Letter Handwritten and Signed by Sarah Aaronsohn, the "Heroine of Nili" – Istanbul, 1915

Letter Handwritten and Signed by Sarah Aaronsohn, the "Heroine of Nili" – Istanbul, 1915
A letter handwritten and signed by Sarah Aaronsohn. Sent to her sister, Rivka Aaronsohn. Istanbul, January 25, 1915.
In 1914, Sarah Aaronsohn married the merchant Haim Abraham on a railway platform in Atlit, left with him to Haifa and from there left Palestine to live in Istanbul. Aaronsohn did not meet Abraham before the wedding and many believe she married him to enable her younger sister, Rivka, to marry the man they both truly loved – Avshalom Feinberg. Aaronsohn lived with her husband in Istanbul for about a year; however, in December 1915, she succumbed to her homesickness and returned to Palestine.
This letter, sent from Istanbul, is written on an official postcard of "Abraham Frères, Constantinople" – the company run by Haim Abraham and his brother Moritz in Istanbul. In the letter, Sarah writes to her sister about her dull and boring life in Istanbul: "My dear Rivka, it has been ages since I read you, and what is this silence? […] You are familiar with the old news and new ones have not yet happened […] there isn't much work, I am engaged in embroidery. Embroidery is now above everything else here and I too have learned the craft. We make White embroideries, broderie Anglaise [English embroidery], and other very fine kinds, and maybe, someday I too will be able to embroider nicely" (Hebrew).
Although the common object of the two sisters' love, Avshalom, is not mentioned throughout the letter, the choice to end it with the words "a thousand kisses", possibly alludes to the refrain of the well-known love poem Avshalom had dedicated to Rivka several years earlier – "A thousand kisses to you, my love" (Hebrew).
Approx. 14.5X10 cm. Fair-good condition. Fold lines, stains and blemishes. Damage to text in several places (some of the words are blurred and the beginning of the three last lines is erased).