The Prime Ministers: An Intimate Narrative of Israeli Leadership (3 page)

Came the culmination of Yom Kippur and the end of the
Ne’ilah
service, and in the deepening twilight the white-clad cantor, facing the gigantic shadowy blocks of ancient stones, chanted in a voice that swelled and soared,
“
Shema Yisrael
…Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One.” And the whole congregation affirmed this declaration with single-minded intensity.

And then, thrice, he trilled:
“
Baruch shem kavod
…Blessed be the name of His Glorious Majesty for ever and ever,” and thrice the assembly responded in passionate confirmation.

Seven times, the cantor intoned with trembling fervor, “The Lord is God. The Lord is God” and seven times the congregants avowed this invocation.

And as the cantor concluded the service with the final words of the Kaddish
–
“
Oseh shalom bimroma
v
…He who creates peace in His celestial heights, may He create peace for us and for all Israel; and say, Amen,”
–
the British policemen looked on, tense, edgy, crouched in confrontation, waiting for the order to pounce at the sound of the shofar.

And the shofar sounded.

Rising on tiptoe, arms stiffened, eyes closed, hands trembling in excitement, the boy who had blown the shofar blew again; a sustained, robust, soaring, exalted, single blast, reaching the heights of pure perfection
–
and not a policeman stirred.

“Fall out,” barked the ruddy-faced sergeant to his men. “Return to barracks. At the double
–
one, two, one, two, one two…”

“
L’shanah haba’ah b’Yerushalayim habenuyah
,” hollered the crowd. “Next year in rebuilt Jerusalem!” And they danced their way triumphantly to their homes in the Jewish Quarter.

The following day Begin wrote in his Irgun underground paper:

Our ancient stones are not silent. They speak of the House that once stood here, of kings who once knelt here in prayer, of prophets and seers who declaimed their message here, of heroes who fell here, dying; and of how the great flame, at once destructive and illuminating, was kindled here. This House and this Land, with its prophets and kings and fighters, were ours long before the British were ever a nation.

When recalling that episode in later years, Menachem Begin could not contain a smile when he said, “It was never our intention to start a clash at the Wall, for fear of inflicting casualties. Our attacks were directed elsewhere
–
against British police fortresses in different parts of the country
–
and those we carried out as planned.”
3

Admirers were enthralled by these Scarlet Pimpernel tales, not least the narrow escapes from British manhunts when Begin sometimes had to creep from one hiding place to another as a dragnet closed in. With a flicker of a smile he would recount how he had first commanded his Irgun fighters from a little rented room in a small sea-front Tel Aviv hotel called the Savoy, adopting the pseudonym Ben Ze’ev after his father. He banked on the assumption that the least likely place the British would expect to find him was under their very noses, room seventeen of a public hotel.

For a while he was right, but eventually they caught his scent, and so he moved on to a small, run-down, isolated house in Machaneh Yehuda, on the fringes of the Yemenite quarter of Petach Tikva. And when that hovel came under scrutiny, he moved on again with his wife Aliza and little boy Benny, to yet another hovel in the Hassidoff Quarter, also near Petach Tikva. There, he took the alias Yisrael Halperin, and assumed the guise of a refugee law student heavily laden with books preparing for his bar exam.

“How well I remember the people at that
shteibel
–
the homey, intimate little neighborhood synagogue where I used to pray on Shabbat and festivals,” I once heard him say. “On the first Shabbat they honored me, as befits a newcomer, by calling me up to the reading of the Torah. The good
gabbai
–
warden
–
asked me my full Hebrew name, as is customary. But believe it or not”
–
he said this with a chuckle and a cheeky smile
–
“I stumbled over it. The man gave me a suspicious stare. ‘What’s your name?’ he asked again, and I had to remember not to give him my real name, but my Irgun name: not
Menachem
, but
Yisrael
ben Ze’ev Dov. After that I was always called to the Torah by that assumed name, and to this day I crave the Almighty’s forgiveness for this deliberate misrepresentation in a holy place. But under the circumstances I’m sure He understood.”

It was in the Hassidoff Quarter, in September 1944, that Begin experienced the closest of close shaves, when British patrols sealed off the whole of Petach Tikva, imposed a curfew, and began conducting house-to-house searches. By some unexplained stroke of good fortune
–
some would say Providence
–
the search parties passed over his off-the-beaten-track hovel. Tragedy struck, nevertheless. Dr. Arnold, his wife’s brother and his own very close friend, died upon hearing of the search operation.

“He was in Tel Aviv at the time,” Begin related sadly. “He knew where we were hiding, and it seems that the very thought of our being arrested shocked him so, distressed him so, that he collapsed and died.

“We, my wife and I, could not even attend his funeral. The British had their spying eyes at the cemetery waiting for us to show up. Those were terribly heartbreaking days for us both. My wife was inconsolable. I had lost a friend, but she had lost a brother: he was the last surviving member of her whole family. All I could do was to go to our little shul and recite Kaddish in his memory.”

A time came when prying neighbors with left-wing views began to actively collaborate with the British to “liquidate the dissidents,” as they put it. So the Begins left the Hassidoff Quarter and moved on again. This time they found what they considered an ideal hiding place
–
a tiny, dilapidated house in a nondescript, refuse-strewn, fly-infested and smelly Tel Aviv side street called Yehoshua Bin Nun. The reason for the flies and the smells was that the Begin’s neighbors were the municipal abattoir on one side, and the municipal dogs’ home on the other.

There, at Yehoshua Bin Nun Street, he changed his identity once more, posing this time as Reb Yisrael Sassover.

A photograph of him as Reb Yisrael Sassover shows nothing in his appearance to attract particular attention. Reb Yisrael looks at you through large, deep-set, and weary eyes in a lean, bearded face, a clever face which shows the sensitivity of a humble religious scholar more than the ruthlessness of a militia leader.

Truth to tell, people who knew him well at the time said it was not all that difficult for him to avoid the authorities’ detection, since there was nothing in his appearance to stamp him as an underground fighter, let alone a commander-in-chief. In fact, a British dossier of the day titled
The Jewish Terrorist Index
profiled him as having “a long, hooked nose, bad teeth, and horn-rimmed spectacles.” Time and again, British police on the lookout would pass him by without a second glance, seeing him as just another out-of-pocket law student, or a run-of-the-mill rabbinic scholar.

While living on Yehoshua Bin Nun Street, the Irgun chief again became a regular congregant at the local
shtiebel
.

“What a great little shul that was,” I heard him reminisce. “There I found solace when life in the underground was at its harshest. That little
shtiebel
became a part of my daily life. The
balei batim
–
congregants
–
were wonderful: a cross-section of hard-working Tel Aviv craftsmen, small shopkeepers, laborers, and artisans. They were true
amcha
, solid, down-to-earth, patriotic citizens. I regularly attended their evening Talmud classes, both because I enjoyed them and because they reinforced my cover.”

Photograph credit: Israel Government Press Office

Begin related this through a long sigh which mutated into a chortle when he added, “These wonderful people must have thought their Reb Yisrael Sassover was nothing but a
luftmensch
, a good-for-nothing loafer incapable of holding down a job who had to be kept by his wife, from whom he must have somehow managed to wring a substantial dowry.”

He explained this reasoning by citing, part in jest, part in earnest, and much in mime, the excruciating quandary he once faced when the beadle, Reb Simcha, a short, red-bearded fellow full of good cheer, came calling on him to ask him to perform a simple
mitzvah
. Late one afternoon, just as he was about to enter his ramshackle home, Reb Simcha called out from the other side of the street, “Reb Yisrael, we need you for the mincha minyan” – the afternoon prayer quorum. He had to shout because of the cacophony of chained dogs barking from the municipal dogs’ home, and the doomed cattle mooing and snorting in the municipal abattoir.

Begin living undercover as Reb Yisrael Sassover, with his wife and son Benny, 12 December 1946.

Reb Yisrael Sassover shouted back, “I shall join you presently. I just have to tell my wife I’m home.”

When he entered, the chief of operations of the Irgun sighed in relief: “Menachem, thank God you’re back. We were getting worried. We have an action in two hours.”

“They’re expecting me in shul for
mincha
,” Menachem Begin told him. “I must go. I won’t be long.”

After the service, on the way out from the
shteibel
, Reb Simcha took Begin aside, and said to him, “I have a
mitzvah
for you to perform, Reb Yisrael.”

“And what is that?”

“Our butcher, Reb Dovid, needs a favor.”

“What kind of a favor?”

“In order for him to get his kashrus license renewed he needs two witnesses that he is totally
shomer Shabbos
–
observant in every way. Since all the other congregants are hard at work all day and you seem to have lots of time on your hands I want you to come with me to the Chief Rabbinate’s office to testify on Reb Dovid’s behalf. It’s a mere formality; won’t take long. The
dayanim
–
rabbinical judges
–
will ask you a few questions, that’s all.”

Begin shifted uneasily, not sure what he should answer. To be
cross-examined
by such sharp-eyed rabbis could unmask him totally.

“You have a problem with this, Reb Yisrael?” asked Reb Simcha.

“Of course not,” replied Begin, trying to pull himself together, knowing that his chief operations officer was urgently awaiting his return to approve an action against a British police station that was to take place almost immediately. So he said, “I know Reb Dovid is a truly honest man with impeccable kosher credentials, but
–
”

“But what? All you have to do is to tell that to the
dayanim
. They’ll believe you.”

“I’m sure they will. It’s just that
–
”

“Just that, what?”

“It’s just that you’ll have to ask somebody else.”

“Somebody else? What’s wrong with you, Reb Yisrael
–
you’re so busy all of a sudden?”

“Yes, I am.”

“With what?”

“Urgent things
–
things I have to attend to myself.”

“What kind of urgent things?”

“Important things.”

“Bah!” huffed the beadle, and he swung on his heels in disgust.

Years later at a political rally, an exalted Reb Simcha approached Mr. Begin and told him how, on the Saturday night following the declaration of independence, he was sitting at home with two of his shul-goers, one a stone mason, the other a plumber, drinking a
l’chayim
to the new state, and as they were sipping their schnapps they had their ears glued to the radio listening to a voice which they instantly recognized, a voice that declared, “Citizens of the Jewish homeland, the rule of oppression has been expelled. The State of Israel has arisen…”

“We couldn’t believe that you, our Reb Yisrael Sassover, were Menachem Begin, our commander of the Irgun,” said Reb Simcha jubilantly. And then, shoulders squared, “You knew, of course, I was a secret member of the Irgun.”

“Of course I knew,” said Begin. “So were almost half the
shtiebel
. But you all abided by the oath not to tell, and not to reveal to each other to which secret cell you belonged.”

In truth, by the time I got to know Menachem Begin he did not talk all that often about those secretive days except when in the company of his old and trusted colleagues, and when he did his tone was more often wistful than gleeful and witty. For lurking behind his underground anecdotes was the anxiety and insecurity of living a fugitive existence, forever weighed down by the devastating responsibility of issuing life-and-death commands in response to the repressive actions of the British. Hunted ceaselessly, he could socialize with no one but his immediate family, select members of his Irgun High Command, and a few trusted couriers. Nevertheless, his military, moral, and ideological authority over the Irgun was uncontested. His followers admired him to the point of adulation. And by dint of his cunning and revolutionary strategies calculated to humiliate the British by hitting time and again at their symbols of power, compelling the authorities to choose between repression and withdrawal, he made his little Irgun army appear to British eyes much larger than it actually was.

It is estimated that at the height of the revolt leading toward Israel’s independence in 1948 there were less than a thousand members who had taken the Irgun oath, and only a few hundred of them were capable of mounting operations at any one time. Hardly anybody served full-time, and only very few received any kind of pay. Almost all continued in their regular civilian jobs, which provided ideal cover for their activities, some of which were extraordinarily spectacular, others spectacularly controversial. One such was the blowing up, in July 1946, of Jerusalem’s famed King David Hotel, a splendid imperial establishment of the day, on par with the Shepheard’s in Cairo and Raffles in Singapore. In its early days the King David hosted such royalty as the Dowager Empress of Persia, the Queen Mother of the Egyptian royal house, and King Abdullah I of Jordan, who arrived with a retinue on horses and camels. The hotel also afforded asylum to three royal heads of state who had to flee their countries into exile: King Alfonso VIII of Spain, Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia, and King George ii of Greece.