![Sample our Humanities journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5939/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Humanities.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
The article examines the background to that defining moment in the history of the Revisionist Movement – the hanging of Shlomo Ben-Yosef by British-Mandatory authorities in Palestine in the summer of 1938. I will focus on the analysis of the cognitive processes that accompanied it, and argue that the myth of the gallows preceded the gallows. The myth of the Zionist gallows was born out of conceptual, social, and identity permutations which took place among the radical circles in Betar and Etzel. Death on the gallows was fashioned, through the journalism and poetics of the movement, as a future turning point that would change the face of Zionism, transforming it into a national liberation movement that struggles for its homeland against the British foreign rule. It was aimed at superseding the myth of Tel Hai, set by Jabotinsky at the heart of the Revisionist mythology, which had lost, throughout the 1930s, its relevance vis-à-vis the new reality that the Betar and Etzel members were facing. The article analyses the internal struggle that developed in the Revisionist movement following the establishment of the ‘Legend of Heroism of Shlomo Ben-Yosef’ in the Revisionist Movement, its content and the operative significance that should be inferred.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1 Heller, The Stern Gang, 37–9; Shavit, Jabotinsky and the Revisionist Movement, 90.
2 Zerubavel, Recovered Roots, 5.
3 Heller. Ha-monizm shel ha-matara, 315–69; Shindler, The Rise of the Israeli Right, 98 & 121.
4 Protocol of the Ninth National Convention of Revisionist movement in Palestine, 23–25 April 1932 JIA, C10-10.
5 Hazit HaAm, 29 April 1932.
6 Iviansky, “Individual Terror,” 43–63.
7 Ivianski, “Fathers and Sons,” 137–55.
8 Greenberg, I have the Canaanites’ Peace, 134.
9 Hazit HaAm' 28 Oct 1930; Heller. The Stern Gang, 14.
10 JIA, k, 9–14.
11 JIA, k, 9–20.
12 Ahimeir and Shatzky. Hinenu sikarikim, 232.
13 Ornstein, In cable, 6.
14 Heller, The Stern Gang, 23.
15 Ratosh, Reshit Hayamim, 24.
16 Beiner, “Probing the Boundaries of Irish Memory,” 301–5.
17 Hazit Ha'am, 29 April 1932.
18 Ze'ev Jabotinsky to Yevin, JIA, A1-2/22/2, 9 Aug. 1932.
19 Kaplan, The Jewish Radical Right, 21.
20 Ze'ev Jabotinsky to John Maffey, 25 May 1934, JIA, A1-2/24/2.
21 Ze'ev Jabotinsky to Richard Meinertzhagen, 16 June 1934, ibid.
22 Zerubavel, Recovered Roots, 40–6.
23 Zerubavel, “The Politics of Interpretation,” 133–60.
24 Goldstein and Shavit, “Joseph Trumpeldor,” 9–21. Heller, The Rise of the Zionist Right, 104–15.
25 Ben Jerucham, Sefer Betar korot umekorot, 470.
26 Doar ha-Yom, 11 March 1930.
27 Hazit HaAm, 3 March 1933.
28 Eldad, Ma'aser Rishon, 32–33.
29 Shapira, Land and Power, 99–104.
30 Greenberg, Sefer Hakitrug Ve-Haemuna, 187–9.
31 Porat, Shelah ve-et beyaddo, 94.
32 Heller, “The Zionist Right and National Liberation,” 107.
33 Ibid., 88.
34 Ze'ev Jabotinsky to the colonies minister, 3 Feb. 1938, JIA, A1-2/28.
35 Alfasi, Irgun Zvai Leumi, 136–37.
36 Kotzer, Red Carpet, 63.
37 HaYarden, June 3, 1938.
38 HaBoker, June 6, 1938.
39 JIA, K16/1/3.
40 Ze'ev Jabotinsky to General Robert Hadden Haining, 3 June 1938, JIA, A-2/28.
41 Eldad, Ma'aser Rishon, 294.
42 Katz and Lone Wolf, A Biography of Vladimir Jabotinsky, 1045–47.
43 “Submission by counsel for the Defense Dr. Philip Joseph on behalf of the Accused before passing sentence,” ISA-Private collections-DovJosef-001168d.
44 Ben Meir, The Revisionists, 33.
45 Rabbi Yaakov Goldman to Yehuda Banari, Jabotinsky Institute chairman, 8th of Adar, 5735, JIA, k 1-16/16.
46 Jerucham, Sefer Betar, 737.
47 Rosenfeld, To Die or Conquer the Mountain, 25.
48 Der Moment, 16 June 1939.
49 Alfasi, Irgun Zvai Leumi, 138. Heller, Ha-monizm shel ha-matara.
50 JIA, k, 16, 1/7.
51 Ze'ev Jabotinsky to Shimshon Yunitchman and Shalom Rosenfeld, 5 July 1938, JIA, A1-2/28.
52 Heller, “The Zionist Right and National Liberation,” 94–5.
53 Niv, The Battles of the Irgun Zvai Leumi, 239.
54 Shavit, The Revisionist Movement, 100.
55 Ibid., 388.
56 HaMedina, 23 June 1939. Shindler, The Rise of the Israeli Right, 167.
57 Betar’s Third World Conference Book, JIA, B 32/1, 90.
58 Ibid.
59 Ibid., 45.
60 Ibid., 93.
61 Eldad, Ma'aser Rishon, 19–21.
62 Manifesto for Betar’s World Conference (August 1938), 9-10, JIA, B2–2/32.
63 Sefer Hakinus, JIA, B2-32/3, 36–37. Kotzer, Red Carpet, 105.
64 For example: Shindler, Colin. Triumph of Military Zionism, 6–18.
65 Eldad, Ma'aser Rishon, 23–24.
66 Ibid., 32.
67 Ben-Yeruham, Betar Book, 746.
68 Ben-Yosef, Shlomo, The Pillar of Fire to the Nation, With the Sword 1939, JIA, k. 4-14/4.
69 Gruweis-Kovalsky, The Map as an Official Symbol, 1–20.
70 For expansion: Goldstein, Heroism and Exclusion.