- Caption
- Group portrait of Jewish DPs aboard the Altalena, an immigrant ship bound for Israel.
- Date
-
June 1948
- Locale
- En Route To Palestine/Israel
- Photo Credit
- United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Eva Silbiger
- Event History
- In May 1948 the Altalena, a ship purchased by the Irgun Zionist underground, set sail from Marseilles with a cargo of guns, ammunition and heavy arms bound for the fledgling State of Israel. The ship also carried 800 men and 130 women and children, Jewish displaced persons intending to immigrate to the new Jewish state. Most of the immigrants planned to join Irgun units upon their arrival and underwent military training both before and during the voyage. The sailing of the Altalena was in violation not only of a UN brokered cease-fire, but of an agreement made by Irgun leader, Menachem Begin, to incorporate his underground militia into the new IDF (Israeli Defence Forces). When the ship arrived in Israeli coastal waters, Begin notified the Ben-Gurion government and tried to negotiate for the retention of a certain percentage of the arms shipment for the Irgun. Ben-Gurion, however, refused to abandon his principle of a single national military and fighting broke out on the Tel Aviv beach between Irgun and IDF units. When Begin failed to heed the government's ultimatum that he surrender the ship, IDF units shelled the Altalena causing an explosion which left over a dozen people dead and resulted in the destruction of the ship and its precious cargo.
https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?Moduleld=10007040