On the day Menachem Begin died, everyone was shocked to discover that, contrary to expectations, Begin had ordered that he be buried on the Mount of Olives, next to the graves of the pilgrims, Meir Feinstein and Moshe Barazani.
In order to understand Begin's will, we have to go back exactly 79 years from today, to the night of the 2nd of Iyar 5707.
It was night in the death row cell in the Russian Compound in Jerusalem. Two twenty-year-old men were sitting there.
One, Meir Feinstein, a Jerusalemite, an Ashkenazi. and the other, Moshe Barazani, a Jew from Baghdad.
Both were sentenced to death by the British, And the next morning they were supposed to be taken to the gallows.
But their plan was different. They hid a hand grenade inside an orange. And their plan was that when the sentinels came to hang them in the morning, They will explode along with the executioners.
They decided that if they go, They will not be led like sheep to the slaughter.
Rather, they will walk like warriors, In the sense of ״תמות נפשי עם פלשתים״,, Like the hero Simshon in his time.
But the day before the execution of the sentence, they learned that Rabbi Yaakov Goldman intended to come in the morning and pray with them before the hanging, to accompany them on their final journey.
They understood that their plan might endanger the rabbi, so they called on him to come early, at night. They gave him a Bible with final messages to their families and asked him to get out of the cell and pray in the hallway. He went out.
And they began to sing, "אדון עולם אשר מלך״. Barazani held the grenade in his left hand. Feinstein clinged to him, chest to chest with the grenade between them
And when they embraced, they turned on the grenades, before the executioner reached them.
The explosion shook the entire building.
When the British broke in, They found two bodies connected to each other. They couldn't separate them as They had hugged too tightly.
Begin remembered this story all his life.
And in 1981, when the broadcaster Dudu Topaz,who despised Begin's party ,mocked the members of the Mizrachi Sfardie communities, Begin responded in a speech that was etched in the national memory:
"Our members of the Mizrahi communities were heroic fighters! Feinstein was of European descent, Ashkenazi. Moshe Barazani was a Sephardi from Iraq.
The night after they were sentenced to death, the rabbi insisted on coming and leading them to the hanging,but they didn't want to hurt the rabbi –
After the rabbi left they took a hand grenade and placed it between their hearts. And clicked it!
Ashkenazi? Iraqi? Jews! Brothers! Fighters!"
It wasn't a political speech.It was a real cry from the soul.
And when Begin died, Eleven years after that speech,He wrote in his will:
"My dear Yechiel, when the day comes, I wish to be buried on the Mount of Olives, next to Meir Feinstein and Moshe Barazani."
Not in the section of the nation's greats.
But next to two twenty-year-old guys.
Why?
Because in Begin's eyes, they were a symbol of Israel's unity. Ashkenazi and Iraqi who fought together for Israel's freedom, And when their time came, they embraced so tightly, So much so that it was impossible to separate them even in death.
Today, the 2nd of Iyar 5786, 79 years since that morning, How many Israelis know who Meir Feinstein is? How many have they heard of Moshe Barazani? How many visitors to their grave on the Mount of Olives?
Our job and duty is to make sure that the next generation knows who Feinstein and Barazani were.to make sure that we understand why Begin insisted on being buried there.Because when you forget Feinstein and Barazani, you also forget what we are supposed to be.
Jews. Brothers. Fighters. Ashkenazi and Iraqi, Feinstein and Barazani, together.
May their memory be blessed and cherished in our hearts forever. 🕯️
