Blumenfeld Declares Palestine Orange Deal Amazing and Insane

It ought to be placed indelibly on record wherever people can read that the most foolish business deal that was ever made has to be placed to the discredit of a handful of Jews. This amazing, insane, inexplicable, unauthorized, undesirable compact to sell to Germany half a million cases of Palestine oranges in exchange for a double value of unwanted German goods just about marks the limit to which stupidity can go.

It is not yet too late to stop this insult to a proud race. Palestine is in no greater need of German goods than Germany appears to be in need of our own Jews. I was under the impression that unofficial Jews in all parts of the world were determined not to deal in German goods until such time as Germany showed a disposition to treat her Jewish citizens with fairness and honor. I say unofficial because for various reasons some of them, of quite understandable official bodies, have found it inexpedient to pronounce themselves in favor of the boycott. I do not think I can be successfully contradicted if I say that ninety-nine percent of world Jewry are wholly in favor of a complete, water-tight boycott of all German goods wherever they may be.

That being so, who is it that dares to arrange to sell goods to Germany on terms that sound like blackmail? Have you ever done business like that? Selling goods in exchange for the ridiculous privilege of buying by paying for goods at twice the price received? It sounds like Alice in Wonderland. Unfortunately, we are dealing with Nazi Land, which is not quite so delectable a story.

May I once more appeal to the Jews to scrap the majority of their talking committees and get to work? Weizmann says he will have nothing to do with the presidency of the Zionist movement, but is desirous of working only for the amelioration of the condition of the German Jews. The Zionist hierarchy is committed to a policy of laissez-faire so far as is possible. Jabotinsky, who is inspired with a real patriotic desire, is suspected all around, because he is too energetic, militant, pushing forward the conservatives too vigorously, and the conservatives, who are firmly ensconced in tradition, consider that all will be well, given time.

It reminds me of the motto of old Oom Paul Kruger the Boer boss, which was “Alles Zal Recht Kommen.” He made it the shibboleth of the Transvaal Republic. History will tell you what became of that aspiration. I had forgotten the indefatigable Rutenberg who is working alone inauspiciously and without advertisement for the greatness and the regeneration of Jewry. That’s the sort of leadership that is required. The next step, the necessary step, the only step, is for each and all of us to contribute our quota, whatever it may be, whether money or work, towards the objective, and that objective is above all things to show the world that the Jews do not intend to be humiliated, degraded, by a set of adventurers who do not have sense enough to know the difference between honorable action and skylarking buffoonery.

The world is agitated between disgust at Hitlerite deeds and laughter at their antics, but it is a poor consolation for the suffering Jews who are ground up in the Nazi mill while Hitler is having his joyride.

There has been much opportunity the past few days to study the psychology of the Hitlerites in Germany. Like their fellow adventurers in Russia, they readily seized the radio for propaganda purposes. Night and morning the air has been filled with gibberish about German Kultur, and Germany’s world-purifying mission, well seasoned with tub-thumping appeals to the militaristic sense of the impressionable youth of Germany. I heard Hitler’s barking, rasping oratory flung over the air, all wild exhortation and inflammatory incitement to pure race hatred. His coadjutors who speak while he rests for breath, belch forth plans about German heroism, German nobility of character, German “Deutschtum,” which is the spirit of the angels, all to the accompaniment of steady, rhythmic drum-beats. Throughout the talk the drums go tum tum tum tum. If you close your eyes you can imagine yourself in the Congo where the natives churn themselves up into a frenzy with mystic savage drumbeats. That is what is happening in Germany today.

The Kultur of the “Vaterland” is the same stuff that travellers hear along Africa’s mighty river. It appeals to the same elemental passions that arouse the blacks, make them, too, think they are the most wonderful people on earth. But what one must ask is what is to be the end of this mumbo-jumbo. It isn’t possible for Hitler and his drumbeaters to carry on this toccato word-warfare forever; they’ll have to do something soon to justify this flag-waving and trumpet-blaring. It’s like eating sweets; after awhile they begin to repel, and the victim asks for something substantial. The only thing that’s substantial in Germany so far is the steadily decreasing trade return and the ever increasing store of foreign resentment. Poor decent people in Germany who think they are reshaping the fortunes of their distressful land do not know things are so bad; they have no means of knowing for the censorship works too stringently.