Beitar

In 1923 Zeev Zhabotinsky founded Beitar, an abbreviation in Hebrew standing for Brit Yosef Trumpeldor (The Yosef Trumperdor Covenant). The goal of the new alliance was to create a new breed of Jews that will be ready and able to build and manage the new state. A decade after the initiation the movement had several tens of thousands of members

In parallel to the training of the new Jew, the revisionist Zionist movement – already separate from the Jewish congress – focused on the struggle against the British colonial towards the establishment of the new State.

After the declaration of independence the members of the Etzel and Lekhi underground movements joined the newly established Israeli Defense Force. In the political arena the members formed the Herut Party and the more moderate were organized in the “Zionim Klaliyim” party. For almost 3 decades the right-wing parties were in the opposition and their unquestioned leader was Menachem Begin, who was regarded as the direct follower of Zeev Zhabotinsky. In 1977 Menachem Begin swept the elections and became the first right wing prime minister. Begin was known for his wit, sharp tongue, conscience and profound belief in the democratic state. Under Begin’s reign the peace treaty was signed with Egypt.

Zvika Bar Sheshet, the co-founder of “Shofarot Israel”, tells of his personal experience: “A few days after the end of the Six-Days War the government expanded the visiting area by the Western (Wailing) Wall. Soon after the place has been flattened to accommodate the multitude of visitors the Beitar movement had a ceremony by the Wall to commemorate the freeing of Eastern Jerusalem and the Western Wall. My father, Meir Bar Sheshet – a devoted Beitar Member, who came to Israel as an Etzel member on the ship “Exodus” – took me to the ceremony. We found a place in the front row (see lower right corner in the attached photo). I tried to blow the ram’s horn shofar while my father blew the long Yemenite shofar he, himself, made of a Kudu horn. One can see Menachem Begin, then the head of the opposition (head obscured by the flag)”.