Ze ' ev Jabotinsky Ze ' ev Jabotinsky MBE ( ; ) , born Vladimir Yevgenyevich Zhabotinsky ( ) ( 18 October 1880 – 4 August 1940 ) , was a Revisionist Zionist ( nationalist ) leader , author , poet , orator , soldier , and founder of the Jewish Self - Defense Organization in Odessa . With Joseph Trumpeldor , he co - founded the Jewish Legion of the British army in World War I and later established a number of Jewish organizations such as Beitar , Hatzohar , and the Irgun . Biography . Jabotinsky was born Vladimir Yevgenyevich ( Yevnovich ) Zhabotinsky in Odessa , Russian Empire to an assimilated Jewish family . His father Yevno ( Yevgeniy Grigoryevich ) Zhabotinsky was a serviceman of the Russian Society of Sailing and Trade who was involved in wheat trading . He was held from Nikopol . His mother , Chava ( Eva Markovna ) Zach ( 1835 – 1926 ) , was from Berdychiv . His older brother Myron died in childhood , while sister , Tereza ( Tamara Yevgenyevna ) Zhabotinskaya - Kopp , was a founder of a private female gymnasium in Odessa . In 1885 , due to his father ' s illness , the family moved to Germany , but returned a year later upon the death of Yevno Zhabotinsky . Zhabotinsky was raised in a Jewish middle - class home and educated in Russian schools . While he took Hebrew lessons as a child , Jabotinsky wrote in his autobiography that his upbringing was divorced from Jewish faith and tradition . Chava Zhabotinskaya opened a store in Odessa selling stationery and enrolled the young Vladimir to the city gymnasium . Young Jabotinsky did not study very well and was not able to finish school , due to his involvement in journalism . Beginning in 1896 , at age 16 , Jabotinsky wrote articles for a major local Russian newspaper " Odessa Leaflet " and as its correspondent was sent to Italy and Switzerland . He also cooperated with another newspaper , " Odessa News " . Since his childhood he was a close friend of another Russian journalist and poet Korney Chukovsky . In 1903 when Chukovsky worked in London , Jabotinsky attended his wedding with Maria Goldfeld . Jabotinsky wrote under the pseudonym " Altalena " ( the Italian word for ' swing ' ; see also Altalena Affair ) . While abroad , he graduated from the law school of the Sapienza University of Rome , but only later qualified as an attorney upon his return to Russia . His dispatches from Italy earned him recognition as one of the brightest young Russian - language journalists : he later edited newspapers in Russian , Yiddish , and Hebrew . He married Yohana in late 1907 . They had one child , Eri Jabotinsky , who was a member of the Irgun - inspired Bergson Group , briefly served in the Knesset and died in 1969 . Zionist activism in Russia . After the Kishinev pogrom of 1903 , Jabotinsky joined the Zionist movement , where he soon became known as a powerful speaker and an influential leader . With more pogroms looming on the horizon , Jabotinsky established the Jewish Self - Defense Organization , a Jewish militant group , to safeguard Jewish communities throughout Russia . Jabotinsky became the source of great controversy in the Russian Jewish community as a result of these actions . Around this time , he set upon himself the goal of learning modern Hebrew , and took a Hebrew name — " Vladimir " became " Ze ' ev " ( " wolf " ) . During the pogroms , he organized self - defense units in Jewish communities across Russia and fought for the civil rights of the Jewish population as a whole . His slogan was , " better to have a gun and not need it than to need it and not have it ! " Another call to arms was , " Jewish youth , learn to shoot ! " That year Jabotinsky was elected as a Russian delegate to the Sixth Zionist Congress in Basel , Switzerland . After Herzl ' s death in 1904 he became the leader of the right - wing Zionists . That year he moved to Saint Petersburg and became one of the co - editors for the Russophone magazine " Yevreiskaya Zhyzn " ( Jewish Life ) that , after 1907 , became the official publishing body of the Zionist movement in Russia . On the pages of the newspaper Jabotinsky conducted fierce polemics against the supporters of assimilation and the Bund . He was one of co - founders of the " Union for Rights Equality of Jewish People in Russia " ( 1905 ) . In 1906 he was one of the chief speakers at the 3rd All - Russian Conference of Zionists in Helsinki ( Helsingfors ) , which called upon the Jews of Europe to engage in " Gegenwartsarbeit " ( work in the present ) and to join together to demand autonomy for the ethnic minorities in Russia . He remained loyal to this liberal approach scores of years later with respect to the Arab citizens of the future Jewish State : " Each one of the ethnic communities will be recognized as autonomous and equal in the eyes of the law . " In 1909 he fiercely criticized leading members of the Russian Jewish community for participating in ceremonies marking the centennial of the Russian writer Nikolai Gogol . In view of Gogol ' s anti - Semitic views , Jabotinsky claimed it was unseemly for Russian Jews to take part in these ceremonies ; it showed they had no Jewish self - respect . Military career . During World War I , he conceived the idea of establishing a Jewish Legion to fight alongside the British against the Ottomans who then controlled Palestine . In 1915 , together with Joseph Trumpeldor , a one - armed veteran of the Russo - Japanese War , he created the Zion Mule Corps , which consisted of several hundred Jewish men , mainly Russians , who had been exiled from Palestine by the Turks and had settled in Egypt . The unit served with distinction in the Battle of Gallipoli . When the Zion Mule Corps was disbanded , Jabotinsky traveled to London , where he continued his efforts to establish Jewish units to fight in Palestine as part of the British Army . Although Jabotinsky did not serve with the Zion Mule Corps , Trumpeldor , Jabotinsky and 120 V . M . C . did serve in Platoon 16 / 20th Battalion of the London Regiment . In 1917 , the government agreed to establish three Jewish Battalions , initiating the Jewish Legion . As a lieutenant in the 38th Royal Fusiliers , Jabotinsky saw action in Palestine in 1918 . His battalion was one of the first to enter Transjordan . In August 1919 , soon after he complained to Allenby about the British Army ' s attitude towards Zionism and the Jewish Legion , he was compulsorily demobilised . His appeals to the British government failed to reverse the decision , but in 1920 he was awarded an MBE for his service . Jewish self - defense . After Ze ' ev Jabotinsky was discharged from the British Army in September 1919 , he openly trained Jews in warfare and the use of small arms . After the 1920 Palestine riots , at the demand of the Arab leadership , the British searched the offices and apartments of the Zionist leadership , including Weizmann ' s and Jabotinsky ' s homes , for arms . In Jabotinsky ' s house they found 3 rifles , 2 pistols , and 250 rounds of ammunition . Nineteen men were arrested , including Jabotinsky . A committee of inquiry placed responsibility for the riots on the Zionist Commission , for provoking the Arabs . Jabotinsky was given a 15 - year prison term for possession of weapons . The court blamed ' Bolshevism , ' claiming that it ' flowed in Zionism ' s inner heart ' and ironically identified the fiercely anti - Socialist Jabotinsky with the Socialist - aligned Poalei Zion ( ' Zionist Workers ' ) party , which it called ' a definite Bolshevist institution . ' Following the public outcry against the verdict , he received amnesty and was released from Acre Prison . Founder of the Revisionist movement . In 1920 , Jabotinsky was elected to the first Assembly of Representatives in Palestine . The following year he was elected to the executive council of the Zionist Organization . He was also a founder of the newly registered Keren Hayesod and served as its director of propaganda . He quit the mainstream Zionist movement in 1923 , however , due to differences of opinion between him and its chairman , Chaim Weizmann , and established the new revisionist party called Alliance of Revisionists - Zionists and its youth movement , " Betar " ( a Hebrew acronym for the " League of Joseph Trumpeldor " ) . His new party demanded that the mainstream Zionist movement recognize as its stated objective the establishment of a Jewish state ; one on both banks of the Jordan River . His main goal was to establish a modern Jewish state with the help and aid of the British Empire . His philosophy contrasted with the socialist oriented Labor Zionists , in that it focused its economic and social policy on the ideal of the Jewish Middle class in Europe . An Anglophile , his ideal for a Jewish state was a form of nation state based loosely on the British imperial model , whose waning self - confidence he deplored . His support base was mostly located in Poland , and his activities focused on attaining British support to help in the development of the Yishuv . Another area of major support for Jabotinsky was Latvia , where his fiery speeches in Russian made an impression on the largely Russian - speaking Latvian Jewish community . Literary activity . From 1923 Jabotinsky was editor of the revived Jewish weekly " Rassvet " ( Dawn ) , published first in Berlin , then in Paris . Besides journalistic work , he published novels under his previous pseudonym Altalena ; his historical novel " Samson Nazorei " ( Samson the Nazirite , 1927 ) , set in Biblical times , describes Jabotinsky ' s ideal of an active , daring , warrior form of Jewish life . His novel " Pyatero " ( " The Five " , written 1935 , published 1936 ) has been described as " a work that probably has the truest claim to being the great Odessa novel . . . It contains poetic descriptions of early - twentieth - century Odessa , with nostalgia - tinged portraits of its streets and smells , its characters and passions . " Although it was little noticed at the time , it has received renewed appreciation for its literary qualities at the start of the twenty - first century , being reprinted in Russia and Belarus and in 2005 translated into English ( the first translation into a Western language ) . Return to Palestine blocked by the British . In 1930 , while Jabotinsky was visiting South Africa , he was informed by the British Colonial Office that he would not be allowed to return to Palestine . The movement he established was not monolithic , however , and later included three separate factions , of which Jabotinsky ' s was the most moderate . Jabotinsky favored political cooperation with the British , while more irredentist - minded individuals like David Raziel , Abba Ahimeir , and Uri Zvi Greenberg focused on independent action in Mandate Palestine , fighting politically against the Labor mainstream , militarily against the British Authorities , and retaliating for Arab attacks . During his time in exile , Jabotinsky started regarding Benito Mussolini as a potential ally against the British , and contacts were made with Italy . In 1934 Jabotinsky and the Revisionist Zionist movement set up the Betar Naval Academy in Mussolini ' s Italy , which operated until 1938 . Evacuation plan for the Jews of Poland , Hungary and Romania . During the 1930s , Jabotinsky was deeply concerned with the situation of the Jewish community in Eastern Europe , particularly Poland . In 1936 , Jabotinsky prepared the so - called ' evacuation plan ' , which called for the evacuation of the entire Jewish population of Poland , Hungary and Romania to Palestine . Also in 1936 , he toured Eastern Europe , meeting with the Polish Foreign Minister Colonel Józef Beck ; the Regent of Hungary , Admiral Miklós Horthy , and Prime Minister Gheorghe Tătărescu of Romania to discuss the evacuation plan . The plan gained the approval of all three governments , but caused considerable controversy within Polish Jewry , on the grounds that it played into the hands of Polish anti - Semites . In particular , the fact that the ' evacuation plan ' had the approval of the Polish government was taken by many Polish Jews as indicating Jabotinsky had gained the endorsement of what they considered to be the wrong people . The evacuation of Jewish communities in Poland , Hungary and Romania was to take place over a ten - year period . However , the controversy was rendered moot when the British government vetoed it , and the World Zionist Organization ' s chairman , Chaim Weizmann , dismissed it . Two years later , in 1938 , Jabotinsky stated in a speech that Polish Jews ' were living on the edge of the volcano ' and warned that a wave of bloody super - pogroms would happen in Poland sometime in the near future . Jabotinsky went on to warn Jews in Europe that they should leave for Palestine as soon as possible . Integrated state with Arabs . Jabotinsky was a complex personality , combining cynicism and idealism . He was convinced that there was no way for the Jews to regain any part of Palestine without opposition from the Arabs . In 1934 he wrote a draft constitution for the Jewish state which declared that Arabs would be on an equal footing with their Jewish counterparts " throughout all sectors of the country ' s public life . " The two communities would share the state ' s duties , both military and civil service , and enjoy its prerogatives . Jabotinsky proposed that Hebrew and Arabic should enjoy equal rights and that " in every cabinet where the prime minister is a Jew , the vice - premiership shall be offered to an Arab and vice versa . " According to historian Benny Morris , however , documents show that all Zionist leaders of the 20s , 30s , and 40s , including Jabotinsky , favored the transfer of Arab populations if required for establishing a ( still - proposed ) Jewish state . Death . Jabotinsky died of a heart attack in New York , on 4 August 1940 , while visiting a Jewish self - defense camp run by Betar . He was buried in New Montefiore cemetery in New York rather than in Palestine , in accordance with the statement in his will , " I want to be buried outside Palestine , may NOT be transferred to Palestine unless by order of that country ' s eventual Jewish government . " Initially , after the State of Israel was established , the governments headed by Prime Minister David Ben - Gurion did not make such a decision , but in 1964 , shortly after becoming Prime Minister , Levi Eshkol ordered the reinterment of Jabotinsky and his wife in Jerusalem at Mount Herzl Cemetery . A monument to Jabotinsky remains at his original burial site in New York . Legacy and commemoration . Ze ' ev Jabotinsky ' s legacy is carried on today by Israel ' s Herut party ( merged with other right wing parties to form the Likud in 1973 ) , Herut – The National Movement ( a breakaway from Likud ) , Magshimey Herut ( young adult activist movement ) and Betar ( youth movement ) . In the United States , his call for Jewish self - defense has led to the formation of Americans for a Safe Israel and the Jewish Defense Organization . The JDO ' s training camp is named Camp Jabotinsky . In Israel , there are more streets , parks and squares named after Jabotinsky than any other figure in Jewish or Israeli history . The Jabotinsky Medal is awarded for distinguished service to the State of Israel , and most Israeli cities have streets named after him . On 11 August 2008 , left wing Israeli Education Minister Yuli Tamir announced plans to remove Jabotinsky ' s name from a list of terms students are required to learn , creating an uproar .