9/9/98

When Tiberias sank into the sea

    "Look at this." Alexander Zvielli called me over. The ancient mariner of our archives often shares with me intriguing little nuggets from his explorations into the past. "Did you know about this flood?" The Post only goes back 67 years, so I knew he hadn't come across the story of Noah.
    I looked, and blinked in disbelief.
    23 PERISH IN FLOOD, read the banner headline on May 15, 1934, followed by three more decks: CLOUDBURST DESTROYS PART OF OLD TIBERIAS / Many Missing, Believed To Have Been Carried To Sea / EVIDENCE OF CATASTROPHE.
     A few days later, I was off to seek out any residue of the story where it happened.
    When I got to the Kinneret, there was, of course, no indication that there had ever been sufficient water there to constitute a flood. Diminished by a severe drought, today's Kinneret has receded noticeably.
    I found an old-timer named Yitzhak, who told me where the old city was. Nearly nothing remains.
    Tucked in between the famously calm sea and the protective hillside, the little town just about vanished before the townspeople knew what was happening.
    "The flood lasted only twenty minutes. Had it lasted twenty more, there would have been no Tiberias. It was appalling; as bad, I am sure, as the plague that afflicted the Pharaohs in Egypt," declared one of the refugees.
    There was no warning. The rainy season had already ended.
    Unexpectedly, a massive black cloud approached, and emptied rain and hail upon the city. The towering hillside collapsed.
    The old town of Tiberias was overtaken by disaster today at noon when a huge torrent resulting from a cloudburst and causing a landslide rushed down the lakeside marketplaces carrying tons of boulders and earth, and taking toll of 23 lives.
    Not since the earthquake of 1927 has such a calamity struck a Palestinian town... Like a huge battering ram, the torrent which in some cases was as high as ten feet swept into cellars furiously wrecking everything in its path.
    The casualties are of both the Arab and Oriental Jewish communities. Over half ... were children under eight, including many infants.
    Incredibly, the following day's headline only made matters worse.
    ANOTHER FLOOD IN TIBERIAS / Cloudburst At Noon Wreaks More Havoc
    The situation, which had been brought almost under control, became desperate again as more houses were flooded, for the second time. The threatened inhabitants almost lost control as they ran, terrified, for shelter... The heart-piercing shrieks of mothers separated from their children were heard to day above the crashing thunder which added to the panic... Hundreds are homeless, bewildered at this succession of calamities, mourning their dead, and almost demented with anxiety for those who are missing.
    Twenty-four of the dead were buried in the muddy cemetery; 10 missing were assumed lost at sea.

AYELET BOCHRIS rummaged through her files in Yad Shitrit, Tiberias, and came up with testimonials written by survivors of the flood. One of them, N.T. Tabatchnik, was very much in the middle of the mayhem: two weeks earlier, he had been appointed city engineer. Another, Meir Edri, was far from the scene but rushed back to witness its devastation:
    "I was in Tel Aviv, on a Shavuot school trip," Edri recalled, "and we were ordered to return to Tiberias immediately. It was shocking to see my city covered in water, most of the old city's houses destroyed and the terrible destruction."
    "The flood? I was there, I was in it!" Sarah Benvenisti was in no condition to be battling the elements: "I was eight months pregnant, and I went to buy clothes for the baby in Aharon Kobi's store, on Shechem Street. I was not even 15 1/2 years old.
    "The water was rising in the store and I climbed up on something. Soon we all fled from the store, but outside the water began to sweep me away. A pitiful Christian [Arab] -- he lost his daughter -- he said to me, 'Give me your hand! If we die, we die together; if I save you, may God save my only child.' He held on to me for dear life, but I was slipping, slipping, I said 'I can't hold on anymore!' And then, the water began to go down a bit.
    "I looked around, and what I saw on Shechem Street! A car inside a restaurant, Mrs. Amsalem lying dead, dogs and donkeys walking around, a nurse from Tipat Halav holding twin babies -- one of them, Yardena, is now my neighbor.
    "I made my way home and my mother saw me and wept. Fifteen minutes later my husband came: 'Where's Sarah? Where's Sarah?!' I was in bed. He came to me and burst into tears, he was so afraid for me.
    "If not for that Arab, I would have died."

WITHIN A couple of days, the Tiberias tragedy began to recede in importance on the front pages, on its way to being forgotten. Other stories were taking over:
    THE ARLOSOROFF MURDER TRIAL
    Abraham Stavsky, who with Zwi Rosenblatt is accused of the murder of Dr. Arlosoroff at Tel Aviv last June, occupied the witness box during the whole of yesterday, the nineteenth day of the trial.
    GOEBBELS' OMINOUS WORDS / "German Jews Not To Depart Unhindered"
    The possibility of a new revolutionary wave in Germany against "Reactionaries" in general and Jews in particular, is suggested by recent developments. Herr Goebbels ... declared that if the crisis became serious the Jews in Germany would not be allowed to depart unhindered. "The hatred, fury and and desperation of the German people will then turn against those who are reachable in the country."
    Amid all the bad news, though, there was one sentence that brought a smile to readers on May 17, 1934:
    A boy who was born at the Schweitzer Hospital, Tiberias, to one of the refugees of the Deluge, Mrs. Dinah Dehan, has been named Noah.