Zeev Jabotinsky

Ze'ev (Vladimir) Jabotinsky {Member of the Order of the British Empire} (alternatively Zhabotinski) (, ; October 18, 1880 - August 4, 1940) was a Zionist leader, author, orator, soldier, and founder of the Jewish Legion in World War I.

Early life

Born in Odessa, Ukraine, he was raised in a traditional Jewish home and learned Tanakh, and Hebrew as a child, but as he grew older, he came to identify with the secular Jewish youth of the city.

Education

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 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.

Active Zionist

After the Kishinev pogrom of 1903, Jabotinsky joined the Zionist movement, where he quickly earned a reputation as a talented speaker and leader of the intellectually oriented youth. During that time, he concentrated on learning modern Hebrew as a spoken language. During the ensuing pogroms, he organized self-defense units in the various Jewish communities throughout Russia and struggled for the civil rights of the Jewish population as a whole. Jabotinsky was elected as a delegate to the Sixth Zionist Congress, the last for Theodore Herzl.

World War One

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. Together with Joseph Trumpeldor, 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. Only in 1917, however, did the government agree to establish three Jewish units. Jabotinsky himself fought against the Turks in the Jordan Valley in 1918 and was decorated for bravery. One of his main regrets was that the Jewish soldiers could not participate in even more battle engagements because the British tended to restrain them by keeping the Zion Mule Corps in the background.

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 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 modern liberal democracy based on the British model. His support base was mostly located in Poland, and his activities focused on attaining British support to help in the development of the Yishuv.

Exiled by the British

In 1929, Jabotinsky left Palestine to attend the Sixteenth Zionist Congress. The British authorities did not allow him to return due to Arab pressure. The movement he established was not a monolithic entity, but contained three separate factions, of which Jabotinsky 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. David Raziel was commander of the Irgun, while Abba Ahimeir and Uri Zvi Greenberg acted as visionaries for Lehi. It is the Irgun wing of the Revisionist Party that years later formed Herut and then Likud by absorbing the centrist General Zionist Party. One of his greatest disciples was Menachem Begin, past leader of the Irgun and Betar faction and future prime minister of Israel.

During the 1930s, Jabotinsky was highly 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 the Palestine Mandate. The “evacuation plan” caused much controversy within Polish Jewry with some applauding it while others felt that the plan 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. 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 immigrate to the Palestine Mandate/Land of Israel as soon as possible.

He died in the United States. A request by B'nai Brith that he be buried in Israel was refused 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." Hecht, Ben. Perfidy. Milah Press, first published 1961, this edition 1999, p. 257. ISBN 0964688638

In 1964, Levi Eshkol permitted the reburial of Jabotinsky and his wife in Jerusalem at Mount Herzl Cemetery.

His legacy

See: Revisionist Zionism

Zeev Jabotinsky's legacy is carried on today by Israel's Herut (Freedom) Party, the World Herut Movement, Magshimey Herut (young adult activist movement) and Betar (youth movement). Jabotinsky is also viewed by all Jews as being a symbol and founding father of Zionism.

Works

Books

Turkey and the War. London, T.F. Unwin, Ltd. ^*
Sampson the Nazarite. London: M. Secker, ^*
The War and The Jew. New York, The Dial Press ^*
The Story of the Jewish Legion. New York, B. Ackerman, incorporated ^*
The Battle for Jerusalem. Vladimir Jabotinsky, John Henry Patterson, Josiah Wedgwood, Pierre Van Paassen explain why a Jewish army is indispensiple for the survival of a Jewish nation and preservation of world civilization. American Friends of a Jewish Palestine, New York, The Friends, ^*

Articles and poems

"The Iron Wall (We and the Arabs)", 1923
Zionism and the Land of Israel
Tisha B'Av, 1937
Instead of Excessive Apology, 1911
The Ideology of Betar
The Oath Of Betar
The Song of Betar
A selection of Jabotinsky's writings: The World of Jabotinsky

Notes

References

Lone Wolf: a Biography of Vladimir (Ze'ev) Jabotinsky. by Shmuel Katz; New York: Barricade Books, ^* (Katz was a disciple of Jabotinsky. This book, which is still in print, provides an excellent overview of Jabotinsky's life and legacy.)
The Vladimir Jabotinsky Story. by Joseph B Schechtman; New York , T. Yoseloff 1956-1961
Jabotinsky and the Revisionist Movement, 1925-1948. by Yaacov Shavit. London, England; Totawa, N.J.:F. Cass, ^*

Quotes

"Our habit of constantly and zealously answering to any rabble has already done us a lot of harm and will do much more. ... We do not have to apologize for anything. We are a people as all other peoples; we do not have any intentions to be better than the rest. As one of the first conditions for equality we demand the right to have our own villains, exactly as other people have them. ... We do not have to account to anybody, we are not to sit for anybody's examination and nobody is old enough to call on us to answer. We came before them and will leave after them. We are what we are, we are good for ourselves, we will not change, nor do we want to." (From Instead of Excessive Apology, 1911)

"Eliminate the Diaspora, or the Diaspora will surely eliminate you." (From "Tisha B'av 1937")

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