1938: Shlomo Ben-Yosef, Mandatory Palestine Zionist protomartyr
Add comment June 29th, 2020 Headsman
On this date in 1938, Zionist terrorist Shlomo Ben-Yosef was hanged by the British.
Shalom Tabachnik — to use the name he had from his childhood in the Polish/Russian marches — emigrated illegally to British Mandate Palestine and joined the Irgun.
On April 21, 1938, he and two comrades ambushed an Arab bus and despite failing in their attempt to commit mass murder by forcing it off a mountain road into a chasm, they were tried under British security regulations; one man was acquitted and another death-sentenced but commuted owing to his youth, leaving Shlomo the honor — for so he insisted of his patriotic martyrdom — of being the first Jew hanged by the British authorities in Mandatory Palestine.
“Do not be discouraged by my death,” he wrote to friends. “It will bring a step nearer the dream of our life — an independent Jewish state.”
His death was met by heavy Jewish protest, and the British officer who hanged him was eventually (in 1942) assassinated in reprisal. Present-day Israel has a number of streets bearing his name.
On this day..
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- 1996: The Abu Salim prison massacre - 2017
- 1726: Joseph Quasson - 2016
- 1900: Benjamin Snell, electricity in his head - 2015
- 1612: Robert Crichton, Lord Sanquhar and mediocre swordsman - 2014
- 1944: A day in mass executions in Axis Europe - 2013
- 1799: Admiral Francesco Caracciolo, Neapolitan - 2012
- 1925: Sheikh Said Piran, Kurdish rebel - 2011
- 1541: Thomas Fiennes, 9th Baron Dacre - 2010
- Feast Day of Saint Peter and Saint Paul - 2009
- 2000: Two kidnappers, televised by Guatemala - 2008
Entry Filed under: 20th Century,Attempted Murder,Capital Punishment,Death Penalty,Disfavored Minorities,England,Execution,Hanged,History,Israel,Jews,Martyrs,Milestones,Occupation and Colonialism,Palestine,Separatists,Terrorists,Wartime Executions
Tags: 1930s, 1938, acre prison, june 29, shlomo ben-yosef
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