The Training School for Betar Instructors (or

Betar The Betar Movement ( he, תנועת בית"ר), also spelled Beitar (), is a Revisionist Zionist youth movement founded in 1923 in Riga, Latvia, by Vladimir (Ze'ev) Jabotinsky. Chapters sprang up across Europe, even during World War II. After t ...

''madricihim'', also often translated as "youth guides" or "youth leaders") was founded in

Tel Aviv Tel Aviv-Yafo ( he, תֵּל־אָבִיב-יָפוֹ, translit=Tēl-ʾĀvīv-Yāfō ; ar, تَلّ أَبِيب – يَافَا, translit=Tall ʾAbīb-Yāfā, links=no), often referred to as just Tel Aviv, is the most populous city in the G ...

in 1928 as a military academy for revisionist youth in British

Mandatory Palestine Mandatory Palestine ( ar, فلسطين الانتدابية '; he, פָּלֶשְׂתִּינָה (א״י) ', where "E.Y." indicates ''’Eretz Yiśrā’ēl'', the Land of Israel) was a geopolitical entity established between 1920 and 1948 ...

Jeremiah Halpern Captain Jeremiah Halpern (; also known as Yirmiyahu Halpern and Yirmiyahu Halperin) (b. Smolensk, Russia, 1901; d. Tel Aviv, Israel, 1962) was a Revisionist Zionist leader in Palestine who first came to prominence when he served as '' aide de cam ...

, an experienced activist who had been involved in the

Haganah Haganah ( he, הַהֲגָנָה, lit. ''The Defence'') was the main Zionist paramilitary organization of the Jewish population ("Yishuv") in Mandatory Palestine between 1920 and its disestablishment in 1948, when it became the core of the ...

in 1920 and had served

in many capacities, was the first director of the school. Halpern had worked with Moshe Rosenberg since the 1920s in the development of Betar's military programmes and together they conceived of a school for Betar ''madrichim''. Shortly after becoming director, Halpern recruited the revolutionary Zionist

Abba Ahimeir Abba Ahimeir ( he, אב"א אחימאיר, russian: Аба Шойл Гайсинович; 2 November 1897 – 6 June 1962) was a Russian-born Jewish journalist, historian, and political activist. One of the ideologues of Revisionist Zionism, ...

as an instructor of the nationalist youth and together they led the school in an increasingly radical direction in which military training was viewed as a means of establishing the military wing of a national liberation movement. Under the leadership of Halpern (and later of Ahimeir), the 24 cadets took the lead in organising demonstrative activities outside Betar, which notably included taking the initiative in the march to the

Western Wall The Western Wall ( he, הַכּוֹתֶל הַמַּעֲרָבִי, HaKotel HaMa'aravi, the western wall, often shortened to the Kotel or Kosel), known in the West as the Wailing Wall, and in Islam as the Buraq Wall (Arabic: حَائِط � ...

in August 1929. The demonstration was later identified as the proximal cause of the

1929 Palestine riots The 1929 Palestine riots, Buraq Uprising ( ar, ثورة البراق, ) or the Events of 1929 ( he, מאורעות תרפ"ט, , ''lit.'' Events of 5689 Anno Mundi), was a series of demonstrations and riots in late August 1929 in which a longst ...

by the Shaw Commission. Halpern's cadets formed the nucleus for the right-wing

Maximalist In the arts, maximalism, a reaction against minimalism, is an aesthetic of excess. The philosophy can be summarized as "more is more", contrasting with the minimalist motto "less is more". Literature The term ''maximalism'' is sometimes associat ...

tendency in Revisionism and the activities of Halpern and Ahimeir contributed to the evolution of the Irgun and to the support of Revisionist Maximalism within Betar.Shindler, 2006, p. 153.

Notes

References

*Kaplan, Eric (2005. ''The Jewish Radical Right: Revisionist Zionism and Its Ideological Legacy''. University of Wisconsin Press. *Mattar, Philip (1988). ''The Mufti of Jerusalem: Al-Hajj Amin Al-Husayni and the Palestinian National Movement''. Columbia University Press. *Patai, Raphael (1971). ''Encyclopedia of Zionism and Israel'', Volume 1. Herzl Press. *Shindler, Colin (2006). ''The Triumph of Military Zionism: Nationalism and the Origins of the Israeli Right''. I B Tauris & Co Ltd. {{ISBN, 978-1-84511-030-7 1928 establishments in Mandatory Palestine Zionism in Mandatory Palestine Politics of Mandatory Palestine Betar