In the first half of the last century, few Jews impacted the future of their people as much as Vladimir Jabotinsky. A great writer, orator, and politician, he was a born activist and a leading figure in the combative Jewish community of Odessa, Russia. He was the founder of Revisionist Zionism, a doctrine that remains alive today, and his name is a source of continued reverence.

By Zevi Ghivelder

The year 2025 marks the 130th anniversary of the publication of the book O Jewish State, a seminal work by Theodor Herzl, born in Hungary in 1860, and the centenary of the launch of the revisionist theory of Zionism, formulated by Jabotinsky, born in Russia, in 1880. These two greatest exponents of political Zionism were liberals in the classical sense, having advocated free enterprise, the free market, and private property as essential attributes for the social and economic development of a future homeland for the Jewish people, while also emphasizing the importance of always cultivating a sense of solidarity in all segments of the Jewish community. Neither was religious, but both called for the primacy of maintaining and enhancing the ethical and moral values of Judaism as bulwarks of the sovereign nation that would come to exist.

THE PROFILE

Vladimir (Zeev, his Hebrew name) Jabotinsky was born on October 17, 1880, into a middle-class Jewish family in the Russian city of Odessa, in Crimea, on the Black Sea. At 18, he left Odessa to study law in Italy and Switzerland, where he also worked as a foreign correspondent for several Russian newspapers. His authoritative articles earned him recognition and admiration. His writings were signed with a literary pseudonym. Swing.

Zeev returned to Odessa in 1901 to work on a newspaper, but the 1903 pogrom against Jews in Kishinev spurred him to pursue Zionist activism. Although he admitted not having maintained close and continuous contact with Judaism in his youth, he took a leading role in organizing Jewish self-defense units in Odessa. He then traveled throughout Russia, encouraging the creation of dozens of units with similar defensive structures. He was elected a delegate to the Sixth International Zionist Congress, held in Basel, Switzerland, where he became fascinated by the leader Theodor Herzl, becoming his fervent follower. In the following years, he worked to disseminate the Hebrew language and culture in Russia, soon becoming the most sought-after speaker and most acclaimed journalist in the country's Zionist sphere. After the outbreak of World War I in 1, he went to the war front as a correspondent for a leading liberal Moscow newspaper. He ended up in Alexandria, Egypt, where thousands of Jews deported from Palestine by the Ottoman authorities were concentrated. There he met the great pioneer Yosef Trumpeldor (1914-1880), and together they worked to establish a military force that gave rise to the Jewish Legion. He then went to London, where he worked to have the Legion incorporated into the British military and, at the same time, recognized internationally. This sentiment was realized in August 1920 with the creation of the first Jewish Legion. Jabotinsky served in it as a lieutenant and participated in the fighting to liberate Palestine from Turkish rule.

During Passover In 1920, he led the Haganah defense organization in Jerusalem, which successfully suppressed successive Arab riots. For his participation in a clandestine military organization, he was sentenced by the British Mandate government to 15 years in prison. Due to public outrage against the verdict, he was granted amnesty and released from Acre prison. The following year, he served as a member of the Zionist Executive. After disagreements with the movement's leadership, he split from it and, in 1925, established the Union of Zionist-Revisionists, which demanded the immediate establishment of a Jewish state in the British Mandate territory, even fighting in an armed capacity if necessary. Two years earlier, he had founded the Betar youth movement, designed to educate its members in the assimilation of solid nationalist principles.

From 1928 to 1929, he took up residence in British Palestine and edited the Hebrew daily Donate Hayom, while simultaneously increasing his growing political activity. He embarked on a lecture tour of European cities, after which British officials prohibited his return to Tel Aviv. From then on, he lived in the Diaspora. Impressed by Hitler's rise, he dedicated himself to calling for a Jewish boycott of Germany, but this initiative failed due to lack of support. In 1935, after the Zionist Executive rejected his program, stating that Zionism's goal was the immediate establishment of a Jewish state against all and sundry, Jabotinsky decided to resign from the official Zionist movement. He strengthened Revisionism, focusing on growing political activity.

In 1937, he consolidated the Irgun Tzvai Leumi organization, which became the military arm of his movement, also tasked with chartering clandestine ships with the mission of transporting Jews fleeing Nazism to British Palestine. These vessels often managed to circumvent the naval blockade along the mandated territory's coast.

Meanwhile, he continued to write novels, short stories, and articles on politics and social and economic issues. Among his literary creations, The Jewish Legion, Prelude to Delilah  e The Five served as an inspiration to Jews throughout the world.

Jabotinsky was fluent in many languages and translated some classics of world literature into Hebrew. From 1939 to 1940, he worked in England and the United States, hoping to establish a Jewish army to fight alongside the Allies against Nazi Germany. In New York, he consolidated the Revisionist movement, attended book signings for his books translated into English, and gave numerous lectures. He was always accompanied by a young man who volunteered as his secretary, named Bentsion Netanyahu, who became an important historian and had three sons: Yonatan "Yoni" Netanyahu, a hero who gave his life in Operation Entebbe; Iddo, an Israeli physician and playwright; and Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu, the current Prime Minister of Israel.

On August 4, 1940, during a visit to a Betar training camp, he suffered a massive heart attack and died. In his will, he requested that he be buried in the Land of Israel. His remains rest on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem.

THE DOCTRINE

As the founder of the Revisionist Zionist Movement in 1925, Zeev Jabotinsky saw himself as a legitimate successor to Herzl's political Zionism. He objectively proposed the establishment of a Jewish state as a solution to the crucial and vital problems faced by Jews in Eastern Europe. Influenced by the nationalist currents that were gaining ground and gaining adherents in Europe, he participated in the meetings of an international committee in Finland. This committee discussed the living conditions of the various minorities in various European countries, and supported the establishment of cultural and linguistic autonomy for the minorities living in Russia, with an emphasis on the specific situation of oppression against Jews. He supported the general theme of distributive justice of the wealth of nations and extended this concept of justice to possible future relations between Jews and Arabs in the land of Israel.

Jabotinsky considered the need to protect individualism to be crucial, since "every individual is a king." He endorsed the emerging trade union movements in Europe, which should be part of the economies' production chains, always adhering to the principles of fair competition, while also envisioning an arbitration system that should be implemented by a wide range of government systems. He devoted special attention to what he called the absorption regime, that is, the welcoming of masses of immigrants from the neediest countries, thus targeting future immigration to the Jewish State.

At its core, Jabotinsky's doctrine proposed a Jewish state with social welfare and a liberal structure. Strictly speaking, it followed the path laid out by Herzl since the first International Zionist Congress, held in 1897. In his writings, he outlined the steps to be taken before the establishment of the state, emphasizing the need to raise funds for the viability of a future Jewish state.

He argued that, after the restoration of the Jewish ancestral homeland, the natural path would be to address internal problems of social justice along the lines of Western European social democracies. He noted that, once established, the state would have the obligation to guarantee its citizens the necessary conditions for the strengthening of individual dignity. Although he had bordered on anarchism in his youth, Jabotinsky always paid attention to social issues, but he adamantly rejected Marxist propositions and railed against the concept of the union of all workers worldwide. This stance materialized in his challenge to the ideas of Russian thinker Ber Borochov (1881-1917), who had formulated the framework of socialist Zionism, which became the majority current in the Zionist movement of that time.

Jabotinsky developed the concept of social justice, which was unrelated to issues inherent in workers' conditions. He considered it essential to provide people with minimum conditions to meet their needs, reduced to five basic items that the state would be obligated to provide: food, housing, clothing, education, and healthcare. He explained that during the period of construction of the Jewish State, class struggle would not be tolerated, through the imposition of agreements and arbitration to resolve potential labor disputes. Looking to the future, he insisted on the development of Jewish settlements, which should prepare for the absorption of immigrants, thus creating a Jewish demographic majority in the future sovereign country.

Since the founding of his Revisionist movement, Jabotinsky opposed socialism. He assessed social problems within the sphere of the poorest classes, not necessarily linked to the working classes. He opposed the solutions proposed by socialists: "They thought of changing the entire economic structure, instead of focusing on the real issue: the elimination of poverty."

Zeev Jabotinsky was an ardent defender of the concept of Greater Israel, a term that over the centuries has harbored biblical and political meanings to refer to Israel's historical, or desired, borders. The Torah contains various geographical definitions regarding the Land of Israel. Jabotinsky always adhered to the biblical view that the aforementioned territory is an inheritance given by God to the Jewish People. This concept, as he proposed, is based on the Holy Scriptures and is clearly expressed in passages from Exodus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, and also in the teachings of later prophets. From the beginning of his activism, Jabotinsky incorporated the biblical conception of the Land of Israel into his geographic configuration. The first Revisionist Zionist groups based in British Palestine, such as Betar and Irgun, considered the territory of Transjordan to be part of Greater Israel. After the country's establishment in 1948, the Revisionists remained faithful to the Greater Israel framework, extending only from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. 

THE LEGION

In 1914, when World War I broke out, British Jews, both men and women, volunteered for military service. However, because many Jews in the United Kingdom lacked British citizenship, they were unable to join the regular army. From Ottoman Palestine, Jews from Russia, Turkey, and other countries lobbied the British government to be allowed to enlist. Eventually, they were attached to a British regiment called the Zion Mule Corps. This contingent served in combat, some intense, such as that of Gallipoli, earning praise from British authorities. As soon as the Gallipoli campaign ended, the Corps was disbanded, but many of those who had contributed to its creation wished to remain in military service in some capacity. Their main spokesmen, operating in London, were the influential Zionists Vladimir Jabotinsky and Yossef Trumpeldor.

Jabotinsky and other activists pressured British authorities to form a Jewish fighting group, a Jewish Legion, which, with its extensive knowledge of the Middle Eastern territories, could play a key role in the campaign to liberate Palestine from Turkish rule. But some voices within the British Jewish community opposed the creation of a Jewish Legion. They argued that Jews should assimilate into the empire rather than dissociate themselves from it, as this could fuel anti-Semitism. The more appropriate approach, they said, would be a demonstration of Anglo-Saxon Jews' complete loyalty to the United Kingdom.

The debate raged throughout 1916 and 1917. As the war progressed, authorities began to consider the possibility of forming a Jewish force, or at least a predominantly Jewish one. This would meet the need to incorporate new recruits into the British armed forces—young Russian Jews who lived in large numbers in the United Kingdom.

Lieutenant Colonel John Henry Patterson, a non-Jew, who had supervised the Zion Mule Corps, was instructed to organize a Jewish regiment and the news was announced in the newspaper London Gazette, on August 23, 1917. To appease sectors of Anglo-Saxon Jewry opposed to its formation, the Jewish Legion was enlisted in the 38th, 39th, 40th, and 42nd Battalions of the Royal Fusiliers, a regiment based in London. Its ranks were composed of Russian immigrants, Russian Jews, and Jews from other countries. On February 2, 1918, the 38th Battalion marched proudly through the city of London. The next day, it left England for the Middle East. Patterson was struck by the pride with which these men extolled their Jewishness, even though the vast majority had no idea what Zionism was. The Jews of the Legion fought in the Jordan Valley and at the Battle of Megiddo. The regiments were disbanded between 1919 and 1921. Many young soldiers embraced Zionism, thanks to Jabotinsky's engaging preaching, and remained in Palestine. Others returned to London and elsewhere. In 1919, those still serving in the British forces received a regimental badge bearing the image of a Minorá and the word Kadima (forward, in Hebrew).

Jews who served in the Jewish Legion are considered heroes of the people of Israel. Zeev Jabotinsky's name was forever linked to the Jewish Legion. It was largely thanks to his dedication that the world witnessed, after centuries of darkness, the emergence of a proud Jewish military force. Yossef Trumpeldor died in 1920, defending the settlement of Tel Hai, a landmark of Jewish pioneering in ancient Palestine, from an Arab attack.

THE BETAR

Founded in 1923 in Riga, Latvia, by Zeev Jabotinsky, the name Betar is a Hebrew acronym for Brit Yossef Trumpeldor. It is also the name of the strong Jewish man who survived the Bar Kochba Revolt in 136 CE. Betar, now over a hundred years old, became the youth wing of the Revisionist movement that opposed socialist Zionism.

Originally smaller than other Zionist movements, Betar became more attractive not only to Jewish youth but also to many adults who considered its ideology, politics, and activities more effective in realizing the Zionist ideal.

The first official Betar world conference took place in Danzig (now Gdańsk, Poland) in 1931, when Jabotinsky was formally announced as the leader of the movement, which, by then, had already spread and had followers in the largest communities in the diaspora countries.

Betar focused on developing a strong nationalist sentiment. Advocating offensive and objective action to establish a Jewish state, the movement dedicated itself diligently to learning military action. In British Palestine, the movement established itself as the youth wing of the Irgun Tzvai Leumi. This clandestine organization, led by Menachem Begin, was responsible for armed initiatives and acts of sabotage against British military targets. Despite the repression it suffered, the Irgun achieved significant successes that contributed to the growth of its fighters, including young members of Betar.

Alongside fierce conflicts with the Zionist socialist youth movement, Betar continued to grow and dedicate itself to paramilitary training, as well as actively participating in rescue operations for illegal Jewish immigrants. The broad reach and military ingenuity of Betar and Irgun extended to air and naval units.

Betar members constituted the bulk of the rank and file of the Union of Zionist Revisionists and the Irgun. At the second Betar world conference in Krakow in 1935, Jabotinsky proposed a codified text of Betar ideology, called The Oath, which stipulated in its first paragraph: "I dedicate my life to the rebirth of the Jewish State, with a Jewish majority, on both sides of the Jordan River." A year earlier, Betar had established disciplined work brigades in the Land of Israel, based in villages and settlements. Most were located in the Upper Galilee, but after the outbreak of the Arab riots in 1936, units were also established in the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem's Old City.

Betar expanded enormously during the third decade of the 20th century, reaching 1938 members in several countries by 90. During World War II, many Betar members volunteered in Palestine to serve in British Army units and later joined the Jewish Brigade, which, flying the British flag, fought in Italy.

Most of Betar's European branches were destroyed in the Holocaust. A few thousand members escaped and joined the anti-Nazi partisans. Revisionist groups participated in ghetto revolts, notably in Warsaw, Vilna, and Bialystok. With the disintegration of European Jewry, Israel became the center of the movement. After the declaration of independence, Irgun and Betar formed the Herut party, which remained in opposition to the new country's first government.

Zevi Ghivelder is a writer and journalist.