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Friday, January 18, 1985
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
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Portrait of a leader
BY DR. MILTON STEINHARDT
Special to The Jewish News
The multiple facets of
Menachen Begin's personality are
brought into focus in the recent
biography by Eric Silver. The
author was born in Leeds,
England in 1935, educated at Ox-
ford and served in Israel from
1972 to 1983 as correspondent of
the Guardian.
Critics of Begin, and admirers
alike, will find this biography as
exciting as any cloak-and-dagger
mystery in addition to the histori-
cal information imparted. The
television rights to the life of
Begin must well be on someone's
agenda. The reaction to the un-
folding drama will depend on
one's perspective and prior bias.
The book spans the years
1917-1983, covering the pre-
World War II period, the
Holocaust, the birth of Israel and
its struggle for survival. Begin
was born in 1913 in Brest Litovsk.
His father, an ardent Zionist,
talked a great deal about the
Dreyfus affair and the Baylis
trial, and no doubt transmitted
his heritage to his son. After
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Menachem Begin:
Complexities analyzed.
attending a Polish high school,
Begin received his law degree at
the Warsaw University. At the
time, he regarded Jabotinsky as
his mentor and ideal. When the
Soviets occupied eastern Poland
in 1939, Begin's Zionist activism
was looked upon as British Col-
onialism. He was imprisoned in
1940, transported to the Gulag in
Siberia where he learned to
endure solitary confinement for
seven days, deliberate depriva-
tion of sleep, freezing nights, thin
soup served in a spitoon.
His release followed the Nazi
invasion of Russia in 1941, Polish
citizens being expected to fight
the Germans. Begin chose to
make his way to Palestine. There
he was haunted by a passion for
an independent and safe Eretz Is-
rael.
This emotional drive was rein-
forced by the Holocaust experi-
ence, having lost his whole family
except his sister and his wife
Aliza, who joined him in Pales-
tine.
March of Dimes
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THIS SPACE CONTRIBUTED By THE PUBLISHER
As a commander of the Irgun in
Palestine he played a significant
role in combatting the British (in-
cluding the explosion of the King
David Hotel that killed 91, 17 of
whom were Jews).
Begin was a fugitive for two
years as a bearded rabbi, hunted
by the Haganah and the British.
It was Begin who declared the
"Begin: The Haunted
Prophet" by Eric
Silver. Random
House.
British administration in Pales-
tine to be the enemy, rather than
the English war effort against the
Nazis (a bit of rationalization for
the sake of realism).
During the War of Liberation in
1948, the future Prime Minister
was accused in the massacre of
more than 100 Arabs at Deir Yas-
sin, even though he was not per-
sonally involved. But the most
controversial event in Begin's
early political life was the sinking
of the Altalena. It was the Irgun
that obtained the ship and
ammunition sorely needed for de-
fense. It is hard to accept the in-
evitability of this catastrophe.
Giving the Irgun ten minutes to
surrender the ship was an act of
arrogance, not compromise, by
Ben-Gurion's aides. The casual-
ties totalled 22 dead and 30
wounded.
This reviewer cannot accept the
author's charge that Begin has
"selective compassion" only for
the Jews killed in the Holocaust.
In the first place, it is quite
natural that a casualty in one's
family, city, country, or racial
entity, will evoke more sympathy
than the reporting of casualties in
some distant area such as China
or Siberia. In a plane disaster, our
newspapers want to know how
many people were Americans. Is
that "selective compassion?"
Casualties in defense of one's
country have a different meaning,
as was actually the case when Is-
rael suffered 6000 dead in 1948. In
segregation, for example, we ex-
perience humiliation without de-
struction. The Holocaust is there-
fore unique.
Begin did not suffer, as some
claim, survivor's guilt about the
Holocaust. He felt he was also a
victim, as indeed he was by iden-
tification. The Holocaust was
engraved in the heart and mind of
Begin. He did not wear it on his
sleeve. Any attempt to dilute,
minimize or generalize the
Holocaust by calling the Jews
murdered at Babi Yar, Kiev, vic-
tims of Fascism as the Russians do
is an insult to their memory and a
distortion of the truth.
In summary, Begin emerges as
a man of many parts. He was a
proud Jew, a sincere Zionist, a
statesman, a party leader and
commander, an orator, a heroic
fighter for a cause, and a com-
promising peacemaker. But he
was also a rebel, a terrorist, a
moralizer, a
a showman,
as well as a sensitive and moody
person.
fanatic.