Joseph Trumpeldor  – a hero in life and at death

 

Joseph Trumpeldor (1880-1920) led a heroic life as a Russian and later as a Jewish immigrant to Palestine. In Palestine he displayed many of the values held dear by the Jews of the Second Aliyah, including Jewish settlement, working the land and Jewish self-defense.

 

Trumpeldor was born in the North Caucasus of the Russian Empire. His father Wolf Trumpeldor had been forced into the Russian army as a 13-year-old boy and he served for a quarter of a century as part of the canton system for the Russification of Russia’s minorities, particular its Jews. Following his discharge, Wof was allowed to live outside the Pale of Settlement as a “useful Jew.” His home was assimilated Russian, although it identified strongly as Jewish. In his teens, Joseph was drawn to the Zionism of Theodor Herzl and he organized a Zionist group for the small number of Jews in his town.

 

Joseph was conscripted into the Russian army during Russia’s war with Japan, and during the Russo-Japanese War lost his left arm to shrapnel. After 100 days of hospitalization he insisted on completing his service but was promptly taken prisoner. He was in a POW camp for one year and organized Jewish activities there. On his release following the surrendering of the Russians, he was decorated for bravery by the tsarina and gifted a prosthetic arm.

 

In 1912 he became part of the large movement of Jews out of Russia (primarily to the United States), and immigrated to Palestine where he joined Degania by Lake Kinneret. However, as a Russian citizen he was deported by the Turks to Egypt during the First World War and befriended Vladimir Jabotinsky there. The two of them attempted to persuade the British in Egypt to form a Jewish military unit to help oust the Turks from Palestine, but the British would only agree to a Jewish transport unit, the Zion Mule Corps, and this fought in the British attempt to penetrate Turkish lines at the Battle of Gallipoli. This unit was disbanded following the defeat of the British in this campaign. However, the British finally acceded to the lobbying of Jabotinsky and Trumpeldor and formed a five-battalion Jewish Legion which fought in Palestine.

 

After the First World War, Trumpeldor returned as a civilian to Palestine and found the Zionist movement absorbed in infighting between its leaders. Trumpeldor took it upon himself to resolve these personal disputes so that the Zionist movement could become functional to face the many challenges that were a consequence of the recent Balfour Declaration and its intent to form a Jewish state.  

 

Because of his military experience, Trumpeldor became a key commander in the defense organization HaShomer (the Watchman) and he was sent by them to organize the defense of Kfar Giladi.

 

HaShomer was formed in 1909 by Socialist Zionists to protect Jewish settlements against Arab gangs and Bedouin tribes. Its predecessor was a defense organization called Bar Giora formed two years earlier to provide protection to a few specific settlements. However, its members decided to disband Bar Giora to form an organization that would provide protection to the entire Yishuv. Until the formation of HaShomer, settlements had often relied upon Arabs as watchmen, basically as a form of protection money.

 

HaShomer never numbered more than 100 members. All were armed, although they tried to avoid armed conflict whenever possible. They dressed in local garb and used horses for rapid mobility. HaShomer also established a number of their own settlements, and this included Tel Hai, Tel Adash and Kfar Giladi.

 

HaShomer was the forerunner of the Haganah, which as it became larger encompassed almost all the youths and adults in the Jewish settlements. The Haganah would in turn evolve into the Jewish Defense Forces.

 

Following his death and because of his unifying activities, Trumpeldor became a national hero and symbol of Jewish self-defense against tremendous odds for both the right-wing and left-wing of Jewish Palestinian politics.

 

The right-wing Revisionist Zionist youth movement (the precursor to Likud) under Jabotinsky named its youth movement Betar, an acronym for "Covenant of Joseph Trumpeldor." The city of Beitar was the last place to fall during the Bar Kochba Revolt against Rome. The left-wing remembers him as the defender of kibbutzim. The Gdud HaAvoda, the Joseph Trumpeldor Work and Defense Battalion, was founded in the year he died and its members established several kibbutzim. 

 

His activities on behalf of Jewish self-defense were very relevant at this time, since although neither side was then aware of it, this battle was the beginning of Jewish-Arab armed conflict in Palestine. The Arabs would soon organize riots throughout the country under the leadership of Amin al-Husseini, the Mufti of Jerusalem.

 

Jewish settlement was then a priority for the Zionist movement and the kibbutz movement comprised the cream of this settlement. Nowadays, settlement has lost much of its luster except among a certain sector of the population. The words settlement and settlers have even received a slightly negative connotation as they relate to Judea and Samaria, primarily as a result of foreign pressure, but also a result of an apologetic attitude among left-wing Israelis and the feeling that the Palestinians have been wronged and some recompense is due to them. Above right-wing and left-wing politics, it is unlikely that Joseph Trumpeldor would ever have agreed with this.