The SS Knesset Israel set sail to break the British blockade barring Holocaust survivors from the land of Israel. Packed with young and old from all walks of life, this floating shtetl defied His Majesty’s imperial fleet

On Tuesday, November 5, 1946, at noon, two rickety old ships weighed anchor in the small Yugoslavian fishing village of Bakar, now in Croatia. The SS Hebrew Rebellion Movement – later renamed Knesset Israel – carried 3,500 illegal immigrants to the land of Israel. Five hundred more were crowded onto the SS Abba Berdichev (named after a Jewish paratrooper sent by the British behind Nazi lines together with Hannah Senesh in March 1944). So commenced the final stretch of an arduous journey begun months before in Hungary and Romania. 

Cooped up for three months in a spartan, unfinished building belonging to Zagreb University, the refugees were desperate to sail to the Promised Land. Then British troops discovered said ships in the Greek harbor of Piraeus, forcing their flight to Bakar, in pro-Zionist Yugoslavia.

Now the final repairs and adjustments had been made, and the many passengers were called up on deck. A trumpet blast silenced them, and their escorts introduced themselves: Yossi Harel, Reuven Yatir, Yoash Tzidon, and Binyamin Yerushalmi of the Aliya B agency, the umbrella organization running the operation. Harel announced that the name Hebrew Rebellion Movement honored the recent truce binding all the Zionist militias together in defiance of the British ban on Jewish immigration. A national flag flew proudly from the mast, and the strains of Ha-tikva, the Zionist anthem, burst from close to four thousand throats. Tears flowed. Two other Aliya B agents sang along on shore. Stevedores and residents of Bakar waved a cheery goodbye, and the ships’ horns bellowed, echoed by farewell hoots from the other vessels at anchor. The largest flotilla of Aliya B immigrants was under way.

 

Saved by a Sandbar

On the fifth day of the journey, a Saturday, a contrary wind suddenly sprang up, rising swiftly to a threatening speed. At noon, the Abba Berdichev relayed a message that its engines had stopped. The Hebrew Rebellion battled the wind to reach her, maneuvering around treacherous rocky islands. Harel ordered all passengers below deck – so there’d be no witnesses to the looming calamity – and watched with the other escorts as the strengthening currents swept the Abba Berdichev toward the rocks and inevitable shipwreck. 

Magnetic mines strewn by the Nazis between the chain of islands off the Yugoslavian coast during World War II had yet to be disarmed, adding to the risks. Any attempt to approach would imperil the 3,500 immigrants aboard the Hebrew Rebellion Movement. A decision had to be taken, and the operatives felt they couldn’t endanger so many more lives. The only hope was for the Abba Berdichev to land on a sandbar. 

After an excruciating delay, the ship crashed against a rocky outcropping about half a kilometer across. The passengers, luckily young and agile, clambered down rope ladders to solid ground. Within half an hour, there was no one left on board. The evacuation had proceeded smoothly and calmly, and now they waited, soaked to the skin in the pouring rain and sheltering from the wind against a high cliff wall.

A few hours later, a fishing boat arrived with a Yugoslavian coast guard escort and ferried all five hundred off the island by the light of flares. Back on the mainland, they bedded down for the night in the local school, in nearby Šibenik. On Sunday morning, left with nothing but their wet clothes, they were transferred to the Hebrew Rebellion Movement. Officially, the ship could hold up to 2,500 people. Provisions had been made for 3,300 immigrants, and it was already stuffed with 3,500. Now another 500 were added – but no one complained.

The original plan had called for such a transfer as the ships approached the shores of Mandate Palestine, enabling the Abba Berdichev to return to Europe for the next boatload of immigrants. Instead, the one remaining, overloaded ship had to be restocked with extra water, food, and coal, extending the journey by another five days.

 

Floating Ghetto

The Hebrew Rebellion Movement broke the mold. Most previous immigration ships had carried no more than a few hundred Jews – mostly young Holocaust survivors – and none had ever transported upwards of 3,000. With its 4,000 hopeful immigrants, the Hebrew Rebellion was like a floating shtetl – and not only in size. Alongside the youth and pioneer movement members was every kind of European Jew: ultra-Orthodox as well as Zionists, elderly and able-bodied alike, and 130 pregnant women. Twelve babies were born at sea (though only eleven survived).

The Zionist leadership was split regarding illegal immigration strategy. David Ben-Gurion, Jewish Agency chairman, preferred small ships making largely symbolic gestures to sway public opinion against Britain’s draconian immigration policy. Aliya B felt the urgency of the displaced Jewish masses waiting in Europe to get to Mandate Palestine. Hence the large numbers aboard the Hebrew Rebellion Movement. Their diversity made for effective propaganda as well when the plight of women, children, and the aged became acute.

The hazards were substantial. Four thousand passengers sailing the stormy Adriatic among floating mines in a fifty-five-year-old vessel was a recipe if not for disaster, then at least for heightened blood pressure among those responsible. Harel saw himself as the head of a community at sea, housed in eight stories of bunks half a meter wide and high, lacking hot food and sufficient drinking water, and suffering seasickness and stench. Epidemics were a constant threat, and without some form of social organization, the result could have been pure hell. 

Yet Harel rose to the occasion. His crew included not only his team from the land of Israel but the youth leaders on board. There were also plenty of professionals to draw on. Teachers, mechanics, carpenters, sailors, doctors, and army officers helped maintain and sail the ship, occupy their fellow passengers, and prepare for the expected clash with British forces.