That was then, this is now
In 1914 Yitzhak Ben-Zvi and David Ben-Gurion, the president and prime minister of Israel after 1948 respectively, were in the Ottoman capital studying law at Istanbul University. They had studied Ottoman Turkish and embarked on their legal studies in the hope of one day serving in the Assembly of Deputies as elected representatives from Jerusalem. […] The post That was then, this is now appeared…
In 1914, Yitzhak Ben-Zvi and David Ben-Gurion, who would later become the president and prime minister of Israel respectively, were studying law at Istanbul University in the Ottoman capital. They had learned Ottoman Turkish and were planning to serve as elected representatives from Jerusalem in the Assembly of Deputies. As war loomed, they returned to Palestine and volunteered for military service in the Ottoman army.
They also advocated for the creation of a Jewish legion to fight under Ottoman rule, but their proposal was met with silence.
It is uncertain how different their lives might have been if Ben-Zvi and Ben-Gurion had been allowed to join the Ottoman military. Moshe Sharett, another future Israeli prime minister, was known to be fluent in both Arabic and Turkish. He served in the Ottoman army during the Balkan Wars and throughout World War I, even after the Balfour Declaration and the British occupation of Jerusalem in December 1917.
Written by urgent.news from Marginal Revolution's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
