16 December 1917 – 1 Tevet 5678
Nili activists Naaman Belkind and Yoseph Lishansky were hanged in a public square in Damascus, for spying on behalf of the advancing British army in World War One. Belkind, born in 1889, was the nephew of Bilu founder Israel Belkind and grew up in the Bilu community of Gedera. He was employed in the wine cellars of Rishon LeTzion when he joined the Nili espionage group, founded by Aaron Aaronson, with his cousin Avshalom Feinberg and his brother Eytan. Nili’s independence from mainstream Zionist politics lent it a controversial nature, but the group maintained its activities. In September 1917, Belkind set out for Egypt to investigate the circumstances of Feinberg’s disappearance earlier that year. Caught by Bedouin near Be’er Sheba, he was handed over to the Turks and brought to Damascus.
Lishansky arrived in the land of Israel from Ukraine in 1896. He was caught fleeing after the Turks discovered the Nili spy ring, not by the Ottoman authorities but by his enemies from the Shomer organization, who’d objected to his starting a rival militia to guard Jewish settlements in the south. They shot Lishansky, who then escaped only to be captured again, this time by the Turks. Both Lishansky and Belkind were tortured to reveal the identities of further members of Nili. In 1919 Naaman Belkind’s family succeeded in transferring their bodies for burial in Rishon Lezion.