'Jabotinsky's Children: Polish Jews and the Rise of Right-Wing Zionism'

H-Judaic Martin on Heller, 'Jabotinsky's Children: Polish Jews and the Rise of Right-Wing Zionism'

Review published on Friday, September 14, 2018

Daniel Kupfert Heller. Jabotinsky's Children: Polish Jews and the Rise of Right-Wing Zionism. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2017. 352 pp. $35.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-691-17475-4.

Reviewed by Sean Martin (Western Reserve Historical Society, Cleveland) Published on H-Judaic (September, 2018) Commissioned by Katja Vehlow (University of South Carolina)

Printable Version: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showpdf.php?id=52793

The figure of Vladimir Jabotinsky (1880-1940), founder of the Jewish Legion in the British Army during World War I and of the World Union of Zionist-Revisionists in 1925, continues to intrigue historians and the Jewish public, not least because of his support for authoritarianism and military force. In this well-researched and ably argued study, Heller explains how many in Betar, the Zionist youth movement associated with the Revisionists, came to advocate military force in pursuit of their goals. Founded by Aharon Propes in Riga, Latvia, in 1923, Betar grew to develop branches in other countries, especially Poland. Jabotinsky and Betar were often described by their opponents as “Jewish fascists,” a term that reflects their position among the European Right. This tightly focused study of Zionist party politics in the 1930s tells the story of a generation of youth who followed a senior political leader often in conflict with other leading Zionists. Heller helps us understand the appeal of authoritarianism and, at times, violent solutions to political problems.

Jabotinsky’s Children is divided into six thematic chapters, on Jabotinsky’s encounter with young Zionists; the appeal of fascism; the definition of “youth” and the role of this amorphous group within the international movement; the influence of Poland and Polish culture and politics on the youth of Betar; efforts to work with the many branches of Betar in Poland’s small towns; and the growing acceptance of violence as a necessary tactic in the struggle to realize Zionist goals. At the heart of Heller’s work is his explanation of Jabotinsky’s “ideological dexterity” (p. 252), the author’s polite term for Jabotinsky’s preferred style of ambiguity and contradiction. Heller shows how Jabotinsky effectively used his rhetorical talent for his own political ends. He also demonstrates how in later decades Israeli politicians on both the right and left reached back to Jabotinsky’s words as support for their own aims. While Jabotinsky’s rhetoric is often complicated and frustrating, Heller is a skilled guide through political disputes and party splits.

One of the most compelling sections of the text concerns how Betar leaders strove to cooperate with and even emulate Polish political leaders. The youth of Betar courted Polish authorities by staging events at Polish historical monuments, venerating Polish political heroes, and paying respect to the increasingly authoritarian leadership. Governmental representatives often responded positively, even sometimes providing rifles and rifle training. Heller demonstrates quite clearly that Jabotinsky’s followers were affected by the political environment in which they grew up. The youth of Betar maneuvered within that environment to attain their own goals—specifically, support for the building of the Revisionist movement and emigration to Palestine. Heller focuses squarely on the larger story

Citation: H-Net Reviews. Martin on Heller, 'Jabotinsky's Children: Polish Jews and the Rise of Right-Wing Zionism'. H-Judaic. 09-14-2018. https://networks.h-net.org/node/28655/reviews/2415221/martin-heller-jabotinskys-children-polish-jews-and-rise-right-wing Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. 1 H-Judaic of Zionist politics and not solely on the history of Jews in Poland. His story most certainly transcends Poland’s interwar borders.

Heller’s command of the sources in Hebrew, Yiddish, Polish, and Russian enables him to both explain the rhetoric of Jabotinsky and outline the experiences of small-town Jewish youth. Though titled Jabotinsky’s Children, no figure emerges from the text quite as clearly as Jabotinsky himself. The “children” discussed at some length include Betar founder Aharon Propes; Menachem Begin, whose later political career alone justifies this study; Abba Ahimeir, a maximalist within the Revisionist camp; and Avraham Stavsky, who was convicted in 1934 of the murder of Chaim Arlosoroff, a Labor Zionist leader in Mandate Palestine. Stavsky was later killed in the attack on the Altalena, the Irgun ship attacked on the orders of David Ben-Gurion. Heller details well the legacy of Betar in later years, but none of Jabotinsky’s followers feature as prominently as the “father” of the movement.

While Heller notes that nearly half of the members of Betar were young women, the story told here concerns young men. This is most likely a consequence of the few sources available, but it is also a reminder of the work that remains to be done in the field. And while Heller effectively uses the YIVO autobiographies of Jewish youth to outline the lives of those attracted to Betar in the small towns, additional studies that focus less on politics and more on social history may yield additional perspectives. On another note, Heller admonishes other scholars for their use of the phrase “Polish- Jewish” relations (pp. 14, 134), claiming rightly that these adjectives imply fixed identities. But his solution to juxtapose “Polish Jews” and “Catholic Poles” is also less than adequate. In truth, our vocabulary simply fails us, and we are unable to convey the complexities of a group’s identity or identities in one simple term. Heller explains the difficulty but, like the rest of us, does not come up with a satisfactory solution.

The most important question Heller addresses is the use of violence to achieve one’s political ends. His topic fascinates precisely because people want to know how and when some in the Zionist movement began advocating for and accepting violence to achieve their goals. The implicit assumption, by Heller and his readers, is that we cannot condone this violence even as we live in nations such as the United States and Israel that were formed precisely because of the effects of violence. Through Jabotinsky and his followers, Heller forces us to confront that the formation of a political state often requires violence. To be sure, Heller himself neither condones nor condemns. His objective tone throughout the volume assures the reader of his analytical talent and gives the reader confidence that the author’s future work will be as comprehensive and compelling. This is a major contribution to our understanding of the development of Zionist politics and to our knowledge of the influence of Polish political culture on Jewish youth.

Citation: Sean Martin. Review of Heller, Daniel Kupfert, Jabotinsky's Children: Polish Jews and the Rise of Right-Wing Zionism. H-Judaic, H-Net Reviews. September, 2018.URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=52793

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.