Philip Rubenstein
Israel’s Prime Ministers, Part 4: The Revolt

Before he became prime minister in 1977, Menachem Begin (1913–92) was one of the most controversial and compelling figures in Israel’s history. A disciple of Ze'ev Jabotinsky, and marked by the murder of most of his family in the Shoah, Begin emerged as a fiery and uncompromising leader. In the wake of the 1939 White Paper, he led a “revolt” of armed resistance to British rule. Branded a terrorist by the British—who placed a “dead-or-alive” bounty on his head—and a political outsider by Israel’s Labour establishment, he nonetheless built a movement that would ultimately reshape the nation’s leadership. This lecture explores the dramatic early life of a man driven by conviction, ideology, and a fierce commitment to Jewish self-determination, setting the stage for a subsequent talk examining his years in power.