[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 74 (Tuesday, May 6, 2008)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E824-E825]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     ON THE PASSING OF YOSSI HAREL

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. HOWARD L. BERMAN

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                          Tuesday, May 6, 2008

  Mr. BERMAN. Madam Speaker, I rise today with great sadness to note 
the recent passing of Yossi Harel, the legendary Haganah commander 
responsible for shepherding thousands of Jewish refugees through 
British blockades and to safety in the nascent Jewish homeland.
  Harel was perhaps best known for commanding the ship Exodus 1947, 
which was intercepted off the coast of Haifa by British warships in 
July 1947, carrying 4,553 Jewish refugees from Europe.
  The unconscionable decision by the British authorities to send these 
Holocaust survivors aboard the Exodus back to Germany focused the 
world's attention on the plight of Jewish refugees and their desire to 
leave the fetid displaced persons camps in Europe for a new life in 
soon to be sovereign Israel.
  Members of the United Nations Special Commission on Palestine saw 
first hand as these refugees, with their meager possessions, were 
unloaded from the ramshackle Exodus 1947 in the port of Haifa and 
prepared for their return to Europe--all just precious feet away from 
the land they had so desperately yearned to reach.
  Incredibly these refugees--just two years removed from the horrors of 
the Holocaust--were held by the British in a former S.S. concentration 
camp after their return to Germany. This shocked the conscious of much 
of the world and further galvanized opinion against the British 
blockage and in favor of the establishment of a Jewish state in 
Mandate-era Palestine.

[[Page E825]]

  The story of those aboard the Exodus 1947 and their harrowing journey 
to Haifa was immortalized in Leon Uris's novel Exodus and subsequent 
film featuring the character Ari Ben-Canaan based on Harel himself and 
played by Paul Newman.
  Though Harel is best known for commanding Exodus 1947, he also led 
three other ships to the shores of Israel, helping 24,000 refugees find 
safe harbor in the Promised Land--all by the time he was 28.
  Today we mourn the loss of a great hero, who not only touched the 
lives of these 24,000 refugees and won the admiration of millions of 
people worldwide, but also came to symbolize the determination and 
pluck of the modern state of Israel.

                          ____________________