feature
Why Veterans of Israel’s 1948 War of
Independence Too k up the Fight
any see the creation of the
modern-day state of Israel as part
of a historical narrative, in which
Israeli independence was a reaction to the
Holocaust. “The catastrophe which recently
befell the Jewish people — the massacre of
millions of Jews in Europe — was another clear
demonstration of the urgency of solving the
problem of its homelessness by reestablishing
in Eretz-Israel the Jewish State,” the provisional
government of Israel declared on May 14, 1948.

But when JNS interviewed nearly 30
veterans of the 1948 War of Independence
in Israel from October 2022 to January, all
of the octogenarians, nonagenarians and
centenarians said that 3,000 years of Jewish
history — and not the Shoah — drove them to
help reclaim the Jewish historic homeland.

These interviewees were found by visiting
nursing homes, kibbutzim and other sites in
Israel and abroad, often asking to speak with
the oldest people present. The roughly 30 who
agreed to talk about their experiences — the
majority in English with some Yiddish — spoke
for more than 60 hours collectively.

The veterans spanned Israeli-born sabras
who were active in the Jewish militias Irgun,
Lehi and the Haganah, as well as foreign
fi ghters who came to assist what would become
the Israel Defense Forces in Machal units. Both
sabras and foreign volunteers knew a great
deal about the Holocaust, and many had lost
relatives and friends. They met survivors who
recounted their experiences. But invariably, the
veterans said that they were motivated in their
service by a long cultural and historical memory
rather than World War II itself.

Ahead of Yom
Ha’atzmaut — Israel’s Independence Day, which
begins on the evening of April 25 and continues
through the following day — here are a few of
those stories.

Haganah Messenger
During some eight hours at kibbutz Gan Shmuel,
Itzik Mizrachi, 90, shared his story, gave a tour
of the kibbutz where he lives and invited JNS
to lunch at its dining hall. The Jerusalem-born
Mizrachi said he was a messenger in Haganah’s
youth wing, Gadna.

During the outbreak of the war in May 1948,
Mizrachi and his family were in the Mount
Scopus area, and Arabs blocked them from
taking roads to other safe areas. A mob
mobilized to try to kill them, he said, but the
patriarch of an Arab family, Abu Mustafa, who
shared their home stood guard at the door and
told the mob it would have to kill him fi rst.

Soon thereafter, Haganah members came in
an armored truck and told the family it had half
an hour to gather its things and come to safety.

Mizrachi, who remains in good health and
walks and drives on his own, said that he is the
seventh generation in his family to live in Israel,
after his ancestors, Sephardic Jews, left Spain
during the expulsion.

As a Haganah message runner, he studied
KAPAP — an acronym for krav panim el panim,
or close-quarter fi ghting — which Haganah
used to disguise its weapons training.

Mizrachi later studied with Imi Lichtenfeld,
founder of krav maga, and his son Rhon
Mizrachi is now one of the recognized
experts in that area.

Mizrachi said that
the ilony
Alex Z
tern Ruth S
izrachi Itzik M
26 APRIL 20, 2023 | JEWISH EXPONENT
Holocaust was only one chapter in Jewish
history. “Why would we allow that moment
alone to defi ne us as Jews?” he said. “Long
before the Holocaust, we said, ‘Next year in
Jerusalem’ every year during the Passover
seder.” The Holocaust was a motivator, but not the
main one. “For generations, we yearned for
our independence. There were many pogroms,
massacres and expulsions in our history. We
never let any of these defi ne us either,” he said.

South African Zionism
“The South African Jewish community was very
Zionist long before the Holocaust,” said Ruth
Stern, 97, a South African nurse who now lives
in Jerusalem.

The 800 South African volunteers in 1948
paled in number only to Americans (1,000).

Due to the representation from these two
nations in particular, English became the most
spoken language among machalniks, and most
foreign volunteers, who were likelier to know
Yiddish than Hebrew, fi rst spoke in Yiddish
with Israelis.

Stern, who went to Israel to
volunteer over her parents’
objections — “Why can’t you
be like your
yearned e
w ,
s n
o rati
“ For gene ence. There were
pend e
d ns in
n o
i i
r s
l u
u d
o p
n r
x e
o g
e f
u Tom T
res and
c a
s s
a either. ”
m ,
s s
u m
e o
n r
fi g
e o
these d
many p
f I
o y
n a
IZ R AC H
t e
l r
IT Z IK M
e v
e n
y. We
our histor
Itzik Mizrachi, Ruth Stern and Alex Zilony: Avi Kumar via JNS; Tom Tugend: USC Shoah Foundation via JNS
Israel fl ag bottom banner: ValeryBrozhinsky-iStock - Getty Images PlusGetty Images; Flag splash background: exxorian/DigitalVision VectorsGetty Images
M Avi Kumar | JNS.org



Declaration of State of Israel: Wikimedia Commons via Israel Ministry of Foreign Aff airs/Public Domian: Israel Declaration of Independence: Wikimedia Commons/Public Domain
nces the Declaration
David Ben-Gurion, the fi rst prime minister of Israel, publicly pronou portrait of Theodor
large a
h beneat
Aviv Tel
of the State of Israel on May 14, 1948, in
m of Art building
Herzl, founder of modern political Zionism, in the old Tel Aviv Museu
fi nished, were
yet not
was which
scroll, the
on Rothshild Street. The exhibit hall and
. Wallish
Otte prepared by
sisters and not go?” — said that she and her
peers knew about the Holocaust and that many
South African Jews of Lithuanian heritage lost
relatives back home.

“The Holocaust wasn’t why I volunteered or
why most other Jews did,” she insisted.

In 1948, she treated many patients who had
survived the Holocaust before their injuries in
the war. They experienced trauma on top of
trauma, she said.

She accounted for her choice to go to Israel
despite pressure from her parents with her spirit
of adventurousness. It’s not every 2,000 years
that one can see the Jewish state rebuilt, she said.

She didn’t want to wait another two millennia.

High-Flying Graphic Designer
Asked whether the Holocaust motivated him,
the late Alex Zilony, who died at 107 on March 3,
replied: “No. What a question!”
Zilony, who was born in Poland and grew up
in Israel, studied in the United Kingdom before
becoming a Haganah pilot. He was one of the
founders of the Israeli Air Force, and speaking
from his home in Tel Aviv, he said that he designed
the IAF emblem, which remains in use today.

“We have wanted a state for over 3,000 years,”
he said. “Maybe the possibility of building a
state was higher after the Holocaust because
we got many new immigrants and war veterans,
but Jews had been migrating since the 1920s
and even before this,” he said.

Zilony’s daughter, Ruth, who was present
during the interview, was surprised at her
father’s response. “This was not the answer I
expected,” she said, highlighting generational
diff erences in Israel today.

Despite the tendency of American, South African
and British volunteer pilots to pride themselves on
the proclamation that they helped solidify a victory
in 1948, Zilony was adamant that Israel would have
prevailed without that help.

Stay Alive!
“They say three Jews, fi ve opinions,” the late
Tom Tugend said in a phone call from his
California home late last year. “This time, it was
half a million of us, one opinion — stay alive!
Pretty much the whole Diaspora or every
Jew who could hold a gun sent someone to
represent their community.”
Despite having fl ed Nazi Germany to the
United States and later returned to Europe as
a U.S. soldier, Tugend insisted that his desire
to help create a Jewish state was a more
signifi cant motivator than the Holocaust.

Jews came from a variety of backgrounds,
noted Tugend, from Jewish IRA (Irish
Republican Army) arms smugglers to Indian
Jews. Some, like Tugend, had served in
the U.S. military, or in the British or French
armies in World War II. Some were offi cers,
while others lacked any military experience,
he said, and a few even came from Kenya.

“The South Africans were among the
most dedicated fi ghters,” he pointed
out. “There was a Jewish Texan cowboy
with a Southern accent. There was a
Jew with a Scottish accent, and I recall
one from Yorkshire whom nobody could
understand. They all wanted to defend
the new nation of Israel.” ■
Israeli Declaration
of Independence
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM 27