Political violence, political ends: the story of the Zealots’ underground

ABSTRACT

This article sheds light on a historical episode that has garnered minimal academic focus: the emergence and activities of Brit Ha-Kanaim (Alliance of the Zealots) a religious underground active in Jerusalem from 1950–1951. Advocating for the Jewish halakha to become the law in Israel, they committed a series of violent acts aimed at reshaping the relationship between state and religion. This research situates Brit Ha-Kanaim’s actions within the wider framework of political violence, showcasing a unique blend of religious fervor and nationalism. It underscores their distinctive presence amidst the violent occurrences of that era, identifying them as Israel’s pioneering example of violence fueled by religious fanaticism intertwined with nationalistic ambition.

KEYWORDS:

• Political violence
• state-religion relations
• religious fundamentalism
• nationalism
• emergency legislation
• undergrounds

Introduction

During the years 1950–1951 a religious underground known as “Brit Ha-Kanaim” (Covenant of the Zealots) operated in Jerusalem. The underground’s vision was to install the Jewish halakha as the law of the land in the State of Israel, and its goal was to influence government policy on various issues concerning state-religion relations. Over the course of several months, the underground committed a series of violent acts across Jerusalem culminating in an attempt to plant a bomb in the Knesset which led to the arrest of its members. The reveal of the group’s existence shook the foundations of public and political life. The affair was perceived as a grim manifestation of ideologically and religiously motivated violence and sparked a debate on fundamental issues that continues to this day: the relationship between state and religion in Israel; religious fanaticism as a factor in the emergence of political violence; the threat to democracy posed by the existence of various groups that give precedence to Torah law over state law; and the question of the responsibility of the political and rabbinical leadership in cases of politically and religiously motivated violence. However, this important debate was nipped in the bud. Dozens of suspects were released without being charged, and a year later, far from the spotlight and without any public debate, four of the last detainees admitted to minor offenses and were released shortly afterward.

Following this denouement, the affair was branded as a historical footnote with which academic research has seldom engaged. In fact, no studies focusing specifically on this complex and fascinating affair have been published. This article seeks to shed light on it for the first time. My primary aim is to bring to the fore the discussion on political violence as a theoretical and historiographical framework for the analysis of this affair. My second goal is to establish the unique characteristics that distinguish Brit Ha-Kanaim from other violent events that occurred during the same period. Specifically, I aim to conceptualize and analyze it as the first manifestation of political violence based on a synthesis between religious fanaticism and a nationalist outlook in Israel’s history. Thirdly, the study offers an explanation of the disparity between the gravity of the affair, the scant public attention it attracted, and the anticlimactic way in which it ended.

The first chapter lays the factual foundation for the discussion of the activities of Brit Ha-Kanaim. The second chapter outlines the theoretical framework supporting my analysis of the Kanaim affair: political violence founded on religious ideology occurring at the height of the nation-building process. Building on these foundations, in the third chapter, I discuss the factors that led to the formation of the underground and the motives underlying its activities. The three historical chapters that follow examine the unfolding of the affair from the moment it became public. Using primary sources that have not hitherto been studied, I scrutinize the response of the political system to the discovery of the underground and the various shifts that took place in the public discourse around it. The conclusion illuminates the competing narratives that surround this affair and explains the lack of any meaningful discussion on the issue of political violence.

The Brit Ha-Kanaim underground

In April 1950 a meeting took place at the Porat Yosef Yeshiva in Jerusalem between several ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students for whom “feelings of sorrow, bitterness and disappointment had accumulated in their hearts in the face of the growing secularization spreading into all areas of public life and pushing the Torah into the sidelines.”¹ They shared the notion that the Jewish halakha should serve as the basis for Israel’s legal system and decided to create an organization to impose it on the state.² The members laid out their vision in a document entitled “The Car Burners” [“sorfei ha-mekhoniot”] which claimed that “only an ultra-Orthodox government founded on divine justice without partners and without a ‘coalition,’ a dictatorship without democracy, can guarantee an improvement in the situation of the ultra-Orthodox population and the people in the general for the masses will follow the winning side.”³ The secular public is regarded as “drunks who do not know or don’t want to know the truth.”⁴

Another document drafted by the underground members declared that the purpose of the movement was to impose Jewish law, and to this end, the use of violence against both life and property was justified.⁵ “So far,” the document goes on “we have passively allowed the left-wing devil in his attempt to bring about spiritual enslavement and distraction of the religious public.”⁶ They decided to act.

The founders began to recruit members to the underground. Candidates were required to fill out a questionnaire asking them to state, among other things, whether they believed that obedience to Torah law should take precedence over obedience to the laws of the state.⁷ The group numbered some 35 members after the completion of the selection process.⁸ At a swearing-in ceremony held in a synagogue in the Musrara district of Jerusalem, the recruits pledged to use all means, including violence when necessary, to impose a religious rule on the state.⁹ “Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord? And do I not loathe those who rise against you?” they vowed.¹⁰ Brit Ha-Kanaim was structured along the lines of an underground organization in every respect: members wrote in code and they were divided into small compartmentalized units whose members went by aliases rather than their given names.¹¹ From an operational aspect, members made extensive use of instruction handbooks produced by Lehi, adjusting the aims and objectives outlined in these guidelines to suit the goals of the Kanaim. So, for example, the Lehi guidelines state that in case of arrest “it is one’s duty to keep silent, not to ask, not to answer questions, to speak only before a judge, to maintain the honor of the people and the honor of the warrior.” Brit Ha-Kanaim amended the last phrase to read “the honor of the Torah.”¹²

As the underground took shape, it began to engage in active operations. Warning letters were dispatched to the city’s taxi companies urging them to cease working on the Shabbat. These letters contained explicit threats and harsh language: “We warn you that we will harm you severely … we will fight you until the bitter end … we have damaged many private taxis during the last few weeks … we are at war with the enemies of the Torah.”¹³ The group was not content with warnings alone and in November 1950 its members set on fire 23 cars that were observed driving on the Shabbat.¹⁴ Furthermore, they set fire to a butcher shop that sold pork and placed oil-soaked bags in a garage belonging to the Egged Bus Company in Jerusalem.¹⁵ Their most ambitious plan was directed against the government’s policy of drafting women into the military. The underground planned to set fire to the archives at the recruitment offices of the Defense Ministry and to blow up, literally and figuratively, the Knesset discussions on this matter.¹⁶ On May 15, 1951, when the Knesset debate on conscription was scheduled to take place, the underground planned to insert two squads into the Knesset: One would disconnect the electricity, and the other, which would already have reached the gallery, would throw a smoke bomb into the Knesset plenum hall.¹⁷ The plan, however, did not come to fruition. Several months previously the Shin Bet and the police launched an operation to apprehend those responsible for the acts of arson across the city.¹⁸ Police agents had succeeded in infiltrating the underground group and were able to give the police prior warning about the plans to bomb the Knesset. Ahead of the Knesset debate, Isser Harel, head of the Shin Bet, informed the speaker of the Knesset, Yosef Sprinzak, of what was about to happen and instructed him to continue the meeting to allow the perpetrators to be caught red-handed.¹⁹ However, things did not proceed according to plan. A fraught and heated debate took place in the Knesset while a religious group heckled vociferously from the gallery. Sprinzak did not raise the issue of the women’s draft and curtailed the meeting before the underground members had the opportunity to execute their plan. Harel, who feared that the Shin Bet would not have another opportunity and was even more concerned that they might lack access to accurate intelligence regarding Brit Ha-Kanaim’s future activities, believed that they should proceed as planned.²⁰ That same day Moshe Sharett called a meeting with the Minister of Police Bechor Sheetrit, the Minister of Justice Pinhas Rosen, and Attorney General Haim Cohn, who gave their approval for administrative detentions of the underground’s members.²¹ The police made 42 arrests that day. A key to a locker room in an Agudat Yisrael youth seminary was found in one of the detainee’s pockets and in an attic above the locker room, a stash of guns, machine guns, cartridges, and close to two thousand bullets, explosives, and many documents were discovered.²² On the evening of May 15, 1951, the Israel Police held a press conference in which the Jerusalem District commander disclosed details about the underground and its activities, including the cache in the attic and the arsenal of weapons that was found there. And so the curtain fell on the first act of this affair. However, the debate over its interpretation and the underlying motive for the underground’s violent activities was just beginning.

Political violence

“Political violence” is a broad theoretical framework describing a range of violent phenomena. Accordingly, the various definitions of the concept differ from one another with respect to the particular field deploying it and the emphasis placed on different aspects of the violent act. The canonical definition refers to collective attacks against a regime and its agents, rival political groups, and incumbent politicians and their policies.²³ Other definitions focus on the underlying motivation for the violence and the readiness to employ violence, or to threaten violence, to achieve political ends.²⁴ These definitions closely reflect a certain theoretical disagreement concerning the question of whether political violence should be defined by the target of its violence or by its underlying motivation.²⁵

This study has no need for this analytical distinction. As I elaborated above, the underground’s members were politically motivated and targeted a specific political goal. Their activity, therefore, falls into both categories. Nevertheless, the analysis could benefit from the addition of two theoretical filters through which the underground could be studied. The first concerns the unique period in which the underground operated. The study of political violence classifies the majority of violent post-WWII clashes as being rooted in nation-building endeavors.²⁶ These types of conflicts are defined by two basic motivational systems that underlie violent actions: one is disagreement over national borders and the political community included within these borders; the second is an ideological dispute surrounding the definition of the goals and policies of the state and the political community.²⁷ Brit Ha-Kanaim’s strategy that advocated violent action as a means of shaping Israel’s emerging identity and influencing government policy on matters of state and religion – falls under the second category. It is one of a series of violent struggles that took place during Israel’s formative years at the height of the nation-building project.²⁸

The second conceptual framework concerns religiously motivated political violence and analyzes the central role played by religion in the adoption of radical views and the employment of violent practices.²⁹ During most of the twentieth century, religion played a fairly marginal role in the study of political violence, with left-wing and right-wing ideological movements and national liberation movements occupying center stage.³⁰ However, this state of affairs began to change toward the end of the last century when religion became a dominant force in the exercise of political violence. In the mid-1990s Huntington’s famous theory on “the clash of civilizations” gained prominence. This theory presented the clashes between religions and cultures as the major source of violent conflicts in the post-Cold War period. ³¹ Interest in research in this field intensified following the terror attack on the World Trade Center in September 2001, an event which triggered a deluge of studies, almost all of them dealing with Islam; although religious fanaticism that translates into political violence was studied in the contexts of Christianity and Judaism as well.³² This paper seeks to use this theoretical conceptualization to define the Brit Ha-Kanaim affair as religiously motivated political violence erupting amid nation-building processes that are deeply divided around the issues of the Jewish identity of the society and the state.

The background and causes of the rise of the underground

The question of the motives and objectives underlying Brit Ha-Kanaim’s activity is crucial for the discussion of its conceptualization as a movement that engaged in political violence. It determines to some extent the classification of this activity as political violence, specifically as political violence founded on religious ideology. These questions are rooted in the broad historical and political context in which the underground developed, an understanding of which is essential for the analysis of the affair.

The Brit Ha-Kanaim affair has not yet been the subject of any independent in-depth research. It is briefly referred to in several studies in various contexts. The first is its proximity to the underground organization Malkhut Yisrael which was uncovered two years later, in 1953.³³ The two underground groups are identified as part of the wider phenomenon of illegalism, namely a disposition that undermines the rule of law.³⁴ This phenomenon manifested itself in various ways during Israel’s formative years, in particular in relation to the historic rivalry between the Labor and Revisionist movements.³⁵ During those years, violent clashes occurred between Etzel and Lehi veterans and state authorities, the most prominent among them being the Altalena affair; the protests surrounding the reparations agreement with Germany; and the Malkhut Yisrael underground. Without delving too deeply into a comparison between the two underground groups, there seems to be no solid grounds for regarding them as being cast in the same mold. Although it could be argued that Brit Ha-Kanaim members were influenced by Lehi in some manner, its leaders and founders did not serve in any of the underground groups and did not belong to the Revisionist Movement.³⁶ Secondly, Brit Ha-Kanaim was not affected by the fallout from the historical, political, and intellectual rivalry between the two movements, and its members belonged to other intellectual, educational, and institutional streams. Moreover, the historical context and background that led to the initial seeds of the two undergrounds were utterly different – while Brit Ha-Kanaim was driven by the political disputes over state-religion relations, the triggers for the founding of Malkhut Yisrael were anti-Semitic affairs that took place in Eastern Europe (“the Prague trials” and “the doctors’ plot”) and the security situation in Israel.³⁷ This last point reflects the most significant difference between the two undergrounds: their ideology. Unlike the members of Malkhut Yisrael, the members of Brit Ha-Kanaim were motivated by religious ideology and sought to influence government policy in this area. This distinction has significant theoretical and practical ramifications. Brit Ha-Kanaim had good reason to change the wording in the Lehi handbooks – these organizations had pledged themselves to very different objectives.

The second context in which the Brit Ha-Kanaim affair is mentioned is the ultra-Orthodox demonstrations that took place in the first half of the 1950s.³⁸ Clashes between ultra-Orthodox and secular communities had already taken place during the British Mandate most notably around public violation of the Sabbath.³⁹ After a brief respite during the War of Independence, the ultra-Orthodox renewed their mass demonstrations against the violation of the Sabbath in Jerusalem.⁴⁰ Most of these demonstrations were orchestrated by Neturei Karta, a small ultra-Orthodox group that had decided to sever political and cultural ties with the State of Israel and despite its size, spearheaded the ultra-Orthodox struggle at the time.⁴¹ During the second half of the 1950s, amid the upcoming municipal elections, the ultra-Orthodox protests intensified and a wave of demonstrations against the violation of the Sabbath swept through the city.⁴² Violent clashes between police and protestors at these demonstrations created an atmosphere of a culture war in Jerusalem.⁴³ Religious-secular clashes that ended with police intervention became a common sight.⁴⁴ Meetings within the ultra-Orthodox community provided a stage for virulent anti-government rhetoric.⁴⁵ This was the climate in which Brit Ha-Kanaim developed and operated.

However, the struggles of the ultra-Orthodox community and the underground should not be regarded as part of the same struggle. In fact, their differences outweigh the commonalities. Ehud Sprinzak uses two conceptual frameworks to analyze ultra-Orthodox violence in Israel since the early 1950s. The first is known as the “doctrine of fanaticism” and is driven by the spontaneous anger of ultra-Orthodox youth in the face of what they perceive as blasphemy. This kind of fanaticism gives rise to unpremeditated and uncontrollable outbursts of violence that are perceived by the ultra-Orthodox public to be largely forgivable.⁴⁶ The second doctrine that seeks to explain ultra-Orthodox violence, is known as the “conception of limited violence.” This doctrine explains the conundrum that despite hundreds of violent protests since the establishment of the state, ultra-Orthodox violence rarely resulted in serious injuries or casualties.⁴⁷ According to this doctrine, the awareness that protest involves violence and the acknowledgment of the sanctity of Jewish lives exist side by side in the minds of the ultra-Orthodox public. For this reason, extreme acts of protest which in other cultures might lead to terrorism, are concluded with a limited amount of violence in the case of the ultra-Orthodox. A major contributing factor is the absolute prohibition of using or even carrying firearms.⁴⁸ This prohibition derives from the ultra-Orthodox belief that the Jewish people are still living in exile, a plight which decrees they remain passive and forbids them to do anything that may influence the course of history. Brit Ha-Kanaim’s activity runs counter to this belief. The actions of the underground were not spontaneous outbursts of anger but rather carefully and meticulously planned operations. Moreover, their blatant violation of the prohibition on firearms was unprecedented in scope. In this sense, the Brit Ha-Kanaim phenomenon differs from other ultra-Orthodox protests, even the more violent among them, that took place during the same period and exhibited violence that was extraordinary in its nature, quality, and scope.⁴⁹

In light of this, it is not surprising that the ultra-Orthodox leadership feared Brit Ha-Kanaim and recognized in it the elements of Zionist thought that were antithetical to traditional ultra-Orthodoxy.⁵⁰ In the same vein, Hazon Ish, an important leader of Haredi Judaism, defined the underground members as persecutors whose actions endanger the entire ultra-Orthodox community.⁵¹ Tze’irei Agudat Yisrael followed suit, issuing a statement condemning the actions of Brit Ha-Kanaim and referring to them as “the rotten fruit of the secular parties.”⁵² The Brit Ha-Kanaim underground did not belong to the ultra-Orthodox protest of the early 1950s and was an outlier in the segregationist and anti-Zionist ultra-Orthodox society. Nissim Leon made this important observation in his enlightening study on the Porat Yosef Yeshiva where, as mentioned, the underground was established.⁵³ Leon describes how alongside those in the yeshiva who opposed the Zionist movement, there were others, students and teachers, who supported Zionism.⁵⁴ Elaborating on this last point, Leon refers to the students and graduates who joined the underground that “aspired to shape the religious nature of the state.”⁵⁵

These last observations also give credence to the claim that the organization contained Zionist and nationalist elements and stood, both conceptually and practically, apart from its surroundings. At the end of the day, despite the proximity of the events to one another and a certain similarity to the Malkhut Yisrael underground on the one hand and the violent ultra-Orthodox protests in Jerusalem on the other – Brit Ha-Kanaim was unique. Its ideological profile was composed of a synthesis between religious extremism and a nationalist outlook, reflected in the predominantly nationalist motives and factors that led to its establishment: tensions and disagreements that became apparent during the first years of the state around various issues concerning the relationship between state and religion. Specifically, the formation of the underground was influenced by a widespread public and political controversy surrounding the issue of the education of children in immigrant camps. It all began in March 1948 when a group from the immigrant camp in Hadera contacted the Department of Culture of the National Committee headed by Nahum Levin and requested that it take responsibility for the children’s education.⁵⁶ This request was granted. After the establishment of the state and in the wake of the huge waves of immigration during the first year of Israel’s existence, the newly established Department of Education buckled under the tremendous load, and education in the immigrant camps remained in the hands of Levin and the Department of Culture. They devised for these children a uniform system of education based on a Zionist-socialist and largely secular outlook.⁵⁷ While parents in the general population were offered a choice between four streams of education, two of them religious – a uniform education system was effectively forced on the immigrants in the camps which made almost no allowances for the religious affinity felt by many of them.⁵⁸ In the winter of 1949 unrest erupted among the religious immigrants which grew in the face of reports of suppression of religious practices in the immigrant camps, particularly among Yemenite immigrants. Rumors of Yemenite children’s sideburns being cut off spread like wildfire and soon the subject was at the center of a public and political storm. Mordechai Eliyahu, one of the founders of Brit Ha-Kanaim and later the Chief Rabbi of Israel, described the impact of this affair on the formation of the underground: “While we were still in the Porat Yosef Yeshiva at the beginning of the 1950s, news about what was happening to Yemenites in the immigrant camps began to reach Jerusalem. Children there were forbidden to wear a head covering; study Torah; their sideburns were cut off; I could not tolerate this irreverence. The secularism spreading into all areas of life saddened me and I believed that the underground would provide the means of imposing Torah law on the country.”⁵⁹ At the end of 1949 the protest reached the national political sphere when the United Religious Front [Ha-Hazit Ha-Datit Ha-meuhedet] launched a parliamentary campaign against “anti-religious coercion” in the immigrant camps.⁶⁰ With pressure on the government mounting, Ben-Gurion appointed a commission of inquiry headed by Gad Frumkin, an Israeli jurist and one of the few Jewish judges on the Supreme Court of Mandatory Palestine. The commission’s report which was submitted in May 1950 contained harsh criticism of the uniform education system, which only exacerbated and deepened the controversy and polarization between the secular and religious communities.⁶¹

Hostilities between Mapai and the religious parties resurged, this time around the education of immigrants in the ma’abarot (immigrant transit camps). In February 1951 the Knesset debated this issue for three consecutive days amid the acrimonious conflict between Mapai and the Religious Front.⁶² In the vote that took place at the end of the three days of discussion, the religious parties voted against the government’s proposal and as a result, Ben-Gurion submitted his government’s resignation on the grounds that “the majority in the Knesset does not support it and [the Knesset] is divided internally.”⁶³ Elections were set for July 1951. The dispute that had erupted over the issue of immigrant children’s education in the camps during the years 1950–1951, caused a severe political crisis between Mapai and the Religious Front and jeopardized their continued collaboration.⁶⁴ This rift continued to deepen during the election campaign, in the face of Ben-Gurion’s decision to advance a bill concerning the conscription of religious women into the National Service. The Security Service Law of 1949 mandated military service for women but granted an exemption to religious women.⁶⁵ Ben-Gurion sought to amend the law so that religious women would be required to perform a two-year national service. Ben-Gurion’s decision to advance the amendment was driven by anger at the conduct of the religious parties and also out of a desire to win over the secular public.⁶⁶ The issue of conscription for women sparked tremendous anger and was perceived, mainly by the ultra-Orthodox public, as the final straw.⁶⁷ Government policy on conscription of women, as Mordechai Eliyahu testified, led the members of the Brit Ha-Kanaim underground to the conclusion that “words don’t help; more drastic action is needed,”⁶⁸ and motivated their plan to plant a bomb in the Knesset during the debate on the issue.

Brit Ha-Kanaim emerged, above all, in a climate of national and political controversies around state and religion. It aspired to influence government policy on these matters and was willing to use violent means to achieve its ends. In terms of the timeline, the process of the group’s consolidation and operation corresponds with the events described here; the underground began its activities at the time of the education crisis in the immigrant camps and was uncovered during an attempt to disrupt the debate on women’s conscription into the IDF. For a proper understanding of how this affair unfolded from the time of its discovery, account should be taken of the role played by the rift between Mapai and the religious parties as well as the election campaign. It is thus not surprising that the various parties capitalized on this affair to garner public support and advance their ideological agenda.

Violence, religion, and politics

The reveal of the underground provoked a public outcry centered on fundamental democratic issues concerning political violence, religious extremism, and the relationship between state and religion. The government and various elements in the opposition regarded it as religious terrorism and a threat to democracy. A certain amount of responsibility was laid at the door of the religious parties whose attempts to enforce religious norms on the public spurred violent reactions.

The most prominent and vociferous speaker in the days following this event in the Knesset was the acting Prime Minister Moshe Sharett.⁶⁹ Sharett described the actions of the underground as “terrorism in defense of religion” and “a tidal wave of violence for religious ends.” He described the underground as a terror organization whose raison d’être was violent acts and conspiracy against the state: “This is a seditious conspiracy against the laws of the state and national security. It is an attempt to impose violence instead of the law on our public life. It is an attempt to frighten, to shock, to terrorize.”⁷⁰ The Minister of Police, Bechor Shalom Sheetrit, also emphasized the underground’s underlying ideological motivation: “The underground’s aim was to prevent the desecration of the Sabbath and religion through coercion and the use of force.”⁷¹ MK Ari Jabotinsky adopted a similar position, stressing that these were ideological criminals who were prepared to martyr themselves for their faith.⁷² He warned against the danger to democracy posed by religiously-based political violence and dubbed the underground’s activity “an attempt to impose on the country, through fire and the sword, religious practices both in public and private life.” Consequently, he argued, the question facing the Knesset goes far beyond the issue of the underground and concerns the identity of the state. MK Hanan Rubin from Mapam also linked the Brit Ha-Kanaim affair to the controversy over issues of state and religion. He argued that the criminal aspects be left to the courts and that the Knesset deal with the public aspects of the affair which he described as “a display of fascist religious extremism.”⁷³ The religious parties, Rubin argued, bear a heavy responsibility for the situation. Rubin was not the only one who thought so. Claims of this nature were heard even before the discovery of the underground. For example, a poster hung by the League for the Prevention of Religious Coercion in Jerusalem following the arson committed by the underground declared: “As long as religious public figures, organizations, parties, and municipal institutions continue to urge the imposition of laws of religious coercion … the religious zealots will continue to entertain the illusion that they will succeed in imposing a regime of religious coercion of using force and violence. This is the root of the evil!”⁷⁴ Even the police harbored resentment against religious personages who not only made no attempt to dampen the violence but fanned its flames.⁷⁵ The debate surrounding the question of accountability began, therefore, even before the arrest of the actual perpetrators; however, with the reveal of the underground, the accusing voices pointing a finger in this direction grew louder. “Committing revolutionary acts of terror requires public support,” declared MK Ari Jabotinsky.⁷⁶ MK Shmuel Merlin from Herut concurred, claiming that advancing political moves aimed at religious coercion drives acts of violence: “As long as there are groups or parties who believe that it is possible to enforce religious matters constitutionally, there will be others who will take this line of thinking further.”⁷⁷ Sharett’s response was milder than that of his colleagues but he too noted the part played by the religious leadership in the growth of the underground.⁷⁸ Coverage in party newspapers also laid the blame at the door of the political and rabbinical leadership.⁷⁹ So for instance, in an incisive editorial, the Al Ha-Mishmar daily underlined the underground’s connection with the educational institutions belonging to Agudat Yisrael, asserting that it would not have dared to act “without the political and moral backing it received directly and indirectly from various sources.”⁸⁰

The religious parties were especially troubled by this last claim. However, although historical evidence indicates that senior members of Agudat Yisrael, Ha-Po’el Ha-Mizrahi, and Mo’etzes Gedolei Ha-Torah (Council of Torah Sages) knew about the existence of the underground,⁸¹ in the days following the revelation of the affair and in the face of the accusations leveled against them, they made every effort to disavow the underground and to cast doubt on publicity regarding the motivation and identity of its members.⁸² So, MK Avraham Shag called the members of the underground criminal offenders and “people I don’t know who or what they are.”⁸³ Shag even went so far as to claim that there were speculations that they were posing as religious people. His party colleague MK Zerach Warhaftig categorically denied the claims voiced in the Knesset and in the press about the “public atmosphere” that enabled the underground’s activities.⁸⁴ Warhaftig went on to express the view, which was possibly colored by wishful thinking, that “perhaps this was a provocation by a non-religious person.”⁸⁵ He went on to make great efforts to prove that the violent acts were committed by “liberated Jews who despise the Jewish religion.”⁸⁶ However, with the emergence of more details regarding the affair, this line of defense was rendered useless. Among the detainees were members of the elite of the ultra-Orthodox society, such as Shlomo Lorincz, leader of Tze’irei Agudat Yisrael and who, a few months later, was elected to the Knesset on its behalf. To complicate the matter, almost all the detainees had close ties to the educational institutions belonging to Agudat Yisrael.⁸⁷ The identity, roles, and connections of the detainees made it very difficult to disown them or to claim that they were a marginal group or, alternatively, secular individuals in disguise. A major effort was invested, therefore, in attempts to downplay the event to the point of denying it and to refute the claim that its violence was motivated by religious ideology. “Religious Judaism should not be blamed, if corrupt individuals commit acts of sabotage under the cloak of religion,” MK Shag claimed defensively.⁸⁸ “All religious organizations are opposed to violence,” declared the Agudat Yisrael representative Rabbi Yitzhak Meir Levin.⁸⁹ The Ha-Modi’a daily was quick to absolve from responsibility those detainees who belonged to the Agudat Yisrael leadership: “There is no doubt that the leaders of Tze’irei Agudat Yisrael such as Rabbi Shlomo Lorincz and Shimon Soroka are innocent and the charges against them have not been proven and nor will they be.”⁹⁰ It was joined by the Agidat Yisrael’s newspaper, Ba-She’arim, which stated that “as long as the details of ‘this arson’ are unknown – to us it doesn’t exist.”⁹¹ Some tension can be detected in these positions that both condemn and deny violence at the same time. This dissonance is nicely reflected in the words of the Minister of Welfare Rabbi Levin a few days after the affair was exposed: “All the religious organizations and religious authorities oppose violence with all their being. And they were the first to condemn these actions that were committed by someone if they were committed at all.”⁹² This is an attempt to have the cake and eat it too since political violence cannot be condemned without acknowledging the identity of its perpetrators or by denying its motives. These words also reflect the issues at the heart of the public debate during the initial stages of the affair: the background to the growth of political violence; the ideology motivating it; and to what extent responsibility can be attributed to those public figures who directly or indirectly sanctioned it. However, this important discussion was curtailed in its infancy because of the first of two unexpected developments in the unfolding of the affair.

The first turnabout: who is endangering Israeli democracy?

On Thursday, May 17, 1951, the police announced that 20 of the Brit Ha-Kanaim detainees had been taken into custody under the Defense (Emergency) Regulations, 1945, and would not be brought before a judge.⁹³ This announcement caused a public and political outcry and at once diverted the discussion away from political violence and state-religion relations to the question of the use of emergency regulations. For a fuller understanding of this turnaround, any further discussion should be prefaced with a few words on the history of the Defense Regulations. They were issued in September 1945 by the high commissioner and provoked fierce opposition in the Yishuv. They were seen as a fundamental violation of basic democratic rights and principles and collided head-on with the national aspirations of the Yishuv. On their publication, the leaders of the Yishuv and its most prominent jurists enlisted in the battle to overturn them.⁹⁴ However, despite fierce opposition to the regulations during the Yishuv period, with the establishment of the state they were incorporated unchanged into Israeli law.⁹⁵ Although the regulations were despised and vilified, the government sought to retain them as an effective tool for dealing with crises. The use of the regulations reignited an old controversy and this explains to a certain extent the shifting of the public debate away from political violence, but this did not happen in a vacuum.

Two principal players, each with different motives, were responsible for the shift in the public and political discourse. The first consisted of the secular opposition parties who wished to take advantage of the cracks in the coalition to lead a historic move to repeal the Defense Regulations and at the same time to attack Mapai in the run-up to the elections. The second comprised the religious parties who wished to deflect the public discourse away from the discussion – uncomfortable from their point of view – about political violence. Furthermore, the activation of the Defense Regulations enabled them to advance more aggressively their initial line of defense – minimizing the affair to the point of denying it. They argued that the activation of the Defense Regulations was proof that there was no solid evidence against the detainees.⁹⁶ The entire affair was referred to more than once as “inflated reporting.”⁹⁷ Minister Levin argued that “according to the nature and the number of those who were detained, arrested and released, according to the nature and amount of ammunition that was discovered – we do not yet see the magnitude of the danger.”⁹⁸ These words aimed to establish the narrative that the underground had never represented any real danger.

Publicizing the government’s use of the Defense Regulations turned it from the accuser into the defendant. Out of a unity of purpose, if not a unity of interests, the opposition parties and the religious parties banded together in a joint move.⁹⁹ A week or so after the publication of the affair, an unusual alliance was forged in the Knesset: the Herut, Maki, Religious Front, and Mapam factions all submitted proposals for the annulment of the Defense Regulations.¹⁰⁰ All the speakers stressed their fundamental opposition to the Defense Regulations and expressed sharp criticism of the government for having activated them. They barely made any reference to the underground’s actions or the issue of political violence. The discussions lasted for several days and culminated in a momentous decision: Mapai’s proposal to task the Constitution, Law and Justice Committee with preparing within two weeks a bill to replace the Defense Regulations was rejected, and instead, the proposal submitted jointly by the opposition factions and the Religious Front was approved, in these words: “The Knesset declares that the Defense (Emergency) Regulations, 1945, which have existed in the country since British rule, contradict the basic principles of a democratic state and we hereby commission the Constitution, Law and Justice Committee to submit to the Knesset within two weeks a bill for the annulment of the abovementioned regulations.”¹⁰¹

Since the decision was passed without Mapai’s approval, it was perceived as a political defeat for the ruling party and prompted opposition parties to celebrate its downfall.¹⁰² However, the resolution was never implemented, and the Knesset went into recess without enacting an alternative law. Following the elections, a new coalition was formed that also included the religious parties, but coalition considerations led them to abandon their demands to annul the Defense Regulations.¹⁰³ In the Knesset debate that took place a few months after the elections, Herut was the only faction that was still demanding the repeal of the Mandate’s Defense Regulations. Its proposal was rejected.¹⁰⁴ The burial of the initiative to replace the Defense Regulations with original Israeli legislation paints the defeat of Mapai’s proposal as a Pyrrhic victory in that it quashed the chances of replacing the draconian regulations with a less egregious arrangement. So, in effect, those who opposed the regulations succeeded in entrenching them in the Israeli legislation.¹⁰⁵

The second turnabout: from defendants to accusers

Before the curtain had fallen on the Defense Regulations crisis, there was another turnabout in the affair. The day after the arrest of the underground members, on the night of May 16, 1951, sixteen of the detainees were transferred from the detention facility in Jerusalem¹⁰⁶ and reached the Jalame detention center at 20 minutes to four in the morning. Several versions exist of what befell them from this moment on. According to the detainees, on their arrival, they were pushed into a narrow passage leading to the prison where they were ordered to run. While they ran they were shoved, kicked, and humiliated. One of the detainees fainted and was dragged along by a police officer until he regained consciousness when he was again made to start running. On reaching the prison they were ordered to run in single file while the police officers yelled at them “You won’t get out of here alive”; “We will break your bones”; “You don’t have the strength to run but you have the strength to torch cars.” A police officer standing on the rooftop aimed a machine gun in the runners’ direction and some of them were forced to stand with their faces to the wall and their arms raised. Over the days that followed, they were forced to demean themselves and address the police officers in a servile manner and those who refused were violently punished. One detainee had to open a sewage blockage with his bare hands. Others were forced to perform foot drills and endured kicking and beatings.¹⁰⁷

At midnight on Wednesday, May 24, 1951, three detainees were released, among them Shlomo Lorincz. The following day they held a press conference where they reported the violence and abuse they had suffered during their detention.¹⁰⁸ Overnight the accused had become the accusers. The religious newspapers carried dramatic headlines: “The reign of Nazi terror and shenanigans in the Jalame detention camp,” announced the Ha-Tzofe daily, followed by a verbatim report of the released detainees’ version of events.¹⁰⁹ The headline that appeared in the Ha-Kol Daily was even more cutting: “A barbarous concentration camp that follows the Nazi model.”¹¹⁰ A spate of meetings took place in synagogues and towns across the country.¹¹¹ At a meeting that was held in a branch of Po’alei Agudat Yisrael in Zefat MK Benjamin Mintz claimed that the entire Brit Ha-Kanaim affair was a campaign of incitement against ultra-Orthodox Judaism.¹¹² Under the heading: “On inciting and igniting” that was splashed across its front page, the She’arim newspaper accused the government of “a political reckoning with a certain and considerable section of the country’s citizens.”¹¹³ The narrative that violent attacks on religious Jews in Israel were being spurred by incitement, gathered increasing momentum as time passed, without a shred of evidence being brought to substantiate this claim. So, for example, the report in She’arim that “reliable witnesses tell us about large and small bullies who are licensed to attack a religious Jew simply because of his religious appearance … from cities and towns we receive reports about bearded Jews who are cursed and reviled.”¹¹⁴ Ha-Modi’a related an incident in which a young girl approached an ultra-Orthodox Jew in the street and knocked his shtreimel off of his head. The paper warned that “there will be those who will be even more daring”.¹¹⁵ This narrative resonated in the Knesset as well, with Rabbi Levin accusing his cabinet colleagues of creating an atmosphere of “hate and hostility to the point of brutal attacks on traditionally-dressed Jews with beards and sideburns.”¹¹⁶ The Jalame episode thus gathered momentum until it eventually eclipsed the Brit Ha-Kanaim affair.¹¹⁷ As Police Commissioner Sahar wrote to the minister of police a few days after these events were disclosed: “We cannot shake the feeling that, if in the first few days, the behavior of some of the police officers was irregular, the whole matter has been inflated by the minister of welfare [Rabbi Levin, M.M.].”¹¹⁸ These developments resulted in the failure of the public campaign against the actions of the Brit Ha-Kanaim underground which was now perceived as being the victim of police violence.¹¹⁹ As Harel described it: “The argument over this unfortunate incident at Jalame diverted attention away from Brit Ha-Kanaim, from its intentions and its sponsors.”¹²⁰

The finale – not with a bang but a whimper

Following the reports of violence against the detainees in the Jalame detention center, the opposition factions raised various motions for the Knesset agenda. In an attempt to deflect the anticipated criticism, the government announced its intention to appoint a parliamentary committee of inquiry to investigate the treatment of the detainees. This proposal was approved and largely achieved its objective.¹²¹ The parliamentary debate was abandoned and media interest waned. From this point, the affair in its entirety became the subject of an institutional investigation by the Knesset, the police, and the courts.

The parliamentary committee’s report established that police behavior toward the detainees had been abusive, illegal, unfair, humiliating, and demeaning and could not be condoned by the state.¹²² However, the report failed to spark much interest. About two weeks after it began its work, the committee requested and was granted an extension for submitting its conclusions, so that the report was eventually delivered three days after the general elections. The timing significantly blunted the report’s impact. Ben-Gurion failed in his efforts to form an alternative coalition that would end his party’s dependence on the religious parties, and the newly-formed government also included religious parties among its members.¹²³ This partnership significantly tempered the reactions of the religious parties to the report which stood in sharp contrast to the statements made by their members only a few short months previously. In the wake of the report, the government instructed the police commissioner to prosecute any police officer who had committed an offense in this affair while in the line of duty.¹²⁴ In June 1952, about six months later, a disciplinary procedure was initiated against three police officers: one was reprimanded, one was demoted for six months and the third was acquitted.¹²⁵

With regard to the underground members themselves: the initial indictment attributed 34 different offenses to the members of Brit Ha-Kanaim, some of them extremely serious, including treason; attempting to exert pressure on the government to change its policies; orchestrating an “act of war” against the Israeli public that does not observe Torah law; possession of weapons and explosives; and causing damage to property.¹²⁶ At the opening of the trial Attorney General Chaim Cohn announced that seven of the serious charges, all carrying a maximum sentence of life imprisonment, had been removed from the indictment.¹²⁷ Some days later a plea deal was signed. The defendants admitted to the charges in exchange for a reduction in some of the counts and were convicted in accordance with their confessions.¹²⁸ In the sentencing that was passed down on March 25, 1952, penalties imposed by the courts ranged from six months to one year in prison. There was a passing mention of the sentence on the fourth page of the Davar daily and a headline in an obscure corner of the Ma’ariv newspaper heralded “The peaceful end of the ‘dangerous underground.’”¹²⁹ A fitting epithet for the lack of political and public interest in an affair that less than a year earlier had rocked the entire country.

Conclusion

In December 1951, barely half a year since the affair came to light, MK Raphael from the Religious Front declared from the Knesset podium that the Brit Ha-Kanaim underground had never existed, and in his words: “It was pure fabrication.”¹³⁰ This statement accurately reflects the affair’s convoluted path after initially bursting onto the public stage as a case involving grievous political violence and ending on a different note entirely. In effect, the public and political discourse around the Kanaim underground split up into three separate debates: the first centered on political violence; the second on the Defense Regulations; and the third on police violence. Each of these debates in its turn dominated the parliamentary and public agenda, casting aside and silencing any previous discussions. This could ostensibly be viewed as a transition between three debates on matters of principle, each one reflecting substantive positions on three separate and undeniably weighty topics. In reality, it seems that there were other layers in what had been envisaged as a debate on substantive issues.

As outlined above, the entire affair was overshadowed by the election campaign for the Second Knesset and the dispute between Mapai and the religious parties. The political battle for public opinion and over the interpretation of the underground’s actions was launched before either the activation of the Defense Regulations or the details of the Jalame episode became public knowledge. From the outset, the religious parties regarded the underground as an embarrassing and damaging episode that came to light at the most inopportune moment imaginable – on the eve of the Knesset elections. Consequently, efforts were made to downplay its significance to the point of denying it altogether. The secular opposition parties played a part in this stratagem, even if unintentionally, by focusing mainly on advancing an oppositional political agenda that served their interests in the run-up to the elections. So although none of them embraced the narrative that the religious parties tried to inculcate, they actively contributed to the burial of the debate on political violence.

This is how it came about that the Jalame incident eclipsed the Brit Ha-Kanaim affair which, in many ways, had been forgotten, and perhaps more accurately – deliberately relegated to oblivion. The battles waged by the religious parties around both the Defense Regulations and the Jalame events proved to be instrumental in nature rather than an expression of any substantive point of view. When the question of annulling the Defense Regulations arose again after the elections – the religious parties voted against it. A similar dissonance can be identified in their positions regarding the events at Jalame. Whereas with the revelation of the affair they had adopted a firm and belligerent stance, at the hearing following the publication of the investigative committee’s report just a few months later, their voice was barely heard. In real-time, therefore, the religious parties harnessed the affair in the service of their election campaign but abandoned these battles after the renewal of their political alliance with Mapai. A similar fate befell the debate on political violence which had been silenced and swept under the rug until the renewed alliance between Mapai and the religious parties put the final nail in its coffin.

This article sought to illuminate this complex and multilayered affair. I aspired to achieve three primary objectives: to return the debate on political violence to the center stage; to peel away the multiple narrative layers enfolding this affair in order to explain how and why the debate on political violence was suppressed; and to analyze the Ha-Kanaim underground as the first manifestation of organized political violence ideologically rooted in the synthesis between religious fanaticism and a nationalist outlook. I believe That this affair certainly invites follow-up studies, which may tackle among other topics, the historical research of the underground per se; the attitude of ultra-Orthodox society and the rabbinical leadership to its activities; the reasons behind the government’s decision to activate the Defense Regulations; the work of the parliamentary investigative committee which was the last of its kind in Israel until 1987; the internal processes that took place within the police force; and the trial of the underground’s members.

From a broader perspective, the political intricacy that shrouded the affair must not be allowed to cloud the substantive issues that lay at its heart: religious fanaticism as a factor in the growth of political violence in Israel; the precedence given to Torah law over state law among various groups in Israeli society; the Israeli political system’s manner of dealing with political violence of this kind; and state-religion relations in Israel. These issues are of inestimable importance for the study of Israel’s political history and its ongoing historiography. This article sought to establish that they made their debut in the Brit Ha-Kanaim affair.

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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Maya Mark

Maya Mark is an Assistant Professor at the Ben-Gurion Research Institute for the Study of Israel and Zionism, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.

Notes

1. Internal Memo 72/51, The Attorney General Vs. Rider, Rulings 5 (District Courts), 410.

2. Bar-Zohar, Ha-memuneh, 4; An analysis of the religious underground’s documents, an internal police report, May 31, 1951, ISA L-2175/5.

3. “Hakirat atzurei Brit Ha-Kanaim li-krat siyuma: le-ma’ala me-elef mismakhim be-beit ha-mishpat [The Interrogation of the Brit Ha-Kanaim Detainees Nears the End: More than One Thousand Court Documents],” Ha-Tzofe, June 19, 1951, 4.

4. Ibid.

5. Ibid.

6. An analysis of the religious underground’s documents, an internal police report, May 31, 1951, ISA L-2175/5.

7. “Mismakhim shel shitat mahteret ha-kanaim bifnei beit ha-mishpat [Court Documents Concerning the Methods of Brit Ha-Kanaim],” Ha-Tzofe, June 20, 1951, 4.

8. Bar-Zohar, Ha-memuneh, 97.

9. Harel, Bitahon ve-demokratia, 180.

10. ”Mefakhei ha-mishtara mosrim edut keitzad nigbu ha-hodaot me-pi neeshamei ‘brit ha-kanaim’ [Police Inspectors Give Evidence How Confessions Were Elicited from the Defendants of Brit Ha-Kanaim],” Ha-Tzofe, June 1, 1951, 8.

11. Sprinzak, Alimut politit, 34; “Neetsru 42 hashudim be-kesher le-nisayon Brit Ha-Kanaim le-hitnakesh ba-Knesset [42 arrested in ‘Brit ha-kanaim’s attempt to assassin the Knesset],” Haaretz, May 16, 1951, 1.

12. “Takanon ve-huka makifim shel ha-misgeret [Comprehensive Constitution and Regulations of the organization],” May 29, 1951, 12, Israel State Archives (hereafter ISA) 16/32; “Mismakhim shel shitat mahteret ha-kanaim be-beit ha-mishpat [Court Documents Concerning the Methods of the Brit Ha-Kanaim Underground],” Ha-Tzofe, June 20, 1951, 4.

13. “Ba’aelei moniot mutzatot me’idim be-mishpat ha-kanaim [Drivers of Burned Taxis Give Evidence in the Trial of Ha-Kanaim],” Ha-Tzofe, June 4, 1951, 4.

14. For the police report on arson cases in Jerusalem, see Report by A. Shiloni, first head of Police Investigations Division, April 8, 1951, ISA L-86/16.

15. ibid. See also Harel, Bitahon ve-demokratia, 180; “Ba’aelei moniot mutzatot me’idim be-mishpat ha-kanaim” [Drivers of Burned Taxis Give Evidence in the Trial of Ha-Kanaim], Ha-Tzofe, June 4, 1951, 4.

16. Harel, Bitahon ve-demokratia, 181.

17. ISA, L-86/16, Report by A Shiloni, The first head of the Police Investigations Division, April 8, 1951, 4 of the police report; Harel, Bitahon ve-demokratia, 181.

18. ”Pekudat Mivtzah Nezek [Operation command ‘damage’],” ISA L-86/16; Harel, Bitahon ve-demokratia, 180-181.

19. Harel, Bitahon ve-demokratia, 182.

20. Bar-Zohar, Ha-memuneh, 95-97.

21. Harel, Bitahon ve-demokratia, 183.

22. “Sikkum pesha’im yomi [Daily crime summary],” May 16, 1951, ISA L-86/16. See also Divrei ha-Knesset [Knesset Record] (hereafter DK) 9 (1951): 1779; “Mefaked mishteret Yerushalayim megaleh be-mesibat itonaim: Mahteret kanai Shabbat nista le-habel ba-Knesset be-Yerushalayim [Police Chief Reveals at Press Conference that the Shabbat Zealots Tried to Sabotage the Knesset],” Ha-Boker, May 16, 1951, 1.

23. Gurr, Why Men Rebel, 3-4.

24. Wilkinson, Terrorism versus Democracy, 30.

25. Gurr, Why Men Rebel; Della Porta, Social Movements.

26. Bloxham and Gerwarth, Political Violence in Twentieth-Century Europe; Miller, The Foundations of Modern Terrorism.

27. Conteh-Morgan, Collective political violence, 33.

28. Sprinzak, Ish ha-yashar.

29. Hasenclever and Rittberger, “Does Religion Make a Difference?”

30. Juergensmeyer, Terror in the Mind of God; Altemeyer and Hunsberger, “Authoritarianism, Religious.”

31. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations. Huntington’s thesis remains at the center of a lively intellectual discourse and has given rise to continued research, developments and also criticism.

32. Juergensmeyer, Global Rebellion; Rapoport, “Fear and Trembling.”

33. Daskal, Hitnahagut opozitzionit.

34. Dicey, Introduction to the Study of the Law of the Constitution; Fuller, The Morality of Law; Scalia, “The Rule of Law as a Law of Rules;” Rawls, A Theory of Justice.

35. Goldstein and Shavit, Le-lo psharot; Shavit, Me-rov le-medina; Y. Weitz, Ha-tnu’a ha-revizionistit, 349.

36. David Ben-Gurion wrote in his diary that some of the underground’s members were former members of the Etzel and Lechi. Eventually, however, charges were not pressed against them. David Ben-Gurion’s diary June 12, 1951, BGA.

37. Heruti, Emet ahat, 208–213.

38. Daskal, Hitnahagut opozitzionit, 23.

39. Friedman, “Neturei Karta,” 224-229.

40. Friedman, Ha-hevra ha-haredit, 63-65.

41. Sprinzak, Alimut politit; Friedman, “Neturei Karta;” Caplan, Amram Blau, 15-16.

42. “Skira mishtartit (Nishleha le-sar ha-mishtara mi-mafkal ha-mishtara Y. Nachmias) [Police Report Sent from the Police Commissioner to the Minister of Police],” August 7, 1951, 120-124, ISA C-331/64; Friedman, Ha-hevra ha-haredit, 63-64; Levenkron, “Tafkida,” 120-124.

43. Friedman, “Neturei Karta,” 234-235.

44. ibid., 239.

45. “Skira mishtartit (Nishleha le-sar ha-mishtara mi-mafkal ha-mishtara Y. Nachmias) [Police Report Sent from the Police Commissioner to the Minister of Police],” August 7, 1951, 120-124, ISA C-331/64.

46. Sprinzak, Alimut politit, 24; Friedman, Ha-hevra ha-haredit, 63-65.

47. An exception is the death of Pinchas Segelov who was killed by policemen during the dispersal of a demonstration. Levenkron, “Tafkida,” 143-147.

48. Sprinzak, Alimut politit, 26

49. ibid., 25.

50. Friedman, Ha-hevra ha-haredit, 63-65.

51. Sprinzak, Alimut politit, 26.

52. Friedman, Ha-hevra ha-haredit, 69.

53. Leon, “Yeshivat Porat Yosef.”

54. Sprinzak, Alimut politit, 25.

55. ibid., 26. See also Leon’s comment that this affair warrants a separate study.

56. Tzameret, “Va’adat Frumkin,” 406.

57. ibid., 407.

58. ibid.

59. A. Nevo. “Hakham Mordechai ha-ish ve-darko [Hacham Mordechai – the Man and his Ways],” Yediot Ahronot,April 11, 1985, 6.

60. Tzameret, “Va’adat Frumkin,” 408.

61. ibid., 427.

62. DK 8 (1951): 1037-1110.

63. DK 8 (1951): 1108-1109; Don Yehiyeh, Mashber u-tmura, 381.

64. Don Yehiyeh, Mashber u-tmura, 275-396; Hacohen, Olim be-se’ara, 223-234.

65. See Clause 11 of the law.

66. Bick, “Equality, Orthodoxy and Politics,” 512; Warhaftig, Huka le-Yisrael, 247-248; Unna, Be-drakhim nifradot, 279.

67. Bick, Citizenship and Service, 43; On these grounds, Agudat Yisrael would resign from the government several months afterward. Friedman, Ha-hevra ha-haredit, 60-63.

68. A. Nevo. “Haham Mordechai ha-ish ve-darko” [Haham Mordechai – the Man and his Ways],Yediot Ahronot,April 11, 1985, 6, 7.

69. Sharet was the Prime Minister’s substitute, while Ben-Gurion was abroad.

70. DK 9 (1951): 1803.

71. Ibid., 1779.

72. Ibid., 1777. Several months later, Jabotinsky left Herut, amongst other reasons, as a result of continuing disputes regarding state-religion relations.

73. Ibid., 1778.

74. “‘Hatra’a’ karoz ha-liga neged kfiya datit” [‘A Warning’ – a poster by the League Against Religious Coercion], ISA L-86/16.

75. “Doh al mikrey hatzatat mekhoniot al yedey kana’im le-shmirat shabat” [Report of Car Torchings by Shabbat zealots], March 9, 1951, ISA L-86/16.

76. DK 9 (1951): 1777.

77. ISA K-25/60, Protocol of Internal Affairs Committee, May 22, 1951.

78. DK 9 (1951): 1803.

79. M.D., “Dvar Ha-yom” [Daily Editorial], Davar, May 16, 1951, 1.

80. “Din ha-dat ke-saif?” [religion as fencing?], Al ha-mishmar, May 17, 1951.

81. David Ben-Gurion’s diary June 12, 1951, BGA.

82. Certain doubts, limited to “the bride operation” (namely, the attempt to throw a bomb in the Knesset), were also raised by Menachem Begin, who argued that the security forces learned in advance about the plan from a undercover agent inside the underground. Begin wondered whether this agent was just an informer or rather a “provocateur,” more than hinting that the attempt to throw a bomb in the Knesset was in fact staged by the Shin Bet (Menachem Begin, “rak bli ‘kvetch’ rabotai” [No “Shriek,” Gentlemen], Herut, May 18, 1951; the protocol of the 33/3 meeting of the external affairs and security committee of the Knesset May 22, 1951). The involvement of the Shin Bet with the underground was also presented in a recent study: Gruweis-Kovalsky, “Religious Radicalism, the Zionist Right, and the Establishment of the State of Israel.” Indeed, the primary sources that were revealed thus far confirms the existence of undercover agents in the underground (Jerusalem police report, June 11, 1951, ISA, L-3331/64, ISA, L-2175/5). Moreover, it confirms that the Shin Bet was notified in advance of the plan to attack the Knesset. These facts were also openly declared in court during the trial of the underground’s leadership (see for example: “Matrot ve-pe’ulot mahteret ha-kanaim tuaru al-yedei praklit ha-medina be-mishpat ha-kanaim ha-datiim [The aims and actions of the zealots underground were described by the attorney general in the religious zealots tria],” Ha-boker March 4, 1952). Furthermore, a police report states that in real-time two agents who were unaware of each other’s identities, were present at the Knesset and physically held the bomb: “… We have decided to arrest the men in the Knesset, while the bomb is in their hands. Unfortunately, the bomb was carried by an informer of the security forces, who tried to pass it on to another informer of ours … ” (see Jerusalem police report, June 11, 1951, 5). Eventually, a decision was reached to forego the arrest of the informers. Consequently, the arrests of the underground members were executed later that day, following their departure from the Knesset. These documents (and others) therefore prove the existence of agents in the underground, prior knowledge of the security forces regarding the “bride operation” and the presence of informers on the scene. They do not, however, establish a conclusion that the operation was staged by the security forces, a conclusion which requires further and profound evidence. By any means, the claim of conspiracy became in many ways redundant several months later, as the members of the underground admitted during their trial to the allegations regarding the operation.

83. DK 9 (1951): 1977.

84. ibid., 1814.

85. ibid., 1852.

86. DK 10 (1951): 551.

87. For example: a teacher at the Bais Yaakov school; Chief Rabbi Uziel’s secretary; two instructors at the Porat Yosef hostel and the manager of the hostel, the institution’s right-hand man; four instructors from Midreshet No’ar Sinai; the secretary of Ze’irei Agudat Yisrael in Jerusalem.

88. DK 9 (1951): 1777.

89. ibid., at 1817.

90. Ha-Modi’a, May 18, 1951, 2.

91. Kalman Kahana, “Al ha-hasatot ve-ha-hatzatot [On the slandering and arson],” Ba-Shearin, May 24, 1951.

92. DK 9 (1951): 1817.

93. Specifically, arrests were made under Regulation 111 authorizing military officials at the time of the Mandate to carry out administrative detentions.

94. “Be-histadrut orkhei ha-din [In the Lawyer’s Union],” Ha-praklit 3 (1946): 58.

95. Law and administration ordinance, 5780-1948, official gazette 2 (1948):7.

96. “Be-ein homer ha’ashama maspik ha-atzurim huglu lefi hukei herum [Without Sufficient Evidence to Bring Charges, the Detainees were Expelled under the Emergency Regulations],” Ha-Tzofe, May 18, 1951, 1.

97. DK 9 (1951): 1802.

98. ibid.,1817.

99. ”Hukey ha-herum ha-britiyim huf’elu neged mahteret ‘Brit ha-Kanaim’[British Emergency Regulations Used against the Kanaim Underground],” Ma’ariv, May 17, 1951; “Ha-memshala hif’ila hukey cherum britim, [The Government Used British Emergency Regulations],” Herut, May 18, 1951, 1.

100. For a description of the parliamentary campaign and the crucial role played by Begin and Herut, see Bader, Ha-knesset ve-ani, 44-47.

101. DK 9 (1951): 1828. 1831.

102. “Ha-Knesset bitla hukey ha-herum [The Knesset Abolished the Emergency Regulations],” Ha-Tzofe, May 23, 1951, 1; “Ha-Knesset hehlita be-nigud le-emdat ha-memshala: Takanot ha-herum ha-britiyot nogdot la-yesodot shel medina demokratit [The Knesset’s Decision is at Odds with the Government’s Position: The British Emergency Regulations Contradict the Foundations of a democratic state],” Al Ha-Mishmar, May 23, 1951, 1; “Ha-Knesset hehlita etmol be-rov kolot: Hukey ha-herum ha-britiyim be-nigud le-yesodot ha-medina ha-demokratit” [A Knesset Majority Decided Yesterday: The British Emergency Regulations Contradict the Foundations of a Democratic State”), Herut, May 23, 1951, 1.

103. DK 10 (1951): 581.

104. ibid.

105. The various reasons for the extension of emergency legislation in Israel and the defense regulation from 1945 in particular, beyond the state’s nation-building stages, have long preoccupied historians and legal scholars. Hofnung argues that the main explanation lies in the fact that the defense regulations were the legal authority for the military government imposed on the Arab citizens of Israel during 1948–1966 (Hofnung, Yisrael, 81–83). Another explanation can be found in the political theory of emergencies> The crux of the argument is that the Government wishes to possess extensive authority. If it pleases – these authorities would be used, if not – restraint would be applied (Tzur & Kremnitzer, takanot, 97. Also see: Mark, Pitronot. To conclude this point it is worth noting that regulation 111 under which the underground members had been detained remained in place until its repeal, almost 30 years later, by the first Begin government the Emergency Powers (Detention) Law, 1979). The new law ordains that the president of the district court must approve the detention within 48 hours, and is authorised to cancel or shorten it. Furthermore, the decision may be appealed. The detention has to undergo judicial review every 3 months and after 6 months the court is required to issue a renewal.

106. Letter from Zelig Gayer to the Officer in Charge of Yagur Police Station (Jalame), May 16, 1951, ISA L-16/86.

107. See for example pp. 2-4 of the committee’s report.

108. For information about violent confrontations between ultra-Orthodox demonstrators and the police, see Levenkron, “Tafkida;” Friedman, “Neturei Karta;” Caplan, Amram Blau.

109. “Mishtar eimim ve-ta’alulim naziyim be-mahane ha-ma’atzar Jalami”[A Reign of Terror and Nazi Shenanigans at the Jalame Detention Camp],” Ha-Tzofe, May 25, 1951, 1.

110. “Mahane rikuz akhzari lefi dugma nazit muvheket [A Brutal Concentration Camp according to the Nazi Model],” Ha-Kol, May 25, 1951.

111. “Ha-yedi’ot al ha-yahas la-atzurim be-mahane Jalame oreru hitmarmerut gdola ba-tzibur ha-rahav [News of the Treatment of Detainees in the Jalame Camp Enrages the General Public],” Ha-Tzofe, May 27, 1951, 1.

112. “Ha-am ha-medina hizda’aze’a al ha-na’ase be-Jalame [The Public and the State Were Outraged by what Happened at Jalame],” She’arim, May 31, 1951, 1.

113. “Al ha-hasatot ve-al ha-hatzatot” [On Inciting and Igniting],” She’arim, May 24, 1951, 1.

114. ibid.

115. Ha-Modi’a, August 8, 1951, 8.

116. DK 9 (1951): 1817.

117. Harel, Bitahon ve-demokratia, 184.

118. Letter for Police Commissioner Sahar to the Minister of Police B. Shitrit, May 28, 1951, ISA C-331/64.

119. Harel, Bitahon ve-demokratia, 185. Letter from the Minister of Police, B. Shitrit, to the Knesset Speaker, June 24, 1952, ISA C-331/64.

120. ibid.

121. See Knesset protocols May 28, 1951; May 29, 1951; June 4, 1951. See also Flexer, Marot Ha-Knesset, 69-79.

122. The committee members were: Yohanan Bader, Herzl Berger, David Hacohen, Zerach Warhaftig, Idov Cohen, Yosef Sapir and Hannah Lamdan who was elected committee chair. For the committee’s report see: DK 9 (1951): 2196-2201.

123. Tzameret, “Va’adat Frumkin,” 132.

124. DK 10 (1951): 537-541, 571-582.

125. Letter from the Minister of Police, B. Shitrit, to the Knesset Speaker, June 24, 1952, ISA C-331/64; Letter from the Deputy Police Commissioner to the Minister of Police Shitrit, June 19, 1952, ISA C-331/64.

126. Criminal Case 72/51 Attorney General Vs. Rider, Clauses 1-3, 10-12, 17-29 to the Indictment.

127. “Ha-Kanaim zuku me-ashmat bgida [The Kana’im Found Not Guilty of Treason],” Ma’ariv, February 20, 1952, 1 (The trial of the underground members calls for scrutiny that is outside the scope of this article.)

128. Criminal Case 72/51 Attorney General Vs. Rider, Psakim Mehoziyim 5, 406, 409. Also see:“Ha-neeshamim hodu be-kol ha-ashmot [the Defendants Pled Guilty in all Counts],” Ha-Boker , March 7, 1952.

129. Y. Amikam, “Kitza ha-shalev shel ‘mahteret mesukenet’ [The Peaceful End of the ’Dangerous Underground’],” Ma’ariv, March 26, 1952, 2.

130. DK 10 (1951): 544.