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"FOR ZION'S
SAKE I WILL NOT KEEP SILENT, AND FOR JERUSALEM'S SAKE
I WILL NOT REST, UNTIL HER RIGHTEOUSNESS SHINES OUT
LIKE THE DAWN AND HER SALVATION LIKE A BLAZING TORCH"
ISAIAH 62:1
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In 1948, after Israel had declared
independence, Menachem Begin brought his
wife to meet the landlord of the two and a
half room Tel Aviv apartment he and his
family had been living in for a year. He
knocked on the door and the landlord opened
it. Begin said, “We came to personally give
you the rent and to introduce ourselves.”
Like a Polish gentleman, Begin kissed the
landlady’s hand and said, “I’d like you to
meet my wife Aliza Begin and I’m Menachem.” The landlord and his wife stared
open-mouthed in amazement.
Begin had rented the apartment a year
earlier under an assumed name.
The landlord just couldn’t believe that
Menachem Begin, the most wanted man in
Palestine for leading Jewish resistance
against British rule, had been living openly
in Tel Aviv and not in some underground
hiding place. The British had widely
publicized a price of 10,000 pounds sterling
on his head. (Today’s equivalent of 10,000
pounds sterling would come to $3.5 million!)
Born in Poland, Menachem Begin had arrived
in Palestine age 29 in May 1942. After the
Soviet Union had occupied the eastern part
of Poland, he had been sent to a Siberian
labor camp, as punishment for his Zionist
activities. When Nazi Germany attacked the
Soviet Union, Begin had been allowed to
enlist in the pro-Allied Polish army which
was sent to Palestine.
Once in Palestine, he deserted to join an
illegal underground organization called the
Irgun whose goal was to force the British to
leave Palestine. Members of the Irgun were
anti-British because the British refused to
allow those Jews escaping from Nazi-occupied
Europe to settle in Palestine.
To the romantic, Begin appeared a most
unlikely candidate for leader of the
underground. His physical presence betrayed
no aura of intense fire or charisma. He was
not a poet of revolution. With his round
wire-rimmed glasses, he closely resembled a
small-town lawyer or school teacher. He was
slender, immaculately dressed and had
impeccable manners. He had a keen analytical
mind and believed, even with the Irgun’s
limited resources, that they could kick the
British out of Palestine.
Begin proposed a series of spectacular
underground operations that would humiliate
the British, forcing them to resort to
repressive measures. This in turn would
antagonize the Jews living in Palestine and
alienate Britain’s anti-imperialist allies,
the U.S. and Russia. The British security
forces would become involved in repression –
imprisonment, mass interrogation, martial
law and executions – all violating the British
sense of justice. Eventually, he believed,
that the British, an enlightened people,
would choose withdrawal over continued
repression.
During most of the period 1943 to 1947,
there were about 600 activists in the Irgun.
They stole arms from British installations
and set up underground factories to produce
explosives and grenades. They robbed banks
and extorted money from Jewish businesses to
finance their operations.
The Irgun was not all that popular with the
general Jewish population. They kidnapped
British officers and even hung two sergeants
in retaliation for four Jewish deaths.
Ironically, Menachem Begin, who was the
uncontested leader, never fired a gun, laid
an explosive nor personally participated in
an operation.
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Throughout the revolt, Begin lived openly
with his family – changing his address,
identity and appearance when necessary. He
did not have a bodyguard, nor did he carry a
weapon. He lived in neighborhoods around Tel
Aviv where “everyone knew everything about
his neighbors.”
In one neighborhood his cover story was that
he was a student preparing for law exams. This was to explain why he, with a wife and
a son, was not going out to work every day.
When word spread that he was studying law,
some of his neighbors came to ask for legal
advice.
In another neighborhood, Begin took on the
identity of a doctor named Koenigshoffer.
That’s because a member of the Irgun had
found Dr. Koenigshoffer’s identity card in a
library book!
According to Begin’s autobiography, The
Revolt, his closest call was in July 1946
after the Irgun had blown up the King David
Hotel in Jerusalem. There were 91 dead,
including British officers and civilians. A
24-hour curfew was proclaimed and the
British threatened to shoot anyone leaving
his home. There was a house to house search
in all Jewish neighborhoods. |
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Begin hid in a secret compartment, while the
British were searching the cupboards and
knocking on walls. Begin wrote that they
knocked so hard on his secret compartment,
he could hardly restrain himself from
knocking back.
Menachem Begin always claimed that the
explosion at the King David Hotel and the
mass break out from the Acre Prison were the
two events that caused the British to throw
up their hands and appeal to the United
Nations for a resolution on the fate of
Palestine. This is debatable.
On May 14, 1948, when the British flag was
lowered for the last time from the High
Commissioner’s House at the Hill of Evil
Counsel in Jerusalem, Begin and his comrades
emerged from the underground. They then
joined forces with Hagana forces led by
David Ben Gurion to defend the new Jewish
nation against a combined attack by the
armies of Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and
Jordan. |
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After the war, the first elections in the
new state of Israel were held in 1949. David
Ben Gurion was elected prime minister with a
majority of the vote. Menachem Begin became
leader of the opposition with 11% of the
vote. From 1949 until 1977, in almost thirty
years, Begin lost eight elections!
Then in 1977, in an unexpected reversal of
fortune, the ruling party was defeated by
charges of rampant corruption and Menachem
Begin was elected prime minister. Shortly
there afterwards, along with President of
Egypt Anwar Sadat, he changed the history of
the Middle East. He signed a peace treaty with
Egypt – the first peace treaty between Israel and
Egypt since the time of Solomon.Begin deeply valued his friendship with Sadat.
When the Egyptian leader was assassinated by Muslim
fundamentalists |
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| in October 1981,
Begin went to Cairo and |
Photo:
Courtesy of U.S. Air Force |
walked to the
funeral, which was held on
a Saturday. (Observant Jews do not use
transportation on the Sabbath which is a |
March 1978: Israel Prime
Minister Menachem Begin (left) arrives in the U.S.
Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan is at right |
| day of rest.) |
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Photo:
Courtesy of U.S. Government |
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Anwar Sadat (left), Jimmy Carter
and Menachem Begin (right) at Camp David |
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For us in Israel, he was the first
conspicuously observant prime minister. It
was said that he felt at home in both the
Knesset (Israel’s Parliament) and the Beit
Knesset (the synagogue). He kept the laws of
kashrut. He was comfortable with a prayer
book. On Yom Kippur, the holy day of
atonement, I worship in the Great Synagogue,
around the corner from the prime minister’s
residence. I remember noticing from where I
would sit in the women’s gallery, that
Begin, like me, pretty much knew the whole
service by heart.
Every Saturday night Begin hosted a Bible
study discussion on the portion of the Torah
(five books of Moses) read that week. Leading Bible scholars and archeologists, as
well as their most talented graduate
students were invited to give presentations.
In the middle of one heated discussion about
a passage in the Book of Deuteronomy, Begin
received a message that the U.S. President
was on the phone. Begin supposedly replied,
“Tell him I’m in a very important meeting
and to call back in two hours!” |
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Menachem Begin was the first Israeli Prime
Minister to forge an active alliance with
Christian evangelicals. They believed, as he
did, that the Bible gave Israel a deed to
the Holy Land. Begin appreciated their
unconditional support for Israel and the
prime minister’s office became a destination
for visiting Christian Zionist celebrities.
According to Zeev Chafetz, head of the
government press office, one day Johnny Cash
and June Carter came to the prime minister’s
office for a photo op. They had just come
directly from touring Masada where the
Jewish zealots had held out against the
Romans for three years until they committed
mass suicide, rather than become Roman
slaves. When Johnny Cash told Begin that he
had just been on the summit of Masada, the
prime minister slammed his hand down on his
desk and proclaimed, “Masada will never fall
again!” Chafetz writes, “The Man in Black
was so startled he nearly jumped out of his
cowboy boots!” |
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On a more somber note, once Begin shocked
the nation when he testified on the subject
of the massacre of Palestinians in Lebanese
refugee camps. He said that he had first
learned about the massacre from the BBC,
which he had been listening to on Rosh
Hashanah, the Jewish New Year.
“What?” everyone exclaimed in disbelief. “Menachem Begin was listening to the radio
on Rosh Hashanah?” Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish
New Year, is a solemn holy day, when it is
forbidden to turn on the radio or TV, or
even turn on any kind of electricity. Begin
then admitted that he was addicted to the
BBC from the time he was in the Underground! |
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Despite his non-descript appearance, Begin
was a charismatic orator. My upstairs
neighbor Ziona, who was born in the Old City
of Jerusalem, tells stories about going
downtown as a teenager with her future
husband to listen to Begin speak. That’s
what they did on a date in the 1950s!
Once in 1981, I took a shared taxi (sherut)
to the airport with 6 other people. I was
going to pick up a group. A young man sitting
beside me in the taxi was fiddling with a
tape recorder. After a few minutes he
introduced himself as a journalist. He said
he had just come from the Western Wall and
had recorded a speech Begin had given there. It was Holocaust Remembrance Day. |
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The journalist asked the rest of us if we
minded if he played a bit of his recording
to check the quality. We all said OK. He
turned it on, listened for a few minutes and
then turned it off. One of the passengers
asked if he would turn it on again. There we
were, seven strangers in a taxi, all
listening to Begin speak about the killing
of the children during the Holocaust. For a
full forty-five minutes, he held us
spell-bound and in tears.
In August of 1983, Menachem Begin resigned
the office of prime minister, saying merely,
“I can’t take it any more.” He was overcome
with grief at the death of his beloved wife
Aliza, who had shared so many dangers,
disappointments and triumphs with him. And
he was depressed by his role in the war in
Lebanon. Every night there were
demonstrations outside his house, the
official prime minister’s residence in
Jerusalem, protesting Israel’s involvement
in the war in Lebanon.
One night the demonstrators would shout
“553, 553, 553.” All night long. A few
nights later it would be “554.” A week later
it would be, “561.” The number signified how
many Israeli soldiers had been killed in
Lebanon.
Once Begin resigned, he never again appeared
in public with the exception of visiting his
wife’s gravesite on the Mount of Olives on
the anniversary of her death. Some say that
he imposed a punishment of house arrest upon
himself for his role in the first Lebanese
War. |
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During the first Gulf War in
January-February 1991, Menachem Begin was
recuperating from a broken hip on a
geriatric ward in a Tel Aviv hospital. When
the Scud missiles fell on Tel Aviv, hospital
staff suggested that Begin be put in a
special safe room by himself. After all, he
had been prime minister.
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| But Begin refused and demanded to go into
the large shelter with all other patients.
Imagine the scene: ex-prime minister
Menachem Begin in a wheel-chair, wearing a
gas mask listening to Scud missiles
exploding in the nearby vicinity, in the
company of other patients. They were
petrified. According to witnesses, Begin,
the consummate leader, kept his cool and
persuaded the others that there was nothing
to fear from the Iraqis. |
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Photo:
Gila Yudkin |
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In the foreground:
Menachem Begin's grave on the Mount of
Olives |
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In March 1992, Menachem Begin died a natural
death, aged 79. He was buried in a simple
Jewish ceremony at his chosen plot, next to
his wife, on the Mount of Olives in
Jerusalem. According to Jewish tradition,
when the Messiah comes, Menachem Begin will
be among the first who will rise from their
graves!
Menachem Begin’s most enduring achievement
has been the peace treaty with Egypt for
which he shared the 1978 Nobel Peace Prize
with President Anwar Sadat. |
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Photo:
Gila Yudkin |
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When the Messiah comes,
it's believed the dead will rise up fully
dressed
from their graves on the Mount of Olives! |
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Copyright 2009
Gila Yudkin. Permission needed for any reuse. |
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GILA
YUDKIN
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TCHERNIKOVSKI
64A
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JERUSALEM
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gila@itsgila.com
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