Pre-state Jewish undergrounds enjoy a renaissance among settlers
In recent years, interest in the pre-state Revisionist underground movements has grown among West Bank settlement youth.
By Chaim LevinsonDozens of people crowded into Tel Aviv's Jabotinsky Museum last week to celebrate the 130th birthday of Ze'ev Jabotinsky, founder of the Revisionist Movement. The evening culminated with a ceremony in which prizes were awarded to high school and college students and academics for work in the spirit of Jabotinsky.
In recent years, interest in the prestate Revisionist underground movements has grown among West Bank settlement youth. These young people want to give the nationalist Lehi and Etzel (Irgun Zvai Leumi ) movements a more prominent role in Zionist history and aggrandize figures who sacrificed themselves for the Land of Israel.
 |
A student accepts a prize for a project on underground movements |
| Photo by: Haaretz |
Oved Federman, 15, son of radical religious right-wing settler Noam Federman, won second prize for his film about Yehiel Dresner, an Etzel militant executed by the British Mandate authorities in 1947.
Noam Federman said he is raising his children on the deeds of the rightist underground movements.
"Oved chose Dresner because he went to the gallows under an assumed name, did not reveal his real name and was buried under an alias," Federman said. "His tombstone was only replaced after the State of Israel was established."
"My father's father was an Etzel fighter," he continued. "At home, at Friday night dinners, we talk about Etzel operations and sing underground songs. I see a connection between the underground members and our generation. Both gave their lives for the Land of Israel and the Bible. [Lehi founder Avraham] 'Yair' Stern's beliefs have a lot in common with our own."
Federman said he is asked to give lectures about prestate underground activists who were executed under the British Mandate.
Asked whether the real common denominator between himself and these prestate undergrounds was violence against Arabs, Federman replied, "hitting the enemy is not a bad thing."
Hodaya Akrish and Na'ama Asher won a prize for their project on prestate underground members sent to the gallows by the British Mandate authorities. Shira Kadmon and Shifra Ganiram, both from the militant girls school in Ma'aleh Levona in the West Bank, won a prize for a paper on the Tuvia Chen-Zion group, which split from Lehi.
Kadmon, from the Maon settlement, said she could see the similarity between the underground members and today's youth.
"The underground movements were a very small group of people who opposed everything accepted in that period," she said. "They're like us in a way ... We're trying to do something that will make a difference and advance redemption."
Their paper was written as a matriculation project in Land of Israel studies.
"It's a group led by Tuvia Chen-Zion that quit Lehi and went underground after a few failed operations," Kadmon said. "It was a [religiously] traditional group."
"The issue of the underground movements always spoke to me," she added. "They didn't agree with what was happening and did something. They didn't wait for David Ben-Gurion," who led the mainstream Jewish community.
Alex Ostrovsky, 24, of the settlement of Eli, teaches settler youth about the underground movements and their ideology.
"There is always something to learn from the past so that we don't repeat the mistakes in the future," he said. "I learned, for example, that perhaps Yair [Stern] shouldn't have reached an agreement with the Nazis. The relentless, uncompromising struggle for things you believe in, including personal sacrifice, that's what we must learn from him. He is an example of a man who sacrificed for the public and was finally killed so that we would all be better off."
"The youth are very interested in these subjects," he added. "Every year the number of youngsters coming to Yair's memorial and other events increases. Many young people, who know I deal with these matters, ask me questions [and] want to learn the underground movements' songs. Some of them identify with these things. It says a lot about the situation in Israel today that a certain percentage of the youth feels the state is no longer theirs. They feel cut off."
Why Facebook Connect?
Comment on Haaretz.com articles with your Facebook login, and share your thoughts on your own wall.
- Latest
- Most Viewed
- Most Rated
- Open all
Israel's present prime minister in recent times attended the anniversary celebrations of the King David bombing.
Whilte Paletinian "terrorist" are treated like the worst kind. Trrorist are terrorist are terrorsits. Being like Mcveigh or Shamir or Begin. They are the worse king with blood or their hands. This article is legitimising terrorism, jewish terrorism.
"I learned, for example, that perhaps Yair [Stern] shouldn't have reached an agreement with the Nazis." Perhaps? His willingness to co-opeate with the Nazi regime demonstrates his true political colours; the only diffeence between them was in the choice of victims
Congratulations, that must have been very difficult!
History will tell who was right. Shouldn't compare, but Jewish resistance Fighters were hated by their own community's in Europe during WW2 because " harming the Jewish Cause". This is a Fact that is widely unknown or ignored in our History. Something to think about.
Terrorism in all forms is wrong. Are these children celebrating the very terrorists that attacked and killed British? How can the cycle of terrorism ever stop if there continues to be those that praise terrorism?
Sprinkling subjective adjectives like "militant" and "radical" before the names of people and institutions throughout this feature shows just how sloppy Haaretz has gotten. Even a half-baked reporter knows the expression "Show me don't tell me." Despite it's self-assigned reputation as "The paper for people who think," the author is obviously too lazy to come up with concrete examples of radicalism or militancy. Either that, or he thinks his readership is too stupid to pick up on his hints, and so just throws around slander assuming they will swallow whatever he says whole. Based on the comments here, the second possibility is probably the more correct.
This article is very unsettling, no pun intended. It shows how these militant settler groups are delusional enough to turn their radicalism and violence against fellow Jews and the state of Israel. The parents brainwashing their children should be ashamed of themselves. This is not Judaism, it is a cult. How is it that I read "gangsters," and not "settlers?"
Can it get any worse than that?
Why are the Jews astonished that the Palestines are fighting against their occupiers in a similar way as the Irgun terrorists? Israel is celebrating Irgun as heros and condemning the Palestines as terrorists. It is just a matter of interests, who is a criminal and who is a hero.
Irgun/Stern Gang activities at the King David Hotel, execution of British soldiers and Deir Yassin was murder. Palastinian suicde bombers are murderers. None of it is "resistance". None of it is "understandable" or "justifiable" or "for the greater good". None of it should be celebrated. This is not hard nor is it a close question.. Anyone who thinks that these people are heros, or even that their legacy is "controversial" is simply shutting their eyes to common decency and ought to be ashamed of themselves.
I think the majority of of the Israelis , have not yet realised how dangerous radical settlers are . Sooner or later thay may even start a civil war ! Moderates , please stand up and make your country a better place.
Were they terrorists or freedom fighters ?
"Noam Federman said he is raising his children on the deeds of the rightist underground movements." As Homer Simpson said, "Kids are great. You can teach them to hate the things you hate."
"It was the Irgun that made the English quit Palestine. They did by raising so much hell that we had to put eighty thousand soldiers into Palestine to cope with the situation. The military costs were too high for our wconomy. And it was the Irgun that ran them up....." Winston Churchill
It was the IZL that convinced the British occupiers to leave our land. The attacks on Arabs were retaliations against the slaughter of Jews on the roads of the homeland, on the defenseless women and children of Hebron, and the constant sniping on Jews from the Islamic terrorists of the day. The IZL and the LHI attacked British military installations, RAF airfields and police stations-the cowardly criminals Arab terrorists of today only target women, children and other civilians. The IZL and the LHI were patriotic freedom fighters seeking to liberate their homeland from foreign occupation and the protection of Jewish lives.
why not for the Palestinians.
Do these people worship at Goldstein's grave every day? I bet they do.
looks like the haaretz/guardian talkbackers are in full swing,
While the settler parents are out vandalizing Pal mosques and farms, their kids are being taught to admire the Irgun and Stern Gang terrorists.
These were the true heroes of Israel's Independence struggle - please read Days of Fire - by Samuel Katz or The Revolt - by Menachem Begin to learn the truth about British Policies and the roots of local arab independence struggle.
Terrorists justify their actions, no matter how murderous, to meet their ideological/religious ends. Jewish terrorists, including Begin and his ilk, were no different.
It's only normal that the terrorists of the present show interest in the terrorists of the past.
They were absorbed into the IDF and the settlers are their heirs. The only thing these cowards havent done is announced it as they used to. They have been working behind the scenes.The past couple of years have brought their cowardly hides out of hiding though since they can feel the end of the settlements coming near.
They were so old and still alive, might be the coffee
British left Palestine two years after bombing of the King David Hotel. 9/11 has thrust America into two wars costing trillions, and tens of thousands of killed and wounded. Israel is now more a liability than an asset. CIA reports Israel will fall within 20 years.
oh wonderful. substitute "israel" for "palestine" and you begin to see why the settlers and religious arabs are always at each other's throats. two groups of crazy people. terrorists are terrorists, kids, whether they're from 1948 or 2010... or whether they're jewish or muslim.
without defining the term terrorist, you've said nothing here. Sorry
From 1937 to 1948, the Irgun carried out 56 terrorists attacks that resulted in the deaths of about 1000 unarmed Arab civilians, mostly in outdoor markets, in Palestine. A typical one would be: 1938, July 25 -- 43 Arabs were killed by a bomb at a marketplace in Haifa. (Almost all women and children.) Here’s another: 1939, June 29 -- 13 Arabs were killed in several shooting attacks around Jaffa during a one-hour period. And another: 1938, February 27 -- 33 Arabs were killed in multiple attacks, incl. 24 by bomb in Arab market in Suk Quarter of Haifa and 4 by bomb in Arab vegetable market in Jerusalem. And, of course, the “suicide donkey” attack: 1939, June 19 -- 20 Arabs were killed by explosives mounted on a donkey at a marketplace in Haifa. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Irgun_attacks_during_the_1930s
i love thes folks from the resistans, call them terrorists who cares.
Your terrorists don't like to take the responsible. Maybe they did a lot of bombattacks so the Palestinians got the guilt. The "resistants" are no hero's, they just kill and walk away. Such people I call cowards, you can compare them with the K.K.K. (US)
They were at the forefront of our struggles. Without them, there would not be any state of Israel. The Haganah just followed them. My uncle and my dad were part of this group and I am proud of it.
That's what some Palestinians say about Hamas.