Nadene Goldfoot
Vladimir Ze'ev Jabotinsky or Vladimir Yevgenyevich Zhabotinsky (17 October 1880--3 August 1940, was born into an assimilated Jewish family, dying at age 60, and was a writer, orator and Zionist leader of Russian birth in Odessa, Ukraine.
His father, Yevno (Yevgeniy Grigoryevich) Zhabotinsky, hailed from Nikopol, Yekaterinoslav Governorate. He was a member of the Russian Society of Sailing and Trade. His mother, Chava (Eva Markovna) Zach (1835–1926), came from Berdychiv, Kiev Governorate. Jabotinsky's older brother Myron died when Vladimir was six months old, and his father died when he was six years old. His sister, Tereza (Tamara Yevgenyevna) Zhabotinskaya-Kopp, founded a private school for girls in Odessa. In 1885, the family moved to Germany due to his father's illness, returning a year later after his father's death.
Raised in a middle-class Jewish home, Jabotinsky was educated in Russian schools. Although he studied Hebrew as a child, he wrote in his autobiography that his upbringing was divorced from Jewish faith and tradition. The Hasidic movements originated in the 18th century in Ukraine. This was a center of Zionism in the 19th and 20th century. It's always been an anti-Semitic center with pogroms in 1905, and 1918-1920.
His mother ran a stationery store in Odessa. and his father was primarily involved in wheat trading.
Jabotinsky dropped out of school at the age of 17 with a guarantee of a job as a correspondent for a local Odessan newspaper, the Odesskiy Listok, and was sent to Bern and Rome as a correspondent. He also worked for the Odesskie Novosti after his return from Italy. Jabotinsky was a childhood friend of Russian journalist and poet Korney Chukovsky. Ze'ev served as the Rome correspondent for the Odessa newspapers under the pen-name of "Altalena, from 1898 to 1901. While in Rome he attended Sapienza University Law school but didn't graduate. He spoke Russian, Yiddish, Hebrew and fluent Italian.
During the period of the British Mandate for Palestine (1918-1948), Vladimir (Ze'ev) Jabotinsky was imprisoned in Akko (or Acre; now a museum). After the riots in Jerusalem, he, being the organizer of Jewish self-defense, was sentenced to fifteen years of hard labor. He was subsequently exonerated.
Back in April 1902 he had been arrested for writing feuilletons in an anti-establishment tone, as well as contributing to a radical Italian journal. He was held isolated in a prison cell in Odessa for two months, where he communicated with other inmates through shouting and passing written notes.
While in Odessa, Jabotinsky married Joanna (or Ania) Galperina in October 1907. They had one child, Eri Jabotinsky (1910-1969), who later became a member of the Irgun-affiliated Bergson Group. Eri Jabotinsky briefly served in the 1st Knesset of Israel; he died on 6 June 1969 at age 59..
Beginning his Zionist activities to Russia in 1903 at age 23, Ze'ev became a leading force in the struggle for Jewish self-defense units, civic and minority rights, and the revival of Hebrew.
In World War I that started in 1914, he advocated the recruiting of Jewish regiments to fight on the Palestine front; this led to the establishment of the Zion Mule Corps in 1915.
He served in 20th Battalion of the London Regiment in platoon 16 from 1916-1917.
In 1917, the end of the war, the British government consented to the formation of Jewish battalions, in one of which Jabotinsky served. He organized the 1st Jewish self-defense in Jerusalem and led it during the Arab onslaught in 1920. For this he was sentenced by the British Military tribunal to 15 years imprisonment but was soon reprieved.Ze'ev jabotinsky served in platoon 16 of the 20th Battalion of the London Regiment between 1916 and 1917.
He wrote when a lieutenant in the Jewish Legion which he had founded, "Not in Russia nor in Poland had there been seen such an intense and widespread atmosphere of hatred as prevailed in the British army in Palestine in 1919 and 1920. 1920's Spring was like 2022's Spring with Ramadan and Easter and Passover all falling at about the same time. Attacks on Jews happened then, too, with mobs armed with clubs and knives, first looting shops, Then they caught and beat up or killed Jews and raped Jewish women. The Court of Enquiry of Brits said, "Jews were the victims of a peculiarly brutal and cowardly attack, the majority of the casualties being old men, women and children. As for this year of 2022, "Jerusalem District Police Commander Nati Gur said that the Israel Police is preparing for a "worst-case scenario" on Jerusalem's Temple Mount during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan."
In 1921, Jabotinsky joined the Zionist Executive but resigned in 1923, accusing it of failing to oppose British policy with sufficient vigor. In 1925, he formed the World Union of Zionist revisionists in opposition to official Zionism and later the youth organization of Berit Trumpeldor-Betar.
When the Zionist Organization coopted non-Zionists into the Jewish Agency in 1929 and refused to define the aim of Zionism as a Jewish State in 1931, Jabotinsky began to advocate secession; the "discipline clause,"introduced in 1935, precipitated the formation of Jabotinsky of a dissident "New Zionist Organization."
From 1936, he urged the speedy evacuation of Eastern European Jewry to Palestine. Jabotinsky became the spiritual father and nominal head of the Irgun Tzevai Leumi, which was the Jewish right-winged underground movement. It became in 1936 an instrument of the Revisionist Party, an extreme nationalist group that had seceded from the World Zionist Organization and whose policies called for the use of force, if necessary, to establish a Jewish state on both sides of the Jordan.
It was this very group that Avraham Stern left of which he had been a leader, because of its refusal to continue -British activities in Palestine during WWII. He formed the Lohame Herut Israel-otherwise known as the Stern Group or the Stern Gang-as the Brits called it.
When World War II broke out, he again demanded a Jewish army. Jabotinsky wrote a great deal. His influence on Israeli politics is profound through his closest protégé Menachem Begin's administration (1977–1983), consolidating the domination of Israeli politics by the right-wing Likud party; and through the administrations (1996–1999, 2009–) of Likud's leader (1993–1999, 2005–) Benjamin Netanyahu, the son of his former personal secretary and historian, Benzion Netanyahu.
In 1964, his body was reburied on Mt. Herzl in Jerusalem.
Resource:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ze%27ev_Jabotinsky
https://kids.kiddle.co/Ze%27ev_Jabotinsky
Battleground, fact and fantasy in Palestine by Samuel Katz, p.60-61
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