| The immigrants
immediately dispersed among four ancient cities of
Palestine--Jerusalem, Hebron, Tiberias, but mostly to the northern
town of Zafed, where the ancestors of the Bashan family settled.
Four brothers of the Bendery family reached Zafed (David, Yosef,
Avrahm, and Dov) and one sister (Haya-Golda) and their families.
They chose Zafed for practical reasons. Zafed had 5000 Jewish
inhabitants whose ancestors had lived there for centuries (the
second largest Jewish population after Jerusalem) and many
inhabitants were Hasidic, as was the case for many from Bendery.
From an economic point of view, Zafed (a minor town today) was a
major road junction and commercially active regional city. They
assumed that they would be able to resume the commercial activities
of their homeland and stay economically independent.
As such, they would not have to live on scarce
donations from Jewish European communities, as was common at that
time. And worse, the donation system was controlled by a corrupt
religious administration.
However, establishing their settlement in
Zafed was hard, starting with a very heavy snow upon arrival in
1833. This brought misery to the unprepared families, and this was
followed by a black plague epidemic a year later. In 1835, as a
consequence of the weak Ottoman government in the remote colony,
Arab farmers from the Golan Heights robbed the city. In 1837, a
major earthquake destroyed two-thirds of the city, killing half the
Jewish population. In 1838, the Druz population (a Muslim sect) from
Lebanon rebelled against the Ottoman Empire, and in the process also
sacked the commercial town.
Despite the hardships of their first years,
the family got along well with the local population, Jews and Arabs,
and many members of the family prospered. They were known as the "Benderly"
family, a name reminiscent of their city of origin, as was common in
Turkish traditions.
After the hardships of the early years, in
1850 there was major relief. The central Ottoman administration
wished to improved economic activity in the colony and re-organized
itself. Consequently, many minorities, Jews included, had less
restrictions. In Zafed, it meant that the Jewish and Christian
minorities had the same civil rights as the local Arab population.
For example, they were allowed to travel long distances. The family,
basically merchants, took advantage of the “new economy” and
improved itself. Because they immigrated from Bendery, that was
until relatively recent times under Ottoman rule, they were
recognized by the Ottoman government as Ottoman citizens. As a
result, they obtained a license to be merchants and to move freely
between Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, to Egypt and Sudan, an event that
created large business opportunities for merchants.
The most prominent brother was David, who
started to be a large-scale importer and exporter for the entire
Middle East. Apparently, he was considered a very reliable man among
his business associates and the government civil servant
administration of the empire and his name reached the supreme ruler
of the Ottoman Empire, the Sultan Abd-el Hamid II in Koshta
(Istanbul of today). As a sign of respect for his significant
economic activities and his reliability to the empire, the Sultan
granted him a very special permit; to print money notes on official
Turkish paper for his business because of lack of commercial banks
in many commercial areas where the family worked. Finally, the
Sultan gave him the rarest and coveted permit of all—to check and
certify the scales of all merchants in the area. For this post, the
Sultan gave him the seal of the empire and the official title
“Honorific Sultan.” David, in return, added to the name of Sultana
to his daughter Sara’s name and his descendents added Sultan to the
family name of Benderly. This is founding of the Benderly “dynasty.”
Meanwhile, David enlarged his commercial
enterprises in any place possible. In addition to textiles, he
bought and sold anything that had a market. As business was good and
regionally far-reaching, he enrolled his family for support because
family ties guaranteed loyalty to the headquarters in Zafed. Members
of the family left Zafed and settled in Zidon, Acre, Haifa, Port
Said, Cairo, and Khartoum in Sudan. Dozens of mule, camel, and
donkey caravans, led by Arabs and Jews criss-crossed the Middle
East, yet the base of operations was Zafed. The caravans’ operations
were run by his son Mordechai who, as a consequence, was almost
never at home. One cousin, Shimon Benderly, operated a huge
warehouse in Port Said in Egypt and a private pier in the port. He
also opened a cigarette factory (Simon-Arch) and his youngest son,
Bernard, opened a business in Cairo for import and export of watches
and jewelry (Bernard Benderly Corporation). The multiple businesses
of David were well run for 30 years until his death in 1882. Despite
his success and fame, he paid attention that his immediate family,
including his sons, continued to live in Zafed.
After his death, his
son Shlomo inherited the business empire. Unfortunately, the Ottoman
Empire started to disintegrate at that time. International trade
among countries in the Middle East, within the Empire’s own borders,
was more and more difficult. Consequently, the commercial sphere of
the family significantly shrunk and concentrated in the area between
Gaza in the south to Beirut and Damascus in the north. Also, the
diversity of the trade goods shrunk and they concentrated on salt,
food, and grains.
Since 1900, the economic status of the family continued to decline,
but was not severely damaged. Grain commerce was still possible and
important, and they were the only provider of salt (major food
supplement of that time) in northern Palestine. In 1914 and WWI, all
males of Turkish citizenship like the Benderlys were drafted into
the Turkish army. Most Jews in Palestine realized that nothing good
could come from joining the Turkish Army that was on the losing
side, pushed by the British Army. Some wealthy citizens like part of
the Bendely family smuggled themselves abroad, mainly to Brazil but
also to Australia, Argentina, the USA, Germany, France, and Italy.
During WWI, the Benderly family members who stayed in Palestine
encountered severe poverty as regional and international commerce
was now past history and two typhoid epidemics decimated the general
population to about a third of the size present before the war.
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