Palestine—Yemenite Boys

Image from the book: Jewish Palestine: A Celebration of the Yishuv

The radicals who unleashed the Arab revolt in 1936 were apparently determined to get the Yemenite Jews to “go back to Poland” too. In July 1936, they bombed the Yemenite Talmud Torah in Tel Aviv. As the Palestine Post reported, “Arab terrorists today turned their attention to small school-children studying in the grounds of the Yemenite religious school (Talmud Torah) Rehov Rabbi Zadek Hacohen, in the Yemenite Quarter. As the pupils, ranging in age from 7 to 13, were leaving the school courtyard at 11.10 a.m. for the luncheon recess, a hatless young Arab threw a bomb which exploded on the pavement. Nine youngsters were injured, none of them seriously, but two of them have been admitted to the Hadassah Hospital suffering from shock. The children seemed to have been saved from more serious injury by the bomb hitting the concrete fence of the courtyard and so exploding some distance away from them. It tore a large hole in the pavement. The culprit made off towards the Arab part of Rehov Carmel, pursued by a dozen adult Jews, but he was caught by British constable A. B. Daly. A crowd of Arabs then set upon the Jews and police and in the ensuing melee the prisoner escaped. The injured children are Yehiel Cohen, 8, and Sh’muel Bourchiel, 12, who were admitted to hospital; Shalom Ovadia, 12, Sh’muel Mashad, 13, and Yefet Hadad, 10, who were treated at the Red Shield first aid station; and Amron Itahak, 11, Emanuel Cohen, Simon Ashkenazi, 9, and David Schubari, 8, who were treated at the Hadassah First Aid Station.”