A murder during the British Mandate
Alexander Rubowitz, a sixteen-year-old Jerusalemite, left his home on May 6, 1947, and never returned.
Jeremy Rosen
He came from a very religious family in the Charedi quarter of Meah Shearim. He had joined Lohamei HaHerut b’Yisrael “the Freedom Fighters for Israel,”popularly known as Lehi.
After the Second World War, antisemite Ernest Bevin, the foreign secretary, introduced stringent means to quell the rising violence against the British presence in Palestine. Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery (Monty), the hero of Alamein in North Africa where the British Eighth Army defeated Rommel’s German Army, was put in charge of stopping the violence between Arab and Jew using whatever means at his disposal.
He recommended a plan of action against the Jewish opposition. “The Army must strike a real blow against the Jews by arresting the heads of the illegal Jewish organizations and those members of the Jewish Agency known to be collaborating with the Hagana. This would lead to a war against the Jews, a war against a fanatical and cunning enemy who would use the weapons of kidnap, murder and sabotage.” The reaction was that The Irgun and the Lehi stepped up their attacks on those who attacked them.
This was the background to Rubowitz’s disappearance. On a May evening, he left his home to attach Stern Group messages on poster boards. As he passed through the Machaneh Yehudah, a woman saw a young boy running down the street being chased by a powerful-looking man. She watched as the man caught the boy. She later identified the boy as Alexander Rubowitz. Two boys saw a man throwing the boy into the car before they drove off at high speed. Other onlookers noted the vehicle number as 993.
Another spectator who witnessed the scene found a hat on the ground. Inside the gray trilby was a label in English with the name Farran. Roy Farran, led a British covert police squad, whose role was going after Jewish underground operatives. During this period there were four other unsolved kidnappings, three involved teenagers.
When Rubowitz had not returned home, his parents went to the local police station to report him missing. They were told that their son was not in police custody. They contacted the Hebrew press to have them report the boy’s disappearance. On May 9, Haaretz published a small piece headlined, “Abducted or Arrested?” Newspapers printed Rubowitz’s picture. The Palestine Post, received an anonymous letter that the hat was that of a CID police superintendent Roy Farran.
It emerged that Roy Farran and his team snatched the boy and drove to a remote spot off the Jerusalem-Jericho Road to interrogate him. During the brutal interrogation, Farran picked up a rock and smashed the boy’s head repeatedly until he died. Rubowitz’s body was stripped and stabbed to make it look as if the Jewish boy had been murdered by Arabs. They burned his clothing and returned to Jerusalem and Farran handed over a list of names they had found in the young boy’s pocket. Farran was not charged with murder. Neither was he arrested or suspended, and he and his team received no punishment for the murder of a Jerusalem teenager. In an attempt to undermine the evidence, the British CID forensic laboratory reported it was impossible to confirm the name of the hat was Farran. As a result of the outcry and incriminating evidence, Farran was ordered to stand trial. But he stole a CID car, and drove to Aleppo, where the Syrian Arab authorities offered him sanctuary. Nevertheless, Farran was persuaded to return to Jerusalem to face trial. On June 17th, 1947, Farran handed himself into the hands of the British army. The trial was a farce. Farran was acquitted and, the next day was put on a shipbound for England.
In the UK Farran wrote an autobiography, unsuccessfully tried to win a seat in Parliament, then emigrated to Canada. Alexander Rubowitz’s family tried unsuccessfully to pursue Farran. You can read all the details in the late David Cesarani’s excellent book Major Farran’s Hat : The Untold Story of the Struggle to Establish the Jewish State.
One year after Rubowitz’s murder, the State of Israel was established. Although the remains of Alexander Rubowitz were never found, a memorial can be found in the military cemetery on Mount Herzl commemorating this young Zionist hero, and a plaque can be seen on Ussishkin Street in Jerusalem, the scene of his abduction by the British who left Israel in shame on May 14, 1948.
On his way out, British high commissioner, Alan Cunningham, wrote that the Jewish fighters that had driven out the British were “remarkably like those of Nazi Germany,” proving the depth of antisemitism among the British officers who failed to use their best endeavours to facilitate the establishment of a national home of the Jewish people and, instead, were responsible for the murder and judicial cover up of a Jewish teenage hero.
Popular hatred runs deep and rarely does it stay confined to free speech. Although it may lie beneath the surface it never goes away.
Rabbi Jeremy Rosen lives in New York. He was born in Manchester. His writings are concerned with religion, culture, history and current affairs – anything he finds interesting or relevant. They are designed to entertain and to stimulate. Disagreement is always welcome.
