By Moshe Phillips

Aron Bielski passed away just before Rosh Hashanah. With his death, the last of the heroic Bielski brothers — who led the partisans, rescued Jews, and fought the Nazis — is gone. He was 98 when he died.

Aron was a key participant in one of the most courageous and successful Jewish resistance efforts of World War Two.

In 2008, the story of the Bielskis was told in the movie Defiance. Tuvia Bielski and his brothers, Zus and Asael, led the fighters that rescued 1,200 fellow Jews from the Nazis and started a partisan brigade that battled the German Wehrmacht. Tuvia was played by Daniel Craig, Zus was portrayed by Liev Schreiber, Jamie Bell portrayed Asael, and Aron — the youngest of the four brothers depicted in the film — was played by George MacKay.

The movie was based on Nechama Tec’s 1993 book, Defiance: The Bielski Partisans. An additional work, 2003’s The Bielski Brothers: The True Story of Three Men Who Defied the Nazis, Built a Village in the Forest, and Saved 1,200 Jews, was written by Peter Duffy. Duffy’s book did much to bring the heroism of the Bielski brothers to the wider audience they so rightly deserved and contains much more information about Aron.

But the question of whether the Bielski Partisans would have existed at all, were it not for the Zionist leader and thinker Ze’ev Jabotinsky, has not been asked. In this small space, an attempt will be made to rectify that.

Tuvia Bielski (1906–1987) was the leader of the brothers and their partisan group, which was known as the Bielski Partisans. The Bielskis situated their fighters and the rescued noncombatants in the Naliboki Forest, in the border area between Belarus and Poland. The Bielski group rescued Jews from the ghettos and brought them to a forest sanctuary. In the forest, they created a society focused on survival during the war, resistance against the Nazis, and preservation of Jewish life. There was simply no other similar group during the Holocaust that came anywhere close to its success.

 

The political enemies of Jabotinsky and his movement have worked since the 1930s to delegitimize them. First, lies and slander were hurled at them. Later, the Zionist left made every effort to write them out of history so that their views — and the views of their ideological heirs — would seem less valid. The Jabotinsky Zionists introduced an authentically Jewish worldview to Zionism. Many of the fighting heroes of the Holocaust embraced Jabotinsky’s ideology.

Peter Duffy wrote that Zus Bielski attended meetings of the Jabotinsky movement before the war. The man the Bielskis entrusted with the role of chief of staff of their partisan group was a former Polish army officer and Jabotinsky movement activist named Layzer Malbin. Malbin and Zus commanded the fighting units, while Tuvia ran the camp and made political decisions. In Defiance, Malbin was played by Mark Feuerstein, who is perhaps best known for the TV series Royal Pains. This year Feuerstein is playing Rabbi Moses Zaltzman in the indie film Guns & Moses.

The Bielski brothers’ story is well worth telling: they fought back, saved other Jews, survived, and sought revenge.

Jabotinsky’s words and ideas animated a generation of young Jews to resist the Nazis and fight for the freedom of Israel. Today, when the Iranian regime and its proxies remain focused on destroying Israel and murdering Jews, it is time to once again teach Jabotinsky to young Jews.

Aron Bielski and his brothers risked everything for their fellow Jews. May all of their memories be for a blessing.