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Foreword
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Yehuda Lapidot, whose underground name was Nimrod, has written a fascinating book. He devotes a special chapter to the bitter days of the Season, when Irgun fighters were kidnapped and tortured by the Haganah and then handed over to the British police, who imprisonment or exiled them in Africa detention camps.
The author notes that it was hard for him, as for other fighters, to come to terms with the order to exercise self-restraint (Havlagah) in the face of persecution. He asks the rhetorical question: how could our organization, which itself had once contravened a Havlagah order, exercise self-restraint at such a time? But he admits that, at the end of that difficult era, he realized that the injunction to avoid fraternal strife under any circumstances was justified. When the time came, the Jewish fighters united as a cohesive unit, the Haganah, Irgun and Lehi fighting side by side against the British rule. Yehuda Lapidot took part in the battle for Deir Yassin. He stresses that the fighters chose to forgo the element of surprise and forewarned the villagers of impending attack by loudspeaker, so that women and children could leave unscathed. This book deserves to be widely read, particularly by the young generation, so that they can learn of the heroic endeavors of those who fought for the rebirth of Israel.
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