the secret of the treasured Turkey's army tunic button

The secret of the treasured Turkey's army tunic button

By David Verveer

After I published my short story on finding a treasure box plastered into the wall, containing only a Turkey's army tunic button, I kept on thinking why and who would hide such a thing in a treasure box, but life goes on, and treasure haunting is certainly not my daily activity. Surprisingly, a few days after publishing this story in a blog, I received a call on my mobile. On the other side of the line, somebody said something like barhaba (I think it is a general greeting in Arab), and suspected that the person by mistake dialed me, I told him in Hebrew that he had the wrong number, but he continued in English by asking, are you Mr. Verveer, who wrote the treasure blog? I thought somebody was playing a trick on me, but decided to play along. But soon after I heard what this person had to say, I realized that nobody was fooling around and from a partly fabled story, a serious historical drama came to light, but in order to tell the story correctly, I will try to relate the story of this gentleman. His name is Hassan, and he is a Canadian born into a Palestinian family, who left Palestine before the Second World War. His grandfather, Musa, around 90 years old, requested him to accompany him in visiting Israel, to see those places where he had spent in his youth. They were staying with their relatives still living in this region (Jaljulia, a tiny Arab village in the Sharon area, which according some archeologists is the biblical Gilgal). This village is situated East of my town Kfar Saba, a 5 minute drive from my house.

Apparently, by accident they read my blog which excited Mr. Musa very much, as it reminded him from a happening in his youth. He asked me, if I would be so kind and come to visit him. Curiously what he could tell me, I agreed immediately.

Their family (it seems that the entire village belongs to the same clan) lived in a large house, occupied with numerous children and people coming in or going out. Mr. Musa and his grandson Hassan waited for me in the sitting room, and with the traditional cup of coffee he told me the following story.

He went back to the Ottoman Empire, when the Turks occupied the entire Middle East including Palestine, an era that ended in a defeat of the Turkey's army by the British General Allenby in 1917 / 1918. At the time their family, living in Jaffa, businessmen traders in grains, etc, possessed also numerous citrus plantations.

Parts of these plantations were in the coastal dunes, north of Jaffa, in the area where today the town Raanana is situated. Musa's grandfather, one of the least successful businessmen in the family, functioned as caretaker of the citrus orchards, living in a big house in the middle.

The area belonged to the northern part of the Jaffa Sanjek (an administrative and military region of the Turkey's Empire. The deputy Governor of the Sanjek was a Turkey's nobleman from the well known Bey family, named Mustafa Bey, and his son, also Mustafa, a career officer in the Turkey's army spending most of his free time in horse riding, and flirting with girls throughout the district. One day passing by a well, he noticed Musa's aunt with some friends. As it goes in nature, her being a beautiful girl and he an handsome tall military man, a love affair was started, which even though, at that time of arranged marriages relatively un known. But the fact that he was extremely rich, and both were from the same (Muslim) faith, they managed to get the families to agree. Soon wedding preparations were in the air, but than the War caught up with them, and Mustafa was required to leave in order to defend the empire. As mentioned before, the Turks lost the battle and Mustafa never came back, we don't know if he was killed in the battle or simply did not want to go back defeated.

In the mean time, our lady, the Musa's aunt was pregnant, and to great dismay of the family, a child was born, which the mother named of course Mustafa. It has to be mentioned that in general, there was no love lost between the Palestinians and the Ottoman rulers who treated them as peasants and preferred the Zionists to deal with. Big American groups such as Ahuza Alef (an American Organization) bought real estate from the Palestinians with Turkey's approval and encouragement. Most Palestinian landowners were not living on the land and used poorer relations or peasants to do the agricultural tasks. Eventually, also the orchards of Musa's family were sold, but this was approximately 20 years later.

Musa's oldest uncle, a very religious man, angry with the world, decided on a fateful day to kill his sister the mother of Mustafa, in order to defend the honor of the family. These family honor crimes are taking still place today, but today they are considered what they really are "murder". In those days, nobody was really in charge, the British couldn't care less, and her murder remained unpunished. However, only a few months later the moody killer committed suicide.

In the mean time, Mustafa and Musa, both of nearly the same age, grew up and were like twins. Of course Mustafa was part of the clan and family, but as orphan, without a penny to his name. The only thing he inherited from his parents were the good looks and charm of his parents and when he reached the age of 15, he decided to run away from home and look for his father and family in Turkey..

One of the last things, which Musa and Mustafa did together, was burying one of the two buttons from his father's tunic, which he found between his mother's possessions, in a treasure chest, in the wall of the old farmhouse, the second one he took with him. Musa promised to retrieve the button from this hiding place, if and when he eventually would leave the farmhouse, a promise, Musa could not keep, because the sudden sale of the farmhouse, during a period Musa was studying in Jordan.

This was the last time Musa had seen and heard from his cousin, he vanished in the thin air. He tried to find him through the Red Cross, the Turkey's embassy in Canada, but all those affords without success.

Musa ended his story by asking me to publish his story, in the hope somebody would read it, who knew Mustafa in Turkey.

Musa and Hassan returned last week to Canada, continuing to wait for news about their lost cousin Mustafa.

If anybody, reading this story, has some information on the where about of Mustapha, now also in his nineties, please contact me, as soon as possible.