….create the Zion Mule Corps a.k.a. The British Jewish Legion (c. 1916 –1917 CE) in WWI.
The Legion served as an important embryonic training ground for future Jewish defense leadership in Palestine.
Zev Jabotinsky (spiritual father of Begin, the Irgun, and later, the Herut party) and Joseph Trumpeldor prevail upon the British to allow the formation of a Jewish Legion unit to fight alongside the British against the Ottoman Turks, who then controlled Palestine…the Jewish Legion unit then, serves in Battle of Gallipoli…
Trumpeldor, born in Pyatigorsk, Russia, December 1880; then, at age 38 in 1918 after the Zion Mule Corps service in WWI, returns to Russia and organizes HeHalutz, a youth organization that prepared immigrants for aliyah (immigration to Israel); Trumpeldor died in Palestine defending Tel Hai (in the Upper Galilee) from Arab marauders in March, 1920.
Jabotinsky, an iconic and towering Jewish historical figure, was born Oct 1880 in Odessa, Russia. He was a Revisionist Zionist leader, author, orator, soldier and founder of the Jewish Self–Defense Organization in Odessa. A lifelong proactive leader on behalf of Jewish self–defense across Russia, Poland, and Palestine. He died Aug 1940 in the USA (while on a visit from Israel in NY State; visiting a Betar camp).