"…I asked to learn about the first fallen soldier on this long list. His name was Aaron Hershler, aged 23, from the Mishkanot Shaananim neighborhood here in Jerusalem. In 1873, 142 years ago, Arab rioters and robbers attacked the Jewish neighborhood that was located outside the walls of the Old City. Aaron, a diligent yeshiva student, cut his studies short, ran off the rioters, chased after them and attempted to catch them. They shot him and he was fatally wounded. Here was a fighter at the dawn of our national renaissance who charged forward, and through his courageous actions, he marked the direction for those who followed him.…" Except this was apparently not a riot or terror attack – it was an armed robbery.
Above: Benjamin Netanyahu
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made the following seemingly bizarre statement on Yom HaZikaron, Israel's Memorial Day for fallen soldiers and victims of terror, last week:
…On this day, the people of Israel share in our grief. A proud nation bows its head today and lowers its flag in unrivaled gratitude in memory of our loved ones who perished – twenty-three thousand, three hundred and twenty soldiers in Israel's campaigns: Jews, Christians, Muslims, Bedouin, Druze and Circassians.
I asked to learn about the first fallen soldier on this long list. His name was Aaron Hershler, aged 23, from the Mishkanot Shaananim neighborhood here in Jerusalem. In 1873, 142 years ago, Arab rioters and robbers attacked the Jewish neighborhood that was located outside the walls of the Old City. Aaron, a diligent yeshiva student, cut his studies short, ran off the rioters, chased after them and attempted to catch them. They shot him and he was fatally wounded. Here was a fighter at the dawn of our national renaissance who charged forward, and through his courageous actions, he marked the direction for those who followed him. This became our people's path. This is the legacy of our fallen: in the watch groups, the Hebrew Battalions, the underground movements, the Jewish Brigade, the IDF – and in all other branches of the security services. Our sons and daughters gave everything – including their lives – to safeguard the rebirth of our people and our security.…The blood of our loved ones is soaked in its soil, and when the pain rises up and the torment of loss increases, we will take comfort in the fact that our sons and daughters fell during the most noble of missions: ensuring the existence of our nation.…
But what Netanyahu describes is not what actually took place, and it isn't even what the Ministry of Defense says took place.
Aaron Hershler (also spelled Herschler) was not the victim of a terror attack. His house was robbed, and Hershler chased after the robbers to try to recover his money. The robbers, fearing he would be able to identify them, turned around and fired a volley of bullets at him, striking him 12 times. The wounds killed Hershler two days later.
The idea that an armed robbery in which even contemporaneous Jewish accounts do not attribute to what we today call terrorism could be misused in this way by Netanyahu – the son of a historian ! – and his government is appalling.
As left wing blogger Adam Keller noted:
…In January 1873, when this incident happened, the Zionist movement was still in its infancy. Theodor Herzl, was a boy of thirteen in Budapest and had no idea that he would grow up to be a renowned Zionist leader. The first Zionist settlement in Israel, Petah Tikva, would be established only five years later. Aaron Herschler was born in Hungary and came to Jerusalem to attend a Yeshiva seminary and join the "Old Yishuv", the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community which for centuries lived among the Arab residents of Jerusalem under Ottoman rule. Members of the Old Yishuv were not enthusiastic about Zionism, to say the least.
What would Aaron Herschler have said if he could have known that a hundred and fifty years after his death there will be in this country a mighty state, with a mighty army. What would he have thought if he could know that the army of this country would retroactively enlist him in its ranks, and that that county’s Prime Minister would hail him as the first among 23,320 soldiers who gave their lives for this country? And on the other hand , what would have those anonymous thieves said if could have known that the bullets which they fired at the young man pursuing them would be considered in retrospect as the first shots in a war which would last more than a hundred years, a conflict that would figure prominently on the agenda of international diplomacy and engage the attention of the American President and the leaders of Europe and Russia and China?…
Indeed.