Meir Tobianski (, also ''Tubianski''; 20 May 1904 – 30 June 1948) was an officer in the

Israel Defense Forces The Israel Defense Forces (IDF; , ), alternatively referred to by the Hebrew-language acronym (), is the national military of the State of Israel. It consists of three service branches: the Israeli Ground Forces, the Israeli Air Force, and ...

(IDF) who was executed as a traitor on circumstantial evidence on the orders of

Isser Be'eri Isser Be'eri (, born Isser Birenzweig; 30 January 1901 – 1 January 1958) was the director of the Haganah Intelligence Service in Israel and was responsible for helping to reorganise Israeli intelligence services in 1948, as well as ordering th ...

, the first director of the IDF's intelligence branch. A year after the execution, Tobianski was exonerated of all charges. Tobianski was born in

Lithuania Lithuania, officially the Republic of Lithuania, is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea, bordered by Latvia to the north, Belarus to the east and south, P ...

and served as a major in the British Army during the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, then a captain in the

Haganah Haganah ( , ) was the main Zionist political violence, Zionist paramilitary organization that operated for the Yishuv in the Mandatory Palestine, British Mandate for Palestine. It was founded in 1920 to defend the Yishuv's presence in the reg ...

, and was later sworn into the IDF on 28 June 1948, during the

1948 Arab-Israeli War Events January * January 1 ** The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) is inaugurated. ** The current Constitutions of Constitution of Italy, Italy and of Constitution of New Jersey, New Jersey (both later subject to amendment) ...

. He was also the former commander of Camp Schneller, a military base in

Jerusalem Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...

. In June 1948 Tobianski had been transferred to command of Jerusalem airstrips.Nachman Ben-Yehuda (1992), ''Political Assassinations by Jews: A Rhetorical Device for Justice'', pp. 263–264. He was an employee of the British-run Jerusalem Electric Corporation. Suspected of passing information on targets for Jordanian artillery, he was taken into custody and sentenced to death by

firing squad Firing may refer to: * Dismissal (employment), sudden loss of employment by termination * Firemaking, the act of starting a fire * Burning; see combustion * Shooting, specifically the discharge of firearms * Execution by firing squad, a method of ...

. Tobiansky remains, alongside

Adolf Eichmann Otto Adolf Eichmann ( ;"Eichmann"
''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''. ; 19 March 1906 – 1 Ju ...

, the only person executed in Israel, despite capital punishment being legal as of date.

Biography

Tobianski was born in Kovno (now

Kaunas Kaunas (; ) is the second-largest city in Lithuania after Vilnius, the fourth largest List of cities in the Baltic states by population, city in the Baltic States and an important centre of Lithuanian economic, academic, and cultural life. Kaun ...

), Lithuania, then part of the

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...

, to a Jewish family in 1904. He grew up in Kovno and

Bratislava Bratislava (German: ''Pressburg'', Hungarian: ''Pozsony'') is the Capital city, capital and largest city of the Slovakia, Slovak Republic and the fourth largest of all List of cities and towns on the river Danube, cities on the river Danube. ...

and graduated from the Kovno Hebrew Gymnasium in 1920. He served in the

Lithuanian Army The Lithuanian Armed Forces () are the military of Lithuania. The Lithuanian Armed Forces consist of the Lithuanian Land Forces, the Lithuanian Navy, the Lithuanian Air Force and the Lithuanian Special Operations Force. In wartime, the Lithuan ...

and studied engineering in Russia and Lithuania. Tobianski immigrated to

Mandatory Palestine Mandatory Palestine was a British Empire, British geopolitical entity that existed between 1920 and 1948 in the Palestine (region), region of Palestine, and after 1922, under the terms of the League of Nations's Mandate for Palestine. After ...

in 1925. Initially, he worked in physical labor, including agricultural activities in the fields of

Binyamina Binyamina-Giv'at Ada () is a town in the Haifa District in northern Israel. It is the result of the 2003 merger between the two local councils of Binyamina and Giv'at Ada. In 2019 its population was 17,371. Before the merger, the population of ...

. After contracting fever while digging a well, he abandoned physical labor and enlisted in the

Palestine Police Force The Palestine Police Force (, ) was a British colonial police service established in Mandatory Palestine on 1 July 1920,Sinclair, 2006. when High Commissioner Sir Herbert Samuel's civil administration took over responsibility for security from ...

. He also joined the

. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, he enlisted in the

British Army The British Army is the principal Army, land warfare force of the United Kingdom. the British Army comprises 73,847 regular full-time personnel, 4,127 Brigade of Gurkhas, Gurkhas, 25,742 Army Reserve (United Kingdom), volunteer reserve perso ...

. He served in the

Royal Engineers The Corps of Royal Engineers, usually called the Royal Engineers (RE), and commonly known as the ''Sappers'', is the engineering arm of the British Army. It provides military engineering and other technical support to the British Armed Forces ...

and reached the rank of Major. After the war, he worked as an engineer with the British-owned Jerusalem Electric Corporation. He was sworn into the

on 28 June 1948. Tobianski was married to Chaya and had a son named Ya'akov.

Background

Even prior to the 1948 war, the Haganah had a policy of executing spies and collaborators. In the summer of 1947, Moshe Kelman commanded a Haganah squad which executed a Jew accused of collaborating with the British. The execution took place at Kibbutz

Dafna Dafna () is a kibbutz in the Upper Galilee in northern Israel. Located seven kilometres east of Kiryat Shmona and surrounded by three streams of the Dan River (Middle East), Dan River, it falls under the jurisdiction of Upper Galilee Regional Co ...

. During the siege of Jerusalem, the reports and fears of spies abounded. Lehi alone had executed 4 "spies" in Jerusalem including Vera Ducas, a 36-year-old female Austrian Jew who was shot on 29 March. In June, there was a report that "nine Jewish girls are being held by the sraeliArmy under suspicion of contacts with the enemy." The apparent accuracy of Jordanian shelling of strategic targets led to suspicions that a spy was responsible. Those suspicions were focused on the Jerusalem Electric Corporation. On 8 July 1948, the

Irgun The Irgun (), officially the National Military Organization in the Land of Israel, often abbreviated as Etzel or IZL (), was a Zionist paramilitary organization that operated in Mandatory Palestine between 1931 and 1948. It was an offshoot of th ...

arrested five British officials of the Jerusalem Electric Corporation. One of the men was Michael Bryant, to whom Tobianski had been accused of passing information. A month later, they were transferred to the Israeli authorities and on 12 August brought to trial. Three, including Bryant, were released due to lack of evidence. The remaining two men, George Hawkins and Fredrick Sylvester, faced a second trial on 16 September. Hawkins, who was charged with passing information to the Arabs, was released on 30 September. Sylvester, who was married to an Israeli and had been a member of the Palestine Police, was charged with espionage and complicity in the

Ben Yehuda Street bombing A series of attacks were perpetrated or ordered by Palestinian Arabs, some of them acting as suicide bombers, on Jewish targets in Jerusalem's Ben Yehuda Street from February 1948 onwards. Ben Yehuda Street was a major thoroughfare. 1948 (49� ...

. On 6 October, he was found guilty of three charges of espionage and sentenced to seven years in prison. The verdict rested on his possession of a radio with which he had been communicating with the British Consul in the Old City. In November 1948, he was acquitted by the Israeli Supreme Court and released.

Drumhead court-martial and execution

During the

, Tobianski worked for the Jerusalem Electric Corporation and had knowledge of the exact location of several arms manufacturers in

. These factories had received direct hits from Jordanian artillery.Shabtai Teveth (1996), ''Ben Gurion's Spy'', Columbia University Press pp. 17–30 After arriving at

Tel Aviv Tel Aviv-Yafo ( or , ; ), sometimes rendered as Tel Aviv-Jaffa, and usually referred to as just Tel Aviv, is the most populous city in the Gush Dan metropolitan area of Israel. Located on the Israeli Mediterranean coastline and with a popula ...

on 30 June 1948, Tobianski was taken into custody by Shmuel Granizi in the Carmel market. Contrary to the Chief Military Prosecutor's order to arrest and interrogate Tobianski for 10 days, Tobianski was driven from

to Hulda and then onto a deserted school building between the depopulated former Palestinian Arab villages of Bayt Susin and

Bayt Jiz Bayt Jiz () was a Palestinian Arab village situated on undulating land in the western foothills of the Jerusalem heights, southwest of Ramla. In 1945, it had a population of 550. It was occupied by Israeli forces in the 1948 Arab–Israeli War ...

, where he was subject to a

drumhead court-martial A drumhead court-martial is a court-martial held in the field to render summary justice for offenses committed in action. The term is said to originate from drums used as improvised tables and drumheads as writing surfaces at fast-track mil ...

. During the court martial, Tobianski was interrogated by

, David Kron,

Binyamin Gibli Binyamin Gibli (; 1919 – August 19, 2008) was the head of Israeli Military Intelligence from June 1950 to March 1955. Shabtai Teveth (1996) ''Ben-Gurion's Spy: The Story of the Political Scandal That Shaped Modern Israel'' Columbia University pr ...

and

Avraham Kidron Abraham (originally Abram) is the common Hebrew patriarch of the Abrahamic religions, including Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. In Judaism, he is the founding father who began the covenantal relationship between the Jewish people and God; ...

. He admitted to showing a list of the consumers to Michael Bryant, British manager of the Jewish section of the Jerusalem Electric Corporation, although the list 'vanished'. Be'eri, who was late for the trial, had already prepared a firing squad of six soldiers from the

Palmach The Palmach (Hebrew: , acronym for , ''Plugot Maḥatz'', "Strike Phalanges/Companies") was the elite combined strike forces and sayeret unit of the Haganah, the paramilitary organization of the Yishuv (Jewish community) during the period of th ...

Yiftach Brigade The 11th Brigade (also known as the Yiftach Brigade) is a reserves unit in the Israel Defense Forces, composed mainly of fighters that completed their compulsory service in the Egoz Unit, Unit 621 – 'Egoz'. History In the 1948 Arab–Israeli ...

, which was in control of the Jerusalem corridor zone. Tobianski was found guilty and executed in Bayt Jiz, where his body was buried. He had received neither a lawyer nor the right to appeal, and his case was not reviewed by a higher court.

Posthumous inquiry and rehabilitation

Several months later, an

Israeli Arab The Arab citizens of Israel form the country's largest ethnic minority. Their community mainly consists of former Palestinian Citizenship Order 1925, Mandatory Palestine citizens (and their descendants) who continued to inhabit the territory ...

by the name of Ali Qasim, who had spied for Israeli intelligence, was found dead in a forest near

Haifa Haifa ( ; , ; ) is the List of cities in Israel, third-largest city in Israel—after Jerusalem and Tel Aviv—with a population of in . The city of Haifa forms part of the Haifa metropolitan area, the third-most populous metropolitan area i ...

. Be'eri was suspected of ordering his execution, on suspicion of being a

double agent In the field of counterintelligence, a double agent is an employee of a secret intelligence service for one country, whose primary purpose is to spy on a target organization of another country, but who is now spying on their own country's organi ...

. Be'eri admitted to the charges in court and was dismissed from his service in the Israel Defense Forces. Due to the efforts of Tobianski's widow, the

Military Advocate General The Military Advocate General (MAG Corps') (, ''HaPraklitut HaTzva'it'') is responsible for implementing the rule of law within the Israel Defense Forces. The unit's objectives include integrating the rule of law amongst IDF commanders and soldie ...

ordered Tobianski's case to be reviewed by

Aharon Hoter-Yishai Aharon Hoter-Yishai (; January 1, 1905 – May 20, 2003) was the Israeli Military Advocate General in 1948–1950 and testified at the Eichmann trial in 1961. Military and legal career In 1945 Hoter-Yishai was an officer of the Jewish Brigade in ...

; Tobianski was exonerated by the inquiry. Among the interrogated was Avraham Gorali, the chief military prosecutor at the time, who claimed that the execution was done without his knowledge. However, the chief

military police Military police (MP) are law enforcement agencies connected with, or part of, the military of a state. Not to be confused with civilian police, who are legally part of the civilian populace. In wartime operations, the military police may supp ...

officer, Danny Magen, stated that Gorali contacted him by phone one day before the execution and asked about the possibility of the Military Police Corps carrying out the punishment, which Magen refused. Gorali admitted to such a call, but the investigation's report stated that this was likely an attempt to assess the possibility of carrying out a death sentence in the IDF, and did not imply knowledge of the outcome of the trial. On 1 July 1949, a year after Tobianski's wrongful execution, the Israeli government informed his widow of Tobianski's posthumous acquittal and reinstatement to rank. On 5 July, Prime Minister Ben-Gurion publicly exonerated Tobianski. On 7 July, his body was reburied in the IDF's burial grounds on

Mount Herzl Mount Herzl ( ''Har Hertsl''), also ''Har ha-Zikaron'' ( lit. "Mount of Remembrance"), is the site of Israel's national cemetery and other memorial and educational facilities, found on the west side of Jerusalem beside the Jerusalem Forest. I ...

with full military honors. High-ranking Israeli military officers attended the funeral, and the Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Israel,

Benzion Uziel Ben-Zion Meir Hai Uziel (; born 23 May 1880, died 4 September 1953), sometimes rendered as Ouziel, was the Sephardi chief rabbi of Mandatory Palestine from 1939 to 1948, and of Israel from 1948 until his death in 1953. Biography Ben-Zion Meir Ha ...

, delivered the eulogy. On his military gravestone is written, "killed by mistake". Ben-Gurion excused Be'eri's actions: "perhaps because the underground laws were still dominant in the army".Nachman Ben-Yehuda (1992), ''Political Assassinations by Jews: A Rhetorical Device for Justice'', , p. 266

Nathan Alterman Nathan Alterman (; August 14, 1910 – March 28, 1970) was an Israeli poet, playwright, journalist, and translator. Though never holding any elected office, Alterman was highly influential in Labor Zionist politics, both before and after the es ...

wrote a protest poem called "The traitor's widow", commemorating Tobianski's widow's successful demand to review his wrongful court martial and damning the oxymoron of "quick trial". American novelist

Zelda Popkin Zelda Popkin (née Feinberg; 5 July 1898 – 25 May 1983) was an American writer of novels and mystery stories. She created Mary Carner, one of the first professional female private detectives in fiction. Carner was a store detective who appeared ...

made Tobianski's execution and posthumous rehabilitation a central episode in her novel, ''Quiet Street'', the first fictional account of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, published in 1951. In the novel, he appears as "Yora Levine."

Be'eri's trial

In November 1949 Isser Be'eri was tried and found guilty of

manslaughter Manslaughter is a common law legal term for homicide considered by law as less culpable than murder. The distinction between murder and manslaughter is sometimes said to have first been made by the ancient Athenian lawmaker Draco in the 7th ce ...

by the Tel Aviv District Court. The examining magistrate, Eliezer Malchi, who conducted the preliminary inquiry, said there were grounds for arraigning Colonel Be'eri on a murder charge but this would not be done. The civilian court found that, as there was a ceasefire in effect at the time, any information supposedly passed by Tobianski could not have served the Jordanian artillery. Due to his extensive service to the country, Be'eri received a symbolic punishment of one day of prison, "from sunrise to sunset, 30 days after sentencing", before which he was pardoned by the president,

Chaim Weizmann Chaim Azriel Weizmann ( ; 27 November 1874 – 9 November 1952) was a Russian-born Israeli statesman, biochemist, and Zionist leader who served as president of the World Zionist Organization, Zionist Organization and later as the first pre ...

. Be'eri's three fellow interrogators, David Kron,

and Avraham Kidron, who also had condemned Tobianski as his judges in the afternoon drumhead court-martial, themselves were not charged and tried in court. They reached high military and civilian positions. In his memoir David Kron wrote that despite the official investigation, he was convinced that Tobianski had been guilty and that Be'eri had the full authority to act the way he had. Later

Shabtai Teveth Shabtai Teveth (; 1925 – 1 November 2014) was an Israeli historian and author. Teveth was born in 1925 and grew up in the worker' quarters at the Migdal Tzedek quarry, where his father worked, near Petah Tikva. He began working as a journali ...

placed the fault with Gibli's overbearing ambitions and manipulation, personal traits that led to the

Lavon affair The Lavon affair was a failed Israeli covert operation, codenamed Operation Susannah, conducted in Egypt in the summer of 1954. As part of a false flag operation, a group of Egyptian Jews were recruited by Israeli military intelligence to pla ...

.Shabtai Teveth (1996), ''Ben Gurion's Spy'', Columbia University Press, p. 268

Biography

Background

Drumhead court-martial and execution

Posthumous inquiry and rehabilitation

Be'eri's trial

See also

References

Further reading