President Izhak Ben-Zvi paid warm tribute to the memory of Vladimir Jabotinsky, founder of the Zionist Revisionist movement, at a meeting at the President’s residence yesterday called to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the death of the Revisionist leader. Among those who attended the meeting were Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, Cabinet Ministers, Herut members of the Knesset, Israel’s Parliament and leaders of the Revisionist movement.
President Ben-Zvi told the gathering that Jabotinsky’s writings, translations and speeches, which infused Russian Jewish youth with Zionism, were known to him long before he had ever met the Revisionist leader.
Premier Ben-Gurion, whose attendance at the meeting was regarded as a sign of conciliation between two Zionist points of view which had been at odds for nearly 40 years, said that his would be “subjective impressions of the tragic Zionist figure. ” Declaring that he never felt any animosity toward Jabotinsky, the Premier told the meeting ” I understood his point of view, although I did not agree with him. “
Mrs. Ben-Zvi urged the gathering that the unifying features of Jabotinsky’s life be recalled. Others paying tribute were Knesset Deputy Arieh Altman, Professor Eri Jabotinsky, only son of the late Zionist leader and Menahem Arber, former commander of Etzel, the Revisionist underground organization in Palestine during the British Mandate.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
