Forced in the beginning to emigrate to Palestine against their wills, many German Jews, formerly staunch assimilationists, today have learned to love their new home and are referring to Hitler as “the Messiah” because he “has made more Zionists in one day than Herzl did in his whole life,” Rabbi Israel Herbert Levinthal told an audience at the Brooklyn Jewish Center, 667 Eastern parkway, in the third of a series of eight lectures Friday night.
Rabbi Levinthal recently returned from a six months’ stay in the Holy Land.
HAVE LEFT IMPRESS
Although of more than 260,000 Jews in Palestine only about 15,000 are Germans, Rabbi Levinthal said, they have made a deep impression on the country’s life.
“Above all,” he declared, “you see the influence of these Germans in the field of medicine. Palestine is fast becoming one of the world’s greatest centers of medicine, due to the presence of some of the world’s most renowned physicians, who formerly added distinction to Germany. “
In explanation of what to many observers has been a surprising and reprehensible willingness on the part of Palestine to import German goods, Rabbi Levinthal pointed out that Germans now living in the Holy Land are unable to liquidate their interests in the Reich in any other way.
FORBIDS CAPITAL EXPORT
“As you undoubtedly know,” he said, “Germany forbids the export of capital, and an emigrant can only withdraw a very small percentage of his wealth. He can only take his wealth in goods—German goods purchased in Germany for export.
“That explains the fact which newspapers noted a few days ago that, whereas in all other lands German exports were greatly reduced, in Palestine they rose about sixty per cent. You have to understand the suffering that would be endured by these German exiles, did they refuse to take out goods and machinery in lieu of their wealth from Germany.
“There is, however, in Palestine a very energetic boycott organization and its members are constantly on the watch lest some other Jews, not under this compulsion, break the boycott front. “
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
