Aba Achimeier, Zion’s Fearless Fighter

The writer of the following article is an important figure in European and Palestinian journalism, having represented some of the important German-language newspapers in Palestine. He is also well known in Jewish politics in Palestine. His impressions of Achimeier are of special interest in the light of Achimeier’s accusation of having participated in the murder of Dr. Chaim Arlosoroff, Palestine labor leader.)

Aba Achimeier, doctor of philosophy, married, father of a little girl who is being brought up by a relative in the far-away Kvutzo Dagania, is the cype of the Jewish “hero” an entirely new cast of Jew, of which the world today does not yet know, of whom it has little conception, yet who is everywhere among us-no longer by the dozen, but by the hundreds. These are the people which we meet in all the party camps: many, all too many, among the Jewish Communists-many among the left Zionists-but many in the very circle which Achimeier heads: the “Revisionist extremists.”

Life for people like Achimeier is not worth living, if they cannot live in freedom. But for freedom they will make any sacrifice-themselves, as well as others.

I believe Trotzky also is one of these “heroes” and-to name a non-Jew-Gandhi is also a hero in this sense. And among the Zionists there are many Socialists who cannot live in the communistic co-operatives of Palestine and who today hate and curse Achimeier as their deadly enemy and who are “heroes” in this sense-ready for death or for life.

But the new element which Achimeier brought into the Jewish world, following the example of Jabotinsky’s legion is this: Achimeier created the Jewish hero who is a patriot-who inexorably, soberly, incorruptibly brings and demands sacrifices for the freedom of the Jewish fatherland, for the Jewish state. Jabotinsky created the “Jewish State-Ist”; Achimeier, the patriot.

ACHIMEIER IS FIRED

In the summer of 1930 I was commissioned by Jabotinsky to take over the management of the Revisionist daily Doar Hayom. The paper belonged to a private printing firm, was an undertaking planned to yield a profit, and it was my task to reorganize it under a budget suddenly cut by one of the owners by thirty-five percent, just after the Doar Hayom had been forbidden for a few weeks because of an Achimeier article which attacked England. At that time I fired a number of editors among them Achimeier whom I criticized for his excessive sharpness. All the discharged editors took this very much amiss, became my enemies and have remained such to this very day. Achimeier shrugged his shoulders: Dr. Von Weisl means well, but he doesn’t know me, he told my friends. Three months later we both joined the Central Committee of the Palestine Revisionists.

What, I asked myself, grown weary by bitter experiences-Is that possible? A Jew deprived of half his income and not angry about it? A Zionist deprived of the chance to play a role and forgiving it? A writer deprived of his newspaper, where he might have written as much as he wished, and shrugging his shoulders about it?

HOW HE LOOKED

I looked at the man: slim, too slim, with black ringlets which hang dishevelled over his high, pale forehead, in which are set a pair of burning, dreaming eyes. Narrow hands which always hold a notebook or loose leaves upon which to record everything he lears and thinks. He walks awkwardly, holding one shoulder obliquely, bending his head to one side when he listens; his voice is soft, whispering. He speaks falteringly, therefore prefers to write, laughs in a friendly, child-like fashion. At the same time, he is reflective, looks like a lad and is as unwordly as an old man about to die.

Nevertheless I distrusted him. His very conciliatoriness made me careful. I had forfeited many friendships when in the interests of Zionism I had reorganized and discharged people here and there; I had seen how our most active men, beginning with Simon and De Lima and ending with physicians and scientists, had broken their necks as soon as they touched official posts, and I no longer believed in exceptions. Then something else happened: Achimeier had a friend appeal to me. He was in urgent need of eight pounds a month; his wife had been delivered and after the birth of the child had become very ill; she would have to spend many months in a hospital bed, for which eight pounds was demanded; wouldn’t I take Achimeier back on the editorial staff?

SELFLESS DEVOTION

I rejected the appeal, again also for political reasons. A few hours later I arrived at a meeting of the Central Committee and to my surprise met Achimeier there, calm, sober, as ever. I want to say a few words to him about his terrible troubles, want to tell him that I am eager to help him in some other fashion but he wards me off.

“We have come here to discuss Palestine,” he says. “Our private life has nothing to look for here. My wife is not the subject of the debate.”

That is, on the whole, Achimeier’s conception of Zionism: he who is a Zionist must renounce his private life, until we have the Jewish state. He who does not renounce it does not count-he may be a courageous man, useful, a good comrade-but only those persons who have no private life can determine politics!

Months passed. Business considerations deprived us of the Doar Hayom when we needed a newspaper more than ever to carry of our struggle. There was no money anywhere for founding the new paper. We had to set the whole paper by hand, etc. Everyone left me in the lurch-then Achimeier came and offered to found, with his friends, a co-operative which would operate gratis under me until the new paper yielded a profit. Well, the people did not work entirely gratis. Each one had to live. Each one came to me for advances and salary, for the Revisionists too, were human beings and were hungry.

SACRIFICES

The only one who never demanded a piaster of me Achimeier. He ate dry bread, had no dwelling, but slept at the hame of his friends. Other Zionist papers for which he had worked up to that time gave him notice for working on our newspaper, Haam-but he never came to me and said, “I need money,” Once when he was in my room a letter with dollar bills enclosed came from America; I shoved the money towards him. He took it and on the following day showed me a new shirt: “The old one was quite torn. With the money that you gave me yesterday I bought this shirt.”

But the same man calmly wrote in the same newspaper articles that were diametrically opposed to my politics. For he did not indeed wish to serve me-Dr. von Weisl-but wished to use me in the service of the fatherland. If he disagreed with me, well, then he would do as he saw fit. Newspaper, party, friends-all were merely a means to the end: the liberation of the Jewish state. And he began to inspire the youth of Palestine towards this end.

ATTRACTS THE YOUNG

He was successful at it. The young people were justly disgusted by the party life that had unfolded in Zionism, by the officialdom, by the profiteering in jobs. The youth rallied around Achimeier. For he lived the life he expected others to live. And his success with this youth, the new youth of Palestine, inspired him with the doctrine which he has since untiringly preached and the accuracy of which I can confirm: “Only that party will be the victor which demands the greatest sacrifices of its followers, for youth is idealistic, desiring neither office, nor money, but only sacrifice to a great ideal.”

He began to prepare his young men for this sacrifice. All that the papers were writing about the “Secret Alliance” which the Actions Committee is sending a commission to Palestine to investigate, is nonsense-every child in Palestine knows this organization of Achimeier’s consists of individuals who are serious, dependable persons, prepared for the hour when their nation will need them. Of these people he demanded what he demanded of himself: the rejection of private life. He made them make sacrifices, little ones at first-they were to let themselves be jailed for agitation, and he went to prison at their head. Later on they were to be ready for greater trials. Like the Russians, like the Italians, like the Poles, the Jews were to let themselves be educated gradually. Everything else seemed superfluous to him.

CLASS HE DESPISED

This was the point in his development regarding which Jabotinsky (and I, too) stood in opposition to Achimeier. To me the salvation of the millions of Jews-and primarily of the orthodox Jewry of Eastern Europe, which seems to me to be the most valuable part of the Jewish nation-was most important. And of this mass one could not demand sacrifices; and on the other hand, this mass demanded violent sacrifices. And for this reason the most important task of politics seemed to me to be the organization of the Jewish bourgeoise. From this mass had to and would be chosen the elite, the youth, the most inspired, who would be educated to a new national type. But Achimeier despised this class; it is not even good enough to be used as material by him. Only the youth interested him, only to it did he return. But politics with its necessary lies, intrigues, money matters, would only spoil the youth.

And this person is supposed to have organized the murder of Arlosoroff-this person, who hates politics because it leads to lies? The thought becomes ridiculous when I utter it. Not that I would say that Achimeier would shrink at force-but, if he ever considers force necessary he will acknowledge it. But to carry out the murder of a Jew whom he may have considered dangerous and then to go out and for this reason to propose a protective alliance and an armistice to the party of the murdered man, as Achimeier did twelve hours after the murder, no. …Less hypocrisy, secrecy, are not characteristic of the man who in Palestine is realizing the ideals of both Gandhi and Trumpeldor: to educate the youth of his people in selfless asceticism and purity.