Moshe Phillips is national chairman of Americans For A Safe Israel, AFSI, (www.AFSI.org), a leading pro-Israel advocacy and education organization.
This month is the anniversary of the kidnapping of sixteen-year-old Alexander Rubowitz in Jerusalem in May 1947. While the story of Rubowitz should be a well-known one, it is one of the most notorious unsolved crimes of the British Mandate era in Israel, the truth is that far too few have ever come across the story.
The nearly 80 year old case is just one of many of the horrific crimes of persecution committed by the British against the young Zionists who sought to liberate the Land of Israel during the British Mandate era. The abuse against young Jews included murder and sexual torture and went largely unreported in Britain. It is worth noting that in the 1940s the BBC consistently portrayed the Zionist struggle to end British rule as immoral and criminal and today continues to be highly critical of Israeli policy. The BBC also largely ignored reports of Nazi death camps throughout World War Two.
Two stories that do much to shed light on the true nature of the British Mandate and the crimes committed against young Zionists are the cases of 16-year-old Alexander Rubowitz, who was believed to have been murdered by Major Roy Farran, and Yaacov Eliav, who was attacked sexually by Inspector Ralph Cairns while in British police custody.
Yaacov Eliav was a young underground fighter in the Irgun when he was assaulted. In Eliav’s memoir Wanted (translated from the Hebrew and published in 1984 in America by Shengold) he graphically detailed the attacks by the Palestine Police CID he endured in early August 1939.
“I was stripped naked…" Eliav wrote. “(M)y underpants stuffed into my mouth… Cairns put a rubber glove on his right hand, and began to squeeze my testicles, one at a time…keeps squeezing, lifts me by my genitals, drops me and continues to squeeze."
On a subsequent day Cairns showed Eliav a photo of his young girlfriend and threatened to kidnap and rape her. “We will… strip her naked and do to her what we did to you." Eliav described another attack when Cairns asked him “You want us to rape your (young) sisters right here? …in front of your eyes? …he spits on me, kicks me, puts a burning cigarette against my skin…"
Eliav was just over 20 when the attacks occurred. He was tortured for four days. Cairns was assassinated in Jerusalem by the Irgun on August 26, 1939. His death came days after a news poster appeared accusing him by name of attacking “two Jewish girls by pushing fingers into their eyes and pinching their nipples."
The book Major Farran’s Hat: The Untold Story of the Struggle to Establish the Jewish State by Professor David Cesarani was published in 2009. Cesarani detailed the story of Alexander Rubowitz, a sixteen-year-old Stern Group member who was abducted on a crowded Jerusalem street in the middle of the day in May 1947. Next year marks the 80th anniversary of Rubowitz’s kidnapping and disappearance. His body has never been recovered.
What's more, this atrocity was committed less than two years after the liberation of the Nazi death camps. In yet another wicked policy the British blockade of Israel prevented Jews from escaping Nazi Europe and finding safe haven in the Land of Israel.
Rubowitz was hanging news posters for the Sternists when he was kidnapped. Evidence left at the scene linked Farran to the abduction and he was court-martialed on charges he murdered Rubowitz. Farran was acquitted by the British court. He was freed despite having confessed about the murder to his commanding officer. Requests by the Rubowitz family to re-open the investigation were ignored.
British crimes during the Mandate claimed many innocent lives beyond that of Alexander Rubowitz's.
Deserters from the British Army were part of the carrying out of the February 22, 1948 deadly terrorist attack on Jerusalem's Ben Yehuda Street. Two British army trucks loaded with explosives were driven into the crowded street and detonated and over 50 civilians were murdered and many more were wounded.
A Jerusalem street in the East Talpiot neighborhood was named after Rubowitz as a memorial and a historical marker was placed at the site of his abduction.
When Menachem Begin, the former Irgun commander, was elected prime minister of Israel in 1977 he launched a campaign to memorialize Irgun and Stern Group/LEHI martyrs. Not just streets were named after them but everything from communities to postage stamps were used to honor them.
Nearly 50 years after Begin started his efforts to recall the heroism that led to the creation of Israel, the question remains whether today’s young Jews can comprehend the depths of the sacrifices made to free Israel from British rule.
One thing is certain: the BBC’s biased news coverage of Israel endures as does undue criticism of Zionism by the British foreign service.