My Right Word: One Duff and One 1928 Western Wall Ruckus

The 1929 Riots (Tarpat) had, as one partial antecedents, an incident at the Western Wall on Yom Kippur 1928. There was a similar incident in 1925.* See pages 68-69 here.

The British policeman involved was Douglas Duff.

On him:

Douglas Valder Duff (a former Black and Tan from Ireland)...fitted well into the pro forma set out for the colonial policeman, but as history has shown, they quickly made the role their own. Duff in particular acquired a reputation for ruggedness and brutality, which was almost unique even in the turbulent interwar period in the colonies. Hated by both sides, anecdotes abound of full blown fist-fights with protesters, whippings (he usually carried a bull whip and a .45 calibre pistol, even when an officer), shots fired over and at protesters; it’s little surprise that he was targeted for assassination by both Jewish and Palestinian groups

On his role in connection with the 1928 incident:

“Going Beserk”: Duff and the Black and Tans at the Wailing Wall
Duff carried an Irish blackthorn baton or club (called a shillelagh) which he occasionally used to whack Palestinians over the head, leaving them unconscious. He carried a Colt 045 pistol on his hip and a Turkish styled whip. He generally bullied his way about, enforcing immediately and spontaneously his ideas of justice or at least whatever measure it would take to maintain order and get a job done...When there was an earthquake that left two “important” female tourists buried in a collapsed hotel in Jericho, he used his whip to coerce local Bedouins to dig them out. When one of the Bedouins attempted to leave before they found the bodies, Duff “hit him with a beautiful left uppercut to his bearded face and sank a right-cross to his heart.” The Bedouin collapsed. Duff ordered him to be wrapped in woven-wire and whipped; the other Bedouin kept digging.17

Inspector Duff seems to have played a dubious role at the outset of the Western Wall Incident of 1928. The Wailing Wall, or Western Wall of the Haram al-Sharif in Jerusalem, is sacred to both Muslims and Jews. In the 1920s, tensions mounted between Palestinian Muslims and Zionists over ownership, control, and access to the Wall. The Western Wall incident of September 1928 sparked rivalry and violence that spread across Palestine. By the end of the following year, the violence left 133 Jews and 116 Arabs dead.18

In September of 1928, just prior to the Jewish holiday of Yon Kippur, the Jews erected a screen across the alley that ran along the Wall. Inspector Duff visited the Wall area with the District Commissioner of Jerusalem, Edward Keith-Roach and exchanged words with the leader of the Ashkenazi community, “beadle Noah Gladstone” [Rabbi Noah Baruch Glasstein], there that same evening. The Jewish leader promised to have the screen removed by the next morning, but this did not happen.19 The following day, Inspector Duff, sent a few of his local police down to remove the screen. When they returned tattered and beaten, he called for ten British officers, in battle gear, from nearby Mount Scopus. Once they arrived, Duff was pleased to find that four of the ten were his old comrades, also former “Black and Tans.” They hurried down to the Wall, pushing through the crowds, and removed the screen, as Jewish women hit them with their parasols. After tearing down the screen, a Jewish man clung to it as Duff and his men pushed through the angry crowd. Duff then threw the remains of the screen down into the Tyropean Valley, along with the man who was still clinging to it.20

In the days that followed the “Black and Tans” removal of the screen at the Wailing Wall, Douglas Duff became a public enemy of the Zionist Jews in Jerusalem. Zionists quickly criticized the “brutal” tactics of the British Palestine Police. One incident occurred, which Duff recorded later in his account of events, which sheds light on his bearings and psychological outlook. He and other police went to disperse a Jewish demonstration in the new part of Jerusalem. The angry crowd attacked their two trucks and forced Duff and the other police to retreat to a police outpost. Soon afterward, when the District Superintendent and a dozen troopers arrived, he ordered Duff not to show himself to the crowd. Defying these orders, Duff flung open the door and charged outside yelling, kicking and swirling his whip. As he describes it, “Once again I experienced that strange and utterly sublime ecstasy of ‘going berserk,’ as my barbarian forefathers had done. I had no consciousness of what I was doing as I sprang at that crowd.” The crowd dispersed as the other officers and troopers came out of the outpost. But, reminiscent of the Irish Rebellion, in the weeks that followed, three attempts of assassination were directed at Duff. 21

17 Duff, Bailing, 153-156 18 Studies on the Wailing Wall disturbances of 1928-1929 include: Philip Mattar, “The role of the Mufti of Jerusalem in the Political Struggle over the Western Wall, 1928-1929,” Middle Eastern Studies 19:1 (1983), 104-118; and Martin Kolinsky, “Premeditation in the Palestine Disturbances of August 1929?” Middle Eastern Studies 26:1 (1990), 18-34; and Lawrence Davidson, “Competing Responses to the 1929 Arab Uprising in Palestine: The Zionist Press versus the State Department,” Middle East Policy5:2 (1997), 93-112.19 Duff ’s account submitted to the District Superintendent of Police, W. F. Wainwright, CO 733-163-4, 0001, p. 126. A similar account was submitted by a certain American named Author Raus to the Zionist Executive of Palestine with copies provided to other Zionist organizations and to the British Mandate Government. In Raus’ account, the beadle had not agreed to take down the screen, but rather Keith-Roach was informing him that Duff would take the screen down the following morning. Arthur Raus to Colonel Kisch, 3 January 1929, CO 733-163-4, 0001, p. 143-145.20 Duff, Bailing, 169-177. See also Tom Segev’s narrative of the events in his One Palestine, Complete (New York: Henry Holt, 2000), 296297.21 Duff, Bailing, 176-178.

And here is his own testimony from his Bailing With A Teaspoon, pp. 169-174:

Shortly after my return to Palestine I became entangled in what has since been called "The Wailing Wall Incident". It was my bad luck that became the central figure in the biggest Arab-Jewish controversy of the early years. It happened on the Day of Atonement, the great Jewish festival of Yom Kippur, 1928.
I accidentally met the British District Commissioner near the Holy Sepulchre that evening and he invited me to accompany him down to the Temple area, where he proposed to visit some of the religious sheikhs. We walked slowly down David Street, which runs from the Jaffa Gate, downhill, across the filled-in Tyropean Valley, to the Gate of the Chain, leading into the Temple area. Immediately to the right of this Gate is the old Mekhamme Sharia, the Muslim religious court, where matters of dowries, wards, wills, religious and charitable endowments and all questions of divorce are tried by doctors learned in the Islamic canons. There we were met by several of the venerable sheikhs, clad in well-brushed, black cassock-like garments, their red fezzes bound with snowy turbans.
We walked into the Sharia court with them, where the District Commissioner, glancing out of the tall window, studied the Jewish throng at the Wailing Wall, a few yards beneath us. The enclosure was filled with worshippers, who kept coming and going as they always did in this great festival. The time was about four in the afternoon, which it is important to remember, as the great Jewish feast started at sunset that evening. I had noticed during one of my visits to the Wall earlier that day that an ordinary bedroom screen was standing about one-third of the way along the flag-stones. In my ignorance I failed to grasp its significance, and, as no one made any complaints about it, I did not suspect that bane of the Holy Places an Innovation! Real or fancied innovations, planned to establish a precedent and sternly resisted by the opponents of the innovators, caused most of our fights in the Sacred Shrines, and usually I was very quick to note any.
The District Commissioner saw it (the screen was made of light wooden battens with panels of thin cloth, constructed to fold in four) and remarked that he had never seen such an object at any previous Wailing Wall festival. Those very astute Muslim gentlemen instantly seized their opportunity; I am quite sure that they had paid no attention to the screen up to the moment when the District Commissioner unwittingly gave them their chance to raise a new issue.
They declared it was a barefaced Jewish attempt to seize the Mosque of El Akhsa and the Dome of the Rock; the thin end of the wedge to snatching of the holiest places in Islam because it had once been the site of the Jewish Temple. If the District Commissioner did not at once take action, they threatened, then he alone would be responsible for a Holy War that could rouse all the Muslim races to battle for the blessed shrine from whence the Prophet made his miraculous Ascension into Paradise. If he did not atone make the Jews realize that they could not play fast-and-loose with a Muslim holy place (for the Wailing Wall is the sanctuary where the heavenly steed, El Buraq, stood before taking God's Prophet on his midnight journey), then he was a false servant to his master the King of England, and he was also betraying the mighty British Empire.
Shadows of 1900 years before, when the Jewish priests howled at poor Pontius Pilate that he was no friend of Caesar if he let the Man of Nazareth continue to preach sedition!
The D.C. looked extremely worried at the storm he had inadvertently raised, and asked what the significance of the screen might be. The sheikhs came straight back at him, all talking at once, pointing out that, in a synagogue, the men and women worshippers are segregated from one another. Let the D.C. look at the base of the Wailing Wall. Were not the Jewish women all weeping and praying in the smaller section cut off by the screen? We’re not the men in the bigger one, assembled without a woman among them? Was it not more usual for the Jews to stand anywhere they chose while praying at the Wall and not to be divided by sex?
It was true enough. The men and women were divided by the screen. Then was this not absolute proof, the sheikhs shrieked, that the forgotten-of-God (their contemptuous name for the Jews) had instituted a synagogue on this sacred place where they were only allowed on sufferance by the graciousness of the Muslim?
Matters had been growing tenser during the previous weeks and Idealized that this seemingly trivial incident might easily be the detonator to ignite the magazine. The District Commissioner kept calm and made a joke saying that he would, personally, see that the screen was removed without delay: in fact that he would go down himself and speak to the Beadle of the Wall, Rabbi Noah.
He did so, and when the Beadle maintained there was no significance in the screen, saying that it had been put there merely to give the women little privacy in their lachrymose worship, the D.C. agreed that it could remain until the close of the service, but then must be taken quietly away. He explained, courteously, that the Muslim had objected to it and that he was sure the Beadle did not want to annoy them. Rabbi Noah promised to-do as he was ordered, whereupon the D.C. and I walked to the great Hurvah Synagogue in the Jewish quarter, a few score yards away, to pay courtesy visit on the Festival eve.
I became a little restive after about an hour of the ritual and whispered to the D.C. that I wanted to return to the "Wailing Wall to make sure that his orders about the screen were being obeyed. He agreed, although I thought that he did not seem to attach much importance to the matter. When I reached the Wall the screen was still in position, and Rabbi Noah told me, tearfully, that as it was already the sunset of a most sacred day no Jew would touch it, for that would be servile work within the meaning of the Doxology. He promised me, however, that he would obtain the services of a couple of Christian workmen during the evening, who could take it away without committing sin.
Telling him that I must obtain a ruling from the District Commissioner, I walked back to the Hurvah Synagogue, but found that the D.C. had returned to the Residency, a Greek Patriarchate building inside the city walls on the route between the Jaffa and New Gates. He offered me a whisky-and-soda when I reported to him, but as he had several other guests he paid little attention to me beyond telling me to make sure, without offending the Jews too much, that the screen was removed by morning.
I had had too much experience in dealing with all sorts of religious idealists at the Holy Places to act rashly. I scribbled in my note-book an order addressed to myself, embodying the D.C.'s instructions to remove the screen by morning, and stressing that I was to regard it as a matter of urgency. A short while afterwards I got near my host again and held out my note-book and a pencil, asking him to sign it. This sort of thing was not at all unusual; he had signed plenty of orders for me before and had often given me a search-warrant under similar circumstances. He glanced at what I had written and scrawled his name, probably amused at my insistence. I walked along to his chief clerk's office and got the old Greek Christian to press the official stamp on the order.
I visited the Wailing Wall twice during that night and on each occasion found the Beadle there. This was not in the least unusual on the Day of Atonement, and he assured me that some Christian workmen would soon be along to remove the screen. I told him I should visit him at seven in the morning and that if the screen was then still in position I should remove it without further palaver. At half-past six I was eating my breakfast when trooper ushered in the Beadle, who bowed humbly and gave me a note from the District Commissioner saying that, owing to the Beadle's being unable to obtain non- Jewish labor, he had given him permission to keep the screen until nine o'clock. Rabbi Noah insisted on retaining the written orders his authority to show to any policeman at the Wall.
I was still unsuspicious of any intrigue, and at ten to nine I told a reliable Arab inspector to take a few men to the Wailing Wall to make sure that the screen was down. It did not seem important enough a duty to require my presence at one of the busiest hours in my day, especially as I had no doubt of the Beadle's good intentions.
A quarter of an hour later the very angry Arab officer returned, with his tunic in shreds, his face scratched, and die beginnings of a couple of black eyes! His policemen were in equally bad shape, and boiling with wrath he told me that a crowd of Jews, mainly women and old ones at that had attacked his party the moment he entered the Wailing Wall area, where the screen was not only still erect but had been fixed with iron strappings to the flagstones! There was worse news: a large crowd of Arabs was mustering in the bazaars, swearing vengeance on the impious Forgotten-of-God who had seized the sanctuary of El Buraq and were desecrating it by making it intone of their synagogues!
The situation was explosive and as my two seniors were out of barracks took immediate action, knowing how quickly such a position could get beyond all control. I telephoned to Mount Scopus asking for ten British constables in battle-order, and then, grabbing my own steel helmet, walked down to the Jaffa Gate to wait for these reinforcements. Meanwhile, the reserve in barracks were paraded and issued with ball ammunition. I had already told the native orderly officer to telephone to Police Headquarters to let them know that I had gone to the scene of action and to ask them to take over control.
The British police arrived in record time, and I felt much happier when saw four of the old first-year ex-British gendarmes among them. They looked very cheerful as they leaped on to the pavement; I heard afterwards that they had all insisted on their right to come, saying that there would surely be some action if it was Duff who had sent for them. As we stormed down the narrow alley of David Street, and dived beneath the arches where the covered bazaars cross it near the entrance to the Jewish quarter, I saw that matters were grown extremely serious. Arabs were pouring down towards the Gate of the Chain, which is the main entrance to the Temple area, and every man of them bore a dagger in his belt or held a nabut club in his hand.
The whole city was buzzing like an angry beehive, and we had to cut through the throng like an armoured ship's bow; we could not afford to be gentle, for scores of human lives hung on the seconds we saved. A hundred yards short of the Gate of the Chain we turned sharply to the right, clattered downhill and winding round several corners reached the entrance to the Wailing Wall
The narrow area beneath the great stone blocks which have stood there since King Solomon completed his father's work in building the First Temple, was packed tight with Jewish worshippers, mainly elderly women, of the older, orthodox type. A great hush fell as we appeared amid the angry roars of the great unseen mob of Muslim mustering on the farther side of the great Wall. I distinctly heard the old fighting rally of Islam shouted bay stentorian voice.
"Kill the Jewish dogs! Islam is endangered. Strike!"
The hush lasted only a few seconds before it was shattered by the shrill clamour of the raging women. I grabbed the Beadle and demanded why the screen was still in position, but poor old Rabbi Noah was beyond speech. Hating violence in all its forms, he was horrified and terror-stricken beyond his strength, and sagged supinely in my hands. Over the heads of the women saw the screen, the symbol of the whole incident.
"Tear it down, Sergeant!" I roared, and led the way through the crowd. It was very hot and the smell of over-heated and under-washed femininity hung cloyingly sweet-sour in that narrow, sun-smitten space. Keeping closely together we forged our way forward, pushing aside the angry ladies as they hammered us with umbrellas and sticks, which clattered on our helmets; one beldame, who chose me as her particular target, belaboured my back until her parasol broke. Their fingers slashed and tore, they satin our faces and shrieked obscenities as they strove to block our passage.
I reached the flimsy screen first, but as I did so a Jewish worthy, clad in long caftan and a fur-trimmed wide-caved hat, caught hold of it and shouted in English that he meant to die where he stood and that we would have to take him along with the screen. None of our female attackers were struck by any of us and not a Jewish man was injured as we stormed our way out with the screaming rabbi clinging convulsively to the wreckage of the screen, which we carried in our midst. We reached the narrow lane leading to the Dung Gate at a point where there was a break in the houses opening on to the cactus-covered slope of the Tyropean Valley, opposite the spring of the great arch of the bridge, which once connected the Temple with the Upper City. There I halted my party, turned them about, ordered the sergeant to throw the shreds of the screen into the valley, and when the Rabbi refused to loosen his grip, he went down the twenty-foot-steep slope with it. The British police, veterans of many Jerusalem street fights, took up a strong defensive position in a deep archway, where we could be attacked only in front.
The crowd of furious women believed they were fighting sacrilegious infidels who had offered their religion a deadly insult in its most sacred shrine on the holiest day of the year, and would have torn us to pieces or trampled us to death, an unthinkably humiliating and disgraceful end for any man conscious of his masculinity, and already ashamed of the sordid part he was being forced to play in fighting females.
Fortunately for us the situation changed as soon as the shrieking women realized that we were holding an impregnable position. They screamed with hysterical fear and fright, and a wild stampede started as the whole crowd of .worshippers ran shrieking uphill towards David Street. We wheeled out of our archway and mingled with them, keeping our ranks very tight as we were carried along, for I was afraid of what might happen when that crowd of insanely-shrieking Jewish women met the mob of angry Arabs thronging the main street above. At the intersection of the lane with David Street we resumed our line, facing downhill towards the Gate of the Chain, while three of the British police moved quickly up to the junction of the covered bazaars, to stop the hordes of rage-filled Arabs flooding in from the Muslim quarter, and also to block the main entrance to the Jewish quarter.
I still maintain that that day we prevented a general massacre of Jewson those cobbled, sun-drenched narrow streets. Not a single Jew was seriously injured; even the Rabbi, who had clung to the screen, sustained only a few abrasions and bruises. A few of the Arabs who tried to attack the terror-stricken torrent of Jews had their sconces cracked by our rifle-butts, but that was all.
No one who has not served in the Holy City can realize how quickly ghastly rumors can spread; within fifteen minutes the furthest alleyways of Meah Shearim and Mustashfa outside the walls were filled with white-faced folk watching the shopkeepers as they frenziedly clamped their shutters, while tales of a massacre in the Old City grew more horrifying with each repetition.
The first person in authority to arrive on the scene was the Inspector-General, at the head of a strong posse of armed police. He looked very-angry until I gave him my report, whereupon he left at once for Headquarters so that he might have fuller control of the situation.
After him came a senior officer of the Legal department, who accused me of having used the most brutal methods against the Jewish worshippers. He would not allow me to say a word, and consequently I became extremely angry. When he asked me how many had been killed by the police I turned on him savagely and bade him to look round for any wounded or dead he could find, and when he failed to find any to come back to me and apologize. He was very angry at being addressed in such a way by so junior a personas myself, but I was past caring what might happen to my career; I have always detested the men of the long gown, especially when they presume to interfere in scenes of action.
After a couple of hours the blaze died down, and I was ordered to report to barracks, where I found my own senior officer and the Inspector-General. They asked me why I had caused such a flurry over so simple matter as removing a screen. I explained what had happened and the significance of the screen, but they still seemed to think that I had acted rashly in forcibly removing it, and told me that I should have asked for higher authority before taking such drastic action.
I again explained the swiftly-mounting Arab fanaticism but I was told that I should not have acted on my own responsibility in so dangerous situation. I gaped at that, and said that I had not taken any initiative but had merely obeyed the orders of the District Commissioner, and produced my note-book with my very definite orders to remove the screen at all costs, with the D.C.'s signature beneath it. That ended my personal responsibility, but I knew only too well how close I had become to being made the official scapegoat. As it was I made very powerful enemies, for the "Wailing Wall Incident" burgeoned into far greater importance than any of us imagined possible on the day when it occurred.