Alexander Rubowitz

Alexander Rubowitz

Alexander Rubowitz (born October 17, 1929 in Jerusalem ; † probably May 6, 1947 there ) was a member of the Jewish underground organization Lechi , who disappeared in Jerusalem in May 1947 under circumstances that have not yet been clarified. Members of a British special unit were suspected of having killed him. The case has not yet been resolved.

background

Alexander Rubowitz came from a family of Orthodox Jews . His grandfather, a rabbi from Eastern Europe, emigrated to Palestine in the 1850s . The father, Yedidya Rubowitz, was a pharmacist at the Rothschild Hospital in Jerusalem and opened the first pharmacy in Palestine.

Since around 1945 Alexander Rubowitz belonged to the Brit Hashmonaim , the religious branch of the underground group Lechi , which the British called the Stern Gang after their founder Avraham Stern . Lechi was responsible for numerous assassinations, kidnappings and acts of sabotage directed against the British mandate government. The group often sent out young people to distribute leaflets or posters, as they were more expendable than seasoned fighters and were punished more leniently if caught. Lechi had to rely on this form of propaganda because their radio station had been closed by the British police in 1946 and they had no newspaper. Every few days in Tel Aviv new posters called HaMa'as ( The Deed ) and the HeChazit ( The Front ) leaflet were produced and transported by taxi to Jerusalem, where they were distributed by young people.

Although the Rubowitz family sympathized with militant Jewish nationalism, they evidently knew little of the son's activities. The family only found out about his involvement when Alexander's older brother Ya'acov was appointed director of Ma'aleh High School . The principal complained about Alexander's activities and, in particular, that he was trying to recruit schoolmates for illegal underground activities that were rejected by the official Jewish authorities. Alexander Rubowitz admitted these allegations were true, but refused to give up his activities because he had sworn an oath and was expelled from the school. He also had to leave another school for the same reason. Ya'acov Rubowitz asked the leader of the Brit Hashmonaim , Yael Ben-Dov , to release his younger brother from his oath, but Alexander's mother, Miriam Rubowitz, refused to interfere in her son's affairs.

Alexander Rubowitz found a job with the Jewish daily Haaretz , which supported the Jewish Agency , and when his activities became known there he was fired. From then on he met every day with other boys from his group, who formed a veritable small "cell", and as the leader of this group with the battle name Haim was only active for Lechi . One of his friends, Ezra Yakim, later reported that Rubowitz longed to carry a gun and wished he would die for his commitment.

The disappearance

On the evening of May 6, 1947, two 13-year-old boys watched Alexander Rubowitz being dragged into a car by two men. Another boy approached one of the men, who spoke British English, showed him a police badge, and chased him away with a gun. From inside the car someone called out in Hebrew : I belong to the Rubowitz family. Then the boy saw someone hit the head in the back seat of the car. Such a scene was not unusual on the streets of Jerusalem at the time, as the Jewish underground fighters in particular regularly kidnapped British civilians, police officers and soldiers in order to exchange them for captured Jewish fighters. On the other hand, three more 14-year-old boys were arrested by the British in May 1947 alone.

The British Palestine Police suspected that the intelligence unit of Roy Farran , a highly decorated British soldier of World War II , had abducted Alexander Rubowitz. The suspicion that Farran was involved in the disappearance of Rubowitz arose because a gray floppy hat with his sewn initials had been found near the place where witnesses had last seen him. According to a later testimony, Rubowitz was taken to a remote location, tortured to extract information from him, and finally killed by Farran with a stone.

Farran was charged with the murder of Rubowitz and tried before a court-martial in Jerusalem. Farran's superior Bernard Fergusson , whom Farran allegedly confessed to the murder, refused to testify because he could have incriminated himself. The prosecutor was unable to prove that Rubowitz was dead and that the found hat belonged to Farran, and so the charges were dropped for lack of evidence. Subsequent attempts by the Rubowitz family to reopen the case were unsuccessful, and the boy's body was never found.

aftermath

In 2009 it became known that an unnamed Israeli living in the United States had hired a detective from New York to investigate the disappearance of Alexander Rubowitz and to find his body so that he could be buried. The detective, who specializes in searching for missing people, wanted to interview surviving members of the Palestine Police . The investigative documents into the case, which allegedly included a written confession from Farran, were believed to have been burned in Palestine in October 1947, but copies are still in British archives. The detective suspects Rubowitz's body in Wadi Qelt , a desert valley 27 kilometers east of Jerusalem.

An 87-year-old former member of the Palestine Police and current President of the Palestine Police Old Comrades' Association , which had criticized the deployment of Farran's unit as early as 1947, commented on the Rubowitz case: “I was vehemently against the squads, the incident never should have happened . "(Eng. I was firmly against these troops, this incident should never have happened. )

The English historian David Cesarani published a book on the Rubowitz case in 2009. According to his research, the documents in Palestine had been destroyed as Farran's lawyer threatened to make the machinations of the special forces, including torture, public.

In Jerusalem a street was named after Alexander Rubowitz.

literature

• David Cesarani: Major Farran's Hat. The untold Story of the Struggle to Establish the Jewish State. Da Capo Press, Cambridge MA 2009, ISBN 978-0-306-81845-5 .
• David Cesarani: Major Farran's Hat. Murder, Scandal and Britain's War against Jewish Terrorism, 1945-1948. Vintage Books, London 2010, ISBN 978-0-09-952287-4 .

Individual evidence

1. ^ ^{A b c} D. Pryce-Jones: "Trouble in Palesteine". Review of the book Major Farran's Hat: Murder, Scandal and Britain's War Against Jewish Terrorism , 1945–1948 by David Cesarani ( memento of July 23, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) ( English )
2. ^ Farran, Fergusson may be in UK , Palestine Post , October 8, 1947
3. ^ No action against Col. Fergusson , Palestine Post , October 16, 1947
4. ↑ ^{a b c} British War Hero To Be Investigated Again for Murder of Jewish 'Terrorist' on pallorium.com from March 28, 2009.
5. ↑ SAS hero's guilty secret on thejc.com v. March 26, 2009
6. ↑ jerusalem.muni.il ( Memento from January 19, 2012 in the Internet Archive )

Web links

• Alexander Rubowitz's CV on the Israel Defense Ministry website