Major Farran's Hat

August 3, 2009
British historian Cesarani, who won a National Jewish Book Award for "Becoming Eichmann", investigates a murder, coverup and ensuing scandal in 1947 Palestine that, he says, ultimately cost Britain its mandate over Palestine. Receiving intelligence that radical Jewish resistance forces were planning an assassination on British soil, Whitehall approved a security crackdown involving special squads intended to provoke violence and snatch suspects. In May 1947, one squad, headed by Maj. Roy Farran, came upon 16-year-old Alexander Rubowitz reportedly putting up Jewish underground posters in Jerusalem, and abducted, tortured and killed him during an interrogation. Farran fled to Syria, but returned to face court-martial; his acquittal provoked criticism in the Jewish press and skepticism around the world, but in Britain he received a hero's welcome. In 1948, Farran's brother was killed by a letter bomb apparently intended for Roy; the Jewish underground took responsibility. Utilizing a variety of sources that have only recently become available, Cesarani reveals the surprising existence of Jewish terrorist networks in Europe while offering a masterful and persuasive account of an ugly episode in British colonial history. 8 pages of b&w photos; maps. "(Sept.)" .

July 1, 2009
A British historian presents a pointedly argued account of the relentless violence by both British and Jewish groups that brought about the end of British rule in Palestine.

Using the example of the abduction and murder of 16-year-old activist Alexander Rubowitz on May 6, 1947, Cesarani (History/Royal Holloway, Univ. of London; Becoming Eichmann, 2006, etc.) shows how British counterinsurgency measures not only failed to gain control of Jewish terrorist groups in Palestine in the mid-1940s, but essentially provoked such a violent backlash that the British recognized the game was up. Rubowitz, who was hanging posters in a neighborhood of Jerusalem for the terrorist group LEHI (aka the Stern Gang), was bundled into a car by men in civilian clothes, one of whom dropped a hat. When Rubowitz did not return home, the family broadcast his disappearance, and the hat was traced to former World War II war hero, now deputy superintendent of police, Major Roy Farran. There ensued feeble attempts at obfuscation and cover-up on the part of the British Army, who were apprised by Farran's account and others involved that Rubowitz had been tortured to death and his body vanished. Although Farran was clearly implicated, he was allowed to elude justice even after his court martial, and he was later celebrated in England. Cesarani combs through the bloody history of the British in the region, the early Zionist movement and push for Jewish migration and the Jewish retaliation against British resistance to increased migration after WWII. In this dense but cogent work, the author demonstrates how the British"special squads" descended into criminality—and were matched in their militancy by Jewish groups such as the Irgun.

Sound, sober historical documentation.

(COPYRIGHT (2009) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

September 15, 2009
After the end of World War II, the British dissolution of its empire was a relatively peaceful, even admirable process. But it also had its violent and seamier aspects, and these were especially evident in the final years of the British mandate in Palestine. There, Jewish terrorists from the Irgun and Stern gangs battled undercover British military forces in a vicious campaign characterized by bombings, kidnappings, and assassinations. British professor Cesarani has utilized recently available material from Israeli and British archives to reveal some disturbing, even sensational elements in this struggle. At the center of his revelations is the abduction and subsequent murder of a Jewish teenager working for the Stern Gang by a British undercover squad. Despite the obvious guilt of the leader of the squad, carefully chosen members of a court-martial acquitted him. Regardless of their motivations, many of these British agents became outright thugs. On the Jewish side, fanatics killed British soldiers in cold blood, bombed hotels, and sent letter bombs to Britain. This is a necessary reminder about the underside of empire and the creation of nations.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)