Joseph Berger-Barzilai

Who is Joseph Berger-Barzilai?

Joseph Berger-Barzilai, 1904–1978, was founding member and secretary of the Communist Party of Palestine and a Comintern official in Soviet who fell victim to Stalin's purges.

Berger-Barzilai was born in Cracow, Poland in 1904. In 1914, his family fled the Russian army which threatened to invade their city for Vienna, and returned in 1916. He emigrated to Palestine at the age of 15 in 1920.

Originally a Zionist, he became a communist and took part in the founding of the Communist Party of Palestine in 1922 and became its secretary. In 1924, he was sent to Beirut to establish a branch of the party. The result was the Lebanese People's Party, a front organization, which was founded in October the same year around a communist party of Lebanon and Syria.

In 1924-25, Berger-Barzilai spent a few months in Moscow, where he met his wife Esther Feldman, a Russian Jewess. Upon his return to Palestine, he was arrested for illegal activities in the Communist party and Comintern, but was only fined. After another trip to Moscow, the police authorities refused to let him in on August 16, 1926. As a stateless citizen, he had to remain aboard an Italian ship that sailed back and forth for six weeks. The International Aid Organization for Arrested Revolutionaries, together with Zionists, managed to obtain his release. After that, he lived in an Arab village, Beit Safafa, under false identity. He continued to lead the party and met with Comintern emissaries.