Trudy Gold
Zionism and the Holocaust, Part 1

Trudy Gold - Zionism and The Holocaust, Part 1

- Okay, good evening, everyone. Today I’m working with Shawna in the New York office. Unfortunately, Judy’s mom had a fall. She’s going to be all right, and I know we all send her loads and loads and loads of good wishes, but please don’t email her. She’ll be back online tomorrow, and let’s say something to her then. But that’s why there’s a change of pace. And with the amazing efficiency of Wendy’s organisation, lovely Shawna has come in to work it. So can we have the first slide if you don’t mind, Shawna? Yes. There’s Neville Chamberlain with his piece of paper, because tonight I’m looking, of course, the subject Zionism and the War, Zionism and the Shoah, and I’ll be continuing with this theme on Monday. Now this is a great quote of Neville Chamberlain’s. Can you go back? Go back to Neville first, if you don’t mind. Let’s stick with him for a little while. In 1939, in May 1939, the British issued a white paper on Palestine. In it, they said they were going to restrict Jewish immigration to 15,000 a year for five years, and then whoever had the majority would have a state.

Visuals are displayed throughout the presentation.

What that meant in effect was that Zionist’s dreams were now over. Going back to the Balfour Declaration of 1917. It is now 1939, it is 22 years later. And basically in the white paper, the British said, “Well, what did we mean anyway?” And if you think of the wording of the Balfour Declaration, “His Majesty’s government views with favour "the establishment in Palestine of a national home "for the Jewish people, a national home, "care to be taken that the rights and privileges "of the existing non-Jewish minorities, "the rights and privileges of the non-Jewish "in Palestine not be upset, "and also Jews who choose to live out of the homeland.” Now what had that meant? But certainly in, and of course Zionists themselves have disagreed as to what it meant. What I’m going to be looking at today is the various factions within the Zionist movement and how they coped with this. Chamberlain, and let me repeat that again. If we must offend one side, let us offend the Jews. What had happened in the ensuing years, very much motivated by their own self-interests, the British were in Palestine, why?

Well, if you take the cynical view of geopolitics, I would suggest to you that the main reason for being in Palestine was to dream of an empire that stretched from Suez to India. Plus of course, oil. It’s important to remember the British Empire was geographically actually at its height in 1926. But in the first World War, the British had made promises to the Jews. They’d made promises to the Arabs. They’d made promises to the French. If ever the phrase Perfidious Albion fitted, it fitted over this. As the Arab tensions increased in Palestine, mainly motivated by a man called Haj Amin al-Husseini, who I’ll be talking about later, it became obvious that the British had to do something to protect their own interests. In 1937, as a way of trying to calm the situation, they had in fact set up something called the Peel Commission. The Peel Commission had looked at the whole situation, and they decided that what would be equitable would be the partition of Palestine into a Jewish homeland and an Arab homeland.

Let me say already that the British, when the British actually were granted the mandate on Palestine, geographically it is much larger than it is today. Palestine as granted to the British, gave them control over what is today Jordan, the Golden Heights, the West Bank, Gaza and what is now Israel. When the Peel Commission talked about partition, they talked about that part which is Israel, just about, and they offered the Jews a homeland about the size of Wales. Desperate at this time, it’s 1937, and I don’t, you don’t have to use much imagination, and of course you will have a huge background to know what the Jewish world was like in 1937. It’s not just Hitler. It’s also Mussolini In Italy. It is Poland, where you have a crypto fascist government, which is already working with Zionist organisations to get as many Jews out of Poland as possible. Even in Britain, think of that headline in the Daily Mail, “Hooray For the Black Shirts.” Think about America, think about the German burden. Think about Ford, think about Father Coughlin. Think about Lindbergh. France couldn’t make up its mind whether it was going to be left wing or right wing, polarisation of politics, economic chaos.

And tragically the Jew is the, if you like, the easiest scapegoat. Not only have you got the stereotype of the Jew and money, you have the stereotype of the Jew and communism, and underlying it all, something I’ve talked about a lot with you is the notion of the Deicide. So in a time of huge crisis, and this is something that we’ve been teasing out, and I’d like to thank those of you that have been in touch with me, giving ideas for future debates, the ideas that we’ve been teasing out, really when we are in crisis, it does seem to be the nature of people that we do look for a scapegoat. In 1937, as I said before, the Zionists were prepared to actually accept that little piece of land. However, Haj Amin al-Husseini, the leader of the Arabs in Palestine, who was a fanatic, who wanted no Jewish immigration into Palestine at all, and he was a brilliant astute politician. He actually said, in any future war, if you don’t stop Jewish immigration now, I’m going to act in a way that’s contrary to your interests. He had already created the Higher Arab Committee. He had made the issue of the Muslims of Palestine the issue of the Arab world, and gradually it was going to become the issue of the whole of the Muslim world.

And as far as the allies were concerned, as far as the British were concerned, in 1937 you had a real problem. What was that problem? Back in the first World War, one of the ways the British had destroyed the Ottoman Empire was to incite the Arabs to revolt. What if the Arab, if there is a war, and in 1937 the foreign office had to play that game that a war was possible. Even though you see that ghastly picture of Chamberlain, that’s him returning from Munich with that little piece of paper where he says, I bring you back peace, but peace with honour. Not only does that really make all of us feel disgusted, but it defames the memory of a man who in 1878 did bring back that piece of paper, Benjamin Disraeli. And he did say that, and he had achieved peace with honour. And it’s Chamberlain who now is trying to appease Hitler, but the foreign office have to balance the fact that there might in fact be a war. So can they offend the Arabs? And that’s why you have that terrible statement from Chamberlain. “If we must offend one side or the other, "let us offend the Jews.” So basically the Peel Commission, nothing is taken, nothing is taken away from it. And they have one more go at a conference, but in the end, in May 1939, they issue the infamous white paper, which virtually closes the door to Jews at a time when the situation is absolutely hopeless.

Let me give you one or two other quotes. This is from a man called H.F. Downey. He was head of the Middle East Department at the colonial office. He actually wrote, because one of the things that you are going to find that the Zionists in Palestine are going to do is to try and break the British blockade with illegal immigration. And he wrote in his diary, “He regretted that the Jews were not on the other side "in this war. "Illegal immigration is a conspiracy "facilitated by the Gestapo and the Jewish Agency.” The Foreign Secretary Antony Eden, in a private note, “If we must have preferences, "let me murmur in your ear, that I prefer Arabs to Jews.” This is from Charles Bateman, the British minister in Egypt. “Please don’t think I am pro Arab or anti Jew. "I think each are as loathsome as the other.” And this is from the great historian Walter Laqueur. “The Balfour Declaration and Yishuv were to be sacrificed "on the altar of appeasement.” And this is from Archibald Sinclair, who of course is a British politician and became Secretary of State for War, one of the great heroes of Britain.

And he said this, “What a moment to choose to inflict fresh wrongs "on the tortured, humiliated suffering Jewish people "who are exerting themselves to help us in this war.” Eleanor Rathbone in Parliament, “Neither we nor the United States "have shown any shining example to the world "in this matter.” You will remember that in August, 1939 on the eve of war, there was a ship called the St. Louis. I’ve mentioned this to you already. It set sail from Hamburg with a non-Nazi captain on board. They had visas for Cuba. There were over 900 passengers. On the high seas, the visas were rescinded, and this captain went from place to place. The Americans sent out the Coast Guards to stop people landing. It was a tragic situation, world attention. In the end, there was so much of an outcry from good people because in every horrific situation, and it’s something that we are talking about, what makes people behave properly. And in fact, the captain behaved extraordinarily. He was actually going to beach the ship off the Cornish coast to let at least some of them make it. But in the end, what happened was the ship, the upswing of support was such that the passengers on the ship were taken by the French, the Dutch, the Belgians, and the British.

Tragically it was only those in the main who made it to Britain who survived. And there was a terrible article in the Express saying, yes, we have to do this, but there is no room in Britain for any more refugees. Now, Sydney Silverman, of course, who was a very important Jewish member of parliament, very vocal in Jewish affairs. He wrote, “Many of us are afraid "that by the time the Allied nations "have come up with plans, "there will be nobody left to save.” And also you have Josiah Wedgewood, an extraordinary member of the House of Commons saying that this is a total betrayal of the Balfour Declaration. Now Churchill. Churchill in parliament, remember this is May 1939. Churchill is not yet in power. I find this a melancholy occasion. Can we see his picture please, Shawna? Yes, that’s better. “I find this a melancholy occasion. "Others may feel that the burden of faith "weighs upon them heavily. "Some may be pro Arab and some may be anti-Semite.

"None of these motives offers me any means of escape "because I was from the beginning "a sincere advocate of the Balfour Declaration. "As a person intimately and responsibly concerned "in the earlier stages of Britain’s Palestine policy, "I could not stand by and see solemn engagements "into which Britain had entered before the world "set aside for reasons of administrative convenience "or it be a vain hope for the sake of a quiet life. "I would feel personally embarrassed "in the most acute manner if I lent myself by silence "to what I regard as an act of repudiation. "Now, there is a breach. "There is a violation of the pledge. "There is an abandonment of the Balfour Declaration. "There is an end to the vision, the hope, the dream. "What will our friends say? "What will be the opinion of the United States? "May we not lose more? "And this a question to be considered more naturally "in the growing sympathy and support of the US, "what will our potential enemies think? "What will those who have been stirring up the Arabs think? "Would not the Arab agitators themselves not be encouraged? "This is another Munich. "We are asked to submit to agitation, "which is ceaselessly inflamed "by Nazi and fascist propaganda.”

The vote, though, in favour of the white paper was 268 in favour, 179 against. And of course what it meant was the end of the white paper, and the British officials in Palestine very strongly stopping the, doing everything they can to stop illegal immigration into Palestine. In 19th of September ‘39, not long after war broke out, Weizmann dined with Churchill. They were very close. They’d known each other for years because in Manchester where Weizmann had been lecturing chemistry, one of Churchill’s first appointments in parliament was MP for North Manchester. And they actually first met at a Jewish charity function, and they liked each other. Churchill actually suggested to Weizmann, this is from Weizmann’s diary, a list of requirements with regard to the participation of Palestinian Jews in the war effort because Weizmann told him that 75,000 Jews had actually registered for national service in Palestine. And that’s going to be a very, very important, a very, very important story.

Can we come onto the next picture please? Here you have of course the infamous Mufti of Jerusalem. Now the Mufti of Jerusalem, as I said from the beginning, he was opposed to any Jewish immigration, and he had from 1933 onwards been making overtures to, he’d been making overtures to the Nazis. He spent much of, he wasn’t allowed back into Palestine after the Arab riots. I’ll be devoting a whole session to him. And what he did was not only did he spend the war with Hitler, he was incredibly useful to Hitler in relaying to him, in really helping him with Muslim regiments. Of course, there were Muslims, particularly in the old Hapsburg Empire. If you think about areas like Croatia, there were Muslim regiments, and they were responsible for murders of Jews. And he was really the Lord Haw-Haw of the Arab world, and some of his pronouncements about the murder of the Jews is absolutely extraordinary. He knew all about the final solution. He believed it was a very, very important thing. And he wanted the Middle East cleansed of Jews, whatever the way. He way crossed the line from anti-Zionism to anti-Semitism. Ironically, after the war, he survived the war.

He was put under house arrest in France. But the British allowed, the British realised that he was still a very good potential ally insofar as that he could quote unquote keep the Jews quiet. After Israel was created, he quarrelled with all the Arab leadership. He finished up really making the most extraordinary amount of trouble. And when Nasser came to power in Egypt, it was he who recruited Nazis to go and work for Nasser in the Ministry of Propaganda, including a man called Leers who was one of the greatest propagandists of Joseph Goebbels, and he went to work for Nasser. So you have a lot of extraordinary information around this character, and I think the time will come when we have to do a, we probably have to do a whole session on him. Can we have a look at the next slide please? Right.

How did the Zionists themselves deal with the situation? Back in 1937 at the Peel Commission, both Chaim Weizmann and Vladimir Jabotinsky had given evidence. Chaim Weizmann’s evidence is absolutely heartbreaking. He says, “There are 6 million Jews at risk. "At least let us save 2 million. "Let’s save the young.” When Jabotinsky gave his evidence, they were both polar opposites in terms of their tactics, but they were both passionate Zionists. Jabotinsky said, “There are 4 million Jews at risk.” Jabotinsky in 1938 had been in Poland where he gave the most heartbreaking speech on Tisha B'Av to a group in Warsaw where he said, “You’ve got to get out.” What this showed, I think, it didn’t really matter whether you were a Weizmann who had really once believed that the British would be honourable, who still had a close friendship with Churchill, who lived in England much of the time, who believed the English would come through. It must have broken his heart.

And Jabotinsky who had once fought for the British in the first World War had been disillusioned by them after the Arab riots of 1920 where he’d been imprisoned. And it had been Jabotinsky who said, we need land both sides of the Jordan because in the end, we’re going to have to in gather all our people. And now I’m going to divert a little to ask you the question, what on earth is Zionism? You know, it’s fascinating, isn’t it? I’ve had a few interesting comments from people online saying, well, what is Zionism. Say if you live in northwest London, and you believe in Israel, are you still a Zionist? Now I think it’s important to divert into this now because if ever there was a time of total Jewish powerlessness, it’s now. 1939, and it didn’t matter whether you were a Jabotinsky, tragically he’s going to die in August 1940 or a Weizmann or a Ben-Gurion who very much takes over the movement. It didn’t really matter because the one thing you never had was power to influence Jewish destiny. This is where the Jewish world is completely, is completely trapped. Once the Nazis invade Poland in September 1939, it’s what is called the frozen stampede. One of the issues, one of the tragedies is that Jews of Germany from 33 to 41, they could actually get out.

After the Anschluss, and you remember, I’ve explained how, and I’m sure many of you have read about this, how Eichmann set up an immigration bureau in Vienna at the end of 1938 and in Berlin at the beginning of 1939. They wanted to steal all the Jews’ property, but they wanted them out. The tragedy was that because of the immigration quotas from country to country, all based on the notion that we can’t take in excess population when we’ve got problems of our own, plus good old-fashioned anti-Semitism meant that the Jews were trapped, and all they could do in their different ways was to beg. Now, what is Zionism? I’m going to go back just for a short diversion. I’m going to go back to the French Revolution. When the French Revolution proclaimed the rights of man, liberty, equality fraternity, it was actually all 25 year old men, but never mind. It’s a forward declaration. Just as when Adam Mendelsohn looked with you at the American Declaration of Independence. It’s a forward declaration: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. There were 40,000 Jews living in France, and if it was going to mean anything, Jews had to be emancipated. What does emancipation mean?

It comes from the Latin, the laying of the hands. It’s freedom. What it meant was that the 40,000 Jews of France, and it took the assembly a year and a half to quarrel over it, as far as the Jews were concerned. Can Jews be loyal to France? Are they not a nation within a nation? But in the end, the 40,000 Jews of France were emancipated, but what it meant was they could live in France wherever they chose, enter the professions, et cetera. And this really, this patent is going to be followed from country to country. By 1878, the Jews throughout Europe, not Eastern Europe, the Jews throughout Europe are emancipated. Now, I don’t have to tell you, we’ve spent a lot of time studying it. You have this most incredible success story. When Napoleon Bonaparte took over the French Revolution, he was returning from the Battle of Austerlitz, when some French deputies from Alsace, that was the area of France where the largest number of Jews, 30,000, he said, we’re still in debt to the Jews.

The Jews are money lenders. You have to do something about it. So Napoleon, because he believed in the power of the French state, the centralised power, because he was completely, he was incredible in terms of the kind of France he wanted to create. He decided he would find out about the Jews. So he proposed an assembly of notables, and his people called together Jews from all over, not just France, but the countries he had occupied, and they posed them the famous 12 questions, but for our purposes, it’s the words of his envoy. To the Jews as individuals, everything. To corporeal Israel, nothing. Basically for the Jews of Europe, and as I said, it begins in France, but it’s going to spread throughout Europe all the way through the Hapsburg Empire, but not Russia, what it means is you can be citizens of the countries in which you live of the Jewish religion. You are not a nation, you are a religious grouping. Just as we can be Catholic in France or Protestant in France, you can be a Jew in France. What Napoleon really wanted was assimilation. But nevertheless, what happens is this becomes the mantra of the Jews of Europe. They fall in love with European culture.

They push it forward, as we’ve discussed in many lectures. However, the 19th century was a century of huge change. The old empires begin to crumble, the birth of nationalists. Are the Jews really German or French or Italian or British or Spanish? This is where you have the rise of nationalism and also that terrible word antisemitism. Antisemitism is different from the old theological hatred. It’s based on it. But antisemitism says the Jews are a race, not only a separate nation, but a separate race. And it led to a few outsiders from country to country to actually rethink Jewish destiny. The word Zionism was not coined until 1891 by Nathan Birnbaum. But the ideas actually really come before. They come through people like Moses Hess, who starts out as a socialist but realises this double outsider, he never actually desserts socialism. He was a colleague of Marx for awhile. But this double outsider looks at the Jewish issue, and he says one of his most famous phrases in his book “Roman Jerusalem,” “The Germans hate the Jews "not because of their peculiar religion, "but because of their peculiar noses. "You will not comb out your crinkly hair. "You are different.”

After the pogroms of 1881, you have certain individuals in Russia as well saying it’s never going to get any better. The extraordinary words of characters like Leon Pinsker, the western world suffers from judophobia. It’s a psychic aberration. It’s a 2000 year old disease, and gradually you have enough people from country to country that you begin to see settlement, Zionist settlements in Palestine beginning in 1881. Now, I would suggest to you that Zionism is made up of three very different components. Look, it wasn’t long ago that we commemorated Passover. We sat around that table, and we said next year in Jerusalem. It is at the centre of our belief system. Even though we live in Canada, South Africa, America, if you think about all of us on Zoom, we have a connection. Plus of course the notion that perhaps the Jews are a nation after all. Not only modern antisemitism, which says you can’t be part of us anyway, but aren’t we a nation? We have a common history. Do we have a common culture? Do we have a common belief system? Do we have the requisites of a nation?

The great Isaiah Berlin, what was it he said? “The tragedy of the Jews, too much history, "not enough geography.” The point is Zionism, as it coalesced, came through these various strands. Important to remember that certainly up until 1933, I’m going to go as far as to say the majority of Jews of the world were actually non-Zionists. Some of them were actively anti-Zionist. If you think of when the Balfour Declaration was finally granted by the British, Edwin Montague, who was in the British government about to go to India as Secretary of State, he sent a note saying, “How can you send me to India "to represent the British government "when you’re telling me my home "is at the end of the Eastern Mediterranean?” Also the conjoint letter of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Board of Deputies, where basically they said, look, we are quite content to be citizens of Britain. Many Zionists, many Jews, be they in France or in Germany or in the Habsburg Empire or in Britain, they were terrified of dual loyalty. So I would suggest up until 1933, the bulk of Jews were either anti-Zionist or non-Zionist. You did have religious groups, of course, like Mizrachi, but if you look at the bulk of the religious Jews of Eastern Europe, to them Zionism was a problem because only the Messiah could lead the Jews back.

So in 1933, when Hitler comes to power in Germany and Jews begin, and of course you have the extraordinary Haavara Agreement where Jews can leave Germany with their possessions, some of their possessions in tact. Jews who went to Germany were not necessarily Zionists, but they were fulfilling Zionism. But what I want to say to you now is this, surely the events in Europe and the fact that very few people in the world were actually prepared to do anything, made the Zionists even more strong in their notion that there had to be a Jewish state. Both Weizmann and Jabotinsky had actually, can I use the word prophesied? But nobody could have prophesied the Shoah. To quote Malcolm Goldman, “You needed the soul of a Dante to imagine the inferno,” but they knew enough to know that the Jewish situation was very, very precarious at a time, of course, when the British had decided for their own reasons to actually close the doors, not close, but to if as it were to really make it very, very difficult for Jews to get in. And I’m going to give you some of the boats that were run to Palestine. There were many different organisations that are going to be running illegals into Palestine. Remember, Europe is porous. Once Hitler moves west, having moved east, he moves west. Then later on, of course, the invasion of Russia. Yes, you could get out. You could bribe your way out.

The venality of many of the Nazis goes without saying. But the British had their boats trying to stop immigration. And I’m just going to give you some of the boats that made it. And also what I want to do then is to talk about the different views of Zionism. Now, for example, on the 29th of July, this is 1939, the ship the Colorado with 378 refugees was intercepted and arrested. The 19th of August, the Agios Nikolaos, 840 immigrants, they actually made it to the shore of Palestine. The running of the boats had begun in 1934, and it’s going to continue to ‘48, and I’m going to talk more about it when we come to that period. On the 23rd of August, the Parita, 700 refugees beached at Tel Aviv. The 2nd of September, the Tiger Hill. This is the 2nd of September. This is the day after the Nazi invasion of Poland was fired on by the Royal Navy. Two were killed. There were 1,205 on board. And then after the war begins, 19th of November, the Naomi Julia, 1,130 on board, intercepted by a warship, passive resistance. They were sentenced to a detention centre, but at least it saved their lives.

And so I can go on and on and on. Ships coming along the Danube, being fed by various Jewish communities on way. Quite often if the boats were, the British Navy was having to spend a lot of time and effort blocking this at a time when the Jews were so vulnerable. And this is Lord Moyne. Lord Moyne is going to come into the story more and more. This is on the 24th of December, 1941. “The landing of 700 more immigrants "will be a formidable addition "to the difficulties of the high commissioner. "It will have a deplorable effect throughout the Balkans "in encouraging further Jews to embark.” This is February the second, 1942. “Any relaxation of our deterrent measures "is likely to encourage further shipments.” The 5th of March, 1942 from the war cabinet. “All practical steps should be taken "to discourage illegal immigration.” Now, just think where that fits in with what you already know about the war.

The Wannsee Conference was January the 20th, 1942. The Russians had already released as we discussed, a lot of information about the actual killings. So there’s an incredible amount of information out there, and it’s at this stage that the British are still stopping Jews making it into Palestine. Now in this terrible story of powerlessness, and can we just come onto the next picture, if you don’t mind, Shawna? There you have Vladimir Jabotinsky. Once Weizmann and Jabotinsky had been very close, but their attitude to the British had completely changed. And as I said before, Jabotinsky had been completely disillusioned. Now the majority of Jews who came to Palestine from 1903 onwards were left wing Zionists. Jabotinsky breaks away from the Zionist Executive, and he founds the Union of Revisionist Zionists, and he creates his own group, Betar. So you already in Palestine have two separate groups of people with a different attitude to how are we going to achieve our ends.

Remember that Weizmann, who was quite close to the British, believed that in the end the British would come through. And I must emphasise that we have the hindsight of history. And it’s important to remember that there were many Brits who were encouraging of Weizmann, and Weizmann soft pedalled it all. He talked about homeland. He didn’t talk about state. Jabotinsky who’d been imprisoned by the British, who took a much stronger line, who wanted land both sides of the Jordan because he believed eventually the diaspora would have to empty, he said, we’re going to have to fight for it. And it was Jabotinsky who said in 1929, in a very passionate speech, “Statehood is the normal condition of a people. "The Italians have a state, the Albanians have a state. "What is wrong with the Jews having a state?” You see, when I asked you what Zionism was, to Jabotinsky Zionism was quite simple. It’s Jewish nationhood. It’s simple for Chaim Weizmann as well. All the characters I’m talking about believed that the Jews were a nation. They had different ways of trying to achieve that nation, but they didn’t take the view of the majority from the diaspora. My question is going to be for you all, when does Zionism become a majority movement in the Jewish world? Okay, when does Zionism become a majority movement? I think it’s very important. And do we have to rethink Zionism? Zionism remember was a movement to create a Jewish state. Is it also to create and maintain a Jewish state? Are Jews who live outside Israel Zionist sympathisers?

Some of them remember are actually, have problems with the Jewish state. And back to the whole issue of what it means to be a Jew. To the characters I’m talking about, it’s quite simple for them. You’re part of a nation. We speak the language that we once spoke when we were free men in our own land. That’s why Hebrew had to be reconstituted. They believe that Yiddish was the language of the diaspora. There’s something inglorious about Yiddish. We will be a strong nation. We are the people of Bar Kokhba. We are not just the people of ben Zakkai. And you’ve still got this incredible clash. What does it mean to be a Jew? And I think it’s an issue that hasn’t been sorted. You know, it’s fascinating. There’s that wonderful line by the Holocaust survivor, Elias Canetti. “There are no people more difficult to understand "than the Jews.” I mean, let’s face it, there’s only 14 million Jews worldwide, but we get an awful lot of coverage for a people of our size. And we’re still, there’s still many, many different answers. I was thinking about America. I was thinking about hyphenated identity.

An African American, an Italian American, an Irish American, a Jewish American or an American Jew, what on earth does it mean? And one of the problems that I think Jews face now in the diaspora, and I would suggest have faced it post 1967, if they have any kind of sympathy and express sympathy for Israel, there is this whole notion in certain sections of society, can you really be a loyal patriot to the country in which you live? So it hasn’t solved it, but for the man I’m looking at fair and square, Jabotinsky, it’s a nation. And those two individuals, Weizmann and of course Ben-Gurion, who takes over the Jewish agency, creates it in 1920. And by 1939 is really the leader of the Geshan. They did have their own defence organisations, the Haganah, which means defence. After 1920 and the Arab riots, the Jewish leadership realised that they did need an organisation to defend Jews. Up until 19, in fact, Jabotinsky created the Haganah in Jerusalem. He had been the military Zionist who had created the Jewish Legion and the 38th and 39th Royal Fusiliers who had fought with the British. Up until 29, they were very localised groups. The first leader was a man called Joseph Hecht, who was a veteran of the Jewish Legion. Following the 1929 riots, it was realised that they needed a much larger organisation, encompassing nearly all the youth and adults in the Jewish settlements.

They also needed arms, and they had, and they developed workshops mainly on the kibbutzim and the Moshavim. They created hand grenades, simple equipment. And between 30, and particularly after 1936, when an extraordinary British soldier called Old Wingate, a very religious Christian who knew the Bible off by heart, he also knew the Hebrew Bible off by heart. He knew all the sites of the battles. He trains the Haganah into the, he trained a unit called The Palmach, the strike force. And basically he trained them in the art of night fighting. Within Palestine though, there was this notion of how are we going to fight the British? Now I really think that I want to leave that to the next section because there’s something I want to read to you. In the end, in May, 1942, when you have incontrovertible evidence of what’s happening in Europe, the American Zionists very much under David Ben-Gurion come together in the Biltmore Hotel in New York, and they all demand statehood now.

So what I propose to do, I’m going to read you the Biltmore programme, and then on Monday, because this week Jeremy Rosen is going to be talking about theological responses to the show on Thursday, and actually tomorrow, wonderful William Tyler is going to be looking at the personalities of Stalin, Hitler, and Roosevelt. So when I come back on Monday, I’m going to talk about the various splinter groups that are going to emerge trying to deal with the situation with the British. But underlying it all is, I believe, Jewish powerlessness. In the end, none of them could alter Jewish destiny, but boy did they try. And of course now, be they to the right or be they to the left, they are the heroes of Israel. And the tragedy as I see it, is that they all had the same dream and yet the division with them, within them still goes on to this day. Because don’t forget though Jabotinsky died in 1914, his followers later on, one of his main followers of course was Begin. If you think of, if you think about David Ben-Gurion, his followers are in power until '78. But in the end it was all about Jewish powerlessness and saving the Jew.

So let’s have a look at the Biltmore programme. Important to remember, and please take on. One of the reasons I talked about Yankosky yesterday. There was evidence coming through from Europe. There was evidence in Palestine. You will remember I mentioned that there was a period of mourning in Palestine, and there was some fascinating research done in 2007. If Rommel had won at El Alamein, there was Einstein’s group, and all ready, all ready to be put in place to march in and do to the Jews of Palestine what was happening to the Jews of Russia. So, “This conference offers a message "of hope and encouragement to fellow Jews in the ghettos "and concentration camps of Hitler dominated Europe "and praise for the hour of liberation. "The conference sends its warmest greetings "to the Jewish agency in Jerusalem "and to the whole of the Yishuv "and expresses profound admiration for their steadfastness. "The Jewish men and women in field and factory "and the thousands of Jewish soldiers of Palestine "in the near east who have acquitted themselves "with honour and distinction in Greece, Ethiopia, and Syria.” I’m going to be talking about that on Monday because at first the British wouldn’t allow the Jews into the army, but later on they’re going to allow them. “In our generation, and in particular in the course "of the past 20 years, the Jewish people have awakened "and transformed their ancient home land. "From 50,000 at the end of the war, "their numbers have increased to more than 500,000. "They have made the waste places to bear fruit "and desert to blossom.”

"Their pioneering achievement in agriculture and industry "embodying new patterns of cooperative endeavour "have written a notable place "in the history of colonisation. "In the new values thus created, "their neighbours in Palestine have shared, "the Jewish people in its own work of national redemption "welcomes the economic, agricultural "and national development of the Arab peoples and states. "The conference reaffirms the stand previously adopted "at the Congress of World Zionist organisations "expressing the readiness and the desire "of the Jewish people for full cooperation "with their Arab neighbours. "The conference calls for the fulfilment "of the original purpose of the Balfour Declaration "and the mandate which recognises the historic connection "of the Jewish people with Palestine "was to afford them the opportunity "as stated by President Wilson "to found there a Jewish commonwealth. "The conference affirms its unalterable rejection "of the White Paper of May '39 "and denies its moral or legal validity. "The White Paper seeks to limit and in fact nullify "Jewish rights to immigration and settlement in Palestine. "And as stated by Mr. Winston Churchill "in the House of Commons constitutes a breach "and repudiation of the Balfour Declaration. "The policy of the white paper is cruel and indefensible "in its denial of sanctuary to Jews, "fleeing from Nazi persecution "at a time when Palestine has become a focal point "in the war front of the United Nations.

"And Palestinian Jewry must provide all available manpower "for farm and factoring camp. "It is in direct conflict with the interests "of the Allied War effort. "In the struggle against the force of aggression and tyranny "of which Jews were the earliest victims, "and which now menace the Jewish national home, "Recognition must be given to the rights "of the Jews of Palestine to play their full part "in the war effort and in the defence of their country "through a Jewish military force "fighting under its own flag "and under the high command of the United Nations. "The conference declares that the new world order "that will follow victory cannot be established "on foundations of peace, justice, and equality "unless the problem of Jewish homelessness "is finally solved. "The conference urges that the gates of Palestine be opened, "that the Jewish agency be vested "with control of immigration into Palestine "and with a necessary authority for up building the country, "including the development of its unoccupied "and uncultivated lands "and that Palestine be established as a Jewish commonwealth, "integrated into the structure of a new democratic world.” And it finishes this way, “Then and only then will the age old wrong "to the Jewish people be righted.” What I’m going to do next Monday is to look at how the various groups, the Haganah, the Irgun and the Lechi are going to respond to events in Palestine, which are really going to set the seal for future for political development and also how they try and respond to the horror of what is going on in Hitler’s Europe.

But I think also to emphasise that if you ask my opinion on when Zionism becomes a majority movement in the Jewish world, it is actually the impetus of the Shoah because it’s not just what happened in the war, it’s what happened after the war. And it’s something we will spend quite a bit of time on. As survivors attempted to go home, many of them were actually murdered by fascists in Eastern Europe. So consequently, this notion of Jewish nationhood after 2000 years becomes very, very potent. But it still is a very controversial issue, is it not? Define the word Jew for me. Those of you who have a little time on your hands, perhaps it’s something that you all want to think about. It’s certainly a very, very good exercise for our families, whilst we’re still in lockdown to actually work out what on earth it means. Anyway, I think I’m going to stop there. Let’s have a look at questions. I’m trying very hard to hold the line. Sometimes it becomes quite hard, but let’s have a look at the questions. Shawna, can I go to the questions? Yes.

• [Shawna] Yes, just open the Q&A little box.

Q&A and Comments:

Q: Right. Despite the Balfour doctrine, isn’t it true that the British discovered Jewish immigration since the beginning of the mandate?

A: Yes, Mitzi, this is something I covered a few months ago. Yes, of course, because from the beginning they realised there was problems with the Arabs.

Q: This is from Martine. Can we cover at some stage the role of international Jewish organisations trying to help Jews?

A: Yes, of course.

Q: And this is from Rochelle. See “The Voyage of the Dams” recent, “The Voyage of the Damned.”

A: Yes, there’s a feature film, and I believe a documentary have both been made on the St. Louis. And those of you who have Prime, if you tap in Jewish films, you get them both.

And this is from Julia. I’m friends with a woman who was on the St. Louis. Haj Amin also provoked the following Farhud in Iraq during the 40s. Yes, of course. It’s something that we would definitely be looking at. He provoked a pogrom in Iraq. I mean, he way crossed the line. He actually, look, he was totally behind Hitler’s final solution.

Was the Christian Palestinian community of any help to the Jewish community? Complicated question, Robert. I will be addressing it. Don’t forget that you have the Templars, the German Templars in Jerusalem and Haj Amin al-Husseini was up to his neck in all sorts of sabotage with them. Oh yes, Harvey Garfield, could you please expand on the Haavara Agreement. Problem, I spent a whole lecture on it. So once the website is up and running, you will be able to have that. You’ll be able to have that lecture.

Q: Robert, is it so that the Brits appointed the Grand Mufti as a representative of the Palestinians?

A: Yes, I’m afraid it was. And it was a Jew and a Zionist Sir Herbert Samuel. The point was he wanted, there was a balance of power between the Husseini clan and the Musabia. The Musabia were much more moderate, and he appointed Haj Amin to keep the balance of power. Now Haj Amin, he’s an interesting character in many ways because in the early days he was in favour, no, actually I better not go into this because it’s going to take hours. But when I talk about the Mufti, I’ll talk about what happened to him because at one stage he hoped that the British would honour their promises. Look, you’ve got to remember that the divisions of the Middle East we know today did not, it was all part of the Ottoman Empire. Yes, there were great cities like Baghdad, like Aleppo, like Damascus, but they were all divided into administrative districts of the Turkish empire. The borderlines were drawn by the allies at the end of the war. And basically what Haj Amin al-Husseini wanted, he wanted a Pan Arab empire. You know, this notion of Syrian, Iraqi, Palestinian is a much later development.

Q: Can you fit in Szmul Zygielbojm?

A: I’ve already talked about Szmul Zygielbojm, Itmar, when he committed, he was the man, very brave man in the Warsaw ghetto. His family were in the Warsaw Ghetto. He was in the Polish government in London, and he committed suicide in May '43 to bring the world’s attention to what was happening in the Warsaw ghetto. He was quite a hero. Jabotinsky was inspired by the Risorgimento. Yes, he spent time in Italy, Johnson.

Now this is two points. Edward Samuel, the son of Edwin Samuel, the son of Herbert Samuel in his memoirs wrote that the British did not have enough troops in Palestine to effectively police the country. This only changed when the Arabs attacked the British in '36, when the British committed enough troops to cut down the riot in a brutal way. It’s more complicated than that. You know, the Black and Tans were stationed in Palestine, and so were quite a few British army officers who’d fought against the Red Army, and many of them brought the protocols with them. So it’s a complicated story. Limiting, and second point, limiting the number of Jews to which the country could absorb was always a lie. There was a large economic immigration to Palestine, which was neither monitored by the British, nor restricted. Yes.

This is from Belle. So sad to learn of the Navy stopping the desperate but I’m afraid it’s happening again as the desperate wanting to come into Canada and the US and other countries. So very sad, difficult times. Unfortunately, and this came up when we tried to discuss really what evil is. Unfortunately the human condition seems to be self-interest. And even though I feel very strongly that the Shoah was unique, just as I think that the African slave trade was unique, I don’t think we can, or all the other horrors. I don’t think we should lump them all together. But what isn’t unique is human behaviour. And when there’s economic and social pressures, we do tend to become tribal, and we blame that which is different. That is what, I just hope that one day we are going to realise that we’re all in it together and perhaps we could act as human beings one to the other rather than go into these ridiculous little tribes that we have.

Q: Weizmann was asked why Israel?

A: And he replied, “Why’d you drive for two hours to see your mother?” During the war, where did the British imprison illegal immigrants to Palestine? In various places. One of the main places later on, of course, was Cyprus. The island of Cyprus, which had been given to the British, ironically given to Benjamin Disraeli in 1878, also at Lete. And they did send them off to all sorts of islands as well. In fact, the Irgun had a training, I’ll talk about it when we come to, when I come to looking at that.

This is from Gita. I highly recommend “The People on the Beach” by Rosie Whitehouse tracing over 1,000 illegal immigrants to Palestine.

Q: Ah, this is from Howard Stein. Why are Jews a separate nation and not Catholics, Protestants and every other religious group?

A: There you have it. What are we? Are we religious? Are we a religious group? The Zionists think we’re a nation. What about those of you who have completely irreligious Jewish friends who still believe in Jewish culture? Protestants, I would imagine if you asked a Protestant to define himself, he would probably define himself by country. And so would a Catholic. Jews it’s more complex. I would suggest you, I mean it’s, look, I could come up with three or four definitions for Jew. I mean, we can talk about nation. We can talk about religion. We can talk about Jewish culture. Is there such a thing as Jewish culture? Is there, we could also, I suppose, talk about people-hood, which is a wonderful cop out.

Q: This is from Rashad. Is it possible to have dual loyalty?

A: That’s an interesting question. Why not? You can have loyalty to the human race, can’t you? I don’t know.

Q: Rodney, this is from Rodney. Good debate. What is a Zionist? Can answer if we have a shared definition, or do we?

A: Good question, Rodney. That’s why I said to you, look, why don’t you play around with these words with your family. What does Zionist mean? I know what it meant when the whole notion, I know what Nathan Birnbaum meant it to mean when he defined the phrase. I know what most of the Zionist thinkers meant it to be. What does it mean today? Do you remember when Netanyahu went to Paris after that terrible massacre, and he said to the surviving members of the families come home? He was saying, what are you doing living in someone else’s country? On the other hand, there are Jews living throughout the diaspora who feel very comfortable in the countries in which they live. We are a complicated people.

This is from Allison. There are different definitions of Zionism. There are always many options, opinions in Judaism, especially now. Okay, yes, I agree with that. I suppose to ask a consensus from a group of over 2,000 Jews is perhaps asking for too much.

Barryl, our dollars are so important to go to Israel so we can sustain our country. Whenever we give, whatever we give is a mitzvah. We can give, we make a difference by giving. You know, that’s another, that’s another issue that Israel needs the diaspora.

Judy, you speak, this is from Robert, you speak of the Jewish people as a nation. There are Egyptian Jews. There are Iraqi Jews and Indian and Chinese Jews. We practise Judaism in many ways. There isn’t one way of practising Judaism. I hold firmly we are not a nation. We are a people. A people with largely with a common history. We are a people. I would appreciate your response. Robert, I totally sit on the fact, I totally sit on the fence on this one. You think I know? What I’m saying to you is the Zionists who created Israel believed the Jews were a nation. That’s all I’m saying. Yes, of course there are, look, there are Jews. I remember when I first went to Israel, I felt so British because nobody queued. I mean obviously I’m trying to make light of it. Of course, Jews living in the country, Jews throughout the diaspora, we take on the attributes of the countries in which we live. And if you think within the Jewish community itself, there’s the Sephardim. There’s the Ashkenazim, and there are many other divisions. So of course we are not a homogenous group. Quite often though, the outside world puts us in a pigeon hole. So Robert, it’s an incredibly complicated area. Can you come up with consensus? You yourself saying we are a people, yet it’s easy. We are a people. I think is a wonderful way of saying we can be everything. Maybe we can. “Jews and Power,” great book from Mitmar Shinia.

Q: Doreen, will you please review the three components of Zionism.

A: What I’m suggesting, it is people who say the Jews are a nation. It’s a response to modern antisemitism, which said the Jews will never. Antisemitism, remember, that movement, the name, the word was coined in 1878 by Wilhelm Marr, a German journalist. What he said was, a Jew can never be a German. A Jew can never be French. A Jew can never be a Brit. A Jew is a Jew is a Jew. It’s national. And the third component is of course that link that we all have. Those of us went, when we sit round at Seder, those of you who go to Shul, wherever you pray, the Bimah faces Jerusalem. So it is there. There is this sort of mystical link, and depending on who you are and where you come from and your own views of the world, you will go one way or the other.

Q: This is from Martine, did the Brits preventing immigration to Palestine pretend they were ignorant of what was going on in Europe or how did they explain their behaviour?

A: I hope you saw those interviews I showed from Auschwitz and the Allies. To be fair, the British were fighting a war, and if the British had not won that war, the Jews of Britain would’ve had exactly the same fate as the Jews of Europe. All you’ve got to do is to think about the Channel Islands.

This is from Stephen Paul. Reading the book, “The Scholems and the Gershoms.” Gershom Scholem was a Zionist who went to live in Palestine in the early 20s and was very critical of German Jews who called themselves Zionists but made no effort to leave Germany for Palestine. He believed that a homeland for Jews to safely express their Jewish identity, but not in an exclusive political state.

Q: Yes, is it possible to have a homeland though in the world we live in?

A: You see, I think what the Zionists in Palestine realised at the Biltmore Hotel and what they realised in, at the end of the war, remember they had to fight the British to create their state. I think they realised, you know, this is the great tension between the figures of ben Zakkai, Bar Kokhba. If you look at a lot of the Zionist writers, they believed there was something wrong with the passivity of the diaspora. I’m not saying that was the reality. I’m talking about how the Zionists saw it. So it’s a very complex story. And the book “The Scholems” showed the large portion of German Jewish community were anti-Zionist. Yes, of course they were. Look, there were no people more loyal to Germany than the German Jews. I don’t know if you were there when I interviewed Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, I mean her family. I mean, Anita still quotes Goethe. She, you know, Germany, look, the two, Evan Heiner said, “The two ethical nations, "the Jews and the Germans will create a new Jerusalem.” Yes, of course they were anti-Zionist. They believed Germany was their homeland, their heimat, and tragically the rise of Hitler, what he did, look, intermarriage in Germany was running at 45% in 1940, in 1925.

Yes, of course James, if the Nazis had won at El Alamein the Oriental Jews of North Africa. Yes, of course, of course. And some Sephardi Jews were murdered. And I promise you, we will be having, we will be having lectures on the Jews who lived in the Arab world. It’s not that we’re neglecting it. We’re trying to do everything in sort of chronological order, but we’re going to go backwards on the Jews of the Arab world and spend quite a lot of time there. We are dreaming, remember we’ve been going for way over a year now.

Bless, Wendy, and what we’re trying to do eventually is to cover practically every aspect of the Jewish experience or maybe scratch the surface of every aspect, I should say.

Q: What was the date of the Biltmore Conference?

A: Thelma, it was May 1942.

Q: Do you think asking the question of when Zionism became a majority is the same as what was the major precipitation of Israel as a state?

A: I well, Ronnie, I will be spending an awful lot of time on that when I look at between 45 and 48.

Q: Gita Khan, what is a Jew?

A: Read David Baddiel’s “Jews Don’t Count.” I’m going to say this publicly. I have an objection to David Baddiel’s book. Some of it’s very good,, but I don’t like the way he refers to Israel.

Yes, Melvin. After the 1939 White Paper, Ben-Gurion anticipated the labour government will honour its pre-election promise to abolish the White Paper. However, yes, we will spend a lot of time on that, Melvin. I promise.

Q: This is from Fern, in Toronto in the 50s there was a Jewish legion club for veterans named the Wingate Branch. Would that have been named after Wingate you mentioned?

A: Yes, there are many, there are many things named after Old Wingate. He died in the Chindits campaign in Burma. He was quite an extraordinary individual. There are lots of good biographies of him.

Q: Layla, I grew up thinking that the only people who were Palestinians before 1948 were Jews?

A: Well, no. There were Arabs living in Palestine. They were actually in the majority, but the whole word Palestine. Give me time on this because they didn’t necessarily, certainly at the turn of the century and right up, I would suggest, until the 30s, they called it greater Syria. Palestine was a word that was first used. Look, Palestine, Palestrina was used by the Romans. When they destroyed Judea, they renamed it Palestrina as an insult to the Jews because of the Philistines. The Arabs called it Greater Syria. It was used in the Renaissance, and it’s used again in the Arab world when Christian Arabs began studying at the Sorbonne in the late 19th century.

Q: Did the immigrants in the White Paper make reference to Arab immigration?

A: No. Okay.

Yes, I think we should stop here. There’s so many questions, and don’t forget that Rabbi Rosen will be coming on in three quarters of an hour, but I will be coming back to this subject. Don’t forget, I’ll be coming back to this subject in, next Monday, so I know what I’m doing is quite controversial. What I’d really like you to do though is to come up with your own definitions of Zionism. Come up with your own definition of Jew, and we will meet again on Monday. God bless.