Tag Archives: World War I

Jew of the Week: Yair Stern

Israel’s Freedom Fighter

Avraham Yair Stern (1907-1942) was born to a Russian-Jewish family in what is today Poland. The family fled during World War I, and Stern ended up living in a small village in Siberia. At 18, he made aliyah on his own to the Holy Land. Stern joined the Haganah defense organization and took up studies at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. In 1932, he joined the more right-wing Irgun and trained to become an officer. Stern was also a passionate writer and poet. His lyrics were credited with inspiring and strengthening countless Jewish pioneers in Israel. The Hebrew University was so impressed that they sent him to Italy for doctoral studies. Meanwhile, he travelled around Eastern Europe to convince more Jews to make aliyah and join the Zionist movement. Stern quickly recognized the British as oppressors and foreign colonialists, and argued that as the indigenous people of the land Jews had to do whatever it took to reclaim their ancestral home. When the British released the infamous 1939 White Paper limiting Jewish immigration (allowing only 75,000 Jews to enter over five years), Stern concluded that negotiations and diplomacy with the British was no longer possible, and armed resistance was necessary. At the outbreak of World War II, Stern was actually part of a training program with the Polish Army to train 40,000 Jews to liberate Israel from the British! The Nazi invasion of Poland put an end to that program. Stern eventually broke away from the Irgun and formed Lohamei Herut Israel, “Freedom Fighters of Israel”, abbreviated Lehi, in 1940. Some Lehi members sought to recruit local Arabs in their struggle against the British oppressor. But Stern, having lived through the terrible 1929 Hebron massacre and Arab riots (in which over 130 Jews were slaughtered and hundreds more injured and raped), foresaw that the Arabs would never share the land with the Jews in the long-term. Stern went on to organize attacks on British positions and assassinations of British authorities. His group was commonly referred to as “the Stern Gang”. Stern was shot to death by a British policeman in early 1942. Nonetheless, the Stern Gang continued its activities, and even assassinated the antisemitic Lord Moyne, the highest-ranking British official in the Middle East. These events finally convinced the British to abandon the Holy Land for good, allowing the State of Israel to be proclaimed. Immediately after, the new government of Israel disbanded Lehi. In January of 1949, they granted amnesty to past Lehi members, including future Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Shamir. Though he was only 34 years old when he was killed, Yair Stern is credited with playing an instrumental role in the formation of the State of Israel.

Should Jews Celebrate Halloween?

Orthodox Mother of 10 Worked for 12 Hours to Save Partygoers

Why Are Israeli Soldiers Snapping Up Tzitzit?

Bedouin Bus Driver Saves 30 Israelis

Pro-Palestinian Protestors Ignore History and Pay the Price

Thousands of Ultra-Orthodox Israelis Enlist in IDF

Piers Morgan Interviews ‘Son of Hamas’

Words of the Week

The current Palestinian political economy, influenced far too greatly by the BDS and anti-normalization campaigns, amounts to a corrupt, unsustainable, terror-supporting regime that is disinterested in the economic well-being of its own people and the development of a new state.
– Khaled Abu Toameh, Arab journalist and filmmaker 

Jew of the Week: Two-Gun Cohen

The Jewish General Revered in China and Taiwan

Moszek Abram Miączyn (1887-1970) was born in Poland to a deeply religious Jewish family. When he was two years old, the family moved to England and changed their last name to Cohen. Growing up in poverty, he got into a lot of trouble and was sent to a Rothschild-funded school for wayward youth. In 1905, his parents sent him to Canada to work on a farm, hoping it would strengthen and mature the young man. Now known as Morris Cohen, he became a typical “cowboy” and, when not raising livestock, spent his time in saloons, playing cards, shooting guns, and ending up in jail on several occasions. Cohen befriended Chinese immigrants working on the Canadian Pacific Railway. At the time, racism and abuse against the Chinese was rampant, and Cohen soon gained a reputation as the only white man who stood up for them. This eventually brought him an invitation from Sun Yat-sen, renowned philosopher and freedom fighter, who led the resistance in overthrowing the Chinese monarchy and who is today revered as a founding father in both China and Taiwan. Cohen and Sun Yat-sen became close friends. Meanwhile, Cohen enlisted in the military during World War I, fighting valiantly and rising to the rank of sergeant. When he was shot and injured in his right arm, he decided he needed to learn how to shoot with his left, too, and carried a revolver on both sides, earning the nickname “Two-Gun Cohen”. Upon his return to Canada, Cohen found himself without money or work. He headed to China and rejoined Sun Yat-sen, becoming his advisor and aide-de-camp. He helped in building China’s railways, and at the same time trained Sun Yat-sen’s revolutionary troops. Cohen became Sun Yat-sen’s personal bodyguard, and was given the Chinese name Ma Kun. After Sun Yat-sen’s passing, Cohen continued to work for the Kuomintang (the Chinese Nationalist Party), and was given the rank of major-general in the Revolutionary Army. During World War II, Cohen fought alongside the Chinese against the Japanese. He was captured in one battle, imprisoned and tortured, and was only freed in December 1943 in a prisoner exchange. He settled in Montreal and got married. In 1947, as the UN vote on the partition of Israel approached, Cohen heard that China planned to oppose, so he reached out to his contacts and made sure the Chinese government would abstain, which they did. Cohen remained neutral during the China-Taiwan split in 1949, and was one of the few people in the world permitted to travel directly between the two countries, as he was admired in both. At his funeral in Manchester, England’s Blackley Jewish Cemetery in 1970, delegations from both China and Taiwan arrived, marking one of the rare occasions when the two governments appeared together in public. Cohen’s life inspired at least three films, including The Gunrunner, where Cohen’s character was played by Kevin Costner.

Words of the Week

Since the Exodus, freedom has always spoken with a Hebrew accent.
– Heinrich Heine

Jew of the Week: Chaya Mushka Schneerson

The Rebbetzin

Chaya Mushka “Moussia” Schneerson (1901-1988) was born near Lubavitch, Russia, the granddaughter of the fifth Hasidic rebbe of Chabad. During World War I, the family fled to Rostov, where Chaya Mushka would help to smuggle food and supplies to the city’s underground yeshivas. In 1924, the family was forced to flee again due to antisemitic persecution by the Soviet Communists, this time to Leningrad (St. Petersburg). In 1927, her father Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn (who was by then the sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe) was imprisoned for spreading Judaism in the USSR. Chaya Mushka herself had played a central role in the “Hasidic underground” of the Soviet Union, making sure that Jews still had access to Jewish services and rituals. Her father even appointed her as his agent, responsible for all matters, while he was imprisoned. She campaigned for his release and helped to get him freed. The family then moved to Riga, Latvia. The following year, Chaya Mushka married her distant cousin Menachem Mendel Schneerson, who would go on to become the seventh and final Lubavitcher Rebbe. After living in Warsaw, Berlin, and Paris, the childless couple fled to New York during World War II. They settled in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, which would soon become the “capital” of Chabad. (Her younger sister and brother-in-law were unable to escape and tragically perished in the Holocaust.) While her husband transformed modern-day Judaism in his role as the Rebbe, Chaya Mushka worked behind the scenes to support him in every endeavour. She was affectionately known simply as “the Rebbetzin”, though she never referred to herself this way. The Rebbetzin was famous for her humility, modesty, and deep concern for all of God’s creations. In fact, there was a stray dog near her house on President Street that she always made sure to feed. One winter day in 1972, the Rebbetzin stepped out to get the mail and slipped on ice, breaking both of her wrists in the fall. She was unable to put any pressure on her hands, and could not get up. Incredibly, that same stray dog soon found her and dragged her back into her house, all the way to the phone so that she could call for help! Many other stories are told of her compassion, dedication, and strong resolve. After she passed away, the Rebbe founded a women’s charity in her honour, called Keren HaChomesh (the initials of her name), and there are also many girls’ schools today named after her. The Rebbetzin’s yahrzeit was earlier this week, on the 22nd of Shevat.

18 Myths and Facts About Jews

Words of the Week

No matter how engrossed one may be in the loftiest occupation, one must never remain insensitive to the cry of a child.
– Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi, the first Lubavitcher Rebbe (1745-1812)