Olei Hagardom (Hebrew: עולי הגרדום, lit. "those who ascended to the gallows") refers to members of the two Jewish Revisionist pre-state underground organisations Irgun and Lehi, most of whom were tried in British Mandate military courts and sentenced to death by hanging. Most of the executions were carried out at Acre Prison. There were 12 Olei Hagardom.[1]
The term, which was coinage by the Irgun to describe underground militants hanged by the Mandatory government, their does not include members of the Nili organisation hanged by the Ottoman government during World War I.[2] The language chosen resonates with a positive moral evaluation: olei means 'he who ascends', while gardom (gallows) was a traditional term for Jews martyred in pogroms, the Holocaust and the like.[3]
- ^ Sheleg 2007.
- ^ Goldstein 2015, p. 159.
- ^ Goldstein 2015, pp. 159–160.