Lesser known heroes of Jewish history
Recently we presented a series of lectures at AACI Netanya on “Street people,” famous people who have streets named after them in Israel. This series was popular and informative, but I felt that we had excluded a whole group of people, those Jews and others who had played an important, even a heroic, role in Jewish history, but are relatively unknown, or even obscure. I have collected a list of such people, but space constrains me to choose a small number of them. Among the most deserving I have chosen five, all of whom merit attention.
· Isaac Rosenberg (1890-1918) was a British Jewish poet of WWI. He was born poor in Bristol and went to London to become an artist. A chance meeting at the National Gallery resulted in an older lady paying for his art courses at the Slade School. His life was short and seemingly simple. He made a trip to S. Africa and while he was there WWI was declared. He returned to London, enlisted in the British Army in 1914 and was killed fighting in the trenches in 1918 at the age of 28. Throughout his short life he wrote poetry, and it is for this that he has belatedly become famous, after a gap of over 60 years. He wrote a series of "poems from the trenches," that in their "fierce immediacy" have resulted in experts on WWI poets such as Jon Silkin (see "Poetry of the First World War") to declare him perhaps the greatest of them all. Here is one example, a wonderful metaphor for a bullet from "Dead Man's Dump"
"Out of those doomed nostrils and the doomed mouth,
Where the swift iron burning bee
Drained the wild honey of their youth."
Why was Rosenberg ignored for so long? Because he was Jewish in WWI England, because he was poor, because he was a private when the other famous poets, Wilfrid Owen, Siegfied Sasoon, etc., were officers, and because he died young. Although he died in obscurity, he is now acknowledged as a great poet and there is a plaque recognizing him on the wall outside the Whitechapel Library in East London where he worked.
· Shmuel Ziegelboim (1895-1943) was the Jewish representative to the Polish Government in exile in London in WWII. He tried desperately, but in vain, to try to awake public opinion to the atrocities being conducted against Polish Jewry by the Nazis. When the news arrived of the extermination of the Warsaw Ghetto, Ziegelboim committed suicide outside the Houses of Parliament in London on May 12, 1943, in protest at the passivity with which the world was permitting the Nazis to destroy the Jews of Europe. Before his death he wrote a letter to the President of Poland, he wrote "I cannot live while the remnants of the Jewish people in Poland, whose representative I am, are being exterminated." For his heroic, doomed act Shmuel Ziegelboim should be honored and remembered.
· Sir Solly Zuckerman (1904-1993) (later Baron Zuckerman) was born in S. Africa and became interested in biology. For a Master's Thesis he studied the baboons that have colonies on separate hillocks on the veldt. He went to England in 1926 and was befriended by several rich and well-connected Jewish families. He did his PhD on baboons at Oxford. In the 1930s the British War Ministry was desperate to obtain scientific data on the effects of shells and bombs on soldiers, their own and the enemy. They put out a request for proposals, to which Zuckerman submitted a proposal to carry out experiments on baboons, and he received the grant. He went out to S. Africa and in secrecy carried out the necessary work. He found that it was the blast from the explosion that was most effective in killing.
When the War came be was appointed the Head of a new Bombing Survey Unit, and his research showed that US bombs killed more enemy than the British ones, that he attributed to a difference in the detonator timing, hence resulting in changes to the British munitions. He became an aide to Air Chief Marshal Tedder and in this capacity was asked to determine what would be the most vulnerable targets for the air force in defending the landings on D-Day. Of all the possibilities he concluded that it was the railway engines that were most vulnerable, and it was these that were the main targets for RAF pilots in France. In this context he was probably responsible for the deaths of more German soldiers than any other Jew during WWII.
After the War he held several civilian positions concurrently; he was Head of the Anatomy Department at Birmingham University, he became the Secretary of the Royal Zoological Society and was in charge of the London Zoo, and he was appointed the Chief Scientific Advisor to the British Government (1964-71). He became the most powerful scientist in the UK, advising the British Government on topics from environmental protection to atomic bomb policy. Although he cut his ties to his family in S. Africa he never denied his Jewishness and was universally known as "Sir Solly."
· Richard Meinertzhagen (1878-1967), a non-Jew, was born in England to a German father and British mother. He chose a military career and was trained as an intelligence officer (spy). He was first sent to East Africa to help put down an uprising. He invited the chief of the restive tribes to a meeting, and when he was not satisfied with his response, he shot him dead. This resulted in more rioting, and so he was recalled to Britain. During WWI he was a Colonel in the British Army on the staff of Gen. Allenby in Egypt. In his memoirs he descried a "ruse" that he was involved in, of dropping a satchel near the Turkish lines to convince them that the British would attack again at Gaza, where the Turks were well dug in, rather than the risky attack across the desert to Beersheva. When this was successful, the Turks were outflanked at Gaza and were forced to withdraw.
Because the Versailles Conference after WWI was for countries, the Arabs and Jews could not be represented directly, but were represented by British officers, Col. T.E. Lawrence ("Lawrence of Arabia") for the Arabs, and Col. Richard Meinertzhagen for the Jews. As the representative of the Zionist interests at the Conference, Meinertzhagen played a very crucial role in helping to defend the rights of the Zionists. For this he was greatly thanked and appreciated by Chaim Weizmann, who was Chief of the Zionist delegation. After WWI, Meinertzhagen was the representative of the British Foreign Office in Palestine,and from his letters and reports we know a great deal of what happened during the Mandate period.
Meinertzhagen was an avid bird watcher and collector and had one of the greatest collections of bird artifacts in the world. But, he was found to have stolen items from the collections of others to enhance his own collection, and as well as having a violent streak, he was proved to be a self-serving liar. Nevertheless, he played a crucial role in the history of the Zionist enterprise.
· Zvika Greengold (1952- ) was born in Kibbutz Lohamei Hagetaot and was training to be an IDF tank commander at age 21 when the Yom Kippur war broke out in 1973. Since he had not been assigned to a unit he hitch-hiked to the Golan Heights front and there he commandeered a repaired tank and with two other loners, he set out towards the front. Because he had no correct designation the communications network called him "Force Zvika." His tank was hit and he was injured, but he changed tanks and continued, something he did four times during the following day. He was a lone tank and when he crested a hill he saw a huge column of tanks coming towards him, estimated at 150 Syrian tanks. They all had their lights on, presumably because they had recconoitered the area and found no opposition. Zvika began shooting down on them and then moved his position and shot again and continued doing this for hours, until the valley was blocked by burning tanks, and the rest of the tanks either retreated or were left by their crew. Zvika single-handedly destroyed 40 Syrian tanks and saved the Golan Heights from being overrun and saved Israel from a Syrian invasion. He fought for 20 hours and when reinforcements eventually arrived he collapsed and was taken to hospital. For his heroism he was given Israel's highest military award. Zvika was a child of Holocaust survivors and said that he felt they had survived so that he could be there to fight for and save Israel.
These then are some selected men who are generally unknown, but deserve greater appreciation and recognition for their contributions to Jewish history.
· Isaac Rosenberg (1890-1918) was a British Jewish poet of WWI. He was born poor in Bristol and went to London to become an artist. A chance meeting at the National Gallery resulted in an older lady paying for his art courses at the Slade School. His life was short and seemingly simple. He made a trip to S. Africa and while he was there WWI was declared. He returned to London, enlisted in the British Army in 1914 and was killed fighting in the trenches in 1918 at the age of 28. Throughout his short life he wrote poetry, and it is for this that he has belatedly become famous, after a gap of over 60 years. He wrote a series of "poems from the trenches," that in their "fierce immediacy" have resulted in experts on WWI poets such as Jon Silkin (see "Poetry of the First World War") to declare him perhaps the greatest of them all. Here is one example, a wonderful metaphor for a bullet from "Dead Man's Dump"
"Out of those doomed nostrils and the doomed mouth,
Where the swift iron burning bee
Drained the wild honey of their youth."
Why was Rosenberg ignored for so long? Because he was Jewish in WWI England, because he was poor, because he was a private when the other famous poets, Wilfrid Owen, Siegfied Sasoon, etc., were officers, and because he died young. Although he died in obscurity, he is now acknowledged as a great poet and there is a plaque recognizing him on the wall outside the Whitechapel Library in East London where he worked.
· Shmuel Ziegelboim (1895-1943) was the Jewish representative to the Polish Government in exile in London in WWII. He tried desperately, but in vain, to try to awake public opinion to the atrocities being conducted against Polish Jewry by the Nazis. When the news arrived of the extermination of the Warsaw Ghetto, Ziegelboim committed suicide outside the Houses of Parliament in London on May 12, 1943, in protest at the passivity with which the world was permitting the Nazis to destroy the Jews of Europe. Before his death he wrote a letter to the President of Poland, he wrote "I cannot live while the remnants of the Jewish people in Poland, whose representative I am, are being exterminated." For his heroic, doomed act Shmuel Ziegelboim should be honored and remembered.
· Sir Solly Zuckerman (1904-1993) (later Baron Zuckerman) was born in S. Africa and became interested in biology. For a Master's Thesis he studied the baboons that have colonies on separate hillocks on the veldt. He went to England in 1926 and was befriended by several rich and well-connected Jewish families. He did his PhD on baboons at Oxford. In the 1930s the British War Ministry was desperate to obtain scientific data on the effects of shells and bombs on soldiers, their own and the enemy. They put out a request for proposals, to which Zuckerman submitted a proposal to carry out experiments on baboons, and he received the grant. He went out to S. Africa and in secrecy carried out the necessary work. He found that it was the blast from the explosion that was most effective in killing.
When the War came be was appointed the Head of a new Bombing Survey Unit, and his research showed that US bombs killed more enemy than the British ones, that he attributed to a difference in the detonator timing, hence resulting in changes to the British munitions. He became an aide to Air Chief Marshal Tedder and in this capacity was asked to determine what would be the most vulnerable targets for the air force in defending the landings on D-Day. Of all the possibilities he concluded that it was the railway engines that were most vulnerable, and it was these that were the main targets for RAF pilots in France. In this context he was probably responsible for the deaths of more German soldiers than any other Jew during WWII.
After the War he held several civilian positions concurrently; he was Head of the Anatomy Department at Birmingham University, he became the Secretary of the Royal Zoological Society and was in charge of the London Zoo, and he was appointed the Chief Scientific Advisor to the British Government (1964-71). He became the most powerful scientist in the UK, advising the British Government on topics from environmental protection to atomic bomb policy. Although he cut his ties to his family in S. Africa he never denied his Jewishness and was universally known as "Sir Solly."
· Richard Meinertzhagen (1878-1967), a non-Jew, was born in England to a German father and British mother. He chose a military career and was trained as an intelligence officer (spy). He was first sent to East Africa to help put down an uprising. He invited the chief of the restive tribes to a meeting, and when he was not satisfied with his response, he shot him dead. This resulted in more rioting, and so he was recalled to Britain. During WWI he was a Colonel in the British Army on the staff of Gen. Allenby in Egypt. In his memoirs he descried a "ruse" that he was involved in, of dropping a satchel near the Turkish lines to convince them that the British would attack again at Gaza, where the Turks were well dug in, rather than the risky attack across the desert to Beersheva. When this was successful, the Turks were outflanked at Gaza and were forced to withdraw.
Because the Versailles Conference after WWI was for countries, the Arabs and Jews could not be represented directly, but were represented by British officers, Col. T.E. Lawrence ("Lawrence of Arabia") for the Arabs, and Col. Richard Meinertzhagen for the Jews. As the representative of the Zionist interests at the Conference, Meinertzhagen played a very crucial role in helping to defend the rights of the Zionists. For this he was greatly thanked and appreciated by Chaim Weizmann, who was Chief of the Zionist delegation. After WWI, Meinertzhagen was the representative of the British Foreign Office in Palestine,and from his letters and reports we know a great deal of what happened during the Mandate period.
Meinertzhagen was an avid bird watcher and collector and had one of the greatest collections of bird artifacts in the world. But, he was found to have stolen items from the collections of others to enhance his own collection, and as well as having a violent streak, he was proved to be a self-serving liar. Nevertheless, he played a crucial role in the history of the Zionist enterprise.
· Zvika Greengold (1952- ) was born in Kibbutz Lohamei Hagetaot and was training to be an IDF tank commander at age 21 when the Yom Kippur war broke out in 1973. Since he had not been assigned to a unit he hitch-hiked to the Golan Heights front and there he commandeered a repaired tank and with two other loners, he set out towards the front. Because he had no correct designation the communications network called him "Force Zvika." His tank was hit and he was injured, but he changed tanks and continued, something he did four times during the following day. He was a lone tank and when he crested a hill he saw a huge column of tanks coming towards him, estimated at 150 Syrian tanks. They all had their lights on, presumably because they had recconoitered the area and found no opposition. Zvika began shooting down on them and then moved his position and shot again and continued doing this for hours, until the valley was blocked by burning tanks, and the rest of the tanks either retreated or were left by their crew. Zvika single-handedly destroyed 40 Syrian tanks and saved the Golan Heights from being overrun and saved Israel from a Syrian invasion. He fought for 20 hours and when reinforcements eventually arrived he collapsed and was taken to hospital. For his heroism he was given Israel's highest military award. Zvika was a child of Holocaust survivors and said that he felt they had survived so that he could be there to fight for and save Israel.
These then are some selected men who are generally unknown, but deserve greater appreciation and recognition for their contributions to Jewish history.
posted by Jack Cohen at 6:45 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home