Hillel Kook

Hillel Kook was born in 1915 in Kriukai

Kook was born in 1915 in Kriukai, in the Russian Empire, today in Lithuania. His father, Rabbi Dov Kook, was the younger brother of Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook. In 1924 the family moved to Palestine, where his father became the first Chief Rabbi of Afula.

He studied in Afula and at the Merkaz HaRav yeshiva in Jerusalem. He also took classes at the Hebrew University, where he joined a student circle that included David Raziel and Avraham Stern.

In 1937 he went to Poland to raise funds and set up Irgun cells. In 1940 he traveled to the United States at the request of Ze'ev Jabotinsky and later headed the Irgun mission there under the name Peter Bergson. His group placed newspaper ads, staged the pageant We Will Never Die in 1943, and pressed for the rescue of European Jews.

The group's campaign was a factor in the founding of the War Refugee Board in 1944. Its activism drew opposition from parts of the American Jewish and Zionist leadership. In 1944 he founded the American League for a Free Palestine.

After Israel was founded, he served in the first Knesset for Herut from 1949. He resigned in 1951 after becoming disillusioned with Israeli politics. He died in 2001.