29 Tammuz 2023

 

L-R: David Dwek, UK Betar; Chaim Fischgrund, Baruch Kraus, Yisrael Medad, 

Steve Adler, US Betar at Mt. Herzl

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Jabotinsky's Yahrztzeit 2021

 Back after a Corona break, it seems only two US Betarim veterans made it to the ceremony, Steve/Shmuel Adler and Chaim Fischgrund:

The complete video clip is here.

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Reuven Genn on the Reburial of Rosh Betar

Shalom Betarim

I am writing this to provide another angle to the return of Rosh Betar's remains to Eretz Yisrael.

In 1963-64 Efraim Dimant and I (Reuven Genn) were sent by Betar to the Machon L'madrichei Chutz Laaretz in Yerushalayim. The year was filled with dramatic events both in and out of Israel. We arrived in Early September 1963 and in November 1963 President John Fitzgerald Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. In January of 1964 before official Vatican recognition of the State of Israel Pope Paul Vl a reigning Pope visited Eretz Yisrael. In June 1963 Levi Eshkol was elected Prime Minister replacing Ben Gurion. During that same month Israel won the AFC Asian Cup, and most dramatically for us, the incredible information gathered by Eli Cohen Israel put an end to the Arab (Syria and Jordan) plan to starve Israel by diverting the headwaters of the Hatzbani and Banyas tributaries of the Jordan River.

In March 1964 the cabinet of the government of Israel approved the reinternment of the remains of Zeev and Yohanna Jabotinsky. And finally, at the behest of Prime Minister Levi Eshkol of the government of the State of Israel on July 9th Zeev and Yohanna Jabotinsky's remains were flown to Israel to be reinterred on Har Herzl.

At the time of the announcement by Levi Eshkol I was working at The Metzudah ( Metzudat Zeev in Tel Aviv) dividing my time between BETAR, Machon Jabotinsky and The Herut Newspaper. (A personal note: The movement housed Betarim at the Malon Yosef, a tiny, unadorned building on the edge of the Tel Aviv beach whose most remarkable feature was fresh eggs, fresh bread and fresh vegetables served every morning by Yosef himself!) 

Menachem Begin and the leaders of all of the Jabotinsky "family" institutions including: BETAR, The Herut Party, Brit Cahayalei Etzel, Machon Jabotinsky, The "Herut" newspaper, The Nordau Circle, The National Sick Fund, Brit Neshei Herut, BETAR Youth Villages, Misdar Jabotinsky, Student Corporations, veterans of the Jewish Legion, veterans of Lechi, Plugot Hakotel v'Hagiyusus, The Revisionist Party and many others began planning ceremonies and festivities.

Begin appointed Naftali Faltin a Katzin of the Mifkedet ETZEL to organize the honor guards which would accompany the caskets of Rosh Betar and his wife on Army command cars from the time of their landing at Lod until the burial at Har Herzl and at every stop along the way. As you can well imagine, this was a huge and extremely sensitive task and I have no idea why it was entrusted to Naftali Faltin. I was asked to assist him. In the pre-computer days of 1964 the problems were technical, very human and almost over whelming. Which groups or individuals should be participants? Who should be in the honor guards? Where? For how long? What place on the command car or when carrying the casket. Who should be at the airport and who at Har Herzl?

In 1964, the Movement's institutions were poor and not highly organized. Most of the information was gathered by phone and in person, from individuals and organizations and was recorded on 3x5 cards divided which were grouped into places and times. People were notified – each participant in the hundreds of honor guards receiving a printed slip titled "Zeev Jabotinsky returns to the Land of Israel"  (in Hebrew) with their name, place and time at the honor guard.

Most of the thousands of members of the Movement's many institutions took part in the parades through the streets of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem with each group carrying a banner and participants wearing some identifying item (i.e., a beret, uniform, pin, etc.). I was lucky to be among them and carried the banner of world BETAR through those streets which were deeply lined by onlookers straining to get a glance of Jabotinsky.

In Tel Aviv the caskets were placed at what was then Lord Samuel square. A torch was lit by Carni Jabotinsky (Jabotinsky's granddaughter) while honor guards changed every ten minutes and thousands of the public silently waited on line to pay their respect throughout the night.

In Jerusalem the parade made its way through the streets where at the old Knesset the Knesset honor guard saluted and Kaddish Luz, the speaker of the Knessset eulogized Zeev Jabotinsky. At the final internment the President of Israel Zalman Shazar and his wife, Jabotinsky's family and leaders of the Jabotinsky movement participated in the traditional ritual of covering the graves with earth, soldiers of Tzahal presented arms and Hatikvah was sung.

These events occurred 1964 and it was only the recent posting on Facebook by Chaim Fischgrund of an article in Haumah describing Nissan Teman's accompaniment of Rosh Betar's remains on the flight to Israel from New York that aroused many of these memories. Nissan, who had a most remarkable memory, remembered things far better than I.

So… any distortions, deletions, omissions or other mistakes are my own.


Reuven

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Jabotinsky Visits Camp Betar, Hunter, New York

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Moshe (Misha) Arens 1925-2019

Former Netziv of Betar America, Misha Arens, was buried today in Savyon Cemetery:

He was eulogized by President Reuven Rivlin and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.

Among the American Betarim present were Izzy Herman, Steve Adler, Dov Hertz, Reuven and Rena Genn, Baruch Kraus, Chaim Fischgrund, Nissan Teman, Danny Krakow, Wilma Friedman and Yisrael Medad.

I few excerpts from Misha's autobiography published last year:

His "Flags Over the Ghetto" was a major contribution to, literally, righting the history of Betar.

Credit

We usually met at the annual memorial ceremony for Jabotinsky, which this year Misha missed, if not listening to his lectures:

From former Netziv Yitzchak Heimovitz:

Misha Arens was a man "sans peur et sans reproach"  Without fear and without reproach.  If you wanted to know what a perfect Betari was, you only had to look at Misha.
 He was Netziv in the U.S. and gave that up in order to rush to Israel to fight in the War of Independence. In the early 1950's he and Muriel returned to the US with their firstborn son, for Misha to complete his graduate studies in aeronautical engineering, 
 Then they went back to Israel where Misha became a professor at the Technion, and I think he founded the aeronautical engineering department there.  After some years Misha became head of the Engineering Department of Israel Aircraft Industries. (IAI) for many years. 
 In August 1970 Misha told me he was ready to return to activity in the movement.  I wrote Menachem Begin, who said Misha should talk with Haim Landau.  The rest, as they say, is history.

___________________

Sheldon Lerman sends this:

Toldot Yisrael had the opportunity to interview Moshe Arens several years ago about his early remembrances of Jabotinsky and his leadership within Betar in the United States. The full one hour interview in English is viewable here: https://youtu.be/BB5QsHRbv_M​

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The 1958 Jabotinsky Graveside Memorial

It was reported in the Herut newspaper that in 1958, the cemetery memorial for Rosh Betar on Long Island was particularly impressive with a large turnout and even the New York Times noted that:

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The Transfer of Rosh Betar's Remains to Israel, 1964

From Barak Koffler:

This photo shows Benny Rosen z"l, center, and Rafi Gleich, far left, with chanichim from Camp Betar.

It appears to be a gathering either at the start or end of the parade in New York City where we marched about 100 blocks behind the horse-drawn glass-side hearse carrying Rosh Betar's remains to the airport, and then back to Israel for re-burial.

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Chuck Waxman adds:

That was at the airport.

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On Jabotinsky's New York Reburial Procession

Received from Canadian Betar Mefaked Harry Wolle:

And he adds:

"a copy of the article from the Herald Tribune.  You will note that the remarks in the article are not quite accurate. No mention of the stop off in Paris.  By the way, that’s me on the right in the forefront."

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A Short Introduction to Betar North America 1927-1939

Despite visits by Ze'ev Jabotinsky to the United States in 1921-22 and 1926 (his only other subsequent visits were in 1935 and 1940), the formal organizational framework of a Revisionist movement branch only began in 1929.

Betar's beginnings were bound up with the efforts of Joseph Beder, a Betari from Eretz-Yisrael, who relocated to New York in 1927.  In November 1927, at a meeting of friends, which included Haim Messer and Willy Katz, it was decided to reach out to the Betar centers in Riga, Paris and Tel Aviv. These attempts were unsuccessful although there were some members recruited from within the ranks of the Revisionists which led to the age range from 18-60.

The next real attempt was in February 1929 but only in October that year, after Bader's return from a trip to Eretz-Yisrael, was the first Ken established and the impetus was the August riots in Mandate Palestine.  Most of the first recruits came from Lower Manhattan.  Within a short time, one hundred Betarim joined and after a Chanukah party in December 1929, the next big activity was the halting of a Communist rally of 2000 in support of the Arabs of Palestine.  The Manhattan Ken fell apart however, and branches were formed in The Bronx (led by Messer, Mogilinsky, Mirsky, Gibner, Greenberg) and Brooklyn (Zweibon).  Detroit was led by Aryeh Panuch and Dr. Aryeh Altman.

In the summer of 1930, a camp was conducted led by Bader, Zvi Stock, B. Modavsky, David Mogilinsky and A. Zweibon.  It was reported by the Revisionist party on December 30, 1930 that "meetings together with the Brith Trumpeldor were carried forward. By March 1931, 500 Betarim were registered.

Canadian Betar was founded on May 27, 1929 in Toronto by seven former Polish Betar members, followed by a branch in Vancouver established by a Betari from Harbin and then in Montreal.  The executive (mifkada) included Asher Shainhouse, Yoel Rubin, H. Frimmerman, Y. Steiger and Chaim Abeleh.

Report on Canada and USA Betar,

Summer 1931

The first issue of Betar Canada's publication was in March 1932.

In May 1931, the Betar Monthly began to appear and articles of Jabotinsky, Yehoshua Yeivin, Gabriel Preil and others were published.  A general council meeting was held in the YMHA of The Bronx on August 28, 1931 with 23 delegates attending.  Camp in 1932 had 150 attendees after branches were established also in Chicago, Detroit and in New York: Brownsville, Flatbush and Brocksberry.

The first Kenes was held over August 20-21, 1932 with 50 delegates representing 600 members from nine cities (New York, Chicago, New Jersey, Detroit, St. Louis, Bridgeport, Chelsea, Roxbury and Newark).  Prof. Johann Smertenko was appointed Netziv (item: "a series of articles [were] written by Johan J. Smertenko and published in the New York Herald-Tribune sometime during the 1920s. His column was titled “Twice-Told Tales,” and it focused on newly published editions of classic books".)

Correspondence from 1932 indicating internal disputes regarding finances 

between Betar and the Revisionists.

Joseph Beder was Betar leader at the time and

Israel Baratz was then Chairman of the New York Executive 

and member of the national executive of the U.S. Revisionist Movement

Various mentions of Betar as well as names of Revisionists involved in Betar's development in the reports published in the Minutes of the World Executive of the Revisionist Movement:

September 9, 1930

September 26, 1930

October 20, 1930

September 26, 1930

November 20, 1930

January 1931

February 26, 1932

Betar found itself 'inheriting' disillusioned breakaways from the Bund and Communist parties but found it difficult to attract American-born Jewish youth on the basis of self-defense training and pioneering although assimilationist youth did express interest. University-aged youth were not attratced.  Some of the other names from that period include Judd Teller and Y. Sammler.  In the fall of 1933, Eliyahu Ginzburg, a Jewish Legion veteran, served as Netziv.

Aaron Propes visited shortly thereafter and his conclusion was that the term "Jewish youth" really didn't exist.  He made a radio broadcast on July 31, 1934 and met with journalists from Der Tag and the Morgen Journal.  As the August 1934 issue of Our Voice noted, Betar was accused of fascist tendencies. The Arlosoroff murder contributed to the negative attitude expressed in the Jewish press as did the claims in relation to the outbreak of the 1929 riots, as detailed in the Schechtman/Ben-Ari history of the Revisionist Movement:

Betar held a street parade on the occasion of Herzl's death on 20 Tammuz 1934. In 1935, several Betarim participated in the American government's summer camp program to gain experience and administrative training.  A madrich training camp for the Nesharim group was held at a 120-acre camp.  The Revisionist by this time had their own youth group, YZROA.

As for aliyah, on September 27, 1933, Betar Eretz-Yisrael saw fit to complain that one of the first olim from Betar USA, Tova Rosen, refused to enlist in the plugot giyus, claiming she was told by Bader that only if she was unemployed was she to do so:

Source

To be continued.

Appendix:

A section of Jabotinsky's March 19, 1940 speech delivered at 

the Manhattan Center with notations in his own hand.

P.S.  There may be spelling errors of names for which I apologize.  And if anyone has relevant information to the period as well as corrections, please comment.

The material for this review was culled from:

ספר בית"ר : קורות ומקורות

Joseph Schechtman and Yehuda Benari, History of the Revisionist Movement

and 

the Online Archives of the Jabotinsky Institute

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At the Jabotisnky Memorial 2013

American Betarim present:

(l-r) Nussan Teman, Rina & Reuven Genn, Moshe Arens, Yisrael Medad,

Steve Adler, David Sprung

(l-r) Steve Adler, Rina Genn, Galia & David Sprung, Yisrael Medad

(l-r) Steve Adler, Rina Genn, Baruch Kraus, Galia & David Sprung,

Reuven Genn (in hat)

(l-r) Rina Genn, Bazruch Kraus, Galia Sprung

(l-r)  Steve Adler, Baruch Kraus, Galia Sprung

David Sprung and Reuven Genn

The crowd

The ensign of the Neder

Others included Chaim Fischgrund, Michael Eglash and Aaron Bashani.


And see next post.

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