British Mandate, Medicine and Art in the Holy Land
Living in Israel I knew of Anna Ticho as one of the early artist whose painting documented yellow dessert scenes and Jerusalem of her times. Later on the Ticho house Museum gave part of the story of Ticho the ophthalmologist.
This book tells the story of the Jewish communities Brno and Boskovice Monrovia, Prague and Vienna during the Austro-Hungarian Empire and some of the important personalities of the period including Herzl and Fraud but also about the development of medical studies in Vienna which was the great centre at the time.
The history of the Ticho family is the history of that part of Europe and German culture. We read that the most advanced knowledge of ophthalmology and medicine was in the German speaking world and Jews were very much part of it. Any ophthalmologist today will know about all the development of this field and the names mentioned. However for many Jews to advance to the most prestigious positions they had to convert to Christianity.
The book also introduces you to Jewish life in Germany Reform Judaism, Orthodox Judaism as well as Zionism of communities' like Frankfort.
Since his parents had died by then the alternative for Ticho was to take his skill to a place it was needed and that’s when he saw a advert in the Zionist Press about Jerusalem a position supported by a German Jewish charity.
Anna Ticho his cousin studied art under Ernst Novak in the same period at the same institution as Hitler.
We then read a description of arriving in Jerusalem under the Ottoman's. Ships from Brendizi or Odessa would have arrived in Alexandria and then a ferry to Jaffa. Alexandria had a large European population and there was a statue of de Lesseps at the entrance to the Suez canal which was destroyed in 1956. One train a day went from Jaffa to Jerusalem at 2pm.
In 1912 Turkey and Italy were at war over Tripoli and so the Italian hospital in Jerusalem could not be completed till that ended and Italian nationals could return to Jerusalem. Lady Caroline Gray Hill was a frequent visitor to Jerusalem and painted pictures that were recently exhibited at the Ticho Museum. Later on their house and property was bought on Mount Scopus and became the Hebrew University.
Just before WW1 there were language wars where German Jewish or French Jewish charity donated money for schools they wanted their language to be the language of instruction about this period Hebrew started being accepted by Jewish schools.
We read what happened in Palestine during WW1 but of particular interest was the medical aspects, lack of food brought starvation and then there were outbreaks of typhus and cholera, besides the eye infections and surgery that Ticho did for German and Turkish troops. Many in the Yishuv were conscripted into the Turkish army and others were deported and ended up in Alexandria Egypt under the British. Henry Morgenthau the US ambassador to Istanbul visited Jerusalem, he spoke to Ticho in German. Barbra Tuchman the historian was Henry Morgenthau's granddaughter.
When the British started attacking from Sinai then the Turks moved Jews out of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Ticho set up a clinic in Damascus under the Austrian and Turkish Army till the British Army eventually arrived and they returned to Jerusalem a long way around via Istanbul.
The British controlled Palestine while the Turks still ruled the Galilee till the Battle of Megiddo.
In Jerusalem Ticho set up his clinic again, this was a time when Dr. Rubinov had the job of setting up the WIZO clinic on American Jewish money. Rubinov had tried setting up socialized medicine in NY or the States he had failed and tried to set it up in the Yishuv but doctors complained they were not earning enough and also wanted to set up private practice. Later he returned to the States and became an advisor to FDR. he was a trade unionist leader and worked on the New Deal. Henrietta Scold set up a nurse's school. Later on when the Hebrew University and Hadassah hospital were set up Dr. Fagelbaum was the head of ophthalmology while Ticho volunteered as a consultant there.
Ticho published articles in the Hebrew Harofe journal but also in German medical journal and also had an article that appeared in the Lancet. He treated all patients not only Jews and with the poor he gave his services free. An Arab child had syphilis in the eye as there is the habit of kissing wounds or sore eyes.
Einstein gave the first official lecture at the Mount Scopus Hebrew university in a small hall as the campus was under construction, he said a few words in Hebrew and then changed to French and spoke on his theory of Relativity, it had just been announced that he won the Nobel prize. He turned down the option of being the first head of the University. In 1925 the University was officially inaugurated Belfour, Herbert Samuel , Rabbi Kook spoke.
Tomas Masaryk visited Jerusalem and Ticho met him as a Czechoslovakian Citizen. Ticho was the official doctor of the Czechoslovak ambassador to the Middle East based in Jerusalem.
The book describes the Arab Riots of 1929, is sounds like it was an organized pogrom and not something spontaneous. In Jerusalem there were some Jews who had trained to be an organized defense unit so the killings were limited. In Hebron Jews were slaughtered with such cruelty except for a few saved by Arab families. The Hebron Police were soldiers that had been in Ireland during the troubles there, they did not do proper autopsies or allow photographs to be taken. A finding decided there was no mutilation of bodies despite what Ticho saw when he went as a doctor to Hebron.
Ticho was stabbed outside his clinic and was in hospital for a few weeks a list of high of officials and doctors visited but the assailant was not caught. After that he closed that clinic in Musrara the Arab neighbourhood. To recover they went on a 2 month holiday to Europe to see family and Anna put on an exhibit of her art in Paris.
In the north of the country El Quassam organized terrorist groups to attack Jewish settlement. He was an Syrian nationalist preacher and it took till 1935 till the British tracked him down and shot him. From 1933 the German consul in Jerusalem had both the German tricolor and Nazi flag on the roof.
This was a period of German immigration to Palestine and German doctors and professors filled the university. In 1933 the Egyptians Medical Association organized a conference in Jerusalem which took place in the YMCA of doctors from Syrian Lebanon and Iraq as well. Later that year Ticho went to the Ophthalmology conference in Madrid where the subject of tuberculosis affecting the eyes was prominent. The Tichos went to Bagdad to treat a wealthy Jewish patient. They discussed the possibility of bring German Jewish doctors to work there but neither King Feisal or PM al Gaylani would have allowed even a token Jewish immigration. Al Gaylani was very pro Axis.
There were 53000 physicians in Germany when Hitler took over at least 6400 to 9000 of them were Jewish as 6000 of them left Germany and another 3000 left Austria and Czechoslovakia 2000 of them arrived in Palestine. The most prominent of these was Max Marcus who came to Hadassah Hospital Tel Aviv.
He attended Chaim Alozaroff when he was shot by Arlosoroff died. 2 years later he was with Meir Dizingoff when he died of Pneumonia.
Branislov Huberman sent Emil Hausner to recruit for his Refugee orchestra and this started what later became the Israel Philharmonic orchestra. The Official opening of this orchestra was at a large Tel Aviv port warehouse conducted by Toscanini
One of Tichos. patients was selling his orange grove in Hadera and Ticho, encouraged his Brothers that this was a good investment. Later when they had to flee Europe they could get visas for Palestine as they had assets.
In1936 Anna went to Paris to publish a folio of her paintings and met up with Walter Benjamin and Gerrshon Shalom. After the German occupation of Czechoslovakia, Josef Kadlec the Consul in Jerusalem refused to hand it over to the Germans and joined Edvard Benes government in exile.
21 Jewish physicians from Palestine were taken with Orde Wingate for his conquest of Abbysinia from the Italians. Another 200 physicians were spread around the British forces. In Dec.1942 Antony Eden announced in Parliament about the Germans massacring Jews.
Dizingoffs house in Rothschild Boulevard, Tel Aviv was left to the city and became the museum and art gallery where Anna exhibited her work. The main hall in this building is the place that Ben Gurion declared Israel independence.
During the war of Independance their house was on the front lines and Jerusalem was divided leaving most of his patients on the Jordanian side of the border. Ticho died at the age of 77 in 1960 his wife Anna survived till 1980 to see the reunification of Jerusalem. Shortly before her death she was awarded the Israel Prize for art. Anna had a number of pregnancies but due to Rh factor no surviving children.
Allen Cunningham was recalled to London after the failure at El Alamein and was replaced by General Montgomery he was the last High Commissioner to British Palestine.
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