Interview about Yitshaq Ben-Ami

Description

Yitshaq Ben-Ami was the first Jewish baby born in what was then the brand new city of Tel Aviv. After joining the Irgun Zvai Leumi in 1932, he was sent to Europe in 1937, where he worked on helping Jewish refugees immigrate (illegally) to Palestine. His work included several meetings with Adolf Eichmann and other Nazi leaders in effort to save more Jews.In 1939, Ben-Ami traveled to the United States and set up a small organization in New York City called the American Friends of Jewish Palestine to raise money and support for the Irgun. In 1940, Hillel Kook (Peter Bergson) arrived in the US and the organization changed its name to the Committee for a Jewish Army of Stateless and Palestinian Jews and began to focus their efforts on trying to convince the Allies to create a Jewish army to help fight the Nazis.;When word of the Holocaust reached the Allies in late 1942, the committee, known generally as The Bergson Group, refocused its attention on trying to bring about U.S. action to rescue Jewish refugees. They used ground breaking techniques including placing full-page advertisements in major newspapers to help raise public interest in the plight of the Jews. During WWII, Ben-Ami was drafted into the U.S. Army and sent to Italy and then France, where he took part in the Battle of the Bulge. After the war, Ben-Ami returned to his Irgun activities and in 1947, acquired the Altalena, and he was aboard the ship when it reached Israel in 1948. His autobiography, "Years of wrath, days of glory: memoirs from the Irgun", is available in the National Library of Israel, shelf no. 82 B 1606.