74 years after his execution: The first power station in Jerusalem will be named after Meir Tobinsky

Tobinsky was the only Israeli to be executed in Israel, after being accused of treason and espionage in favor of the enemy.

As part of the campaign to commemorate the affair and his name, the power station, where Tobinsky worked as another engineer for his service in the IDF, will be named after him. His son said:

Eli Ashkenazi

28/06/2022

Tuesday, 28 June 2022, 18:37 Updated: 22:33

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The only Israeli executed.

Tobinsky (Photo: Official website, Walla!)

After years of repressing the memory of Meir Tobinsky, an IDF officer who was executed two months after the establishment of the state, he will be immortalized tomorrow (Wednesday) and the building of the first power station in Jerusalem will be named after him. An engineer at the British Electric Company in Jerusalem.

Capt. Meir Tobinsky was executed by a firing squad at the end of an hour-and-a-half field trial, without any legal representation, after three officers who tried him found him guilty of treason

. A high point in the process of commemorating Tobinsky, "said Gideon Mitchnik, who together with Yaakov Bentov, Tobinsky's son, are leading a campaign to put the affair in its rightful place. Mitchnik, a lieutenant colonel in the reserve, is a heritage researcher and social entrepreneur.

Meir Tobinsky was born in Kaunas (Lithuania) in 1904 and was active in the Haganah.

During World War II he served in Europe as an officer in the British Engineering Corps.

In March 1948, he was appointed to organize the IDF's first permanent base in Jerusalem - the Schneller camp. Subsequently, Tobinsky was appointed in charge of the airport in the Valley of the Cross in Jerusalem.

Bentov, Mitchnik and Dorner at the Tobinsky Memorial Ceremony in 2016 (Photo: Dubi Feiner)

In early June 1948, in the heavy fighting that took place in besieged Jerusalem, weapons workshops, headquarters of the underground organizations and vital factories were bombed in the city, which raised the suspicion that a spy had passed information to the enemy about their location.

Benjamin Gibley, head of the SHI in Jerusalem - the Haganah's news service, which later became the IDF's intelligence service - suspected Tobinsky as a spy.

For about a week, intelligence was gathered according to which it was alleged that Tobinsky passed on the confidential information.

Gibley presented the results of the investigation to the city commander, Major General David Shaltiel.

Shaltiel, who had previously served two terms as commander of the SHI in the Haganah, refused to accept this and demanded a further investigation

.

Gibley claimed that Tobinsky provided the English with information, "not out of malice. He did so out of loyalty to the English, out of stupidity, and largely out of naivety and anxiety about his fate and the fate of his family in the situation in Jerusalem at the time."

More on Walla!

The only Israeli executed in Israel: the story of Meir Tobiansky

To the full article

Bentov at a ceremony in memory of Meir Tobinsky, four years ago (Photo: Walla! NEWS, Yaakov Shenkman)

On June 29, 1948, Tobinsky arrived in Tel Aviv to plan for a new airport in Jerusalem, and Barry ordered Captain Shmuel Genizi of the IS to arrest him.

On the way, it was made clear to him that he would stand trial in a military trial, without being told the reason for his arrest, and he was required to hand over his gun to the soldiers.

A field tribunal set up by Barry convened at the UAV, where three of its senior officers sat, who under his direction became judges for a moment.

Tobinsky, without an attorney, faced a brief interrogation, in which he was charged with treason and after a brief hearing was found guilty.

The sentence was death.

The execution, supervised by Gibley was immediate and without the possibility of appeal or recourse to legal advice.

Gibley said before the shooting order that the officer was charged with treason, passing on information to the enemy and that he pleaded guilty and was sentenced to death.

He approached him, took off his hat and shoulders and then gave the shooting order.

Jeez House - The House of Arches, the place where Tobinsky was executed (Photo: Walla! NEWS system, Michael Jacobson)

A few months later, Lena, Tobinsky's widow, wrote a letter to David Ben-Gurion, the prime minister and defense minister, asking for a late justice for her husband.

"This blow, that my husband is not dead and the death of traitors, depressed me to the core. The world was dark for me," wrote the widow who was left with her 12-year-old son.

She noted that after the incident she enlisted in the army, "in order to continue with my meager forces his service is."

With the intervention of attorney Asher Levitsky and the commander of the Jerusalem district, Shaltiel, Ben-Gurion ordered an investigation, which the chief of staff, Yaakov Dori, imposed on the chief military attorney, Aharon Hoter Yishai.

In July 1949, Ben-Gurion Stubinski declared no betrayal.

He was buried in an IDF space and a police investigation began. The attorney general decided not to prosecute Gibley, but only Isser Barry, who has since been fired as head of the Armed Forces due to an order to assassinate an Arab aide to clear his name.

Gibley

was not tried, continued to advance, became head of the Armed Forces and was involved in the "bad business" in Egypt, which was a very serious intelligence and operational failure.

A special in which he will inform all the children on behalf of the army about the tragic mistake that fell here, so that your son's friends will know that his father fell by mistake.

And his child will be able to be proud of his parents' service for many years in the defense of the homeland. "

A ceremony in Tobinsky's memory, four years ago (Photo: Walla! NEWS, Yaakov Shenkman)

According to Mitchnik, apart from Ben-Gurion's commitment, the state has not done anything since.

"The affair has been pushed aside and the state has ignored it over the years."

About a decade ago, he began working to commemorate Tobinsky's name and raise the issue of oblivion.

In 2016, Mitchnik and the secretariat of Kibbutz Harel, which was set up near the place of execution, set up a sign in the building where the incident took place.

The first time a representative of the army participated in the event in memory of Tubinsky, it was the then Chief Military Prosecutor, Brigadier General Sharon Afek. Former Supreme Court Justice Dalia Dorner also participated in the ceremony

. The IEC has requested that Tobinsky's memory be commemorated in the power plant building where he worked as an engineer.

"IEC honors the memory of the company's employee, the late Meir Tubinski, for future generations," said Hellman. And his memory is immortalized in the place where he contributed to the electricity infrastructure in the capital.

The IEC attaches great importance to its heritage and the commemoration of its IDF casualties.

"This is one of the actions - and there are others."

Bentov said he had waited years for this moment. His father said, "There is a revival of the establishment, both in the defense establishment and in the Jerusalem municipality."

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