Correcting Cecil Bloom

Writing about the illegal immigrant ship Patria that arrived at Mandate Palestine shores in November 1941 in "Josiah Wedgwood and Palestine", published in Jewish Historical Studies, Vol. 42 (2009), Cecil Bloom errs.

He claims in his article that

While at anchor off Haifa, Irgun Zvai Leumi terrorists placed a bomb on the ship to prevent its departure, but the bomb exploded unexpectedly, sinking the ship with more than two hundred refugees being drowned

His source, in his footnote there, is Menachem Begin's The Revolt, p. 75. 

He errs because:

a) it was a Hagana operation.

b) on page 35, not 75, Begin simply writes "Jewish terrorists" - presumbaby quoting from official reports - placed a bomb to prevent its departure.  For Bloom to presume only Irgunists and Lechi members could have been considered "terrorists" is indicative of a certain mind-set.

Josiah Wedgwood

Bloom does, however, include the text of Wedgwood's famous pro-Irgun letter of 1938

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