Without Permission

A fantastical propaganda play depicting an armed revolt financed the purchase of the yacht Abril and its conversion to an “illegal” immigrant passenger ship renamed the Ben Hecht . The plan was to evade the British naval blockade and bring Holocaust survivor refugees to Palestine. Henry Mandel volunteered aboard the Ben Hecht , a converted yacht that challenged the British blockade of Jewish immigrants to pre-state Israel. Captured and detained in Acre Prison, Mandel aided the efforts of prisone