Sarah Aaronsohn

Sarah Aaronsohn was born in Zikhron Ya'akov in 1890, the daughter of settlers from Romania and the sister of the agronomist Aaron Aaronsohn. In 1914 she married Chaim Abraham and moved to Istanbul, but she left him, and on her journey home overland at the end of 1915 she saw the massacres of the Armenians, which convinced her that the Jews of the land had to help bring Ottoman rule to an end. She joined Nili, the spy network that her brother, Avshalom Feinberg and Yosef Lishansky formed to pass military information to the British in Egypt. Its name comes from 1 Samuel 15:29, "the Eternal One of Israel will not lie". After Feinberg was killed and Aaron left for Egypt, she led the network from Zikhron Ya'akov and the Atlit station.

In September 1917 a carrier pigeon was caught by the Turks and the network was uncovered. Sarah was arrested and tortured for days without betraying her comrades; on 5 October 1917 she shot herself and died four days later. She became a heroine of the Yishuv.