Early History
The title "43 Group" came from the number of people in the room of Maccabi House during the group's founding meeting. The instigators of the foundation meeting were Morris Beckman, who served in the Merchant Navy in World War II and was torpedoed twice, Gerald Flamberg, Middleweight boxing champion, 156 Battalion, who won the Military Medal at Arnhem during Operation Market Garden, Leonard Sherman, martial arts expert (Welsh Guards), and Alec Carson, who flew Hawker Hurricanes in the Battle of Britain. A 17-year-old Vidal Sassoon, joined the group in 1947, and went on to fight in the Israeli Defence Forces during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, and later founded an international hairdressing empire.
The group grew to include many hundreds of men and women, and not all Jewish. The initial membership was of around 300 people and included holders of bravery decorations, a VC (Petty Officer "Tommy" Gould) Thomas William Gould, DSOs, DFCs, DSMs and MMs. The organisation was sometimes portrayed by its enemies as a front for either Jewish terrorists or communists, but this was not the case and it was mostly composed of British ex-servicemen.
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