NILI

NILI—an acronym for Netzah Yisrael Lo Yeshaker, “The Eternal One of Israel Does Not Lie”—was a Jewish underground network active in Palestine from 1915 to 1917, when the Jewish community lived under Ottoman rule and faced severe economic and physical hardship. Its members sought to assist Britain in its campaign against the Ottoman Empire, believing that a change of regime could create better conditions for a Jewish national home in Palestine.

NILI was more than a spy network. It gathered military, political and economic intelligence; maintained a clandestine channel with British military intelligence in Egypt; smuggled funds intended to help the Jewish community survive famine; and brought news of the community’s suffering, including the deportation of Tel Aviv, to the outside world. Its work came at a devastating cost. After the network was exposed, Ottoman authorities arrested and tortured many of its members, hanged Naaman Belkind and Yosef Lishansky, and drove Sarah Aaronsohn to suicide after interrogation and torture.

The Jewish Community under Ottoman Rule

When World War I began, approximately 85,000 Jews lived in Palestine. Much of the community depended on connections with Jewish communities abroad: the Old Yishuv relied heavily on donations, while the New Yishuv depended on donations, loans and agricultural exports. The war disrupted the flow of money, while Ottoman authorities confiscated food, livestock, farm equipment and funds. The abolition of the capitulations forced foreign nationals either to accept Ottoman citizenship or leave the country, creating additional fear of expulsion and persecution.

Reports of the Armenian genocide and the deaths of many Lebanese Christians from starvation intensified the Jewish community’s fears. Aaron and Sarah Aaronsohn had personally encountered evidence of the atrocities, and these experiences shaped their understanding of the danger facing Palestine’s Jews. Against this background, NILI’s founders viewed opposition to Ottoman rule not simply as a political strategy but as an attempt to defend the community’s survival.

Founding the Network

The first core of NILI consisted of Aaron Aaronsohn, an agronomist, scientist and public figure from Zikhron Ya’akov; his brother Alexander; and Avshalom Feinberg, Aaron’s assistant and a close friend of the Aaronsohn family. Feinberg initially proposed an armed uprising with British assistance, but Aaronsohn feared that a failed revolt would bring severe Ottoman retaliation against the Jewish community. They therefore chose to gather intelligence for Britain, which needed reliable information about Palestine, Syria, Ottoman forces and regional supply routes.

Beginning in July 1915, repeated attempts to establish contact with the British failed. Aaron Aaronsohn eventually reached London by way of Germany and Denmark and then traveled to Egypt. There he advised British military intelligence and helped establish a channel with the network in Palestine.

From February 1917, the British ship Managem, known to NILI members as “Menahem,” maintained contact with the network’s station at Atlit. The ship approached the coast every few weeks, usually on moonless nights. NILI members waited on the beach or at the agricultural experiment station at Atlit, founded and directed by Aaron Aaronsohn. Their signals were simple but perilous: an open or closed window at the Aaronsohn family vineyard, smoke from the ship’s funnel, and passwords designed to prevent mistaken identification in the darkness.

During one voyage, Lyuba Schneersohn suggested using the initials of the biblical phrase “The Eternal One of Israel Does Not Lie” as a password. The name NILI was born and later came to designate the entire network.

The People and Structure of NILI

The network grew through personal recruitment and included farmers, physicians, members of the First and Second Aliyot, laborers and workers at the Atlit station. Several Arabs also assisted, including two Maronite brothers. Its exact size cannot be established because there was no systematic membership list and many supporters participated only occasionally. One estimate places the core of highly active members at about 26, while broader estimates range from several dozen to 200 people.

NILI had no clearly defined hierarchy in Palestine. Aaron Aaronsohn issued instructions from Egypt, while Sarah Aaronsohn and Yosef Lishansky coordinated local activity and contact with the ship. Other prominent figures included Naaman Belkind, Alexander Aaronsohn, Avshalom Feinberg and Lyuba Schneersohn.

Avshalom Feinberg was killed in January 1917 while attempting to reach Egypt after being attacked by Bedouins in Sinai; Lishansky, who was traveling with him, was wounded. Feinberg’s death was concealed for a time, and conflicting accounts of his fate weakened trust within the network. His remains were conclusively identified in 1967, and he was buried on Mount Herzl. The discovery renewed public interest in NILI and its members.

Intelligence for the British

NILI gathered information about Ottoman troop movements, vehicle locations, infrastructure, prices, terrain and civilian conditions. Yosef Lishansky traveled throughout the country, collecting reports from local contacts and informants. Aaron Aaronsohn supplied the British with extensive knowledge of Palestine’s natural and human environment, while some members of the network were able to read German and obtain information from German officers.

British officials considered NILI an unusually reliable source at a time when they were uncertain about the reliability of some Arab agents operating in Palestine and Syria. The network’s weakness was the slowness of its communications. Meetings with the ship were infrequent, and intelligence often arrived after it had lost operational value. One important report concerned the replacement of Ottoman aircraft with more advanced planes. According to the supplied material, the British received this information from no other source and upgraded their own aircraft on the Palestine front as a result.

A later British intelligence publication suggested that, without NILI’s intelligence, General Allenby might not have succeeded in driving the Ottomans from Palestine. That assessment remains disputed among historians and should therefore be treated cautiously. NILI’s clearer contribution was the creation of a local intelligence channel and the provision of uncensored knowledge about Palestine to British decision-makers.

Financial Aid and Publicizing the Community’s Suffering

The connection with the Managem also enabled the transfer of funds from Egypt. As currency collapsed, relief channels were cut off and food shortages caused many Jews to die, this assistance had immediate practical importance. The number of people saved cannot be determined precisely, but the available material estimates that hundreds or perhaps thousands benefited.

NILI transmitted information about the deportation of Tel Aviv and the condition of Palestine’s Jewish community to the world beyond Ottoman control. In doing so, it helped make the community’s suffering a matter of international political and humanitarian concern. Plans to transfer weapons, conduct sabotage or send representatives to a congress in the United States were considered but not implemented. The network’s principal activities remained intelligence gathering, political communication and the transfer of funds.

Exposure and Human Cost

In September 1917, Ottoman authorities captured a carrier pigeon sent by Sarah Aaronsohn. Although they could not decipher its coded message, they now knew that an espionage network operated in Palestine. Soon afterward, Naaman Belkind traveled toward Egypt to investigate Avshalom Feinberg’s disappearance. He was captured, interrogated and implicated the network.

In early October, Ottoman forces surrounded Zikhron Ya’akov and arrested many NILI members. Detainees were tortured, and some were transferred to Nazareth for further interrogation. Fearing continued torture and the possibility of revealing information, Sarah Aaronsohn shot herself and died three days later. Naaman Belkind and Yosef Lishansky were hanged in Damascus on December 16, 1917. Reuven Schwartz was found hanging in his cell; it was never established whether he had taken his own life or had died during interrogation and been hanged afterward.

Aaron Aaronsohn remained abroad and continued diplomatic efforts with British officials. After the war, he joined Chaim Weizmann and the Zionist delegation at the Paris Peace Conference. In 1919, while flying from France to Britain, he died when his aircraft crashed in the English Channel.

From Rejected Underground to National Symbol

After its exposure, NILI was met with anger in significant parts of the Jewish community. Espionage was widely regarded as treason, and the Ottoman punishments remained fresh in public memory. Even after British rule was welcomed, people identified with NILI were ostracized, and Lishansky’s grave was vandalized several times.

Over time, that view changed. Books, articles and works of fiction began presenting NILI members as people who had placed their lives at the service of the community’s future. Jacob Yaari-Polskin’s 1930 book, whose title asked “Spies or Heroes of the Homeland?”, was among the early efforts to reshape NILI’s image. Devorah Omer’s 1967 children’s book Sarah, Heroine of NILI introduced Sarah Aaronsohn’s story to a young readership and helped establish her memory in Israeli culture.

In 1956, the Aaronsohn family home in Zikhron Ya’akov became a museum dedicated to NILI’s history. The discovery of Feinberg’s remains in 1967, his burial on Mount Herzl and the official commemorations that followed marked NILI’s incorporation into Israel’s national memory. Its members later received the State Warriors’ Decoration, and the NILI Medal was established in 1981.

NILI’s legacy is preserved through institutions, public sites and place names. The NILI Museum and the Aaronsohn House archive remain available to the public. Schools and educational institutions in Zikhron Ya’akov bear the names of NILI members and the Aaronsohn family; Givat NILI, Kfar Aharon and Merkaz Avshalom commemorate the organization and its leaders; and streets throughout Israel carry their names. The archive has supported scholars, writers and educators, allowing NILI to be studied not only as a heroic legend but also as a complex historical episode involving intelligence, leadership, risk and public responsibility.

Why NILI’s Legacy Belongs in Moreshet

NILI merits a prominent place in Jewish and Israeli heritage because a small group from Palestine created a strategic relationship with a major fighting power, supplied local intelligence and worked simultaneously to help the Jewish community survive hunger and repression. Its activities joined scientific knowledge, personal courage, international contacts and a willingness to accept extraordinary danger.

The story of NILI shaped how Israel remembers the beginnings of its political and security struggles. It preserved the memory of Sarah Aaronsohn, Aaron Aaronsohn, Avshalom Feinberg, Yosef Lishansky and their colleagues as figures connected with defending the Jewish community, transmitting intelligence and confronting famine and persecution. Through its museum, archive, literature, education and memorial sites, NILI remains part of the living heritage of the Jewish people and the State of Israel. For these reasons, Moreshet and Moreshet.com present NILI not merely as a spy story, but as a formative chapter in the history of the Yishuv and in the way memory, sacrifice and cultural institutions shape identity across generations.