Irgun leader
David Raziel
(
Hebrew
:
??? ?????
; 19 November 1910 ? 20 May 1941) was a leader of the
Zionist underground
in
British Mandatory Palestine
and one of the founders of the
Irgun
.
[1]
During
World War II
, Irgun entered a
truce
with the British so they could collaborate in the fight against "the Hebrew's greatest enemy in the world ? German Nazism". Raziel was released from prison after agreeing to work with the British. He was killed in action in
Iraq
in 1941.
[2]
Biography
[
edit
]
David Rozenson (later Raziel) was born in
Smarhon
in the
Russian Empire
. In 1914, when he was three, his family
immigrated
to
Ottoman Palestine
, where his father taught at Tachkemoni, a religious school in
Tel Aviv
. During
World War I
, the family was exiled to Egypt by the Turks due to their Russian citizenship. They returned to
Mandatory Palestine
in 1923.
After graduation from Tachkemoni, he studied for several years at Yeshivat
Mercaz HaRav
in
Jerusalem
. He was a regular study partner of Rabbi
Zvi Yehuda Kook
, son and ideological successor to the
Rosh Yeshiva
and
Chief Rabbi of Israel
, Rabbi
Abraham Isaac Kook
.
[3]
When the
1929 Hebron massacre
broke out, he joined the
Haganah
in Jerusalem, where he was studying philosophy and mathematics at the
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
.
His sister,
Esther Raziel-Naor
, became a member of the
Knesset
for
Herut
, the party founded by Irgun leader
Menachem Begin
.
Military career
[
edit
]
When the Irgun was established, Raziel was one of its first members. In 1937, he was appointed by the Irgun as the first Commander of the Jerusalem District and, a year later, Commander in Chief of the Irgun. His term as leader was marked by violence against Arabs, including a sequence of marketplace bombings.
[4]
Some of those attacks were in response to Arab violence, although they did not target the specific perpetrators of this violence, as had been the case under the policy of
Havlagah
. Dozens of Arabs were killed in the attacks and hundreds more were maimed. Raziel worked in the Irgun with
Avraham Stern
,
Hanoch Kalai
, and
Efraim Ilin
.
[5]
On 6 July 1938, 21 Arabs were killed and 52 wounded by a bomb in a
Haifa
market; on 25 July a second market bomb in Haifa killed at least 39 Arabs and injured 70; a bomb in Jaffa's vegetable market on 26 August killed 24 Arabs and wounded 39. The attacks were condemned by the
Jewish Agency
.
[6]
On 19 May 1939, Raziel was captured by the British and sent to
Acre Prison
.
After the
1941 Iraqi coup d'etat
, British called on assistance from the Irgun, after General Percival Wavell had Raziel, an Irgun commander, released from custody at
Acre Prison
. They asked him if he would undertake to kill or kidnap Amin al-Husseini, the Mufti, and destroy Iraq's oil refineries. Raziel agreed on condition that he be allowed to kidnap the Mufti.
[7]
On 17 May 1941, he was sent to
Iraq
with three of his comrades, including
Ya'akov Meridor
and
Jacob Sika Aharoni
,
[8]
on behalf of the British army to help defeat the
Rashid Ali al-Gaylani
pro-Axis
revolt in the
Anglo-Iraqi War
. On 20 May, a
Luftwaffe
plane strafed near
Habbaniyah
the car in which he was traveling, killing Raziel and a British officer.
[9]
[10]
Meridor returned to Palestine and took over command of the Irgun, while Jacob Sika Aharoni commanded missions that led to the British entry into Iraq and the saving of the Jewish community following the
Farhud
pogrom
.
In 1955, Raziel's remains were
exhumed
and transferred to
Cyprus
, and again in 1961 to Jerusalem's
Mount Herzl
military cemetery.
Commemoration
[
edit
]
Ramat Raziel
, a
moshav
in the
Judaean Mountains
, is named after Raziel, as well as many streets in Israel bearing his name in commemoration. The Israel postal service issued a stamp in his honor. There is a high-school in
Herzliya
named after him.
[11]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
"David Raziel"
.
The Etzel Website
. Archived from
the original
on 27 March 2010
. Retrieved
7 December
2013
.
- ^
???, ???? (2016-05-13).
"David Raziel: A Pre-State Hero's Story of Final Rest"
.
The Schechter Institutes
. Retrieved
2023-10-07
.
- ^
HaKohen, Yehuda (8 May 2018).
"The tragic legacy of David Raziel, commander of the Etzel"
. Arutz Sheva
. Retrieved
16 August
2018
.
- ^
Yehuda Bauer (2001).
From Diplomacy to Resistance: A History of Jewish Palestine, 1935?1945
. Varda Books. p.
14
.
During the period of command over Etzel by Moshe Rosenberg and David Raziel, a great many assaults (some of them en masse) were carried out against Arab bystanders and shoppers: men, women, and children (November 1937 ? July 1939).
- ^
Heller, Joseph (2012-12-06).
The Stern Gang: Ideology, Politics and Terror, 1940?1949
. Routledge.
ISBN
9781136298943
.
- ^
*
Morris, Benny
(1999).
Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict, 1881?1999
.
John Murray Publishers
. p. 147.
ISBN
978-0-719-56222-8
.
- ^
Elpeleg, Z (12 November 2012). Himelstein, Shmuel (ed.).
The Grand Mufti: Haj Amin al-Hussaini, Founder of the Palestinian National Movement
. Translated by David Harvey. Routledge. pp. 60?.
ISBN
978-1-136-29273-6
.
- ^
Nir Mann (April 22, 2010).
"A life underground"
.
Haaretz
. Retrieved
7 December
2013
.
- ^
Mattar, Philip (1984). "Al-Husayni and Iraq's quest for independence, 1939?1941".
Arab Studies Quarterly
: 267?281.
- ^
Reeva, Simon (2004).
Iraq Between the Two World Wars: The Militarist Origins of Tyranny
. Columbia University Press. p. 207, n.16.
ISBN
9780231132152
.
- ^
"David Raziel"
.
The complete guide to Israeli postage stamps from 1948 onward
. Boeliem. Archived from
the original
on 2016-03-10
. Retrieved
2010-11-07
.
Further reading
[
edit
]
- Daniel Levine:
The Birth of the Irgun Zvai Leumi
. Jerusalem: Gefen Publishing House Ltd., 1991.
ISBN
965-229-071-8
.