Hanoch Kalai
Encyclopedia
Hanoch Kalai was a member of Irgun
Irgun
The Irgun , or Irgun Zevai Leumi to give it its full title , was a Zionist paramilitary group that operated in Mandate Palestine between 1931 and 1948. It was an offshoot of the earlier and larger Jewish paramilitary organization haHaganah...

 and Lehi (group)
Lehi (group)
Lehi , commonly referred to in English as the Stern Group or Stern Gang, was a militant Zionist group founded by Avraham Stern in the British Mandate of Palestine...

, and an expert on the Hebrew language. He spent three months as Irgun's Commander in Chief while David Raziel
David Raziel
thumb|David RazielDavid Raziel was a fighter of the Jewish underground during the British mandate, and one of the founders of the Irgun.-Biography:...

 was imprisoned by the British Mandate for Palestine police, until his own arrest.

Early Life

Kalai was born in Lithuania
Lithuania
Lithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the biggest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, whereby to the west lie Sweden and Denmark...

, the son of Joseph and Pessia Strelitz. In 1924, the family moved to Palestine
Palestine
Palestine is a conventional name, among others, used to describe the geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, and various adjoining lands....

, where his father became a bank manager in Kfar Saba
Kfar Saba
Kfar Saba , officially Kfar Sava, is a city in the Sharon region, of the Center District of Israel. At the end of 2009, Kfar Saba had a total population of 83,600.-History:...

. The family lived on Herzl Street in Kfar Saba. Following the 1929 Palestine riots
1929 Palestine riots
The 1929 Palestine riots, also known as the Western Wall Uprising, the 1929 Massacres, , or the Buraq Uprising , refers to a series of demonstrations and riots in late August 1929 when a long-running dispute between Muslims and Jews over access to the Western Wall in Jerusalem escalated into violence...

, Kalai joined the Haganah
Haganah
Haganah was a Jewish paramilitary organization in what was then the British Mandate of Palestine from 1920 to 1948, which later became the core of the Israel Defense Forces.- Origins :...

. He was also a member of the Betar
Betar
The Betar Movement is a Revisionist Zionist youth movement founded in 1923 in Riga, Latvia, by Vladimir Jabotinsky. It has been traditionally linked to the original Herut and then Likud political parties of Israel, and was closely affiliated with the pre-Israel Revisionist Zionist splinter group...

 movement.

Membership of Irgun

On the final night of Passover
Passover
Passover is a Jewish holiday and festival. It commemorates the story of the Exodus, in which the ancient Israelites were freed from slavery in Egypt...

 in 1933, Betar members were attacked while parading in Tel Aviv
Tel Aviv
Tel Aviv , officially Tel Aviv-Yafo , is the second most populous city in Israel, with a population of 404,400 on a land area of . The city is located on the Israeli Mediterranean coastline in west-central Israel. It is the largest and most populous city in the metropolitan area of Gush Dan, with...

. In retaliation, Kalai and Avraham Tehomi
Avraham Tehomi
Avraham T'homi was a noted Jewish militant, and a key figure in the history of the Hebrew National Military Organization and allegedly in the killing of Jacob Israël de Haan. His nickname in the Irgun was 'Gideon'....

 resigned from Hagana, and together they joined the Irgun. Kalai was appointed Irgun commander for Kfar Saba and Herzliya
Herzliya
Herzliya is a city in the central coast of Israel, at the western part of the Tel Aviv District. It has a population of 87,000 residents. Named after Theodor Herzl, the founder of modern Zionism, Herzliya covers an area of 26 km²...

. During the 1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine, Kalai demanded an end to the policy of restraint and the beginning of reprisals against the Arabs.

Following Tehomi's split with Irgun and return to Hagana in 1937, Kalai was appointed commander of the newly formed Haifa
Haifa
Haifa is the largest city in northern Israel, and the third-largest city in the country, with a population of over 268,000. Another 300,000 people live in towns directly adjacent to the city including the cities of the Krayot, as well as, Tirat Carmel, Daliyat al-Karmel and Nesher...

 district Irgun under Moshe Rosenberg. He was later appointed deputy commander of the Jerusalem district under David Raziel
David Raziel
thumb|David RazielDavid Raziel was a fighter of the Jewish underground during the British mandate, and one of the founders of the Irgun.-Biography:...

. During this period, Kalai also served as a broadcaster on the Irgun's underground radio station, Kol Tsion HaLokhemet
Kol TSion HaLokhemet
Kol Tsion HaLokhemet was the underground radio station of the Irgun.-History:Kol Zion HaLokhemet was operated from February 1939. It may have been the first underground radio station in the world...

.

Kalai's three brothers were also members of Irgun and Betar. Mordechai Strelitz was an Irgun commander in Israel and abroad, and served as liaison between Irgun and Betar. Menachem Strelitz was a member of the Irgun in Kfar Saba, where he conducted experiments with weapons and explosives. He was killed at age 22 on July 17, 1936 when a grenade exploded in his hands in the family home. Mykhael Strelitz was arrested by the British and tortured. He never recovered from the experience.

Leadership of Irgun

Following Raziel's arrest on May 19, 1939, Kalai was appointed as Commander in Chief of the Irgun. At the first meeting he chaired, Kalai decided to act on two fronts: to continue retaliatory actions against the Arabs, and the commencement of operations against the British government following Parliament's approval of the White Paper of 1939
White Paper of 1939
The White Paper of 1939, also known as the MacDonald White Paper after Malcolm MacDonald, the British Colonial Secretary who presided over it, was a policy paper issued by the British government under Neville Chamberlain in which the idea of partitioning the Mandate for Palestine, as recommended in...

. In following this policy, Irgun committed acts of sabotage against the infrastructure, including the post office and the government radio station in Jerusalem. They also assassinated British police officer Ralph Krans, to stop his harassment of Irgun.

First Arrest

On August 31, 1939, the British arrested him with other key members of Irgun, including Avraham Stern
Avraham Stern
Avraham Stern , alias Yair was a Jewish paramilitary leader who founded and led the militant Zionist organization later known as Lehi .-Early life:Stern was born in Suwałki, Poland...

, during a command meeting in Tel Aviv. He was replaced as head of Irgun by Benjamin Zeroni. The detainees were transferred to the Jaffa
Jaffa
Jaffa is an ancient port city believed to be one of the oldest in the world. Jaffa was incorporated with Tel Aviv creating the city of Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel. Jaffa is famous for its association with the biblical story of the prophet Jonah.-Etymology:...

 police station, and then to the Tzrifin
Tzrifin
Tzrifin is an area in Gush Dan in central Israel, located on the eastern side of Rishon LeZion and including parts of Be'er Ya'akov. The area proper is defined as an 'area without jurisdiction' between the two cities....

 detention camp. Kalai and the other prisoners were released on June 18, 1940.

Membership of Lehi

Following his release, Kalai and Zeroni joined Avraham Stern who in July 1940 formed the Lehi (group)
Lehi (group)
Lehi , commonly referred to in English as the Stern Group or Stern Gang, was a militant Zionist group founded by Avraham Stern in the British Mandate of Palestine...

, where Kalai wrote the new organization's manifesto. Kalai and Zeroni resigned from Lehi in late 1941 following Stern's attempts to form an alliance with Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...

 against the British.

Second Arrest

In January 1941, the British police posted a £1000 reward for his arrest, and on February 4, 1942 Kalai and Zeroni surrendered. According to Yehuda Lapidot, one of the reasons they surrendered is that no organization would help them, and they increasingly felt like hunted animals. By agreement with the British police, they were never tried, but instead were transferred directly to a detention camp. On October 19, 1944, Kalai was exiled to a Kenyan detention camp along with 250 other detainees, and returned to Israel only on July 12, 1948.

Later Life

After Israel gained independence, Kalai became a language lecturer at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem ; ; abbreviated HUJI) is Israel's second-oldest university, after the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. The Hebrew University has three campuses in Jerusalem and one in Rehovot. The world's largest Jewish studies library is located on its Edmond J...

. He was also an editor and translator to Hebrew from English, German and Yiddish, an editor at the Bialik Institute, a member of The Academy of the Hebrew Language, and the Israel Broadcasting Authority
Israel Broadcasting Authority
Israel Broadcasting Authority is Israel's state broadcasting network.It grew out of the radio station Kol Yisrael, which made its first broadcast as an independent station on . The name of the organisation operating Kol Yisrael was changed to Israel Broadcasting Service in 1951...

 plenum member responsible for Hebrew language broadcasts. He translated Zorba the Greek
Zorba the Greek
Zorba the Greek is a 1964 film based on the novel Zorba the Greek by Nikos Kazantzakis. The film was directed by Cypriot Michael Cacoyannis and the title character was played by Anthony Quinn...

 into Hebrew, the first title in Am Oved
Am Oved
-History:Am Oved was founded in 1942 by Berl Katznelson, who was its first Editor in Chief.It was created as an organ of the Histadrut, Israel's federation of Labor, with a goal of publishing books that would "meet the spiritual needs of the working public." Its most well-known series is "Sifriyah...

's People's Library imprint. He also translated Virginia Woolf
Virginia Woolf
Adeline Virginia Woolf was an English author, essayist, publisher, and writer of short stories, regarded as one of the foremost modernist literary figures of the twentieth century....

's Flush: A Biography
Flush: A Biography
Flush: A Biography, an imaginative biography of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's cocker spaniel, is a cross-genre blend of fiction and nonfiction by Virginia Woolf published in 1933 and reprinted in 2005 by Persephone Books...

.

Kalai was married to painter and sculptor Carmela Kalai. His son is noted academic Gil Kalai
Gil Kalai
Gil Kalai is the Henry and Manya Noskwith Professor of Mathematics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and adjunct professor of mathematics and of computer science at Yale University, and the editor of the Israel Journal of Mathematics.-Biography:...

.

Kalai died in 1979, and was buried on the Mount of Olives
Mount of Olives
The Mount of Olives is a mountain ridge in East Jerusalem with three peaks running from north to south. The highest, at-Tur, rises to 818 meters . It is named for the olive groves that once covered its slopes...

 in Jerusalem. In 1999, the Jerusalem Municipality named a street after him in the Malha district of the city.
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