Published: 26 October 2017
Last updated: 4 March 2024
Descendants of the Australian soldiers who fought in Palestine during World War I returned to the site on Monday as part of the 100th Anniversary of the Battle of Beersheba, where hoofbeats again rang out on stone pathways during a sombre procession.
The Battle of Tzemach is a largely overlooked yet significant battle that came in the last weeks of WWI, and is much less well known than the other large ANZAC battle, in Beersheba in the south of Israel.
The Jewish National Fund/Keren Keyemet L’Yisrael and JNF Australia are leading 100 people, including descendants, researchers, and politicians, through 10 days of commemoration of the ANZAC campaigns in Israel.
Among the 100 Australians coming to Israel for the ceremonies are 12 Aboriginal people visiting as part of the Rona Tranby Trust, an oral history organisation dedicated to preserving stories of the Aboriginal ANZAC soldiers, many of whom did not receive the same rights and recognition as European Australians.
FULL STORY Descendants of Aboriginal ANZAC soldiers retrace forgotten stories (Times of Israel)
AND SEE:
Australia's complicated contribution to the State of Israel (Sydney Morning Herald)
The Times of Israel has reproduced a re-enactment photograph showing horsemen bearing the Australian and Israeli flags side-by-side. The image is historically inaccurate since no such Israeli flag existed in 1917, nor the State of Israel itself
Photo: Members of a 10-horse cavalry procession that took place as part of the October 23, 2017, ceremony commemorating the battle for the Tzemach train station in northern Israel. (Michael Huri/KKL-JNF Photo Archive)
