Che Guevara: Ambitious Revelations.
 
 
Some people consider him to be a fanatical assassin who killed hundreds of people in the name of debatable convictions. Others see him as a glorious hero, defender of the weak and the oppressed, a romantic figure who charmed young people the world over.

But really, who was that South American revolutionary who gained power in Cuba and died elsewhere, the object before and after his death of an unconditional love from his admirers and also of great contempt from his enemies?

Only 40 years after his death have the information agencies opened their archives to reveal the true identity of this myth of the Cuban revolution. It is all about his belonging to the Jewish people and his links, in the last years of his life, to them and their land.

It was in 1964 that his mother Celia, feeling that she was close to death, revealed to her son the family story which had been kept secret for so long.

In 1908 in Buenos Aires Celia was born into a practising Jewish Zionist family originating from the Russian immigration. Until the age of eighteen Celia Sharon grew up in the Jewish quarter of the capital, receiving a strict Jewish education. When she was eighteen she left the family to marry a Catholic Argentinian doctor Ernesto Guevara Linch, giving up her Jewish identity. One year later, Ernesto was born.

The upbringing which Che and his siblings received was far removed from their Jewish roots. Celia hid their origins without even telling her husband; however, a short time before her death she decided to tell everything to her son Ernesto.

He was greatly astonished to find out that he was a Jew according to the Torah, that his mother was Jewish and that he had Jewish cousins like himself.

Celia knew that her brother Samuel, eighteen years her senior, had left Russia to emigrate to Israel (then known as Palestine).
The things his mother had told him so moved Che who previously had never been interested in either Jewish culture or Israel. He started to study obstinately all the sacred texts, books about Judaism and all the documents that he could find.
In the sixties, Che felt the need to link himself physically to the land of his ancestors. He went to Egypt where he stayed for a week.

On February 24th he left Egypt and arrived in Israel via Cyprus.

He arrived incognito to find and set up personal and political relationships with the family of his uncle Samuel.
He discovered that he had a first cousin of the same age: General Ariel Sharon, Commander of the First Armed Division of Tzahal. They met each other often.

Just before her death, Celia explained to Che the family ties with Ariel Sharon.

Che travelled to Israel under false identity, made contact with his famous relative and registered at a Superior Institute for Rabbinical Studies.