June 11, 1945
Eliyahu Golomb, who helped found the Haganah as a self-defense force for Jewish settlements in Palestine, dies at the age of 52.
He was born in Belarus in 1893. He immigrated to Ottoman Palestine in 1909 and became a prominent leader of the movement for Jewish defense in the Yishuv (Jewish community) while also organizing agricultural training courses and working at Kibbutz Degania Alef. In 1920 he helped found the Haganah, the pre-state Jewish defense organization that was the precursor of the Israel Defense Forces. He also organized supply shipments to the Haganah defenders of the northern outpost at Tel Hai.
Convinced that the defense of the Jewish communities in Palestine was a global Jewish issue, he went to Europe to purchase weapons for the Haganah in 1922. In Europe, he organized groups of young Jews to become pioneers in Mandatory Palestine. In the 1930s, as the Arab population in Palestine violently lashed out against the Jewish settlers, Golomb was a key force in establishing field units for defense.
Golomb’s policy was clear: He was known for both his active support of defensive and retaliatory measures against Arab insurgency and for being firmly opposed to violent measures against Arab civilians.
Golomb believed that a unified defensive institution was essential to the development of the Jewish state. He opposed splinter defense organizations such as the Irgun and Lehi. Golomb and Berl Katznelson worked with the leader of the Irgun, Ze’ev Jabotinsky, to try to merge their organizations’ defense efforts.
