Hillel Kook

Peter Bergson (Hebrew: פיטר ברגסון, Hillel Kook also; born July 24, 1915 in Kriukai ( Yiddish: Kruk ), Lithuania, Russian Empire; † August 18, 2001 in Tel Aviv ) was a revisionist Zionist activist, politician and prominent member the Irgun.

His family left Lithuania in 1925 and went to Palestine. There he attended the Yeshiva Merkaz Ha'rav in Jerusalem, which had been founded by his uncle Abraham Isaac Kook. He then studied at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

In 1937 he was sent by the Irgun in Poland. When the Second World War broke out, he went to the USA.

After the establishment of Israel, he returned there. In 1948 he was involved in the Altalena affair, in which the Irgun with the Israeli army returned fire fights. Due to his participation on the part of the Irgun, he was briefly arrested. In 1949 he was elected for the Herut in the first Knesset. In 1951, he laid down his mandate, however, and went again to the United States.

In 1970 he returned from the U.S. to Israel, where he then lived near Tel Aviv until his death.