Fighting for Israel

67 years since his imprisonment in Jerusalem’s Kishle prison, Shmuel Matza reflects on his contribution to the independence of the state.

By DAVID STROMBERG
Shmuel Matza, pointing to the upper layer of the Kishle building where he was jailed. (photo credit: TOWER OF DAVID)
Shmuel Matza, pointing to the upper layer of the Kishle building where he was jailed.
(photo credit: TOWER OF DAVID)
Shmuel Matza – a native Jerusalemite born in 1927 – was one among many members of the Jewish underground who struggled to liberate Jerusalem and Israel from the British. And, like many, his personal contribution was swallowed up by legendary narratives of heroism and loss.
But in 1947, during a three-day administrative detention in the Old City’s Kishle prison before being taken to a detention camp in Latrun, Matza inscribed his name on the wall of his prison cell. And now, over half a century later, this simple action has put the historical spotlight back on him.
“In the morning, I took a fork from breakfast,” recalls Matza. “And during the day, when no one was around, I carved the Irgun [Zva’i Leumi] symbol. I didn’t do it for history. I did it so the British would see that, even if they took me to prison, I didn’t give a damn. When they took me to Latrun, and then came back to the cell, they would see what I did – because I wrote my name.”
Matza carved his name twice – once on the side wall and once on the back – and in the back carving included the symbol of the IZL: A hand holding a gun over the outline of the Land of Israel, which included the borders of what was then Transjordan. On either side of the symbol he wrote Rak Kach, “only this way,” which he today explains means that “only this way, with the force of the rifle, we’ll send the British back to England.”
Matza’s parents had both been born in Jerusalem’s Old City – his mother from a lineage of Jews expelled from Spain during the Inquisition and his father born to Greek Jews who arrived in Israel in the early 1880s.
He himself grew up in Mishkenot Sha’ananim, the neighborhood just outside the Old City walls next to the Sultan’s Pool, and recalls sitting next to the window watching the crowds of people going to bathe in the pool. When he was six, his family moved to Agrippas Street, and he still remembers a group of Arab youth coming to the neighborhood one Passover, waving daggers and singing “Slaughter the Jews.”
In early 1945, as soon as he was 18, Matza joined the IZL.
“I saw the British during the Mandate,” he says, “they occupied the land but didn’t help Jews build a Jewish state as they promised the League of Nations.”
He’d known that the year before, toward the end of the Second World War, IZL commander Menachem Begin had declared a revolution against the British with a campaign against military camps and police stations.
And he wanted to join the struggle.
“It was an underground,” he explains, “there was no address to go to, no telephone. A friend introduced me.
He told me to wait at night, take a newspaper in my hand and wait for someone to ask a question. I gave the right answer and went with him. That’s how I joined the combatants of the IZL.”
At first, Matza was given less risky assignments, posting declarations, pamphlets and announcements with the IZL’s symbol around the streets at night. At the time, Jerusalem was under curfew, and putting up posters at night was illegal. Nevertheless, Matza set out with another young man, one pasting glue on the walls while the other put the posters in place. Once, on Even Yisrael Street, between Jaffa Road and Agrippas Street, they were pasting posters on the wall when a shot suddenly rang in the air. They turned around and saw a detective shouting at them.
“We started to run,” says Matza. “My friend succeeded in getting away, but I was with the glue, it fell, I slipped and the bastard got me. He brought me to the Palace Hotel – where the Waldorf Astoria is now – which was then the CID [British Central Intelligence Department].
They left me there until morning, in a room with no bed, and in the morning they took me to court. I was 17, so they couldn’t judge me there. I had to go to juvenile court. In the juvenile court I said that I was paid money to put up posters. I told them that I didn’t belong to the IZL – I didn’t belong to anyone. I was a student at the Terra Sancta High School where all the studies were in English. They heard that I was a student and decided to release me on condition that I’d report to the police twice a week. It was a year until my next arrest.”
About a year later, Matza was given a new mission: teaching young women recruits how to use revolvers and ammunition. The IZL rented a small student room on Yehezkel Street in Jerusalem’s Geula neighborhood.
They loosened a few tiles, dug a hole under the floor and put a canister with revolvers inside. Then they put the tiles back in place over the hole. At night they would go back to the rented room, open the hiding spot and teach the young women how to use weapons.
“They asked me to prepare the room at night,” says Matza recalling his imminent arrest. “But in the morning they asked one girl to go with me to clean up the digging. I asked the girl to wait in the room while I went to ask the neighbor for a broom. When I walked out into the courtyard I suddenly saw a British armored car.
When I saw them approaching I turned round. They yelled: ‘Hey, you, come over here.’ I had no choice but to go to them. If I ran they would shoot.
“They asked me what I was doing there. I told them I was looking for someone who could help me get a job at the bank. They called me a ‘bloody Jew’ and went straight to the room – as if they knew.
Across the street was a big Tnuva building which belonged to members of Mapai [The Workers Party of the Land of Israel]. I saw a young boy on the roof, directing the armored car. They had informed on us.”
The young woman, whose name Matza remembers was Malka, was sentenced before a military court, where the President’s Residence is currently located, to 15 years in prison in Bethlehem. With Matza there was no proof – so instead of being sent directly to court he was sent to a detention camp in Latrun. And it was on the way there, waiting to be processed, that he spent his three days in the Kishle.
THE BUILDING known as the Kishle is located just behind David’s Citadel in Jerusalem’s Old City and is administered by the Tower of David Museum. The structure as it currently stands was built in the 1830s under the oversight of Ibrahim Pasha of Egypt. When the Ottomans returned to ruling the city in 1841 it was used as a military compound. The word “kishle” was a term used by the Turks to refer to soldiers’ barracks. During the British Mandate it was used as a jail, which was where Matza found himself detained. In the past decades, the building has been undergoing excavations all the way down to the city’s bedrock, exposing thousands of years of architecture including what is believed to be a portion of King Hezekiah’s eighth-century BCE defense wall against the Assyrians, a first-century Hasmonean wall and foundations of King Herod fortress palace believed to be built from 37 BCE to 4 BCE.
“They brought me here,” says Matza, pointing to the upper layer of the Kishle building where he was jailed. “There were prison bars and a policeman opened the door and said: ‘Get inside.’ I spent three days here sleeping on the floor on dirty rags full of lice with 20 other prisoners, and a very bad smell. I was bored in this room, doing nothing, so I got the idea of carving my name on the wall.”
While at the Kishle, Matza remembers being visited by Rabbi Aryeh Levin, the so-called “Father of Prisoners,” who took upon himself the mission of visiting, on every Shabbat, members of the Jewish underground imprisoned by the British.
“He came, saw me, I was the only Jew,” recalls Matza. “He started to talk to me and encourage me. I thanked him for encouraging me and told him I was quite strong in spirit. He said, ‘With God’s help, everything will be fine.’ I said: ‘They won’t break us. And we shall not bend our backs.’ He was such a nice person. A real mensch. He cared for us. You could see it in his eyes.”
From the Kishle, Matza was taken to Latrun, where he says it was a different situation altogether.
There were two camps there – Latrun A and Latrun B – the second camp having been built for higher profile prisoners. Matza found himself in Latrun B and says that the British were very honest in their treatment of detainees. They were strict but they gave good food – including steaks – and allowed inmates to play soccer and basketball.
“But if you tried to run away,” explains Matza, “it was a different story. One night it was raining buckets and one prisoner decided to try and run away through the barbed wire. He didn’t get very far. They brought him back and beat him.”
Matza spent about seven months in Latrun – from October 1947 to April 1948. After Israel’s Declaration of Independence, problems began with the camp’s Arab neighbors, and the Jewish inmates of Latrun B, which was easier to infiltrate, asked to be moved to Latrun A. Several months later even this was no longer safe and the Jewish inmates were all moved to the Atlit detainee camp south of Haifa. Matza was held there until the British relinquished control of Palestine.
He recalls what Winston Churchill said to the British government: “If 100,000 of our boys cannot make order in Palestine, bring the boys back.”
“[The British] told the UN they would end the British Mandate and that on May 15, they would give the keys to whoever wanted them,” he adds. “They thought the Arabs and Jews would ask them to come back.”
At the end of the Mandate, all the prisoners were released – political and criminal together – including Matza and Malka, the young woman who’d been sentenced to 15 years, but served less than one. Matza returned to Jerusalem from Atlit and was recruited to fight in the War of Independence in Jerusalem. He was first stationed close to the Old City walls, near the anti-Zionist haredi group Natorei Karta, who he says were planning on taking a white flag and walking over into the area controlled by the Jordanian Legion.
“We told them that if they dared cross the street, we’d shoot them.”
Matza was also present to defend Mount Scopus; he says that the Jordanian Legion came close but stopped before they reached the actual hill. The fighters then started making as much noise as they could – including banging on trees and shaking them. The Jordanians didn’t understand what weapons the Jewish fighters had, so they didn’t advance.
The last fighting Matza witnessed was again near the Old City. He recalls a plan between three Jewish defense forces – the IZL, Stern Group and Hagana – to work together and conquer the Old City. The plan was for the IZL to enter through the New Gate, the Stern Group through the Jaffa Gate, and the Hagana through the Lions’ Gate. The entire IZL force of 300 men was mobilized on a single night. Matza was with several colleagues preparing to shoot mortars.
“One of our members was a fighter with a lot of courage – he had the nickname Agu Jilde,” recounts Matza.
“He entered the Old City through the New Gate with two or three combatants. The gate was closed and they blew it up with dynamite. They entered about 100 meters and waited for orders. [David] Shaltiel, the head of the Hagana, was in charge of giving the signal to attack – but he never gave the signal because he knew that in the morning, there would be an armistice.”
Matza is not a nostalgic man. He returned to the scene of his cell only at the request of the museum – which was interested in sharing his personal connection and experience. Looking back over the almost seven decades since he fought for the creation of the Jewish state, Matza is in awe.
“Sometimes, when I look back 67 year ago, I feel like I was living in a different world.”