Yossi Harel
(1919 - 2008)
Yossi Harel (Hebrew: יוסי הראל), born Yosef Hamburger, was the commander of
Exodus 1947 and a leading member of the Israeli intelligence community.
Yossi Harel was born in
Jerusalem in 1919. He was a sixth generation Jerusalemite. At the age of 15, he joined the
Haganah, the clandestine military organization of the Jewish community in
Palestine. At the age of 20, he joined the Special Night Squads set up in
Palestine by
Captain Orde Wingate to fight Arab bands, where he earned a reputation for bravery. He played a leading role in the clandestine
immigration enterprise in
pre-state Israel, commanding four
Aliyah Bet ships: Knesset Israel, the Exodus, Atzma'ut and Kibbutz Galuyot. By the time he was 28 he had been responsible for about 24,000 immigrants that had come in under his command, more than one-third of those smuggled into the country secretly between
1945 and 1948.
Pre-state period
In
1941, the
Palmach was established as the elite force of the
Haganah, and Harel soon joined it. He was sent by the
Palmach to work with
Aliyah Bet in assisting Jews to enter
Palestine illegally (the number of Jews allowed to enter the territory was restricted following the British government's publication of a
White Paper in May
1939).
In mid-1946 Harel was sent from
Palestine on a secret mission to transfer gold to Jewish agents in
Greece so they could bribe officials in European governments to speed up the transit of Jews to
Palestine.
Harel chartered a 15-ton trawler with a crew of four and boarded it at sea after leaving the coastal settlement of Bat Galim in a rowing boat. Because of storms the journey to
Greece took three weeks, but eventually the mission was accomplished successfully and with it Harel's reputation as a brave, reliable and efficient soldier was established; it was later to be crucial in his selection as the commander of the
Exodus operation.
Yoram Kaniuk, a friend of Harel's and also his biographer, related that
David Ben-Gurion and Shaul Avigur (commander of the
Aliyah Bet illegal immigration campaign and founder of Shai, the
Haganah intelligence service) had marked him out as suitable to command the clandestine
immigration ships because in addition to his leadership skills and fighting prowess, “there was something very hevreman [sociable] about him. He was not the kind of clap-you-on-the-back hero. He was a man of manners, the type who didn't raise his voice. He was a man of conscience and a daring fighter.”
Perhaps the high point in Harel's career was not the more famous
Exodus, according to an earlier article in Haaretz by historian Dr. Aviva Halamish. It was the two-and-a-half week voyage of the Knesset Israel. The ship set sail in November 1946 from
Yugoslavia with 4,000 souls on boad. According to Halamish, this voyage brought to the fore the contrasts between the Yishuv, the Jewish community in
pre-state Israel, and the clandestine immigrants, who were
Holocaust survivors and “carried their struggle with them.” Inspired by the story of the Knesset Israel, the poet Natan Alterman wrote in the newspaper Davar of the “division of labor” between the two groups.
Exodus 1947
Yossi Harel was appointed to command the ship
Exodus 1947, the immigrant ship which tried to make it through the
British blockade to
Palestine after the
Second World War with 4,553 Jewish refugees on board, while it was still in
Italy undergoing its refitting and conversion from a Chesapeake Bay steamer to a passenger ship capable of carrying thousands of
refugees. Between June 29 and July 6, 1947, 4,553 Jews from
displaced persons camps in
Germany were transported to Sète, a little town 85 miles west of Marseilles where, on July 11, they boarded the ship.
Under Harel's command,
Exodus set sail for
Palestine on July 12, 1947 and, after it had left French territorial waters, the British cruiser Ajax and several destroyers escorted it to
Haifa with the aim of arresting it and preventing the immigrants from entering
Palestine.
Harel planned with the skipper, Yitzhak (Ike) Aaronowitz, that close to the coast of
Palestine they would “get rid” of the British escort. The plan, Harel later recalled, was “to turn off all the ship's lights at a given moment, stop suddenly so that the unwary destroyer would pass us by, and then change our course by 90 degrees and steam away at full speed ahead - 18-19 knots - with all the lights out.” On board, Harel also prepared the stiffest possible resistance against any potential British attempt to board the ship.
On Friday, July 18, when
Exodus was 22 miles off the coast of
Palestine, Harel was informed by the British that his ship had entered the territorial waters of
Palestine and that he had to shut down the engines and surrender. With five British destroyers closing in, Harel felt he could not implement his plan of evasion and instead ordered his captain to ignore the British warning and head straight for
Haifa harbour.
When Harel failed to obey the British command,
Exodus's bow was hit and a detachment of troops attempted to board the ship. But under Harel's leadership the British troops were driven back by a volley of canned goods, bolts and potatoes.
British commandos soon managed to take the ship's wheel, however, by which point several holes had been made in the ship's wooden structure. Harel - after a strenuous argument with his skipper, who was keen to continue fighting - ordered the immigrants to cease their resistance and allow the ship to be towed into
Haifa. Three Jews and a British soldier died during the operation.
The next day members of the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP), who happened to be in
Palestine on a fact-finding mission, witnessed the transfer of the
refugees to three British transports which were to return the Jews to Europe. This affair greatly affected UNSCOP in its decision to recommend an end to
British Mandate in
Palestine and argue for the creation of a Jewish state in part of the territory.
Exodus was often described as “the ship that launched a nation.”
One more mission
Five months after the
Exodus affair Harel was put in charge of an even bigger operation, which was to bring to
Palestine 15,000 illegal immigrants from
Romania. Harel took commmand of two vessels: the Pan York and the Pan Crescent and on December 27, 1947 led the ships from Burgas in
Bulgaria to
Palestine.
Two days later, while crossing the Sea of Marmara, Harel was alarmed to see the outline of six British vessels - two submarines and four destroyers - waiting in the darkness to stop the ships.
The situation was dangerous and potentially explosive, but Harel negotiated with the British and secured agreement that, rather than be forced back to
Romania, the ships might proceed to
Cyprus, where thousands of
refugees were already
interned. Harel was later smuggled back to
Palestine.
A successful career
During
Israel's
War of Independence Harel acted as adviser on naval reorganisation to the prime minister
David Ben-Gurion and was sent to America to purchase vessels for a future navy. The
Israeli navy was established in November 1948 and Harel was one of the candidates to lead it, but the job eventually went to Paul Shulman, a graduate of the Americal naval officers' school in Minneapolis, with Harel becoming his deputy.
Soon after the
War of Independence, Harel retired and became bodyguard to President
Chaim Weizmann; he then moved to Los Angeles to study mechanical engineering. As chief of staff,
Moshe Dayan called him back to
Israel in February 1959 and made him head of Unit 131, a division of
military intelligence responsible for secret groups in enemy countries, designed to operate primarily in time of war. It also operated the
Israeli spy ring that collapsed in
Egypt in 1954. A year later he retired from the
Israel Defence Forces to pursue a successful business career, though it served also as a cover for his continuing work for
Mossad. He spent the last few years of his life collecting avant-garde Russian art.
Harel is the subject of a biography in Hebrew by Yoram Kaniuk, Exodus: The Odyssey of a Commander (1999), which has been translated into many languages. He rose to fame after the release of the 1960 Otto Preminger film Exodus, which was based on the Leon Uris novel by the same name. His character in the novel, Ari Ben-Canaan, was portrayed by Paul Newman.
In 2007, Harel received the Exodus prize, awarded by the Italian government to those who promote peace and humanitarianism. The prize is awarded every year at La Spezia in
Italy, where the
Exodus refugee ship was renovated.
Harel dies at age 90
Harel died in
Tel Aviv on April 26, 2008 at the age of 90. His daughter Sharon said Harel suffered cardiac arrest at his
Tel Aviv home. “He was an extraordinary, unusual man, very brave, very modest and very lucky because he was able to touch the lives of so many people,” she said.
“History has proven that you cannot defeat refugees,” Harel was quoted as saying two decades ago by the now-defunct Israeli newspaper, Hadashot. “It starts now with one boat. After that, dozens more will come,” he said.
Harel is to be buried at Kibbutz Sdot Yam, near
Caesarea.
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