Begin, Menachem (1913–1992) and the Irgun

Abstract

Menachem Begin was born in the Polish city of Brest‐Litovsk in 1913. He was the youngest of three children and, like his lifelong rival David Ben‐Gurion, he was born into a family with strong Zionist leanings. He was educated in a Mizrachi Hebrew school, a Polish gymnasium (high school) and later, in 1935, he obtained a law degree from the University of Warsaw. While still young, Begin became a follower of Vladimir Jabotinsky's Revisionist Zionist movement which sought the immediate founding of a Jewish state in Palestine by violent means if necessary. Begin joined the Revisionist youth movement organization Betar at 16, worked for it full time after graduation, and became its leader in Poland by 1939. During this time he encouraged thousands of young Polish Jews to move to Palestine.