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The Etzel Museum
Tammy Wisemon
Shuni Fortress, Jabotinsky Park, Route 652 1 km. north of Binyaminah Open: Daily 9 a.m. - 4 p.m.Fridays: 9 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. Museum admission: Adults: 12 shekelsChildren (over 6): 6 shekels Tel.: (06) 638-9730
A compact semi-circular Turkish fortress nestles amid the lush lawns of Jabotinsky Park. Looking down from the ramparts, one sees a Roman theater edged with Byzantine olive presses. For Shuni Fortress was once Meyamas, a Roman spa, with fresh water channeled to Caesarea via an aqueduct. The restored theater overlooks a mosaic-lined, Olympic-size swimming pool; our guide explains that entertainment was provided by naked swimmers.
Many hundreds of years later, masquerading as an agricultural commune, the fortress became the chief military training camp of the right-wing anti-British Irgun � or Etzel � underground. At Shuni, the Irgun, under the leadership of Menachem Begin, planned attacks on police stations, ammunition trains, the British military HQ at the King David Hotel, and the 1947 break-in that freed 41 Jews from the Acre prison.
The original gravestones of nine Jews hanged and buried by the British, plus that of first Irgun chief David Raziel, form a memorial in the park. The fortress is now the Etzel museum, designed to promote their ideology to younger generations.
Visitors entering the restored building find themselves standing in a Tel Aviv street in Mandatory Palestine, to watch a (Hebrew) audio-visual presentation featuring graphic shots of Jewish victims of Arab and Nazi atrocities incongruously accompanied by the upbeat narration of a comedian. A dozen elderly Etzel veterans steal the show with their lively reminiscences, laughingly describing how they learned to shoot under the cover of firing practice at a nearby British camp.
Among the courses held at Shuni were, "explosives, sabotage, intelligence and ideology." The last of which it still offers, in an unashamedly un-PC lesson in Israeli history.
Good Taste
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