Trudy Gold
Rabbi Stephen Wise, Nahum Goldmann and the Jewish Establishment

Trudy Gold - Rabbi Stephen Wise, Nahum Goldmann and the Jewish Establishment

- It is time to start. And Rabbi Stephen Wise, Nahum Goldmann and the Jewish establishment. Now, this is quite a contentious subject because as you’ve already gathered, when we talked about Ben Hecht and the Irgun, the events in the ‘30s and '40s, those events have been '33 and '45, they were cataclysmic. They were almost unbelievable, because remember, nobody had television sets in their homes. Nobody. Today, we live in a world of instant media, and now we live in a world of untruth as well. But the point is we’ve got to be terribly careful to be diplomatic over the… I’m going to say, I personally believe that all the characters I deal with, some vain, some clever, some egotistical, some altruistic, nevertheless, I do believe that the majority of them were well-meaning. I also believe that the majority of them, whatever they thought, hey didn’t really have any power. One of the great tragedies of the Jewish experience from '33 to '45, and I always find this rather strange because if you think of the antisemitic tropes, what we are always accused of is power. I really believe that '33 to '45 showed for all time the powerlessness of the Jew. That however well we thought we’d networked, however well we thought we were in with American government, British government, whatsoever, in the end, a third of the Jews died. And it was different from any other kind of genocide. In fact, the word genocide was invented by a Polish Jew, Lemkin, who lost his whole family as he attempt to describe the indescribable. And I’m going to stick to that. There have been many, many catastrophes in world history that have been the most appalling behaviours by one group against another. But the point about the Shoah is, and it depends even how you periodize it. Some historians will go '33 to '45, others go '39 to '45, others go '41 to '45, which is, of course, the invasion of Russia and the actual beginning of the murders.

Of course, Jews had died beforehand of ill treatment of starvation in the Warsaw Ghetto. But when I say the murders, this is the deliberate attempt now to wipe them off the face of the world. Now, nobody could actually have imagined that, but why I think it’s made a unique event. It was Europe-wide, and hundreds of thousands of people knew it was happening. And the point was not just the perpetrators aided and abetted by people from so many other countries, it was how in the end, Jewish life became very cheap and very few people actually saved. And I think this has left an indent on the Jewish world that is with us to this day. In fact, I had to think very, very hard about this particular presentation because the issues raised are still with us. And what it’s about is when part of the Jewish world faces an existential threat, how do we all behave? The rifts that were caused in this period in America and in Britain, and also, of course, between the various sections of the Zionist movement have not yet fully been eradicated. And I’ll be coming back to this next week when I talk again, actually on Thursday, when I talk again about Ben Hecht and the Irgun And, of course, from '77 onwards, the leader of the Irgun, Begin, became Prime Minister of Israel. And we now have a government which sees itself within that track. Whereas up until 1977, you had a government which sought itself from Ben-Gurion onwards as the left. So all these events are still with us, and they’re going to stay with us. And that’s the point I want to make. And the characters I’m going to concentrate on are Stephen Wise, Nahum Goldmann, and Abba Hillel Silver. So can we look a little at their biographies?

And let’s start with Samuel Stephen Wise, they’re all interesting characters. Can we go on please? Let’s see the first slide. There, you see a picture of him. Now, let’s see the first slide after that. He was born in Budapest in 1874. He was the grandson of a rabbinic family. His grandfather, Joseph Hirsch Weiss, was the rabbi of Erlau. And he was actually the leader of the haredi party in Hungary and one of the chief opponents of Reform. His father, Aaron Wise, was went to a Talmudic. He went to Yeshiva in Eisenstadt, but then he did his doctorate at Halle University. And for a time, actually aligned himself with haredi party. And then he went to America in 1874, which was the year in which his son was born, and became the rabbi of Temple Rodeph Shalom in New York, which he served until his death. Now, his maternal grandfather was a porcelain manufacturer who became very, very famous. And his son was in noble by Franz Josef. So in New York, so the young Stephen Wise goes to the college of the city of New York, then to Columbia College. He achieves a BA and a PhD at Columbia University. He’s going to walk both worlds. Now, can we see the next slide, please? He is ordained rabbi by a fascinating Viennese rabbi, Adolf Jellinek in Vienna in 1893. Now, Jellinek, one of the most famous rabbis in the world, he was actually the preacher at the Leopoldstadter synagogue in Vienna, which was the shul that Theodor Herzl went in. He was very much associated with the Wissenschaft. He believed in walking both worlds, the world of the Jew and also the world, the modern world. He then transfers to the Seitenstettengasse synagogue, sorry, that was Herzl’s synagogue. He was known as one of the greatest orators of the 19th century. And he published over 200 sermons. Now, I’m just going to divert briefly into their family, because I sometimes want to give you a glimpse of the great families of Middle Europe. So many of them ended tragically. His eldest son, George, became a professor of international law at Heidelberg. Another son was the assistant professor of German philosophy.

He was a full paid member of the Russian, sorry, Austrian Academy of Sciences. Another son, Emil, was an automobile entrepreneur. And this should interest you. His daughter, Mercedes, inspired the name of Mercedes Benz. Okay. So these are some of the… So from total orthodoxy and then to modern orthodoxy with Adolf, and then the children going out and changing the world. So going back to Wise, in 1883, he’s called to the rabbinate. In 1906, he breaks with the established reform movement. And in 1907, he establishes his free synagogue in Manhattan. He hated the fact, he was a very strong individual-wise, and he hated the fact that his sermons would be reviewed in advance by the synagogue’s board of trustees, which included Henry Morgenthau Sr., who we have already mentioned. He was an early supporter of Zionism, which was very atypical of reform Judaism. The majority of reform in America and in England, their main emphasis was to be citizens of the countries of which they lived, of the Jewish religion. And would Zionism be a problem? Now, he was very different from that. He was founder of the New York Federation of Zionist Societies, which led to the foundation of the National Federation of American Zionism. He was incredibly pugnacious. He was a brilliant orator and he was a very strong character. And, of course, that was the forerunner of the Zionist Organisation of America. Can we see the next slide, please? There you see Henry Morgenthau, and I’m going to talk about him again. Onto the next one, please. This is the second Zionist Congress in Basel.

Wise was a delegate and he was the secretary for the translation of the English language. So he’s there in Basel and he meets all the greats. He, of course, meets Theodor Herzl, who doesn’t die till 1904 . And also, he worked very closely with Herzl and had a good relationship with him until Herzl’s untimely death in 1904. In 1950, he also had a big social conscience. And can we see the next slide, please? He was one of the founding members of the American Kid Committee on details of the Armenian genocide. And he did that, of course, with Morgenthau Sr. So he believed passionately in social right, in social justice. He screamed out against horror against any group. With Louis Brandeis and Felix Frankfurter, he laid the groundwork for a democratically elected organisation of Zionist Jews to represent Jews as a group and not individuals. And in 1917, Wise participates in an effort to convince President Wilson to support the Balfour Declaration. He was always controversial. On December the 25th, he makes a sermon about Jesus. And this is what he says. He was a great moral and ethical teacher, a Jew who we should be proud of because of his teaching that he was completely condemned by the Union of Orthodox rabbis. And Wise retaliated, he referred to it as unJewish. And he made a statement to the JTA, what a mournful commentary upon the infinite hurt. Now, I want you to listen to this very carefully because it’s important. What a meaningful… What a mournful commentary upon the infinite hurt, which the Jew has suffered at the hands of Christendom, that a Jewish teacher cannot even, at this time, speak of Jesus without being hailed as a convert to Christianity or misunderstood by some of his fellow Jews. He was very close to Albert Einstein. Let’s have a look at the next slide. Einstein, of course, had come to America in 1933.

He was very involved in works for human rights. And he and Wise were very much attracted to each other. And on Wise’s 60th birthday, this is what Einstein said of him, “Above all, what I admire, it is bold activity towards building the self-respecting of the Jewish people, combined with profound tolerance and a penetrating understanding of everything human. Now, shortly after Hitler came to power, he’s a very outspoken critic, and he is behind massive anti-Nazi rallies and movements to boycott Jewish goods. He’s also instrumental in creating the World Jewish Congress. Let’s see the… And I’m going to talk more about the World Jewish Congress be when I come onto Nahum Goldmann because the two of them created it together. Now, this very influential strong rabbi was a member of Roosevelt’s advisory committee on political refugees, which, of course, was chaired by someone we’ve met before, James McDonald. And I remember James McDonald was horrified by the fact, he was really behind Evian and he had a very strong stance on refugees. However, Wise believed in quiet diplomacy. As the events in Europe unfolded, he really, really put the pressure down rather than upping the pressure as Ben Hecht and the Irgun were doing. He went for quiet diplomacy. He was very, very proud of his relationship with Roosevelt. And he believed that he could better influence him. Now, the only comment I want to make on this is a quote of Nahum Goldmann’s. Nahum Goldmann, who he said in 1945, he said, you needed to have the soul of a poet to cope with… "You had to have the soul of a Dante to cope with the inferno.” Nobody could have foreseen.

Even though knowledge came through, could we really have ever believed it? But the point, and, of course, with FDR. FDR, a very controversial figure, to what extent could he ever have influenced him? He believed he could. However, he’s going to become more and more isolated and his leadership is going to be challenged by Abba Hillel Silver. Let’s see the next slide, please. Remember when we looked at Hecht, the Riegner telegram was sent by the World Jewish Congress, the office in Switzerland by Riegner to the state department and to the foreign office. The foreign office relayed it to Sydney Silverman, who sent it to Wise. Wise was not sent it immediately. And it wasn’t until November that Wise relayed the information to the Jewish community. And that’s when you begin to see it in newspapers. And people like Ben Hecht and the Irgun criticised him for not screaming. Ben Hecht said he should have declared a fast and he should have chained himself to the railway up to the railings at the White House and stayed there till he died, but maybe it would’ve needed the imagination of a Dante. So you have this telegram and more and more influence information is coming through. And finally, you do have the Declaration of December the 17th, 1942. Can we go on, please?

You see more and more information is coming through. This is the controversy that even after the Riegner telegram, his insistence on working closely with the government and protecting his relationship with Roosevelt led to the controversy that goes on to this day. This is David Kranzler in 2002. He’s a German born Jewish historian. He’s a professor at the Community College New York. Wise had a pension for protecting his close friends and confident FDR regardless of the cost to the Jews of Europe. Kranzler argues that he didn’t publicise the show after the Riegner telegram until pressurised by the American Orthodox community, who also confronted him with the Sternberg report of the 2nd of September, 1942. Now, Recha Sternbuch is one of those heroines who comes out from time to time. She was born into a Swiss Orthodox Jewish family, and she was involved. She was Polish born. She was involved in smuggling Jewish refugees over the Swiss orthodox. In 1938, alone, she was responsible for 800 refugees. She and her husband sent information through the Polish diplomatic past, remember she’s orthodox, also through the Vaad Hatzalah, which was the orthodox rescue committee. And she sent them through the American Council in Turkey. Her report reinforced Riegner’s telegram. And Kranzler argues that even after the state department confirmed its accuracy, Wise insisted that he alone knew how to address the crisis. He certainly alienated both the ultra-Orthodox and also Ben Hecht and the Irgun. This is Ben Hecht. You will remember that Ben Hecht, of course, put on the pageant. And he was contacted by Wise. I have read your pageant script, I disapprove of it. And I ask you to conceal, cancel, and discontinue all your future activities on behalf of the Jews. You’ll please consult me and let me advise you.

Now, of course, Hecht took no notice of it, but Wise did manage to stop. It was actually successful in preventing some performances but not the national broadcast. In December 1942, Wise actually met with Roosevelt and several other rabbis. And Roosevelt, they begged them that the Nazis would be held strictly accountable for their crimes. But by March 1943, Wise had come up with an 11 point programme with rescue proposals, and it was presented at the Stop Hitler Rally in New York. He sent letters to FDR and members of the Congress actually outlying suggestions. There was little support in the reply from FDR. This government has moved and continues to move as far as the burden of the war permits to help the victims of Nazi doctrines of racial, religious, and political oppression. That was the response he did get. Now, can we go on please? Saul Friedlander. There you see, Ben Hecht, we’ve talked about him and we’re going to talk about him again. Do you see it’s such a difficult thing to deal with now because evidence is coming through of the murders. Riegner’s telegram used the phrase, at one blow. Was it possible to actually take that on? We also had Jan Karski, remember? The Polish aristocrat who’d worked for the Polish government in exile? He’d smuggled himself into the Warsaw Ghetto. He brought proof. He actually got himself to a . He visited London, he visited the States. He said in his memoirs, he said, even the Jewish leadership didn’t believe him. Now, let’s have a look at the rally.

You see, this is the Stop Hitler Rally Now, which Wise did organise. But let’s have a look at another historian, Saul Friedlander. He was a Czech Jew. He was actually hidden in France during the occupation. He was hidden in a Catholic boarding school. Tragically, his parents died in Auschwitz. He’d converted to Roman Catholicism and actually began preparing for the priesthood. This quite often was the price for being saved by the Catholic church, because Catholicism still believed at this stage that even a foetus in the body of an unbaptized woman was damned, that in order to inherit salvation, you had to be baptised. And many children were baptised because the church believed it was doing the right thing. You know, even after the war, when relatives tried to get children back, the Catholic church made it very, very difficult. It’s a case, another case that, of course, has led to such horror in the Jewish world. After '46, he becomes more and more conscious of his Jewish identity. And in 1948, he actually was on the ship, the Altalena. And later on, on Thursday, I’m going to talk about the Altalena. Of course, that was an Irgun ship, and it led to huge controversy. Later, he became a secretary to Nahum Goldmann and an assistant to Shimon Peres. Now, Friedlander, remember, he lost his parents in the camp. So consequently, he’s going to be so angry. And so many of the people who pass judgments have obviously completely justifiable anger. And he maintained that Wise actually prevented the shipments of food parcels from America to German occupied Poland for fear that the allies would interpret aid as being sent to the enemy.

And this is what he wrote, “In the spring of 1941, rabbi Wise decided to impose a complete embargo of all aid centre Jews in occupied countries.” He never had the power to do that, by the way. In compliance with the American government, economic boycott of the Axis powers whereby every food package was seen as direct or indirect assistance to the enemy. Strict orders were given to World Jewish Congress reps in Europe to haw for with any shipment of packages to the ghettos. All these operations with and through Poland, at once. Wise cabled delegates in London and Geneva. And in England in English, it means at once, not in the future. And so how… I’m going to quote now from the Holocaust encyclopaedia, I’m trying to hold it down the middle. Wis, his role as the leading American Jewish leader during 1933 to '45 has made him a natural target for criticism. He was unable to change conventional opposition to 1924 Immigration Act. He could not change British policy in Palestine. Ultimately, he could not persuade the Roosevelt administration or Great Britain to build rescue missions to save Jews in their strategy to win the war. There is no doubt, however, that Stephen Wise was a pivotal religious Zionist, civic and civil rights figure, and one of the most important Jewish leaders of the 20th century. You know, Wise did write about in his autobiography about his encounter with Herzl in 1898 at the Second Zionist Congress.

I stood before a young bearded Jew of goodly stature, then somewhat under 40, who bore himself with the simplicity of a son of kings and prophets. I felt at once a bond with him apart from my unreserved acceptance of his leadership. And this is from his diary of February the 16th, 1943, which also gives you a notion of the man. Justine, that’s his daughter, just had dinner with the Roosevelts on Saturday, including the president. Justine said FDR sent his affectionate regards to me if only he would do something for my people. This is FDR’s biographer, Robert Dallek. FDR was fundamentally a political animal, self-centered and always alert to what might constitute a political advance. Another, Rafael Medoff, who was a professor of Jewish history and founding director of the David Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies. His book, “Jews Shall Keep Quiet: FDR, Wise, and the Holocaust.” This is what he said. “It would be applied to almost every American president, but he can contrast with the image FDR fought to project. Warm-hearted champion of the thought man yet those closest to him saw him differently.” So it will go on forever this controversy about FDR and about Wise, and in many ways is the dilemma of Jews living in the diaspora. I think since the establishment of Israel, it’s much more pointed. But having said that, in the end, when Gordon Meyer went on a fundraising tour of America and she raised more money than anyone had ever raised before, her message was quite simple. 6 million of us died and you stood by. There were 600,000 of us in Palestine, and we will die unless you help us. And they gave as no one’s ever given before. Now, let’s turn on to another character with a different sort of personality. This is Abba Hillel Silver. There you see him on the edge. He’s with another couple of characters and I’ll come onto them later. He was born in Lithuania. Again, descended from a line of orthodox rabbis. He came to America when he was young in 1902, so he was nine years old. He grew up on the Lower East Side. He was also one of these clever pugnacious characters.

He founded a Hebrew speaking Zionist organisation when he was only 11, the Herzl Club. He was the fifth generation rabbi in his family. He was deeply absorbed by both theology and history. He enrolled in the Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, graduated top of his class in 1915. And when he was only 24, he was the head of Cleveland’s congregation to Shearith Israel, I hope I pronounce that properly, where he remained until his death 46 years later. He was a brilliant community rabbi. Within 10 years of his appointment, it was the largest synagogue of congregation in America. He had huge charisma. He, of course, having come from this rabbinic tradition is now in the non-orthodox camp. He was the leading figure. In the first half of the 20th century, he flirts with cultural Zionism that included political sovereignty. But during World War II, he realised the critical importance of Jewish political independence. And as a brilliant orator, he rallies Jews to Zionism because he understood if there had been a Jewish state in 1939, as far as he saw it, the Jewish world could have been saved. This is an example of a speech he gave in August 1943 at a meeting at the Waldorf Astoria in New York. Are we forever to live as homeless people on the world’s crumbs of sympathy? Should this not be compensated finally and long last with the reestablishment of a free Jewish commonwealth?

And this is where you’re going to begin to see a shift, because in May 1942, he is at the Biltmore Hotel for the Biltmore Conference, which I’m going to talk about when I actually talk about Nahum Goldmann. He, as a Zionist, he helps build the movement into a strong political force. And in 1947, he was there at the UN Assembly arguing the case. And finally, for the establishment of Israel. I think of Roosevelt. And Wise, he began to… And this upset a lot of people, but he became more and more critical of Roosevelt and his failure as what he saw to save European Jewish society. Now, important to remember, the majority of Jews voted Democrat. He was a Republican and he diversified Jewish political allegiance. Later on, he’s going to be an important advisor to Eisenhower. Now, I’ve already mentioned his huge charisma. Although he worked with Goldmann, Goldmann said he had a foul personality and a nasty character, absolutely ruthless to his opponent. There was huge enmity, obviously, between him and Stephen Wise, particularly over Roosevelt. And he felt that Roosevelt was doing nothing to help the trapped Jews of Europe. Silver condemned Wise as a court Jew who was shielded, defended, and apologised for a democratic institution that has done next to nothing for the Jewish people. And he defeated Wise for the leadership of American Zionist Movement in 1946. And which reflected a wider disillusion for the Democrats, which he’d done much to foster. It has to be said. He had easy access to Dulles, and Eisenhower. And he certainly was helping Israel during its very early years.

Another important aspects of Silver’s role was within the central conference of reform rabbis whose presidency he took on in 1945. And he reorientate them towards Zionism. And he was very important in all that. So another important character. Now, let’s go on to Nahum Goldmann. Another fascinating character. Again, there are criticisms of Goldmann. Did Wise and Goldmann incorporate with the administration to restrain American Jews in public activity? Did they concentrate more on the latter than on the former? What does he mean by that? Did they go for quiet diplomacy rather than streaking, shouting their heads? For example, in 1945, both houses adopted a pro-Zionist revolution. US Jews were more willing to act for Jewish causes in the wake of allied victory. So this is when it gets different. And the point I’m making though is could anything really have been done to save the Jews of Europe? And that’s something that we will address. Again, everything I’m talking about today still is a gaping saw and it also manifests itself in the state of Israel. Now, let’s talk about Nahum Goldmann. He was born in Belarus in a town that is now called Vishnyeva. The town had been established back in the 1400s. In 1897, there was a population of 2,500, which included the rural area and of which 1,500 were Jews. Now, I’ve travelled in that area of the world. You have no idea how primitive is even today. Tragically, on the 22nd of September 1942, 1,100 Jews, men, women, children, and infants were burnt alive, not just by the Nazis but by the local collaborators. Amongst those killed on that day was the grandfather of Shimon Peres. He’d immigrated with his family to Palestine in '34. Also the birthplace of Yehoshua Rabinovitz, the finance minister of Israel and mayor of Tel Aviv. And was a leading neuroscientist. Why do I tell you this?

Because what the world lost in those terrible, terrible murders. Now, the Goldmann family, they were always ardent Zionists. Age six, the family moved to Frankfurt. And his home in Frankfurt became the sort of centre of Zionism and intellectuality in Frankfurt. And he and his father in 1911 attended the 10th Zionist Congress. Very, very clever. Like all of these characters, he went on to study law, history and philosophy at Marburg, Heidelberg and Berlin. He graduates in law and in philosophy. In 1913, he visited Palestine for four months, published his impressions. Between 1916 and 1918, he worked for German intelligence and propaganda. He was linked to the German foreign office. The head of his department was a man called Dr. Eugene Mittwoch. Can we see him? Now, you see, this is the guy who is working for the Germans in the First World War. He was a Jewish scholar. He was also the founder of modern Islamic studies in Germany. In the early '20s, he went to Palestine and was involved in planning the School of Oriental Studies at the Hebrew University. Goldmann also became a leading specialist. Sorry, Mittwoch also became a leading specialist in Ethiopian languages. And he in fact didn’t lose his academic position in 1933 because actually Mussolini actually needed him because of what’s going on with the Axis powers in Ethiopia. Now, let’s go on with Goldmann. Can we go on, please? That’s Jakob Klatzkin. So Goldmann is mixing with an incredibly interesting bunch of people. Goldmann founded an Eschkol publishing company in 1922. And in 1929, he and Jakob Klatzkin started the project of the “Encyclopaedia Judaica” reflecting the work of leading Jewish scholars of the day. Published 10 volumes in German and two in Hebrew. Incredibly important. Something every home should have. Goldmann, by the way, was falsely denied, denounced by the Nazis as a communist shortly after the Beer Hall Putsch.

Now, Jakob Klatzkin was himself fascinating. He was also born in Belarus, which, of course, was had been part of that area that had what would been annexed by Russia. He was the son of a rabbi. He studied with his father in a Lithuanian yeshiva. He later travelled to Germany to study with a brilliant philosopher, Herman Cohen. He did his PhD in Berne. And he helped, of course, with the creation of the encyclopaedia. He wrote on Baruch Spinoza. He translated his ethics into Hebrew. He was very close to Arnold Schoenberg. I just want to give you a smell of that incredible world of middle Europe. 1933, of course, the Nazis come to power. He fled to Switzerland. He tutored to earn money and he managed to get to America in '41. He taught in Chicago at the College of Jewish Studies. 1947, he returned to Switzerland where he died. So what happens to Nahum Goldmann? He manages to escape arrest by the Gestapo because he had gone to Palestine for his father’s funeral. Can we see the next slide, please? Here you see A. Einstein with Klatzkin and Abraham S. Yahuda in the states. I love these old pictures. Now, going back to Goldmann, he was stripped of his German citizenship, but because by this time he’s an important intellectual, he’s becoming more and more of a political figure. And he manages to get citizenship of Honduras through the intervention of a French minister. Later, he moves to New York where he represented the Jewish Agency, which had been established in 1929. So the Jewish Agency had been established as a branch of the World Jewish Congress. It was very big upon the World Zionist organisation, which had been founded in 1897 at the First Zionist Congress. And in 1936, he’s a very powerful figure.

And he and Stephen Wise established the World Jewish Conference as an international feder… Let’s have a look at the slide, please. Here it is again. The World Jewish Congress established as an international federation of Jewish communities, the diplomatic arm of the Jewish people with its headquarters in New York. He found the American Jewish leadership divided. This is what he said. “In all my years of Jewish politics, I have never felt so impotent, so grimly bitter. All of us who spoke for the Jewish people, I emphatically include myself in this, has a share of this guilt. Under the stress of wartime conditions,” I’m now quoting from his biographer. “Both Goldmann and Wise used quiet diplomacy to influence the US government. This led them both to oppose the Bergson Group and later to be accused of obstructing rescue efforts.” Goldmann, by the way, was at the Evian Conference as an observer for the World Jewish Congress. And, of course, it was at the Evian Conference of '38, where basically the world decided to do nothing to help European Jews. And that’s where Golda Meir made her fascinating comment, “The day will come when the world were no longer piteous.” So World Jewish Congress, which is very much established to counter Nazism. And this is the sort of preamble to mobilise the Jewish people and democratic forces against the Nazi onslaught and to fight for equal political rights everywhere, and particularly for Jewish minorities in central and eastern Europe, to support the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine, and to create a wide world Jewish representative body. Now, this is one of the criticisms.

You will remember that Bergson came to America to create an army to create funds for the army of stateless Palestinian Jews. But directly, news came of the horror of Europe. He turned his attention to alerting the world to what was going on. Nahum Goldmann, this is what he wrote in October '42. “Our generation is in the tragic position that one half of the generation is being slaughtered before our eyes and the other half has to sit down and cannot prevent this catastrophe.” As I said, he and Wise are still going for behind the scenes diplomacy. He said one must be always be cautious and tactful or risk incurring the hostility of influential public figures. So as a result, they made no real impact on the quota system. Now, in '45 though, the Jewish Agency and the joint with Goldmann were instrumental in creating a committee for the rescue and rehabilitation of the remaining Jews of Europe. And he worked very closely with Ben-Gurion and . He later on is going to try and delay the Declaration of Independence too, because he becomes chairman of the World Jewish Congress, he’s got huge influence. He wants to delay the the declaration because he thinks there still can be a deal with the Arabs. Now, before that, of course, he was one of the prime movers behind the Biltmore Programme in May 1942. Now this is important and we will come back to it. The Biltmore Programme, Weizmann was there, Ben-Gurion was there. The Biltmore Programme, what happens is you had Jews from… You had Jews from 18 countries managed to make it to America. Zionists made it to America. And what they asked for was the creation of a Jewish commonwealth now. Up until then, a lot of Zionists had talked, including Weizmann had talked about a Jewish homeland. They didn’t want to ruffle the British. It’s up built more that they demand a Jewish commonwealth now. And all the efforts are going to go into Zionism.

And later on… Sorry I shouldn’t have said all. Many of the efforts are now going to go on to creating a Jewish state, which later on many people said mainly the Irgun and their followers said that that actually hindered rescue efforts of the Jews because it put all its efforts into Zionism. Now, who is going to pass judgement ? We’re in hell here. And I want to make that statement very, very carefully. It’s important to remember that if at the Biltmore Hotel, it goes on for two days, May the 9th to the 11th. Sorry, there were 600 delegates. They came from 18 countries. And it’s terribly important because before that, they just talked about building up the Jewish national home. And now, it’s because of opposition to the British White Paper, remember in May 1939, just think about it. In May 1939, the British issue, the White Paper on Palestine, which cuts Jewish immigration to 15,000 a year for five years, whoever has the majority has the state, just as Europe is becoming the most appalling catastrophe for the Jews. Weizmann was furious at the anti-British stand. He still thought he could get help there. Henrietta Szold and Judah Magnes actually rejected the stand and they established their own party because they believed that one still went slowly and do we talk about the Jewish hope commonwealth. You know, if you think about those words, commonwealth, state, homeland, what do they all mean? So Ben-Gurion is chairman of the Jewish Agency. Nahum Goldmann is the head of the Executive Organisation of America. And one of the organisers was Abba Hillel Silver. So now, they’re going to go for the two states now.

Goldmann, by the way, he supported a two state solution in Palestine. Also, the other main, well, I want to bring to your attention that he was so involved in is reparations with Germany. And I’m going to finish on this, but we will go back to these subjects. Can we see the next slide, please? Now, this is also an unbelievably contentious point. He’s chairman of the exec committee of the Jewish Agency and at a meeting in New York of '23, major national international Jewish organisations, they meet to address a deal with West Germany for reparations to Jews of losses incurred in the Shoah. The claims conference had actually been established by Goldmann back in 1942. What happened was West Germany under Adenauer definitely needed a handshake. He needed rehabilitation. This is a speech he made in 1951 September in the German parliament. “Unspeakable crimes have been committed in the name of the German people, calling for moral and material indemnity. The federal government are prepared jointly with representatives of the state of Israel and jury to bring out about a solution of the material indemnity problem, thus easing the way to the spiritual settlement of infinite suffering.” Ben-Gurion in the Knesset argued that reparation demands were based upon recovering as much Jewish property as possible so that the murderers do not become the heirs as well. He also argued it would help with the absorption and rehabilitation of survivors to Israel. The problem was American… The Soviets are going to take a very strong view on this. And if you want to know where the beginnings are of this horrible thread in history of the Nazification of the Jewish state in total inverted commas, it comes from here. This is when you begin to see Soviet propaganda, because Soviets, of course, are totally East Germany, West Germany, they’re opposed to the West German government.

And it has to be said that the West German government had allowed low level Nazis to stay in positions of power in Germany, ironically, aided by the British and the Americans, because they needed to bolster up the Germans, West Germany against East Germany. So out of Russia, you get this terrible, terrible propaganda that is saying that the Jews in Israel are doing a deal with the Nazis. And that begins that terrible calumny of the Zionist equal Nazis, which as you see today is so much now part of Arab propaganda. Think NASA. Zionism with the Nazis. He accused the Zionists of actually colluding with the Nazis. I mean these are horrific calumnies, but going back to the reparations deal, which Goldmann is behind. This is Ben-Gurion to Goldmann. For the first time in the history of the Jewish people, oppressed and plundered for a hundred of years, the oppressor and the plunger has to pay back some of the spoils and play collective compensation for part of the material losses. And later on, there’s going to be a treaty with Austria. Now, not only is reparations paid to individual survivors, but it is also, of course, paid to Israel as the inheritor of the survivors, which in itself is quite contentious. Look, why did Ben-Gurion go for it? There was high unemployment in Israel. You had the Ma'abarot camps. There was a scarcity of foreign currency. Mapai believed they needed somehow to sustain the Israeli economy. Israel had already resettled 500,000 survivors at a cost to them Of about $3,000 per person.

The agreement was signed finally in the Luxembourg city hall. The German parliament passed the agreement in March 1953 by a large majority. The Arab League threatened to boycott on West Germany but didn’t in the end because it was not against their interests. There was a public debate in Israel, perhaps the fiercest in all its history right up until the current period. There was huge opposition from Herut under Begin and the extreme left who argued that it was tantamount to forgiving the Nazis. This is of Mapam. Nazis is rearing its ugly head again in Germany. And our so-called Western friends are nurturing the Nazis. Our army will be in the same camp as the Nazi army. And the Nazis will begin infiltrating here as our most terrible enemies but rather as our allies. They wanted nothing to do with Germany. And, of course, they are pointing to the fact that there are low level Nazis in the German government. This is again going to come up at the Kastner trial. It’s again going to come up at the trial. There are riots outside the Knesset. Begin refers to the Altalena Affair, which I’m going to talk about on Thursday, and he said, “When you fired at me with canon, I gave the order, don’t return the fire. Today, I give the order due.” There were riots, there were hundreds of arrests, there were even deaths. And the protestors injured, police injured. Parcel bombs were sent to Adenauer and other targets. One actually killed a German policeman. Nevertheless, it’s finally signed in September 1952, 3 billion marks, which is worth about $714 million at the time.

And it led to very important equipment reaching Israel, raw materials for factories, railways, fuel, shipping, development of Haifa, 15% of Israel’s GMP, and the creation of 45,000 jobs over the next 12 year period. So 15% of Israel’s GMP over the next 15 years. Now, what about Goldmann? There’s not time to talk about his other activities? We’ll be getting onto that later on. He becomes a very controversial figure. He wanted a deal with Arafat. He believed a deal could be done. He did believe in diplomacy. He was a very strong character. He was a tough man. He supported a two-state solution in Palestine and he was really behind the reparation agreement. He believed in both a strong diaspora and the strongest in Israel. He was very worried about assimilation. He wanted to strengthen Jewish education and culture and institutions outside of Israel. He was critical of Israel for what it saw as an over-reliance on military might and not for making enough concessions in 1967. He dreamt of peaceful coexistence. He said there can be no future for the Jewish state unless there is agreement with the Arabs. He actually met Tito in 1967 and asked him to inform the Arab and communist leaders to ask them if there could be a peaceful settlement. In 1970… Should we go on a bit? But let’s have a look at small pictures. There’s Ben-Gurion, of course, who he was quite close to at some stage. 1970 though, he was invited by NASA but he was stopped by the Israeli leadership. In 1974, he attempted to contact Arafat that was called treason.

And he said in 1977, in 30 years, Israel has never presented the Arabs with a single peace plan. She has rejected every settlement plan devised by her friends and enemies yet has seemingly no other project than to preserve the status quo whilst adding territory piece by piece. 1981, we will have to understand Jewish suffering during the Holocaust will no longer serve as a protection. And we certainly must refrain from using the argument of the Holocaust to justify what we may do. The use of the Holocaust as an excuse for the bombing of Lebanon. For instance, as Begin does, is a kind of , a banalization of the sacred tragedy of the Shoah, which we must not misuse for politically doubtful and morally and defenseful policies. An incredibly strong statement. I’m not saying that’s what I agree with, by the way. We’ve got to be careful here. We’re now getting to the core of a horror story that hasn’t yet gone away. So he becomes more and more controversial. And in fact and when he dies, he is buried on Mount Herzl with other members of the Jewish establishment. But Begin wouldn’t go to the funeral. And he’s still an incredibly controversial figure, particularly with that strain of Zionism. So in the end though, all I want to say before we get to questions, and I have a hunch it’s going to be controversial, what the show illustrated was the total powerlessness of the Jewish people. And that horror story has not yet left us. I do believe these characters all in their own way, some were arrogant, some were self-serving, but nevertheless, I think they did want to save the Jewish people. But in the end, apart from a few incredible heroines, like Recha Sternbuch, they were human. And who could have got it right? That’s what I’m going to throw at you. Let’s have a look at the questions.

Q&A and Comments:

Sarah Marin sending us love to all from Israel.

When would there be a discussion, asked Howard, about Thomas Watson IBM renting punch machines and selling punch cards to the Nazis?

This is from Selena. My great-grandfather, Reverend Ben Rodrigues Pereira, was born in Amsterdam and moved to Manchester to study in the Shiva during the early 20th century. During World War II from 1942 after the invasion of Holland, he went to the Port of Hall every time a boat was due from Rotterdam. He told how the British customs police would only let refugees disembark if they had family. Oh, the story is a horrible story, Selena. I mean, you know, what the British did is also absolutely reprehensible. We know that. What does one do with that knowledge? Or she goes on to say, they would not let the refugees make phone calls, they sent them back to Rotterdam. My grandfather found several members of his family who were on one of the last boats allowed to leave Rotterdam.

Q: Hermain is saying, so interesting giving our current as Jews. How to respond to evil?

A: It’s still the unanswerable question. And the other problem is we always seem to be at the edge of controversy, whatever. Is that the role of the Jew?

Selena says these family members were permitted to stay with him in the UK. My father was so moved by this account of his grandfather. He always used to say Israel is the only place for the Jewish people. He will always be considered Jewish by the world before any other nationality. Only Israel will protect Jews.

Stephen is saying the safest place for any Jewish, Israel. We’re only safe when were separated from the other nations. Ellie says, bravo. Selena said, she grew up in Manchester.

Ellie, glad you mentioned David Kranzler. I worked for him quite a while. Was supposed to translate Swiss reports for a book he was preparing. The Swiss didn’t want to be reminded of the war. He did research on a Christian minister who made a series of speeches that got the population of Zurich to demonstrate, to change the laws, keeping Jews out of Switzerland. Sadly, David died fairly young. It was very interesting, Ellie. Oh, Ellie’s also telling us, I knew Recha Sternbuch’s family, she was in Montreal, did enormous work. The Sternberg family had been amongst my closest friends. Ellie, she was such a phenomenal woman. I’ve actually talked about her when I talked about rescue events in France. I just had to bring her in here because her report had a huge impact on Silver.

Selena goes on to tell us family members from Shillingburg from Rotterdam committed to stay with my grandfather because they shared the same last name, Rodrigues Pereira, not a common name. Indelible proof, they were his family. And she also goes on to say Recha saved so many lives. Her son, rabbi Musy Sternbuch, is a very respected rabbi today living in Hano'ar, Jerusalem. Ah, interesting picture of Albert Einstein.

Where does he figure out? Well, I just put him in because he was very close to Stephen Wise. This is rabbi Aharon Kotler escaped Europe. He arrived in America and his first question in Yiddish to his host and dignitaries who met him, “There are Jews being murdered in Europe, what are you doing?” And, of course, during World War II, he and other prominent rabbis came to Washington and stood as the last group. Yes. Yes. And, of course, they were supported by the… It’s interesting, this group of orthodox rabbis were in fact supported by Peter Bergson and the Irgun.

Gertrude, my father died in Auschwitz and my mother died on a death march. Trudeau, what can we say? What can we say?

Eli says, I worked at the Claims Conference for almost five years. Many entitled people refuse to take even one penny from Germany. Oh, it’s so complicated, isn’t it? I really don’t know what to say. I was with my close friend Anita yesterday, and, of course, she was German and has a pension from Germany. But we often talk about these things. You know, she said blood money for my beautiful parents. I mean, how does one deal with this kind of thing? Israel was in desperate financial strain. You know, Ben-Gurion was a pragmatist. Was he wrong? It’s interesting that Nahum Goldmann wanted to delay the proclamation because he thought he could do a deal with the Arabs. Ugh, who knows?

And Selena, during '80s, I can remember all the aged buses were Mercedes, a well-known German brand. Also, during the '70s. Abba Hill Silver was my father-in-law and Nahum Goldmann’s description with him is totally unfamiliar and probably unfair.

Adele, I thought he was a bit of a hero, but I wanted to point out how much he rubbed Goldmann up the wrong way. They were all huge personalities. I think your father-in-law was a bit of a hero. Do you know there is nothing like knockdown, is there? I mean these stories, I’m telling you, what do I know? I read lots of history books. You bring it to life.

I’d like a talk comparing Church and FDR in saving Jews and on Zionism. Shelly, I have just had the grit thrown down to me by my son-in-law. He said, “Why are you avoiding the history of Israel? I just wonder if we can…” I’m going to talk to Wendy. Thank you.

Monty says the role of the Jew is to be otherwise. Or are we to be the constant? Somebody said we’re also the constant irritant. I mean sometimes the moral irritants.

Shelly, this is an interesting point. Quiet diplomacy versus public demonstration was also a point of debate for how to save Soviet jury. Yeah. The name was material claims on Germany should never be a hint of blood money. Yeah.

Ellie, I’ve heard that expression from people like Begin. You know, he was so against taking a penny. Who was right? Who was wrong? It’s only when… How do we know how we would act? I think we can condemn. Obviously, we condemn the perpetrators. We condemn the bystanders. And I, to an extent, do condemn the allies. But can we actually condemn Jews who were caught up in it? And remember what Goldmann said, you needed the soul of a Dante to imagine the inferno.

Trudy, I think Abba Hillel Silver was a hero. He certainly was to our family in Kong. Yes. Yes, I agree. Thank you.

Melvin saying, Ben-Gurion and Begin were both right. You see, that’s the problem. That’s being Jewish. You are right, you are right. Reparations. Anyway. Reparations, can there ever be reparations? I was at a meeting in the British Parliament actually about the proposed that there’s a controversy over whether there should be a memorial outside parliament and a learning centre, because many of the survivors and me as well, I feel that a learning centre is. You know, a tiny little learning centre is not going to make any difference. You actually have to teach Jewish history. And I pointed out there’s a statue of Richard I outside parliament. And the worst pogrom in English history was in his reign. I wonder how many MPs know that.

So let me leave you on that note. There’s a very interesting, completely different lecture at eight o'clock from seven o'clock from Irving Finkel. Really listen to it. We’ve got some very good new lecturers joining us at the seven o'clock slot. So I wish you all well and I’ll see you on Thursday. God bless.