Menachem Begin The Absent Leader

463 Pages·2012·1.94 MB·English

Menachem Begin

The Absent Leader

By

Ofer Grosbard Ph.D.

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Contents

Acknowledgments
Preface
Chapter One: Childhood 7
Chapter Two: Adolescence 31
Chapter Three: Begin & Jabotinsky 45
Chapter Four: In Prison 65
Chapter Five: The Declaration of the Revolt 84
Chapter Six: Civil War: Yes or No 107
Chapter Seven: From Terrorist to Member of Parliament 123
Chapter Eight: New Horizons within Democracy 152
Chapter Nine: Slowly but Surely 186
Chapter Ten: Triumph of Love 220
Chapter Eleven: The Good Years
A. A New Style of Leadership 233
B. Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty 283
Chapter Twelve: The Not So Good Years 333
Chapter Thirteen: The Bad Years 386
Chapter Fourteen: Depression 432
Bibliography 448

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Acknowledgements

This book began as a doctoral dissertation entitled "Menachem Begin – A Personality
Study," which I submitted to the Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution at
George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. In the course of my work, I was
surprised to discover that the only biography of Menachem Begin written in Hebrew
was Aviezer Golan and Shlomo Nakdimon's 1977 book, written at the time Begin
assumed office as prime minister. In English, on the other hand, there were a number
of biographies that had not been translated into Hebrew, but not one of them covered
Menachem Begin's entire life, since they were all written while he was still alive.

After completing my studies, I returned to Israel and continued working on the
material. The archive of the Menachem Begin Heritage Center provided me with
numerous personal interviews that had been conducted by Iris Berlatzky with people
who were close to Menachem Begin at different times in his life. The State Archives
added interviews, conducted by Nana Saguy, with key people who'd known Begin
well. The work was submitted for the Menachem Begin Heritage Center's Research
Prize, and won the award in 2004.

I am grateful to many people who helped me at various stages of the writing. First and
foremost is Professor Richard Rubenstein, my doctoral adviser, who took it upon
himself to be involved in and oversee the challenge of writing a biography that
examines psychological aspects of the subject's personality in tandem with the central
historical events of the twentieth century. Without Professor Rubenstein's deep faith
in the need for and the possibility of bridging the gap between different disciplines of
the social sciences and psychology, this project would never have come to fruition. I
also must thank Professor Aliza Kolker, who specialized in the study of pre-War
Polish Jewry, and was an especially warm and encouraging contributing adviser. She
passed away while this work was still in progress. My thanks also to Professor
Christopher Mitchell, the second reader, and to Professor Joe Scimmecca, the third
reader, who consented to replace Aliza, and both graciously gave of their extensive
knowledge of conflict resolution, political science, sociology and anthropology, also
with much warmth and encouragement.
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The Menachem Begin Heritage Center contributed very significantly to this work. I
would first of all like to thank Iris Berlatzky of the archives for the thorough and
sensitive interviews she conducted, which contributed greatly to the quality of the
research, and for her plentiful assistance with every request. Thank you, too, to Rami
Shtivi, whose patience, familiarity with the material and computer expertise were a
real asset, and to Yossi Barnea and Dina Litvak, who also responded gladly to each
request. To Bruria Romanov, the library director, who used to send me material when
I was still in the United States. To Moshe Sha'al-Foxman, coordinator of academic
activities, and to Herzl Makov, the Center's director general, who also spared no effort
to help advance the project with the objective of turning the research study into a
book that could reach a wide audience. I would also like to thank Nana Saguy from
the State Archives, who supplied me with the comprehensive and professional
interviews she conducted, which also made a significant contribution to the project.
Anne Pace's skillful editing of the English text was especially important.

And finally, to my warm and loving family, my wife and my two daughters, Mor and
Stav, and my mother and my brother, who enabled me to devote all the necessary time
to this project and who encouraged me to persevere, thank you from the bottom of my
heart.

Ofer Grosbard
Haifa

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Preface

I was born in Tel Aviv in 1954, six years after the birth of the State of Israel. My
father, David Grosbard, was Tel Aviv district commander and a member of the top
command of the Irgun, and from the founding of the state until his death in 1990, was
active in the Herut movement. My mother, a pediatrician by profession, was the
family doctor of Aliza, Menachem and their children – Benny, Hasia and Leah – from
1950-1977, when Begin was elected prime minister and the family moved to
Jerusalem. Afterwards, my mother continued to care for the family's children,
grandchildren and great-grandchildren. In those days, we lived near the Begins' home,
which was located at 1 Rosenbaum Street in Tel Aviv. Every Saturday night I used to
accompany my father to Menachem's home, which was an "open house" on those
evenings. The image I recall from that time is of older, stern-faced men sitting in a
circle and discussing important matters, nodding their heads in mutual agreement and
the Ala's voice carrying through the house. There was also much warmth beneath all
the seriousness, the maturity and even the tiredness, or so it seemed to me as a child. I
also remember my mother checking Menachem's blood pressure and seeing it jump to
200 because Ben-Gurion had again infuriated him, and Menachem saying, "When you
examine me I feel young." And Benny, Hasia or Leah coming by our house to ask my
mother for a prescription, or Ala showing up to chat a little in her raspy voice, and all
with a friendliness and ease that I don't recall from other relationships.

At mealtimes, we listened to my father's stories about the underground. They
contained a boldness colored by humor: how they stole weapons from the British,
how they switched identities during the curfew, and similar tales that, naturally, began
to repeat themselves at some point, though I never failed to get caught up in their
spirit. Without a doubt, this was the spirit that Menachem Begin represented.

This sense of patriotism has been with me my whole life, and during the writing of the
book, these feelings were awakened many times in a way that amounted to the closing
of a circle for me. Menachem Begin's message – and I think that if he were alive, he
would agree with me – is in essence an emotional message of the spirit. This is the
book and this is the story that come together as one. The book, I believe, is solidly
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anchored in fact, but where does the spirit come from? From whence the motivation
to undertake this journey? This is what I wanted to tell the reader.

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Childhood

Our story begins around 1863 in Brest, a Polish town about 150 miles east of Warsaw
and then under Russian rule. It is home to about 30,000 Jews (about half the
population) and the rest of the inhabitants are Poles, White Russians and Lithuanians.
Ze’ev Dov Wolfovitch Begin (Menachem Begin’s father) was born about this time,
the eldest of nine children. Ze'ev Dov first attended a heder (a one-room, one-teacher
elementary Jewish religious school with combined grades) and later a famous yeshiva
(religious studies academy) in his town. An excellent student, he did not look forward
to joining his father in the timber business and instead wished to become a doctor.
With this goal in mind, he studied German and prepared for the matriculation exams
and, at age 17, after completing his yeshiva studies, made an attempt to escape to
Berlin and enroll at a university. But it was not to be. Grandfather Begin got wind of
his plans, hurried to the train station and ordered him back home. Then, in the hope of
taming him, he arranged for Ze'ev Dov to marry a daughter’s friend. But that was not
to work out either, and a year later the young couple, now the parents of a child,
divorced. This child, a girl, would never be mentioned by Begin’s family and is only
seldom mentioned in the many writings about Menachem Begin. The only
information we have is that she eventually emigrated to Palestine and then to the U.S.1
Ze’ev Dov grudgingly worked in his father’s business. His one consolation was the
frequent traveling that went with the job, which gave him the chance to see new
places, people and cultures, something not terribly common in those days. He was
drawn to Warsaw’s cafés and bookshops and was a lover of languages who knew
Hebrew, Yiddish, German, Russian and Polish. Ze’ev Dov was also a biblical scholar
and an observant Jew, but not strictly Orthodox. He was able to integrate his religious
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roots with the influence of the “wider world.” People said he was a driven man with a
rebellious nature who spent many years on a quest for self-discovery – at a time when
that was quite unusual – until, between his two marriages, he found his destiny. It was
Zionism2. He became an active member of the Brest community, belonged to many
groups and eventually served as spokesman and later secretary of the town’s Jewish
community, a position that gave him tremendous satisfaction.
Upon the death of Theodore Herzl (1860-1904), the visionary of the Jewish state,
Ze’ev Dov issued a call for a memorial service in opposition to the will of the town
rabbis who were against Zionism. There are different versions of what happened, as to
whether Ze’ev and his people broke into the synagogue to conduct the service;
whether they broke into the rabbi’s house to get the keys; and whether or not he was
arrested by the police.1
In 1905, Ze’ev Dov and Mordechai Sheinerman (the grandfather of current Israeli
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon), both of whom were among the first Zionists in Brest,
participated in a Jewish “self-defense” organization, in those days a still rare - if not
unheard of – phenomenon among the Jews, to protect the community from
pogromists.
At age 43, twenty five years after his first marriage, Ze'ev Dov married a 20-year-
old woman named Hassia.We have less detailed information regarding Menachem
Begin’s mother prior to his birth. Her name, Hassia, is Hebrew for "God's mercy."
Hassia Kosovsky was described as a beautiful woman with blue-grey, or steel-colored
eyes. Her parents died when she was young and she grew up in her Orthodox
grandfather's home. An old-fashioned religious Jew, he did not believe that women

1Temko, 1987, p. 23; Steinman, 1954, p. 185
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needed a broad education; he felt they ought to stay home and take care of the family.
Hassia met Ze’ev Dov when her family was visiting his father. It was love at first
sight and they married a few weeks later. She knew only Yiddish, loved reading
books, and was very keen to learn.
Ze’ev Dov and Hassia Begin's first child was a girl, born in 1907. The father had
hoped for a boy to be named for Herzl, after Theodore (Binyamin Ze’ev) Herzl. He
still wanted to make the connection by calling her Herzliya but his wife was opposed.
In the end they chose the name Rachel after Hassia’s mother. In 1910, they had a son
which the happy father named Herzl. So the names the parents chose for their children
were a mixture of traditional Jewish and Zionist names.
Their third and youngest child, Menachem, was born in Brisk (the Jewish name
for Brest), on August 16, 1913. His sister, Rachel, was six years older, and his
brother, Herzl, was three years older. Menachem was born on the Saturday of
“Sabbath Nahamu.” In Jewish tradition, every Saturday a chapter from the Prophets is
chanted after the Pentateuch reading. The chapter read on the Saturday after
Menachem's birth begins, “Nahamu, nahamu ami yomar eloheikhem” (Isaiah 40:1),
“Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God.” So Menachem, which derives
from the same root as "nahamu," is someone who comforts, who consoles. It was also
the Jewish month of Av, the time of mourning for the Temples in Jerusalem which,
according to tradition, were both destroyed on the 9th of Av -- the first time by the
Babylonian armies and the second time by Titus' legions. This might shed some
additional light concerning the choice of name.2 The midwife who delivered him was
Mrs. Sheinerman, Ariel Sharon’s grandmother. The godfather at the circumcision
ceremony when Menachem was eight days old was the chief rabbi of Brisk. One

2Haber, 1978, p. 14
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unusual gift, supplied by the Zionist leadership, was a gigantic cake in the shape of a
bouquet of flowers. Indeed, a mixture of Orthodox Judaism and nationalism was to
characterize Menachem Begin throughout his life.
Early in 1915, the war was becoming an oppressive presence in Brest, which was
still under Czarist rule. The family of a Russian officer lived on the floor above the
Begins and the Begin children were at home when soldiers brought back his kit with
the news that he had been killed. Galician refugees — most of them Jews — began to
arrive in a slow but steady trickle. Ze’ev Dov used to invite the more indigent into his
home twice a week for a hot meal.3 Although he had no love for the Russians, he
shared his food with some Russian soldiers who were in bad shape because of the
war. He apparently felt a kinship with suffering people. Yet his longstanding
sympathy – going back to the time he tried to run away to Berlin for his medicine
studies - was with the Germans. As he told his daughter, Rachel: “When the Germans
arrive, you'll see the difference!”4
By that time, the Begins' home had already become a hub for the Jewish
community. It attracted many visitors, including Zionists who expounded on the
movement's salient issues. Friends from the chess club in which Ze'ev Dov was very
active were also frequent guests. The Russian maid, Natasha, stoked the fire while the
guests drank tea. When an especially honored guest arrived, the children were
introduced to him.5

3Haber, 1978, p. 15
4Halperin, 1978

5Golan & Nakdimon, 1978, p. 14
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