The Woman Who Fought an Empire: Sarah Aaronsohn and Her Nili Spy Ring

It was tumultuous times: the Ottoman empire reigned in the Mid-East and the sadistic slaughter of the Armenians by the Turks was personally witnessed by the young Sarah Aaronsohn as she returned to her Palestinian home. Haunted by the horror of the savage
genocide and the thought that the minority Jewish Palestinian immigrants might suffer a similar fate, the Aaronsohn family members and similarly minded cohorts formed the Nili spy ring. Its purpose was to help overthrow the Turkish rule through the intervention of the British during the World War I assaults in the Arab world. The story of how a multilingual Sarah presided over a circle of information gatherers and provided information to the English intelligence service that resulted in the defeat of the Turks is a riveting narrative. The reader is introduced to her famous agronomist brother, Aaron, who coordinated communication and funding from Egypt, England, and America to T. E. Lawrence and British dignitaries, along with the infamous commanding pashas. Her devoted and passionate compatriots reveal their fanatical commitment to the cause of securing a safe homeland for the Jewish settlers along with their consuming adulation of Sarah. This is an account of both idealism in practice and tragedy in fact.