- Menachem Begin
"'"' (August 16, 1913 – March 9, 1992) was a Polish-Jewish head of the Zionist underground group the Irgun, Nobel Peace Prize laureate and the first Likud Prime Minister of Israel. Though revered by many Israelis, Begin’s legacy remains highly controversial and divisive. As the leader of Irgun, Begin played a central role in Jewish military resistance to the British Mandate of Palestine, but was strongly deplored and consequently sidelined by mainstream Zionist leadership. - Izz Ad-Din Al-Qassam
Sheikh Izz ad-Din al-Qassam (1882- November 20, 1935) was an influential Islamist preacher in the British Mandate of Palestine. He founded and led the Black Hand, a Palestinian militant group, from 1930 until his death in 1935. - Moshe Sharett
Moshe Sharett, born Moshe Shertok (Hebrew: משה שרתוק was the second Prime Minister of Israel (1954-1955), serving for a little under two years between David Ben-Gurion's two terms. Born in Kherson, Ukraine, then part of the Russian Empire, Moshe Sharett emigrated to Palestine in 1908. His family was one of the founders of Tel Aviv. He was a member of the first graduating class of the Herzliya Hebrew High School. - Mohammad Amin Al-Husayni
Mohammad Amin al-Husayni was Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, a Palestinian Arab nationalist and a Muslim religious leader. Known for his anti-Semitism and his opposition to Zionism, al-Husayni fought against the establishment of a Jewish Homeland in the territory of the British Mandate of Palestine. To this end, Husayni collaborated with Nazi Germany during World War II and helped recruit Muslims for the Waffen-SS. - Hanan Ashrawi
Hanan Ashrawi is currently the Secretary-General of the Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy (MIFTAH). She was the Official Spokesperson for the Palestinian movement during the Madrid peace negotiations (1991-1993), and continues to be active in the efforts towards peace in the region. She was also a member of the Task Force on Higher Education convened by UNESCO and the World Bank. - Walter Laqueur
Walter Zeev Laqueur is an American historian and political commentator. He was born in Breslau, Germany (modern Wrocław, Poland), to a Jewish family. In 1938 Laqueur left Germany for the British Mandate of Palestine. His parents, who were unable to leave, died in the Holocaust. He lived in Palestine/Israel 1938-53 and since then in the UK and USA. He wrote the foreword to Wilhelm Wulff's book "Zodiac and Swastika". - Zvi Zamir
Zvi Zamir born Zvicka Zarzevsky was a Major General in the Israel Defense Forces and the Director of the Mossad from 1968 to 1974. Born in Poland, Zamir immigrated with his family to the then British Mandate of Palestine when only seven months old. At the age of 18 Zamir began his military career, first as a soldier in the Haganah's Palmach, a unit that included future Israeli leaders among the likes of Moshe Dayan and Yitzhak Rabin. - Harold MacMichael
Sir Harold Alfred MacMichael GCMG DSO (1882-1969) was a British colonial administrator. He graduated with a first from Magdalene College, Cambridge. After passing his civil service exam he entered the service of the British Empire in the colony of Sudan. He then served in the Blue Nile province until 1915 when he became a senior insepctor of Khartoum province rising to the position of civil secretary in 1926. In 1933 he became governor of Tanganyika until 1937. - Avraham Stern
Avraham Stern, alias Yair was the founder and leader of the Zionist militant organization later known as Lehi which was also known as the "Stern Gang". Stern was born in Suwałki, Poland, immigrated to the British Mandate of Palestine in 1925, and studied in the Hebrew Gymnasium in Jerusalem, and afterwards in the Hebrew University on Mount Scopus. He specialized in Classic languages and literature (Greek and Latin). - Mahmoud Darwish
Mahmoud Darwish (born 1941 in Al-Birwah, British Mandate of Palestine) is a contemporary Palestinian poet and writer of prose. He has published over thirty volumes of poetry, eight books of prose and has served as the editor of several publications, including: "Al-jadid", "Al-fajr", "Shu'un filistiniyya" and "Al-Karmel". He is recognized internationally for his poetry, which focuses on his strong affection for his lost homeland. - Eliyahu Hakim
Eliyahu Hakim (1925-22 March 1945) was a member of the Lehi who was executed in Egypt for the assassination of Lord Moyne, the British Minister Resident in the Middle East. Born in Beirut, Hakim immigrated to the British Mandate of Palestine when he was seven, and grew up in the port city of Haifa. He joined the Lehi (also known as the Stern Gang) as a teen, but volunteered for the British Army during World War II. Posted to Cairo, … - Rafael Eitan
Rafael Eitan <font color="white">a</font>(January 11, 1929 - November 23, 2004) was an Israeli general, former Chief of Staff of the Israeli Defence Forces and later a politician, a Knesset member, and Minister of Agriculture. He was known by the nickname of "Raful" (רפול). Rafael Eitan was born in 1929 in Afula, in the British Mandate of Palestine and was raised in Moshav Tel Adashim, where he spent most of his life. - David Raziel
David Raziel (December 19, 1910 - May 20, 1941) was a fighter of the Jewish underground during the British mandate, and one of the founders of the Irgun. Born in Smorgon, Vilna district in the Russian Empire, he immigrated with his family at the age of three to British Mandate of Palestine, where his father became a Hebrew teacher at a Tel-Aviv elementary school. When the 1929 Hebron massacre broke out, he joined the Haganah in Jerusalem, … - Hannah Szenes
Hannah Szenes (or Chana Senesh) (July 17, 1921 - November 7, 1944) was a Hungarian Jew, one of 17 Jews living in Palestine, now Israel, who were trained by the British army to parachute into Yugoslavia during the Second World War in order to help save the Jews of Hungary, who were about to be deported to the German death camp at Auschwitz. Szenes was arrested at the Hungarian border, imprisoned and tortured, but she refused to reveal details of her mission, … - Yonatan Ratosh
Yonatan Ratosh, Israeli poet, was the nom de plume of Uriel Shelach (אוריאל שלח). Born as Uriel Halperin (אוריאל הלפרין) in the Russian Empire in 1908 to a Zionist family. His father, Yechiel, was a Hebraist educator and raised Ratosh and his siblings (including linguist Uzzi Ornan) in Hebrew. In 1921, he migrated to Mandated Palestine to learn at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. - Yitzhak Sadeh
Yitzhak Sadeh, (1890-1952 also known as Isaac Landoberg), was the commander of the Palmach and one of the founders of the Israel Defense Forces at the time of the independence of the State of Israel. Born in Lublin in 1890, he was honored with a medal from the Russian army for his bravery during World War I. During 1917-1919 he assisted Joseph Trumpeldor in the foundation of "HeHalutz" ("The Pioneer") movement and in 1920 made "aliya" to the land of Israel. - Mordechai Gur
Lt. Gen. Mordechai "Motta" Gur (May 6, 1930 - July 16, 1995) was an Israeli politician and the 10th Chief of Staff of the IDF. Mordechai Gur was born in Jerusalem on May 6, 1930. He later joined the Haganah (the underground armed group of the Jews in the British Mandate of Palestine) and continued serving in a military capacity with the founding of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) during the Israeli War of Independence of 1948. - Yitzhak Halevi Herzog
Rabbi Yitzhak HaLevi Herzog (1889-1959), also known as Isaac Herzog, was the first Chief Rabbi of Ireland, his term lasting from 1921 to 1936. From 1937 until his death, he was Chief Rabbi of the British Mandate of Palestine and Israel, once formed. Rabbi Herzog was born in Lomza, Poland, and moved to the United Kingdom with his family in 1898, where they settled in Leeds. His initial schooling was largely at the instruction of his father, Joel Leib Herzog, … - Arthur Grenfell Wauchope
Sir Arthur Grenfell Wauchope (1874-1947) was a British soldier and colonial administrator. Wauchope served in South Africa with the Black Watch and was severely wounded during the Second Boer War. He then served in India from 1903 to 1914. During World War I he returned to Europe and fought in France until 1916 when he was transferred to Mesopotamia and was wounded. - George Antonius
George Antonius (جورج أنطونيوس) was the first historian of Arab nationalism. Born of Lebanese-Egyptian parentage and a Christian Arab, he served in the British Mandate of Palestine. His 1938 book "The Arab Awakening" was written as Palestine was slipping from Arab control. Antonius traced Arab nationalism to the reign of Mehmet Ali Pasha in Egypt. He argued that Arab nationalism was a product of the West, … - Pinhas Lavon
Pinhas Lavon (born July 12, 1904 in Kopychintsy in what was previously Galicia now Ukraine, died January 24, 1976 in Tel Aviv, Israel) was an Israeli politician and labor leader. - Shelomo Dov Goitein
Shelomo Dov Fritz/Friedrich Goitein (April 3, 1900 - February 6 1985) was an Arabist, historian, Jewish ethnographer, famous for his expositions of Jewish life in the Islamic Middle Ages, based on the analysis of thousands of Geniza documents, in particular, for his monumental 5-volume work "A Mediterranean Society". Goitein was born in a village of Burgkundstadt, southern Germany, to a rabbinic family. - Aref Al-Aref
Aref al-Aref (1891-1973) was a Palestinian journalist, author and politician. He was born in Jerusalem in 1891. He studied in Istanbul and was conscripted into the Ottoman army in World War I. He was captured and spent three years in a prisoner of war camp in Siberia, from where he escaped after the Russian Revolution and went back to Palestine. He edited the first nationalist newspaper published in Palestine after World War I, Southern Syria Suriyya al Janubiyya, … - John Vereker 6th Viscount Gort
Field Marshal John Standish Surtees Prendergast Vereker, 6th Viscount Gort VC GCB CBE DSO and two Bars MVO MC (commonly known as Lord Gort) (10 July 1886 - 31 March 1946) was a British soldier who served in both World War I and II, rising to the rank of field marshal and receiving the Victoria Cross. - Meir Feinstein
Meir Feinstein was an Irgun operative who was injured while launching a railroad attack in Jerusalem and was subsequently captured and sentenced to death by the British authorities in Palestine. Before the execution by hanging could be carried out, he and his friend and fellow prisoner Moshe Barazani blew themselves up with grenades. - Meir Amit
Meir Amit (born 17 March 1921) was the Director of the Mossad from 1963 to 1968. Born in Palestine during the British mandate, he fought for the Haganah during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. In the late 1950s Amit studied in the United States, earning a business degree from Columbia Business School. After returning to Israel, Amit entered the Israeli intelligence community, first as a Major General at the head of IDF Intelligence in 1961, and then as Mossad Director in 1963. - Yitzhak Arad
Yitzhak Arad is a Lithuanian-born Israeli historian and retired IDF brigadier general. A veteran of the Nazi-era Jewish resistance movement in ghetto and partisan combat, he has researched, lectured, and published extensively on the Holocaust. Dr. Yitzhak Arad was born Itzhak Rudnicki in Swieciany (Svencionys) on November 11, 1926. In his youth, he belonged to the Zionist youth movement "Ha-No'ar ha-Tsiyyoni". - Ralph Bakshi
From RalphBakshi.com: "Ralph Bakshi was born in October 1938 in Haifa, Israel. In 1939 his family came to New York escaping the war. He grew up in Brooklyn and went to the High School of... ... You may not know him, but Ralph Bakshi is perhaps well-known for starting the trend that we now called Adult Animation. Born in Israel but raise in New York, Ralph works his way up in the animation industry, working in Terrytoons... - Gershon Agron
Gershon Agron (born Agronsky, 1894-1959) was an Israeli press pioneer and mayor of Jerusalem. He was born in the Ukraine but emigrated with his family to the USA soon after. During World War I he fought with the Jewish Legion in the area of present-day Israel (until 1918 part of the Ottoman Empire, from 1921-1947 the "British Mandate of Palestine".) Following stints as editor of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency and correspondent for several British newspapers, … - Dan Gillerman
Dan Gillerman, born in British Mandate Palestine in 1944, is Israel's 13th Permanent Representative to the United Nations. He was appointed in July 2002 and assumed his post on January 1, 2003. Educated at Tel Aviv University and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Gillerman served as the CEO of several Israeli companies, Chairman of the Federation of Israeli Chambers of Commerce, … - Amos Elon
Amos Elon is an acclaimed historian and social critic and is the author of eight widely praised books on Germany, Jewish history, and the Middle East, including Founder: A Portrait of the First Rothschild and the New York Times bestseller, Israelis: Founders and Sons . He is a former foreign correspondent (in Washington, Paris, Bonn, and Cairo) and political columnist for Haaretz. He studied law and history in Israel and England. - Musa Alami
Musa Alami (1897-1984) was a prominent Palestinian nationalist and politician. Alami was born in the Musrara district of Jerusalem into a prominent family. His father was Mayor of Jerusalem Faidi al-Alami, his sister was married to Jamal al-Hussayni and he was the uncle of Serene Husseini Shahid. He was first taught at the school of the American Colony and at the French Ecole des Freres in Jaffa. During World War I Alami worked at the censorship office in Damascus. - Abdullah Yusuf Azzam
Sheikh Abdullah Yusuf Azzam (1941 As-ba'ah Al-Hartiyeh, British Mandate of Palestine - 1989, Peshawar, Pakistan by assassination) (Arabic عبدالله عزام) was a central figure in the global development of the militant Islamist movement. Sheikh Azzam built a scholarly, ideological and practical paramilitary infrastructure for the globalization of Islamist movements that had previously focused on separate national, revolutionary and liberation struggles. - Christopher Sykes
Christopher Hugh Sykes (born 17 November 1907, died 8 December 1986) was an English author. Born into a wealthy north of England land owning family, he was the second son of the diplomatist, Sir Mark Sykes. Sykes is especially remembered for his biography of his friend, Evelyn Waugh, and for his classic history of the British Mandate of Palestine, "Crossroads to Israel". He served in the Second World War with the British Army. - Ahmed Ali Al-Mwawi
Ahmed Abdullah Al-Mwawi (alternatively Mawawi) (1897-1979?) was Major-General of the Egyptian Army. He served as the General Commander of the Egyptian expeditionary force during 1948 Arab-Israeli War. Mwawi graduated from the Military Academy in 1916. He was appointed at the rank of Major as head of the training department of Military Operations. Promoted to the rank of Brigadier in 1945, he became the commander of the 4th Infantry Brigade. - Moshe Safdie
Moshe Safdie, C.C., B.Arch., LL.D., F.R.A.I.C., FAIA (b. July 14, 1938) is an architect and urban designer. He was born in the town of Haifa, Israel. He moved with his family to Montreal, Canada when he was a teenager, a move he disliked as a dedicated Zionist and socialist. - John Robert Chancellor
Sir John Robert Chancellor, GCMG, GCVO, GBE, DSO (b. 1870- d. 1952) was a British soldier and colonial official. After a career in the British Army he became a colonial administrator serving as governor of Mauritius (1911-1916), Trinidad and Tobago (1916-1921) and Southern Rhodesia (1923-1928). He was knighted in 1913. In 1928, he became High Commissioner of the British Mandate of Palestine where he was perceived as being cool to Zionism. - Pinhas Rutenberg
Pinhas Rutenberg was a prominent engineer and a businessman, a Russian socialist and a Zionist leader. He played an active role in two Russian revolutions, in 1905 and 1917. During World War I, he was among the founders of the Jewish Legion and of the American Jewish Congress. Later, in the British Mandate of Palestine, he had obtained an exclusive concession for production and distribution of electric power and founded the Palestine Electric Company, … - Herbert Kitchener 1st Earl Kitchener
Field Marshal Horatio Herbert Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener, KG, KP, GCB, OM, GCSI, GCMG, GCIE, ADC, PC (24 June 1850 - 5 June 1916) was an Irish-born British Field Marshal, diplomat and statesman popularly referred to as Lord Kitchener. - Hanna Rovina
Hanna Rovina (1889/1892, Berezin, Minsk district ("guberniya") - 2 February, 1980, Tel-Aviv), written also Hannah, Hana, or Chana Rovina or Robina, is recognised as the original "First Lady of Hebrew Theatre". Born in Russia, she originally trained as a kindergarten teacher, at a course for Hebrew-speaking kindergarten teachers in Poland.
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