Yonatan Ratosh - Revisionist Zionism

Revisionist Zionism

In the late 1920s, Ratosh (using his birth name, Heilperin) embraced Revisionist Zionism, becoming close friends with Eliyahu Bet-Zuri and Avraham Stern. A talented writer, Halperin became the editor of the official publication of the Irgun, "Ba-Cherev" (בחרב, "By the Sword"). In 1937, Jabotinsky demoted Halperin for the extremism of his views. Frustrated, he travelled to Paris to meet with another disillusioned Revisionist, Semitic language scholar Adia Gurevitch (A.G. Horon). Heilperin and Gurevitch formulated "a new Hebrew consciousness" combining the former's political ideas with the latter's historical outlook. In their minds, the Jewish People were a part of a larger Hebrew civilization bound together by Canaanite languages and nationhood in Canaan. With the outbreak of World War IIgan writing (as Ratosh) for Haaretz.