Shabtai Ben-Dov ( he, שבתי בן דב‎; 31 May, 1924 – 29 December, 1978) was a member of Lehi and a philosopher. His work has been influential on several right-wing Israeli messianic groups.

Personal life

Ben-Dov was born in

Vilnius Vilnius ( , ; see also other names) is the capital and largest city of Lithuania, with a population of 592,389 (according to the state register) or 625,107 (according to the municipality of Vilnius). The population of Vilnius's functional urb ...

, then part of

Second Polish Republic The Second Polish Republic, at the time officially known as the Republic of Poland, was a country in Central Europe, Central and Eastern Europe that existed between 1918 and 1939. The state was established on 6 November 1918, before the end of ...

in 1924 and moved to the

British Mandate of Palestine British Mandate of Palestine or Palestine Mandate most often refers to: * Mandate for Palestine: a League of Nations mandate under which the British controlled an area which included Mandatory Palestine and the Emirate of Transjordan. * Mandatory P ...

in 1935. He joined the

Irgun Irgun • Etzel , image = Irgun.svg , image_size = 200px , caption = Irgun emblem. The map shows both Mandatory Palestine and the Emirate of Transjordan, which the Irgun claimed in its entirety for a future Jewish state. The acronym "Etzel" i ...

, which was fighting the British for control of the region. When Lehi split from Irgun, Ben-Dov joined the former to continue fighting the British, who he didn't think were doing enough to try and stop the

Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; a ...

. He was caught, imprisoned, and eventually exiled to Africa by the British. He returned to Israel after the

establishment of the State of Israel The Israeli Declaration of Independence, formally the Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel ( he, הכרזה על הקמת מדינת ישראל), was proclaimed on 14 May 1948 ( 5 Iyar 5708) by David Ben-Gurion, the Executive ...

in 1948, and fought in the

IDF IDF or idf may refer to: Defence forces * Irish Defence Forces * Israel Defense Forces *Iceland Defense Force, of the US Armed Forces, 1951-2006 * Indian Defence Force, a part-time force, 1917 Organizations * Israeli Diving Federation * Interac ...

's 89th battalion. After the

Six-Day War The Six-Day War (, ; ar, النكسة, , or ) or June War, also known as the 1967 Arab–Israeli War or Third Arab–Israeli War, was fought between Israel and a coalition of Arab world, Arab states (primarily United Arab Republic, Egypt, S ...

in which Israel captured the

Temple Mount The Temple Mount ( hbo, הַר הַבַּיִת, translit=Har haBayīt, label=Hebrew, lit=Mount of the House f the Holy}), also known as al-Ḥaram al-Sharīf (Arabic: الحرم الشريف, lit. 'The Noble Sanctuary'), al-Aqsa Mosque compoun ...

, but allowed the

Jerusalem Islamic Waqf The Department of the Jerusalem Awqaf and Al-Aqsa Mosque Affairs, together with its board the Islamic Awqaf Council, is the Jordanian-appointed organization responsible for controlling and managing the current Islamic edifices on the Temple Moun ...

to control it, Ben-Dov sued the government. He demanded that the Temple Mount be controlled by those who would "protect it as a Jewish holy place".

Philosophy

Ben-Dov believed in a theory of active redemption: that the

Mashiach The Messiah in Judaism () is a savior and liberator figure in Jewish eschatology, who is believed to be the future redeemer of the Jewish people. The concept of messianism originated in Judaism, and in the Hebrew Bible a messiah is a king or Hig ...

would only come through a bloody national conquest, and that

Jews Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

who believed non-violent means could bring about the end of days were naive. He thought that Israel should be a

theocratic state Theocracy is a form of government in which one or more deities are recognized as supreme ruling authorities, giving divine guidance to human intermediaries who manage the government's daily affairs. Etymology The word theocracy originates fro ...

instead of a democratic one in order to keep the people focused on the cause of conquest. The establishment of the

Third Temple The "Third Temple" ( he, , , ) refers to a hypothetical rebuilt Temple in Jerusalem. It would succeed Solomon's Temple and the Second Temple, the former having been destroyed during the Babylonian siege of Jerusalem in and the latter havin ...

would speedily bring about a world government based on

Jewish values Jewish ethics is the ethics of the Jewish religion or the Jewish people. A type of normative ethics, Jewish ethics may involve issues in Jewish law as well as non-legal issues, and may involve the convergence of Judaism and the Western philosophy ...

governed by a

Sanhedrin The Sanhedrin (Hebrew and Aramaic: סַנְהֶדְרִין; Greek: , ''synedrion'', 'sitting together,' hence 'assembly' or 'council') was an assembly of either 23 or 71 elders (known as "rabbis" after the destruction of the Second Temple), ap ...

. Although his philosophy did not catch on, he did win over

Yehuda Etzion Yehuda Etzion ( he, יהודה עציון; born 1951) is an Israeli religious right-wing activist and the founder of Hai Vekayam, a group dedicated to allowing Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount. He was a member of the Jewish Underground and part ...

to whom he served as a mentor. Etzion later become a member of the

Gush Emunim Underground The Jewish Underground ( he, המחתרת היהודית ''HaMakhteret HaYehudit''), or in abbreviated form, simply ''makhteret'',David S. New''Holy War: The Rise of Militant Christian, Jewish and Islamic Fundamentalism,''McFarland, 2001, p. 143. w ...

and a revered figure in the Third Temple movement. Ben-Dov's philosophy was influential on the group Hai Vekayam, as well as many

Gush Katif Gush Katif ( he, גוש קטיף, , Harvest Bloc) was a bloc of 17 Israeli settlements in the southern Gaza strip. In August 2005, the Israeli army forcibly removed the 8,600 residents of Gush Katif from their homes after a decision from the Ca ...

leaders. Etzion would later devote himself to publishing Ben-Dov's writings, of which several volumes have been published.

Books

Ben-Dov is the author of: * ''The Redemption of Israel in the Crisis of the State'' * ''Prophecy and Tradition in Redemption'' * ''After the Six Day War: From the Six Day Victory On''

References

External links

The Collected Writings of Ben-Dov
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ben-Dov, Shabtai 1924 births 1978 deaths Writers from Vilnius Lithuanian Jews Polish emigrants to Mandatory Palestine Lehi (militant group) Jewish philosophers Burials at the Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives 20th-century Israeli philosophers People from Neve Yaakov