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This Jew became an icon for left and right-leaning Zionists.
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On this day, March 1st, 1920, military leader and Zionist pioneer Joseph Trumpeldor passed away.
Joseph Trumpeldor was born on 21 November 1880, in a Russian city in the Caucuses. Many Jews like Trumpeldor were unable to get a secondary education. In 1902, Trumpeldor was conscripted into the Russian Army. He was sent to Port Arthur in Manchuria (China). Even after his arm was hit by shrapnel and subsequently amputated, he refused to be demobilized and continued to fight.
After the fall of Port Arthur, he was sent to a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp. Trumpeldor ardently advocated for the welfare of his fellow soldiers but paid special attention to his fellow Jews. From a young age, Trumpeldor believed in establishing agricultural communities in Israel.
Trumpeldor was inspired by the teachings of Russian author Leo Tolstoy and as a result, integrated exercise, pacifism, vegetarianism, and outdoorsmanship into his life on the Kibbutz. Like Tolstoy, he rejected vices such as drinking and smoking. There had been a clear impact on his defense of the kibbutzim. In the POW camps, he spread his views to Jewish prisoners, influencing them to join him in building an agricultural community in British Mandate Palestine.
Upon his release back to Russia, Trumpeldor was granted the rank of Officer and was now the most distinguished Jew in the Russian Army. Before being conscripted, he saw himself as a dentist but with his recent amputation, he chose law. While offered a promotion in rank, in a letter to his father he described how his Russian title does not matter when fighting in the Land of Israel, his true homeland.
He became an avid writer and his letters provide a window into his character - a romantic who chose his duty to Zionism over love.
In 1911, he moved to Palestine. He worked around the Galilee, particularly in Kibbutz Degania where he formed the Zion Mule Corps with fellow Russian Jew Ze’ev Jabotinsky. This Jewish Legion would serve on the British side in the failed Gallipoli campaign. He continued to build Jewish forces, especially amongst Russian Jewry, until the October Revolution, when his Russian Jewish regiment disbanded and he was arrested.
Once released, he returned to British Mandate Palestine, now under British control. Jewish settlements in the North Galilee faced the crossfire of Arab rebels and French forces from neighboring Syria. Trumpeldor personally went up to defend Tel Hai. Unfortunately, during negotiations, hostilities began. Trumpeldor received a stomach wound and died later that night.
His final words were, “It is good to die for our country”. With this, he became an icon for left and right-leaning Zionists.
