Wellesley Aron

Major Wellesey Aron,MBE,,(1901–1988), was born in England but lived most of his life in British Mandated Palestine and then Israel.

Wellesley Aron, MBE

A review of Aron’s life shows a man of outstanding organizational ability, independence of spirit, readiness to question convention and ability to overcome obstacles leading to success in every endeavor.

HIs obituary by Phiip Gillon in the Jerusalem Post sums it up "Wellesley Aron, who died a week ago, a few days before his 87th birthday, could have been typecast for one of those BBC films about idealistic English upper class officers and gentlemen who espouse what appears to be hopeless causes and convert them into practical successes, in defiance of prejudices and huge obstacles. Physically, he looked the part, with his ramrod-straight back and his major's moustache; educated at Cambridge, he also talked Nancy Mitford's U-language. Wellesley could be summed up in one word - integrity." ,

Aron founded Habonim, which became the largest Zionist Youth movement world-wide; commanded a unit in the British Army in WWII; rescued refugees fleeing The Holocaust; organized Machal(volunteers for Israel) in the USA; he was a successful internationally known businessman; creator and teacher of courses on peace for school children; a pioneer in establishing Rotary International in Israel and finally in his late years, a founder of the Arab/Jewish community of Neve Shalom – Wāħat as-Salām where he died in 1988.

Wellesley Aron's first wife died in 1978. They had two children, Sharona and Ylona, In 1981 he married Coral Benjamin.

Early Years

Born in London June 18, 1901. He was the only child of a German Jewish mother but the fifth child of a German Jewish father. His half-siblings were all raised in their mother’s Christian faith. Jewish religious observance was almost non-existent in his mother’s home according to Aron.

During the First World War the family lived for a time in Germany before moving to Switzerland. His half-brother and a cousin died during the war which he believed led to his father's death shortly after. At the end of the war Aron and his mother returned to London.

In 1919, Aron enrolled at Jesus College, Cambridge studying ancient and modern French history. However, at his mother's insistence he returned to London and became involved in the business world.

It was at this time, in 1921, at the instigation of Basil Henriques, Aron became involved with disadvantaged youth from the East End of London. Having been an active Boy Scout during his school years, he saw scouting as the solution to giving the young people a sense of purpose. He founded the 36th Stepney Jewish Scout Troop which would become known in London for its scouting prowess. This first encounter with poor Jews was to have a profound influence for the rest of his life - "the two years I spent with these responsive young scouts left a real and lasting satisfaction such as I have never experienced".

He returned to Cambridge over his mother's objections. Forced to support himself he took the post of assistant housemaster at Hillel House.

At this period Aron had his first personal encounter with anti-Semitism. He spent vacation time with his Christian half-sister in Devon. There he met and fell in love with a young woman. They wanted to marry her but her father refused to allow it because Aron was Jewish.

Zionism

Returning to Cambridge he was in total shock over this rejection because he was a Jew. It led to much soul searching. For the first time he was forced to ask himself, what, if anything, it meant to be a Jew. Eventually he came to the conclusion that he had to go to Palestine.

Always a person of action he actively prepared for his emigration to Palestine. Already speaking three languages he now studied Hebrew. At the same time he became active in the student Zionist club. It was here that he first met Dr.Chaim Weizman. the physicist and Zionist leader who later became Israel’s first President.

At the same time he faced another inconsistency - the ambivalence displayed by English Jews to the Zionist aim of reestablishing a sovereign Jewish community in Palestine. Basil Henriques, who had often charged him with being "un-Jewish" for not including Jewish content into his Scouting activiites, now saw it a "tragedy" that Aron had decided to go to Palestine.

Aron says that it was this period that forced him to reject the conventional religious approach of Orthodox Judaism and look instead "to the renaissance of the Jewish People as a political entity in its own homeland".

After graduating Cambridge in 1926, he moved to what was then Palestine. He spent the next years in Haifa and Tel Aviv teaching English - first at Reali and then at the famous Herzliya Gymnasia. In 1927 he met and married his wife Rose. In 1928 Weizman asked him to return to England as his political secretary which resulted in his founding Habonim in 1928.

Habonim

Before returning to London, Weitzman asked Wellesley for a second time in 1927 to assist with the political wing of the Zionist Office in London. (Due to the Balfour Declaration of 1917 in which "His Magesty's Government viewed with favour the establishment of a Jewish National Home in Palestine", the centre of political Zionism had moved to London.) Wellesley returned a year later with his young family and started to work at the Zionist Federation Offices at 77 Great Russel Street. But his boss, Leonard Stein was the kind of person who did not share his work easily and Wellesley had little to do. So he decided to see for himself the degree of Jewish history being taught in the Stepney Jewish youth clubs in London's poverty-struck East End, at that time being run by by his past friend Basil Henriques. He found that the clubs were Jewsih only because of their membership and nothing about Jewish history or about Palestine was being taught.<Reference: Habonim archives, Yad Tabenkin, Ramat Efel, Israel>.

His solution was to found a new "Jewish cultural youth movement" (which itself was non-Zionist), combining the principles of Baden Powell’s scouting with a love of Jewish heritage that taught Jewish history, Modern Hebrew, songs and dances as well as camping craft and other outdoor activities, like the Scouting Movement. Aron produced a handbook containing instructions for running groups of young teen-agers according to some brief Jewish history, combined with symbolism, tests and ceremonies similar to scouting.

In order to build the content around Jewish civilization, Wellesley authored a history of the Jewish People in " a thousand words ...that a child could read". His prior attempts to get this written by various authoritive Jewish sources produced unsuitable results, so he wrote it himself. <Ref: taken from recorded interviews with Wellesley, about 1977, in Habonim archives, Yad Tabenkin, Ramat Efal, Israel>

Aron's efforts to get funding to move forward the establishment of Habonim also saw him become one of the founders of the Bar-Kochba Jewish sports organization in England. "It was easier to get moneys for sports than Jewish culture" according to Aron. Bar-Kochba led to the founding of the English Maccabi sports movement

In 1931 his position with Weitzman ended and Aron returned to Palestine. Habonim, which began as "a Jewish Cultural Youth Movement" subsequently developed into a Zionist Youth Movement that has had enormous impact in both Israel and Jewish communities worldwide. Habonim flourished and has become worldwide in its activities. It has now become joined to Dror, a semi-political Jewish Zionist Movement whose roots go back to 1917 Polish and European sources.

Palestine & WWll

Returning to Palestine he founded a successful advertising agency. In 1938, aware of the possibility of war with Germany, Aron made strenuous efforts to interest the British High Command in the idea of stockpiling reserve supplies of war materiel and food in Palestine. He foresaw the possibility of Germany being victorious in conquering North Africa.

Failing in these efforts, when the war broke out in 1939, he joined the British Army as a Palestinian volunteer. Aron rose to become the senior Jewish officer enlisted from Palestine and the first to command a unit. His unit, 178 coy, R.A.S.C , was primarily made up of Jewish Palestinian volunteers. Together with four other Jewish RASC units they served with the Eight Army in North Africa. At Tobruk they were under siege for several months until rescued by sea to Egypt.

Later, in Italy in 1944, risking courtmartial, he led his unit in helping rescue many Jewish refugees who had escaped the concentration camps of the Holocaust. Aron's unit, together with the other Jewish Palestinian R.A.S.C units, became the vanguard of the Jewish Brigade founded in 1944. Aron authored his account of that military experience (see reference).

In 1945 Aron was one of four Jewish Palestinian officers to receive awards from the British Government. According to the citation "Aron was an officer of the first Palestinian R.A.S.C Company to see active service in the desert and is the senior Palestinian R.A.S.C Company Commander....... Major Aron proved himself to be an officer of outstanding merit who devotes himself wholehartedly to the interests of his own unit and of the formation he serves"

Israel

After the war Aron continued to be involved in Zionist activities. In November 1945, because of his military experience, he was asked to join such luminaries as David Ben Gurion, Golda Meir and Chaim Wietzman in testifying before the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry in Jerusalem. As was often the case his testimony showed his independence. Despite being a British Military officer he spoke against the prevailing British viewpoint.

In 1947, he was asked to organize the Machal office in New York. This was his last official mission for the new State. However,later back in Israel and having returned to private business, he engaged in covert meetings for the State to reduce tensions with Jordan.

Always the organizer, Aron was heavily involved in developing Rotary in Israel. Joining in 1934, he became its first District Governor after working hard to have Israel recognized as of District in Rotary International. Rotary brought him back once again to involvement with neglected youth in low-income areas. This earlier experience had led him to the founding of Habonim. Now the result was the building of a youth sports centre in Jaffa.

At the other end of the social scale he volunteered his organizing skills to the planning committee for Israel’s first golf course in Caesarea.

Peace

Aron had a total commitment to peace. In 1967, following the Six-Day War, he volunteered to “teach peace” to high school seniors in Tel Aviv. So enthusiastic was the response he was asked to repeat the course at an Arab school in Jaffa.

In 1967 his quest for peace led him to several years of research seeking to find an institution that had peace as the foundation of its curriculum. He prepared a symposium outline for the Harry S Truman Institute for the Advancement of Peace at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, which was rejected on the grounds that it had too much emphasis on youth and not enough on the scholarly approach

Neve Shalom – Wāħat as-Salām

His personal commitment to peace among peoples found its ultimate expression in the last years of his life.

At age 70, Aron joined Father Hussar, a Catholic priest, in pioneering the establishment of Neve Shalom – Wāħat as-Salām, an Arab-Jewish village near Jerusalem. He moved there with his second wife, Coral, in 1980.

Samuel W. Lewis, former USA Ambassador to Israel and close friend described their home as a "...conrete box on a windswept, barren, rocky hill". They lived there until his death in 1988

He is quoted as saying that his quest for a program where peace is taught started with a question from his grandson. The grandson wanted to know why there are only war colleges and not peace colleges? That grandson, David Broza, one of Israel's singing superstars, continues in his grandfather's quest to support PEACE