>When a wave of pogroms swept the city in 1905, some Jews including Ze’ev Dov Begin—organized a Jewish self-defense force. In one legendary incident, Polish soldiers instigated a pogrom and Menachem’s father went out to the street to investigate. Menachem later recalled that he and the rest of the family received the tragic news that a soldier had shot Ze’ev Dov. In fact, the soldier had missed, though the danger had been real enough. The mystique surrounding Ze’ev Dov as a result marked him as a new kind of Jewish
leader. As Menachem later wrote, it turned his father into “a defender of his brethren against attacks, pogroms and oppression. As a defender on occasions of a mass slaughter or great danger, not always could he avert a tragedy, but he was always ready to act when someone was threatened, even at great danger to himself.”
>Ze’ev Dov, who achieved a modicum of prominence in the Jewish community, had a bit of a reputation as a Jewish firebrand. He refused to speak Polish. Calling it an “anti-Semitic language,” he encouraged his children not only to speak Hebrew but to list it as their native tongue. 16 As secretary of the community council, Ze’ev Dov organized a prayer minyan with complete disregard for the requirements that he obtain proper government licenses. 17 No one was going to tell him where he could and could not pray. In another incident, Ze’ev Dov attacked a Polish officer who was trying to cut off a rabbi’s beard. This “proud Jew,” as Menachem referred to his father, took his walking stick, on which was engraved a line from Emile Zola’s defense of Alfred Dreyfus, 18 and clubbed the Pole over the head.
How can we strike this anti-semitic Polish '''culture''' off the face of the Earth?
leader. As Menachem later wrote, it turned his father into “a defender of his brethren against attacks, pogroms and oppression. As a defender on occasions of a mass slaughter or great danger, not always could he avert a tragedy, but he was always ready to act when someone was threatened, even at great danger to himself.”
>Ze’ev Dov, who achieved a modicum of prominence in the Jewish community, had a bit of a reputation as a Jewish firebrand. He refused to speak Polish. Calling it an “anti-Semitic language,” he encouraged his children not only to speak Hebrew but to list it as their native tongue. 16 As secretary of the community council, Ze’ev Dov organized a prayer minyan with complete disregard for the requirements that he obtain proper government licenses. 17 No one was going to tell him where he could and could not pray. In another incident, Ze’ev Dov attacked a Polish officer who was trying to cut off a rabbi’s beard. This “proud Jew,” as Menachem referred to his father, took his walking stick, on which was engraved a line from Emile Zola’s defense of Alfred Dreyfus, 18 and clubbed the Pole over the head.
How can we strike this anti-semitic Polish '''culture''' off the face of the Earth?
