‘the Line of Confusion and the Plummet of Happiness’

DISILLUSIONMENT with Zionism is running high today both in Palestine and in the Diaspora–and this in spite of the rapid development and prosperity of the Jewish settlement in Palestine. Mr. William Zukerman writes a very penetrating article on this subject in the April issue of “Opinion.” This disillusionment is due in the main to two failure of the World Zionist Organization to assume leadership in the international crisis with which the Jews of the world were confronted by the rise of Hitler to power and the disgraceful party strife which is rending the movement today.

The Zionist Congress in Prague last summer, meeting in the darkest hour of the German-Jewish tragedy, confounded and dismayed the Jewish world by its complete failure to rise to the challenge of the hour. No counsel emanated from that conclave, no plan, no leadership. Jewry awaited the great, rallying, jussive, message which was to come forth from that great tribunal of the Jewish people. Instead there came froth a raucous medley of inflatile instruments played in a riotous abandon of discord by warring parties and factions. Jewry heard loud, bitter and mutual recriminations and witnessed the skill with which the parties within the Zionist organization were firing at each other’s legs. . .

While World Jewry was organization a universal boycott against German, Palestinian Jewry, with complete nonchalance, proceeded to make arrangements with the Hitler Government to import German products into Palestine in exchange for Palestine oranges. It was arranged that German Jews, going to Palestine, would be allowed to take their funds out of Germany in the form of merchandise, A German refugee going to Paris, Amsterdam or Prague had to leave his funds behind him, but a refugee going the all-Jewish city of Tel Aviv would be allowed to export his money and to come into the Jewish homeland trailing clouds of German cutlery, hardware and knick-knacks behind him. . . . Galut Jews denied themselves any profits which might accrue to them out of trade with Germany, but the nonpareil, whole-wheat Jews of Palestine were exempt from such sacrifices. Following the Russia Revolution, the Zionists of Russia were sent to prison or sacrifices. Following the German “Revolution” the Zionists of Germany became the privilege Hofjuden and communal go-betweens in the new regime. . .

The cynicism and irony of it all escaped no one but the party Zionists and the Palestine. Denials were of course made which convinced no one, for facts cannot permanently be denied. Explanations were given but they were lamentable performances on the trapeze…It was clear that in an hour of crisis, Palestine failed the Diaspora. The interests of Palestine clashed—or seemed to clash—with those of the Diaspora and the Diaspora was sacrificed. But so also was the historic leadership of the Zionist Organization in the affairs of international Jewry sacrificed.

Party strife is not new in Zionism but it has now reached a danger point where it threatens to disrupt the movement, impede the up-building of Palestine and alienate the devotion of Jews outside of Palestine. From all reports, the Jews in Palestine are heartsick over the vindicative party strife which is fast developing into a “nostalgie de la chute,” into a recklessness of the “tamot nafshi im Pelishtim” type….

The recent meeting of the Actions Committee in Jerusalem did not help matters. It requires no great gift of divination to sense the disaster which is in the offing unless this inter-party strife is quickly brought within the legitimate bounds of Parliamentary procedure. “For all the Past read true is prophecy.” Our bitter experiences of the past should warn us against a recrudescence of an implacable party antagonism in our ranks. In the present incipient stages of our movement, in a land where we are not yet a majority and in a world which is again running mad with anti-Jewish hatred, we cannot afford to indulge ourselves in fratricidal strife, in riots, in periodic crises and in—political assassinations….These practices are bringing disaster up-on democratic governments all over the world. As far as we are concerned, they will simply destroy our work completely in Palestine.

One cannot help but admire the devotion of the various Zionist groups to their own party principles and convictions. The achievements of the Histradruth in Palestine are epochal and their social idealism is in direct line with the prophetic tradition of Israel. The zeal of the Mizrachi for the preservation of the sanctions of traditional Judaism in Palestine is commendable. The restless insurgency of the Revisionists for a maximum Zionist program is admirable. But the imperative need of the hour is for unity of action and not for the foam and spindrift of polemics. In a period of up-building and reconstruction and people stands in need not so much of prophets or zealots or sicarii as of sages….

Mr. Zukerman is right when he criticizes party sectionalism in Zionism and the progressive emaciation of the movement which is fast reducing it to a narrow, Palestinian provincialism. He is wrong when he declares that: “Zionism has also done a great disservice to Jews. It has eclipsed almost entirely the immediate, real needs of the Jews in the countries of their present abode…. All constructive work, thought, and hope of Jewry have been centered in Palestine. Most of the great and manifold Jewish needs in every country have invariably been met with one stock answer: the National Home. Most active Zionists have ceased to believe that there are any real Jewish problems in the Diaspora.” Zionists throughout the world have not ignored Jewish life in the Diaspora. On the contrary most Zionists have busied themselves everywhere in local Jewish problems, in Jewish education, in the strengthening of Jewish rights.

Nor is it true that the events of the last year and the failure of Palestine to prove itself “the panacea for the universal Jewish ills,” established the thesis that the “National Home is but one of the many other Jewish homes; a single one of the numerous communities which all together make up that unique Jewish Commonwealth of Peoples whose home is the world.” Palestine was never meant to be “the whole of Jewish life”—but the center of Jewish life. There can be a British Commonwealth of Nations, for those nations are autonomous and masters of their own destiny, and their attachment to England is one of political expediency or sentiment. But we are nowhere masters of our own destiny—political or cultural. We need Palestine as a place of refuge for our persecuted (and the present constructed boundaries of the country will not forever remain so) and as a sanctuary for our national life.

Hence Palestine is for Israel more than “a single one of the numerous Jewish communities of the world.” It is the essential Jewish community of the world. For Israel, Palestine is still the “umbilicus terrae.”…