Rodney Benjamin and David Cebon, The Forgotten Zionist, The Life of Solomon (Sioma) Yankelevitch Jacobi, Gefen Publishing House, 2012, 248 pp.
A book review by Yisrael Medad
There are four main methodologies to writing history. The recorder
of history can concentrate on the ideas and cultural trends that moved
the period and people or he can retell the events and provide an
interpretation. He can highlight a certain crucial event or an
institution and explain the results or its development. He can also
select a person and through him and around him, relate what happened and
perhaps why.
This book, while essentially a biography, makes a contribution to
the growing field of the “other” Zionist history, that of the
Revisionist movement led by Ze’ev (Vladimir) Jabotinsky to who Solomon
Jacobi was an assistant, secretary and close friend. It is a history of
the fourth type.
I think we can agree with the words of Jabotinsky himself, in his
graveside eulogy of Jacobi, and apply them to the book: "this is not a
biography, nor is it a history of the Revisionist and New-Zionist
movement: I am only trying to sketch a character" (p. 215). Indeed,
just a Jabotinsky was sketching Jacobi's character, the authors, quite
successfully, make an important contribution in the sketching of the
character of the nationalist camp in Zionism in the years leading up to
the creation of Israel. They have, in their book, brought the "Other
Zionist" into focus, even clearer.
The “Other Zionist” is the young Betari who was refused entry into
the Yishuv because the Eretz-Yisrael Offices that oversaw immigration
schedules defined his training as non-Halutzic with no true “pioneering”
value. He is the Revisionist party activist who was excluded from
representation in official Zionist bodies and could not benefit from
funds collected from the Jewish people to achieve Jewish national
goals. He is the Irgunist, opposing the restraint policy of the Hagana
in the late 1930s and attempting to assure security for the residents of
the Mandate while Arab terror rages unchecked.
There is much to be learned by the younger generation in this
volume. Personal heroism, unbelievable commitment to an ideological
cause, determined persistence in the face of nigh insurmountable odds
and above all, the disunity in the Zionist camp, the so debilitating
battles over, what was in the end, such a useless expenditure of energy
and time while the Arabs killed, the British betrayed and Hitler was
gaining confidence to implement his extermination plans.
In addition to the main subject matter, there are additional gems
of minor history. One media-related item noted on p. 132 is that Michael
Haskel, a Jabotinsky supporter, was intent upon obtaining a 49% share
in the Palestine Post which, as we read on p. 166, Chaim Weizmann sought
to prevent, aghast that the paper would come under “complete and
intransigent Revisionist control”. Where would the Jerusalem Post be
today but if that ownership bid had been successful. On p. 202, it seems
that one of those with whom Jacobi negotiated to obtain boats for the
clandestine immigration was none other than Aristotle Onnasis. It was in
the Jacobi kitchen, while his wife, Edna was away, that David Ben-Gurion fried an egg, the act that pushed AB Yehoshua to write his new play, Will the Two Go Together?
While the book is very much welcomed, nevertheless, it is
unfortunate that a copyeditor with a strong background in the history of
that period did not review the final draft before publication. There
are a few errors that could have been avoided.
Most embarrassing, I think, is a major error of geography, a
central element to the political program of the Revisionists regarding
the area to become the Jewish state. On p. 51, the authors write that
Transjordan is now Jordan and that in 1922, Britain had reduced
“Palestine to the tiny area that lies between the Jordan River and the
Mediterranean”. However, in chapter 4, entitled “Palestine on Both Sides
of the Jordan”, they seem to lose direction. On p.41, they claim the
home of “the tribes of Reuven, Gad and [properly half of] Menasseh” was
in “areas on the western side of the Jordan”. It was not but rather it
was on the eastern side of the river, in Gilead as contained in Numbers
32.
On p. 162, they quote Jacobi mentioning an “Arab demonstration on January the 16th”
but we do not know what this was. In fact, it was called on the first
day of Id El-Fitr to demand the cancellation of the Balfour Declaration
and the Mandate authorities were severely criticized for permitting the
agitation even after daggers had been discovered and that political
designs and “religious exultation”, as the Palestine Post reported, were
being dangerously combined. In a footnote on p. 160, the date of the
founding of Betar is 1922 although on p. 23, the correct year, 1923, is
recorded. On p. 154, Abrasha Stavsky’s death is noted as June 21, 1948
but he died on June 22.
Further down the page, the authors write that the Irgunists,
despite three weeks earlier having been incorporated into the IDF, “now
defied demands from Ben-Gurion that the arms be handed over to the
IDF. This is much more problematic as it ignores the weeks of
discussions and the agreement that had been reached for bringing in the
arms and that the ultimatum to hand over the arms came from a senior IDF
officer who Menachem Begin assumed was unaware of the arranged that had
been achieved.
On p. 67, they write that the phrase, “a home for the Jews” from
the Balfour Declaration was also used in the wording of the League of
Nations Mandate for Palestine”. Actually, the phrase is “a national home
for the Jewish people”. In the Mandate preamble there is another phrase
included: “recognition has thereby been given to the historical
connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the grounds for
reconstituting their national home in that country”.
On p. 195, the authors record that in 1934, Jabotinsky complained
to Jacobi that he thought the Revisionists were "lagging behind" other
Zionist groups in facilitating the immigration of Jews into Palestine.
Actually, after 1934, it wasn't until 1938 that the Mapai-linked
Hechalutz youth movement began anew illegal immigration via boats.
On p. 193, in a footnote, they inexplicably credit Lechi, the Stern
Group, for the King David Hotel explosion. It was an Irgun operation.
On p. 188, the authors seem to imply that Jacobi, in letters to the
Jewish Chronicle in late 1937, asserted that the NZO was not
responsible for reprisal attacks against Arabs in Palestine. This is
technically correct, of course, but nevertheless, the Irgun members who
were carrying out the attacks were very much part of the Jabotinsky
family and later, in 1938, Jabotinsky explicitly gave instructions to
increase the attacks even to the extent of planning an armed invasion of
the mandate territory and seizing power from the British.
On p. 187, the date for the Tel Hai attack when Trumpeldor and 7
other comrades were killed by Arabs is noted as 1919 in footnote 10.
This is incorrect. Tel Hai fell in March 1920.
There is one incongruity that I think should have been addressed by
the authors. The tribulations of Jabotinsky and Jacobi in trying to
administer a proper bureaucratic apparatus, including assistants and
secretaries, office rentals and such in Paris and later London with
reliable budget are referred to again and again. And yet, on p. 209, a
description of Jacobi's Bucharest operation informs us that he had a
suite of rooms at his disposal, typists, telephone operators and
offices. How did this come about? Was it a special budget or the
urgency of the emigration that resolved the long-suffering crisis of the
Jabotinsky movement?
I understand that one of the authors died just as the book was
going to print and perhaps this disrupted the final stages of
publication.
But, despite all these, they do not detract from the expression –
and lesson – of the true heroic spirit of Zionism that Jacobi displayed.
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