The scholar Adi Mahalel quotes from and summarizes the remarks about Bontshe made by the essayist Israel Rubin, in Yiddish, in 1948, at the moment when the State of Israel was being established.

Suggested activity: Read Mahalel’s summary and the quotations, and explain that this was written in 1948, the year the State of Israel was established. Read Mahalel’s summary and the quotations, and explain that this was written in 1948, the year the State of Israel was established. Ask students: why does Rubin say that Bontshe is dead, and that no one will say kaddish (the Jewish mourner's prayer) for him? What does it mean to posit noted assassins—who worked outside the law, and murdered people they believed were harming Jews and others—as the opposite of Bontshe?