Shlomo Ben-Yosef

Who was Shlomo Ben-Yosef?

Shlomo Ben-Yosef was a noted member of the Revisionist Zionist underground Irgun. He is most noted for his participation in an April 21, 1938 attack on a bus carrying Arab civilians, intended as a retaliation for an earlier attack by Arabs against Jews, and emblematic as a rejection of the establishment policy of Havlagah, or restraint. For this reason, and especially for having been the first Jew executed by the British authorities during the mandate period, Ben-Yosef is revered in the highest terms by right-wing Zionist groups such as Betar, Irgun, Jewish Defense League and the Kach movement.

Shalom Tabachnik immigrated to Palestine in 1937. He joined the nationalist Betar movement, living in the village of Rosh Pina and working at the Haifa port. He took the Hebrew name Shlomo Ben-Yosef and later joined the Rosh Pina cell of the paramilitary Zionist organization Irgun.