AFHU Honours Club Back on track
Australian Friends of the Hebrew University Honours Club resumed in person recently with a talk by Ron Weiser
FOLLOWING a pandemic hiatus, Australian Friends of the Hebrew University (AFHU) Honours Club resumed in person recently with a talk by Ron Weiser, who spoke about Lt. Col. Eliezer Margolin, an Australian Jewish Anzac who fought to free Palestine from Ottoman rule.
The Gallipoli veteran was given the opportunity by Lt Col J.H. Patterson and Ze’ev Jabotinsky to command the 39th Royal Fusiliers, aka the Jewish Legion, in Palestine, before succeeding Patterson as commander of three battalions.
He famously said, “Our aim is to participate in the fighting on the front of Eretz Israel and the liberation of our homeland.”
After the war, he stayed behind to form “the First Jewish Battalion of Judea”.
The British threatened to court-martial him after he defied them to defend Jews during the Arab riots.
He returned to Perth and died in 1944. His remains were reburied in Rehovot, Israel, in 1949.
Founded in 1992 to cater for mostly retired supporters of the Hebrew University, the Honours Club hosts monthly talks and meets at 11am in Bondi Junction on the last Wednesday of each month.
Enquiries: austfhu@austfhu.org.au or (02) 9389 2825.
comments