Love for Sale

By Steve Rodan

More than 80 years ago, the Zionist leadership pressed Jewish girls to serve the British Army and its allies. The Jewish Agency along with Zionist groups recruited thousands of teenage girls to consort with foreign soldiers on the pretext that they would be ambassadors of Zionism.

The campaign marked one of the least known episodes of Zionist rule in Palestine. Zionist institutions pressured Jewish girls to befriend and invite home soldiers from Britain and Australia. The policy was meant to win favor from London and counter-balance the huge protests sparked by the White Paper in 1939, which ended Jewish immigration and consigned millions of Jews to the Final Solution.

The Jewish Agency worked with the Women's International Zionist Organization, or WIZO, to turn Palestine into the favorite spot of the British and later Australian soldier. The target was the gentile and the word was out that the Jewish community would do anything to make the visitors comfortable.

The escort service began as early as 1936, the start of the Arab Revolt. The Jewish Agency, WIZO and so-called Labor Women Councils joined to recruit women to engage up to 100,000 British soldiers. The first social club was in Tel Aviv and aided by leading Zionists, including agency treasurer Eliezer Kaplan and Deputy Tel Aviv Mayor Dov Hoz. Soon, other clubs were established in Haifa, Jerusalem, Rehovot and Rishon Lezion.

This was love on a grand scale. Each social club was staffed by at least 25 girls. They were selected for their comeliness, ability to speak English and willingness to host soldiers. They would be required to work at least 10 hours a week and attend classes in Zionism.

Close to 5,000 joined, forming what eventually would become the largest call-girl network in the world. Many of the girls were underage, particularly the orphans from Europe. They were attracted by the cash of their boyfriends and dreamed of an English husband. Soon, they became Anglophiles and the girls spoke to each other in English.

Those who did not volunteer were still pressed into service. Girls in municipal offices were told to dress up and attend dances and cocktail parties -- most of which took place on the Jewish Sabbath.

During World War II, the socializing developed into open prostitution. In September 1943, an American newspaper reported that the number of prostitutes per capita in Tel Aviv was the highest in the world for a city with foreign troops. Australian journalist Wilfred Benz wrote that Tel Aviv was a garden of delight for the soldier on leave.

Whorehouses became common in Tel Aviv and teenage girls solicited British soldiers and police. Neighbors complained that couples were copulating under their windows or on the Herbert Samuel Promenade. Bathers could not walk on the beach without bumping into prostitutes and their johns. Up to 1,000 prostitutes were reported in the city.

Soon, the marriage registrars were filled with Jewish girls and British soldiers. Many of them resettled in Britain.

"I am hurt and humiliated and I cannot keep silent," Dov Kimche wrote in a letter to the Haaretz daily. "In only one week, 12 Jewish girls got married to gentiles only in Jerusalem -- Goyim."

The Jewish Agency and National Assembly were inundated with complaints. They refused to act. In February 1942, the Committee to Protect the Honor of the Daughters of Israel was formed in coordination with the Chief Rabbinical Council. The group said the Zionist institutions were abandoning the teenagers while pushing the older ones into the British Army.

In 1942, 200 women soldiers and police were sent home to their families pregnant. The fathers did not come forth to help. Tensions within the Jewish families became unbearable. To some Jews, this marked the realization of the rebuke by the prophet Ezekiel.

"And you separated your legs for every passerby."

Even the secular kibbutzim objected to the recruitment of women. Kibbutz leaders said the women should serve the Palmach to defend the Land of Israel rather than the British.

Then, the vigilantes arrived. The most active group was the Sons of Phinehas, named after the zealot who killed the prince of the tribe of Shimon and a Midianite princess as they fornicated in front of Moses and the Tabernacle. Along with Brit Hakanaim, or the Covenant of the Zealots, Phinehas sent threatening letters to girls who consorted with the foreigners. When that didn't work, the girls were beaten and their heads shaved. The soldiers fared worse. The Tel Aviv Municipal Council was asked to defend the women.

Eventually, disease spread. The British Army established a clinic to treat gonorrhea on Ben Yehuda Street in Tel Aviv. British commanders now warned their soldiers to stay away from strange Jewish girls.

But the British didn't want to stop. The police found another use for the girls -- spying on the Jewish underground. The Irgun and Lehi began revenge attacks.

Some of the women were not intimidated. They came from the Zionist elite and felt protected.

Shoshana Borochov, daughter of a prominent Zionist ideologue, was married to Thomas Wilkin, head of the Jewish section of the Criminal Investigation Department. Wilkin was said to have killed Lehi commander Avraham Stern in May 1942. Lehi killed Wilkin on Sept. 20, 1944.

Yael Weizmann was the niece of Chaim Weizmann, head of the Zionist movement. She was also the sister of Ezer Weizmann, who became the commander of the Israel Air Force. In 1946, Ezer visited his sister in Britain. Yael had been part of the exodus of Jewish girls who had married their gentile boyfriends. Weizmann, himself an officer in the Royal Air Force, was stunned.

"Yael, why?" he recalled asking. "This, instead of our wonderful house on 4 Melchet St. in Haifa?"

Until virtually the end of the mandate, the Zionist leadership refused to disband the escort service. Then, in February 1947, with the British preparing to leave Palestine and the rise of the Irgun and Lehi, the National Assembly decided there was no longer a point to supply girlfriends to the British. But the damage was already irreparable to thousands of families.

Historians have chosen to ignore this chapter in Zionist history. Daniella Reich was an exception, and nearly 20 years ago wrote a study on the Jewish girls who went off with their British lovers. Reich sought Yael Weizmann, who in 1969 returned to Israel with a job at the Weizmann Institute. Her husband went to work at the state-owned Israel Aircraft Industries.

Reich telephoned Yael and sought to discuss her life in Palestine. The niece of Chaim Weizmann responded angrily.

What," Yael asked, "are there not enough academic issues [to write about]?"

Below: Ballroom dancing in Tel Aviv in the 1930s.