Drezner, Yeḥiel Dov
DREZNER, YEḤIEL DOV
DREZNER, YEḤIEL DOV (1922–1947), Jew executed by the British in Palestine. Drezner was born in Poland and came to Ereẓ Israel with his parents who settled in Jerusalem, where Drezner joined the Betar movement. In 1940 he moved to Netanyah, where he joined i.Ẓ.l. under the pseudonym of Dov Rosenbaum. In 1945 i.Ẓ.l. retaliated for the flogging inflicted on one of their members who was captured by the British, by seizing British officers and subjecting them to the same humiliating punishment. Drezner was in command of one unit, the other four members of which were Mordekhai Alkaḥi, Eliezer Kashani, Abraham Mizraḥi, and Ḥayyim Golavski. The whole unit was captured. Mizraḥi was wounded and died before the trial (one version is that he was murdered) and the other four put on trial. Golavski was sentenced to life imprisonment in view of his youth, while the other three were sentenced to death. An attempt to rescue them by an assault on the Jerusalem central prison where they were held was foiled by their removal to Acre on the very morning of the intended assault. All four, together with Dov *Gruner, were hanged on the same day, Apr. 16, 1946.
bibliography:
Y. Nedava, Olei-ha-Gardom (1966); Y. Gurion, Ha-Niẓẓaḥon Olei Gardom (1971).