Huberman Sereni

  • Issue: September 1988
  • Designer: Z. Narkiss
  • Stamp size: 40 x 25.7 mm
  • Plate no.: 56
  • Sheet of 15 stamps Tabs: 5
  • Printers: E. Lewin-Epstein Ltd.
  • Method of printing: Offset

Enzo Sereni was born in April 1905 in Rome into a well-established Jewish family. His father, a University lecturer was doctor at the royal court, and his uncle head of the organization of Jewish communities in Italy. His mother's family also boasted a number of well-known personalities. Although Enzo was deeply rooted in Italian society and culture, he was very active in Zionist circles and, in 1922, took on the job of Secretary to the movement. On finishing his university studies in philosophy in 1927, he and his wife Ada left for Eretz Israel.

Here he worked in the citrus plantations in Rehovot and joined the group of Kibbutz Ha-Me'uchad that founded Givat Brenner. In 1932 he was sent to Germany to help strengthen the Zionist Youth Movement there, and after Hitler's rise to power, he went there a second time to serve in organizing the efforts of the large Jewish Pioneer movement to get Jewish capital out of Germany.

In 1936 he was sent on a mission to the USA.

In Eretz Israel he was active in the effort to create a united Kibbutz movement. He was, throughout his life, a believer in reaching an understanding with the Arabs; he established relations with the neighbouring Arab villages and preached non-violence. Nevertheless, the events of World War II deeply influencing him, he volunteered for the British army. British Army Intelligence in Cairo gave him an important job in the field of anti-fascist propaganda via the radio and newspapers and through personal contact with Italian prisoners of war.

At the instigation of British Intelligence, who didn't approve of his methods of work, he was arrested by the Egyptian police, freed after an eleven day hunger strike and returned to Eretz Israel.

1942 found him in Iraq organizing the illegal Pioneer movement. On his return to Eretz Israel, he served the Mossad, helping to organize the illegal immigration of Jews from Nazi rule, even during the war.

Enzo Sereni was one of the initiators of the plan to parachute agents into Europe in which he insisted on taking part in spite of his age. On May 15th, 1944 he was dropped into the German lines, where he was captured. He was put to death in Dachau on November 18th, 1944.

Enzo Sereni, a cultured man, was very learned, a great linguist and a deep and original thinker. He was aslo very much a man of action, a brave and daring initiator, with a personal charm that made him numerous friends.

The book "The Holy Spring" contains a selection of his speeches and his own book "The Sources of Italian Fascism" was published posthumously.

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Enzo Hayyim Sereni