Certain Days. Zionist Memoirs and Selected Papers [1. ed.]

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JULIUS SIMON

CERTAIN

DAYS

ZIONIST MEMOIRS AND SELECTED PAPERS

Editing and Essay

EVYATAR FRIESEL

ISRAEL

UNIVERSITIES PRESS JERUSALEM 1971

ISRAEL UNIVERSITIES a publishing division of

PRESS

KETER PUBLISHING HOUSE LTD.

a wholly owned subsidiary of ISRAEL PRO GRAM FOR SCIENTIFIC TRANSLATIONS LTD.

Distributed by Keter Publishing House Ltd. P.O.B. 7145, Jerusalem

Copyright

©

Keter Inc. 104E 40th St. New York, 10016 N.Y.

Keter Publishers Ltd. 15, Provost Rd. London, NW3 4ST

Encyclopaedia Judaica Research Foundation, New York, 1971

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 78-183605 SBN 7065 1220 0 HIP cat. no. 2662 All rights reserved

r

Manufactured in Israel, by Keter Press Jerusalem, Israel, 1971

To My Wife, Ellen

. The Recall

I am the land of their fathers, In me the virtue stays. I will bring back my children, After certain days. U nder their feet in the grasses My clinging magic runs. They shall return as strangers. They shall remain as sons. Over their heads in the branches Of their new-bought ancient trees, I weave an incantation And draw them to their knees. Scent of smoke in the evening, Smell of rain in the nightThe hours, the days and the seasons, Order their souls aright. Till I make plain the meaning Of all my thousand yearsTill I fill their hearts with knowledge, While I :fi.11 their eyes with tears.

Rudyard Kipling

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CONTENTS

Foreword

9

lNTRODUCTION

13

ZIONIST MEMOIRS

17

Chapter One-Pre-Zionist Days Chapter Two-"The Jewish State" Chapter Three-Dr. Theodor Herzl Chapter Four-The First Zionist Congress Chapter Five-The Mannheim Zionists Chapter Six-Controversies Within the Zionist Organization Chapter Seven-The Uganda Congress Chapter Eight-From the Seventh to the Tenth Congress Chapter Nine-The Eleventh Congress (1913) Chapter Ten-The "Language Struggle" and World War I Chapter Eleven-Holland Chapter Twelve-England (1918-1920) Chapter Thirteen-Brandeis and the London Zionist Conference (1920) Chapter F ourteen-· The Reorganization Commission Chapter Fifteen-The Twelfth Zionist Congress (1921) Chapter Sixteen-· New York and Palestine . Epilogue ESSAY-THE

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23 26 33 38

42 46 54 62

67 73 78 98 108

114 120 137

IMPOSSIBLE MEDIATION: JULIUS SIMON AS MEMBER

OF THE ZIONIST EXECUTIVE

(1920-1921)

SELECTED LETTERS AND DOCUMENTS SIMON-FRIESEL CORRESPONDENCE

(1964-1968)

141 169

327

Chronological Table

373

Index

375 7

8

9

FOREWORD

. In January, 1919, at the request of Justice Brandeis and Judge Julian W. Mack, I, then a young lawyer and a novice in the Zionist movement, embarked for London and Paris to help the Zionist leaders present their case at the Peace Conference and at the conferences to follow, concerning the Palestine mandate. I was also to serve as a sort ofliaison offi.cerbetween the American and European Zionists. I remained abroad for more than two years and during that period met most of the major and many of the minor leaders of the Zionist movement. While deeply impressed by the great popular leaders of the movement, I was particularly drawn to a thoughtful, soft-spoken gentleman who was to become my cherished life-long friend. He bad long been an active and dedicated worker in the movement and was highly respected by Zionist leaders representing different schools of thought. And yet he was too retiring and selfless to have secured the recog~ nition and authority his great abilities and outstanding services merited. He had a rare understanding not only of the spiritual and historic forces which converged in the Zionist movement, but of the concrete and difficult problemspolitical, social, economic and administrative-which were involved in the settlement of Jews in Palestine. He was Julius Simon, the author of the posthumously published Certain Days, Zionist Memoirs and Selected Papers, to which I am privileged to write this foreword in memorium. In 1920, when serious differences arose between Justice Brandeis and Dr. Weizmann, I had high hopes that Julius Simon and bis co-worker Nehemiah de Lieme of The Hague, wbo sbared each other's vision, depth of understanding and freedom from narrow partisanship and parochial allegiances, would be able to dev~lop a practical program that could command the confidence and support of botb Brandeis and Weizmann and thereby avert the threatened breach in the Zionist Organization. But the issues of principle bad become so confused with issues of personality that the constructive efforts of Simon and de Lieme came to nought. Julius Simon then came to the United States where he helped to organize the Palestine Economic Corporation and took a leading part in its activities for over a quarter of a century. 9

~rmon's Memoirs are the memoirs of a lang life dedicated to the up- 10 building of the Jewish National Horne in Palestine and later to the economic dev~lopment of the State of Israel. They cast fresh light on many episodes in the early hist~ry of the Zionist movement and they illuminate many ofthe problems that confronted those who labored through the years to build the economic foundations of the State of Israel. JW1us

Washington, 1970

j

Benjamin V. Co.hen

11

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thanks are due to many institutions and individuals for their helpfulness in the preparation of this book. The title of the book, Certain Days. is taken from the poem "The Recall" reprinted from Verse: Definitive Edition by Rudyard Kipling, copyright 1909 by Rudyard Kipling: by permission of Mrs. George Bambridge, Doubleday & Company Inc.; and Macmillan & Cq., U.K. The Weizmann Archives, Rehovot, through Mr. Julian L. Meltzer, Dr. Gedalia Y ogev and Mrs. Louisa Calef, most graciously made available a number of important letters, and permission was given to quote a letter from Ch. Weizmann to J. Simon, dated December 30, 1927. U seful correspondence from the files of the Central Zionist Archives, J erusalem, was kindly provided by Dr. Alex Bein and Dr. Michael Heymann. Valuable material from the Brandeis Papers was supplied by Mrs. Pearl W. Von Allmen, of the University of Louisville's Law School Library. Mrs. Sylvia Landress provided material at the Zionist Archives and Library in New York City. Thanks are equally due to Mrs. Margaret Doniger, who suggested to Mr. Simon the idea of writing his Memoirs and was helpful in their execution; and to Mrs. Nancy H. Schindewolf, Mr. Simon's secretary, for her devoted efforts; Translations into English from German and Hebrew were made by Mrs. Ora Hand, Mr. Lionel Holland, and Mrs. Hannah Leshem. The collaboration of the staff of Israel Universities Press is greatly appreciated: Mr. Murray Crawcour deserves the warmest praise for his devoted efforts; Mr. Derek Orlans and Mr. Robert Amoils proved most helpful. PEF Israel Endowment Fund Inc. were helpful in getting the book published. Finally, the editor takes the greatest pleasure in underscoring the contribution ofthe University of the Negev, with which he has been associated from its beginnings. A research grant from the university enabled him to visit the United States and to collect material used in this book.

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12

13

INTRODUCTION

Among those American Zionists active in economic enterprises in Palestine during the l 920's, who were centered around Brandeis, Julius Simon was an unusual figure. He had been a latecomer in their mids.t. The so-called Brandeis group attracted many people at different times, but by 1920, the small inner core of the group had already crystallized at the time when the administration of the Zionist Organization of America was in its hands. Simon was perhaps the only one admitted to the inner core after 1921. His relationship with Brandeis was cordial, but rather distant. lt seems that Simon feit a kind of a we toward the formidable personality of the Judge. But with some of the other members of the group, and principally with Robert Szold, Benjamin V. Cohen and Bernard Flexner, he developed a relationship of deep and lasting friendship. Simon was quite unlike them, or the other American „economic" Zionists. He had been bom in Europe, and on his arrival in the United States he was already a mature man. Most of his friends and collaborators were American-bom or at least American-educated. His Zionist past was completely different. He was rooted in the tradition of the European movement, where he had been active since the beginning of the century. His Zionist personality had been molded in the early struggles of the movement, from the Uganda Controversy in 1903 on. Simon had taken part in the discussions between Hpractical" and ··political" Zionists after Theodor Herzl's death, when Wolffsohn assumed the presidency of the Zionist movement. Before World War I he had collaborated with Weizmann-already an old friend-in Weizmann's project to establish a Hebrew University in Jerusalem. All these were experiences about which his new friends in the United States had learned indirectly. His past gave his Zionism a depth unknown to them. 13

During his European years, Simon had been maturing-seemingly without knowing it-for higher Zionist office. He was not a popular Zionist, well-known to the masses of the movement-he was never to be one. But in the inner councils of the Zionist leadership his capability was highly respected. Already in 1913 he was a potential candidate for membership in the Inner Actions-Committee, as the leading body of the Zionist movement was then called. His important position in the organization in 1920-21 as member of the Zionist Executive may be seen as the result of a long and gradual Zionist development. His resignation from the Executive, at the beginning of 1921, represented a deep crisis in his Zionist way which had been natural and positive till then. The second period in Julius Simon's Zionist activity began at the end of 1921 when he settled in the United States. He had met some of his American colleagues during their visit to Europe in 1919, and he had been in America in the spring of 1920. In June 1921 the American movement had undergone some drastic changes. At the Cleveland Convention of the Zionist Organization of America, the Brandeis group had been defeated. Without renouncing their membership in the movement, they withdrew from active political work and concentrated on independent economic work for Palestine. Julius Simonjoined the group, having accepted the Brandeis approach to Zionism-or, at least, he thought that he accepted it. The political era of Zionism had ended, the practical had" begun. No more propaganda was needed, but constructive werk in Palestine; no more need f or an internationally centralized movement, but only a coordinating body in Palestine advising the local Federations in their undertakings in or for Palestine. Economic enterprises, this was the new slogan to be followed. Simon became one of the most active among the "'economic" American Zionists. In 1923, as vice-chairman of the Palestine Develop„ ment Council, he was organizing committees dealing with different aspects of the economic development of Palestine: electrification, natural resources, housing, cooperative credit, etc. The group's most important project was the formation of tp.e Palestine Economic Corporation, in 1925..The PEC was then, and for many years after, one of the strengest economic organizations working in Palestine. Simon was its vice-president, and after 1931, its president. He fulfilled his functions for over twenty-five years, living first in the United States and later in Palestine. Under his presidency the PEC reached its full development.

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During his American years, Simon did not sever his farmer connections. Thedeeprupturewith Weizmann,in December 1920-January1921, healed gradually. In the late-twenties their correspondence was again on "Dearest Julius-Dearest Chaim" terms. But it was not only that personal friendship proved strenger than political divergence. Simon, after all, did not _feelcompletely content with his latter Zionist way. Apparently, "economic" Zionism wasn't enough for him-it was certainly much less than the strenuous and hectic, but vital and fulfilling, activity of his London days. Simon was far from being of a complaining nature, yet into his letters from the 'twenties and the 'thirties creeps here and there a note of deep dissatisfaction. Commenting on Weizmann's visit to the United States in 1923, he wrote to Vera Weizmann, on April 4, 1923; "'So now Chaim has come here and works like a slave, and I stand apart. And apart, not just from any one of our common tasks, but from what is the central point in his, and in my, life." But he feit unable to return to fuller Zionist activity in the American movement. American Zionism went through a deep crisis during the 'twenties, and many aspects of the· work in the Zionist Organization of America, then lead by Louis Lipsky, were unacceptable to Simon. "lt seems to me that the American Organization is demoralized"-he wrote to Weizmann an January 29, 1928. Regarding the possibility that he should take over the Palestine Department ofthe ZOA, he wrote, in the same letter: ""I cannot work in a political apparatus. Nor could I reasonably hope to be able to carry my views vis-ä.-vis the hand-tomouth policy. I cannot expect to be able to counteract the frivolous management of the finances ... " Looking back Simon apparently no langer considered his resignation from the Zionist Executive in the sure and emphatic terms of his letter of resignation of January 20, 1921. In latter years he used to advise "'never never to resign"-obviously thinking about his own experience. In 1933, when already president of the Palestine Economic Corporation, Simon came to Palestine to direct the growing activities of the concem on the spot. He settled in Jerusalem, and except for brief periodical visits to the U nited States to meet with the directors of th~ PEC and to consult with Justice Brandeis, he remained in the country till the end of the 'forties. Simon's Palestinian years were among the most productive in his life. The country was going through a period of rapid development, and the PEC expanded correspondingly. These were the years of some of the great projects of the corporation such as the 1,000.Families Plan

15

and the Haifa Bayside Project. In a way, Simon was again a "full" Zionist, and in addition, was living in Palestine. But even now he was not entirely satisfied. In 1938, almost twenty years after his resignation from the Zionist Executive, when the skies were darkening over European Jewry and war was already threatening, he was ready to turn back and once more to begin Zionist activity in his form.er framework, together with Weizmann. "'I have never before let on that it has pained me deeply that every time-since 1920-whenever fundamental issues in Zionism were at stake, I have been in the other camp. For almost twenty years we had fought shoulder-to-shoulder; more than that: we had been as real brothers, not only comrades-in-arms. Later ... we parted ways. I did not fight against you but retired from the activity within the Zionist Organization and tried to serve Zionism in my own way"-he wrote to Weizmann, on November 4, 1938. He explained his point of view regarding the different political problems which stood before the movement, and the solutions he suggested. And he concluded: "'Should this policy, your policy of old, seem to you worth striving for today, and if you believe that it would make you more courageous, more at ease and more determined if an old friend stands by you in this troubled hour, then-but only then-send me a cable . . . and I shall come." But Weizmann's answer was only lukewarm. Perhaps the differences between them in Zionist concept and Zionist policy-on issues like the Arab problem, the policy toward England, the economic policy 1n Palestine-had grown too wide to be easily bridged. Simon remained confined to his economic work. The feeling that he was able to give much more than the existing realities actually enabled him to give, may be seen as the less happy side of his later Zionist life. The fact that in spite of his frustration he neither . desisted from activity, changed it for something else, nor added some outside area of work or interest, but rather persisted in his field of work as it was, as circumstances had fixed it f or him, may give a measure of the moral temper of the man.

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17

ZIONIST

MEMOIRS

18

19

CHAPTER ONE

PRE-ZIONIST DAYS

I was bom in South Germany where my family had lived for generations. My father's family goes back to Rabbi Meir of Rothenburg, in the thirteenth century. Both my parents came from orthodox backgrounds. My mother's father was a strictly orthodox wine merchant. On Sabbath, during the grape harvest, long lines of barrels filled with new wine stood in the street in front of my grandparents' harne. Nothing was allowed to enter the large courtyard until the Sabbath was over. I have vivid memories of those Sabbaths. In the evening, when the first three stars appeared in the sky, my grandparents' seven children and their numerous grandchildren met in the house to witness the "havdalah" blessing the exit of the Sabbath. My grandfather said the blessing over the wine, holding the wax candle so that his fingernails sparkled in its light (last glow of the departing Sabbath) and passed around the ritual box of aromatic spices (last fragrance of sweet Sabbath). A sneeze on Sabbath eve was considered a good omen for the coming week. Therefore, after the uhavdalah" ceremony, my grandfather would sit down and begin to wrinkle his nose. There would be complete silence. We children were as quiet as mice. Finally grandfather produced a sneeze and everybody relaxed, crying happily ··zu masl, zu broche und zu gesund" (to luck, to blessing and to health), we children shouting at the top of our lungs. Then the door opened and the Gentile coopermaster entered with a stack ofletters and telegrams left unopened during the Sabbath and grandfather and his three sons sat down to ·business. In February 1859, at the age of fifteen, my father followed the example of his uncle, Abraham Weill, who had fled Germany to the United States because he had been involved in the revolution of 1848. My father started out as a peddler, with a pack on his back, traveling on foot through the Carolinas. Later he managed to acquire a horse and buggy, 19

although he could only afford a blind horse. He finally settled in Gri:ffin, Georgia, where he opened a general store. In A History of the Jews, Solomon Grayzel describes this period in the life of the American J ews: "lt was the heroic period of fighting against natural obstacles and of laying the foundations of national strength. With a pack on his back or in a covered wagon laden with trinkets and housebold goods, the Jewish peddler followed close behind the agricultural pioneer. Everything from needles to axes, from cheap jewelry to pots and pans, was his stock in trade. He was practically the whole contact between the distant settler and the world, bringing news along with the manufactured p·roducts and helping to weave the bonds which tied the country together. Many of the settlers saw a Jew for the first time in the peddler who came to their door and, their prejudices weakened by their independence and the Jew's helpfulness, accepted him as a welcome visitor and frequently became his friends. As the settlement grew thi~ker, the peddler of a district as_weil as bis customers found it advantageous for him to move the center of his operations to their midst. The fortunes of the Jew and the steady progress of bis neighbors were thus firmly bound together. The settlement grew into a village and the peddler's wagon stopped roving and became a depot; the village became a town and the peddler's depot became a dry-goods store; the town grew into a city and a department store occupied the very center of its Main Street." My father fought in the Civil War on.the side of the South. He was a believer in the Southem Cause. One of my first memories is the scolding I received when my father caught me reading Uncle Tom 's Cabin. In 1873, my father visited his parents in their small village in the Palatinate, Germany, and yielded to their entreaties that he spend their declining years with them. He liquidated his business in Griffin, retumed to Germany, married the daughter of a South Germ.an wine merchant and settled in Mannheim, in the State of Baden. He could never get used to conditions in Germany, nor to what he feit was the timid attitude of his fellow Jews, so different from the self-reliant Jewish pioneers in America. Therefore, he was careful to maintain bis American citizenship and saw to it that each of his seven children was registered at birth as an American citizen. So it came about that I, born in Germany, educated in German schools and living in Germany until I was 40, could play a part-in England, during the last part of World War I-in the turning point of Zionist history. ·

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The relationship of the South Germ.an Jews and those living in the Rhineland and Westphalia (who had come under the French regime or, at least, French influence during the Napoleonic Era) tö the Jews in North and Bast Germany, was, to say the least, peculiar. They considered themselves autonomous, having lived in South Germany for many generations and, in part, enjoying communal self-government, a result of the French Revolution. They looked upon the North and East Jews as different, in fact, inferior. They were "Polacks." lt was a strong prejudice. When my patemal grandmother, widowed and aging, moved into my uncle's apartment in Mannheim, she disposed of all her fumiture with the exception of a much-cherished sofa that she gave my uncle's son, whom she adored. This grandson was studying the Talmud with the help of a young Polish Jewish student. One day my grandmother discovered the student lying on "her" sofa. She called her grandson aside and said, furiously, "I shall take my sofa away from you if I ever find that "Polack' lying on it again." Such South German Jewish intolerance was not only against those Jews who had'drifted into Germany from the eastem part of Europe or who lived in that section of East Germany which, by the partition of Poland in 1772, had become part of Prussia and later of the German Empire (and who were considered alien to South German Jewish traditions and loose in business ethics ... ) but it included all North German Jews, whether they came from Eastem Europe or had lived for generations in Gennany. To the South German Jews all, including those who lived in the German capital, Berlin, were "Polacks." Intermarriage with the "Polacks" was considered almost as bad as marriage with a ""Shikse" (a Gentile). lt was a misalliance, a social drawback. Such was the attitude within the fold. In the outside world, however, all German J ews were united in sharing with other Western European Jews the advantages of their emancipation. lt was emancipation in law, shaded in fact. To make their freedom complete, the majority of the German Jews were anxious to achieve the final step in their· emancipation. Most of the Western Jews were confident that all would be well if only they were to keep what they understood was their part of the bargain. What was their part? Their answer was to establish complete identification with their surroundings. lt was not enough to absorb Western culture and still maintain their identity as Jews, conscious of their Jewish tradition. They attempted not only assimilation but mimicry. Jewish tradition was reduced to only one of its components, religion. Here the German J ews ran the gamut from

21

ultra "conservative" to ultra "liberal" in their religious observances which were reserved, outside their homes, for the synagogue. In many cases the lines of distinction between synagogue and church services became less and less clear. References to Zion were stricken from the "liberal" Jews' prayer books. Outside of home and synagogue only one Jewish impulse remained solid: to fight, or rather, to denounce the belligerent anti-Semites who insisted that the Jewish protestations of loyal citizenship were misleading ... that there was an international Jewish conspiracy and that the Western Jews shared with Jews elsewhere the obnoxious characteristics of a foreign race. The Western Jews deluded themselves that the anti-Semites represented only a small minority and were a passing phenomenon. But even this solidarity bad its limitations. The Jewish community was timid when an anti-Semitic action was instigated in the land of their birth, particularly when the government perpetrated such actions. They were relatively silent when the Germ.an Kaiser's own chaplain, Stoecker, publicly declared himself an anti-Semite. On the other hand, German Jewry was united in condemning France, Germany's Harchenemy" f or having sent an innocent Jew to Devil's Island. French Jewry, however, left it to Zola and his illustrious associates who, to quote Max Nordau, "risked position; freedom, civil rights, even life to fight for justice and to earn immortal glory." Nordau continues, ""A few isolated French Jews did their duty, but how many were they? A handful." Furthermore, as the author points out, French J ewry realized that the Dreyfus case was the forerunner of a concentrated attack against the whole French-Jewish community. He states, "Among the writers who attacked Zola, Jewish names were terribly numerous, and it was a Jew who made the abominable observation: "Dreyfus may be innocent or guilty. We do not want to hear about him and we will not permit the resumption of legal proceedings.' "

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CHAPTER TWO

"THE JEWISH STATE"

In 1896 Western European Jewry was introduced to Zionism. Theodor Herzl, a noted Viennese Jewish writer, saturated in Western culture, published a book called The Jewish State. He wrote, "We are a people, one people." And also, ""The Jews who wish it, shall have their State." He presented a plan to organize all those Jews "'who wish it" and outlined the financial methods for liquidating their property toward their resettlement in the "'State." •·Nothing is impossible," he continued, "in the world of progress in which we live. What was unrealistic 100 years ago, 50 years ago, can today become a reality." And again, ··The Jews who wish it, shall have their State." The Western Jews were horrified. How could this man, associated with one of the great liberal European newspapers and, therefore, presumably a man of responsibility, be so oblivious ofhis obligations to his ...coreligionists" as to attempt to destroy what had been built up in 100 years of emancipation and assimilation. Bad enough such a book was published; but even worse, this man at.tempted the creation of a Zionist organization, calling for a Zionist Congress ... a Jewish public forum ... where elected delegates would take the fate of the Jewish people into their own hands and for the first time in 2000 years frankly and openly discuss the world J ewish position in its political, cultural, social and economic aspects. No "apologia" for Jewish shortcomings or an exaggerated appreciation of Jewish virtues and achievements, simply an honest examination of the whole ••Jewish Problem." The Jewish State was published at a time when the Jewish upper classes, with the notable exception of the (then) small Jewish community in Great Britain, considered the mention of the word HJew" in „good society" or in the presence of a non-Jewish servant, extremely bad taste. Imagine their reaction to any suggestion that there should be open dis23

cuss1on otJewish affairs, speci:ficallythe misery and degradation of exist24 ing in a hostile or humiliating tolerant world. The vast majority of Western European Jewry rejected Zionism and fought it as the greatest menace to being recognized as full-fledged citizens. This rejection, openly stated by the spokesmen of Western Jewry who belonged to the more „liberal" religious groups, was shared by the orthodox minority who justified their antagonism for different reasons. The orthodox Jews had not stricken Zion from their prayer books. They wanted to enjoy the fruits of emancipation without breaking down the spiritual walls which separated them from the Gentile world. They condemned Zionism as an attempt to interfere with God's will. He would redeem His 0?,'n people in His own time. lt was more difficult for the "'liberal" Rabbis to explain their antagonism. They could not accept the nebulous position of the orthodox Jews, that of waiting for the Messiah. So they invented the still more nebulous idea of a Jewish „mission" among the Gentiles, although they were cautiously vague about the nature of this ..mission." To the Jewish masses in the ghettos of Eastem Europe, Herzl's book was the answer to 2000 years of prayers. They knew about the feeble attempts of the '"Chovevei Zion" (Lovers of Zion) to resettle Jews in the Holy Land, but they recognized intuitively that Herzl aimed at._ something different, something new: a first step toward the revival of the Jews' ancient glory. They were deeply stirred by the audacity of Herzl's plan, its clarity, the assertions which brooked no contradiction. They believed every word of the book as Herzl himself believed. A dream? Herzl once gave the answer. In his novel Old-New Land, pubIished in 1903, he said: HDream is not as different from reality as many believe. All human endeavor was a dream first and later became a reality." Herzrs book met with a mixed reception among the leaders of the "'Chovevei Zion" (predominantly Russian Jews). One, Menahem Ussischkin of Ekaterinoslav in South Russia, commented upon The Jewish State as follows: HThe theoretical exposition of Zionism is much better treated by Moses Hess" .(the author of a nineteenth century book, Rome and Jerusalem, dealing with the ideological basis of Zionism) Hand Leo Pinsker" (an Odessa physician who, during the persecution of the Russian Jews in 1881, wrote Auto-Emancipation, which was published in 1882). These two authors were not the only forerunners of Herzl. As early as 1840, the Earl of Shaftesbury proposed an inter-

nationally guaranteed J ewish Colonization of Palestine, in order to utilize the wealth and industry of the Jewish people "f or the economic development of a backward area." George Eliot and Lawrence Oliphant, both British writers, had published books advocating ideas near to Zionism, not to speak of Benjamin Disraeli, who in his youth had published a novel, Alroy, based on the revival of Jewish life in Palestine. But this was all unknown to Herzl. He had not heard of the British books and knew nothing of Moses Hess, Leo Pinsker or the "'Chovevei Zion." In fact, he did not know the Eastem European Jews. Those Galician Jews who had drifted to Vienna w~re not the most representative. The Russian Jew was quite unknown to Herzl. Later in an article in the Zionist weekly, Die Welt, he expressed surprise over the high professional and cultural standards of the Russian Zionist scientists, physicians, lawyers and bankers.

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CHAPTER THREE

DR. THEODORHERZL

Theodor Herzl, bom in 1860 in Budapest, Hungary, came from an assimilated family who had settled in Vienna. He had the usual education of the well-to-do Western Jewish family. As a law student he belonged to one of those aggressive, Teutonic student organizations whose members defended their ~'honor" with sword and sabre. Herzl had a flair for writing and a charming style. As a young man he became the Paris correspondent (later the "feuilleton" editor) of the then leading Austrian newspaper Neue Freie Presse, which was owned and directed by liberal minded (from the point of view of religion) assimilated Jews. Tue Jews in Germany and Austria had an important influence upon liberal thought, disproportionate to their numbers. This influence was reflected in the leading newspapers throughout Western Europe. there were other In Austria it was the Neue Freie Presse. In Getmc!,!).Y liberal newspapers, owned and policy-directed by ~ews, who were all opposed to Zionism and were violently articulate against the Zionist movement that militated against assimilation. Herzl had married into a typical "liberal" Jewish Viennese family. His wife detested Zionism, which, she felt, had taken her husband from her. They had three children; two girls and a boy. Herzl, himself, felt so keenly the incongruity between his family and his own life that his will stipulated that his son was to be educated in England. In 1920 I met young Herzl in London where I was working with Dr. Weizmann. He was then about 25 years old, a very fine lad. His life had been disturbingly difficult. A few years previous to our meeting, he had sought inner peace by embracing Catholicism, but in vain. When I met him he was anxious to work for Zionism. I gave him a position in the Zionist oflice in London, but it did not work out. After one of his beloved sisters died, he shot himself at her graveside.

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Herzl's life was a continuous struggle between his duties to his newspaper (where .his colleagues ridiculed the dreams of the HKing of Zion") and the demands of the movement he had created. No peace at the office, no peace at home. When his Zionist activities did not take him away from Vienna, he sat at his editor's desk du.ring the day and at his desk in the Zionist office at night. The cause took him away from Vienna to an ever-increasing degree-to the grand duke of Baden in Carlsruhe, to the Germ.an emperor at an historic meeting in Jerusalem, to the Turkish sultan in Constantinople, to the British govemment and his British friends in London, to Cairo, to the Russian govemment in St. Petersburg, to Zionist Congresses in Basel and London. After his death, I met his widow at a Gennan spa. She was full of venom against the Zionists, especially the Russian Zionists who had '"killed" her husband. Herzl' s closest friends realized that he was working himself to death and implored him to give up his newspaper position, move with his family to London and accept a salary from the Zionist Organization (in reality from his English friends). Herzl flatly refused and remained with his newspaper until bis death. At the First Congress convened after Herzl's death, Nordau said, "When he became a Zionist he was well-to-do, ahnost rich and when he died he left ahnest nothing but his [at the time, valueless] shares in the Jewish Colonial Trust." In 1894, Herzl witnessed the Dreyfus affair, as the Paris representa\ive of his newspaper. The story is too well-known to be repeated in detail: -how, to his horror, he heard the mob shout, "death to the Jews" ~ how his Jewish consciousness awoke; how he conceived The Jewish State as the solution to the Jewish problem; how his French friends thought he had lost his mind; how he found his first follower in the celebrated writer, Dr. Max Nordau, author of Conventional Lies of Civilization; how, as his first practical step, he approached Baron Hirsch (a proud Jew and great philanthropist who, after the death ofhis son, had donated millions of dollars toward Jewish agricultural settlements in Argentina). Herzl was anxious to make the right impression on the Baron. He did not want to appear as a ··nreamer of the Ghetto" (to borrow the title of one of Israel Zangwill's novels) or, to use a phrase coined by Max Nordau, as a uLuftmensch~' (a beggar with the intellectual craving of a nobleman). The day before the meeting Herzl bought a pair of gloves and wore them throughout that day. He wanted to come in good gloves but not in ones so new they would bave looked bought for the occasion. He showed the same carefulness later when he was about to have his

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nrst auct1encewith the sultan. He describes in his diary the serious dis- 28 cussion he had with bis associates as to the right color of gloves to wear in Constantinople. He decided upon pearl gray. Americans may feel such sartorial concern slightly ridiculous, .but to Herzl, meeting men like Hirsch or the sultan for the first time. correct attire seemed very important. When I related the glove story to a Viennese friend of mine he exclaimed, ~."Qh,the old charming Vienna ... alas, it is gone forever!" Herzl's emphasis on proper appearance showed up on other occasions. Despite the early opening hour of the Zionist Congress, Herzl insisted that the delegates come in tailcoat and white tie (or some equally formal garment) for the opening session. Such attire in the moming was customary for solemn occasions on the European continent, though not in the British Isles. lt was said that Sir Francis Montefiore (nephew of Sir Moses Montefiore, one of the forerunners of Zionism and a great philanthropist) left the Movement, although he had been one of Herzl's early supporters, because he couldn't reconcile wearing tails and a white tie in the moming with his British sense of propriety. Herzl 's sensitivity to appearances showed itself in many ways. During the Sixth Congress, two delegates were very articulate and aggressive in their opposition to Herzl's policies. One was Davis Trietsch, who later advocated smallholders' settlements in Palestine and helped in the establishment of one of the earliest agricultural villages by GermanJewish immigrants, Ramat Hashavim (Hill of Those Retumed), and the other was Dr. Alfred Nossig. Nossigwas ajack-qf-all-trades,joumalist, philosopher, painter and sculptor. He arrived at this Congress garbed in a Prince Albert frock coat, nineteenth century style, over a bright velvet vest, high collar and fiowing silk cravat such as the American Southem gentleman used to wear. During the proceedings, Herzl answered both these critics, practically annihilating Dr. Nossig. Afterwards, he said, "'Trietsch, I treated with consideration, because personally I am not unsyllipathetic toward him, but that Nossig! Why, his cravat alone revolted me !" Baron Hirsch was not won over. The idea of settling Jews in what was then Turkish Palestine seemed unrealistic to him. Baron Hirsch knew Turkey. He had amassed his fortune building railroads there. He k.new the corruptness of Turkish officialdom, the despotic rule of the sultan, the anarchy in the Turkish provinces. lt seemed utterly fantastic to base a colonization plan upon the good faith of the "Siek Man of the Bos-

phorus," as the sultan was called. Baron Hirsch was a "'man of affairs" who flattered himself a realist, which to him meant that ruthlessness, ambition, jealousies, power and money, but not ideals move the world. He asked Herzl how he planned to finance his project, since, as Hirsch said "the rich Jews are the poor Jews. Rothschild might subscribe a thousand francs." (How mistaken he was in that figure !) Herzl replied in a moving letter. ·•1 have a flag. Y ou might ask me caustically, ·a flag ... what is that? A pole with a scrap of cloth.' No, sir, a flag is more than that. With a flag one leads men wherever he wants them to go, even into the Holy Land. Fora flag they live and die ... in fact, it is the only thing for which they are ready to die, en masse, if they are so educated." In spite of his failure, Herzl hoped to win over the Baron, When, about a year later, Hirsch died, Herzl wrote in his diary that the movement had become poorer. As it tumed out, not only the movement had become poorer, but Baron _Hirsch's large legacy as weil. The Argen-. tine agricultural colonization never amounted to much (the farmers there were among the first to form local Zionist groups), and a great part of the legacy of Baron Hirsch's Foundation, known as the ICA (Jewish Colonization Association) invested in Gennan and Austrian securities, was lost after World War I. Among all the experienced businessmen who were trustees of the ICA no one foresaw this impending great loss except Israel Zangwill, the English Jewish novelist. In a brilliant speech at the Fifth Congress in Basel in 1901 Zangwill said, "Baron Hirsch was not a lost Jew, but I am fearful that his millions will be lost." Dr. Herzl's failure with Baron Hirsch was the first of a long string of disappointments. At the time he endeavored to win the Baron's support, Herzl did not realize he was to devote his whole life to the cause of Zionism. He thought that his and Nordau's mission was to show the way and then, to quote his own words: "We shall return to our writing tables." Instead, he became the leader of a world movement. Herzl 's plan was to buy a ""Charter" from the Turkish sultan who was in constant financial straits. This charter was to give title to large-scale Jewish colonization in Palestine. Herzl hoped to find support for this plan from the '"Mighties" of the Western world who were supposed tobe interested in a humanitarian solution to the "'Jewish problem." The next step, therefore, was to contact them. The man who actually introduced Herzl to the rulers of the European continent was a British clergyman attached to his country's Embassy in Vienna. His name was Hechler.

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Previously, Rev. Hechler had been tutor to the children of Grand Duke 30 Frederick of Baden, a brother-in-law of the German emperor, William IL Hechler was very much interested in the Bible. He saw a copy of The Jewish State in a Vienna bookshop, bought it immediately, devoured it, and rushed to Herzl's home to ask how he could help. As a matter of fact, Rev. Hechler's first words were: "Here I am!" Whereupon Herzl smilingly responded, ""SoI see, but it doesn't teil me anything." Hechler introduced Herzl to the grand duke of Baden who quickly became one of his great admirers. There was nothing the grand duke would not do to further Herzl's endeavors, although at one time the duke was disturbed that his assistance might be interpreted in his own State, Baden, as an attempt to get rid of "his" Jews. The grand duke gave expression to this apprehension during a German Zionist Convention which took place in my hometown, Mannheim. A delegation, under the leadership of Dr. Bodenheimer, a Cologne lawyer, went to Carlsruhe, Baden's capital, to pay their respects to the grand duke. In the course of the audience, the grand duke said to Bodenheimer ... Jews about me are troubled by Zionism. They say that you not only want to help the suffering Russian Jews, but that you also plan to bring all Jews, even the German Jews, to Palestine." He went on to admit, HTrue, there is still some anti-Semitism in Germany, but believe me, that will pass." Bodenheimer replied, "W e want to be the pioneers and the oflicers." The duke nodded and said, "Indeed, that is a beautiful and noble thought." Bodenheimer, who, as a student, had published a pamphlet advocating resettlement of the Russian Jews in Palestine, revealed in his answer the attitude of many Western Zionists-they wished to lead, but not to be among the rank and file. The grand duke introduced Herzl to Emperor William II and the emperor, impressed by Herzl's personality, agreed to grant Herzl and his associates an official audience in Palestine. The emperor planned to go to Palestine the following year, 1898, which would be one year after the First Zionist Congress. At that time the Germ.an government dreamt of a peaceful conquest of the whole Middle East-"'Berlin to Baghdad" was the slogan. In the imperial tent, before the gates of Jerusalem, the emperor received Herzl and his associates most cordially, and Herzl thought that he had reached his goal. The other members of his delegation shared this optimism and were fearful only that Herzl's success would come so quickly that the Zionist movement would not be sufliciently

prepared for the anticipated mass immigration into Palestine. But politics interfered. The emperor, easily enthusiastic, cooled just as easily and pennitted the German Chancellor, von Bülow, to kill the plan. And so it went. There was a hopeful audience with the sultan, followed by new disappointments. Then a new hope arose, England. In 1902 the British government had appointed a Royal Commission to advise on restricting immigration of J ewish refugees from Russia. Leopold Greenberg, editor of the influential London weekly, The Jewish Chronicle, suggested Herzl be invited to testify. Thus, the British government became officially acquainted with Zionism. The Colonial Secretary, Joseph Chamberlain, met Herzl and became interested in his cause. Chamberlain agreed to facilitate Jewish colonization of El Arish, a strip of land between the southwestem border of Palestine and the Suez Canal. Again hope ran high and my friend, Dr. Moses, then a member of the ··Greater Actions-Committee," confided to me that Oscar Mamorek, a Viennese architect and member of Herzl's '"Inner Actions-(Executive) Committee," was already preparing plans for the establishment of a town and construction of a harbor at the northern end of the Suez Canal (opposite Port Said) that was tobe named "Port Zion." With the permission of the British government and her High Commissioner i11Egypt, Lord Cromer, Herzl sent a committee to EI Arish to investigate the possibilities of large-scale colonization. The committee concluded that geographically the land was attractive and suitable for colonization provided Egypt would permit Nile water to be pumped under the Suez Canal for irrigation purposes. But Lord Cromer vetoed the plan. Herzl's diaries on this stage of his endeavors, at a time when he felt that his days were numbered, reflect a deeply moving story of a race against death. Tue collapse of the El Arish project was a terrible blow. lt coincided with the pogroms of Kishinev and Homel, in the Ukraine, which began during the Russian Easter of 1903. In his autobiography, Trial and Error, Weizmann refers to the El Arish project. He states that this strip of land, though not suitable f or largescale colonization, could have been utilized on a limited scale by tapping the subterranean waters there, but that "this was too small a task ror the great ideas then prevailing in the Zionist leadership circles." Dr. Weizmann explains that the panic over Uganda (see Chapter 6) prevented "us" (meaning the advocates of colonization without a Turkish Charter) from following the El Arish plan. (Recently, I mentioned this to an Israeli who had once visited EI Arish. He described the small Arab

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town as a "gorgeous sight with trees along the seashore, in fact the most 32 beautiful spot along the whole Mediterranean coast.") lt is idle to speculate how an independent Jewish EI Arish would have fitted into the British Mandate for Palestine, but there can be little doubt that a militarily strong EI Arish would have been an invaluable flank to the Gaza Strip during the War of Independence in 1948. In view of Weizmann's bitter remarks it might weil be asked why the so-called "practical" Zionists (1 was among these) who came to power in 1911 did not take up the EI Arish plan again. This was three years bef ore the beginning of World War I when the political status of Egypt had not changed and Lord Kitchner was British High Commissioner, yet no ·one gave a thought to it. Shortly after the EI Arish defeat, Chamberlain visited British East Africa. This was a sparsely populated, healthy ·country, located on a plateau. Chamberlain exclaimed, ''This is the land for Dr. Herzl!" As a result of subsequent negotiations by Leopold Greenberg, Herzl's political agent in London, a formal offer was made by the British govern.:. ment to turn that part of East Africa that comprises present-day Kenya over to the Zionist Organization as an autonomous part of the British Empire. Mr. Arthur (later Lord) Balfour was prime minister at the time. And so without the knowledge of many of his closest friends, Herzl came to the Sixth Congress in 1903, with the British offer in his packet. But of this, more later.

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CHAPTER FOUR

THE FIRST ZIONIST CONGRESS

Originally, the first Zionist Congress was planned for Munich, capital of Bavaria. This aroused such strong opposition from the leaders of German Jewry (who denounced Zionism as a menace to the political status of German Jews, culminating in an Open Manifeste by five of their outstanding Rabbis) that Herzl decided to hold the Congress in the more hospitable Swiss city, Basel. As he said in his opening address at the Second Congress, "We are tied with bonds of gratitude to this city in which our heretof ore homeless 1novement can express all the hopes and complaints of an oppressed people." Of those five ''Protest Rabbis," as Herzl called them, four were born in Hungary, but, having found enviable positions in Germany, were more German than the Germans ~ 1nore German than the grand duke of Baden, who supported Herzl's efforts, more Gennan than the German emperor who, a year later, officially received a Zionist delegation in Jerusalem. Herzl did not let the "Protest Rabbis" go unscathed. In an article in the Zionist weekly, Die Welt, he ridiculed the patriotism of the Hungarian Rabbis who, in their Manifeste, had attempted to protect the ''country to which we belang." Herzl wrote (and I quote from memory), "'The Protest Rabbis do not even know how to write correct German. A real German would say 'my country' not "the country to which I belong' ." The First Congress took the initial steps toward the establishment of the Zionist Organization comprised of Jews all over the world who accepted the "Basel Pro gram." Tue preamble of that Pro gram states: "The aim of Zionism is the establishment of a publicly and legally secured National Horne for the Jewish People in Palestine." The original structure of the Organization, bef ore the formation of parties, was as follows: Zionists paying a small amount called, after the ancient Jewish coin, "Shekel," as a membership due, organizel into

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local groups. In each country a federation, composed of all the local 34 groups, was formed. One hundred „Shekel payers" were entitled to elect a delegate to the Congress. The Congress elected a "'Greater Actions-Committee" in which each federation was represented according to its numerical strength and an ··Inner Actions-Co1nmittee" of five to seven members, which was the Executive. Herzl was chairman of the "Greater" and the "Inner Actions-Committee" and president of the Congresses. From the First to the Fifth Congress, Zionist delegates met every year. From the Fifth to the Eleventh Congress, held in 1913, a year before World War I, they met every second year. The Fourth Congress assembled in London c•just to leave our visiting card," said Herzl), the Eighth, in The Hague, at the same time as the Second International Peace Conference was in session; the Ninth, in Hamburg (the "Protest Rabbis" had ceased protesting_ by then); the Eleventh, in Vienna; and all other pre-W orld War I Congresses, the First,. Second, Third, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh and Tenth, were held -in Basel. The predominant part ofthe earlier Congresses was devoted to reports on the position of the J ews in their respective countries. The Second Congress proclaimed the establishment of the J ewish Colonial Trust in London as the movement's financial instrument, and decided to activate the local Zionist groups by adopting Herzl's proposal '·to conquer the Jewish Communities." In 1901, at the Fifth Congress, the Jewish National Fund was_founded to receive donations toward purchasing land in Palestine and (as a concession to Herzl) ''in neighboring countries" as the inalienable property of the Jewish People. The need for this fund had already been proclaimed at the First Congress by Herman Schapira, Professor of Mathematics at Heidelberg University. The J ewish Colonial Trust was formed with an authorized capital of two million pounds sterling (about ten million dollars) that was hoped would be underwritten by Jewish bankers. This turned out to be one of the many disappointments in the. early Zionist days. The bankers who, among other things, objected to the word "Jewish" as part of the Trust name, did not underwrite the issue and, after heartbreaking efforts, the paid-up capital reached only two hundred and fifty thousand pounds sterling, which was subscribed in small amounts primarily by Russian and Polish Jews. In spite of this small capital, in 1903, the Trust founded the Anglo-Palestine Company, now the Bank Leumi of Israel. The first location was in Jaffa; later the Company transferred to Tel Aviv.

Zalman David Levontin, a Russian Jew, was an early director; later and for almost half a century, the Bank, under the wise direction of a Dutch Jew, S..Hoofien, was an ünportant factor in the econo1nic growth of the Jewish community in Palestine. For many years, the Jewish National Fund had small means at its disposal, but later it grew into a powerful instrument for Zionist colonizaton in Palestine. Thus, notwrthstanding all the enmities, difliculties and disappointments, Herzl created the basic foundations of the Zionist Movement. As long as Herzl lived, each Congress opened with his report on his activities during the preceding year. This was followed by reports on the position of the Jews all over the world introduced by a general survey eloquently delivered by Max Nordau. These speeches are an indispensable contribution to the early history of Zionism and should be translated into Hebrew and English. In his speech at the First Congress, Nordau painted a masterly picture of the Jewish problems, political social, economic and, above all, moral. He spoke of the problems stemming from the '"Jewish distress" (Judennot). In the Eastem European, Near Eastem and North African countries, he said, it is a physical "Judennot.'' Jews do not attempt to hide their identity, they are proud of their history, and they are persecuted because they are Jews. In the West, he continued, there is something worse, a moral "Judennot." Generally in the West, the emancipated Jew is not killed, he is "haltlos" (without backbone ). "'He expends his greatest energy in surpressing his very self, for he fears he might be recognized as Jewish, so he never has the j oy of being himself in every thought and emotional expression, yea, in every sound of his voice." Ahad ha-Am who attended the First Congress as an observer (though he rejected Herzl's conception of political Zionism and the slogan to regain Palestine through diplomacy), exclaimed after Nordau's oration, ··A new prophet has arisen in Israel." At the Fifth Congress, some young Eastern European Zionists advocated the inclusion of cultural activities in the program of Zionist activities and formed a special group called the "Zionist Democra tic Fraction" known as "'Die Fractzie." Among its founders were Chaim Weizmann, Martin Buher, and Berthold Feiwel. Although I was not a member ofthe "Fractzie," I became closely associated with its founders. Herzl's attitude toward the aspirations ofthe "Fractzie" was that of an assimilated Western Jew. He said, "Jewish culture? What does that mean ?" Max Nordau said in effect, "First money, then culture." In spite of this, some of the members of the "'Fractzie" established a

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publishing company in Berlin, the Juedische Verlag, directed by Berthold Feiwel. The Verlag published Yiddish literature translated into German, a welcome opportunity for German Jews to leam about the life and ideas of the J ews in the Eastem Ghettos. The Verlag also published some of Feiwel's poems, in an anthology entitled Young Harps. *

* *

Around this time one of my brothers and I were in business in Mannheim. Among other enterprises we were involved in an extensive slum clearance project in Strasbourg, the Alsatian capital. We worked jointly with a Mannheim bank and the Strasbourg municipality, but we did not have a suitable representative in Strasbourg. One day my brother asked, "'How about Feiwel, would he do?" I replied, ··A Jewish poet? What an idea !" But my brother maintained, ...Feiwel is intelligent. All we need is a man we can trust. Is he trustworthy?" To this I could say, '"Absolutely !" Feiwel accepted eagerly, but before I introduced him to our partner, the Bank, I sent him to the barber to have his Hpoetic locks" trimmed. To make a long story short, Feiwel was a great success in Strasbourg. On one occasion when I discussed a complicated business deal with the mayor of Strasbourg, he said: "'Mr. Feiwel has already tried to explain, but of course it is easier for him to und erstand. He is a businessman while I am a lawyer." Another day a shrewd Jewish real estate agent came to Feiwel's office, obviously aware of the Young Harps publication. ""By the way, Herr Director, do you happen to know a young harpist named Feiwel ?" The "'Director" sighed. HAlas, there's a skeleton in every family's closet." This kind of adjustment of a Jew to an enterprise entirely foreign to his background training is not surprising. Often the Jews could only satisfy their intellectual yearnings by working at a trade or in a profession; often they were forced to adjust themselves quickly to changing conditions. Jews were artists and physicians, peddlers and shopkeepers and, at the same time, Talmudic students, philosophers, poets and writers. Maimonides and Y ehuda Halevi were physicians, Spinoza was a lens grinder and Henrich Heine once said: HThe world now looks through the lenses Spinoz.a ground." Ahad ha-Am, manager of a Russian-J ewish tea export company, was a philosopher and Zangwill, writer and spiritual leader of the HChovevei Zion," was shrewder than the leading Western European bankers or businessmen who administer-

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ed the funds ofthe ICA. Why then shouldn't a little Jewish poet beco1ne a good merchant? Another example of this adaptability and versatility was my friend Max Schloessinger, who graduated as Doctor of Philosophy, became librarian of the anti-Zionist Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, published a Zionist pamphlet, resigning when the College protested, retumed to his native Germany, became a successful businessman, and finished his career as a noted specialist in Arabic Literature and one ofthe leading figures at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

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CHAPTER FIVE

THE MANNHEIM ZIONISTS

Although I was past twenty when The J ewish State was published, and although I belonged to a Jewish-conscious family, I had not heard of Herzl's book nor f ollowed the proceedings of the First Zionist Congress. Around that time, however, Rabbi Isaac Unna became the spiritual leader of the Mannheim Orthodox Community to which I belonged. Rabbi Unna's wife came from an Hungarian Zionist family that had settled in South Germany. Rabbi Unna suggested that the younger gefieration in his community form a club to discuss Jewish problems. I was one of the founders of the club, but even there, little attention was paid to the new Jewish movement. One evening two Mannheim physicians turned up at our club meeting. They had attended the Second Zionist Congress and wanted to report. One was Dr. Julius Moses who, a few years later, became a member of the "'Greater Actions-Committee" under Herzl; the other was Dr. Felsenthal, whose widow and son moved to Israel many years later. These two had been on their vacation and, passing through Basel, had by mere chance attended the Congress as visitors. Afterwards, Felsenthal said to Moses: "Perhaps this is something for those like us who have drifted away from religion." A close friendship grew between Moses and myself, lasting until his death in Tel Aviv in 1938. As a result of this report to our club, a Mannheim Zionist Group was formed and I joined immediately. I read The Jewish State, the minutes of the First Zionist Congress and was deeply shaken by Dr. Nordau's oration describing the situation of the Jews. After Herzl's book, I devoured Moses Hess' Rome and Jerusalem and Leo Pinsker's AutoEmancipation. Moses Hess, bom in the German Rhineland, advocated the establishment of Palestine as the center for Jewish survival and to give cultural direction to the rest of the Jewish world. Leo Pinsker, 38

a Russian physician, maintained that civic and political emancipation of Jews throughout the world was ineffective, that the Jewish problem could only be solved by "auto-emancipation," and the creation of a homeland where the Jews could fulfi.11the natural functions of a people living on their own soil. (While this book was fiercely attacked by German Jewry, orthodox and liberal alike, an American Jewish poetess, Emma Lazarus, hailed it as a revelation.) I read Die Welt regularly from beginning to end and eagerly awaited the published proceedings of the next Congress. I studied the German translations of Eastem European literature, and with the help of a Russian Jew who was studying in Mannheim, I even attempted to read the works of Yitzhak Leib Perez and Sholom Aleichem in the original Yiddish. A new world opened. So these were the HPolacks !" Unlike the Jews I knew, who reserved Jewish manifestations for the synagogue alone, there was nothing artificial or suppressed about these ""Polacks." Though their existence was painful and difficult, it was of one moldthey thought and suffered as J ews. Another revelation was Martin Buber's stories of the Hassidim and their founder, Israel Baal Shem Tov, who lived ·in Poland in the eighteenth century. lt seemed to me that here was an attempt at religious reform, not of the Western pattern, a form of revolt against the tyrannical rule of the orthodox Rabbis, the casuistry of their interpretation of the Bible and Talmud, but rather a humble yearning to come nearer to God. Though Hassidism deteriorated later, in its early stages the movement was full of a healthy optimism that greatly affected the Polish J ewish masses. And in Heidelberg, a few miles from my hometown, I met one more ··revolutionary," Saul Tschernichowsky, a Hebrew poet. I especially remember one poem, HAt the Statue of Apollo," where he stigmatizes the ugliness of the ghetto and the narrow spirit prevailing there, paying homage to the ideal of beauty of the ancient Greek period. And I marveled that the poem was in Hebrew, the holy language, spoken only with one's head covered. I met other Zionist students in Heidelberg. Among them were Judah Magnes (later Chancellor of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem) and Dr. Max Eitingon, who later became a pupil and friend of Sigmund Freud, practiced psychoanalysis in Berlin and, after Hitler came to power, moved to Jerusalem to found the Psycho-Analytical Institute, which today bears his name.

39

One of Herzl's earliest collaborators, who coined the word "'Zionism" 40 but later became his relentless antagonist, was Dr. Nathan Birnbaum who wrote under the norn de plurne of Mathias Aher. At my invitation, during the early years of Zionism, he came year after year to Mannheim to lecture on Jewish history and literature. He helped me understand the spiritual basis of Zionism. Birnbaum had the unhappy nature of tuming against his ideas of the past when they became a reality. As long as an ideal is in the sphere of thought, it retains its purity. Birnbaum could not bear the disappointments that invariably go with an active movement, nor the compromises that, in his opinion, Herzl made to achieve his ends. Schiller, the Gennan dramatist once said: "'Thoughts dwell lightly side by side; but hard in space, facts knock against each other." But the person who made the deepest impression on my thinking was Ahad ha-Am, a professional merchant associated with Wissotzky, a Moscow tea importing firm, who became one of the founders of the Haifa Technion. His real name was Asher Ginsberg, but he wrote under the pen name, which means '"One of the People." He was the spiritual leader of the "Chovevei Zion" whose headquarters were in Odessa. (Leo Pinsker was one of the founders and Menahem Ussischkin was its leader at the time Herzl published The Jewish State.) Professor Israel Friedlander, a Russian-bom American Jew, who was later killed by Ukrainian bandits while on a charity mission for the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, had translated some of Ahad ha-Am's Hebrew essays into German. Ahad ha-Am had visited Palestine and familiarized himself with the early Jewish colonization attempts by the ""Bilu," Russian students who left the universities to till the soil on Jewish land in Palestine. They were followed by others who founded the early Jewish agricultural settlements supported by the generosity of that great French Jew, Baron Edmond de Rothschild, grandson of the founder of the Rothschild dynasty. Unfortunately, ·the Rothschild administrators in Palestine were oblivious of the idealistic impulses of the baron and encouraged the settlers' dependence on the philanthropy of their ""great benefactor." · In 1889, after his return from a visit to Palestine, Ahad ha-Am published his essay "Lo Ze Haderech" (This is Not The Way), in which he condemned the prevailing system of J ewish settlement. He insisted that colonization was premature because the settlers were not adequately prepared, either mentally or psychologically, for the lofty,

but difficult task. Eighteen centuries of diaspora, he said. had enfeebled the Jewish spirit. The prerequisite for the ultimate goal was a slow process of education over generations. Then, Jewish Palestine could indeed become a Hcultural center" for all Jews (whether settled in Palestine or not), a refuge of the soul rather than the body. In this first and his subsequent essays, he outlined the process of education by which Judaism had to be liberated, not only from the deteriorating aspect of the influence of Western culture, but from the shackles of their petrified religious practice that still rested upon the social and cul tural standards of the Babylonian Rabbis who had written the Talmud. Then only could a new Hebrew culture develop on the foundations f the ancient Hebrew genius as embodied in the Torah and brought into full bloom by 'the Prophets. Before the Babylonian exile there was the written word, the five Books of Moses and their oral interpretation. But the Babylonian Rabbis, fearful that foreign influence would destroy the oral interpretation of the written word, codified it, thereby anchoring it to the social and moral level of their times. (I think there is an analogy to this in American life. The Constitution is the written word on which the struct1.J1reof the "American Way of Life" is built and the decisions of the Supreme Court are its living interpretation, varying with the constant development of American life.) A further word seems necessary in order to avoid a false impression of the early settlers. Notwithstanding the relentless criticism of Ahad ha-Am, the settlers' dependence on Baron Edmond de Rothschild was not the whole story. There were great heroic deeds during this first period. For example, the settlement of Hadera-now a flourishing town-was founded on marshy land. As a result the f ounders were plagued with malaria and even yellow fever. They planted eucalyptus groves because eucalyptus roots drain the soil. Many settlers died during this early stage. When just ten adult men were left, they went to their little synagogue and swore by the Torah Scroll never to abandon the place. Illness was not the only drawback. The Turkish administrators of the country were corrupt, and had to be bribed or else the settlers could not have existed. There were the Arab neighboring villagers to whom stealing was a kind of game of skill. The settlers appointed night watchmen (Shomrim) to protect their property. These Shomrim became the nucleus of the Haganah, the Self-Defense Organization that ultimately became the nucleus of the Israel Defense Forces.

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CHAPTER SIX

CONTROVERSIES WITHIN, THE ZIONIST ORGANIZATION

For better understanding ofthe events ofthe Sixth (Uganda}Congress, · I will have to explain certain developments within the Zionistmovement. From the beginning there was a cleavage between ·Herzl's con'ception of Zionist policy and that of the "Chovevei Zion," led by the gentle and wise Yehi'el Tschlenow, a Möscow physician, and by the active, • aggressive Menahem Ussischkin. The "Chovevei" formed the backbone, of the Russian Zionists. Since the '~Bilu" and the beginning of the mod- · em Jewish colonization in Palestine, Russian Jews were not pennitted to immigrate into Palestine: Nevertheless, they went, entering the country under all kinds of subterfuges, tolerated by the Turki,sh officials whom they bribed. The land they bought had to be held in the name of non-Russian Jews who lived in Western Europeart countries .. Baron Rothschild supported this basis of colonization. He and the "Chovevei Zion" aspired to "peaceful penetration." Herzl was opposed to this whole approach. He wanted the Jews to go into Palestine openly, with their heads high, by right and not by sufferance, with a·well-organized mass immigration of all those ""who wish it" and with their settlement well secured. As he explained later in an "open letter" to Ussischkin, published in Die Welt after the Uganda Congress, when Ussischkin organized a revolt against Herzl: '"If you own all of Palestine privately, in fact you ·will have nothing safe ... if 1 have sover~ign rights over' Palestine, without owning one piece of land, I control everything." Further events proved both wrang. Without the Balf our Declaration and the British Mandate over Palestine, all Jewish settlements would be hanging in mid-air. But without the early "colonies" in Judea, the Sharon, Samaria, and Galilee, most of them established by or with Rothschild's :financial support, it is unlikely that the Balfour Declaration could have been obtained. There were a few small ''Rothschild 42

colonies" near the Syrian border; one of them was the insignificant village of Metulla. When the boundaries of the Mandatory territory were discussed, W eizmann succeeded in having these settlements included, and the boundary of the "Mandate," and now of Israel, from West to East describes a relatively small bulge to the North, in order to include these settlements. lt was originally planned to have the northern boundary drawn in a more or less straight line from West to East, based on a statement of the Bible-minded British Prime Minister, David Lloyd George, "From Dan to Beer-Sheba." fu the boundary discussions Weizmann made a supreme effort to have the northem boundary extend to the Litani River at the Lebanese coast, which would have facilitated a systematic irrigation of Palestine, but there were no Jewish settlements along the coastal plain north of Haifa and to this day the water of the Litani River fiows to the sea, practically unused. I have mentioned before that from the very beginning the leaders of Eastern European Jewry were opposed to Herzl's plan to stop Jewish immigration until the ""BaselProgram" was realized. I have mentioned Ussischkin's comments on The Jewish State. Let me add another of his characteristic reactions to Herzl's basic conception. Before the First Congress, U ssischkin called on Herzl in Vienna on his way to Palestine. After the visit Ussischkin said: '"This man is destined to play an important role in Jewry because he has three invaluable qualities. First, he doesn't know the Jews; he believes it will be easy to convert them to Zionism. Secondly, he doesn't know Turkey. He thinks he can go to the sultan, plead his case, and the sultan will give him a 'charter' for Palestine. Thirdly, he doesn't know Palestine. He thinks the Jews will go in and the Arabs out." To Ussischkin, Herzl's was the attitude of the uninitiated, the novice. To me, Ussischkin's words are a characterization of the genius who disregards the practical difficulties in hi~ path, his head in the douds and only the final goal before him. Between the Fifth and the Sixth Congress, Herzl published his Zionist novel, Altneuland (The Old-New Land). The title was borrowed from the name of the renowned Prague Synagogue the "Alt Neu Schul." The novel restates Herzl's concept of the '"Jewish State" and is a kind of Last Will and Testament. Theref ore, it is worth detailing. In the first chapters Herzl describes the disgusting behavior of some Viennese-Jewish, upper-middle class families for whom money is everything because it was supposed to protect against Gentile humiliations. The sole manifestations of any Jewish consc1ousness among this

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class are Jewishjokes, made only among themselves. Mentioning "'Jew" 44 in the presence of others, even Gentile servants, is carefully a voided. Zionism is a topic for cheap wisecracks. The author describes the position of world Jewry. HThe persecutions were economic as weil as social. Boycott in business, discrimination against Jewish employment even to the point of starvation, contempt for Jews in the free professions, not to mention the moral degradation under which the better organized J ew smarts. The fiction about ritual murder is revived and simultaneously the J ews are accused of poisoning the press, just as in the Middle Ages they were accused of poisoning the wells. The working dass hates the Jews for undercutting wages and, when the Jews are employers, they are hated as exploiters. They are hated whether they are poor or rich or of modest means. Both their making money and spending it is resented. They should neither produce nor consume. They are repulsed from public o:ffice, meet prejudice in the Courts, everywhere in life is frustration." After painting this background, the novel continues With the development of a ""NewSociety." This society obtains a charter from the Turkish sultan with tributary rights to administer and develop Syria, Lebanon, Palestine and Transjordan, which, in Turkish times formed one administrative unit, rich in water and other natural resources. On the strength of this charter, the "New Society" has no difficulty in raising the large sums of money to organize, transport and settle mass immigration (500,000 carefully selected people during the first six months). The first immigrants, besides the Zionist leaders, had been the desperate and the poor, but the well-to-do followed after the venture had proved a huge success, thanks to the great technical achievements of that period. This successful colonization was due to J ewish yeamings to retum to their ancient soil. lt was f acilitated by the fact that the country was sparsely populated and underdeveloped so that, unlike Europe, little had to be destroyed as obsolete to make room for the latest scientific and technical inventions. For the "New Society" there is no problem with the nat~ve inhabitants, since they benefit from the irnrnigration. There is no need to restrict immigration. lt welcomes everybody willing to accept its principles of brotherly love, tolerance, freedom of conscience, and equal opportunity under private initiative. A small minority opposed to immigration of non-Jews is led by a Rabbi who, in the early stages of. Zionism, was among the most relentless critics, but left the Old World when the ••New Society" began to flourish and he saw promise of a

higher income. He and his followers who preach a narrow Nationalism are repudiated and cannot infiuence the lofty spirit of the "New Society." Not only do high political and social standards prevail, but also cultural ones. There are theaters and concerts. The box holders come to the theater in evening dress and white gloves. The book contains no indication of what language the "New Society" speaks, but the author does not seem to think of a revival of Hebrew. There is only one reference to the spoken word (the novel, of course, is written in Germ.an) and that is in regard to the narrow-minded opposi.tion who talk in a "Maushel," a sort of mixture of Germ.an and Yiddish. Among the chief characters in the novel one finds Herzl's closest Zionist friends, with their names slightly changed. Professor Eichenstam, president of the "New Society," was Professor Max Mandelstamm, a noted ophthalmologist from Kiev; David Litwak, the organizer of the ·~New Society," was David Wolffsohn later Herzl's successor as president of the Zionist Organization; Joe Levy, the leader of the immigration and settlement, was the London businessman, Joseph Cowen. In a short postscript, Herzl gives a moving picture of his own mother, who, in the book, is David Litwak's mother. With the exception of Professor Eichenstam, no Russian Zionist plays a role in the ''New Society." Ahad ha-Am was the severest critic of Altneuland. He said the book contained no trace of the Hebrew culture that should be revived, but · simply was an idealized version of Western society which the author obviously wanted to establish.

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CHAPTER SEVEN

THE UGANDA CONGRESS

The Sixth Congress was the first I attended. To the young Zionists who had never met the leader, Herzl was an almost mythical figure: the man who, for the first time since the destruction of the Second Temple, had welded together Jews all over the world, had created a public forum for the World Jewry and commanded the respect, if not the admiration, of world rulers. lt so happened that the day bef ore the Congress opened in Basel, I met Herzl personally. lt was the first and last occasion. I passed the Three Kings Hotel where Herzl stayed andin front of it was my friend, Dr. Moses, in conversation with a tall bearded gentleman. Moses called me over, and to my amazement said: HDr. Herzl, may I introduce a young Zionist from Mannheim?" The man shook hands with me, just like any other ordinary person and said in German with a Viennese accent ··very glad to meet you." This then was the man who was the author of The Jewish State, creator of the Zionist Organization and the Congress, and the man who won the ear of kings ... and there was nothing extraordinary about him. But the following day when he presided over the Congress, the illusion was restored, the legendary figure appeared in all his glory. The Congress Hall was filled with some 500 delegates. The galleries were crowded. On the dais was a long table, with an elevated seat for the chairman; the speaker's desk was in the center. The dais was empty. In the adjoining room Dr.Herzland the members of the „Greater ActionsCommittee" waited. He had formed a line, according to the order of their seating. Then the Secretary of the Congress came to the dais, which indicated that the "Actions-Committee" was about to enter. Silence feil upon the hall. But when Herzl made his appearance at the head of the committee, pandemonium broke loose. The delegates stood up, cheered their welcome and gave the leader a great ovation. There he 46

stood in the center, motionless, his grave black eyes resting on the assembly, an ancient monarch in modern garb. Then with the chairman's gavel he tapped the table before him. The ovation continued unabated. Suddenly he raised the gavel high and banged it down hard. And, as it is said in an ancient Greek epic, Hthe boiling ocean trembled into calm," there was complete silence, and Herzl began to speak giving the report of last year's activities. Nordau was the first of Herzl's intimates to whom he revealed the plan about Uganda. (He had touched upon it before, when U ssischkin, who could not attend the Sixth Congress, saw Dr. Herzl in Vienna on his way to Palestine on behalf of the ··chovevei Zion." Herzl quite casually said to Ussischkin: ""What would you say if I were to propose to the Congress some intermediary plan of colonization outside of Palestine ?" Ussischkin, in his abrupt way, answered, "I would say 'NO' " and Herzl changed the subject.) In fact, Nordau told Herzl that he was not in favor of any settlement outside Palestine, whereupon Herzl looked him straight in the eyes and said: •·But at the Congress you will speak for it." Prompted by his loyalty to the leader, the older man, the famous 1;11an of letters, bowed his head and said: •·Yes." Thus, Nordau became the advocate for Uganda. lt was a poor speech. The great orator was at his warst. He tried to convince the delegates that Uganda was not the final goal. He said: "For the hundreds of thousands of our persecuted, unfortunate brethren, we must open, so to speak, a •Nachtasyl' (an asylum for the night) before we can direct them to their permanent home." Now, A Night Asylum is the title of a play by the Russian playwright Gorki, where beggars, drunkards and prostitutes meet and at night find shelter and sleep and where they relate of their miserable experiences. The effect of this ward upon the Russian delegates, who were opposed to the Uganda plan anyhow, can well be imagined. lt was devastating. The next day, in his concluding remarks, Nordau tried to erase this impression. He said: ··1 have only said "Nachtasyl', not 'Gorki's Nachtasyl,' where vagabonds 1neet and ... relate their love affairs, their former crimes, and the evils they plan. No, I have added that our "Nachtasyl' is to be a special 'Nachtasyl' namely, both 'Nachtasyl' and an educational opportunity ... our persecuted people will be brought to their new place as vagabonds and there converted into citizens, Jewish citizens, not for Bast Africa ... but for Zion." But the explanation did not improve matters, though he added that no money of the Jewish

47

Colonial Trust or the Jewish National Fund or any other Zionist Fund would be used for Uganda. After a hard struggle, Herzl proposed a compromise. The Congress was not to accept the British offer implicitly, but was to send a delegation to Uganda to investigate its suitability. For this compromise, 295 delegates voted "Yes," 175 voted "No" and about 130 delegates, most of whom were opposed, out of respect for the leader, abstained from voting. I voted ··ves." The vote led to the famous exodus of the ••no-sayers." The following is the story of Victor Jacobson, a member of the "Actions-Committee" (later political agent of the Zionist Organization in Constantinople). He sat on the dais next to Dr. Tschlenow. After the vote was announced, Tschlenow said to Jacobson: HWhat's the use!.Let's go and have lunch." They got up; the other Russian members of the "Actions-Committee" on the dais followed their example, and the Hno-sayers" in the hall, believing that this was tobe a political demonstration, stood up too and followed them silently out of the Congress Hall. Herzl sat in the Chair, white as a sheet. He called upon the next speaker, but soon realized that it was impossible to go an, and adjourned the session. With the exception of the Mizrachi (a group united an religious grounds), most of the Eastem European Zionists voted "no" or abstained from voting. The delegates from Kishinev, where during the preceding Easter holidays there had been a murderous pogrom, voted „no." Most of the Westemers voted ··yes." The following nightthe „no-sayers" held a caucus. Feelings ran high. A dissolution of the organization was feared and some of his friends who were present went to Herzl, induced the sick man to get out of bed (he suffered from a worsening cardiac condition) and come to the caucus in order to reassure the despairing ""no-sayers" that he had not foresaken Palestine. He spoke like a father to his children. •·one day," he said, ..you will understand me. But then I shall not be. with you anymore." A woman delegate shouted, HDr. Herzl, you are a traitor." Herzl looked at her and said sadly, "This I have not deserved." In his speech which closed the Congress, Herzl tried again to restore peace in the disrupted ranks. To assure the opposition of his repect he quoted a French saying, "One can only lean against what withstands" and then raised his right hand and quoted from the 137th Psalm (obviously memorized) in Hebrew: .. If I forget thee, Oh Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning." But he could not assuage the distrust of the '"no-sayers."

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There was another severe criticism of Herzl's actions in the months preceding the Congress. Shortly before the Congress, Herzl negotiated with the anti-Semitic Russian govemment. lt was after the pogrom of Kishinev. He met with the Russian Minister of the Interior, Plehve, ""The Butcher of Kishinev," whom Russian Jewry held responsible for the · pogrom. Herzl received assurances of support that afterwards proved valueless. The description of Herzl's joumey to Plehve illustrates the Russian masses' love for Herzl. He stayed ovemight in Vilna, in the house of Isaac Goldberg, who a few years later bought and donated the site on Mount Scopus on which the Hebrew University was built. There was messianic feeling in the air while Herzl spent the night in Vilna, and the Jews streamed to the railroad stations wherever his train went through just to catch a glimpse of Herzl and to pray for him. The demonstrations were of such magnitude that the Russian govemment became alarmed and arranged for his return journey in secret. I said before that the compromise at the '"Uganda Congress" did not ease the minds of the excited "no-sayers." The most deplorable incident was an attempt upon the life of Nordau in Paris by an unbalanced young Zionist. Fortunately the bullet wound was slight. After the Congress, U ssischkin, returning from Palestine, called a conference of the ··no-sayers" at Charkow and organized the opposition, which decided on a financial boycott. Then, in the official paper of the movement, Die Welt, Herzl published a vitriolic "'"OpenLetter" in which the West European intellectual lectured "Mr. Ussischkin of Ekaterinoslav," the backward Russian, on the ABC's of political science. I followed the opposition's moves closely and soon became convinced that I was wrong to have voted for Uganda and established contact with the opposition. But the leader had leamed his lesson. At the next conference of the "Actions-Committee" in Vienna, Herzl convinced the opposition that his efforts for Palestine continued unabated, and a reconciliation took place. lt so happened that U ssischkin, on his way from Vienna, passed through Mannheim and stopped at my hause. He described a scene between Herzl and himself after their reconciliation. Ussischkin said: "Dr. Herzl, you would not write such an open letter again as you published against me." ""No" answered Herzl, ''but do you know what the difference is between me and you, U ssischkin? Once I realize that I have made a mistake I admit it, but you never do." And Ussischkin, according to Russian custom, embraced and kissed Herzland exclaimed: "Dr. Herzl, you are greater than all of us together."

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An amusing little story about U ssischkin may be told here. After the Seventh Congress, my late first wife, Johanna, published a description of the Congress, entitled "'Congress Types," in a German newspaper. Describing Ussischkin, she wrote: "He looks more like a Russian peasant than a Jew. He is bullnecked, has blue eyes, and speaks Hebrew in short, staccato sentences." At the following meeting of the "Actions-Committee," Ussischkin said to me: "'I read your wife's article. Tell her that's how my wife discovered I have blue eyes." A final comment on the HUganda Congress." Was Herzl right in considering the offer of the British govemment, or should he have rejected it out ofhand? Politically, the offer was a huge success. lt was the first concrete result of Herzl's diplomatic activities. The then greatest, most powerful nation in the world took Herz! and his endeavors seriously. lt took Zionism seriously. It told the Turkish sultan in effect: what you reject, we welcome. And, the fact that Great Britain, ten years before, had recognized Zionism as a political factor facilitated Weizmann's efforts during World War I, which led to the Balfour Declaration. But the colonization of Uganda would never have worked out. The exercise by the Zionist Organization of the suzerain rights offered by Great Britain would have created insurmountable difficulties. Immediately after the British offer was made public (it was at a time when HColonization" was at its height), British colonists who lived in Uganda protested. The native population was then inarticulate and one cannot know whether and how they might have reacted if the Zionists had started settlements on a large scale. But it is not difficult to imagine how precarious the Jewish position would have been in our times in the face of the reawakening of Africa. True, from the beginning of the operations of the Mandate over Palestine, the Jews had to face Arab resistance. But in the Holy Land the Jews had an overwhelming moral claim. In the Mand_ate the League of Nations expressly recognized ··the historical connection of the Jews with Palestine." Furthermore, it is difficult to ·believe that the would-be settlers were willing to leave their abodes, unsafe as they were, in order to face the hardships eo~~ nected with a resettlement in a new, but temporary, harne. As a colonization venture, Uganda was doomed to failure. In rejecting Uganda, the political importance of Great Britain's offer remained unimpaired. On the third of July, 1904, the twentieth day of Tamuz, ten months after the ••uganda Congress," in his 44th year, Theodor Herzl died. My friend Julius Moses telephoned the sad news to me. He said in a tear-

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choked voice: ""Our star has gone." Herzl had gone, but his work remained. In the incredibly short time of eight years he had welded Jews from every comer ofthe globe into a common cause. He had created the financial pillars ofthe movement. He had converted the heroic but feeble attempts of the "Bilu" and their followers and the munificent but basically philanthropic endeavors of Baron Edmond de Rothschild into a political movement. Without belittling the efforts and achievements of those before him and those to follow, he laid the comerstone for the State of Israel. The following are quotations from the masterful memorial oration by his great friend Nordau, delivered at the opening session of the Seventh Congress in Basel. Nordau spoke in German, · the official language of the early Congresses, and no translation can do justice to the power of his language. '"The Seventh Congress, the "Sabbath Congress' [as Nordau called it] takes place without its creator. The dais does not reflect the familiar picture any more. Absent is the towering figure with the black Assyrian beard on which all eyes were focused ... I shall force myself to talk of him as he would have liked, without being pompous and without exaggeration which would be repugnant to the fine stylist, to the nobly restrained mind, the artist of subdued colors ... At the age of 35 he was unknown to his people, and 9 years later he was their pride and their hope ... He had waded through the waters of assitnilation, even through deep places where the waves almest rushed over his head ... He lived in the middle of the nineties in Paris. lt was the tragic moment when the organism of the French nation was attacked by the disease of "The Dreyfus Affair.' The streets of Paris resounded with the cry "Death to the Jews.' Then Herzl listened closely. One of his most sensitive spots was hit: his pride ... He revolted with the whole passion of his strong character ... He immediately resolved to change fundamentally the position of his people, whose fate he shared and which, in free decision, he decided to share ... Herzl was a bom statesman of first rank without a state, without an organized people, without a single instrument of power wherewith to make practical politics. His is not an isolated case. The old Jewish people, from time to time, still produce states1nen for whom they have no use. Some find a field of activity, outside their own people. Think of Disraeli, for whom a Jewish community certainly would have been too narrow, since for him the British Empire was barely wide enough.

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··Herzl, and I say this in the conviction that I am not guilty of exaggeration, had the stuff ofanother Disraeli. He could have been one, if he had done what Lord Beaconsfield did. But he did not want to do it and decided to accept the martyrdom_, with empty hands to make high politics, high politics for the Jewish people, whose foremost representatives and spokesmen denied that they are a people ... For the cause which he had made his life work Herz! gave without haggling. In his materially most productive years he gave up income almost completely in order to devote himself to the Zionist Cause and with his characteristic magnificence, from the first to the last day, he made the heaviest sacrifices for an ideal. He defrayed the needs of the Organization-the first salaries for the staff, and the cost of his early journeys for Zionism out of his own pocket. He also created and maintained the newspaper of the movement ... Our people have had a Herzl, but our Herzl had no people. This does not belittle him, but us. This alone is responsible for the fact that his enorm.aus effort for which he paid with his life brought comparatively small concrete results. Much greater are the moral results. Herzl was a symbol and an educator. He straightened a broken people. He gave them new hope and showed them new roads. He sowed with a grandiose, wide swing and the seed will grow and his people will reap ... " The Congress was to hear the report of the Uganda Commission and come to a decision. A few days before the Congress opened, the Hnosayers" met in caucus in Freiburg, an hour's train ride from Basel. I attended. Ussischkin was in the Chair. At the end of their deliberations, the delegates elected a committee of ten, with power to determine the tactics to be used at the Congress. In the good Russian manner of the anti-Czaristic underground movement, it was not only a secret ballot, but the names (with the exception of Ussischkin's name) were not announced. Each delegate had handed a piece of paper with nine names on it to U ssischkin, who in turn inf ormed those who were chosen. I was one of them. In fact I was the only non-Russian delegate. Thus I came into close contact with the Russian Zionist leaders besides Ussischkin, with Tschlenow, Shmarya Levin, Victor Jacobson, and-above allChaim Weizmann. A deep friendship quickly developed between W eizmann and me. Whenever he passed through Germany he never failed to spend a few days with me. When he began bis laboratory experiments, which finally led to the discovery of synthetic acetone (invaluable as an explosive ·during the First World War), my brother and I gave him the money

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with which to start. I mention this because this discovery not only yielded him very substantial royalties from the sale ofhis patents to the American company, Commercial Solvent, but also during World War I, it led to his first connections with Winston Churchill and through Churchill, with the Admiralty and the Ministry of Munitions, all of which placed him in good stead for furthering his Zionist aims. Inexperienced as I was at the time, I doubt that I made a worthwhile contribution to the deliberations of the ~~committee of Ten." However, I remember one little incident. I had made a suggestion on a question of tactics. Silence followed and I realized that I had talked nonsense. The silence was broken by W eizmann who said quietly: BI support Simon" and thus relieved a painful situation.

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CHAPTER EIGHT

FROM THE SEVENTH TO THE TENTH CONGRESS

The Seventh Congress rejected the British offer of Uganda. A minority, under the leadership of Israel Zangwill, seceded from the Zionist Organization and fonned a rival organization called the Jewish Territorial Organization (JTO) to initiate colonization Helsewhere." lt came to nought. Years later, Balfour, then British Foreign Minister, referred to the Uganda Project in a talk with Dr. Weizmann, who at the time was Lecturer of Chemistry at the University of Manchester. One evening, in 1911, the Vice-Chancellor of the university came on his bicycle to one of the suburbs of Manchester where Weizmann lived with his wife, who practiced medicine, and said excitedly: BMr. Balfour is here. He asked for you. He said, "You have here, I believe, a Russian Jew whom I met once when he was a member of a Zionist delegation which presented me with a resolution of their Zionist Congress. lt was an expression of gratitude to the British government for the Uganda offer and of regret that it could not be accepted'. '' In the talk that followed Balfour remarked that he could never und erstand why the Zionists reject~d Uganda. "Here," he said "is an empty country-Palestine is populated; here is a healthy country-Palestine is full of malaria and trach,om,a; here you could get immediate sovereignty-so far the Zionists have little prospects of obtaining similar rights in Palestine. Why did they reject the offer?" he asked. There are several versions of Weizma-q.n's answer. I shall give mine, which I had from Weizmann himself. '~I m.ight argue, from the point ofview of good administration of the British Empire, that Paris is a better capital than London, but do you think I could convince an Englishman ?" Balfour smiled. '"But, Dr. Weizmann, we have London!" Whereupon Weizmann answered-Hand we have had Jerusalem already more than 2,000 54

years ago and have not given up hope of returning." "Are there many Jews who think as you do ?" Balf our asked, and W eizmann replied in his not yet perfect English: •'Y ou will not find them here, but go to Po land and Russia and you can pave the streets with them." In l 919, after the Annistice at the end of World War I, and before the League of Nations had granted Great Britain the Mandate over Palestine, the British Zionists arranged a mass meeting at London's Albert Hall. Most of the Jewish immigrants who in the late nineteenth century had ·:fled from Russia to Great Britain, had settled in the East End of London, in White Chapel. They came in large numbers to the meeting and filled the huge Albert Hall to capacity. The main speaker at the meeting was Lord Balfour and in his address he referred to his Manchester talk with Weizmann, who had assured him that, in spite of the indifference towards Zionism on the part of the majority of the British Jews, there were Jewish masses eager to back the movement. Then Weizmann rase and pointing to the assembly said smilingly: '"Here is my answer." To return to the Seventh Congress. At its closing session the Congress elected David Wolffsohn, then president of the Jewish Colonial Trust, as president of the Zionist Organization and successor to Herzl. Wolffsohn was bom in Lithuania, and came to Germany in his early youth. He lived in Cologne as a successful lumber merchant. Early in life he had become interested in the endeavors of the "Chovevei Zion," and had some contacts with one ofthe few leaders who lived in Germany, Rabbi Ruelf of Memel. In Cologne, Wolffsohn first was quite isolated. To his "'coreligionists" he was a "'Polack." Gradually, however, parallel with his business success, he became 1nore acceptable to the Jewish "'society" in Cologne. He was a popular speaker with a disarming sense of hu1nor and a native shrewdness. He may be considered the closest of Herzl's Zionist friends. He had been cqmpletely devoted to the leader. In all practical matters Herzl relied implicitly on Wolffsohn's judgment. When the Jewish Colonial Trust was founded, Herzl nominated him chairman of the Board. Compared with the giant, Herzl, Wolffsohn began the presidency of the Zionist Organization as a dwarf, but he grew in office and when, six years later, he resigned, he was the undisputed leader. lt is to his everlasting credit that he kept the Organization together during its most critical period immediately after Herzl's death. Wolffsohn considered himself the successor to Herzl's political heritage. Side-by-side with Nordau, he became the leader of the socalled "political" Zionists, in contradistinction to those who urged '--'

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immediate colonization in Palestine-the so-called Hpractical" Zionists. This problem was discussed in a great debate at the Eighth Congress in The Hague between the "political" Zionist, Dr. Alexander Marmorek, a Viennese bacteriologist who practiced .in Paris, and Chaim W eizmann, who was already an outstanding representative of the „practical" Zionists and a very effective speaker. Weizmann affi.rmed that Zionism was a political movement. He said that the work for the Zionist aim could be compared with building a tunnel, where two forces work from opposite ends to meet in the middle. While Weizmann spoke, a "political" Zionist delegate, Joseph Cowen, sat in the first row, facing the speaker. Cowen was Russian born, but proud of his British citizenship. He stood up and heckled continuously. Outraged over this ·-\ constant interruption, Weizmann paused, looked _at Cowen and said: ""Mr. Cowen, are you not an Englishman ?" Cowen, aware of an English gentleman's love offair play, sat down and was quiet as a mouse. The Eighth Congress was called in The Hague, where the Second International Peace Conference was in session. In one ofhis most masterful orations, Dr. Nordau referred to this conference: "At this very moment and for the second time a Peace Conference meets in this free country of Holland. To it, all civilized nations of both worlds have sent their representatives to establish a moral law that will unite mankind and codify its rules in an international book of law; tobe recognized by all civilized nations and all religious creeds ... To the originators of this moral code we now turn and in the name of our twelve million people we cry: ·Justice' !" The whole Congress spontaneously jumped to its feet and gave the orator a great ovation. The first break in the Herzl tradition, not to undertake any settlement before the HCharter," came at the Ninth Congress held in Hamburg, Germany, in December 1909. With the approval of President Wolffsohn, the Congress accepted a plan by the noted German economist, Professor Franz Oppenheimer, to make an experiment in Merhavia, an Jewish National Fund land, creating an agricultural settlement as a cooperative venture which Oppenheimer termed „Siedlungsgenossenschaft" (communal colony). The plan was different from the communal settlements (Kvutzoth and Kibbutzim) which at the same time made their first feeble attempts in K.innereth, at the Sea of Galilee, and from the smallholder settlements (Moshavim). Oppenheimer's plan foresaw the forrnation of a company to provide the initial capital and the settlers were to be wage eamers with a share in the operating profits that was

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1

r

l

supposed to enable the settlers ultimately to acquire ownership. In the initial stages the land was to be developed under the direction of an experienced agriculturist. This structure would have eliminated or, at least, reduced initial mistakes of the inexperienced settlers but would have deprived them of the pride of creating under their own initiative and the drive that goes with responsibility. In fact, there were continuous clashes between the settlers and the manager, whose name was Dyck, a very able man. In the end Dyck left and Merhavia became a genuine Kibbutz. At the same Congress I became the protagonist of a hone of contention between the "'political" and the "'practical" Zionists, namely, the operation of the Jewish Colonial Trust. As will be remembered, this was the financial instrument created by Herzl in London to acquire the "Charter" from the sultan for large-scale Jewish .c;:olonization in Palestine. Meanwhile the Trust operated in the ''City" as a commercial bank. I suggested that there was no sense in operating a minute bank · with a capital of only f250,000 (at the then prevailing rate-about one million dollars) in London, at that time the financial center of the world, nor in holding the capital for the nebulous purpose of forming the nucleus of the large sums required for a "Charter" from Turkey. The Trust had failed to attract deposits while its subsidiary, the AngloPalestine Bank in Palestine, held deposits to an increasing degree. I therefore proposed that the banking operations of the Trust be gradually liquidated and its funds transf erred to Palestine where they could do more good. I was strongly supported by U ssischkin, who termed my proposal "the most important motion bef ore the Congress." Wolffsohn, the chairman of the Trust and Dr. Katzenelsohn of Libau, its president, opposed the motion. Nevertheless, the majority of the Congress voted in its favor. lt was the only resolution that was carried against Wolffsohn at that Congress. I t should be added that the board of the Trust disregarded the Congress' decision and that most of the capital of the Trust was lost in subsequent banking operations in London. lt has now been restored, thanks to the success of the Anglo-Palestine Bank. I had little influence on the management of the bank's affairs before I came to London in 1918, and then, because of the war, the transfer of the funds to Palestine could not be effected until peace was restored. At the Hamburg Congress, the strength of the opposing forces, "'political" and "practical" Zionists, was almost even, with the result

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that no new Executive could be elected. In the end there was no alter- 58 native for Wolffsohn's opponents but to ask him to remain in oflice. Wolffsohn made fun of this situation. Mrs. George Halpem, whose husband was a member of the opposition, was in the last stages of pregnancy, but so intensely interested in the proceedings of the Congress that she refused to leave before its close in the early moming hours. Her husband put her in a cab and they barely reached their flat when the child was born. The following day, Wolffsohn said to Halpem: ""What a pity that the boy did not come a few hours earlier. The opposition could have bad one more vote."

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A few words about the Halpems. Dr. Halpem, the son of a wealthy Pinsk merchant, was educated in Germany and, at the time of this Congress, was the Hamburg representative of one of the leading Germ.an newspapers, "'The Frankfurter Zeitung." (Later he lived in Israel, where he founded an important insurance company, and was honorary chairman of the Bank Leumi.) Halpem belonged to our group of friends of "Die Fractzie." He was tall, somewhat gaunt, and his keen face was anything but handsome. His wife was a British Gentile wbo had become Jewish and-as can be seen from what I said bef ore-was a passionate Zionist. A few years earlier they had visited me in Mannheim and I had met them at the station. There was this unprepossessing Halpem witb a lady of striking beauty. Seeing her brought to my mind an essay by Heinrich Heine, describing the effect a performance of "The Merchant of Venice" had upon a British Lady who shared a box with him, "who towards the end of. the fourth act (tbe Court Scene) wept fervently and exclaimed several times: 'the poor man is wronged !' " Heine added, ""Hers was a face of the noblest Greek cut and her eyes were large and black. I could never forget those large black eyes which wept for Shylock." This was Mrs. Halpern! After I had greeted them, Halpem asked bis wife to telephone an important message. She left and he called after her something in Yiddish that meant: "Be careful, don't be fooled." And my Greek beauty turned around and nodded. I might have found it quite natural if Halpem bad talked to her in classical Greek-but in Yiddish ! I was durnbfounded. I had been a mem her of the different Zionist bodies since the Seventh Congress, which bad declined the colonization of Uganda.

During the Congresses I joined the caucuses of the Russian Zionists, since the majority of the Germ.an Zionists were ""political" Zionists. I hardly took any part in local Zionist work, except to travel over the length and breadth of South Germany, stumping for the Zionist cause. Once I went to Heilbronn in the State of Wuertenberg. I asked the leaders of the Jewish community, all anti-Zionists, to be present, and also my friend, Dr. Theodor Heuss, editor of a local newspaper and after World War II, the first president of West Germany. After the Heilbronn meeting, the Jewish cornmunity leaders, Dr. Heuss, and I sat down together over a glass of beer. I asked the chairman of the local group to join us, but he declined. Later I learned that he had written to the German Zionist headquarters in Berlin, insisting that I be forbidden to speak at Zionist meetings ""because I associated with assimilationists and goyim." I had forgotten this little incident until recently I was reminded of it by President Heuss himself. I do not want to go to Germany again after all that has happened under Hitler. But among those who are deeply ashamed and humiliated by that period of horror is Theodor Heuss. He voiced the German guilt in a moving speech at the unveiling of the monument erected on the grounds of the concentration camp at Bergen-Belsen to commemorate the Jewish victims. Another characteristic story is this: Heuss attended the first annual celebration of the harvesting of the grapes in the Rhineland. The master of ceremonies presented him with a golden cup of wine and said: "Mr. President, Emperor Wilhelm once drank from this cup and we were honored by presenting it to President Hindenburg. Now we are privileged to offer it to you." Whereupon Heuss patted him on the shoulder and said: "Lucky for both of us that Hitler was a teetotaler !" There was one exception to my disinterest in local Jewish affairs. The Jews of Baden enjoyed certain privileges originating from the Napoleonic era after the French Revolution. One of these privileges was a Jewish Parlia1nent composed of delegates chosen in free elections. For years, the rank and file of the Jewish communities did not bother to cast their votes. The elections were perfunctory and some of the rich or otherwise influential Jews in the respective communities decided upon the slate. At the time I am referring to, the president of the Jewish Parliament announced that he had prepared a new prayer book which eliminated passages ""not consonant with the spirit of the times," especially all references to Zion. This prayer book was to be approved at

59

the pending session of the Parliament and it would then become obligatory in every synagogue of the State. I decided to fight. I formed an alliance with the conservative members of the Jewish communities of Baden. We organized the opposition. On election day, we had a complete victory; Zionists became members of the Parliament and the revised prayer book was withdrawn.

... ..,.

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At the next, the Tenth Congress, in Basel the '"practical" Zionists were in a clear majority for the first time. Their leaders attempted to replace Wolffsohn but his prestige and popularity had grown so much that the majority, against its own leaders, would have re-elected him as president if he had not voluntarily decided to decline re-election, partly for reasons of health and partly to restore peace in the movement. One of his strongest opponents, Ussischkin, praised Wolffsohn for placing the interest of the movement above personal ambition. He said Wolffsohn had won the greatest victory of his career, victory over himself. A new Executive was elected exclusively of "practical" Zionists, consisting of Professor Otto Warburg of Berlin, a noted and much respected German botanist, as chairman, and Dr. Arthur Hantke, a Berlin lawyer (who was associated with Russian Zionist students and had studied in Berlin in the pre-Herzl days). Later Hantke was president of the German Zionist Federation and died at a ripe age as one of the executive directors of the Keren Ha~esod in Jerusalem. Nahu1n Sokolow, the editor of the Warsaw Hebrew newsp~per Hazefirah, and Shmarya Levin, a former member ofthe "Duma" and one ofthe leaders of Russian Zionism, then residing in Berlin, were also members. However, Wolffsohn was not a man to lightly divest himself of all power. He had declined re-election as president, but he was not willing to turn over the control of the financial pillars of the Organization to his ideological opponents. Contrary to the custom prevailing since the formation of the Jewish Colonial Trust under Herzl (where all members of the "Greater Actions-Committee" formed the Council of the Bank), Wolffsohn insisted on the continued control of the financial instruments of the Organization, the Jewish Colonial Trust, the AngloPalestine Company, and the Jewish National Fund, by himself and his political friends and the Congress yielded. Same "practical" Zionists of business experience were added to the Council of the J ewish Colonial Trust and the Jewish National Fund, among them myself, but out-

60

standing leaders like Warburg, Weizmann, Sokolow and Levin were excluded. Thus, the ··practical" Zionists were now in full control of the policies of the Organization, but the ••political" Zionists held its purse strings. At the first meeting of the newly elected "Greater Actions-Committee," the Executive proposed that the board of the Jewish Colonial Trust be instructed to grant a loan to the new Executive. Wolffsohn, as chairman of the Trust, refused. He said: ''When I took offi.ceafter the death of Dr. Herzl, I found the Organization penniless and I committed the sin of borrowing from the bank, but I vowed that it would be the first and last time." Whereupon Weizrnann, referring to a solemn prayer on the the Day of Atonement, said with bitter irony: "Mr. W olffsohn says 'OSHAMNU' (we, the old Executive have sinned) but he gives us the breast-beating." The loan was not obtained. This, however, did not dispose of the basic issue, to wit, the control of the bank, which came again to the forefront at the next, the Eleventh Congress.

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CHAPTER NINE

THE ELEVENTH CONGRESS (1913)

The deliberations of the last pre-World War I Congress, the Eleventh, held at Vienna in the summ.er of 1913, centered around two issues: firstly, the establishment of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem (an idea mentioned at the First Congress and a matter near to Weizmann's heart ever since then); and secondly, the fight over the control of the Zionist bank. I had some part in both decisions. In 1913 W eizmann had begun to work actively for the university plan. I was constantly kept posted by him on this matter. He made it a rule, on his frequent visits to Paris, where he consulted with Baron de Rothschild, and to Frankfurt for meetings with Professor Paul Ehrlich, to stop at our house in Heidelberg where he not only discussed every step he took, but also sought the advice of my closest friend, Dr. Ernst Lesser, then head of the Physiology Department of the Mannheim Hospital. Ernst Lesser's hope was to live in Palestine, possibly, but not necessarily, as a teacher at the Hebrew University. He studied and mastered Hebrew. He was deeply hurt when, after World War I, Weizmann chose a man who as a scientist was way below Lesser's qualifications and he attributed it to the fact that he was a severe critic of certain aspects of Weizmann's concept of the scientific and financial foundation of the university. He also was distressed by the reception of the Reorganization Report of 1920 by the European Zionists and my subsequent resignation from the Executive. He wrote to me in London: "I had always hoped that you and Chaim would be brothers-in-arms in building up Palestine. But in the presentation of the report you committed a psychological mistake, not what you said but (quoting the title _ofa then popular book on sexual education) "How Do I Say lt To My Child'." Lesser did not settle in Palestine. He died of cancer in 1928. In his research work he laid the foundations for the discovery of insulin. 62

During the war he served as physician in the Germ.an army and had to interrupt his scientific work. lt is characteristic of the man that when he learned that he had cancer and. had to undergo immediate surgery, he spent a week in the Black Forest skiing (it was midwinter) during the day and the evenings in the Inn of the Feldberg Mountain singing and drinking with others devoted to this sport, and doing some flirting, too. Then he retumed to the hospital, submitted to the surgery and died two days later. During the war he served close to the front under a captain who was noted for his anti-Semitism. One day this captain told him that an urgent call had come from the front line for a doctor, because an open :field under the enemy's fire made it impossible to transport the wounded behind the front line. The captain said: ··y ou cannot go either; the