1907: The Jew who Wanted an Alliance with the Nazis and Fascists

This day marked the birth of Avraham Stern, the founder of the militant Jewish Zionist group “Lehi”, which fought against the British. “Lehi” was short for “Lohamei Herut Israel”, which roughly means “Fighters for the Freedom of Israel”. The goal of that organization was to achieve an independent Jewish state in Palestine. Since at that time Britain had supremacy of Palestine, members of the “Lehi” fought against the British, wanting to force them to finally give independence to the Jews.

Avraham Stern was the founder of “Lehi”, which was also called the “Stern gang” after him. The methods of this organization were violent. For example, in 1944 they killed British politician Lord Moyne, who was a minister in Churchill’s government responsible for Middle East. Later they killed a UN envoy – the famous Count Folke Bernadotte – who was a descendant of the Swedish royal family. They even participated in the bloody massacre against the Arabs in Palestine. Because of these actions, Stern’s “Lehi” was regarded as a terrorist organization.

Interestingly, Avraham Stern as head of the “Lehi” during World War II tried to arrange an alliance with Hitler’s Germany. In fact, Stern considered the British a greater enemy of the Jews than the Nazis. So he offered the Germans that “Lehi” would fight on their side against the British and, in return, Germany would send off Jews from Europe to Palestine, where they would found their own country. Avraham Stern gained a lot of opponents among the Jews and among the British. He was killed already in 1942 in Palestine. It is interesting that one of his successors as the leader of “Lehi” was none other than later Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir.