The Capture House of the Underground Commander
Yair House is a building at 8 Stern Street, formerly called Mizrahi B, in the Florentin neighborhood of Tel Aviv, where the Lehi commander Avraham Stern was murdered in 1942 by British detectives. Today it houses the Lehi Museum.
Avraham Stern was the founder and commander of the Lehi organization - Fighters for the Freedom of Israel. He was known by his underground nickname "Yair" after Eleazar ben Yair, one of the commanders of the great revolt of Judea against Rome and the commander of the zealots who committed suicide in Masada. Stern was a charismatic leader and intellectual, captivating and revered. In 1940 he withdrew from the Etzel organization together with his supporters, and founded an independent and more extreme group. The British persecuted the members of the Lehi and saw Stern, their leader, as a terrorist and a top priority target, and even offered a reward of 1000 Palestine pounds to anyone who would assist in his capture. He was forced to live a lifestyle of a fugitive and wandered between different apartments in and around Tel Aviv, while hiding from the British detectives who hunted him.
During the last three weeks of his life, Stern lived in the apartment of Tova and Moshe Saborai. Whenever someone came to the apartment, Stern hid in the wardrobe. On the morning of February 12, 1942, British detectives led by officer Thomas James Wilkin arrived at the apartment, searched it and found Stern hiding in the closet. Many other detectives arrived at the scene, including Geoffrey J. Morton, a British detective officer who led the struggle in Lehi. In his testimony, Morton claimed that Stern tried to escape and detonate a bomb hidden in the apartment, so he had to shoot and kill him. However, many years later, a British policeman who was present at the apartment said that Morton, who had been chasing Stern for many months, executed him in cold blood. The exact circumstances of the British officers’ arrival at the hiding apartment are not completely clear to this day. After Stern's murder, the Lehi was run by a team of three leaders, including future Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir.
The Lehi men murdered Wilkin as revenge for Stern's death. They also attempted to assassinate Morton, but only succeeded in wounding him. Due to becoming a main target of the Lehi, Morton left Israel and continued to serve as a police officer in other British colonies. He died in England in 1996, when he was 89 years old.
Stern's son, named Yair after his underground nickname, was born four months after his murder. He was a well-known journalist and also served as the director of the Israeli television.
The building where Stern was murdered has become a museum commemorating the Lehi organization. The apartment where Stern hid contains the original furniture, including the closet in which he was captured. In the wall by the window a hole can be seen, created by one of the bullets that hit him.
(Anecdote authored by: עמיר)
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עִבְרִית