Spy for Freedom: The Story of Sarah Aaronsohn

New York: Lodestar Books; E. P. Dutton, 1984. Reprint. Third printing. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. xii, 156, [3] pages. Map. Signed by author. Inscription signed by Cowen. Minor edge soiling. This is one of the Jewish Biography Series. A biography of the woman who, during World War I, led an espionage group whose goal was to help free Palestine from Turkish rule. In 1917, the Ottomans intercepted her carrier pigeon decrypted the Nili code and arrested numerous people, including Aaronsohn. Her captors tortured her father in front of her. She endured four days of torture herself, but she gave no information. Before she was to be transferred to Damascus, she asked permission to return to her home in Zichron Yaakov to change her blood-stained clothes. While there, she managed to shoot and kill herself with a pistol concealed under a tile in the bathroom. Sarah Aaronsohn (January 1890 - 9 October 1917) was a member of Nili, a ring of Jewish spies working for the British in World War I. She is often referred to as the "heroine of Nili." On her way from Istanbul to Haifa, Aaronsohn witnessed part of the Armenian genocide. According to Chaim Herzog, Aaronsohn decided to assist British forces as a result of what she had witnessed. Aaronsohn, her sister Rivka Aaronsohn, and her brothers Aaron Aaronsohn and Alexander Aaronsohn, with their friend Avshalom Feinberg formed and led the Nili spy organization. Aaronsohn oversaw operations in Palestine of the spy-ring and passed information to British agents offshore. Sometimes she traveled widely through Ottoman territory collecting information useful to the British, and brought it directly to them in Egypt. Nili developed into the largest pro-British espionage network in the Middle East, with a network of about 40 spies.