13 Facts About Shlomo Ben-Yosef

Shlomo Ben-Yosef was a member of the Revisionist Zionist terrorist group Irgun.

Shlomo Ben-Yosef is most noted for his participation in an April 21,1938, attack on a bus carrying Arab civilians, intended as a retaliation for an earlier attack by Arabs against Jews, and emblematic as a rejection of the establishment policy of Havlagah, or restraint.

Shlomo Ben-Yosef was born Szalom Tabacznik in Lutsk, in the Volhynian Governorate of the Russian Empire to a religious Polish-speaking Jewish family.

Shlomo Ben-Yosef joined the Revisionist Zionist youth movement Betar in 1928, and two years later, he became the family breadwinner after the death of his father.

Shortly after arriving at Rosh Pinna, Shlomo Ben-Yosef was accepted into the Irgun.

Shein and Shlomo Ben-Yosef were found guilty of discharging a firearm and carrying firearms, bombs and ammunition, but not guilty of a third charge of throwing bombs with intention to cause death or injury.

David Ben-Gurion, then chairman of the Zionist Executive, even though he strongly opposed the Irgun and especially Shlomo Ben-Yosef's attack, met with the British High Commissioner and begged him to pardon Ben Yosef.

Shlomo Ben-Yosef objected to the amnesty requests and rejected an Irgun plan to release him from prison.

Shlomo Ben-Yosef was executed in Acre Prison on June 29,1938.

Shlomo Ben-Yosef's mother received cables of condolence from around the world, and Betar promised her a lifetime pension and to secure her immigration to Palestine.

Shlomo Ben-Yosef's legs had to be amputated, and he died a week later.

Yehiel Dresner, then 15, would be radicalized by Shlomo Ben-Yosef's execution, instilling in him an urge for vengeance against the British.

Shlomo Ben-Yosef would be involved in numerous Irgun activities, for which he would be executed himself, along with three other men, on April 16,1947.