret mission to Egypt,

Aharon requested that she remain there for her own safety. She refused

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