YISRAEL MEDAD

Probably like most people, I "met" Shmuel Katz for the first time through one of his books. I was on a year's program in Israel in 1966 when Days of Fire was published in its original Hebrew edition. Unlike some other Irgun memoirs, this book offered much more than a personal perspective on historic events. While gripping reading, Days of Fire was on an additional level entirely--history written in the fashion of the best academics, with a broad perspective and meticulous attention to detail.

Dr. Rafael Medoff of the Wyman Institute has noted that Days of Fire was the first book to expose the Allies' failure to bomb the Auschwitz death camp. Using documents from British and Zionist archives and a map, Katz recounted how Jewish Agency leaders were rebuffed by British Foreign Minister Anthony Eden in July 1944 when they requested an Allied air attack on Auschwitz and its rail lines. "It was fifty-seven days, September 1, before the British Foreign Office sent its reply, a period during which the majority of the Jews of Hungary were exterminated," Katz wrote. At that same time, air drops to the Polish Home Army forces were undertaken by British planes, flying from the Foggia air base in Allied-occupied Iraly. "The death camp at Auschwitz was 200 miles nearer than Warsaw to the base at Foggia," Katz pointed out.

With the publication of Battleground in 1973, "Moekie" Katz's position as the foremost disciple of Ze'ev Jabotinsky was cemented. Shortly thereafter, I made contact with him. Upon my return from a two-year stint working with Betar in England, we discussed my working with him. (During those two years in England I had traveled to Paris with Barbara Oberman to join Moekie for the launching of the French edition of Battleground—my first meeting with Michel Gurfinkiel, who organized the book launch off the Champs Elysee.) At this time Moekie was expecting that Menachem Begin, newly elected as Prime Minister, would appoint him Minister for Public Diplomacy and that we would set aright the chronic failings of Israel's Hasbara (information services). But it was not to be. Moshe Dayan, whom Begin took from the Labor Party to be his Foreign Minister, sabotaged the project.

I had been working for Geula Cohen at her Academy for National Studies in Tel Aviv and returned there when employment with Moekie failed to pan out. When I found myself occasionally stranded in Tel Aviv, Moekie offered me the couch at his Dizengoff apartment. Until he moved to the WIZO home for seniors a few years ago, I estimate I had made use of that couch hundreds of times. And every time, before going to bed and just before leaving, Moekie and I would discuss the political events of the day.

Moekie was invited to family events which he attended with relish. He always made a point to inquire how I was doing. He found ways to supplement my salary for which I was grateful despite my protestations that doing work for him was payment enough for me.

After leaving his position as Begin's advisor in early 1978, Moekie began publishing op-eds in Ma'ariv and The Jerusalem Post. In 1981, he asked me to edit what became Battletruth, which appeared in 1983. Battletruth collected just over 100 of Katz's op-eds spanning two and a half years. Divided into 15 sections, the articles showed chronologically how the developments Moekie foresaw, with almost prophetic vision, came about. The book highlighted his irrefutable logic, political erudition, political grasp and sense of history.

After Battletruth came Lone Wolf, his monumental biography of Jabotinsky, for which he turned me into a research assistant. During that period I would never ask him how he was feeling (he always suffered from a circulatory problem in his feet) but would ask "What year are you in?” referring to his progress in the book. From then on, several times a year, either for a book, an article or some other project, a call would come from Moekie and I’d be off to the Zionist Archives, Knesset newspaper archives or another library. For example, last year I was engaged in seeking out documents on the French-British arrangement which lost Israel the Golan in 1923 when the British traded the region for Mosul. Moekie was following up on another British betrayal.

These last few years, I can attest, sorely tried Moekie's natural optimism. Whereas he criticized the entire Oslo process for being built upon false expectations, he viewed the last half-dozen years of Sharon and Olmert as grounded in simple corruption and betrayal of national goals for personal advantage. He told me that beyond the political stupidity of our leaders, especially in their relations with the United States, and their ineptitude in conducting negotiations with Israel's Arab enemies, was a failure of personal character--both on the Left and Right. The country, he believed, was being sacrificed for private objectives. The Zionist vision was being left in the lurch.

Over the last few months I was attempting to collect his articles for a sequel to Battletruth, which he was eager to see published. He also felt it important that Chapter Four of Battleground be reprinted for mass distribution among students. He was concerned that he would not be leaving behind a body of thought that represented his last 30 years of political analysis.

We agreed that the anthology would follow the pattern I had proposed 25 years earlier: the articles on a specific subject would follow in a chronological pattern to show how Moekie had been correct in his analysis. I supplemented my own files with archive material made available through Elliot Jager from The Jerusalem Post. The total number of articles from which we were to make our selection grew to be over 400. But I succeeded in transferring to him only the titles and my idea that the section headings should be more generalized. I had come up with a name, Battlesense, but that, too, came too late. My hope is that the book will yet be published.

I was especially proud to be part of the tribute paid to Moekie on the occasion of his 90th birthday which we celebrated at the Begin Center. The last great occasion was the launching of Moekie's last book The Aaronsohn Saga, on the NILI spy ring during World War I, held on February 29th of this year. Sir Martin Gilbert spoke and praised Moekie and Moekie, in his wheelchair and despite his frailty, responded for some 20 minutes. His last public appearance was a fortnight later, at a gathering of the South African Zionist Federation in Israel when he was honored once more.

My last visit to Moekie was two weeks or so before Passover. He had just come out of the hospital where they had amputated his lower left leg. He repeated what he had been saying for a few years, that he was satisfied that, at the least, everything above his neck was in perfect condition. And that was true. Until his last hospital stay, he read two newspapers daily and we talked once a week or so. There was always the complete grasp of events--and jokes--along with a withering critique of Israel's leadership. What was obvious to us both was that it pained him to be as pessimistic as he was and I am sure that contributed to the final physical breakdown of his body.

There is the public persona and in that role, Moekie was towering. As an unofficial diplomat, as a participant in academic colloquia, an advisor, commentator and author, he was undefeatable in argument and indefatigable. Rarely did I observe him become angry but he could do that, too, and his words and tone would become slashing. But he was kind, gentle and considerate and, as he sometimes admitted to me, all he wanted to be was a Yiddishe mensch, a good Jewish person.

Yisrael Medad directs Educational Programming and Information Resources at the Begin Heritage Center.