(pg. 75)
Jabotinsky’s Story
* Ze’ev (Vladimir) Jabotinsky was born in 1880 in Odessa, studied law in Italy and
Switzerland, and, upon returning to Russia, became a writer for local newspapers.
* After the 1903 Kishinev pogroms, Jabotinsky joined the World Zionist Organization,
and quickly became one of its best spokesmen.
* Jabotinsky was a gifted journalist, writer, and orator, had a command of many
languages, and was a creative Zionist visionary. Jabotinsky believed in Herzl’s brand
of Zionism, but was opposed to the Uganda Plan.
* Jabotinsky was an activist for Jewish-nationalist education and for use of the Hebrew
language.
* During World War I, he conceived the idea of establishing a Jewish Legion to fight
alongside the British against the Ottoman rulers of Palestine.
* During the 1920 riots, Jabotinsky organized a Jewish self-defense militia in Jerusalem,
and, the subsequent Passover, thwarted a potential Arab pogrom. Nineteen men were
arrested, including Jabotinsky, who was given a 15-year prison term for possession of
weapons. After the arrival of the first British High Commissioner, Herbert Samuel, and
the public outcry against the verdict, Jabotinsky and the other convicts were pardoned
and were released from prison.
* By 1922, Jabotinsky was a member of of the Zionist Commission, then under the
leadership of Chaim Weizmann, but after the British introduced the first White Paper,
also in 1922, Jabotinsky felt that British policy was inherently anti-Zionist and that the
Zionist establishment was too accepting. Jabotinsky thereafter quit the mainstream
Zionist movement in 1923, and established the new revisionist party.
* Jabotinsky also established the Alliance of Revisionists-Zionists and its youth
movement, Betar, to operate within the World Zionist Organization. (1925)
* In 1930, Jabotinsky left Palestine for good, as the British took advantage of the
opportunity, and forbade him to return.
* See page 70 for details of Jabotinsky’s activities at the 17th Zionist Congress.
(pg. 76)
* See pages 71 and 72 for details of the ideological schism between the Labor Zionists
and the Revisionists, and the failed attempt at mediation between Jabotinsky and BenGurion.
* In 1935, Jabotinsky’s faction left the World Zionist Organization and formed its own
New Zionist Organization.
* With the forming of the Irgun in 1937, Jabotinsky was its official commander, but
because of his absence from Palestine, he was largely uninvolved in its activities.
* With the outbreak of World War II, Jabotinsky worked to establish a Jewish army that
would fight against Germany, but died of a heart attack in New York in August, 1940,
while visiting an armed Jewish self-defense camp run by Betar.
* Jabotinsky wrote in his will that "I want to be buried outside Palestine. I may NOT be
transferred to Palestine unless by order of that country's eventual Jewish
government." In 1965, under orders from Prime Minister Eshkol, Jabobtinsky’s
remains were brought to rest on Har Herzl in a state ceremony.
(pg. 78)
The Betar Youth Movement
* The name Betar stands for "Brit Yosef Trumpeldor." The name is also an allusion to
the last Jewish fortress to fall during the Bar-Kochba Rebellion, Betar.
* Formed In 1923 by Jabotinsky in Riga, Latvia, it was a Zionist youth movement
modeled on the ideas of courage, self-respect, military training, defense of Jewish life
and property against a tide of anti-Semitism, and settlement towards the recreation of
a Jewish state in the entirety of historical Palestine. Betar went international in 1931.
* The first immigrants of the Betar youth movements founded the Menorah labor group,
which was involved in the running of many moshavs.
* Unlike other Zionist movements, Betar focused its ideas into a single overwhelming
ideal—to create that type of Jew best suited to building the Jewish state. Such a Jew
needed to be "proud, generous, and fierce."
(pg. 79)
* Betar had an organizational structure similar to that of an army: it had its own anthem,
Haneder, based on a synonymous poem written by Jabotinsky, its members wore
uniforms, and Betar often had military-style parades.
* Important Betar activities included organizing massive illegal Jewish immigration to
Palestine after the British restricted legal immigration, founding the Betar sports
league, and starting agricultural settlements.
(pg. 80)
Jabotinsky and the National Labor Federation
* Jabotinsky was a staunch opponent of the Socialist-Zionist worldview and did not
believe that a class struggle would ever develop. Ideological solidarity, i.e. that all
members of society share an ideology, was not as important as nationalist solidarity,
i.e. that all members of society be united toward the goal of establishing a Jewish state
in Palestine.
* Jabotinsky’s liberal ideas concerning society and the economy brought him into sharp
opposition of the Histadrut and Labor parties.
(pg. 81)
* See pages 71 and 72 for the story of the Arlozoroff assassination and the subsequent
political rift.
* The National Labor Federation, formed in 1934 as a rival to the Histadrut, was the
labor union that represented Betar workers. It was Jabotinsky’s attempt to end the
Histadrut’s domination of the labor market and weaken the power of the Labor
movement, but it never achieved the size and influence of the Histadrut.
* The National Labor Federation also did not believe in class struggle, and repudiated
the traditional Socialist symbols and holidays, like the First of May, the Red Flag, and
the Socialist anthem.
* The National Labor Federation was opposed to workers’ strikes; instead, it would
obligate its members to enter into arbitration with employers and investors, as it was of
the utmost importance for all segments of society to work together to build the Jewish
National Home.
(pg. 82)
* The leaders of the Left, foremost among them Ben-Gurion, were opposed to a Zionist
Congress resolution, as demanded by Jabotinsky, that would set out the ultimate goal
of Zionism. Ben-Gurion claimed that Jabotinsky’s methods were rash, ambitious,
grandiose, and impractical. Instead, the Jews would have to build the National Home
through hard and steady work, without relying on the British. Ben Gurion also felt that
bringing the ultimate question of the entire territory of Palestine to the floor needed to
wait, as the world might sympathize with the current Arab majority, leaving the Jews
with limited territory.
* The Left chose to stick with the limited goals of the original Basel program, which
claimed that "Zionism aims at establishing for the Jewish people a publicly and legally
assured home in Eretz Yisrael.” It did necessarily call for an independent state.
(pg. 83)
* In 1935, the Zionist General Council prohibited official Zionist institutions from acting
independently of the decisions of the World Zionist Organization. In response, the
Revisionists quit the World Zionist Organization and formed the New Zionist
Organization so that they could continue to function independently, and claimed that
the World Zionist Organization had become a tool of the labor movement and no
* longer represented the interests of the majority of Zionists. According to the
Revisionists, they alone were the true heirs of Herzl’s Zionist legacy.