Center Bulletin, Volume 3, Number 28

Center Bulletin, Volume 3, Number 28

Total Number of Visitors Since October 2004: 276,401

60 Years Later:

Feinstein's Bible Returned to Family

The setting was unusual. The night was unusually cold. The audience was unusual. The ceremony was unusual.

It was all taking place in an open courtyard of the old Jerusalem prison in the Russian Compound, which is now a museum of underground heroism. The audience comprised mainly the families of those young men who were hanged by the British in the last years of the struggle for the creation of the State, as well as former Underground members themselves who had been incarcerated in that prison.

It was exactly 60 years to the day and the hour that two of those young heroes defied the hangman and blew themselves up in their cell by crudely created grenades placed in two oranges which had been smuggled into their cell by their comrades.

This was the night to remember Meir Feinstein of the Irgun and Moshe Barazani of Lechi.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said that he had grown up hearing their heroic tale. "Their images are deeply engraved in my memory. They who were in fact so young became the heroes of our youth." He then recalled the story of Meir Feinstein's illustrated Bible which he handed to the British guard who was a "decent fellow" minutes before they died. "Today the wife and son of the guard, Thomas Henry Goodwin, are here with us to return the Bible to the Feinstein family. ; One cannot help but be moved."

Harry Hurwitz, Head of the Menachem Begin Heritage Center, stressed that Menachem Begin was so proud of these two young men that he requested in his Will that he be buried next to them on the Mount of Olives—and so it is. Mayor Uri Lupoliansky said that Jerusalem was honored that the ceremony was taking place in this ancient, holy city which is the capital of the modern State of Israel. Meir Feinstein's nephew, Eliezar, received the Bible on behalf of the family an d recalled his uncle's youth in the city of Jerusalem, his enrollment in the Irgun and his great heroism. The head of the Underground Prisoners' Museum, Mr. Yoram Tamir, told of the Goodwin's family appeal to them and their instant response and readiness to host the ceremony which was arranged in cooperation with the Menachem Begin Heritage Center and the Finance Department of the World Zionist Organization, represented by Mr. Dubi Bar El. The event was largely planned and organized by Moshe Fuksman-Sha'al, head of the Events Department of the Begin Center.

In his speech, Dennis Goodwin, the son of the late Thomas Henry Goodwin, said that his father treasured the Bible and was very proud of it. "It was his wish that if he died before my mother, she should try to return the Bible to them."

Herzl Makov, Director General of the Menachem Begin Heritage Center, presided over the whole event with great ability and much feeling. Mr. Benjamin Barazani, brother of Moshe Barazani, recited Kaddish and the Chief Cantor of the Army, Lt. Col. Chaim Weiner intoned the El Malei Rachamim.

Pictures can be seen here.


Holidays at the Begin Center

Close to 500 persons visited the Menachem Begin Museum on Yom HaAtzmaut (Independence Day). They came from abroad and from all parts of Israel and many had made prior reservations. The people from abroad needed the use of the highly sophisticated, technological translation system which gave them the translations of the commentaries in English, French, Spanish and Russian. Many expressed gratitude for this most advanced facility.

* * * * *

On Yom HaZikaron (Remembrance Day), the staff and volunteers of the Begin Center, joined by an important group of visitors from the United States who had just completed their tour of the museum, were gathered around the olive tree and the Yizkor candle in the Hurwitz Family entrance hall as the two-minute siren was sounded and the country stood still.

The Head of the Center, Harry Hurwitz, welcomed the tourists and explained the ceremony to them on this day which was "the saddest in the life of the nation. The 22,305 people who had died in the underground struggle and the State's wars, each had families and close friends which meant that several million might have been affected by their passing. This is the price Israel pays for her liberty, for the State's security and for its citizens' safety."

Herzl Makov, speaking in Hebrew, spoke of the significance of remembering and recalled his own earliest memories until the time he was losing comrades in the armed services and close personal friends and family members. Gaby Mizrahi read a poem by the poetess Zelda called Every Man Has a Name.

Soldier Day at the Begin Center

Last Sunday the Begin Center was filled with IDF soldiers, cadets of the Officers’ Training School, who participated in an all day program that included tours of the museum, the archeological site, nearby locations of Yemin Moshe and the King David Hotel, visits and lectures in the Reuben Hecht Auditorium, the Hasten Library, and some of the lecture rooms.

The lectures were given by Herzl Makov, Bruria Romanov-Ben Senior, Yisrael Medad and Snir Zaidel. A very interesting lecture, supplemented by slides and video clips, was presented by Moshe Fuksman-Sha'al about Jews in the Polish Army from the beginning of the eighteenth century until World War II.

Visitors

Henry and Carol Kaganoff, originally from South Africa (Germiston and Durban) and now Sydney, Australia, thoroughly enjoyed the tour of the Begin Museum and their meeting with Harry Hurwitz.

Yossi Sarid Responds to Kollek's Role in the Saison

From Yossi Sarid's op-ed in Haaretz, "Free peoples in their Own Lands":-

A month ago, Yedioth Ahronoth published classified MI5 documents that had recently been made public. They revealed that Teddy Kollek, later mayor of Jerusalem, had given the British security service information about the activities of the Etzel and Lehi underground movements. The newspaper published this and there was an outcry, as if by conditioned reflex. Since then, not only those involved, but also numerous infuriated talkback participants have had their say, and there were suggestions that Teddy's name be removed from the Jerusalem stadium that bears it and replaced with that of Lehi leader Avraham ("Yair") Stern.

Indeed, it is not nice to be a teller of tales and not fitting to pass such information to the British, and we all know what happens to an informant under Jewish religious law. But there are times when such behavior should not necessarily be criticized. In his autobiography, Kollek wrote: "I was always opposed to the anarchy among our people. It was vital that the Jewish Agency, our government at the time, take action against terrorist groups who took the liberty of making their own decisions and endangering policy ... I was opposed to the Etzel and the Lehi, just as after the Yom Kippur War, I was opposed to those who set up settlements against government policy."

Kollek was right, and whoever wishes to be convinced of this is invited to take a look at Israel's position toward the Palestinian Authority. Israel categorically demands that the PA assert control over its rebels and impose the central government's authority on them. Israel also praises any sign of Palestinian cooperation with it. But every nation under a foreign yoke has the tendency to consider its dissidents as heroes, and those who collaborate as traitors. History teaches us that lawbreakers bring disaster upon movements of national liberation.

Had the Palestinians stopped their indiscriminate violent opposition and turned it into civil disobedience, they would have been rid of the occupation a long time ago. Terrorism is harming their justified struggle for independence; every terrorist attack merely delays the end of their subjugation. The violent underground activities of the Etzel and Lehi, which were also stained with terrorist acts, did not further Israel's independence, and possibly even held it up.

From time to time, the argument flares up over who really expelled the British from here - the organized Yishuv (Jewish community) or those who did their own thing - and it seems that there is still no more burning argument than this one, which brings all the bears out of the forest. According to historian Yehuda Bauer, "no one expelled them; they decided to go because they considered this in their best interests after they lost the support of the Americans, and this was lost because of the impact of the Holocaust." And Haim Guri once said to me that one "Exodus" - a ship overflowing with refugees - at sea was worth as much as all the campaigns on land, from the attempt on Lord Moyhinan's life to the attack on the King David Hotel.

David Ben-Gurion, Kollek and their colleagues in the Haganah understood that Britain had made up its mind to fold up the flag of the empire and that the Yishuv must prepare for its real war of liberation, against the Arabs, and not waste its strength in a war against the rearguard of an imaginary enemy. Following World War II, it became clear that the empire was a liability rather than an asset, and United Kingdom citizens were more interested in how to heat their homes than whether the sun would ever set over India and Ceylon. Palestine was as interesting to them as last year's snow. England saved itself when it shed its colonies; the burden of control was too large for its democratic measurements and vital needs. The other colonial powers followed suit, throwing colony after colony and mandate after mandate off the deck so that they would not sink.

Another Yehuda Avner Article on Menachem Begin

Independence 1948

As the Sabbath noon of May 15, 1948 turned to afternoon, and afternoon into evening, the mood in downtown Jerusalem grew from excitement to tumult. Despite the siege and the threat of shelling, people roamed the streets rejoicing. Revelers from an inglorious bucket brigade of trench diggers and hackers, I among them, frolicked down Jaffa Road to Ben Yehuda Street, whose upper section had been blasted by truck bombs.

A bonfire was ablaze in a giant crater, and youngsters were spinning around it in a feisty hora folk dance. One young man in red shorts, overwhelmed by the thrill of the hour, cartwheeled over to where some of us were standing, and hugged each in turn.

In Zion Square an old man with a trombone and a girl with a guitar were playing a spirited "Hava Nagilla" and, spying the violin case of one of our crowd called Leopold Mahler - a professional violinist and Holocaust survivor who never ever wanted to play again - persuaded him to unpack his instrument and join in. Picking up the rhythm, Mahler began reworking it into wildly spiraling variations, his notes fluttering this way and that, improvisation upon improvisation, as if man and instrument were rediscovering each other in shared delight after a long separation.
At the bottom of Ben Yehuda Street, Cafe Atara, its blasted windows sealed with corrugated iron sheets upon which a defiant "Business as Usual" sign was splashed in fresh white paint, was offering a free glass of wine to all comers. Inside, candles and hurricane lamps cast a yellow glow over the rowdy crowd of fighters crackling with post-underground fever, it being their first truly free out-and-about since the British departure the day before.

IN ONE corner four dusty-looking fellows were fiddling with a battery-powered radio, frantically searching for a station. "Keep the noise down everybody," one of them yelled, "Menachem Begin's going to speak." "To hell with him!" shouted somebody vehemently, with a hard look. "We don't need to hear that warmonger tonight, of all nights!" The man had a pistol at his belt, sign of a Haganah officer.

"What did you say?" asked a burly fellow detaching himself from the group around the radio. "Begin will stop at nothing now to seize power by force!" snapped the Haganah chap. "Is that so?"

The burly man elbowed his way through the crush, leaned over the Haganah man so close that their noses almost touched, and in a thin whisper, rasped. "I think I know you. We've met before. You're the one who turned me and my Irgun friends over to the British in 1944. They beat us up and confiscated our weapons. We were all jailed because of you.

"But Begin wouldn't let us take revenge. 'Oh no, he said - there must be no civil war. A Jew must never lift a finger against another Jew,' he said."

A deep-buried ember of resentment and wrath smoldered and seethed in his eyes as he spoke.

"Could be it was me," answered the other man without a flinch, voice unflustered. "You Irgun terrorists were bringing total ruin on the rest of us because of…"

"Stop calling us terrorists," shouted an incensed fellow by the radio. "Freedom fighters, that's what we were - still are. We never deliberately targeted civilians."

"Is that so?" bellowed the Haganah man in a sudden sharp declaration of war. "Because of your terrorist antics, the British were wringing the necks of the rest of us. Ben-Gurion had no choice but to stop you, otherwise the British would have crushed us all. We had a bigger war to fight, remember? We had to defeat the Nazis before taking on the British.

"But no - your Mr. Begin knew better. Your Mr. Begin had to jump the gun. Your Mr. Begin couldn't wait until the war was over."

"Damned right he couldn't wait," retorted the burly man, poking a finger into the other fellow's chest. "By 1944 the Allies had all but won the war - remember?" Poke. "The Nazis were exterminating hundreds of thousands of Jews by the day - remember?" Poke. "And the British still wouldn't allow a single Jew into Palestine - remember?" Poke.

"So yes, damned right Begin declared a revolt against the British. Without that revolt the British would still be here right now." Poke.

"Shtuyot! - Fiddlesticks!" barked the Haganah officer, thumping the other man's hand away.

"Begin's speaking," cried a fellow by the radio.

THERE WAS a silence, broken only when somebody asked, "Where from?"
"From the Irgun's secret radio station in Tel Aviv."
"He's going to declare a putsch, you'll see," scathed the Haganah man.
"Shut your trap or you'll get this in your face," spat his burly challenger, fist clenched, features distorted with anger.

A husky voice, rising and falling through the crackling airwaves, began solemnly to talk:

Citizens of the Jewish homeland, soldiers of Israel, Hebrew youth, sisters and brothers in Zion: After many years of underground warfare, years of persecution and moral and physical suffering, the rebels against the oppressor stand before you with a blessing of thanks on their lips and a prayer in their hearts. The Jewish revolt of 1944 has been blessed with success.

"Hurray!" many yelped. "Boo!" others snorted.

The State of Israel has arisen in bloody battle, the voice went on. The highway for the mass return to Zion has been opened. The foundation has been laid - but only the foundation - for true independence. One phase of the battle for freedom, for the return of the whole people of Israel to its homeland, for the restoration of the whole Land of Israel to its God-covenanted owners, has ended. But only one phase…
Scoffing, the Haganah man interrupted, "You'll see, he's about to launch his second revolt, this time against his own people."

Thoroughly exasperated, the burly man roared back, "I'm going to get you," and he struck out to rush him, but was forcibly restrained. Now the whole place exploded into an uproar, drowning out what Begin was saying. When the yelling subsided, we heard him state:

We are surrounded by enemies who long for our destruction. Our one-day-old state has been established in the midst of the flames of battle. And the very first pillar of our state must, therefore, be victory - total victory - in the war which is raging all over the country.

A storm of radio static suddenly drowned him out, causing those crowding the receiver to groan in frustration. The burly man angrily banged the set without effect, while another fiddled with the knob until, out of the quivering airwaves, the voice reemerged, stronger than ever:

Ships! it thundered. For Heaven's sake, let us have ships. Let us not mouth empty words questioning our capacity to absorb immigrants. Quickly! Quickly! Our nation has no time! Bring in hundreds of thousands of Jews now…

Again, a sharp crackle submerged the voice, and a loud buzz droned around the cafe. It instantly faded when Menachem Begin resurfaced to declare, with such compelling vibrancy and conviction that the whole of the Atara sat up:

The Irgun is now leaving the underground. We Jews now rule ourselves over a part of our Homeland, and in that part the law of a Jewish government prevails. This law is the law of the land; it is the only law. Hence, there is no longer a need for an armed underground. From now on we are all soldiers and builders of the State of Israel. And we shall all respect the government of the day, for it is our government.

Almost everybody cheered, but not the Haganah officer. He jumped up, made for the door and, shooting a glance at the men by the radio, barked, "I don't believe a word he says. Do you lot really think Begin's going to disarm his Irgun and knuckle under a democratically elected Ben-Gurion government? Not a chance!" and off he strode, antagonism written all over his face.

That was on Israel's first day of independence, 59 years ago. How wrong could a man have been, one wonders? How misguided could David Ben-Gurion have been in persuading so many into thinking what that man thought?

Agree or disagree with Menachem Begin, when one peers at him through the telescope of Israel's sovereign history, one sees in sharp focus a fierce democrat, a great commoner, an unsurpassed parliamentarian, a humble spirit, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate and, most famously, a quintessential Jew - the most Jewish prime minister the Jewish state ever had.

Pictures from the Feinstein Bible Ceremony

Harry Hurwitz, head of Center, addressing the assembled

Herzl Makov making the introductions as emcee

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Mayor of Jerusalem, Uri Lupolianski

Dennis and Mrs. Goodwin receive a present of recognition

PM Ehud Olmert's Speech at Feinstein Bible Ceremony

Distinguished Guests,

The sound of the explosion which emanated from the death row cell on that night of the 1st of Iyar 1947 echoes in our national memory.

We are a people who remember, and in the tapestry of our lives there are moments which are eternal. Such a moment was that in which Meir Feinstein and Moshe Barzani chose to take their fate into their own hands.

At that moment, it is as if Jewish history held its breath, looked at both young men drawing the improvised grenades closer to their bodies, and listened in great pain to the pounding of their final heartbeats.

Like many others, I too grew up hearing the heroic tale of Feinstein and Barzani: their images are deeply engraved in my memory – the determined and powerful look of Moshe Barzani, and the calm and confident look on Meir Feinstein’s handsome face. They, who were in fact so young, became the heroes of our youth.

Feinstein, a member of the Irgun, and Barzani, who was a member of the Lehi, were caught by the British when they fought for our freedom. They were taken captive as fighters, and faced court martial – predatory, cruel and merciless. Despite their youth, they would not be deterred. “You will not frighten us with hangings and you will not succeed in destroying us,” Moshe Barzani stated before the court.

“A regime of hanging trees is the regime you wish to use to rule this country, which is meant to serve as a beacon for humanity as a whole,” said Meir Feinstein, “and in your idiotic villainy,” he continued, “you assume that, through this regime you will succeed in breaking our people’s spirit, the people for which this entire country was a gallows. You were wrong. Realize that you have encountered steel, steel which was forged with the fire of love and hatred, love of the homeland and freedom, and hatred of slavery and of the invader.”

The strength which they radiated was immense. There is a reason that the poet Natan Alterman wrote of them the following lines:

“In hours such as these, the battle is lost by
the enemy.
Who gnashes his teeth.
For such an hour, that burns for a reason,
were designated the two dead.”

Distinguished Guests,

The life stories of Feinstein and Barzani ended in the darkness of a death row cell in the Central Prison in Jerusalem. However, even through the darkness, when the evil wind of the end of the Mandate Period blew through the Jewish yishuv in the Land of Israel, a ray of light pierced through. Because underneath the story of the national and heroic struggle, a personal story was also woven, a human story of mutual respect, almost friendship, between Feinstein and Barzani, the condemned, and Sergeant Thomas Henry Goodwin, the British guard who was charged with watching them.

They liked him, and even planned to fulfill Samson’s cry, “Let my soul die with the Philistines,” through the grenades which were smuggled into to their cell. They eventually decided not to harm him – since they were not acting out of hatred for their fellows.

Mere minutes before their deaths, Meir Feinstein gave the British guard a Bible, illustrated with etchings by the French artist, Gustav Doré. In the inscription, under the title, “In the shadow of the gallows,” he wrote:

“To the British soldier as you stand guard. Before we go to the gallows, accept this Bible as a memento and remember that we stood in dignity and marched in dignity. It is better to die with a weapon in hand than to live with hands raised.”

Today, Sergeant Goodwin’s son is fulfilling his father’s wish to return the Bible to the Feinstein family. One cannot help but be moved.

We are a people who sanctify life; we love the good in the world and its beauty. We are not a vengeful and vindictive people; we are not out for blood. However, on one thing we cannot compromise – on our freedom, on our basic right as a people to be ourselves, on our freedom to continue to believe in the human spirit and live in accordance with our world view and in the light of our culture. This was the desire of Feinstein and Barzani, what they fought for. And within the storm of the battle in which they were, under the shadow of the gallows, when they sang in their last hours of life Adon Olam [a Hebrew prayer], and our national anthem, they also spread seeds of hope – of faith in the goodness of people.

This day, when the Bible is being returned to the State of Israel, proves that not only the sounds of explosion remain from that night of the new month of Iyar. This day proves that hope also echoes.

On the "Good Jailer"

The good jailer
By Yair Sheleg

In two weeks, the Bible that a condemned member of the Irgun gave to his British prison guard minutes before he and a fellow militia member blew themselves up will be returned by the guard's son in a state ceremony in Jerusalem, exactly 60 years after the events.

Meir Feinstein and Moshe Barazani actually gave the guard, Thomas Goodwin, two gifts: By asking him to step out of their cell, the members of the pre-state militias Irgun and Lehi also spared his life.

The ceremony will be held at the Museum of the Underground Prisoners. The Bible, which Feinstein kept in his cell, contains about 115 woodcut illustrations by Gustave Dore. The son of Sergeant Thomas Henry Goodwin, the guard, will hand the volume to Feinstein's nephew, Eliezer. Goodwin's son does not wish to reveal his full identity due to his work in the British gas industry, which entails a close relationship with several Arab countries. Subsequently, the book will be presented for safekeeping to the museum, which is located in the same building in the Russian Compound that housed the Mandate-era prison where Feinstein and Barazani took their own lives rather than be executed a few hours later.

Goodwin kept the book at home. "I knew about this Bible my whole life and saw it once," his son says. "But my father didn't say much about his service in Palestine." When he found the book, after his father's death in November 2005, the son remembered that his father always wanted to return to the Bible to the family. "My mother said he told her that if he died first she should try to contact the family and return the Bible."

Goodwin Jr. e-mailed the Prime Minister's Bureau. His message was forwarded to the museum, which is dedicated to perpetuating the memory of Olei Hagardom ("those who ascended the gallows" - members of the pre-state Jewish militias who were arrested by British Mandate authorities and sentenced to death by hanging). The museum, which maintains regular contact with the prisoners' families, had no difficulty locating Feinstein's nephew, and thus the circle was closed.

Feinstein wrote a dedication in the Bible to the guard, in Hebrew and English, which was in effect his last testament: "In the shadow of the gallows, April 21, 1947, to the British soldier as you stand guard, before we go to the gallows, accept this Bible as a memento and remember that we stood in dignity and marched in dignity. It is better to die with a weapon in hand than to live with hands raised. Meir Feinstein." There is a hint ("to die with a weapon in hand") that the prisoners might be in possession of a weapon but the words apparently did not arouse Goodwin's suspicion.

The son recounts his father's description of how he obtained the Bible: "[Feinstein and Barazani] called him to their cell and asked to speak with him in private. Feinstein handed him the Bible. Then they told him they wanted to say a few prayers in private and asked him to step away. He went into the corridor and they blew themselves up. Apparently they sent him away because they didn't want him to be hurt." Feinstein and Barazani detonated two booby-trapped oranges they had hid in their cell.

The story of Feinstein and Barazani became one of the most famous tales of heroism in the history of Zionism. Feinstein, of the Irgun, was sentenced to death for his part in the bombing of the train station in Jerusalem. Barazani, of Lehi, was apprehended four months after Feinstein's arrest with a grenade in his pocket and accused of attempting to assassinate the military commander of Jerusalem. Condemned prisoners were usually held in separate cells, but according to museum director Yoram Tamir, "Feinstein was put in Barazani's cell because he needed assistance as a result of the injuries he sustained during his capture, which led to the amputation of his left arm."

Tamir says the Lehi had envisioned a suicide operation during the hanging of one of their men prior to this incident: "They called it Operation Samson, in an allusion to the suicide of the biblical figure." Eliezer Ben-Ami, who prepared the makeshift orange grenades while he was imprisoned along with the two men, confirms that the plan was to turn their ascent to the gallows into an action that would harm the British authorities.

"Of course, we needed the condemned men's approval," Ben-Ami recalls. "Moshe agreed right away, but since there was an Irgun man with him we had to request their approval, too. We asked the person responsible for Irgun prisoners in the jail, Yehoshua Tamler, what he thought, and he said they needed the consent of the top command. We had to wait a few days, despite fearing that they would be taken to the gallows in the meantime, until approval arrived from the commander of the Irgun, Menachem Begin."

The original plan was to hide the explosives in the set of tefillin brought to the jail by Rabbi Aryeh Levin ("the father of the prisoners"), who ministered to the underground prisoners throughout the period. (Levin, of course, knew nothing about the phylacteries' intended use.) When Ben-Ami opened up the boxes of the tefillin he realized they were too small to hold the required amount of explosives. One day at lunch in prison, he looked at the oranges that were served for dessert and had the idea of scooping out the flesh and replacing it with explosives. Two booby-trapped oranges were smuggled into Feinstein and Barazani's cell. Ben-Ami kept a third for himself, "to see how long it takes for the peel to dry out and fall off, exposing the explosive."

To Ben-Ami's dismay, he found that within a few days, before the date was set for the men's execution, the peel of the orange in his cell had begun to detach. "We passed [Feinstein and Barazani] an order to dismantle the grenades, but that day they were informed that they were to be hanged the following day," Ben-Ami recalls.

The announcement of their imminent execution came from Rabbi Yaakov Goldman of the Jewish Agency, who had been asked to be with the condemned men in their final hours and to recite with them the vidui, the confessional prayer recited by Jews before death. Goldman's involvement was out of the ordinary, since this was usually Levin's role.

Tamir says Goldman replaced Levin after Feinstein, a student of Levin's, asked for his opinion on the anticipated suicide. When Levin rejected the idea, Goldman was brought in instead. "[The switch] was an intelligence failure on the part of the British," Feinstein's nephew Eliezer says. "They should have realized that something unusual was about to happen."

Goldman's involvement also caused a change in the plan. He told the condemned men that he insisted on escorting them right up to the gallows. Tamir: "Goldman told them that he wanted the last face they see to be that of a Jew. He repeatedly rebuffed their request that he not escort them, missing their hints." His insistence caused Feinstein and Barazani to kill themselves in their jail cell rather than on the gallows, since Goldman as well as the British guards would have been killed.

According to contemporary newspaper reports, Goldman left the cell and went to the officers' room in the prison to wait there until the men were brought out for their execution, which was scheduled for 2 A.M. But at 11:40 P.M. a loud explosion shook the prison. The guards who rushed to the condemned men's cell found their bodies. Ben-Ami, who was in his own cell at the time, remembers hearing first the traditional song "Adon Olam," with all the militia prisoners joining in, and then the explosion. Goldman's account is slightly different: He recalls Feinstein and Barazani singing "Adon Olam" while he was still with them, followed by "Hatikva" (which became the Israeli national anthem), but does not remember hearing singing right before the explosion.

This story begs the question of why the men did not blow up Goodwin together with themselves. After all, if the original plan was to take as many British guards as possible with them when they died, then why not at least make sure that Goodwin was killed? One possible answer comes from Goldman. The rabbi relates that he spoke with the two prisoners from the corridor outside their cell.

"A British sergeant stood there guarding them," Goldman recalls. "They told me, 'We want you to thank the sergeant. He's a good fellow, he treated us well.'" Goodwin's kindness was also apparently the reason Feinstein decided to give him his Bible.

Ben-Ami confirms this: "In our secret correspondence with the two, when the gallows suicide operation was still the plan, they said that they had two guards, one who was a bastard and one who was nice, and they said that if the 'good cop' was there when they ascended the gallows they would try not to hurt him."

The ceremony in two weeks will mark not only the return of the Bible to the Feinstein family but also the 60th anniversary of the entire Olei Hagardom episode. In 1947, the hangings of members of the Jewish underground reached a peak, with the execution of nine of the 12 who were eventually hung.

Irgun and Lehi prisoners refused to recognize the legality of British rule in Palestine, including a rejection of the courts' authority to judge them. Naturally, they refused to ask for clemency, even when it was hinted that such a request could lead to a more lenient sentence.

This policy aroused a public debate in the Jewish community, even among Irgun and Lehi sympathizers: Were terror operations justified? Was it right to insist on non-recognition of British rule even at the price of the condemned prisoners' lives? The equivocal stance in relation to the underground's terror activities was perhaps best expressed by the "national poet" of the time. After Feinstein and Barazani's suicide, Natan Alterman published "Lail Hit'abdut" ("night of suicide") in his regular "The Seventh Column" in Davar. The poem was mainly a paean to their heroism. But after commending the men's bravery, it concludes with three stanzas condemning the stupidity and arrogance of their commanders.

According to political scientist Dr. Udi Lebel of Be'er Sheva's Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, who has researched the role of the executed Irgun and Lehi fighters in the national memory, during the term of Israel's first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, there was a deliberate effort to suppress the memory of Olei Hagardom.

"There was no mention of them in the school curriculum," Lebel says. "The most blatant examples of the attitude toward them was the speed with which Acre Prison, where most of the underground prisoners were hanged, was converted into a mental hospital and the prison in Jerusalem, where Feinstein and Barazani committed suicide, into a book warehouse - all to prevent them from becoming heroic sites and pilgrimage destinations," Lebel states.

Ben-Gurion's successor, Levi Eshkol, was more conciliatory. Lebel says he ordered the Acre psychiatric hospital moved, although this did not take place until after 1977, when Begin became prime minister. By total coincidence, in 1963, when Eshkol formed his first government, Am Oved published "Bekolar Ehad" (English title: "The Gallows"), by Haim Hazaz, which was devoted to the suicide of Feinstein and Barazani, treating it as a tale of exceptional heroism. (In order to maintain literary freedom Hazaz changed Feinstein's name to Menachem Halperin and that of Barazani to Eliahu Mizrahi in the novel.)

Hazaz, like Alterman, was identified with the Labor movement, although he was not a party member. "Their story attracted him from the beginning," his widow, Aviva Hazaz, says. "He stressed that it was not about the Irgun and the Lehi or the issue of the undergrounds, but about kiddush hashem (sanctifying the name of God, used to describe Jewish martyrdom). This subject appealed to him since his bar mitzvah, when his father taught him what Maimonides wrote about kiddush hashem. He even looked for a way to connect with the people from the undergrounds to get to know the story from up close, but they weren't very receptive to him," Aviva Hazaz recalled.

According to Hazaz's widow, it was a random meeting with Rabbi Aryeh Levin that brought the writer back to the story. "In 1958 Haim was very ill and in hospital. Another patient was put in his room, it was Rabbi Aryeh Levin. They formed a special bond and naturally they also talked about the men of the underground. There were two elements at that time that made him go back to the story: the attempt to stand up to death and the compassion that Rabbi Aryeh Levin showed for the underground prisoners."

Eshkol sent Hazaz a warm letter after the book's publication. "Some say that book was a factor in the decision to bring Jabotinsky's bones to Israel," Aviva Hazaz says. She says her husband was horrified by the conversion of the site where Feinstein and Barazani took their lives into a storeroom for the Bialik Institute. As a member of the institution's board of directors he actively tried to have the books moved.

In the early 1970s, the status of Olei Hagardom changed again, when streets throughout the country began to be named for them. The most prominent instance is in Jerusalem's Armon Hanatziv neighborhood, which was built after the area was captured in the Six-Day War. In a gesture of "historic vengeance," its main street in the neighborhood, not far from the mansion in which the British high commissioner lived during the Mandate, was called Olei Hagardom. Other streets were named for individual prisoners, including Feinstein and Barazani.

The change in status reached its peak when Begin came to power. Instead of following the tradition of giving his Memorial Day speeches at the country's main military cemetery, on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem, Begin went to the cemetery in Safed, where the first Oleh Hagardom, Shlomo Ben-Yosef, is buried. It was during Begin's term as prime minister that the prisons in Jerusalem and Acre were converted into national museums. Stamps were also issued in memory of the underground prisoners.

Lebel notes another interesting and significant step taken by Begin: "He 'annexed' to the list of Olei Hagardom others from other periods, such as Na'aman Belkind and Yosef Lishansky from Nili (the underground that aided the British during World War I, whose members were hanged by the Turks); Eli Cohen, the spy who was hanged in Damascus; and even Mordechai Schwartz from the Haganah, who was hanged by the British after he killed an Arab policeman in 1938."

The Haganah leadership refused to acknowledge Schwartz as a casualty from its ranks, let alone an Oleh Gardom. Not until 1987, after repeated appeals from Schwartz's fiancee, did the organization of Haganah members agree to have Schwartz's picture in the museum's exhibit of Olei Hagardom members, with a notation that he was from the Haganah.

"Begin acted as he did in order to embarrass the Labor movement," Lebel said, "which in its disavowal of the Irgun and Lehi Olei Hagardom was in effect disavowing all the others, including its own."

Begin's identification with Olei Hagardom culminated in his will. He, and his wife Aliza before him, asked to be buried not in the area on Mount Herzl reserved for the nation's leaders but rather on the Mount of Olives, next to the graves of Feinstein and Barazani.

On the Return of the Feinstein Bible

The writing on the wall

Batsheva Pomerantz, THE JERUSALEM POST
Apr. 19, 2007

One of the best-known stories of heroism leading to the creation of the State of Israel is that of Meir Feinstein and Moshe Barazani, who took their lives hours before they were to be hanged at the British Mandate prison in Jerusalem. Recently, a Bible belonging to Feinstein resurfaced after 60 years, shedding light on the courage of these young men, who were often inspired by biblical heroes.

Last night a ceremony took place at the Museum of the Underground Prisoners with the participation of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Mayor Uri Lupolianski. Feinstein's Bible was returned to his nephew, Eliezer Feinstein, at almost the same time Feinstein and Barazani exploded themselves on the second of Iyar in 1947.

The event, organized by the Menachem Begin Heritage Center, was attended by former underground members and prisoners, members of the British Goodwin family, and families of the Olei Hagardom (those sentenced to death by the British Mandate and executed on the gallows). Feinstein's Bible, with engravings of French illustrator Gustave Dore, was given to the British warden Thomas Henry Goodwin as a token of appreciation for his kind behavior.

The Defense Ministry's Museum of Underground Prisoners is located in the Russian Compound on the premises of the Russian pilgrims' center, which converted into the central jail of the Mandate between 1917-1948. By the end of the Mandate period the prison held over 550 prisoners. The number of Jews among the criminal prisoners was small, but they comprised the majority of the political prisoners. Many were members of the Etzel and Lehi underground groups that avenged Arab attackers and fought the British rule by attacking their army and government centers.

"The British preferred to hang the Jews in Acre Prison rather than in Jerusalem, because Acre was then an Arab city," says Yoram Tamir, the museum's director. "Feinstein and Barazani were the first who were scheduled to be hanged in Jerusalem."

Feinstein, born in the Old City in 1927, was an Etzel operative who was wounded and caught during an attack on the Jerusalem railway station in October 1946. As a result of his injury, his arm was amputated.

Iraqi-born Lehi member Barazani came as a child to the Old City. He was caught in March 1947 with a grenade, intending to assassinate a senior British officer. The two were sentenced to death on the gallows.

Although prisoners awaiting death were in solitary confinement, an exception was made for Feinstein because of his maimed arm. He shared his cell with Barazani. They received a note from underground members about a plan to take their own lives while killing some British policemen during the moments preceding the hanging. [actually, it was they who conceived of the plan] It was termed "Operation Shimshon" after the biblical Samson who brought down with him the crowded Philistine temple, claiming "let me die with the Philistines."

Barazani and Feinstein were eager to carry out the plan. Eliezer Ben-Ami, an imprisoned Lehi member, assembled hand grenades from pieces that were smuggled into the prison separately. Two grenades were concealed by orange peels without arousing suspicion since the prisoners regularly received oranges.

Rabbi Aryeh Levin, affectionately known as "Reb Aryeh," was a regular visitor to prisoners for 20 years during the Mandate. His personal interest in their plight and his encouragement to their families were deeply appreciated.

"Reb Aryeh was distraught and shaken by the verdicts of Feinstein and Barazani," relates his grandson Rabbi Benji Levine. "He was asked to smuggle in grenades for them. He was willing to do anything for them, but that."

He heard about their plan from an Etzel commander and refused to do it. Asked to remain with them for the vidui (confessional prayer before death), he felt weak. "He eulogized the two at the funeral on the Mount of Olives and said kaddish. He then walked back home and observed the mourning period," says Rabbi Levine.

Rabbi Yaakov Goldman replaced him in the final hours. In 1946, Rabbi Goldman was appointed by the National Council as rabbi of the prisons and detention camps abroad, not before ascertaining that Reb Aryeh would continue his visits.

Tuvia Goldman, the rabbi's son, a teenager in those years, heard the following story from his father immediately after it happened and many times since.

Barazani and Feinstein were to be hanged towards dawn on the second of Iyar. "For three hours the night before, the three discussed lofty ideas, about Jewish history and the concept of Kiddush Hashem."

Being traditional, they sought rabbinical approval for their plan in a roundabout way. "Feinstein asked my father if the fact that they didn't appeal their sentences could be seen as committing suicide, since there was a chance to perhaps save their lives. He was supposedly asking my father retroactively, when his intention was the imminent future."

Rabbi Goldman answered that not every instance of ending one's own life is considered suicide by Halacha. For example, King Saul fell over his sword, rather than at the hands of the Philistines. King Saul was praised for this by the Sages. "My father would recall the smiles of Barazani and Feinstein when they heard this. It gave them courage."

Rabbi Goldman insisted on being with them at the gallows a few hours later so the last person they would see would be a Jew. "They tried unsuccessfully to persuade him not to return, without letting on to their plan," says Tuvia Goldman.

They changed their plan to avoid killing Rabbi Goldman. The two condemned men sang Adon Olam as the rabbi left. They told him to "thank the Sergeant. He's a fine fellow, he treated us fairly."

They were referring to their warden, Goodwin. At this point Feinstein gave Goodwin his inscribed Bible and told him to quickly go down the corridor. "Goodwin was trembling as he met my father, relating that he had never seen men condemned to death singing like that. My father's reply was that people face their death like this when they are at peace with their conscience."

A minute later, two explosions were heard from the cell. Barazani and Feinstein embraced, the grenades concealed in the oranges were held between them, at the level of their hearts. One-armed Feinstein ignited the fuses held by Barazani with a cigarette.

"Feinstein's inscription was thought out," maintains Tamir. "In Hebrew he addressed Goodwin as the 'British soldier' rather than 'policeman.' Feinstein saw himself as a soldier, not a criminal prisoner. In addition, he rewrote the last sentence a few times. He then wrote it in English. The sentence 'It is good to die with ammunition in your hands than to stay alive surrendered' is a special declaration."

The inscribed Bible and the name of the British policeman were unknown in Israel until three months ago when the Prime Minister's Office received a request to locate the Feinstein family to return the Bible. The request from the Goodwin family came about a year after Thomas Henry passed away. The Prime Minister's Office contacted the Museum of Underground Prisoners which quickly located nephew Eliezer Feinstein.

"It came as a total surprise. It was shocking to have this step out of history," says Eliezer, a resident of Armon Hanatziv, where street names commemorate the Olei Hagardom. "I received a copy of the inscription, and compared the handwriting to other notes from my uncle. I recognized the handwriting."

Eliezer's father would tell him about the two wardens who guarded Feinstein's cell. One was kind, while the other was nasty. "Goodwin was the kind warden, and the two condemned men wanted to spare his life. My uncle's dedication shows determination and courage, something extraordinary during one's final moments."

Eliezer Feinstein decided to lend the Bible to the Museum of Underground Prisoners for educational reasons. "Many young people visit the museum. This Bible is proof from a generation that is passing on. It is another aspect of what transpired moments before the heroic act."