page_title: Hillel Kook
section_title: Political career
hierarchical_section_title: Hillel Kook / Political career
caption_attribution_description: English: PM David Ben Gurion walks to his seat as Hillel Kook (Herut) Takes his place at the rostrum, at the Knesset in Tel-Aviv. Photograph: GPO. 01/05/1949.עברית: מראה כללי של מליאת הכנסת בתל אביב.
context_page_description: Hillel Kook, also known as Peter Bergson, was a Revisionist Zionist activist and politician.
  Kook led the Irgun's efforts in the United States during World War II to promote Zionism and raise awareness about the plight of Jews during the Holocaust. He later served in Israel's first Knesset.
context_section_description: In 1947, the Bergson Group had purchased a ship originally intended to carry new immigrants to Palestine, but, perhaps partially due to Begin's influence, was eventually used to ship arms. The ship was named Altalena, and was the focus of a violent confrontation between the newly formed Israel Defense Forces and the Irgun on the beaches of Kfar Vitkin and Tel Aviv. Following the Altalena Affair, Kook was arrested with four other senior Irgun commanders  and held for over two months. Of the five, only Kook was a member of the Bergson Group. The five were eventually released after about two months.
  Kook served in the first Knesset as part of the Herut party list, but quit the party with his close friend and fellow Herut Member of the Knesset Ari Jabotinsky. This followed two years of ongoing disagreements with their colleagues, particularly Menachem Begin, over the party's leadership and direction. Kook, who had returned to Israel after a ten-year absence, was now confronted with the reality that the country and movement he had fought for bore little resemblance to his ideals. Kook and Jabotinsky served as independent or "single" MKs for the remaining months of their terms, the first ever to do so. Profoundly disillusioned with the Israeli political process and future of the Revisionist movement, Kook left Israel in 1951 with his wife and daughter. In 1968, four years after his wife's death, he returned to Israel with his two daughters. He remarried in 1975 and lived near Tel Aviv until his death in 2001.
caption: Hillel Kook at podium in Knesset
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