Betty Knut: Lechi Fighter

My letter in the Jerusalem Post:

Tough Knut

It is unfortunate that the Ra’anana Symphonette, which is presenting the history of Betty Knut, who died at age 38, a performance that reporter Sarah Hershenson describes as one that “made her story come alive” (“In the footsteps of Betty Knut”, January 21), seems to have failed to include her activity as a courageous member of the Fighters for the Freedom of Israel group, the Lehi pre-state underground. All that is noted is that she was “a war correspondent during WWII as a member of the French underground” and her that she was a “doyenne of the arts in Paris and in the early days of the State of Israel.” The closest the biographical details come to her connection to the Lehi is that she “worked for the establishment of the State of Israel.”

Much of importance is left out. For example, she planted a bomb in the British Colonial Office on April 15, 1947 and assisted in the preparation of envelopes of explosives that were mailed from France and Belgium to British officials. One additional contribution of Knut was mobilizing Kariel Gardosh to become a caricaturist for Lehi publications. After immigrating to Israel, he became known as Dosh, Israel’s most famous political cartoonist.

YISRAEL MEDAD

Shiloh

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