23 Facts About Iser Lubotzky

Iser Lubotzky was a member of Betar, the Vilna ghetto's underground and a Jewish partisan fighter.

Iser Lubotzky was both a fighting member and a commander of the Irgun, serving as a national recruiting officer and heading the Ramat Gan group.

Iser Lubotzky was born in Vilnius, then under Polish rule, to a traditional Jewish family.

Iser Lubotzky's father was a successful, Revisionist businessman, and his parents, Alexander and Shoshana, educated him and his older siblings, Nusia and Yitzhak.

Iser Lubotzky studied at the Hebrew Gymnasium in Vilnius which belonged to the Zionist network.

At the outbreak of World War II, in 1939, Germany invaded Poland and Iser Lubotzky was drafted to command an observation post on the front line of the Polish army.

Iser Lubotzky served in that brief campaign until the position was bombed from the air, when most of his unit members were killed, he being one of the few survivors.

Iser Lubotzky returned to Vilnius, completed his high school studies and began studying law.

Iser Lubotzky joined the Fareynikte Partizaner Organizatsye, the secret underground that was set up in the ghetto and fought against the Germans.

Iser Lubotzky lived in a Soviet partisan battalion in the Rudninkai forest, taking part in raids on German convoys and on local villages.

In one of the battles, on 3 May 1944, Iser Lubotzky was wounded in the leg, the wound became infected, he developed a high temperature and his comrades not only expected his death but even dug a grave for him.

In time, the son of the nurse who assisted Iser later treated as a doctor Lubotzky's grandson, Asael Lubotzky, when he was wounded during the Second Lebanon War.

Iser Lubotzky helped organize a number of illegal-immigrant ships to Israel, and after having heard that, apart from his sister Nusia, his entire family had perished, he boarded a Transilvania ship from Romania and travelled to Israel.

In Israel, Iser Lubotzky completed his law studies in Tel Aviv School of Law and Economics, graduated with honors and began working.

Iser Lubotzky had known Menachem Begin from the period when Begin was a refugee in Vilnius and had hid in Lubotzky's parents' home.

Iser Lubotzky took advantage of his legal knowledge and claimed that the prosecutor had brought insufficient evidence.

Iser Lubotzky participated in the Irgun's attack on the British airport in Lod, and in the Irgun's attack on Jaffa.

Iser Lubotzky ruled against the defendants, including Shmuel Tamir, and sentenced them to long-term expulsion from the movement's institutions.

Iser Lubotzky was a member of the Freemasonry and served as president of the Tel Aviv Masonic body.

Iser Lubotzky married Rivka, a Holocaust survivor who had immigrated to Israel, and they had four children.

Not My Last Journey is a biography of Iser Lubotzky written by his grandson, Dr Asael Lubotzky, and edited by Dr Tali Vishna.

Iser Lubotzky's story is a breathtaking and fascinating biographical novel.

The book was written on the basis of testimonies by Iser Lubotzky, recorded by his family members, the Menachem Begin Heritage Center and Holocaust centers around the world, combined with historical research.