It was two years after the massacres of 1921, one year after the first partition of Eretz Israel, and just three years after the death of trumpeldor at Tel Hai - the winter of 1923. Ze'ev Vladimir Evonovitch Jabotinsky, in the course of a lecture tour of Eastern Europe, visited Riga, Latvia. The founder of the Jewish Self Defense Corps in Czarist Russia, the organizer of the Jewish Legion in World War I, and the first Jewish Prisoner of Akko, urged the adoption by the Zionists of an activist program. He called for mass immigration to Eretz Israel and to the Jewish youth to "learn to shoot."

Shortly after Jabotinsky left Riga, several Jewish students who were inspired by his talks organized themselves into the "Association of Trumpeldor." They dedicated themselves to the formation of a new Jewish Legion which would conquer all of Eretz Israel. A local youth name Aaron Propes was elected President of the organization. An idea, a principal that was destined to take the mind of Jewry by storm, and fire the imagination of Jewish youth as nothing had ever fired it before gave birth to Betar. The principal was very simple, yet revolutionary: The subordination of everything to the realization of the Zionist ideal - a Jewish State within its historical boundaries.

While Betar proceeded to extend its influence throughout Latvia, Jabotinsky went to paris, where, in 1924, he established the World Union of Zionist Revisionists as an opposition party to the World Zionist movement. Meanwhile, back in Riga, at the third territorial conference of the Association of Trumpeldor, the delegates decided to propose to the Revisionist party that they announce the formation of a world youth movement called B'rith Trumpeldor. The idea was to make B'rith Trumpeldor the official Revisionist youth organization. Earlier that year, The second Revisionist world conference in Paris heard Aaron Propes present the Betar resolution. It was accepted enthusiastically.

In the following three years, Betar took root in Austria, Poland, Rumania, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Lithuania, Germany, France, and Eretz Israel. The central committee of B'rith Trumpeldor in Latvia served as headquarters of World B'rith Trumpeldor.

The Defense of Jerusalem

Long before that fateful August of 1929, every sign had been pointing to trouble. Sir John Chancellor had been appointed High Commissioner of Palestine. He did not like the Jews, and made up his mind that his rule should bring the British Mandate to establish a Jewish homeland in Palestine a step nearer destruction.

Chancellor built up and cautiously and spread the inflammable rumor that the Jews were planning to tear down the Mosque of Omar in Jerusalem and rebuild Solomon's Temple on its site. His officials persuaded the Arabs to claim ownership of the Wailing Wall - over which Jewish rights had been undisputed for centuries.

The Arabs had their approval from the Palestine Administration and began to systematically persecute the Jewish worshipers at the wall. Stones were thrown at them. The pavement in front of the wall was deliberately covered with droppings from the Arabs' donkeys during the Shabbat services. Dervishes opened up business in the garden next door and made a point of reserving their dances, ear-splitting shrieking and drumming for the hours of Jewish worship.

Finally, the sacrilegious British administration built a road through the wailing wall itself to provide the Arabs with a shortcut to the Mosque of Omar. Insolent Arabs now drove their donkeys in a never ending stream through the holy place that has been sacred to Jewish worshipers from time immemorial. On Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, religious Jews placed a portable screen at the wall to protect themselves from interference during the services. As soon as the Governor of Jerusalem heard of this, he sent an officer to remove the screen immediately. The worshipers were reciting N'ilah, the closing service, when the officer arrived. Acting the complete English gentleman, he broke violently into the midst of the service and took the screen away. The high commissioner conveniently left on a visit to London.

The British authorities disarmed the Jewish settlers completely even though they knew that the Arabs had fixed August 23, 1929 as Der Tag. With unbelievable savagery, the police broke up a procession of Jewish mourners who were carrying a coffin of a seventeen year old boy stabbed to death by rioters. The Arabs took their cue. From every corner of Palestine, Arabs swarmed into Jerusalem armed with guns, knives, and clubs - the old war cry was on their lips: El Daula Manna... The Government is with us.

The administration and the police did nothing. Martial law was not proclaimed. The pogromists were not disarmed. Jews were murdered under the eyes of the British Officials who were watching from the balcony of the Government House. The Acting High Commissioner cold bloodily informed the Zionist deputation that went to beg for help that he had been "given orders not to shoot."

At that point, Betar took over. Betar uncovered its long concealed stores of arms and clubs and went out to defend Jerusalem. A group of visiting Oxford students did their best to redeem the good name of England by ranging themselves at Betar's side.

Within twenty-four hours, peace returned to the Holy City. The Arabs fled in confusion, and focussed their attention to the disarmed colonies far outside Jerusalem. The Palestine Administration of course avenged their defeat by charging the defenders of Jerusalem with illegal possession of arms and the "murder" of Arabs.

But the plot to convert Jerusalem into a mass graveyard for Jews had been frustrated. Betar had stamped out the long prepared massacre in the enemy's blood, and had saved the honor of the Yishuv in the "Baptism of Fire."

Since that date in 1929, and until 1946, when the Irgun took over the responsibility, Betar's Plugat HaKotel, the Platoon of the Wall, defended the Wailing Wall and made it safe for Jews to worship at the remains of our ancient Holy Temple.

Because of Betar's brave and noble task, the State of Israel gave the building that housed the Betarim who defended the worshipers to Betar. Today, Bet Plugat Hakotel is the Betar house in the Old City of Jerusalem - a living testimony the vital role Betar played in the establishment of the State of Israel.