Holocaust Zionism

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Jerusalem stood along the banks of the River Jordan as one of antiquity’s earliest

capitals, being fortified 1800 years prior to the Common Era. The walls first utilized to

protect this Israelite municipality from outsiders would eventually become a metaphor for

the alienation befalling Jews as the world around them transitioned into an increasingly

homogenous society. Over the ensuing course of their history, looming convictions of

anti-Judaism would emerge in the form of exiles, legislative acts and violence, measures

that thrust Jews into a mutli-generational struggle for status within oscillating European

regimes. Though this battle for acceptance would rage for nearly two millennia, as

Europe approached modernity the maturation of enlightened philosophy began the process of altering Europe’s totalitarian landscape through the revolutionary demand for

universal egalitarianism. As the winds of change cultivated a shift toward liberalism,

social reform bred optimism among European Jews who believed their constant sense of

inequity could be alleviated by way of Emancipation; an ideal providing approval in the

form of legislative equality. While the eventual adoption of this policy was perceived as

an enormous victory for European Jewry, Emancipation’s accords were initially withheld

from those still suffering in the East, whose mounting persecution under Tsarist rule

caused many to pursue a more drastic solution than their western counterparts. This

uniquely paradoxical circumstance would create a schism within European Jewry that

gave rise to a pair of conflicting ideologies: one favoring a return to Jerusalem in order to

reinstate the Jewish claim to a homeland (Zionism), the other strongly encouraging Jews

to continue their fight for European assimilation (Anti-Zionism). Though the emergence

of these dissimilar theories was at first deemed irrelevant by the majority of Emancipated

Jews, the devastation of their civil rights that came at the hands of Nazism would

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ultimately force Jews to come face-to-face with the reality of unwavering anti-Semitism

and the necessity of Zionism’s struggle for Palestine.

Far prior to Nazism’s chilling inquiry regarding what should be done about

Europe’s Jewish population; the Jews themselves had been pondering one of a similar

nature: regarding the likelihood of integration within an environment characterized by

cross-cultural antagonism. This problem arose in the aftermath of the 135CE Jewish

Diaspora, an event propagated by the Roman Emperor Hadrian that exiled Israelites from

the Kingdom of Judah and, in order to avoid their future identification with Israel, forbid

Jews to return while renaming the area Palaestina, which it would remain for the next1800 years 1. With their claim to a universal homeland purloined by the mighty Roman

Empire, forced emigration left Jews with no choice but to venture out of Zion and find

solstice in the arduous process of cultural absorption. So began a new chapter of Jewish

history that spawned communities in areas all across Imperial Europe, societies whose

capability to thrive hinged primarily on Jews’ ability to coexist with often hostile

neighbors. For the remainder of their history under such conditions, Jews bore witness to

cyclic periods of accomplishment and failure, all but obscuring the overall success of

their pre-Emancipation struggle into ambiguity. The next 1700 years of their existence

would be comprised of fluctuating phases of tolerance and prejudice that resulted in a

historical conglomeration of flourishing Jewish influence (such as 13 th century Mediaeval

Al-Andalus) followed shortly by blatant episodes of intolerance, notably the 15 th century

Iberian Exile. This characteristic ebb-and-flow of Jewish subsistence would continue on

its teetering path for centuries, but as autocratic oppression bred enlightenment, the

people of Europe would rise-up against despotism, actions that played a crucial role in

1 Yohanan Aharoni, The Jewish People an Illustrated Text (Continuum International, 2006) pp. 99-101.

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formulating the ideals of Jewish thinkers who emerged to become the voice of a people

persecuted for millennia.

Upon the dawn of the 18 th century Age of Enlightenment, the majority of Jews

still looked back on their quest for acceptance as neither an overall success nor complete

failure; a trend that persisted even as Thomas Paine and Voltaire presented Europeans

with the possibility of universal egalitarianism. This is not to say that the Enlightenment

completely omitted European Jewry, rather that the Jews would again face an ambiguous

outcome, some benefiting while others only received harsher stipulations. As philosophic

ideals became radical action, revolutionary demands for collective equality bredsanguinity among Western European Jews, their French counterparts being granted full

citizenship on September 27, 1791, yielding a status they had not held since the region

belonged to the Roman Empire 2. At the same time, however, this victory was only

celebrated regionally as the fear of a similar eastern upheaval caused many European

monarchs to only tighten the authoritative grip held on their masses. This Revolutionary

backlash was especially significant for the Jews living under the totalitarian regime of

Czar Catherine II, who, following the fall of France’s Ancien Régime , alienated Russian

Jews by establishing the Pale of Settlement in the 1790’s 3. Here, over 90% of Russia’s

Jewish population was forced into isolation, where constant discrimination resulted in

Jews paying double taxes only to be denied the ability to own property or receive a higher

education 4. Once again it appeared that another historical era had come and gone, still

leaving the whole of European Jewry at idle, but this progressive stalemate was merely a

product of the short-term. The Jews of Europe would use the tenets of egalitarianism first

2 Frederic C. Jaher, The Jews and the Nation (Princeton University Press, 2002) p. 753 Dov Levin , The Litvaks: A Short History of the Jews in Lithuania (Berghahn Books, 2000) p. 664 Ibid

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outlined during the Enlightenment to create their own vision of equality that manifested

itself in the form of Emancipation.

By the time world order was resorted in 1817 with the reseating of France’s

Bourbon Monarchy, it seemed that French Jews may have been the sole benefactors in

the march toward freedom stemming from the Enlightenment. Unbeknownst at the time,

however, the remainder of the 19 th century would be a period marked by a pivotal turning

point in Jewish history: Emancipation. First appearing in an 1837 Encyclopedia, the term

came from the phrase “Emancipation of the Jews” which was defined as a legal process

“giving [Jews] equality of status with the rest of the citizens of the state in respect of political and civic rights” 5. Clearly derived from Enlightenment-era principles, it would

be this term that outlined the single-most significant theorem that could give Jews hope in

ending their struggle for parity. Nevertheless, Emancipation was not so easily achieved as

it was defined, for like all previous developments impacting European Jewry, this was not

a singular occurrence that all Jews experienced at once in a similar fashion, but a slow

process that varied greatly from region to region. Regardless of Emancipation’s measured

espousal, it soon fostered optimism among Europe’s Jewish intelligentsia , who firmly

believed that their peoples’ barriers to assimilation could be requited under the auspices

of legislation giving all Jews equal rights. One decade after its emergence into European

culture, the feasibility of wide-spread Jewish Emancipation would be thoroughly tested in

the wake of liberal insurrections that spread across the European countryside in the

summer of 1848. Much like the Jews living in France during its revolutionary period,

those fighting along-side non-Jews in 1848 understood that supporting the radicals was in

their best interests, the demand for new constitutions and civil rights paralleling the Jews’

5 Werner Mosse, Revolution and Evolution, 1848 in German-Jewish History (Mohr Siebeck, 1981) p. 4

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own need to abolish the prejudicial laws that hindered their ability to fully assimilate and

adapt to the ways of the majority. In turn, countries such as Belgium, Denmark and

Germany all succumbed to revolutionary pressure following the 1848 uprisings; each

passing legislation granting Jews civil rights, causing many to believe that their struggle

had finally coming to an end 6. So immense was the initial impact of this freedom that

Jewish professionals quickly made milestones, one such example being Gabriel Riesser

who was elected vice-president of the Revolutionary Frankfurt Parliament and later

became Hamburg’s Obergerichtsrat (head judge) in 1859, proclaiming his position was

achieved “not for [his sake] but for the sake of the Jews”7

. In the winter months of 1867,Emancipation trudged eastward, proving beneficial in Austria-Hungary and Prussia,

where upward mobility allowed Jews to be the sole population demographic able pull

themselves from the lower rungs of society and break-through into the emerging middle

class 8. By January of 1871, the expectations of full assimilation were only broadened in

the eyes of German Jews, who were granted complete legal equality and citizenship

under the new German Reich, rights that would remain intact until the rise of Nazism

over fifty years later 9. However, while Westerners rejoiced at the apparent end of their

persecution, such freedoms were withheld from those suffering in the East. The Jews still

living under Tsarist oppression would continue to wage their emancipatory battle until

1917, the four decade gap cultivating a movement that soon advocated a return to Zion

and the recreation of a Jewish state along the Mediterranean coast.

6 Ibid, 67 Henry Morais, Eminent Israelites of the Nineteenth Century (University of Michigan, 2006) pp. 370-3718 Ritchie Robinson, The ‘Jewish Question’ in German Literature: 1749-1939 (Oxford University, 1999) pp.53-559 Dan Cohn-Sherbok , Judaism: History, Belief and Practice (Routledge, 2003) p. 243

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Among the first and most influential of these Eastern Zionist activists was Leon

Pinkser, a Jew born into Tsarist Russia who would become the leader of Hibbat Zion , an

organization widely appreciated as the precursor to the modern Zionist movement.

Interestingly, Pinkser did not begin his life as Jewish nationalist; in fact, his first

contributions to Russian Jewry came in 1849 with the publication of a weekly journal

entitled Razsvei (Dawn) whose main purpose was to foster societal integration through

adoption of Russian culture and language 10. Pinkser’s premature, anti-Zionist viewpoint

was not uncommon during the early stages of Emancipation, for he, like many Jewish

philosophers, sincerely believed that Eastern European anti-Semitism could be resolvedthrough cultural absorption and that Russia’s Jews were next-in-line to reap the benefits

Emancipation had brought Westerners. This idealism was short-lived, however, as, in lieu

of liberalism; Russian Jews were instead subjected to numerous examples of anti-Semitic

“demonstrations” that erupted in the form of violent attacks known as pogroms, causation

for newspapers such as the St. Petersburg Golos (Voice) to suspect that anti-Jewish

brutality was spiraling out of control 11. One article in particular, taken from January of

1870, forewarned Russian Jews that the “hatred [against them] is so great that sooner or

later it will force its way into the open”, words that forecasted events whose impact on

Russian Jewry would force even the most optimistic anti-Zionists to drastically rethink

the possibility of Eastern Emancipation 12. Eleven years after the article’s publication, the

Golos’ unsettling prediction came to fruition as an unsubstantiated rumor caused majority

of Russia’s population to link the March 1, 1881 assassination of Tsar Alexander II with

10 Dan Cohn-Sherbok , Fifth Key Jewish Thinkers (Routledge, 1997) p. 10611 John D. Klier , Pogroms: Anti-Jewish Violence in Modern Russian History (Cambridge University, 2004)

pp. 16-1712 Ibid

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their country’s Jewish communities 13. Wide-spread anti-Semitic beliefs turned this

conspiracy theory into action, initiating a series of pogroms that sped across Russia

beginning with Kiev and Odessa in April, rapidly boiling over to the countryside

throughout the spring and summer months of 1881 14. The violence perpetrated against the

Jews during this period had ominous consequences that reached beyond trepidation, it

also convinced many that a more extreme solution was required if Russian Jews ever

hoped to live lives free of cruelty. Such attitudes deeply affected Pinkser, who, in the

wake of the violence, promptly became a Zionist, publishing Auto-Emancipation in 1882,

a pamphlet which noted that: “Judaism and anti-Semitism have been inseparablecompanions…any struggle against this aberration against the human psyche is

fruitless” 15. This struggle, which Pinkser clearly concreted as a failure, was primarily

attributed to the fact that he felt “legal emancipation will [never] bring about social

emancipation…the isolation of the Jews cannot be removed… [for] unlike other peoples

the Jew is inevitably an alien. Having no home, he can never be anything but a

stranger” 16. Although Pinkser died shortly after this publication, his lexis helped catalyze

the quest to bring Jews back to their homeland, cementing Zionism’s place within in

European Jewry over the course of the next six decades.

Though the concept of Zionism dated back to prior events, publications and

theories, it did not become a worldwide political phenomenon until popularized by

Theodore Herzl’s Austrian publication of Der Judenstat (The Jewish State: an Attempt at

a Modern Solution to the Jewish Question ) in 1896 17. Intriguingly, Herzl seemed to

13 Ibid, p. 3914 Ibid15 Cohn-Sherbok , Fifth Key Jewish Thinkers p. 10616 Ibid17 Ibid, 107

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believe his concept was unremarkable, stating: “The idea which I have developed in this

pamphlet is an ancient one…I have discovered neither the Jewish situation nor the means

to remedy it”, though to many Jewish historians, this booklet remains the foundation

upon which modern political Zionism was built 18. As Herzl worked to spread his

message, it was at first greeted with hesitance from the majority of Europe’s Jewish

population, with less than one percent of Vienna’s Jews subscribing to his initial Zionist

publications 19. Furthermore, when Herzl attempted to call a congress regarding his

Modern Solution in the assimilated area of Munich, it was met with much resistance, the

region’s Jews rejecting the proposal, believing Emancipation had dissolved the need for any further probing into the Jewish question, fearing that Zionist ideals would

compromise their newly acquired equality and citizenship by “stirring up accusations of

disloyalty” 20. Within Russia itself, other barriers cluttered the proliferation of the Zionist

movement, most notably the fact that Herzl’s goal coincided with an enormous need for

financial aid; because, in order to reclaim Palestine, the Zionists required a charter. With

hopes of obtaining £8 million to receive the grant, Herzl established the Jewish Colonial

Trust in 1899, but by 1903, the sum fell well short, raising £395,000, merely 5% of the

total 21. Herzl’s inability to accumulate these funds by 1903 would have a devastating

effect on the Zionists Movement, for in April of the same year; a massive pogrom broke

out in the Russian province of Kishinev, leaving 47 Jews dead and many thousands

wanting out of Russia 22. As a result, from 1903-1907 hundreds of thousands of Jews fled

the country and, since the Zionists had yet to secure Palestine, over 90% headed across

18 Theodor Herzl, Theodor Herzl: A Portrait for this Age (World Pub. Co, 1955) p. 23319 Walter Laqueur, The History of Zionism (Tauris Parke, 2003) pp. 87-8820 Ibid, 10321 Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Lexicon of Zionism (www.mfa.gov.il) September 22, 200322 Katharine Knox, Refugees in an Age of Genocide (Routledge, 1999) p. 20

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the Atlantic to the United States 23. Despite these early failures, Herzl continued his

“struggle for Palestine” by preaching this initiative to those attending the six Zionists

congresses held before his death in 1904, overall, however, it appeared as if Herzl’s ideals

were simply ahead of their time. Dismissing the Russian violence as purely regional,

Western Jews held steadfast in their belief that Emancipation had sojourned their

troubles, but this legislative equality only acted as a temporary blinder. They could not

have foreseen the vehement racism brewing in Germany and the devastation that would

soon follow in the wake of Nazism’s rise to power. Although Herzl did not live to see it,

European Jews slowly came to the ill-fated realization that he was correct in“[recognizing] the emptiness and futility of trying to ‘combat’ anti-Semitism” 24

.

With their blinders securely fastened, those Jews not confined to the East started

to view the 20 th century as an era that was shaping out to be one of Jewish prosperity.

They had perceivably won the battle for acceptance and this was reflected in the high-

degrees of assimilation that were prevalent in areas of Germany, France, Italy, and

Belgium. In these countries, Jews sought to dress and talk like their non-Jewish

countrymen while fostering cultural absorption through formal education and urban

dwelling; with more than 70% of German Jews residing in cities 25. More fuel for the

German anti-Zionist fire came in 1912, when, for the first time, Jewish college graduates

held a percentage (10%) of the seats that made up the Reichstag 26. Two years later, World

War I would only deepen the ingrained feelings of pride held by German Jews, for, in

terms of patriotism, there is no better way to show allegiance to a country than fighting

23 Paul M. Johnson, A History of the Jews (Harper Collins, 1988) pp. 365-36724 Lance Selfa, The Struggle for Palestine (Haymarket Books, 2002) p. 425 Marion A. Kaplan, Jewish Daily Life in Germany: 1618-1945 (Oxford University, 2005) p. 17526 Steven Lowenstein, German-Jewish History in Modern Times (Columbia University, 1998) p. 275

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for their cause and, as a result of their efforts numerous Jewish veterans received citations

for valor from the German government. This service and decoration would soon become

among the main factors that forced thousands of Jews to down-play the tightening grip of

Nazism, many of them simply unable to come to the realization that the country they bled

for could propagate such heinous acts against them.

Although the devastation witnessed in the wake of World War I forced humanity

to grow insensitive toward six-figure casualties (including thousands of innocents), its

conclusion only marked the beginning of a bloodier chapter of human history and laid the

foundation for an even more dismal future for German Jewry. All of this began on June28, 1919 when German foreign minister Hermann Müller signed the Treaty of Versailles

and unwittingly agreed to concessions that would seal the fate of German democracy two

months prior to its formation. Among the most damaging stipulations of the Treaty was

Article 231, the so called “War Guilt Clause” that stated: “Germany accepts the

responsibility… for causing all the loss and damage to [the Allies] as a consequence of

the war imposed upon them by the aggression of Germany and her allies” 27. This

admission of culpability would prove to be not only demeaning to the German populace

but also devastating to their budding democracy, imposing a $32 billion financial burden

from which it would never recover 28. In the aftermath of their humiliating (and highly

expensive) defeat, Germany hoped to rebuild, thusly reorganizing its politics by drafting

a new constitution which established the Weimar Republic on August 11, 1919 29. Though

life in the Weimar Republic was by no means void of anti-Semitism or political

instability, Jewish communities shortly became empowered by the government, which

27 Ruti G. Teitel, Transitional Justice (Oxford University, 2000) p. 12228 Eberhard Kolb, The Weimar Republic (Routledge, 2004), p. 4329 Ibid, 19

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cultivated an increasing sense of communal identity through the organization of

communal and ritual affairs 30. By way of this autonomy, Jews were not only considered

Germans but also given the opportunity to promote their individual customs, constructing

synagogues as well as participating in numerous local organizations including student

fraternities along with athletic and singing societies while promoting their culture through

the establishment of visual arts centers and museums 31. For the time being, it appeared as

if Jewish influence was steadying as a result of Weimar democracy and most German

Jews seemed to be no different from their non-Jewish, middle class, peers; people who

were affected by socio-economics in the exact same manner as other Germans. Thesefactors acted in harmony to build the foundation for a strong sense of Germanic

acculturation among Jews, something that soon hindered their ability to accept the fact

that the country they acted as functional citizens in could take a methodical approach to

their execution: that the Holocaust might indeed take place in their own back-yard.

With the hope of building a strong foundation for the future and starting anew, in

its infancy the Weimar Republic urged its citizens to put Germany’s World War I defeat

behind them, though there still were those who could not accept their nation as a weak

country whose military prowess fell short of Allied strategy. Instead, these groups

attributed Germany's defeat to Dolchstosslegende , the myth that they had been “stabbed

in the back” by a number of domestic entities such Jews and Communists who

deliberately sabotaged the German war effort 32. The persistence of these groups soon

gave rise to rogue political factions who based their principles around the idea of völkisch

which hoped to promote the power of ethnic nationalism by fostering a sense of German30 United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. "Jewish Communities of Prewar Germany." Holocaust

Encyclopedia31 Ibid32 Léon Poliakov, The History of Anti-Semitism (University of Pennsylvania, 2003) pp.322-323

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Volksgemeinschaft or “national community” and among the first and most influential of

such parties would be the Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (DAP) 33. Founded by Anton Drexler

in 1919, the DAP aimed to bring solidarity to the German populace by speaking out

against immigration and capitalism, their message being readily received by veterans who

believed non-ethnic citizens had usurped German victory. One such patriot was Adolf

Hitler, whose passionate speech during one of the party’s first meetings caused Drexler to

insist on the spectacular orator becoming the 54 person to join the DAP. Almost

immediately, Hitler began making numerous addresses that captivated audiences and

gained recognition, causation for the party to grant increasing power to what they viewedas an invaluable tool. By early 1920, Hitler began to utilize this growing powerbase to fit

his own xenophobic needs, tweaking the socialistic tenant of egalitarianism so it would

apply only to those of "Aryan blood”, deeply ingraining ethnicity into the party-line and

placing Nationalsozialistische in front of Deutsche Arbeiterpartei to create the NSDAP

(Nazi Party) 34. Becoming the Party’s first chairman on July 29, 1921, Hitler’s eventual

rise to power coincided with the dissolution of the democracy that once allowed Jewish

influence to thrive in Germany. As the Weimer crumbled, Hitler’s message continued to

permeate the German consciousness, forcing Jews into a precarious position that

culminated in millions being murder by their own government.

Overall, the 1920’s had been a period of transition for Germany, their conversion

to deomcracy initally helping the economy to flourish, but booming production soon

turned into economic turmoil as the Great Depression devestated Germany in 1929 and

sent Wiemar Republic into a tail-spin. As a result of the world-wide financial down-turn,

33 Jeffrey Verhey, The Spirit of 1914: Militarism, Myth and Mobilization in Germany (CambridgeUniversity, 2000) pp. 214-21634 Richard J. Evans, The Coming of the Third Reich (Penguin, 2004) p. 173

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limited resources exacerbated the looming debt still owed from war-time concessions and

citizens began to question their government’s ability to cope with such economic

constraints as they witnessed unemployment skyrocket to 2.5 million by the winter of

1929 35. Over the ensuing months, the German public was thrown into a state of panic,

causing then president Paul von Hindenburg to declare a State of Emergency in 1930, a

decision that would set the stage for a three-year train-wreck of mishaps that subjected

Germans to a flurry of govermental restructuring and elections. Following the Emergency

Decree, which enabled Hindenburg to enact laws without Reichstag majority, the German

president reorganized the administration to include both a Presidential seat and aChancellorship, the later being the de facto head of government. This creation of a

Chancellorship, coupled with subsequent elections, put the growing Nazi Party in a

position of power, receiving 37.3% of the Reichstag seats in 1932 and having their leader

named Chancellor a year later 36. Hitler’s position, in combination with the party’s

domination of the Reichstag, permitted a swift codification of the 1933 Enabling Act,

effectively bringing an end to the democracy seen under the Weimar Republic and the

Reichstag no longer functioned as a parliamentary organization 37. More-so resembling

Nazi Headquarters, any further Reichstag elections to replace Hindenburg following his

death on August 2, 1934, were dismissed and Hitler named himself Führer und

Reichskanzler , combining the highest offices in terms of the state, military and party

while giving him a an authority that could no longer be challenged in a court of law. The

Third Reich had begun and European Jews were not prepared for what was on the

horizon, the centuries of struggle that had brought forth Emancipation would all be lost

35 Ibid, 23436 Werner Maser, Hitler’s Letters and Notes (Harper & Row, 1974) p. 14737 Evans, The Coming of the Third Reich pp. 284-285

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over the span of one decade.

Outside German borders, the post-World War I age was appearing to be a

victorious era in the quest to return Jews to Israel, as the most important Zionist

legislature to date, the Balfour Declaration, was transmitted on November 2, 1917. Sent

from the desk of British Foreign Secretary Lord Arthur James Balfour, it publicized the

fact that “[the British government] viewed with favor the establishment in Palestine of a

national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the

achievement of this object” 38. While Zionists reveled in Balfour’s pledge, the

“achievement of this object” could not be realized until Britain gained control of Palestine, which occurred during the San Remo Conference of April 19, 1920 39. After six

days of negotiation, the delegation adopted the San Remo Resolution, incorporating the

Balfour Declaration and Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations to become

the foundation for the July 24, 1922 Mandate for Palestine, effectively giving Britain

sovereignty over the area until 1948 40. The immediate impact of the Resolution was not

primarily felt by the Zionists, but sent shockwaves throughout Palestine’s outraged Arab

community who threatened to boycott all economic activity with the Jews, marking the

first of many blatantly antagonistic acts that bolstered the animosity brewing between the

two main presences in the region. In order to control this growing hostility, a pair of

committees emerged in May of 1924; the General Zionists (representing the voice of

Jews) and the Supreme Muslim Council, which the British hoped would quell anti-Jewish

sentiment by centralizing Muslim religious affairs and institutions 41. Britain’s desire to

38 Mitchell Cohen, Zion and State: Nation, Class, and the Shaping of Modern Israel (Columbia University,1992)39 Doreen Ingrams, Palestine Papers, 1917-1922: Seeds of Conflict (G. Braziller, 1973) p. 8840 Cohen, Zion and State , pp. 75-7741 Uri M. Kupferschmidt, “The Supreme Muslim Council: Islam Under the British Mandate for Palestine”Ph.D. diss., Hebrew University, 1987, p. 297

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suppress this antipathy would be tested merely five years later as an unprovoked surge of

attacks broke out against Palestine’s Jewish population beginning in August of 1929 on

one of Judaism’s most sacred dates, Tisha B'Av, a prayer session devoted to

commemorating their people’s numerous tragedies 42. As they mourned, Arab militants

stormed the Kotel ha-Ma'aravi (Western Wall) leaving Jews fearing for their lives even

during such a highly consecrated event 43. Shortly after the violence witnessed at the

Kotel , increasing Jewish influx had reached its breaking point and the Arab community

could no longer tolerate the growing tensions caused by Jewish settlement. They

retaliated on August 23, 1929, massacring 67 Jews living in the once-peaceful town of Hebron, causing a mass panic that resulted in hundreds of Jews fleeing for Jerusalem 44. In

the aftermath of the violence, public outcry forced British Colonial Secretary Lord

Passfield to reassess the feasibility of continued Jewish immigration in his October 1,

1930 White Paper, the most telling passage stating that: “It is an error to imagine that

Palestine is in possession of large areas of vacant land which could be made available for

[further] Jewish [immigration or] settlement” 45. By the time Lord Passfield’s assessment

reached British shores, the Second Census of Palestine showed a total population of

1,035,154 and it appeared as if the region had reached maximum capacity, forcing many

Zionist to believe that perhaps their ultimate goal was never to be achieved 46.

In spite of all the problems facing Zionists in their quest to secure Jerusalem, the

increasingly anti-Semitic environment of Germany caused the attention of the world’s

Jewish population to transition away from Palestine and toward Western Europe just as

42 Jonathan Frankel, Jews and Messianism in the Modern Era: Metaphor and Meaning (Oxford University,1991) pp. 392-39343 Ibid44 Tom Segev, One Palestine, Complete: Jews and Arabs under the British Mandate (Holt, 2000) p. 31445 Zionism-Israel Information Center , The Passfield White Paper: 1930 (www.zionism-isreal.com)46 Aaron Berman, Nazism, the Jews and American Zionism, 1933-1948 (Wayne State, 1990) p. 41

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the Third Reich began its formal campaign against Jewry, something that was to be

initially achieved through legislation. Although Hitler’s appointment as Chancellor and

the rise of Nazism foreshadowed ensuing acts of persecution in the minds of some Jews,

most were unaware of Hitler’s intentions to strip them of the freedoms Emancipation had

granted in 1871. On August 20, 1935, however, these objectives were clarified through

the drafting of two acts that together formed the basis for the Nuremberg Laws and

ushered in the Nazi Racial State. The first of the Laws was entitled The Law for the

Protection of German Blood and German Honor , and hoped to safeguard the purity of

Aryanism by forbidding “marriages between Jews and citizens of German blood” alongwith criminalizing “relations between Jews and nationals of German blood”, with the

penalties being “imprisonment or hard labor” 47. Though this first Law derided Jews of a

portion of their rights, the second act was what truly devastated the community, robbing

them of the most cherished entitlement coinciding with Emancipation: citizenship. What

the Jews had finally achieved over a 2,000 year period was taken from them in a single

phrase contained in Article 2 of The Reich Citizenship Law which stated that “a citizen of

the Reich is that subject only who is of German or kindred blood” 48. As of September 15,

1935 Germany’s Jews were no longer citizens and all would effectively lose their “full

political rights in accordance with the provision of the laws” until the collapse of Third

Reich in 1945 49. In the wake of the laws that voided Emancipation, it would be logical to

assume all German Jews immediately became strongly convinced Zionists; however, this

was not the case. Instead, Jewish reaction to the Nuremberg Laws was divided, some

agreeing that Zionist were correct in seeing the “futility of trying to ‘combat’ anti-

47 Geoffrey Pridham. Documents on Nazism 1919-1945 . (Viking Press, 1974) pp. 463-46548 Ibid, pp. 466-46749 Ibid

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Semitism” whereas others viewed the Laws as the worst and only examples of anti-

Jewish legislation, still unconvinced that mass emigration and the reclamation of

Palestine was in their best interests 50. Of those in the latter majority, the Reichsvertretung

der Juden in Deutschland (Reich Deputation of German Jews), acted as Jews’ main ally

in recovering from the devastation their civil rights had endured and, as of September 17,

1933, the Reichsvertretung quickly became the chief organization that represented Jewish

interests at a national level 51. Two years after its founding, the Nuremberg Laws acted as

the first challenge to the organization, who issued a reactionary statement through the

pages of September 24, 1935’s issue of Juedische Rundschau (Jewish Review [ JR ]) , the bi-weekly journal of the German Zionist movement. Oddly, the statement was as anti-

Zionist as it was optimistic, stating that “[the Jews in Germany] must create a basis on

which a tolerable relationship becomes possible between [them and the German

people]… [with the] hope that the Jews will be enabled to keep a moral and economic

means of existence” 52. This belief that Germans and Jews could foster a new relationship

in the wake of the Laws was even expressed by the Zionists themselves, who stated in

September 17th’s issue of JR that: “Once the Jews have been stamped a national minority

it is again possible to establish normal relations between the German Nation and Jewry.

The new Laws give the Jewish minority their own cultural life, their own national life” 53.

Such attitudes, while clearly hopeful, did not mean that the Zionists viewed the Laws as a

good omen for the Jewish people, (referring to them as “the heaviest of blows for the

Jews in Germany”) but rather that Jews could still survive under the restrictions, not as

50 Jack Fishcel, The Holocaust (Greenwood Press, 1998) p. 2351 Hubert Rübsaat, Germans No More: Accounts of Jewish Everyday Life, 1933-1938 (Berghahn Books,2006) p. 552 "Formal Statement by the Reichsvertretung,” Juedische Rundschau, September 24, 193553 “Statement from The Editor: A.I. Berndt,” Juedische Rundschau , September 17, 1935

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German citizens, but as a clearly defined minority 54. Still, even the Reichsvertretung

recognized that the Laws stood as evidence to continue “hoping for the future by the

vitality of the progress in the construction of a Jewish Palestine” by “offering its services

to the work of reconstruction in Palestine” 55. So the question still remained, why did the

Zionists not use the Nuremberg Laws as supreme justification for their position? The

answer, for the time being, was simple; they felt that mass emigration would spell the end

of German Jewry, but their initial advocacy to limit the number of Jews able to leave the

country would soon pose a threat to not only ending German Jewry but European Jewry

as a whole.As the Jews of Germany sought to recover from what they believed was the first

and final act of Nazism antagonism, everything they had endured until the winter of 1938

would soon pale in comparison to the events of November of that same year, the most

dreadful pogrom in Jewish history: Kristallnacht. Over the 24 hour course of the

demonstration, 7,500 Jewish-owned shops were either ravaged or destroyed and over a

thousand synagogues were ransacked for their “material of historical value” with 190

being set aflame, the shattered remnants standing as the achievements of the Night of the

Broken Glass 56. While this caustic demolition devastated the Jewish community, the

destruction of edifices was not the only goal of Kristallnacht, and following the orders set

forth by SS-Gruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich, the State Police arrested thousands of

Jewish men, with 3,700 being sent to the Dachau concentration camp 57. Again, it would

appear that the aggression against German Jews should have supplied the Zionists with

ample ammunition to support emigration to Palestine, but, in October of 1938, merely a54 "Formal Statement by the Reichsvertretung,” Juedische Rundschau, September 24, 193555 Ibid56 David Cesarani, Becoming Eichmann (Da Capo Press, 2007) p. 7057 Ibid, 71

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month prior to Kristallnacht, the Arab world was fighting their own anti-Semitic battle,

calling for “a halt-a total halt-to Jewish immigration to Palestine” 58.

In response to the Arab “urge that all further Jewish immigration into Palestine

should be stopped forthwith”, the British Colonial Government issued a statement

entitled the White Paper of May 17, 1939 that addressed the situation with the intention

to limit immigration under the British Mandate at a rate of 75,000 between 1939 and

1944 59. This sum equated to allowing merely 15,000 Jews to emigrate per year,

representing an extremely low quota considering the fact that 150,000 Jews were seeking

a way out of Germany in the wake of Kristallnach t60

. For many, the stipulations of the1939 White Paper had essentially made it as difficult to achieve Zionism’s goal as it was

for Jews to live under the restrictions of Nazism, but in the words of David Ben-Gurion

(a Zionist who would later become Israel’s First Prime Minister in 1955) the Zionists

“should fight Nazis as if there were no White Paper and fight the White Paper as if there

were no Nazis” 61. Ben-Gurion’s statement soon turned ironic as it was made only months

prior to the Allied declaration of war on Germany and, although the effort drained a

majority of Britain’s resources, this did not mean that they simply ignored Palestine; the

Royal Navy still keeping a watchful eye over Jewish activity, enforcing the immigration

quotas in ways reminiscent of the Nazi’s own Police State. The most infamous example

of this came in the aftermath of the British authorities’ refusal to allow the Patria, a

Jewish refugee ship, to dock in Palestine, arresting those aboard and sending them to the

Atlit detainee camp in November of 1940. For Ben-Gurion and his Zionist followers, it

seemed as if the events of the late 1930’s had effectively brought Jewish immigration to a58 Bernard Avishai, The Tragedy of Zionism (Allworth Press, 2002) p. 15359 Ibid60 Ibid61 Avishai, 154

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standstill, a tragic occurrence as he felt that this period was the time when Jewish

emigration was “most urgently needed” 62.

Akin to his 19 th century Zionist predecessors, Ben-Gurion’s notion of the

deteriorating Jewish situation was proven correct within Germany only three years after

the 1939 drafting of the White Paper, as, on January 20, 1942, German SS and state

officials met at the Wannsee Conference in order to coordinate the deportation of

European Jews: the Final Solution for achieving Nazism’s ultimate aim. While it is now

known that these men were planning the systematic transportation of Jews to the

extermination camps of Poland, at the time, German Jews viewed the deportations withmuch uncertainty, thinking their destination was “a place where an unknown fate

await[ed] them” 63. Although their fate was mysterious, in a letter from Berlin’s Zionist

Youth Movement dated March of 1942, their words show trepidation that this journey

was indeed a one-way trip: “we write in the hope that at least one of us will remain alive

…many of our members are no longer with us” 64. Even as the Nazis deported many of

their neighbors, the Youth Movement held on to the conviction that they may one day see

Jerusalem, ending their communication with the words: “do not forget us, just as we will

not forget you; those already living in the Land of Israel and building our future… until

the day comes when we can once more all be together” 65. These young Jews would never

be united with their Zionist brothers in Palestine, their optimistic message being the final

communication sent from Berlin’s chapter of the Young Maccabi Union of Scouts. While

it is clear that the surviving Zionists in Germany’s capital remained hopeful, those living

in captivity were much less ambivalent to the goings-on around them by March of 1942,62 Ibid63 Y. Schwersenz, Pioneer Underground in Nazi Germany (Tel Aviv, 1969), pp. 55-5764 Ibid65 Ibid

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and Poland’s Warsaw Ghetto was no different. During the war years, Warsaw remained a

hotbed for Zionist activity and among the most influential of these groups was Ha-

Shomer Ha-Zair , who began circulating an underground newspaper, entitled Jutrznia

(Dawn). In an issue from March 28, 1942, it is apparent that these particular Zionists

were well aware of their people’s doom: “We know that Hitler's system of murder leads

steadily to a dead end and the destruction of the Jews. [Their fate]…marks a new period

in the total annihilation of the Jewish population” 66. Though they were starring into the

face of certain annihilation, the Zionists stood strong, urging ghettoized Jews to fight

against Nazi aggressors with the hope of one day returning to Palestine, a will to fightthat was tested when the first of two uprisings broke out in the Ghetto on April 19, 1943.

The valor of the Jews involved was reported upon by the Biuletyn Informacyjny

(Information Bulletin), another underground newspaper run by the Armia Krajowa

(Polish Home Army) on April 29, 1943: “With scant forces, few arms and little

ammunition… Jewish fighters defended streets and individual houses. They considered it

a victory if a part of those imprisoned in the ghetto were able to escape; it was a victory

in their eyes to die while their hands still grasped arms” 67.The militancy advocated by the

underground resistance paralleled the aggression Zionists had toward the Nazi Regime,

something that helped keep some of them alive to see the Jews reclaim their homeland

less than an half-decade later.

The persecution of the Jews under the Nazi Regime officially came to end with

the liberation of the Warsaw Ghetto and Auschwitz by Soviet troops on January 17, 1945.

Although it is estimated that over six million Jews died as a result of the Third Reich’s

66“Call to Armed Self-defense,” Jutrznia , March 28, 194267 “The Last Battle in the Great Tragedy,” Biuletyn Informacyjny , April 29, 1943

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Final Solution , many of those who remained alive to see the Red Army free them from

the grips of Nazism only looked into the future for the strength needed to recover from

Judaism’s most horrendous tragedy. This strength would come in the form of a new

Jewish homeland, but, though the biggest threat to European Jewry had been defeated,

there still existed barriers to realizing the ultimate goal of Zionism. Three years would

pass before Jews were finally able to see the British Mandate over Palestine expire,

which occurred on May 14, 1948, the Jewish People's Council declaring the

establishment of the State of Israel on the very same day 68. Within this declaration was a

sentence that summarized the end of the Jewish struggle that had been rumbling along itsunwavering path since 135 CE: “After being forcibly exiled from their land, the [Jewish]

people kept faith…and never ceased to pray and hope for their return to [Israel] and for

the restoration in it of their political freedom” 69. Though the two post-World War II

superpowers (the USSR and USA) recognized the new state only three days after its

proclamation, the Jewish struggle for Palestine was yet to be resolved; until a victory

against the Arabs came during the Jewish War of Independence. Their triumph over both

Nazism and the Arabs helped to convince Jews in the strength of their people, a strength

that Israel would be founded upon. After signing numerous armistices with its

neighboring countries of Lebanon, Egypt and Jordan, Israel was admitted to the United

Nations as its 59 th member on May 11, 1949 and the 2,000 year Jewish struggle had

finally come full-circle 70. The Zionist Movement had at long last made good on its

promise to return Jews to their home-country, but indeed this triumph appears to be a

double-edged sword. While it is clear that Jews found strength in establishing Israel,68 The Avalon Project at Yale Law School, Declaration of Israel’s Independence 1948(www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon)69 Ibid70 Richard W. Bulliet, Encyclopedia of the Modern Middle East (Macmillan Reference USA, 1996) p. 1835

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perhaps it is only a product of weakness, their failure to assimilate into European society

being the main catalyst for the men who began advocating a return to Jerusalem. But, as

the Jews faced persecution from various entities in their “struggle for Palestine” they

developed a strong sense of ethnic identity, an individuality that became the foundation

for Hitler’s ultimate aim. In this sense, the Holocaust was in actuality the one event that

tied Jews to their Judaism more so than any other occurrence, and the reclamation of

Palestine simply fulfilled the need to turn Jews from a minority into a majority. Although

the devastation caused by the Shoah is unmatched throughout the annals of Jewish

history, its legacy remains to the Jews as another tragedy that forced them to regroup andmove forward, just as their ancestors had done for centuries in the face of exiles, pogroms

and legislation. In short, the mere fact that the Jews were able to survive such ominous

threats to their heritage is by far the most telling evidence that they are, and will always

be, a resilient people whose perseverance is unmatched by any other ethnicity.

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