On July 22, 1946, a massive explosion ripped through the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, leaving 91 people dead, dozens injured, and significant damage to the building itself. Although all three paramilitary organizations operating in the Yishuv had known about this event beforehand, the Irgun was solely involved in planning and executing the attack. This bombing is a critical moment in the history of modern Israel, exemplifying the desperate lengths to which Jews in Palestine were willing to go to confront the British through increasingly military means. At the time, the bombing of the King David Hotel was condemned by many, including the international press and even prominent figures such as Chaim Weizmann. Britain withdrew from the region a mere six months later, a decision that is often attributed in part to the ferocity of the attack on the King David Hotel. When the bombing took place, it was the single largest non-combat attack in the Middle East and even today remains the highest number of British casualties resulting from a single incident.

Given how pertinent the King David Hotel bombing is to the formation of the modern state, it goes without saying that it is impossible to omit it from a class on the history of Israel. Yet at the same time, it poses potential challenges for students due to the unmitigated violence that occurred. While many questions remain about who was ultimately culpable for the deadly outcome, the term frequently associated with the King David Hotel bombing is terrorism, a word that automatically evokes notions of villains and victims—indeed, a cursory search for information about this event online brings up sources that label it as such, including the first line of Google’s AI summary.

In contrast, numerous Jewish resources—including Daniel Gordis’s Israel: A Concise History of a Nation Reborn—eschew this word, describing instead the circumstances that led up to the bombs detonating and the aftermath of the attack. By focusing instead on a series of miscommunications between the British and the Irgun, blame becomes harder to mete out. Furthermore, in this version of events, circumstances at the time—specifically the British policies around Jewish immigration and increased targeting of those associated with defense organizations—pushed the Irgun to take drastic measures in the fight for an autonomous state. Perhaps more than any other single event in the history of modern Israel, the King David Hotel bombing can be neatly articulated by a famous expression originating from Gerald Seymour’s 1975 novel Harry’s Game: “One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.”

The question for educators, then, is not whether the King David Hotel bombing should be discussed—I think that it goes without saying that it should—but rather how to structure such discussions effectively and responsibly. One approach might be to present the event in as neutral a fashion as possible and avoid any potentially polarizing or extremist language around it. But this decision could easily backfire; students can (and likely will) discover the word “terrorism” linked with the King David Hotel bombing, given the proliferation of sources that connect them. Alternatively, students may feel ambivalent about how to reconcile such a violent event as a critical linchpin within the narrative of modern Israeli history and the founding of the Jewish state. Simply ignoring the fraught ethics of the King David Hotel bombing has the potential to silence these voices from the classroom and make them feel alienated due to their perspectives.

I would like to suggest an alternative approach: Allowing students the opportunity to study eyewitness accounts that capture the experience of those who lived through this event. Two in particular resonated with my 8th grade students at Maimonides School (Brookline, MA), enriching their understanding of the bombing itself, but also of how complicated our own thoughts and emotions can be as we navigate through challenging moments. By providing our students with a safe classroom environment to explore history’s complexities, we are allowing them to grow both intellectually and emotionally and to forge meaningful and lasting connections to past events. Our students may interpret the King David Hotel bombing in ways that differ from our own understanding, but as these two eyewitness accounts demonstrate, even those who were there at the time had to reconcile their own disparities around the attack and its aftermath.

Eyewitness Account 1: Niv Elis’s “Blowing Up the King David Hotel”

Niv Elis’s extraordinary 2012 article combines an interview with his grandfather, Shraga Elis, the historical circumstances of the King David Hotel bombing, and his own encounters with the attack in various contemporary settings. A former member of the Irgun, with the codename Haim Toit (Hebrew: life [Haim]; Yiddish: death [Toit]), Shraga was an integral part of the team that did the reconnaissance and trained the operatives who placed the bombs in the hotel. The article traces the history of his family from their origins in Lodz to his eventful life in Tel Aviv during the Yishuv—they fled Poland for Palestine after a pogrom broke out on their street. But what makes this article particularly captivating are the vivid details that tinge his memories of the work that he did as a committed and vital member of the Irgun, such as assembling grenades in the backroom of his shop or hiding a notable fugitive named Menachem Begin from the British authorities. Shraga, in his telling, was the one who concocted the plan to conceal the explosives in milk crates after observing produce being brought to the kitchen that was adjacent to structural supports for the hotel. After the bombing, as the British unsuccessfully combed the Yishuv in search of Begin as the figurehead of the Irgun, Shraga concealed him in an attic.

What emerges clearly in this article is the pride that Shraga continues to feel for his work as part of the Irgun, contributing to the eventual establishment of the Jewish state. So, what is his final assessment of the King David Hotel bombing, this scheme in which he had been so heavily involved? To cite the article: “It was a disaster. I had a very heavy feeling when I learned that innocent people died. That was never our mission.” This confession comes unexpectedly given the enthusiasm of Shraga’s narration until this point. It is a stark reminder that even those fighting for a cause can regret the outcomes of their actions.

The author does not shy away from the fact that in many settings, the King David Hotel bombing is presented as an act of terrorism. Instead, he purposefully includes numerous situations in which he encountered it from this perspective, highlighting how the categorization of historical events can be challenging and slippery. As such, this article offers a great starting point for classroom discussions because of its many vivid details, but also because it encourages students to recognize how one individual can see an event from multiple perspectives: as a triumph for Irgun and those in the Yishuv fighting against the British, but also as a tragedy for the many lives that were lost.

Eyewitness Source 2: BBC Witness History, “The King David Hotel Bombing”

The second eyewitness account comes from an interview with Shoshana Levy Kampos that was broadcast on 17 July 2018 as part of the BBC’s series Witness History. In several respects, Kampos’ story parallels that of Shraga Elis. Both came to Palestine with their families, fleeing persecution in Europe—in Kampos’ case, they left Nazi Germany during the mid-1930s. Both Kampos and Shraga were in their 20s during the mid-1940s and seeking ways to earn a living in a region with few jobs. Although Kampos makes clear that she did not support the British and their policies towards Jews, she nevertheless took a job working for the government at its King David Hotel headquarters. On the day of the bombing, she was at her desk when she recalls hearing that there were explosives in the basement. Before she could leave, they detonated. Her next memory is pulling herself out of the rubble, having miraculously suffered only minor injuries. Her supervisor, unfortunately, did not survive the blast.

In her recounting of the event, Kampos highlights the many complexities that existed in the British Mandate at this time. Her own feelings toward the British were ambivalent at best, yet she continued to work for them due to a curtailed number of other options. The presence of British forces was oppressive to many, yet this encroaching surveillance did little to curb increasing violence between differing factions in the Mandate, causing supporters to question their methods and motives. Even the line between these factions was not always as clear-cut as is often assumed: for example, Kampos’ supervisor was a British citizen working for the government who was also Jewish. Her assessment of the Irgun and its decision to bomb the hotel? “They wanted the British to go out but that wasn’t the way to do it.”

In the domain of Israel education, the terms “complexity” and “nuance” are frequently invoked as critical to impart to students as they grapple with sophisticated and challenging questions. Kampos’ eyewitness account of the King David Hotel bombing richly illustrates how even an event that might seem straightforward at first glance can contain contradictions and complications underneath the surface. At the end of the interview, Kampos reveals that every night she dreams about “many bad things” in her life, but that the King David Hotel bombing is not one of them. This ambiguous conclusion offers an opportunity for students to share their interpretation of Kampos’ cryptic final statement and of her overall experience of the event.

Conclusion

Eyewitness accounts provide students with the opportunity to engage more thoroughly with history, but they also bring with them the challenge of complicating students’ perceptions of events. In a case like the King David Hotel bombing, it might be tempting for educators to forgo eyewitness accounts out of a concern that students will not learn the “right” narrative. Yet as these two eyewitness accounts show, conflicting reactions and emotions can emerge from the same event even for the same person. As educators, we want our students to leave our classrooms with the ability to build their own narratives about what they encounter in the world, which will not always follow a neat and tidy trajectory. Providing them with the opportunity to engage with sources such as eyewitness accounts that complicate the past is a step toward equipping them for their futures.