The forgotten Major who stopped a massacre
Armed only with a revolver in the midst of a riot, a British officer in 1920s Palestine has been praised for saving the lives of Jews and Arabs alike
On the afternoon of May 1, 1921, Major Lionel Manzella Jeune, a British soldier, marched into the midst of a knife-wielding mob in Jaffa and fired a warning shot, sending attackers scattering. He went on to save more than 100 people that day — both Jews and Arabs — as the port city was racked with violence.
To those he saved, Jeune was a hero. But years later to much of his own family he was a remote, unknown figure who had died in a faraway country, leaving few clues about his life.
Now, a hundred years after the Jaffa riots, a genealogist and a historian whose uncle was killed that day have finally tracked down Major Jeune’s descendants and told them about the heroic