Best Shot   

But he didn’t stop there. Shortly after returning from the Pacific theater, my father boarded the Ben Hecht, a boat bound for the Holy Land, with the intent of once more fighting for his people. He joined the Irgun, also known as Etzel (Irgun Tzvai L’eumi, an underground organization whose mission was to drive the British occupying force out of Palestine).

His induction into Etzel was like the ones in the spy novels, he would tell us. First, he was contacted by an anonymous person who told him where they’d meet. “Following instructions, I went to the designated location and waited for a short while until a young man appeared, and we exchanged passwords,” he told us. “I was then to proceed to a deserted construction site and await further instructions.

“Stepping over debris, building material, and holes, I found myself alone in the dark on a moonless night. Someone came up to me and led me to yet another pitch-dark area. A bright spotlight was directed onto my face and a disembodied voice began to speak. The voice asked me many questions, about my background, why I wanted to join Etzel, and more. And that was it.”

A few days later, my father reported to a new-recruit orientation course and after a few weeks, he graduated. The “graduation” ceremony was another one from the books. In my father’s own words: “Our graduation ceremony took place in a schoolyard late at night. Since it was locked, the graduates had to climb over the fence to get onto the grounds. All I remember of the ceremony is a table in the center of a moonlit schoolyard covered with the Israeli flag and on it, a Chumash and a gun.