 In 1908, at only 13 years of age, he abandoned school to join the guerrilla group of Çerçiz Topulli and in 1910 he attempted the assassination of the Ottoman army general of expedition, Turgut Pasha in Shkodër.In 1912-13, he studied at a teacher training college in Geneva and returned to Albania in 1914 where he served as a volunteer fighter against the Greek chauvinist forces in southern Albania during the Occupation of Albania (1912–1913).In 1915, he studied at a Jewish school in Janina (Ioannina) run by the Alliance Israélite Universelle.