Wolfgang von Weisl

Wolfgang von Weisl was born in 1896 in Vienna

Von Weisl was born in Vienna in 1896. His father, Ernst Franz von Weisl, was a lawyer and an early supporter of Theodor Herzl. In 1907 he published his first political article, on bringing the Jews of Yemen to the Land of Israel.

He studied medicine at the University of Vienna. In 1914 he served as an artillery officer in the Austro-Hungarian army and received the Iron Cross. He later worked for the Jewish National Fund in Vienna, where he met Ze'ev Jabotinsky.

In 1922 he moved to the Land of Israel. From 1924 he represented the Ullstein publishing house in the Muslim world and met several Arab rulers. In 1925 he helped found the Revisionist Party, and in 1929 he was stabbed during the riots and later testified before the Shaw Commission.

In the 1930s he edited the newspaper Doar Hayom and helped organize the first immigrant ship, Af Al Pi. He fled Vienna in 1938 and returned to the Land of Israel in 1940. Arrested in Operation Agatha, he held a hunger strike, and in the War of Independence he commanded an artillery battalion.

He married Naomi Zuckerman, and they had 4 children. He wrote thousands of articles and several books. He died in Gedera in 1974.