The New York Review of Books recently devoted a lot of space to a review of “The Sword and the.
Ahimeir and Hebrew poet Uri Zvi Greenberg founded the Revisionist Maximalist Bloc, whose newspaper Ahimeir edited, and then the clandestine Brit HaBirionim. Inspired by the Sicarii Zealots or “dagger men” during the Jewish revolt against Rome, this became a model for violent underground movements like the Irgun.
From 1933, Ahimeir’s “Revolutionary Zionists” preached a direct confrontation with Nazi Germany. They demonized Haim Arlosoroff for concluding the Transfer Agreement with Berlin, which was a complicated arrangement that resulted in the admission of 60,000 German Jews to the British Mandate. There is no evidence that Arlosoroff was motivated by anything other than what he thought were the best interests of German Jews, and of course, he was assassinated before espousing any further views on relations with Nazi Germany.