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BÉGIN, EMILE-AUGUSTE (1802–1888), French physician,
historian, and librarian. Bégin, who was born in Metz, studied
medicine at the Military College in Strasbourg. He soon gave
up his position as a regimental physician in favor of a literary
career. His early writing dealt mainly with the history of
northeastern France. He became well known for his four-volume
Biographie de la Moselle (1829–32) and his literary and
political periodical L’Indicateur de l’Est (1830). His historical
research embraced Jewish communities, and some of his findings
appeared under the title “Recherches pour servir l’histoire
des Juifs dans le Nord-Est de la France” in Revue Orientale, 1–2
(1841–42). Bégin settled in Paris in 1846 and became a contributor
to publications of the Academy of Medicine. In 1850
he cooperated in the official edition of the papers of Napoleon
I and in 1853–54 produced a laudatory five-volume biography,
L’Histoire de Napoléon Ier, based on hitherto unpublished
personal papers. Napoleon III rewarded him with an
appointment as librarian at the Louvre, where he remained
until 1871. In 1874 Bégin became librarian at the Bibliothèque
Nationale, Paris.
Bibliography: Dictionnaire de biographie francaise, S.V.;
L’Austraisie, 7 (July, 1907), 3–26 (suppl.); Wininger, Biog, 1 (1925),
284.
[Herbert A. Strauss]
BEGIN, MENAḤEM (1913–1992), Israeli statesman and former
commander of the Irgun Ẓeva’i Le’ummi (IẓL); prime
minister of Israel. He served in the First to Tenth Knessets.
Begin was born and educated in Brest-Litovsk. He graduated
with a law degree from Warsaw University. After a short association
with Ha-Shomer ha-Ẓa’ir he joined Betar, becoming
a member of its leadership in Poland in 1931 and head
of the movement there in 1938. During the disturbances in
Palestine in the years 1936–38, Begin organized a mass demonstration
near the British Embassy in Warsaw, and was imprisoned
by the Polish police. When the Germans occupied
Warsaw, Begin escaped to Vilna, where he was arrested by
the Soviet authorities and sentenced to eight years of hard
labor in the Arctic region. Because he was a Polish citizen,
he was released at the end of 1941 and arrived in Palestine in
1942 with the Polish army formed in the Soviet Union. Toward
the end of 1943, after having been discharged from the
Polish ranks, Begin became commander of IẓL. He declared
“armed warfare” against the British Mandatory Government
at the beginning of 1944, and led a determined underground
struggle against the British, who offered a reward for the disclosure
of his whereabouts. On July 22, 1946, the IẓL under
Begin’s command, carried out an attack on British Headquarters
in Jerusalem, in the King David Hotel, which resulted in
numerous deaths. The original plan had been to cooperate in
this operation with the *Haganah, but this attempt failed, and
despite Begin’s attempts to avoid violent clashes within the Yishuv,
there was great animosity between the two camps. After
the Proclamation of Independence, in the course of the first
ceasefire in the War of Independence in June 1948, Begin was
begin, menaḤem
on board the IẓL ship Altalena when it approached Tel Aviv
with a consignment of arms. The ship was shelled by order of
the Israeli government (see *Irgun Ẓeva’i Le’ummi). In 1948
Begin founded the *Ḥerut movement and became its leader.
He was to serve in the Knesset as leader of Ḥerut, and later
*Gaḥal and the *Likud until 1983. David *Ben-Gurion refused
to consider Begin as a partner in any of his coalitions, and it
was only after Levi *Eshkol became prime minister in 1963 that
the attitude of the ruling *Mapai towards him changed.
In 1952 he led the protest campaign against the Restitution
Agreement with the Federal Republic of Germany, and
after clashing with the police outside the Knesset building,
was banned from participation in Knesset meetings for several
weeks. In the course of his many years as leader of the
main opposition party, Begin gained a reputation for his fiery
speeches and acting as a watchdog for democracy. He unsuccessfully
fought to have the Emergency Regulations, which
Israel had inherited from the British, abolished, and objected
to the special Military Administration to which the minority
citizens of Israel were subjected until 1966, which was based
on these regulations. Towards the elections to the Sixth Knesset
in 1965 he was instrumental in establishing the Gaḥal parliamentary
group with the Liberal Party. In May 1967, on the
eve of the Six-Day War, Gaḥal was invited to join the government
by Levi Eshkol, and Begin was named minister without
portfolio in the Government of National Unity. As the head of
Gaḥal, he joined the government formed by Golda *Meir after
the 1969 elections, but left the government the following year
in protest against its acceptance of the American Rogers Plan
for a settlement with Egypt, involving a withdrawal by Israel
of territories occupied in the course of the Six-Day War (see
*Israel, Historical Survey).
In 1977, after 29 years in the opposition, Begin, at the
head of the Likud, won his first general election and was called
upon to form a government. He established a coalition made
up of the Likud (including Ariel *Sharon’s Shlomẓion), the
National Religious Party, Agudat Israel, and the Democratic
Movement for Change. Five months after he became prime
minister, President Anwar Sadat of Egypt came to Jerusalem
for a historic visit, addressing the Knesset on November 20,
1977. In his response to the Egyptian President’s speech Begin
made his famous declaration: “No more war, no more bloodshed.”
After signing the Camp David Accords with Sadat on
September 17, 1978, and with the help of Foreign Minister
Moshe *Dayan and Minister of Defense Ezer *Weizman, Begin
signed Israel’s first peace treaty with an Arab state with Egypt
on March 26, 1979, on the White House lawn in Washington.
On December 10, 1978, Begin and Sadat jointly received the
Nobel Prize for Peace in Oslo.
Despite many crises in his first government, and the resignation
of numerous ministers, the Likud emerged victorious
in the elections to the Tenth Knesset, and Begin formed
his second government, made up of the Likud, the National
Religious Party, Agudat Israel, and Tami, and despite misgivings
he appointed Sharon as his defense minister. In June 1981
ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 3 261