My Ancestor Played Dead in a Coffin to Make Aliyah (Judean Rose)

The story goes that my two times great grandfather, Mordechai Shmuel Yanovsky, entered Yaffa port playing dead in a coffin, his wife, my two times great grandmother, Taibe Leah, playing the part of the grieving widow. According to my now 96-year-old 2^nd cousin one time removed, who is Israeli through and through, our ancestor came into the Holy Land in a coffin because the Turks did not allow Jewish males to enter Palestine. I mentioned this to an Israeli contemporary who scoffed, “Never heard about such a thing. Many Jewish men openly came to Israel during the 19th century, while our land was occupied by the Ottoman Turks.

“Either the story is inaccurate - or there must be another reason for that, which I'm not aware of.”

I was quite ready to just accept what she said and move on. So many of the stories one or another relative has relayed about our family have turned out to be embroidered or difficult to verify. When I tell people about Mordechai Shmuel playing dead to enter Israel, they inevitably laugh, picturing him like some kind of jack-in-the-box peeking out to see if the coast was clear. That makes me think the story is probably made up. Because it really does seem ridiculous. Still, it would be nice to find a grain of truth in there somewhere—and maybe I did.

In Old Yishuv: Palestine at the End of the Ottoman Period, historian Margalit Shilo writes about the preponderance of women, specifically widows, in Palestine at that time:

Censuses of Jews in Palestine at the end of the Ottoman period reveal that the majority of the Jewish population was female. Demographer and statistician Uziel Schmelz summarized the information gleaned from various nineteenth-century censuses: “Forty-nine percent of all Jewish [adult] women [in Jerusalem] in 1839 and thirty-six percent in 1866 were widows. … There was a considerable excess of women over men in the adult population [of Jerusalem].” According to Schmelz’s calculations, based on a 1905 estimate, the number of Jewish women aged sixty and over was twice that of the parallel age group in men. Schmelz attributes this to two factors: a. widowhood, which enabled Jewish women for the first time to decide what to do with their lives, and b. male mortality, owing to the higher age of husbands compared with their wives and women’s longer life expectancy. Towards the end of the nineteenth century there was a decline in the number of widows.

Keeping my great great grandfather’s manner of entry into the country in mind, I wondered if all those women in the censuses were really widows. Could it be they were registered as widows, but really all had secret husbands who had played dead to get into the Land of Israel so the Turks wouldn’t know? It does seem improbable.

At the same time, the friend I consulted who said my family story is “inaccurate” seems unaware of the fact that the Turks decided to oppose Jewish immigration in 1881, with the assassination of the Czar, Alexander II. In Ottoman Policy and Restrictions on Jewish Settlement in Palestine: 1881-1908: Part I, author Neville J. Mandel, writes (emphasis added):

Periodisation in history is arbitrary, but for the Jews of Imperial Russia, already an unhappy community, the assassination of Tsar Alexander II in 1881 ushered in a painful new era. The pogroms after his death were followed by the notorious 'May Laws' of 1882 which stepped up economic discrimination against the Jews. The stirring among the Jewish community, both physical and intellectual, was heightened. Many more of them started to leave, mainly for America, and not a few began to think seriously about Jewish nationalism, with the result that the 'Lovers of Zion' Movement gained momentum. Some of them, whether for reasons of sheer physical safety or nationalism or a combination of both, thought of finding a home in the Ottoman Empire. The Sublime Porte was well-informed of these trends and of their contagious effects on other Jews, especially in AustroHungary, from the start. What is more, the Porte decided to oppose Jewish settlement in Palestine in autumn 1881, some months before the increased flow of Jews in that direction got under way . . .  

On examination, the Porte's awareness of trends among the Jews of Eastern Europe was not as surprising as it may seem at first sight. Given the aggressive intentions throughout the nineteenth century of Russia and Austro-Hungary on the Ottoman Empire, the Porte had good reason to try to keep abreast of events in those rival empires. Thus, inter alia, its diplomatic representatives in St. Petersburg and Vienna reported regularly on Jewish affairs, and there is even a file in the catalogues of the Ottoman Foreign Ministry, listed under Russia, entitled 'Situation [of] the Jews; Question of their Immigration into Turkey: 1881'.

Moreover, there had been some direct approaches to the Sublime Porte on this matter. In 1879 Laurence Oliphant, an English writer, traveller and mystic, had submitted a scheme to settle Jews on the east bank of the River Jordan. In 1881 a group of English and German businessmen sent a representative to negotiate with the Government for a concession to build a railway from Smyrna to Baghdad, along the length of which they proposed to settle Jews. Their representative saw the Foreign Minister who, according to Reuter's reports, was in favour of Jewish immigration into the Empire. The Council of Ministers considered the question and in November 1881 it was announced that:

[Jewish] immigrants will be able to settle as scattered groups throughout Turkey, excluding Palestine. They must submit to all the laws of the Empire and become Ottoman subjects. With growing numbers of Russian Jews applying to the Ottoman Consul-General at Odessa for visas to enter Palestine, the following notice was posted outside his office a few months later, on April 28, 1882:

The Ottoman Government informs all [Jews] wishing to immigrate into Turkey that they are not permitted to settle in Palestine. They may immigrate into the other provinces of [the Empire] and settle as they wish, provided only that they become Ottoman subjects and accept the obligation to fulfil the laws of the Empire.

The specific exclusion of Palestine had not been expected by the Jews. To them it seemed hard to believe that the Ottoman Government, with its record of hospitality to the Jews since their expulsion from Spain in the fifteenth century, should now forbid Jews to settle in Palestine. When the announcement was made in Odessa, Laurance Oliphant was in Eastern Europe on behalf of the Mansion House Committee, a British organization concerned with the relief of persecuted Jews from Russia and Rumania. The Jews whom he met persuaded him to go to Constantinople in order to find out more about the Porte's policy and also, if possible, to gain permission for numbers of Jews to settle in Palestine. At the same time, though independently of Oliphant, the Central Office of one of the first

'Lovers of Zion' groups was transferred from Odessa to Constantinople in the hope of obtaining a grant of land in Palestine for three hundred settlers. Then, at the beginning of June, Jacob Rosenfeld, the editor of Razsvet (a Jewish paper in St. Petersburg which sympathised with the 'Lovers of Zion') came to Constantinople to investigate the situation as well.

In Constantinople, Oliphant found about two hundred Jewish refugees. He also discovered that on entry to the Empire they were required to adopt Ottoman nationality and declare not only that they accepted the laws of the Empire without reserve, but also that they would not settle in Palestine. Oliphant approached the American Minister at the Porte to see if he would be prepared to try and clarify the position. When General Wallace said that he could only do so if a request came from the Jews themselves, Oliphant sent a telegram to Jews he had met in Bucharest and thus another delegation seeking permission for Jews to settle in Palestine hurried to Constantinople.

General Wallace met this delegation on June 6 and a few days later he spoke to the Ottoman Foreign Minister who confirmed what was known already. It all boiled down to the same thing. Immigrant Jews were welcome in the Empire, but not in Palestine; they could settle in small groups, provided that (a) they relinquished their foreign nationality and became Ottoman subjects, and (b) they did not seek any special privileges, but were content to remain bound by the existing laws.

Enter Herzl:

Ottoman policy remained constant throughout the 1880's and the first half of the 1890s, and it probably was not subjected to any fundamental review until Theodor Herzl's famous pamphlet, Der Judenstaat, was published in February 1896. In this pamphlet, Herzl gave more concrete expression to Jewish national aspirations, arguing (as suggested in the title) that the 'Jewish problem' could only be solved by establishing a Jewish state, possibly in Palestine but possibly elsewhere, in which persecuted Jews could live in freedom and dignity. This pamphlet led directly to the formation of the Zionist Movement in 1897 with Herzl at its head.

It is not generally appreciated that Herzl brought himself and his ideas to the Porte's attention one year before the first Zionist Congress was held. He did so by travelling to Constantinople in June 1896 and making contact not only with several senior officials in person but also with the Sultan through an intermediary. Displaying impressive ignorance of Ottoman sensitivities, Herzl's ideas were not calculated to appeal to the Porte. At a time when the Government's grip over its remaining territories in the Balkans was far from secure, and when the Sultan was under attack from Young Turks abroad for the 'dismemberment' of the Empire, Herzl asked that Palestine should be granted to the Jews with official blessing in the form of what he called a 'Charter'. And at a time when the Government had had more than enough of heavy European interference in its internal affairs, including control of its Public Debt since 1881, Herzl hoped that his Jewish State would enjoy Great Power protection. In exchange for Palestine, he nebulously offered 'to regulate the whole finances of Turkey' for 'His Majesty the Sultan'.

'His Majesty the Sultan' was that enigmatic figure, Abdulhamid II, who came to power in 1876. His presence and personality cannot be ignored because, although the Council of Ministers dealt with the question of Jewish settlement in Palestine from 1881, power and politics in the Ottoman Empire were more and more influenced, and later wholly controlled, by Abdulhamid until the Young Turk Revolution in 1908. Abdulhamid probably knew of the increased flow of Jewish immigrants towards Palestine from very early on. In keeping with his character, his attitude seems to have been one of suspicion and ambivalence. In 1881 he was reported to favour the Anglo-German proposal to settle Jews along the proposed railway from Smyrna to Baghdad; and he was said to have received the Rumanian delegation, which came to Constantinople the following summer (although the evidence for this is weak).

However, in 1891 he told the Military Supervisory Commission at the Yildiz Palace:

Granting the status of [Ottoman] subjects to these Jews and settling them is most harmful; and since it may in the future raise the issue of a Jewish government, it is imperative not to accept them.

And in 1892 the Ottoman High Commissioner in Egypt told Sir Evelyn Baring, the British Consul-General, that the Sultan was disturbed by an attempt to settle Jews on the east coast of the Gulf of Aqaba. But by the following year Abdulhamid appears to have considered the possibility of allowing Jews to settle elsewhere, for he told the Haham Bashi (the Chief Rabbi of the Empire) that he was willing to offer Russian and other oppressed Jews refuge in the Empire, particularly in Eastern Anatolia, so that they together with Ottoman Jews might furnish him with a force of 100,000 soldiers, to be attached to the Fourth Army. This proposal was welcomed by the Haham Bashi and his Rabbinical Council, but nothing came of it because, according to the Turkish (Jewish) historian, Abraham Galante, the Council of Ministers considered it ill-advised – presumably for the reasons outlined above.

In 1896 Theodor Herzl met Philipp Michael de Newlinski, a Polish aristocrat who had once worked in the Austro-Hungarian Embassy at Constantinople and was employed by Abdulhamid for special diplomatic missions. In June Herzl travelled with de Newlinski to Constantinople. On the train there, de Newlinski introduced Herzl to Tevflk Pasa (the Ottoman Ambassador at Belgrade), Karatodori Pasa and Ziya Pasa (both described as 'elder statesmen'), who were returning to Constantinople after the coronation of Tsar Nicholas II. Herzl explained his project to Ziya Pasa, who agreed that 'the benefits in money and press support which you promise us are very great'. But, he warned, 'no one is even likely to have pourparlers with you if you demand an independent Palestine'.

A day after Herzl and de Newlinski arrived in Constantinople, Abdulhamid told the latter that:

If Mr Herzl is as much your friend as you are mine, then advise him not to take another step in this matter. I cannot sell even a foot of land, for it does not belong to me, but to my people. My people have won this empire by fighting for it with their blood and have fertilized it with their blood. We will again cover it with our blood before we allow it to be wrested away from us. The men of two of my regiments from Syria and Palestine let themselves be killed one by one at Plevna. Not one of them yielded; they all gave their lives on that battlefield. The Turkish Empire belongs not to me, but to the Turkish people. I cannot give away any part of it. Let the Jews save their billions. When my Empire is partitioned, they may get Palestine for nothing. But only our corpse will be divided. I will not agree to vivisection.

On June 29, 1882, the first tiny group of 'Lovers of Zion', numbering all of 14 souls, sailed from Constantinople for Jaffa. On the very same day, the Porte cabled the Mutasarrif of Jerusalem, ordering him not to let any Russian, Rumanian or Bulgarian Jews to disembark at Jaffa or Haifa; such Jews were not to set foot in any of the four so-called 'Holy Cities' of Palestine (Jerusalem, Hebron, Safed and Tiberias) and were to proceed to some other Ottoman port aboard the ship they came on.

This prohibition was contrary to one of the Capitulations with Russia which assured her subjects of unrestricted travel throughout the Ottoman Empire (except Arabia). When the Mutasarrif sought clarification from Constantinople, he was ordered to expel all Jews who had settled in the Mutasarriflik within the last four months; only to permit Jewish pilgrims and businessmen to remain for a brief period; and to prevent other Jews (i.e. prospective settlers) from landing. Similar instructions were soon received and enforced in the Vilayet of Sam (embracing the northern part of Palestine). The terms of these and subsequent instructions made it clear that the Porte was primarily concerned to prevent Russian Jews from settling in Palestine. Jews from other countries were arriving in much smaller numbers, and were of correspondingly less concern. 

Irregularities were not long in arising. Some Russian Jews applied for visas to Constantinople, where they obtained permits to travel within the Ottoman Empire. Thus they would arrive at Palestine with valid papers, but as prospective settlers they were refused entry. This led to complaints, and at the end of 1882 the Ministry of Police in Constantinople was ordered by the Council of Ministers to stop issuing internal travel permits to Russian Jews until the Government took a decision on the matter. The reason given for this order was that the Jewish immigrants were not fulfilling the first obligation required of them, i.e. to become Ottoman subjects. In spring 1883 it was reported that a complete bar was being imposed on the entry of all Jews at Beirut and Haifa. Against this, it was still possible for Jews from countries other than Russia and Rumania to disembark at Jaffa. And even in the case of Russian and Rumanian Jews, pilgrims and businessmen were allowed to land.

But the Mutasarrif of Jerusalem appears to have recognized that it did not accord with the Porte's real purpose to admit these Jews who claimed that they came for prayer or business, but in fact came to settle. He therefore turned to Constantinople for advice. A correspondence ensued; the Ministries of Internal and Foreign Affairs conferred; the opinions of the Porte's legal advisers were sought; and the Council of State considered the question in March, 1884. After a further exchange with Jerusalem, it was decided to close Palestine to all Jewish business men, on the grounds that the Capitulations, which permitted Europeans to trade freely within the Ottoman Empire, applied exclusively to areas 'appropriate for trade'- the Council of State did not consider that Palestine was such an area.

Henceforth, only Jewish pilgrims could enter Palestine. Their passports were to be properly visaed by Ottoman Consuls abroad; on arrival they were to hand over a deposit guaranteeing their departure, and they were to leave after thirty days.

In all this, the role of the Powers was crucial. If the entry restrictions were to be effective, they had to be accepted by the Powers, on whose nationals they fell. And, broadly speaking, the Powers did not accept them, since they were bent on preserving their privileges granted under the Capitulations (which, as already mentioned, the Porte was trying to curtail).

There were of course certain differences in the positions taken by the various Powers, depending to some extent on the state of their relations with the Ottoman Empire. For example, from the 1880's onwards, Germany was trying to befriend the Ottoman Empire and on occasion seemed inclined to fall in with the entry restrictions. But in general the Powers refused to acquiesce in them, and so in 1888, after adopting a strong stand, they were able to extract a concession from the Porte permitting Jews to settle in Palestine, provided that they arrived singly, and not en masse.

There is much more to this fascinating history as set forth by Mandel, but halfway through his recitation of the facts, I believe I’d found the answer to my family riddle. Mordechai Shmuel and Taibe Leah left Lithuania, then part of the Russian Empire, for Palestine. Mordechai Shmuel was merchant class, which means he was considered well-off. But he was not entering Palestine as a businessman. The intention of the two, who had arrived with several children, was to make Aliyah: to permanently settle in Eretz Yisrael.

Had he declared himself to be in Palestine on business, after 30 days, Mordechai Shmuel Yanovsky, my ancestor, would have been hunted down and expelled. Arriving in the country for burial, on the other hand, would probably not be seen as “settlement.” As such, the ploy of playing dead, with his wife playing the grieving widow, makes sense.

I have not found any record of other Jewish men playing dead to get into what is today the State of Israel. It does, however, pique my interest that there were so many widows in the Old Yishuv. Is it possible that the women may have been hiding the existence of their men in order to prevent them from being expelled?

Ultimately, my two-times-great-grandparents failed at Aliyah. Mordechai Shmuel and Taibe Leah stayed with relatives in Jerusalem while their farmhouse was being built on land in the newish town of Petach Tikva. That town, founded in 1878, was the first modern Jewish agricultural center located in Ottoman “Southern Syria.”

One day, Mordechai Shmuel set out from Jerusalem to check on the progress of the building in Petach Tikva. During the journey, my ancestor was attacked by three Arab ruffians, beaten unconscious, and left for dead. They were disappointed to see he had only a pair of phylacteries and little cash. My great great grandfather had not seen the need for further provisions for a simple overnight trip.

When Mordechai Shmuel awoke three days later in a hospital in Jaffa, he thought to himself, “This is a crazy place. I’m taking the family back to Lithuania.”

My Israeli cousin relates that his grandfather Nachum Shlomo, who was known to all the cousins as the “Saba from Jerusalem” refused to return with the family and his father, hoping to change his mind, threatened to sit shiva on him. But Shlomo (as he was called) wouldn’t leave, and Mordechai Shmuel did in fact sit shiva for him. They reconciled and eventually, in their old age, Mordechai Shmuel and Taibe Leah returned, living with Shlomo’s family so that they could be buried on the Mount of Olives when they died. And so it was. This time, Mordechai Shmuel stayed dead.

The graves of my great great grandparents on the Mount of Olives, restored after 1967

But here I am today, his great great granddaughter, living in a bustling Jewish State, a grandmother myself now, with deep roots in Israel. I never had to play dead, hide in a coffin, or resort to subterfuge in order to make Aliyah. There were no Turks to stop me.

Today, the Ottomans are no more. The Jews, however, are now firmly ensconced in the Land. This in spite of all the bad people who’d like to push us into the sea and steal our land. It’s fun to watch them froth at the mouth when they see they can’t get their way and make Israel Judenrein once more, as it was for all intents and purposes under the Turks.

In other words, you won’t catch me playing dead in a coffin. I’m here in Israel out loud and proud.

Mordechai Shmuel and Taibe Leah Yanovsky are no doubt amazed at my great good luck. One of their blood in Eretz Yisroel, not here to fake death or to come in my old age to die, but to live and raise more generations in the Holy Land, now a sovereign Jewish state.

Updated for accuracy July 23, 2023

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