Brit HaBirionim

Brit HaBirionim combined a small underground organization with public protest and newspaper agitation against the British Mandatory government.[1] Its members called the Mandatory authorities a “foreign occupier” and campaigned against their rule.[3] Although it had only about 30 active members and a few score of sympathizers, the group dominated the Revisionist party organ in Palestine, Hazit Ha'am.[1]

Its opposition also extended to Mapai and the leadership of the Yishuv, against whom its newspaper conducted a vocal campaign.[4] Ahimeir and the group shared the Revisionist objective of “a Hebrew state on both sides of the Jordan.”[2] Its activities were limited in scope, and its demonstrations were nonviolent despite its incendiary political language.[1][2]

Abba Ahimeir joined the Revisionist movement in 1928 and advocated active opposition to the Mandatory government.[5] Brit HaBirionim emerged in 1930 as the formalization of a network created by his Bet Sefer cadets.[1][2] Alongside Ahimeir, the poet Uri Zvi Greenberg and the writer Yehoshua Yeivin were leading figures in the organization.[3]

The group's name drew on the ancient biryonim, associated with the Zealots of the Second Temple period.[2] In a retrospective opinion article, Yossi Ahimeir credits Greenberg with naming the organization and interprets its reference to ancient Jewish “brigands” as invoking fighters against Roman rule rather than criminals.[6] He portrays its activists as young nationalists responding to the calls of Ahimeir, Greenberg, and Yeivin.[6]

The group's newspaper, Hazit Ha'am—“People's Front”—was established in 1931 after Jabotinsky lost control of Do'ar Ha-Yom.[7] It followed the closure of Ha'am by several months.[4] The surviving online archive of Ha'am, published in Jerusalem, covers March 24 through August 7, 1931; those archive dates do not by themselves establish its precise closure date.[8]

Ahimeir edited Hazit Ha'am, while Dr. Hareven served as its “editor in charge” under Jabotinsky's supervision.[7] Published in Hebrew in Tel Aviv, it appeared weekly or biweekly.[4][7] Its digitized holdings encompass 189 issues and 786 pages, dated January 29, 1932, through June 12, 1934.[4] Eliahu Ben-Horin succeeded Jabotinsky as editor-in-chief in 1934, and the publication was subsequently renamed Ha-Yarden, then Ha-Mashkif and Ha-Yom.[7]

Brit HaBirionim disintegrated shortly after Arlosoroff's murder in June 1933, amid persecution by the Mandatory authorities.[1][2] Ahimeir was arrested, and police seized Revisionist archives and some of his writings.[2] The murder indictment against him was formally dropped on May 16, 1934; separate sedition proceedings followed on July 12, 1934.[2] He received a twenty-one-month prison sentence, later reduced to eighteen months, and was released in August 1935.[9]

In October 1930, Brit HaBirionim demonstrated against the visit of Drummond Shiels, the British under-secretary of state for the colonies, whom it associated with the Passfield White Paper.[2] Ahimeir and two others were arrested.[2] In his retrospective account, Yossi Ahimeir dates this first demonstration to October 9 in Tel Aviv and says that the protest and subsequent trial received prominent newspaper coverage.[6] He presents the nonviolent action as an effort to change Jewish public opinion and encourage young people to pursue national liberation.[6]

The group opposed the official census in 1931 and called for a boycott.[1][2] It feared that the census could lead to the establishment of a representative legislative assembly with an Arab majority.[2] Ahimeir was arrested repeatedly from 1930 onward for organizing illegal public action.[5]

In February 1932, members disrupted a Hebrew University ceremony installing Norman Bentwich as professor of peace studies.[2] Ahimeir and his followers opposed Bentwich's dovish views and his association with Judah Magnes and Brit Shalom.[2] University security called the police, Ahimeir was arrested, and fifteen students were suspended following the disruption.[2]

Brit HaBirionim also organized the sounding of the shofar at the Western Wall at the conclusion of the Yom Kippur service.[1] Under British rule, blowing a shofar or bringing a Torah scroll to the Wall was illegal, and those who did so risked arrest.[10] Young people secretly brought shofars to the Wall and sounded them at the end of the fast.[10]

After Nazi Germany instituted its April 1, 1933 boycott of Jewish businesses, the group attacked the German consulates in Jerusalem and Jaffa and removed their Nazi flags.[2] The German imperial flag was left in place.[2] Before this action, the group had treated Hitler as another persecutor of Jews; the state-sponsored exclusion of Jews in Germany shocked its members.[2]

Brit HaBirionim's short history brought together opposition to British rule, resistance to restrictions on Jewish religious practice at the Western Wall, and direct action against Nazi symbols.[1] Its public demonstrations remained limited in scale, but its control of Hazit Ha'am gave it a platform within Revisionist political life beyond its small active membership.[1]

The newspaper opposed not only the Mandatory government but also Mapai and the Yishuv's leaders.[4] Its surviving run preserves the group's political journalism alongside its better-known demonstrations, census boycott campaign, and consular flag removals.[1][4]

The group occupied the extreme right of Revisionism, and its leaders challenged both the Labor movement and positions taken by Jabotinsky and the Revisionist party.[1][9] Ahimeir sought a revolutionary Zionism and declared, “Our teacher is not Herzl or Jabotinsky, but Lenin,” admiring Lenin's practical path rather than embracing Leninist doctrine, the Soviet Union, or international Communism.[2] Some leaders and supporters expressed support for Italian Fascism and approval of Hitler's mass following and actions against the German left; these politically charged statements should not be generalized into a uniform position held by every member.[9]

Brit HaBirionim strongly opposed the Transfer Agreement, regarding it as a surrender of Jewish national honor for money, while supporters considered it a practical means of helping Jews leave Germany with property and advancing Zionism.[11] Hazit Ha'am attacked Arlosoroff on June 9 and June 16, 1933, over his pursuit of the transfer of Jewish property from Nazi Germany.[9] This rhetoric formed part of the political context of the suspicions following his murder, not evidence that the group committed it.[9]

The 1933–34 murder proceedings deepened divisions within the Yishuv and the Zionist movement.[12] Many Labor movement members saw evidence of criminal fascist tendencies among Revisionists, while Revisionists and other non-Labor circles denounced the affair as a “blood libel of Jews against Jews.”[12] Ahimeir denied plotting the murder, and the accusation against him was dropped; his subsequent imprisonment concerned the separate proceedings over his organizational activity.[5][9] Abraham Stavsky, another defendant, was convicted and subsequently acquitted by the Supreme Court for lack of corroborating evidence.[12] A state commission concluded in 1985 that the murder could not be attributed to any political group and that neither the perpetrators nor their motive could be determined.[9]