Uphill political struggle: Joseph Trumpeldor in Japan and Manchuria, 1904‒1906

Abstract

Russian-Jewish army officer Joseph Trumpeldor (1880–1920) was arguably the most celebrated Jewish military hero of the first half of the twentieth century. He lost his left arm during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905 and endured a year-long Japanese imprisonment. In 1905–1906, en route back to European Russia, Trumpeldor visited the Manchurian city of Harbin and attempted to impart Zionism to the local Russian-Jewish population, albeit with very limited success. Trumpeldor’s personal commitment to Zionism received its fullest expression in 1912 when he emigrated to Kibbutz Degania in Ottoman Palestine and subsequently died in defence of the Tel Hai farming community. His career inspired the Zionist movement named after him, Brit Trumpeldor. Abbreviated BETAR, it influenced leaders of the Jewish exodus from China in 1948–1949 and energised the Herut/Likud parties in Israel. Viewing Trumpeldor as only partially successful in his political efforts in Japan and Manchuria may somewhat tarnish the myth of the one-armed soldier and pioneering farmer. The inclusion of the Japanese and Manchurian dimensions of Trumpeldor’s uphill political struggle situates this hero within a far more realistic, and less Eurocentric, context.