NILI was a Jewish espionage network which assisted the United Kingdom in its fight against the Ottoman Empire in the Mutasarrifate of Jerusalem between 1915 and 1917, during World War I. NILI was centered in Zikhron Ya'akov, with branches in Hadera and other Moshava. Nili is an acronym which stands for the Hebrew phrase from the First Book of Samuel: "Netzah Yisrael Lo Yeshaker", which translates as "the Eternal One of Israel will not lie". The British government code-named NILI the "A Organization", according to a 1920 misfiled memorandum in the British National Archives, as described in the book Spies in Palestine by James Srodes.
Avshalom Feinberg and Sarah Aaronsohn of the Nili spy ring, 1916
Yosef Lishansky of the Nili spy ring
Zikhron Ya'akov is a town in Israel, 35 kilometres (22 mi) south of Haifa, and part of the Haifa District. It is located at the southern end of the Carmel mountain range overlooking the Mediterranean Sea, near the coastal highway. It was one of the first Jewish settlements of Halutzim in the country, founded in 1882 by Romanian Jews, who in 1883 received support from Baron Edmond James de Rothschild and renamed their town in honor of his father, James Mayer de Rothschild. In 2022 it had a population of 24,145.
HaMeyasdim Street in Zikhron Ya'akov
Building wine barrels, 1890s
Ohel Ya'akov Synagogue
Teachers at the First Eretz Yisraeli Congress, Zichron Ya'akov, 1903
