A Charonic Enterprise

Our “practical” men told us in the past that the only hope for Russian Jewry was land settlement and colonization. They created experts on Russian Jewish affairs and then quoted these experts as infallible oracles to silence all opposition. History has proved that these “practical” men were wrong.

These same “practical” men told us that the Palestine project was altogether impractical. From their ample arsenal of bankers’ and big-business’ lore they brought forth facts, figures and statistics to demonstrate that every economic enterprise in Palestine is doomed to failure. They spoke with the over-bearing authority and the assumed omniscience of the wealthy folks who pre-empted the American scene in the pre-de-precession era. History has again proved that these “practical” men were wrong.

When the Hitler regime began its reign of terror these “practical” men again exercised their presumptive right to be the spokesmen of the Jewish people and proceeded to make ex-cathedra pronouncements based upon an exclusive esoteric and infallible knowledge of affairs, political and economic, national and international. There must be no protests, no demonstrations, no boycott! These methods are altogether ineffective, nay, harmful. We, the bankers and brokers and corporation lawyers who have social prestige and fine connections, we know exactly how this thing is to be done: A, an amazingly influential person, speaks to B on the hush-hush. B interviews C in order to get an appointment with D who is in the confidence of E whose partner plays golf with F who is a friend to a friend of the assistant to the Assistant Secretary of State.. Chad Gadya…Chad Gadya…

The pitiful “shtadlanut” of these men was a fiasco. Again they were wrong, these “practical” men From Washington comes this semi-official statement: “The boycott will be the determining factor, it is predicted, which will finally put an end to the anti-Semitic activities of the Nazi government” (N. Y. Times, March 27-34).

And now these “practical” men are again prescribing for the Jewish people. The position of the Jews in Germany, they declare, is hopeless. There is absolutely no future for them there. They must be helped to emigrate. A definite program should be put into effect whereby fifteen to twenty thousand young German Jews will annually be “exported” from Germany and settled elsewhere. Appeals will be made to Hitler and negotiations will be carried on whereby these young ???migr???s will be permitted to take out whatever capital they possess. And then–forting! The whole German-Jewish affair will be liquidated in a few short years to the satisfaction of everybody–especially Hitler.

They are wrong again, these “practical” men! The position of the Jews in Germany is dark indeed, but not hopeless. Jewish communities elsewhere lived under conditions quite as unbearable as those now prevailing in Germany and survived. Other Jews who had to endure for generations what German Jews so far have had to endure only for one year, lived to see the dawn of a better day. One year of Hitler warrants no man, especially if he aspires to be a leader of the Jewish people to proclaim prophetically the utter and irrevocable doom of this large Jewish community which more than once previously had been subjected to restrictions and ## quite as onerous and humiliating as the present, and nevertheless survived.

The Jews will continue to live in Germany. Thousands undoubtedly will emigrate. Thousands have already emigrated. The bulk of the Jewish population, however, will remain. The youth of German Jewry should not be advised or encouraged to leave. They should remain. They will suffer, to be sure, as Jewish youths have suffered so often in the past in other parts of the world, and as Jewish youth is suffering today in so many parts of the world. But they should remain and most of them will remain. Their very suffering will make of them centers of unrest and conflict in Germany until the hour when the next political crisis arrives–and it may arrive sooner than most people suspect–and they will then join with other oppressed groups in turning upon the present regime and will rend it to shreds.

The German people, it is said by these “practical” people, have been so poisoned by the violent Nazi propaganda of the last fifteen years that there is no possibility for Jews ever to live and work again in Germany in harmony with their non-Jewish fellow citizens. This is too sentimental and too naive. Fifty years ago, the German people were similarly sistent and vicious campaign of “poisoned” by a prolonged, pedantic-Semitism, but the poison was not lethal and its effects wore off as soon as the political scene changed. Jews were able to live and thrive in Germany both economically and culturally for half a century thereafter. A break-up of the present Hitler regime will quickly push into the background his anti-Semitism and his racialism. There will always be anti-Semitism in Germany. There always has been. And Germany is not the only country where anti-Semitism exists. It is only when political sanction is given to it by the regime in power, and the authority of the state is employed to enforce it, that the position of our people becomes desperate.

From the point of view of our national interests, it would be the height of criminal folly to cooperate in the Charonic enterprise of ferrying the whole or the major part of the Jewish community across the Rhine… We dare not evacuate one of the strongest centers of Jewish life in the heart of Europe. We cannot consent to any arrangement for expediting a Jewish expulsion. The success of any such arrangement will be too tempting a precedent for Hitler’s disciples in other parts of the world…

The opportunity of Jewish leadership at this time is not that of serving as a handy Removal Office. Rather is it one of arousing the Jews of the world to a relentless political and economic war upon the Hitler regime in defense of the violated rights of our people in Germany. Our resources and our capacities should be applied primarily to that task. Whatever material aid must be given to our people in Germany should not be of a nature calculated to encourage an organized and scientifically managed Flight.