How Zionists Helped Defeat Segregation In Baltimore

The British authorities decided to place the crew members, most of them American volunteers, in the Acre prison, in Palestine. That turned out to be a big mistake.

The Ben Hecht crewmen mingled there with imprisoned members of Menachem Begin’s Irgun Zvai Leumi underground militia. The Americans provided crucial assistance in the preparations by the Irgun members for a mass breakout.

As dramatically portrayed in the film “Exodus,” more than 200 Jewish and Arab prisoners escaped in what the international media described as the most spectacular jail break of modern times.

Many previously unknown details about the voyage of the Ben Hecht are presented in a fascinating new book about one of the crew members, Without Permission: Conversations, Letters, and Memoirs of Henry Mandel (Cherry Orchard Books).

Edited by Mandel’s grandson, Samuel Flaks, Without Permission is a timely reminder—so pertinent to the commemoration of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day—of the importance of taking action, even “without permission,” in order to combat injustice.

“I am proud that it was my play which terminated one of the most disgraceful practices of our country’s history,” a beaming Ben Hecht declared after the opening performance in Baltimore. 

“For the first time in the history of the State of Maryland, Negroes were permitted to attend the legitimate theatre without discrimination. I am proud that it was ‘A Flag is Born’ which they attended without insult. Breaking down this vicious and indecent tradition in Maryland is worthy of the high purpose for which ‘Flag’ was conceived and written. The incident is forceful testimony to the proposition that to fight discrimination and injustice to one group of human beings affords protection to every other group.”