Meir Tobianski
| Meir Tobianski | |
|---|---|
Meir Tobianski
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| Born |
Meir Tobianski 20 May 1904 Kaunas, Lithuania |
| Died | 30 June 1948 (aged 44) Harel, Israel |
| Cause of death | Firing squad in a drumhead court-martial |
| Occupation | Soldier |
Meir Tobianski (Hebrew: מאיר טוביאנסקי) also Tubianski (20 May 1904, Kovno – 30 June 1948) was an officer in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) who was executed as a traitor on circumstantial evidence on the orders of Isser Be'eri, the first director of the IDF's intelligence branch. A year after the execution, Tobianski was exonerated of all charges.
Tobianski was born in Lithuania and served as a major in the British army during the Second World War, then a captain in the Haganah, and was later sworn into the IDF on 28 June 1948, during the Israeli War of Independence. He was also the former commander of Camp Schneller, a military base in Jerusalem. In June 1948 Tobianski had been transferred to command of Jerusalem airstrips. He was an employee of the British-run Jerusalem Electric Corporation. Suspected of passing information on targets for Jordanian artillery, he was taken into custody and sentenced to death by firing squad in a drumhead court-martial.
Even prior to the 1948 war the Haganah had a policy of executing spies and collaborators. In the summer 1947 Moshe Kelman commanded a Haganah squad which executed a Jew accused of collaborating with the British. The execution took place at Kibbutz Dafna. During the siege of Jerusalem, the reports and fears of spies abounded. Lehi alone had executed 4 "spies" in Jerusalem including Vera Ducas, a 36-year-old female Austrian Jew who was shot on 29 March. In June, there was a report that "nine Jewish girls are being held by the [Israeli] Army under suspicion of contacts with the enemy." The apparent accuracy of Jordanian shelling of strategic targets led to suspicions that a spy was responsible. Those suspicions were focused on the Jerusalem Electric Corporation.
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