1. Avraham Stern's legacy is controversial due to his organization unsuccessfully attempting to form an alliance with Nazi Germany against the British during World War II.
25 Facts About Avraham Stern
1. 2.
Avraham Stern was captured and killed by British colonial police in 1942.
3.
When he was separated from his mother the 13-year-old Avraham Stern earned his keep by carrying river water in Siberia.
4.
At the age of 18, in 1925, Avraham Stern emigrated on his own to Mandatory Palestine.
5.
Avraham Stern studied at the Hebrew University on Mount Scopus in Jerusalem.
6.
Avraham Stern specialized in Classical languages and literature.
7.
Stern's commander and friend Avraham Tehomi quit the Haganah because it was under the authority of the local labor movement and union.
8.
Avraham Stern joined the Irgun and completed an officer's course in 1932.
9.
Avraham Stern was awarded a stipend to study for a doctorate in Florence, Italy.
10.
Avraham Stern Tehomi made a special trip to Florence to recall him, in order to make him his deputy in the Irgun.
11.
Avraham Stern spent the rest of the 1930s traveling back and forth to Eastern Europe to organize revolutionary cells in Poland and promote immigration of Jews to Palestine in defiance of British restrictions.
12.
Avraham Stern developed a plan to train 40,000 young Jews to sail for Palestine and take over the country from the British colonial authorities.
13.
Avraham Stern succeeded in enlisting the Polish government in this effort.
14.
Avraham Stern was in Palestine at the time and was arrested the same night the war began.
15.
Avraham Stern was incarcerated together with the entire High Command of the Irgun in the Jerusalem Central Prison and Sarafand Detention Camp.
16.
Avraham Stern rejected cooperation with the British and claimed that only a continuing struggle against them would eventually lead to an independent Jewish state and resolve the Jewish situation in the Diaspora.
17.
Avraham Stern was unpopular with the official Jewish establishment leaders of the Haganah and Jewish Agency and those of the Irgun.
18.
In January 1941, Avraham Stern attempted to establish an agreement with the German Nazi authorities, offering to "actively take part in the war on Germany's side" in return for German support for Jewish immigration to Palestine and establishing a Jewish state.
19.
Avraham Stern wandered from safe house to safe house in Tel Aviv, carrying a collapsible cot in a suitcase.
20.
Avraham Stern gave Shapiro a letter in reply declining the offer for safe haven and suggesting cooperation between Lehi and the Haganah in fighting the British.
21.
Avraham Stern was halfway out of the window when he was shot by two of the three policemen in the room.
22.
Avraham Stern successfully sued four publishers of books which claimed he "murdered" Stern, including the English publisher of The Revolt.
23.
Avraham Stern's son, Yair, born a few months after Avraham Stern's killing, is a broadcast journalist and TV news anchor who once headed Israel Television.
24.
Avraham Stern's grandson, Shay, is a media personality and presenter in Israel.
25.
In January 2016, actor Steven Schub played the part of Avraham 'Yair' Stern in the world premiere of historian Zev Golan's play The Ghosts of Mizrachi Bet Street, based on the life of Avraham Stern directed by Leah Stoller and S Kim Glassman at The Jerusalem Theatre in Israel.