Meir Tobianski

Meir Tobianski (מאיר טוביאנסקי, also Tubianski; 20 May 1904 – 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 Kovno (now Kaunas), Lithuania, then part of the Russian Empire, to a Jewish family in 1904.

He grew up in Kovno and Bratislava and graduated from the Kovno Hebrew Gymnasium in 1920.

He served in the Lithuanian Army and studied engineering in Russia and Lithuania.

Tobianski immigrated to Mandatory Palestine in 1925.

Initially, he worked in physical labor, including agricultural activities in the fields of Binyamina.

After contracting fever while digging a well, he abandoned physical labor and enlisted in the Palestine Police Force.

He also joined the Haganah.

During World War II, he enlisted in the British Army.

He served in the Royal Engineers and reached the rank of Major.

After the war, he worked as an engineer with the British-owned Jerusalem Electric Corporation.

In the summer of 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.

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 1948 Arab-Israeli War.

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.

He was sworn into the Israel Defense Forces on 28 June 1948.

Tobianski was married to Chaya and had a son named Ya'akov.

Even prior to the 1948 war the Haganah had a policy of executing spies and collaborators.

On 8 July 1948, the Irgun kidnapped five British officials of the Jerusalem Electric Corporation.

One of the men was Michael Bryant, to whom Tobianski had been accused of passing information.

A month later, they were transferred to the Israeli authorities and on 12 August brought to trial.

Three, including Bryant, were released due to lack of evidence.

The remaining two men, George Hawkins and Fredrick Sylvester, faced a second trial on 16 September.

Hawkins, who was charged with passing information to the Arabs, was released on 30 September.

Sylvester, who was married to an Israeli and had been a member of the Palestine Police, was charged with espionage and complicity in the Ben Yehuda Street bombing.

On 6 October, he was found guilty of three charges of espionage and sentenced to seven years in prison.

The verdict rested on his possession of a radio with which he had been communicating with the British Consul in the Old City.

In November 1948, he was acquitted by the Israeli Supreme Court and released.

During the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, Tobianski worked for the Jerusalem Electric Corporation and had knowledge of the exact location of several arms manufacturers in Jerusalem.

These factories had received direct hits from Jordanian artillery.

After arriving at Tel Aviv on 30 June 1948, Tobianski was taken into custody by Shmuel Granizi in the Carmel market.