The Lemon Tree: An Arab, a Jew, and the Heart of the Middle East

The chapter begins in October of 1948 with Solia and Moshe Eshkenazi waiting in the Sofia central rail station with their infant, Dalia, waiting to board a train that would take them to a ship to Israel.

Five years earlier, in March of 1943, they had waited for the deportation that had not taken place, and then King Boris died later that year. In 1944, the Soviet Red Army arrived, the Fascist regime collapsed, and the Partizan fighters, including Moshe’s brother Jacques, came down from the mountains. The anti-Fascist groups formed a coalition called the Fatherland Front.

Zionism had long run strong in Bulgaria, where the father of Zionism, Theodor Herzl, had visited in 1895 and was “hailed as Leader” (72). Through the efforts of a Socialist-Zionist organization in Bulgaria, Moshe had become fluent in Hebrew, while Solia relied on the Ladino she had learned in her home. When the Fascists fell apart in Bulgaria, the Zionists began to regroup and push for aliyah, or Jewish immigration to Palestine. However, Bulgarians like Moshe’s brother Jacques hoped the Communists could build a more equal society in Bulgaria, even though the country lay in ruins.

David Ben-Gurion arrived in Sofia in 1944 to petition the government to allow Jews to move to Palestine.