Ze'ev (Vladimir) Jabotinsky MBE (Hebrew: זאב ז'בוטינסקי, Russian: Зеэв (Владимир Евгеньевич)
Жаботинский, 18 October, 1880 – 4
August, 1940) was a Zionist leader, author, orator,
soldier, and founder of the Jewish Self-Defense Organization in Odessa.He also formed Jewish
Legion in World War I, as well as founder and leader of the clandestine Jewish
militant organization Irgun.
Early life
Born in Odessa, Ukraine, Russian Empire, 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.
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 ensuing pogroms, he organized self-defense units in Jewish
communities across Russia and fought for the civil rights of the Jewish population as a
whole. Jabotinsky was elected as a delegate to the Sixth Zionist Congress. 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.
Zion Mule Corps
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 soldiered in the Jordan Valley in 1918 and was decorated for bravery.[citation needed] 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.
Role in Nebi Musa riots
-
After Zeev Jabotinsky was discharged from the British army as an 'indiscreet political speaker,' he led an effort in Palestine
to openly train Jewish volunteers in self-defense. The British authorities turned down the request. Nonetheless, some 600 Jews
were secretly instructed in 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.'[1]
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.[2] 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
In 1929, Jabotinsky left Palestine to attend the Sixteenth Zionist Congress. The British authorities did not allow him to
return. 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 Raziel's greatest disciples was Menachem
Begin, Raziel's successor as leader of the Irgun and Betar faction and later prime minister of Israel).
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, with almost all opposing it save members of the Revisionist camp, [3]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. In addition,
controversy was created by the fact that the evacuation of the entire Jewish communities in Poland, Hungary and Romania was to
take place over a ten-year period with no element of choice for Jews over whatever they wanted to go to Palestine or not.
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 emigrate to Palestine as soon as possible.
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 going to war with the Arabs, but he also believed that the Jewish state could be home to
Arab citizens. In 1934 he wrote a draft constitution for the Jewish state to be and said:
'Arabs will participate on an equal footing throughout all sectors of the country’s public life….In every cabinet where the
prime minister is a Jew, the vice-premiership shall be offered to an Arab and vice versa.'
Jabotinsky died of a heart attack in New York, on August 4, 1940, while visiting a Jewish
self-defense camp run by Betar. A request by B'nai Brith
that he be buried 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."[4]
In 1964, Levi Eshkol permitted the reinterment of Jabotinsky and his wife in
Jerusalem at Mount Herzl Cemetery.
Legacy
Modern Revisionist Zionism
- See: Revisionist Zionism
Zeev Jabotinsky's legacy is carried on today by Israel's Herut party (merged with other right
wing parties to form the Likud in 1988), Herut –
The National Movement (a breakaway from Likud), Magshimey Herut (young adult
activist movement) and Betar (youth movement). Jabotinsky's legacy in the United States is carried
on by various groups including the Americans for a Safe Israel, and the
Jewish Defense Organization.
Commemoration
The Jabotinsky Medal is awarded for distinguished service to the State of Israel,
and most Israeli cities have streets named after him.
Works
Books
- By Jabotinsky
- Turkey and the War, London, T.F. Unwin, Ltd. [1917]
- Samson the Nazarite, London: M. Secker, [1930]
- The War and The Jew, New York, The Dial Press [c1942]
- The Story of the Jewish Legion, New York, B. Ackerman, incorporated [c1945]
- The Battle for Jerusalem. Vladimir Jabotinsky, John Henry Patterson, Josiah Wedgwood, Pierre Van Paassen explains why a Jewish army is indispensable for
the survival of a Jewish nation and preservation of world civilization, American Friends of a Jewish Palestine, New York, The
Friends, [1941]
- A Pocker Edition of Several Stories Mostly Reactionary, Tel-Aviv: Reproduced by Jabotinsky Institute in Israel,
[1984]. Reprint. Originally published: Paris, [1925]
- The Five, A Novel of Jewish Life in Turn-of-the-Century Odessa
- About Jabotinsky
- Lone Wolf: a Biography of Vladimir (Ze'ev) Jabotinsky, by Shmuel Katz; New York: Barricade Books, [c1996]
- The Vladimir Jabotinsky Story, by Joseph B Schechtman; New York , T. Yoseloff [c. 1956-1961]
- Zev Jabotinsky:Militant Fighter for Jews & Israel- Jewish Defense Organization booklet
- Jabotinsky and the Revisionist Movement, 1925-1948, by Yaacov Shavit, London, England; Totawa, N.J.:F. Cass,
[1988]
- Zionism in the Age of the Dictators , Lenni Brenner, Lawrence Hill & Co; Rev Ed edition [c1983]
- Vladimir Jabotinsky, Michael Stanislawski (Introduction), [2005] ISBN
978-0-8014-8903-7
Articles and poems
Jabotinsky translated Edgar Allan Poe's "The
Raven" into Hebrew and Russian, and parts of Dante's Divine Comedy into modern Hebrew verse.
Notes
- ^ Tom Segev, One Palestine,
Complete, Metropolitan Books, 1999. p.141
- ^ ‘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
- ^ Lenni Brenner, The Iron Wall, London 1984
- ^ Hecht, Ben. Perfidy. Milah Press, first published 1961, this edition
1999, p. 257. ISBN 0-9646886-3-8
References
- Lone Wolf: a Biography of Vladimir (Ze'ev) Jabotinsky. by Shmuel Katz; New York:
Barricade Books, [c1996] (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 [c. 1956-1961]
- Jabotinsky and the Revisionist Movement, 1925-1948. by Yaacov Shavit. London, England; Totawa, N.J.:F. Cass,
[1988]
Further reading
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Quotes
Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:
- "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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