A photograph of Joseph Amozig who was executed at the Jaffa Gate by the Ottomans

A photograph of Joseph Amozig who was executed at the Jaffa Gate by the Ottomans

A photograph showing the Jewish Joseph Amozig being executed by the leaders of the Ottoman Empire near the Jaffa Gate - 1916.

In 1916 the Ottoman Empire sank to its waist in World War I. Many soldiers deserter, flee and disappear. Ahmad Jamal Pasha, commander of the Fourth Army, issues a death sentence for any defector who does not surrender by the end of June 1916. Pasha promised to forgive all the defectors if they returned to their units, but no one returned. A new date was set and the defectors did not return. In his rage he ordered five Defectors to be hanged In order to instill fear. The defectors were chosen according to an ethnic key - two Jews, two Arab-Christians, and one Muslim Arab. The five were hanged in the presence of the crowd near the Jaffa Gate on June 29, 1916. 

The five hangers were: the Jews Moshe Melal and Yosef Amozig the tailor, who was not a deserter at all, and his execution without any real guilt. Ibrahim Andelft and Musa Sous Christians, and fro the residents of Jerusalem; Ahmad Alozu Muslim-Maqdisi. The descendants of Amozig recognize that the first hangman on the left is Yosef and next to him is Moshe Melal. The nearest gallows is for Christians while the lone one is for a Muslim.

The hanging wasn't in the method of breaking the neck, which is caused due to a fall and its stopping by the rope. The Ottomans resorted to a much more cruel method, "Turkish hanging" by pull. In this method the convicts are lifted into the air and simply flutter to suffocate. This can also be seen by the pulleys and the low height of the gallows. Signs depicting their crime were hung around the necks of those sentenced to death, In order to rule fear over hidden defectors.

The Kadosh Joseph Amozig, a native of Morocco, an artist tailor from the city of Fez who sewed clothes for the country's rich and the royal court. After his father and mother divorced, Yosef and his sister immigrated to Jerusalem with their mother Hanina. Joseph, Following his father, was a tailor and set up a workshop in partnership with a local Muslim in the Old City of Jerusalem. Among his clients were the rich of the country, Known families like Nashashibi, Effendi and even Jamal Faha. In World War I his workshop was closed and he was drafted into the army. He was sent to be a tailor at a base in Be'er Sheva, the only Ottoman city in Palestine. One day he was sent by his commander back to Jerusalem to sew some suits for him. Informants of the Ottoman army encountered him in his workshop, mistakenly believing he was a deserter. He was apprehended by the military police and imprisoned. During two weeks in which he was imprisoned in Kishla, all his statements were of no use to him that he had been sent by order of his commander and that he was in fact a conscripted soldier, and before the long-awaited confirmation arrived he was hanged to death. Joseph was buried on the Mount of Olives. (according to the testimony of Joseph's sister Amozig Esther Amozig).

Literature:

* Article by Oded Israeli and Yosef Greenbaum in the "Ariel" The Journal of Knowledge of the Land, December 2006, issue 176.

* Stories of the Land of Israel - Tombstones Talking 1850-1950, under the title: Amozig Yosef - hung by the Turks at the Jaffa Gate.

* One Hundred Years and Another Twenty - A Photographed History of the Land of Israel From the middle of the 19th century - p. 122.

The photograph is divided back for use as a postcard. Not mailed. Stains on the back. Good condition.