Following the most recent newsletter edition listing incredible Jews throughout the ages, there was much request for a part II. The below is in no particular order:

Moshe Barazani and Meir Feinstein – These two brave Jews are more well known for how they died rather than the brave sabotage acts they committed against the British occupiers, but it is important to highlight both. Barazani was a Kurdish Jew, born in Iraq in 1926. He moved to Israel and at a young age, joined the Lehi resistance group. On March 9, 1947, British police caught him carrying a grenade meant for the assassination of a British officer in Jerusalem. He was convicted that month for illegal weapons possession and was sentenced to death.

• Feinstein was born in Jerusalem in 1927. He used a fake birth certificate to enlist in the British army at age 16 during World War II and smuggled British weapons to the Irgun. After leaving the army, Feinstein participated in a sabotage mission at a railway station. He lost his arm in the attack and was sentenced to death for his role. Both men met in prison and wished to have one final act of resistance against the British. They snuck in a grenade inside of an orange, and blew themselves up instead of giving the British the satisfaction of hanging them. They were part of a group of 12 men, members of the Lehi and Irgun, who were sentenced to hang by the British occupiers. In Hebrew, those set for hanging by the British were called Olei Hagardom. These were Jewish martyrs of a higher level.
• Major General Maurice Rose (U.S. Army – WWII) – General Rose was a great Commander who always insisted on leading from the front, earning his nickname, “Spearhead.” In Africa (Tunisia; 1943), he became the first officer to accept the surrender of a large German unit. In Europe, he broke records by advancing an impressive one hundred miles into enemy territory in one day. At the Battle of Carentan in 1944, he saved the 506th Parachute Infantry from a German counterattack, and his defensive tactics during the Battle of the Bulge severely frustrated the German advance. A veteran of both World Wars, he commanded the Third Armored Division and was the highest ranking Jewish officer when he was killed in action in 1945 while serving in Germany.
• Ari Fuld – As a Zionism educator, I have to include Ari, and with a proud but heavy heart. Ari’s life was cut severely short by a 16 year old Arab occupier terrorist in 2018, and even in his last breaths, he died a hero. While suffering a severe stab wound, Ari managed to save a woman’s life who was also targeted by the terrorist, all while shooting at the subhuman. Ari and I were Facebook friends, and I came to know him through his dynamic Judea & Samaria (Yehuda & Shomron) Zionism educational videos. He brought history to life in each of his videos, which showed the reality of Judea & Samaria – that Jews also have to go through checkpoints, the Arab mansions dotting the Arab villages, the Apartheid laws against Jews in that region, and the many places of Judean battles that had taken place thousands of years ago.

This was at a time when I still did not know much about our ancestral heartland, and was still calling it by its antisemitic term, ‘West Bank’ – which is a Jordanian occupation term from 1950. Ari was a proud observant Jew, who, without fail, each erev Shabbat, would do a Torah and grill session, shared live to thousands, showcasing also the gorgeous rolling hills of the Shomron. He was a Judo instructor, an IDF reservist, and went on to create a nonprofit to help soldiers secure needed materials and boost their morale with free food. He was also a proud family man. Ari had invited me to a Shabbat dinner with him and his family next time I would be in Israel; this was weeks before he was murdered. Ari’s nickname was the Lion of Judah, and he embodied the honor fully.

• Mordecai Sheftal – He was an Orthodox Jew who lived in pre-Revolutionary Georgia. He was one of the first Colonists to publicly call for a rebellion against British rule. He helped organize America’s Revolutionary armies, paying for uniforms and rations. Fun fact – Jews served in both the American and British armies in the Revolutionary War.
• Haym Salomon – Outside of Jewish circles, a truly forgotten hero of the American Revolutionary War. Born in Poland, Mr. Salomon came to the U.S. and embraced the Patriot Cause in 1775. In NYC, he was part of the Sons of Liberty and quickly established a brokerage house for international trade. He was arrested by the British in 1776 and accused of being an American spy. While in prison, he was a translator for German mercenaries and convinced Hessians to adopt the American cause, while also encouraging British soldiers to desert. Arrested again in 1778, Salomon was sentenced to be executed. He somehow escaped and made his way to Philadelphia. Through his new brokerage firm he founded post-prison, he became the paymaster for the French that served for the United States. Between 1781 – 1784, he personally loaned $650,000 to bring some financial stability to the American cause. Towards the end of the war, the Continental troops began to complain that they had yet to be paid, and there were loud whispers of mutiny. General Washington personally called on Haym Salomon’s help, and with a $20,000 loan, the Battle of Yorktown, Virginia was won, bringing an end to eight years of fierce fighting. Salomon died four years later, at the age of 44, in debtor’s prison. He was never repaid for his loans to help secure American freedom. In current dollar amounts, he lent close to $20 million.
• Meyer Lansky and the Jewish Mafia – Extortion and murders aside, the members of the Jewish mafia in America were all proud Jews and Zionists. During WWII, many American Jewish leaders called upon these mafia members to provide security at counter-protests of Nazi rallies all over the U.S. They were known to rough up numerous Jew-haters. They were even sent on secret missions to kill Nazis in Italy, through their very close ties to the Italian Mob in America. When Israel was fighting for its very survival in 1948, Meyer Lansky personally secured much-needed weapons. For those interested in the Jewish mafia, highly recommend reading, “Tough Jews: Fathers, Sons, and Gangster Dreams” by Rich Cohen. I read this book a few years ago, and could not put it down. Some interesting few facts without spoiling anything: Jews invented the Mafia in America through Murder Inc. and then the Italians joined in. There was also an agreed upon rule that the Italian mafia members would not kill Jews, and the Jewish mob would never kill an Italian.
• The brave Mizrahi Jews who founded the Mossad – Sadly, the pre-liberation political Zionist movement in Israel was highly discriminatory against Mizrahim. Most of the Zionist leaders in Israel were Ashkenaz who envisioned a mini Poland in the Middle East instead of continuing what Israel actually had been for over 4,000 years, a solid Middle Eastern nation. Remember, for much of Israel’s history, between the Roman Exile of 70 AD and Israel’s liberation, the majority were actually a mix of Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews. Ashkenaz Jews in greater numbers began to return home only in the later part of the 1800s. Luckily, that false Eastern European version never materialized.

The kibbutzim were dominated by Ashkenazim Jews who looked down upon Mizrahi Jews, who were seen as Arabs, and ‘not real Jews.’ It was the kibbutzim that provided a pipeline into the Haganah. With doors mostly closed to the more left-leaning Haganah, Mizrahim were instead joining Irgun and Lehi at high numbers. The Mizrahi Jews of those more lethal resistance groups earned respect when Israel was on the cusp of liberation. Without a break in fighting, Arab armies, who were highly trained by the British, attacked Israel. It was paramount to send spies into enemy territory, and sending Ashkenaz Jews made no sense. The Palmach created the ‘Arab Section’ to recruit young Mizrahi men, and sometimes even teens, to enter enemy territory in Egypt, Syria, the Muslim parts of Lebanon (Lebanon did not attack as fully as the other armies, as Lebanon’s leadership was still majority Christian), and even as far away as Iraq.

While the most famous of Mizrahi spies was Eli Cohen, an Egyptian-born Jew who reached the upper echelons of Syria’s government in the 1960s, and whose information helped Israel during the Six Day War, there were thousands of brave Mizrahi spies in enemy territory a generation earlier. Not only was fluent Arabic important, but the dialects down to the neighborhoods mattered. Therefore, many of these young men had to return to the very streets where their entire families had just been targeted and from which exiled. If interested in more on this topic, check out Matti Friedman’s book, “Spies of No Country” – though Matti does not use accurate Israel-related terminology, his level of research is impressive.

• Queen Shushandukht – Historians speculate that it is Queen Shushandukht who is actually buried in the Tomb of Esther in Hamadan, Iran. Queen Shushandukht lived during the Persian Sassanian Period of the 5th century AD/CE (the Sassanian Empire lasted from 224 AD – 651 AD). The Sassanians were very philosemitic and were Zoroastrian. She was the daughter of a Jewish man who found favor in the powerful King of Kings court. That is how her marriage to the Zoroastrian King Yazdegerd I, who ruled from 399 to 420 CE, transpired. King Yazdegerd I was known for bringing peace to the region and forming alliances with the Eastern Roman Empire. His and Queen Shushandukht’s son, Bahram V, who was the 15th king of the Sassanian Empire and the most famous and popular ruler in its history, who Jews in Iran considered the first Jewish King, was known for warfare. The Jewish Queen was known for establishing Jewish communities in Esfahan, Susa and Shushtar. In between the time of Babylonian occupation of Persia and the spread of Islam into Iran, Jews had a wonderful relationship with their Zoroastrian Persian neighbors.
• The Jewish “ghetto girls” who killed Nazis – It is absolutely disgusting that, to this day, quite a few Jews say (incorrectly) that Jews were as sheep to a slaughter, as if Jews didn’t fight back. Just as disgusting, there is a social media campaign these days saying ‘Not your grandfather’s Jews’ – as if my grandfather’s generation of Jews did not fight Nazis in various armies, liberate Israel after 1,812 years of occupation, and in many instances, fought both the Nazis and the British occupiers. Freuen in di Ghettos (Women in the Ghettos), was a book found in 1946, Poland filled with accounts about young Jewish women (aged 16 – 25) who defied the Nazis. These women, who mostly lived in the forced ghettos of Poland, hid revolvers in teddy bears, they smuggled explosives in their underwear, launched Molotov cocktails, bombed German supply trains, distributed underground bulletins, and they organized uprisings across Europe’s wartime ghettos. In addition, they also helped with intelligence gatherings.

Over ninety European ghettos had an armed resistance unit, while partisan networks provided help to some 12,000 hiding out in Warsaw alone. Uprisings occurred in ghettos, in labor camps, and in death camps. When I was growing up, I only learned about Jews hiding during the Shoah, and nothing wrong with the fact that Jews were hiding back then, but it also needs to be far more widely known of all the acts of resistance that actually occurred.

• Every Jew should have as one of their heroes, Ze’ev Jabotinsky: This entry will not do complete justice to the legacy he left behind, but a few highlights: he differed from Herzl in a major way: Herzl urged Jews to ‘build a Jewish homeland’ as if one already didn’t exist, due solely to escape antisemitism. Meanwhile, Jabotinsky split off from Herzl as he believed, correctly, that Jews should make mass aliyah back to Israel because it is the Jewish homeland. Credit has to be given to the Russian Jews, the ones part of the Zionist Congress, who in 1903 met to vehemently reject Herzl’s offer to send a fact-finding mission to Uganda, as a possible home for Jews; again, as if a home didn’t already exist for 4,000+ years. Jabotinsky was the one who convinced the British to include a Jewish Legion within their army. The idea was not taken positively by even British Jews at the time, but Jabotinsky pushed on and finally towards the end of WWI, the British relented. It was being part of the Jewish Legion of the British Army that many Jews learned military tactics which were used against the British for the next two decades of armed struggle in Israel against the British occupation.

In 1920, Jabotinsky led a movement not to just protect the yishuv, but to go into Arab villages to attack, following the riots against Jews. He was arrested by the British for his actions; instead of halting his vision for how Jews should actually protect themselves in Israel and retaliate, Jabotinsky went on to found Betar, a youth movement, named after the last stand of the Bar Kokhba revolts. The Betar was a Zionist action movement that provided protection for Jews against both the British and the Arabs. Politically, Jabotinsky became the leader of the Irgun, who split from the Haganah in its tactics. The Haganah was formed by left-leaning Jews who only wanted to focus on defense, and not offense.

The Irgun had the complete opposite conviction. It was from the Irgun that the other major offensive-tactic group, the Lehi, formed. As mentioned in the last newsletter edition, the liberation of Israel was made possible mostly due to the actions of the Irgun and Lehi groups, who actually attacked British officers and blew up British infrastructure throughout Israel. Interesting fact: the first official defense group in pre-liberation Israel was called Bar-Giora, named after a Bar Kokhba Revolt General. This group was formed in 1907. Jabotinsky very much respected the Bar Giora group, but once the British-fomented Arab attacks increased, he realized the need for retaliation, and that spilled Jewish blood will not be ignored.

*TBTN Programming Note*: I am available for speaking engagements, related to Zionism education, across the U.S. To date, I have spoken to Jewish groups based in Massachusetts, Ohio, and NY. If interested in booking an event, please contact me at: laureen@tbtnisrael.com