Meir Feinstein was born on October 5 1927 to a religious family in the Old City of Jerusalem. As a boy he studied Torah at the Etz Chaim yeshiva but, after losing his father at an early age, was forced to work in order to help support his family. At first he found a job in
Jerusalem but soon began farming at Kibbutz Givat Hashlosha. During his time as a farmer, Feinstein joined the Haganah (the official militia of the Jewish community at the time).
In 1944, at age 17, Feinstein obtained a forged document from the Mukhtar of Petah Tikva in order to join the British army in the fight against Nazi Germany. After the war, Feinstein joined the Irgun and worked in the organization’s propaganda unit. He was eventually selected for a commander’s course, during which he was often sent out on operations. On October 30 1946, Feinstein participated in an attack on the Jerusalem railway station. During the battle, he was severely wounded and captured by the British. Following the amputation of his arm, he was sentenced to death before a military court.
While awaiting the gallows in the Jerusalem central prison, Feinstein shared a cell with Moshe Barazani, a young Lehi fighter also on death row. The two became close friends and together decided that rather than allow themselves to be executed in Jerusalem (no Jew had been executed by a foreign ruler in Jerusalem since the time of Roman occupation nearly 2,000 years earlier), they would emulate the Biblical hero Samson and find a way to die together with their enemies. They had comrades in the underground smuggle a grenade into the prison hidden inside an orange. When the guards come to take them to the gallows, they planned to blow themselves up together with the British.
The night before their scheduled execution, Rabbi Yaakov Goldman came to comfort the boys. But rather than recite the traditional confession, the rabbi told the fighters that they had nothing to confess as they would be giving their lives for the freedom of Israel. He encouraged them to be strong and praised their heroism. After many hours, the rabbi insisted that he return the following day to witness the execution. The fighters attempted to discourage him from returning but the rabbi was determined to witness the bravery of the condemned boys so that he could tell the Jewish youth of their heroism in the face of death. Feinstein and Barazani had a dilemma. On the one hand, they could not set off the grenade with the rabbi present. On the other hand, they did not want to put the rabbi in a difficult moral position by telling him of their plot. The boys decided to forgo their plan to take the guards with them but they would still prevent the British from desecrating Jerusalem with their hangings.
On Monday April 21 1947, half an hour before the execution would take place, an explosion echoed through the Jerusalem central prison. Meir Feinstein and Moshe Barazani had sang HaTikva and then embraced in their cell. The grenade was held between their hearts. Meir lit a cigarette, with which he ignited the fuse that Moshe held. They fighters died together in their cell. During the entire Jewish revolt to free Palestine from foreign rule, the British would not execute even one Hebrew in Jerusalem.
Meir Feinstein was born on October 5 1927 to a religious family in the Old City of Jerusalem. As a boy he studied Torah at the Etz Chaim yeshiva but, after losing his father at an early age, was forced to work in order to help support his family. At first he found a job in 