Eric Gartman

“This is the “tradition” that Tevye the Milkman so lovingly sings of in Fiddler on the Roof.”
― Eric Gartman, Return to Zion: The History of Modern Israel

“Arab retribution was swift and terrible. Six days after Deir Yassin, a bus convoy carrying eighty nurses and doctors headed toward Hadassah Hospital on Mount Scopus, set off slightly from the rest of Jewish Jerusalem. To get there, the convoy had to cross through Arab neighborhoods. Therefore, several armored cars escorted the buses. But the lead armored car hit a huge mine and tumbled into a crater, blocking the rest of the vehicles. Soon, Arab gunmen swarmed over the site, screaming, “Deir Yassin!” They began shooting at the trapped convoy, killing the passengers one by one. An attempt by the Haganah to rescue the trapped convoy failed. Some Arabs reached the vehicles and set them on fire, burning the passengers inside alive. The convoy’s agony was clearly visible to the civilians watching from rooftops and balconies around the city. The shooting went on for six hours, until the British finally authorized a force large enough to extricate the convoy. By the time they arrived at the scene of the devastation, there were only six survivors. It might have seemed that the episode that began at Deir Yassin the week before was over, but it was only beginning.”
― Eric Gartman, Return to Zion: The History of Modern Israel