As the centenary of World War I grinds its way across the calendar, a relentless anniversary of bloodbaths are being memorialized – Ypres, Gallipoli and Verdun, to mention a few. But one WWI anniversary is not being recalled as it is not part of the general narrative – how German generals and diplomats together with a future pope saved the Jews of Palestine from genocide. The country’s twin Jewish communities of Zionist pioneers and the Old Yishuv of Orthodox pietists living

The centenary of the outbreak of World War I on August 4, 2021 passed this week. This year also marks the 100th anniversary of the first aviation crash in Israel. Surprisingly, notwithstanding that both Germany and the Allies stationed squadrons of reconnaissance and fighter aircraft here during the four-year war, the two anniversaries aren’t directly linked. The crash of the doomed Turkish aviators on a peacetime military mission that spring foreshadowed WWI, and the 8.5 mil