Ze'ev Jabotinsky

Ze'ev Jabotinsky

Ze'ev Jabotinsky MBE (Hebrew: זאב ז'בוטינסקי‎; Russian: Зеэв Жаботинский, born Vladimir Yevgenyevich Zhabotinsky on October 18, 1880, died August 4, 1940) was a right-wing Revisionist Zionist leader, author, orator, soldier, and founder of the Jewish Self-Defense Organization in Odessa. He also helped form the Jewish Legion of the British army in World War I, and was a founder and leader of the clandestine Jewish armed organization Irgun.

Contents

Biography

Born Vladimir Jabotinsky in Odessa in the Russian Empire (today in Ukraine), he was raised in a Jewish middle-class home and educated in Russian schools. While he took Hebrew lessons as a child, Jabotinsky wrote in his autobiography that his upbringing was divorced from Jewish faith and tradition.

Jabotinsky's talents as a journalist became apparent even before he finished high school. His first writings were published in Odessa newspapers when he was 16. Upon graduation he was sent to Bern, Switzerland and later to Italy as a reporter for the Russian press. He wrote under the pseudonym "Altalena" (the Italian word for 'swing'; see also Altalena Affair). While abroad, he also studied law at the University of Rome, but it was only upon his return to Russia that he qualified as an attorney. His dispatches from Italy earned him recognition as one of the brightest young Russian-language journalists: he later edited newspapers in Russian, Yiddish, and Hebrew. He married Anna Markova Gelperin in late 1907. They had one child, Eri who died after the Six Day War at age 59—the same age as his father.

Zionist activism

After the Kishinev pogrom of 1903, Jabotinsky joined the Zionist movement, where he soon became known as a powerful speaker and influential leader. With more pogroms looming on the horizon, Jabotinsky established the Jewish Self-Defense Organization, a Jewish militia, to safeguard Jewish communities throughout Russia. Jabotinsky became the source of great controversy in the Russian Jewish community as a result of these actions. Around this time, he set himself the goal of learning modern Hebrew, and took a Hebrew name - Vladimir became Ze'ev ("wolf"). During the pogroms, he organized self-defense units in Jewish communities across Russia and fought for the civil rights of the Jewish population as a whole. That year Jabotinsky was elected as a Russian delegate to the Sixth Zionist Congress in Basel, Switzerland. After Herzl's death in 1904 he became the leader of the right-wing Zionists. In 1906 he was one of the chief speakers at the Russian Zionist Helsingfors Conference in Helsinki, which called upon the Jews of Europe to engage in Gegenwartsarbeit (work in the present) and to join the demand for autonomy of the ethnic minorities in Russia.[1] He remained loyal to this Liberal approach when established scores of years later with respect to the Arab citizens of the future Jewish State: "Each one of the ethnic communities will be recognized as autonomous and equal in the eyes of the law."[1] In 1909 he fiercely criticized leading members of the Russian Jewish community for participating in ceremonies marking the centennial of the Russian writer Nikolai Gogol. In view of Gogol's anti-Semitic views, he said, it was unseemly for Russian Jews to take part in these ceremonies; it showed they had no Jewish self-respect.

Military career

Jabotinsky in uniform

During World War I, he conceived of the idea of establishing a Jewish Legion to fight alongside the British against the Ottomans who then controlled Palestine. In 1915, together with Joseph Trumpeldor, a one-armed veteran of the Russo-Japanese War, he created the Zion Mule Corps, which consisted of several hundred Jewish men, mainly Russians, who had been exiled from Palestine by the Turks and had settled in Egypt. The unit served with distinction in the Battle of Gallipoli. When the Zion Mule Corps was disbanded, Jabotinsky traveled to London, where he continued in his efforts to establish Jewish units to fight in Palestine as part of the British Army. Although Jabotinsky did not serve with the Zion Mule Corps, Trumpeldor, Jabotinsky and 120 V.M.C. did serve in Platoon 16/20th Battalion of the London Regiment. In 1917, the government agreed to establish three Jewish Battalions, initiating the Jewish Legion. Jabotinsky soldiered in the Jordan Valley in 1918 and was decorated for bravery.[2] As an officer in the 38th Royal Fusiliers, Jabotinsky fought with General Allenby in 1917, and was decorated for heading the first company to cross the River Jordan into Palestine.[3]

Jewish self-defense

After Ze'ev Jabotinsky was discharged from the British Army in September 1919, he openly trained Jews in self-defense and the use of small arms. After the 1920 Palestine riots, at the demand of the Arab leadership, the British searched the offices and apartments of the Zionist leadership, including Weizmann's and Jabotinsky's homes, for arms. At Jabotinsky's house they found 3 rifles, 2 pistols, and 250 rounds of ammunition. Nineteen men were arrested, including Jabotinsky.

A committee of inquiry placed responsibility for the riots on the Zionist Commission, for provoking the Arabs. Jabotinsky was given a 15-year prison term for possession of weapons. The court blamed 'Bolshevism,' claiming that it 'flowed in Zionism's inner heart' and ironically identified the fiercely anti-Socialist Jabotinsky with the Socialist-aligned Poalei Zion ('Zionist Workers') party, which it called 'a definite Bolshevist institution.'[4] Following the public outcry against the verdict, he received amnesty and was released from Acre prison.

Founder of the Revisionist movement

After the war, Jabotinsky was elected to the first legislative assembly in Palestine, and in 1921, he was elected to the executive council of the World Zionist Organization. He quit the latter group in 1923, however, due to differences of opinion between him and its chairman, Chaim Weizmann, and established the new revisionist party called Alliance of Revisionists-Zionists and its youth movement, Betar (a Hebrew acronym for the "League of Joseph Trumpeldor"). His new party demanded that the Zionist movement recognize as its objective the establishment of a Jewish state along both banks of the Jordan River. His main goal was to establish a modern Jewish state with the help and aid of the British Empire. His philosophy contrasted with the socialist oriented Labor Zionists, in that it focused economic and social policy on the ideal of the Jewish Middle class in Europe. An Anglophile, his ideal for a Jewish state was a variety of nation state based loosely on the British imperial model, whose waning self-confidence he deplored.[5] His support base was mostly located in Poland, and his activities focused on attaining British support to help in the development of the Yishuv. Another area of major support for Jabotinsky was Latvia, when his fiery speeches in Russian made an impression on the largely Russian-speaking Latvian Jewish community.

Exiled by the British

Ze'ev Jabotinsky during World War I.

In 1930, when Jabotinsky was visiting South Africa, he was informed by the British Colonial Office that he would not be allowed to return to Palestine.[6]

The movement he established was not a monolithic entity, but contained three separate factions, of which Jabotinsky's was the most moderate. Jabotinsky favored cooperation with the British, while more irredentistically-minded individuals like David Raziel, Abba Ahimeir, and Uri Zvi Greenberg focused on independent action in Mandate Palestine, fighting politically against Labor, the British Authorities, and retaliating against Arab attacks.

Evacuation plan for Polish Jewry

During the 1930s, Jabotinsky was deeply concerned with the situation of the Jewish community in Poland. In 1936, Jabotinsky prepared the so-called 'evacuation plan', which called for the evacuation of the entire Jewish population of Poland to Palestine. In 1936, Jabotinsky toured Eastern Europe, meeting with the Polish Foreign Minister Colonel Józef Beck; the Regent of Hungary, Admiral Miklós Horthy, and Prime Minister Gheorghe Tătărescu of Romania to discuss the evacuation plan. The plan gained the approval of all three governments, but caused considerable controversy within Polish Jewry, on the grounds that it played into the hands of Polish anti-Semites. In particular, the fact that the 'evacuation plan' had the approval of the Polish government was taken by many Polish Jews as indicating Jabotinsky had gained the endorsement of what they considered to be the wrong people. The evacuation of Jewish communities in Poland, Hungary and Romania was to take place over a ten-year period. However, the controversy was rendered moot when the British government vetoed it, and the World Zionist Organization's chairman, Chaim Weizmann, dismissed it. Two years later, in 1938, Jabotinsky stated in a speech that Polish Jews 'were living on the edge of the volcano' and warned that a wave of bloody super-pogroms would be happening in Poland sometime in the near future. Jabotinsky went to warn Jews in Europe that they should leave for Palestine as soon as possible.

Belief in equal rights for Arab minority

Jabotinsky was a complex personality, combining cynicism and idealism. He was convinced there was no way for the Jews to regain any part of Palestine without opposition from the Arabs, but he also believed that the Jewish state could be home to Arab citizens.[7] In 1934 he wrote a draft constitution for the Jewish state which declared that the Arab minority would be on an equal footing with its Jewish counterpart "throughout all sectors of the country's public life." The two communities would share the state's duties, both military and civil service, and enjoy its prerogatives. Jabotinsky proposed that Hebrew and Arabic should enjoy equal rights and that "in every cabinet where the prime minister is a Jew, the vice-premiership shall be offered to an Arab and vice versa."[8]

Death

Jabotinsky died of a heart attack in New York, on August 4, 1940, while visiting an armed Jewish self-defense camp run by Betar. He was buried in New Montefiore cemetery in New York rather than in Palestine, in accordance with the statement in his will, "I want to be buried outside Palestine, may NOT be transferred to Palestine unless by order of that country's eventual Jewish government." After the State of Israel was established, a request by B'nai Brith that he be reinterred in Israel was turned down by Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, who wrote in a letter dated May 7, 1958 to Judge Joseph Lamm of the Tel Aviv District Court, vice-president of B'nai Brith in Israel, that: "Israel does not need dead Jews, but living Jews, and I see no blessing in multiplying graves in Israel."[9]

In 1964, Jewish Legion Veteran Levi Eshkol permitted the reinterment of Jabotinsky and his wife in Jerusalem at Mount Herzl Cemetery. A monument to Jabotinsky remains at his original burial site in New York.

Legacy and commemoration

Ze'ev Jabotinsky's legacy is carried on today by Israel's Herut party (merged with other right wing parties to form the Likud in 1973), Herut – The National Movement (a breakaway from Likud), Magshimey Herut (young adult activist movement) and Betar (youth movement). In the United States, his call for Jewish self defense has led to the formation of Americans for a Safe Israel and the Jewish Defense Organization. In Israel, there are more streets, parks and squares named after Jabotinsky than any other figure in Jewish or Israeli history.[10]The Jabotinsky Medal is awarded for distinguished service to the State of Israel, and most Israeli cities have streets named after him. Jabotinsky is buried in Israel's Mount Herzl national cemetery. On 11 August 2008 Israeli Education Minister Yuli Tamir announced plans to remove Jabotinsky's work from the Israeli national education curriculum.[11]

Works

Books

By Jabotinsky
About Jabotinsky

Articles and poems

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 http://www.liberal.org.il/the_man.htm
  2. ↑ "What role did the Jewish population play in World War I?".
  3. ↑ http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/History/Modern+History/Centenary+of+Zionism/Zionist+Leaders-+Ze-ev+Jabotinsky.htm
  4. ↑ Tom Segev, One Palestine, Complete, Metropolitan Books, 1999. p.141
  5. ↑ ‘England is becoming continental! Not long ago the prestige of the English ruler of the “colored” colonies stood very high. Hindus, Arabs, Malays were conscious of his superiority and obeyed, not unprotestingly, yet completely. The whole scheme of training of the future rulers was built on the principle “carry yourself so that the inferior will feel your unobtainable superiority in every motion”.’Jabotinsky, cited Lenni Brenner, The Iron Wall London, ch.7, 1984
  6. ↑ http://www.h-net.msu.edu/reviews/showrev.cgi?path=20846869665381
  7. ↑ http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1138622548037&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FPrinter
  8. ↑ Benny Morris's Reign of Error, Revisited: The Post-Zionist Critique - Middle East Quarterly
  9. ↑ Hecht, Ben. Perfidy. Milah Press, first published 1961, this edition 1999, p. 257. ISBN 0-9646886-3-8
  10. ↑ Jabotinsky most popular street name in Israel Ynetnews, 28 November 2007
  11. ↑ Ha'aretz 11 august 2008 Tamir infuriates rightists by removing Jabotinsky from curriculum

External sources

Quotes