Trudy Gold
The Jewish Situation in Eastern Europe in the Interwar Period and Zionism, Part 2
Trudy Gold | The Jewish Situation in Eastern Europe in the Interwar Period and Zionism, Part 2 | 07.03.24
Visuals displayed throughout the presentation.
- Well, good evening, everyone, from grey and murky London on the eve of our general election. And now, of course, we are going back to interwar Poland because I believe that if we’re going to look at Palestine properly and what happened in the ‘20s and '30s, we need to look at important elements of the Jewish world to see how they were responding to the circumstances. And as many of you know, and as we discussed yesterday, Poland is reconstituted as a state in 1919. The 30 million people, two thirds alone were Poles. It had 5 million Ukrainians, 3 and a quarter million Jews, 1 and a half million Germans, a million Belarus, and quite a few from the Czech, Czechs, Hungarians, etc. So consequently, in a time of horrible, horrible economic catastrophe plus the complete demoralisation of a continent after the First World War, add to that the pandemic, add to that economic catastrophe, there was a need for a scapegoat. And in the first, between 1919 and 1926, under Grabski, you had a very, very antisemitic government. And during that period, you had the, you had The Third Aliyah, which was a socialist Aliyah, and then, beginning in about 1923, you had the beginnings of a different kind of Aliyah.
These are middle class, they are in the main city folk, and many of them are inspired by a different dream. And of course, it was the dream of Vladimir Jabotinsky. Now, Jabotinsky had, of course, been the great firebrand who had helped the British in their victory in Palestine. He had, of course, created the Zion Mule Corps. He then created the 37th, 38th Royal Fusiliers. He is the first Jew to cross the Jordan. He met up with some very interesting British Army officers, built lifelong friendships. I gave you some descriptions of what even his enemies said about him, that he was absolutely charming, he was an extraordinary individual with huge charisma, probably the most controversial of all the Zionist figures because they either loved him or they loathed him. He was a talented journalist, he was a very talented writer. He wrote novels. He also wrote a book, a manual of how to speak Hebrew in 750 languages. He wrote a brilliant little book about the Odessa, of the story about the Odessa opera house. He was a man of European culture.
He’d studied in Italy, but he was enthused with the Zionist dream. What he believed was that Europe would disgorge its Jews because what happens at the end of the First World War with the military government in Palestine, and I’m going quickly because I went over it with you yesterday, with the military government in Palestine, you have the beginnings of problems with the Arabs, which William and Haggai both talked about, a lot to do with Perfidious Albion I believe. But that’s another story, and maybe we’ll debate it later on in the course, William and I. But under the British Military Administration, you had quite a lot of officers coming into Palestine who’d come straight from fighting the Soviets, and they had a completely different view of the Jews. Even the Balfour Declaration had not been published in Palestine. And many of these characters were Arabists. They created Christian-Muslim Associations, and it all came to a head in the Nebi Busama riots. Nebi Musa, of course, named for Moses.
It coincides with Passover when there were murders in Jerusalem. And Jabotinsky created the Haganah branch of, the Haganah branch in Jerusalem, and he led the rebellion, and he was imprisoned for 15 years. The point was, there was such an outcry against it that when Herbert Samuel arrived in Palestine as the first, as the first high commissioner, the first Jew to rule in Palestine for 2,000 years, inverted commas, he was let out. But Weizmann didn’t back him. And this is when you begin to see the huge gap between Weizmann, who, in the end, believed that the British would come through, that they were honourable. Remember, he had many friends in the British government. He really did believe in England. And not only that, he believed in diplomacy. Also coming to the fore were people like Ben-Gurion. The Histadrut was created, labour Zionism was a living thing. Jabotinsky had a different, had a very different view. He’s already quarrelling badly with the other Zionists because he believed, have a look at that map, he believed that, in the end, Europe would disgorge its Jews.
He believed that by cutting off two thirds of the mandate, which, of course, Churchill did, without going back to the League of Nations, he had, in fact, reneged on the Balfour Declaration. The other point was the other leaders like Weizmann were not prepared to use the word state. In fact, by 1929, even non Zionists on the executive committee, they would talk about a Jewish commonwealth, a homeland, but nobody would talk about state except Vladimir Jabotinsky. He said, “We need a state and we need it now.” And his policies were completely at loggerheads with Weizmann and also with Ben-Gurion. So you have a situation where, in fact, by 1929, when there are further riots at the Western Wall, the 1929 Arab riots, which Weizmann believed had been fueled by Jabotinsky. He is not allowed back into Palestine. In fact, in the '20s, he travelled the world, trying to garner support for his brand of Zionism because it was in Poland that his supporters said, “Create your own organisation.” And, of course, out of Zionism, the Zionism, the revisionist Zionism, and this is what revisionism means, the land both sides of the Jordan came Betar.
Betar was his youth group, and, of course, it was far more military than anything of the socialists. He admired the military. And what is also interesting, we’re going to see that he’s going to get a lot of support from Polish government antisemites. So you have a situation where he is, he’s got a, he’s a brilliant master of language. And my friend, Felix Schaff, talked about a meeting he went to in Krakow, where Jabotinsky was brought into the town. The students, when he gets to the town, they unhook his waggon from the horse and they pull him to the hotel Saski, where he makes this speech. It goes on for four hours. And Begin is in that meeting, and he comes to the fore and makes a big speech, and Jabotinsky lays his hands on Begin and says, “You are my future.” And Felix Schaff, who died in the 1990s, he changed his views politically, but in his day, in Poland, he was very much a revisionist. And the Betar movement, by 1930, had 50,000 people in it, it’s becoming very important. So to recap on Polish Jewry, there is a respite under Pilsudski. If you remember, Pilsudski has his revolution coup d'etat in 1926.
He is the grand old man, the general who saved Poland. He was never an antisemite. And despite the appalling economic situation, he did everything he could to alleviate the problems of the nationalities. The Jewish community absolutely worshipped him. They called him our grandfather. And when he was buried in the cathedral in Krakow, there was an incredible march, and many Jews were in the audience, absolutely crying their eyes out. He was a very, very influential character. After his death, things change, and you have a much more right-wing, the colonels, right-wing government. And also important to say, at this time, Poland is not sure which way to turn and nor is Germany. Poland and Germany have a very strange relationship. And, in fact, they are wondering whether Poland, the Germans are wondering, Hitler’s wondering at this stage, 36, 37, whether Poland could be useful in fighting the Soviets.
So as a result of that, you’re going to see a situation where it might appear that Zionists and antisemitic Polish politicians are going to come together. And this is a very, very thorny subject. As you know today in the absolute horror story of antisemitic rhetoric, much, actually pushed against Israel, one of the horrible canals is that the Zionists colluded with the Nazis in the destruction of the Jews. I’m going to say, I’m going to state my case very, very carefully, I think this is absolute balderdash. There were occasions when Zionists negotiated with Nazis to try and save Jewish life. For example, in 1933, Haim Arlosoroff, the brilliant young Zionist who created that with the Haavara deal. And as a result of that, 136,000 Jews made it, German Jews made it to Palestine. And now Jabotinsky is becoming more and more desperate. Why? Because the British are making Jewish life in Palestine more and more difficult. Why? Because of problems with the Arabs.
Now, I’m just going to read, can we go onto the next slide please? Chaim Weizmann and Jabotinsky are going to have very, very different views, but they are going to come together on something that I’m going to talk about. Actually, go back to, can we find a picture of Jabotinsky while I talk about him? If you don’t mind. Go back a few. Thank you. Stop there. Thank you very much. And this is what the Zionist revisionists want. “The first aim of Zionism is the creation of a Jewish majority on both sides of the Jordan River. This is not the ultimate goal of the Zionist movement, which aspires to more far-reaching ideals such as the solution of the question of Jewish suffering throughout the entire world and the creation of a new Jewish culture. The preconditions for the attainment of these noble aims, however, is a country in which Jews constitute a majority. It is only after this majority is attained that Palestine can undergo a normal political development on the basis of democratic parliamentary principles without, thereby, endangering the Jewish character of the country. 'Why proclaim this aim in public,’ ask those dreamers who think that Zionism can be turned into a silent conspiracy. They are deceiving themselves.
From our standpoint, it is, first of all, useless since all our adversaries not only understand our aims but also frequently exaggerate them. They say, for instance, that we intend to expel all the non-Jews from Palestine. It is too late to preach a modified Zionism, for the Arabs have read Herzel’s ‘The Jewish State’ as well as an even more ‘dangerous’,” inverted commas, “Zionist manifesto, the Bible.” So he goes on to say quite strongly that we will have a state both sides of the Jordan. And he also says that conflict with the Arabs is inevitable. But what he hoped for, that there could be some kind of reconciliation. Now, as far as Betar is concerned, they followed Jabotinsky absolutely as their leader. And it’s interesting, I’m going to read you a little bit of what he wrote what he wanted for Betar, because he also admired marching armies. There are those who say because he rather admired Mussolini in the early days, that he was a man of the sword.
And this is what he said, “The structure of Betar is based on the principle of discipline. Our goal is to make it a worldwide organism which will be able, upon an order from the central command, for tens of thousands of its members simultaneously to carry out the same action in every city and state. Our opponents claim that this contradicts the honour of free individuals and make them into a machine. I advise you proudly and without shame to answer, ‘Yes, a machine,’ for the greatest accomplishment of free men is the ability to work together in precise union like a machine. This is the sort of orchestra we want to make out of the entire Jewish people, and the first step is Betar. It is a Hebrew word almost impossible to translate into other languages, encompassing at least 12 separate concepts, eternal beauty, pride, politesse,” remember, he was an incredibly polite, worldly character, “loyalty, but its true translation in everyday life ought to be the Betar member himself, when he goes out and when he comes in, in his actions, his speech behaviour and thought. It is self-evident that we are far from this goal and cannot reach it in one generation. But this Betar Hadar must become the ultimate goal of every one of us. This is crucial, not only because every human being ought to strive for Hadar, it’s especially crucial for Jews.”
Now, this is interesting, and I want you to think about where this all comes from. “We have already noted that our life in exile has excessively weakened the healthiest instincts of a normal nation. And this is most apparent in regard to our external bearing. Everyone knows, everyone privately laments that the average Jew pays no regard to his manners, to his external appearance. This is not a trivial matter but one of the essential aspects of self-respect.” Remember, he was the cosmopolitan from Odessa. “Just as a man must take care of his physical hygiene, not out of concern for what others think, even if he is Robinson Crusoe, simply out of self-respect. This helps his own self-worth. If the aristocrat has any meaning, it is in this, that one’s father and one’s father’s father and so on were always, from generation upon generation, men of culture, who lived not according to the notion anything goes, but in deep appreciation of aristocratic notions. Even the oldest royal dynasty cannot claim more than 20 or 30 generations of civil life, somewhere not too far back in half savage former if not abounded.
But not us Jews. Behind each one of us, their sons, at least 70 generations of literate men who studied and spoke about God and history, about nations and kings, about ideals of justice and righteousness, about the problems of humanity and the future. Every Jew is, in this sense, a prince.” Now, this gives you an idea of the kind of ideas he wants to inculcate. And as I said, Betar in Poland is going to reach over 50,000. In fact, this Fourth Aliyah, 80,000 young people are going to make it to Palestine. And he wants to rebrand the Jew. Well, so did the socialist Zionist. And we have to ask ourselves, 76 years after the creation of the state of Israel, to what extent was this the attitude that the gentiles had about the Jews? Those of you who studied emancipation will know that they said, we have to make, “Of course the Jews are unworthy because we’ve made them so,” and it’s a fascinating way of looking at history because I think, in a way, it’s a kind of antisemitism that’s been internalised.
Anyway, it’s a very different philosophy to the philosophy of a Ben-Gurion who, nevertheless though, wants to improve the physical condition of Jews by making them work the land. But it’s a different dream. And Jabotinsky, of course, who Weizmann said was the least Jewish of us all, he had imbued these kind of aristocratic principles, but on the other hand, it’s the whole issue of ben Zakkai bar Kochba. I’ll never forget that this is the man who has had more influence on the right of Israeli politics than any other, and of course, I’ve told you this before, his secretary in America was Benzion Netanyahu. And from Begin onwards, you have this whole trajectory of Betarnics, of people who were under the Jabotinsky spell. Now, what he would think today, I don’t know, he died in 1940, actually, at a Betar camp, but I felt it was important for you to understand the kind of world he came from. Can we go on, please? Oh, actually, before we go on, I want to talk a little bit more about what was happening in Poland. Actually, you can keep it on the, you can keep it on the, on the next slide. I like that slide. Okay, the next slide on, please. Yeah.
Now, you see they’re all in military precision. Now, in the 1930s, why Poland and Germany are flirting with each other, plus the Polish government does not want this unwieldy large Jewish population, and just to recap, what were the responses of the Jewish world? The largest political response was socialism, Jewish socialism, the Bund, a few assimilationists, there was the religious party, and, of course, 50% of the Jews of Eastern Europe were Hasidic. And this world was lost on them. As far as they were concerned, it was the almighty. But Betar and Jabotinsky’s ideas are really getting a lot of currency in Poland as the situation worsens. And there’s even a plan. The antisemitic Polish government wants to get rid of 90% of its Jews. That’s what it said. Now, how do you get rid of 90% of the people? Well, they examined the idea of Madagascar. A Jewish legation went with them. Jabotinsky was in high-level talks with the Polish government. They were allowing Betar to train, they were even giving them the facilities to train because they thought that the evacuation of Jews to Palestine would help their own economic problems.
In 1938, the Polish government took away Polish citizenship from Poles who had fled into Germany. Now, in July of 1938, Hitler begins to expel Polish Jews to, Polish-born Jews to the Polish border, to a place called Zbonshin. Sorry, it wasn’t July, it was October. It was as the winter begins. I had a friend who was in Zbonshin, and he said he was seven at the time, and he can remember the relief workers coming down from Warsaw. He said he’d never seen, he was a German Jew, he’d never seen working-class Jews before turn up with their lorries to feed them. But the problem was the Poles wouldn’t let them in at first and the Germans were shooting at them. And, tragically, this led to Kristallnacht because one of the characters was Herschel Grynszpan. His family were in Zbonshin. He received the news, and he went, he was studying in Paris, he goes into the German Embassy in Paris and shoots the attache, vom Rath. And that was, of course, the signal for Kristallnacht. So you have this extraordinary situation where the Polish Jews are trying, where Polish Jews, the Polish government will cooperate with Betar, will cooperate with Jabotinsky to get them out and to get them to Palestine, but things are happening in Palestine that are making the situation even more complicated.
In 1936, there was a general strike and Arab riots, and the British, the situation is getting out of control. I believe you studied this with William. So the situation is now getting out of control. What can they do about it? So what happens is that the British do what the British always do, they set up a commission, the Peel Commission, and the Peel Commission investigated with leading Arabs and leading Jews about what is happening. Now, though Jabotinsky isn’t allowed back into Palestine, he is allowed to give evidence in London. And the evidence he gives in London is absolutely extraordinary. I’m just going to read you an extract from it. “Perhaps the greatest gap as all that the commission has heard up to now is the impossibility of going to the root of the problem, really bring before you a picture of what Jewish hell looks like. And I feel I cannot do it. I hope one day the day may come when some Jewish representatives may be allowed to appear at the Bar of one of these two houses just to tell them what it really is, and to ask the English people, ‘What are you going to advise us? What is the way out,’ or standing up and facing God, and saying, ‘There is no way out, and we Jews have to go under.’
We are not free agents. We cannot concede anything. Whenever I hear the Zionists, most often of my own party, accused of asking for too much, gentlemen, I really cannot understand it. Yes, we do want a state. Every nation on earth, every normal nation, beginning with the smallest and the humblest who do not claim any merit, any role in humanity’s development, they all have states of their own. That is the normal condition of the people. Yet we, the most abnormal of peoples and, therefore, the most unfortunate, ask only for the same condition as the Albanians enjoy to say nothing of the French and the English. That is called too much. I should understand if the answer were, ‘It’s impossible,’ but when the answer is, ‘Too much,’ I don’t know what to do. I would remind you, excludes me for quoting an example known to every one of you of the commotion which was produced in that famous institution when Oliver Twist came and asked for more. He said more because he didn’t know how to express it. What Oliver Twist really meant was this, will you just give me that normal portion which is necessary for a boy of my age to be able to live. I assure you that you face here today, in the Jewish people with its demands, an Oliver Twist, which has, unfortunately, no concessions to make. What can be the concession? We have got to save millions, many millions. I do not know whether it’s a question of rehousing one third of the Jewish race, half of the Jewish race, or a quarter of the Jewish race. I do not know but it’s a question of millions.”
And he goes to, he finishes like this, “There are certainly 3 or 4 million in the east who are virtually knocking at the door, asking for salvation,” and he begs them to open the gates of Palestine. Can we go on with the slides, please? Chaim Weizmann. Let’s stop there for a minute. Chaim Weizmann also addresses the Peel Commission, and he actually says, “There are 6 million Jews in the east who are in trouble, in Europe who are in trouble. At least help me save the young and the fit, save 2 million.” So you have this appalling situation, where these two older statesmen who are basically at odds with each other politically, and yet, nevertheless, on this, they realise the enormity of the situation. And, of course, as you all know, in the end, even though the Peel Commission decided to partition that one fifth of Palestine into a Jewish area and an Arab area, it wasn’t to be because from now, the British government, because the Arabs rejected it under Haj Amin al-Husseini, terrible leader of the Arab peoples in Palestine, betraying his own people, I believe, which is quite similar to what’s going on at the moment. And as a result of all that, the British decide war’s coming.
It’s got to be in our interest to back the Arabs because Haj Amin actually issued a statement. He said, “If in any future war, if you don’t do something about Jewish immigration, we will turn against you.” Now, if you remember in the First World War, the British had incited the Arabs to revolt against the Turks. Could the foreign office take that risk if war came? So consequently, nobody took any notice of the Peel Commission, and it all culminates in 1939 when the British issue a white paper on Palestine in May, 1939, when they say that the Balfour Declaration really didn’t mean anything, and we’re going to allow in 15,000 a year for five years, and then whoever has the majority has the state, which would’ve meant another Arab-dominated state. And that’s when Weizmann is totally betrayed. Jabotinsky knew the British would betray him. Who was right, who was wrong? We can’t really use the hindsight of history.
Jabotinsky in Poland desperately trying to persuade the Poles to help. And, in fact, the Poles, they actually put money and ideas behind this plan of Jabotinsky’s, particularly after the white paper, to actually send, clandestinely, Jews to Palestine to fight the British. Of course then international politics change. The world is completely devastated when, in August, 1939, the Soviets and the Nazis make a pact. And then, of course, it’s all over for Poland because the Russians invade Poland. And that’s when the Jewish hell really begins. It’s fascinating because it’s not just the Jabotinskies and the Weizmanns who talk about hell. There was another alienated Jew who was living in Mexico at the time, Lev Davidovich Bronstein, and he wrote a letter saying half the world wants to kill the Jews and the other half won’t let them in. And if you want, the reason I’m coming heavy on this today is I really do not believe you can understand the politics of Israel without understanding this.
Because if you understand this time when so many of the Zionist leaders thought this way, and they realised, look, nobody could have predicted the Holocaust, I’m not actually saying that, and in my next presentation, I’m going to look at Zionism during the Holocaust, but having said that, they knew that something terrible was about to happen. What it was going to be, they weren’t sure, but they knew something terrible was going to happen. Can we go on with the slides, please? That was Weizmann. As I said, he actually said, now, this is Jozef Beck. He was the man who negotiated with the Nazis, with Hitler’s Nazis, he also negotiated with Jabotinsky. He was a member, he was actually, he was foreign affairs until the outbreak of war. He negotiated with everybody. I mean, Poland had a difficult card to play as well. So, basically, when the Nazis invade, it’s too late. And the followers of Betar, people like Begin, and let’s go on. Can we go on, please, with the slides? Begin, sorry, his dates are totally wrong. Go back. Can you go back to him?
He certainly was not born in 1937. Begin was about 25 then. Sorry, I’ll check his dates for you. And can we go on, please? And there’s Avraham Stern, who was another Betarnic, and he’s going to take a different solution, an even more extreme solution. And I am going to talk about him when I talk about Zionism during the Shoah. Can we see the next slide, please? Now I’m going to turn to Lithuania, but before I do that, I would like to show you a 10-minute, just like I showed you Warsaw, I’m going to show you Vilnius in 1939, bearing in mind that Vilnius, at this stage, was, in fact, part of Poland. So, if you don’t mind, can we see the, can we see the film of Vilnius now?
[Clip plays]
Before we go on-
remember, this is a very old film. It was made in 1939 in the summer.
Made by a Polish Jew-
who was living in America to show the folks what was going on.
This is the civilization that was destroyed.
[Clip ends]
- Thank you. Can you take the film off, please? Thank you. And can we go back to the slides, the map of Lithuania? So you see how poignant that film is, and it gives you a flavour of what Jewish life was. Please don’t forget that the Jewish population of Lithuania at that stage of Vilnius, which part of Poland I should say, was 55,000, which was way over a quarter of the population of about 200,000, but then after war broke out, a lot of Jews fled to Vilnius, which is then going to be taken by the Russians. So let’s look a little bit at Lithuania in the interwar period. Can we see the population figures, please? It’s a much, much smaller country. Remember, it had once been the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, being annexed by the Russian Empire, and now there are 2.3 million and 168,000 Jews. To a large extent, the Jews were the intellectual life of Lithuania.
Lithuania was basically a peasant society with aristos, with a very undeveloped middle class. The Jews were the traders, they were the lawyers, they were the doctors, but I think you saw from that, there was also an incredible amount of poverty. Now, what happened in Lithuania is this, the Polish-Lithuanian war, they lose their capital, Kaunas, of course, becomes the capital of Lithuania. And it’s the same kind of situation. The Jews are very much seen as the alien element in newly-formed Lithuania, awash with strong nationalist sentiment. The notion of reawakening the Lithuanian soil just as it was happening in Poland. Can we see the next slide, please? There you see Kaunas. Kaunas becomes the capital of Lithuania, which also had a very large Jewish population. I don’t know how many of you have travelled in these cities.
I’ve travelled in them all, and I’ve talked in many, and it’s full of ghosts, as far as I’m concerned, but yet, it’s of interest. And, of course, those of you, she spelt Lithuania, nevermind, those of you who come from South Africa, 80% of the Jewish South African population came from Lithuania, including, of course, Wendy’s family. In fact, I think Nate’s father got out in the mid ‘30s to South Africa. So this is, basically, the story of so many of our South-African friends, that the situation in Poland, the attempt to squeeze the Jews out of economic life and then, of course, invaded by the Soviet Union, and then under the Nazis, and, unfortunately, under the Nazis, Lithuania provided an incredible amount of willing helpers to the Nazis. So the situation, as far as the Jews are concerned, they were, in Jabotinsky’s word, they were the frozen stampede. They are not wanted in Eastern Europe anymore by the majority of the population.
And Palestine, tragically, is more or less closed to them. And I think when we talk about Zionism, I would suggest to you that Zionism was a minority movement in the Jewish world, right up until the '30s, certainly in the western world and amongst the ultra religious. It’s this appalling rending of civilization that is going to make many Jews realise they can only have a normal life if they have a normal state, if Jews could ever have a normal life, that’s another story. And it’s born in these terrible, terrible years. And post 1945, and I’ll be looking at that next week, we’re going to see how, between '45 and '47, you have the total imperative to create the Jewish state at a time when there was a groundswell of support from it from many, many people who would surprise you. Can we go on with the slides, please? This is Dr. Shimshon Rosenbaum. I believed we should give him a bit of attention because he was a very interesting man.
He was a brilliant lawyer, he was a statesman, and he was one of the leaders of Zionism. And one of the, there was a huge conference in Minsk, which he was responsible for. In the days of the Russian Empire, he’d actually been a member of the Duma. Do you remember, in that period of Nicholas II’s reign, he is forced to give a, to set up a Russian parliament, and there was Jewish representatives? And he was part of the cadets who believed in rights for all the minorities. He became a founding member of the Lithuanian parliament, and he becomes the minister of Jewish affairs. Go back to Wilson, president Wilson. All these countries were refused independence unless they gave their minorities rights. Now, interesting background, his father was a blacksmith but a scholar, and he, himself, studied at the very, very famous Volozhin Yeshiva, but he walked both worlds. He also studied in Odessa and in Vienna law, he was Hovevei Zion, and he continued his participation in Zion.
Now, he was the man who was very important in drafting the Lithuanian constitution with the guarantee of extensive Jewish autonomy. He was head of the Lithuanian-Jewish Council and represented, he was part of the Lithuanian delegation to Versailles representing Lithuanian Jews. He was deputy foreign minister and signed the Polish Lithuanian Peace Treaty on behalf of Lithuania, which determined that, on behalf of Lithuania. But do you see the problem with that? You have Shimshon Rosenbaum, Jew, signing for Lithuania. Who was signing for, who was actually signing for Russia? Trotsky and Yaffe. And in 1924, the Lithuanian government cancelled Jewish autonomy, and he resigned. He makes it to Palestine. He was one of the founders of the School of Law and Economics in Tel Aviv, and in '29 he became Consul general for Lithuania.
The same year, he was seven, the president of Lithuania awarded him the Grand Order of Grand Duke Gedimas. He died in Tel Aviv in 1934. I thought I’d tell you that story because it’s all about people in the end, isn’t it? A man who finished up in Palestine and died before the horror. Can we go on, please? Yes. Because what happened with Russia? Trotsky made the revolution and the Jews will pay for it. When revolution breaks out in Russia, look, I can say this until I’m purple, the majority of revolutionaries were never Jews, but this image of the Jew as revolutionary is going to throw so many people into the right-wing camps, to see Jews as revolutionaries, and it’s all part of this stupid conspiracy theory idea. In fact, can we go on, please? The Smolny Institute was known as Yid Central. Can we go on, please? These are members of the, Shimen Dimanshtein, he was a fascinating character. He was very involved in, what I would call the dejudaization of Russian Jewry because what happens is Yevsektsias were set up by Trotsky to dejudaize the Jews, just as they were going to de Christianize the Christians, because, don’t forget, Marx, “Religion is the opium of the masses,” and Shimen Dimanshtein, he was a Bolshevik, and he was responsible for the Yevsektsias which destroyed Jewish life in Russia.
And it goes much further than that. So the point was Bundism is illegal, Zionism is illegal. When Stalin later takes over the state, can we go on, please, he had been Commissar for nationalities. Now, this is the Comintern, this is the international, this is the international centre of communism worldwide. And at the first meeting of the Comintern, in fact, 52 different countries, including Britain, sent communist representatives. Let’s have a look at the leadership. There were six leaders. Trotsky, of course was there, so was Zinoviev, so was Balabanoff. Yes, go on. So was Rakovsky, and the the other two was, of the six, five were Jews. Now, Joseph Stalin is Commissar for nationalities before the revolution. Read what he had to say about, go on, just the next slide please. No, sorry, I’ve left, go back to Stalin. I am so sorry. I thought I had put it on but I haven’t. He said this, “The demand of national autonomy for Russian Jews is something of a curiosity, proposing autonomy for a people without a future and whose very existence has still to be proven. A fiction bereft of territory.”
The Jewish community in Russia was the third largest in the world. Jews can now no longer emigrate if they could get out anyway. Why? Because who wants to leave the perfect Soviet Union? A lot of people didn’t know what was going on. You’d be surprised how many Brits visited Stalin’s Russia, how many Jews in Palestine in the left-wing kibbutzim movement did have ties, but Zionism was dead. The revolution also makes antisemitism illegal. Trotsky realised his Jewishness was a problem. When Lenin offered him Commissar for foreign affairs, he’d said he would play into the hands of the enemies. Lenin dismissed it as socialism of fools, but it was Sverdlov who later suggested he took foreign affairs. Now, although the Bolsheviks disliked minority nationalism, they didn’t dislike minority peoples, so people could use their own language for literary expression. The language of the Jew was Yiddish. Hebrew was identified with Zionism and bourgeois imperialism, whereas Yiddish was rooted in the folk aspirations of the working masses. There were a large number of schools established.
Curriculum was to be secular, language was Yiddish. Yiddish language newspapers, agricultural colonies, secular Yiddish culture. But it all had to fit in with Bolshevik ideology. They even created a Red Haggadah. Now, in 1927, Rabbi Schneersohn, the great Lubavitcher Rebbe, was arrested and condemned to death. His crime was supporting Jewish crafts, which would give the Jews more autonomy. He called on the American Joint for help. There was international outcry. He was allowed to leave for America. In fact, there were American Jewish left-wingers, wealthy left-wingers who were prepared to support some of Stalin’s endeavours. Now, there was also The League of Militant Atheists. “Dethrone the heavenly tsars,” “We’ve dethroned the heavenly tsars as we have dethroned the earthly ones.” And an anti-religious museum opened in Moscow, which satirised the stupidities of Judaism. Let’s have a look at the Red Haggadah.
Yes, this really did exist. “We were slaves of capitalist until October came and led us out of the land of exploitation with a strong hand. If it were not for October, we and our children’s children will still be slaves. This year, a revolution here, next year, a world revolution.” Dayenu, “It would’ve been quite enough. Even if they took something, but only let us trade, we will get everything back. That would be enough with the unsuccessful trade. If only there were no taxation, we would like to do away with it. For us, it would be enough.” Young Jews were always encouraged to eat bread instead of matzo on seder. And really what you’re looking, what you’re looking at is a generational conflict. Young Russian Jews, there was the attempt to make them into atheist citizens of Russia. Now, ironically, I’m jumping on here, and we will be covering, ironically, in 1947, Stalin backed Zionism. It all went horribly wrong when Golda visited Russia as the first Israeli ambassador, and 50,000 young Russian Jews came to see her when she went to the synagogue in Moscow.
There was still a Jewish problem. So consequently, it was never really wiped out. And particularly after the creation of Israel. And then you, of course, had prisoners of Zion, and I know many of you were involved in the campaign for Soviet Jewry, and today, Russian Jews make up a huge percentage of the Israeli population. So what I’ve tried to give you is a bird’s-eye-view of Eastern Europe. We could have gone into much more depth, but we’re actually, remember, we’re looking today, in the next few weeks, we’ve been looking at Palestine and the growth of Zionism. And that’s why I tried to bring it all together. And I decided to show you those films because, for me, they give a sense of a world that was destroyed and a world that can never ever be recaptured. Anyway, let me stop there, and let’s have a look at questions.
Q&A and Comments
Yes, Tim, aliyah means going up. If the Balfour, it wasn’t published in Palestine in 1917 when it was issued. Obviously when Herbert Samuel came. So it was fascinating. They just didn’t publish it. It seems odd that people of the state were using the word state.
Q: Did you say that Ben-Gurion also didn’t use the word? A: Oh, wait for next week, Tim. I’ll be talking about the war.
The 1929 attacks were more than riots, they were pogroms. The others were early manifestations of the horror. Yes, of course. I didn’t want to dwell on that because we’re cross-referencing. Of course they were absolutely appalling. I have, online, if you want to look, there’s a presentation I gave on Haj Amin al-Husseini. It might be worth you looking at it. Yes, I am.
Q: Tim says, “So are you saying people just twisting facts to say that anyone conspired with the Nazis?” A: Yes, exactly, that’s what I’m saying. I believe that Jabotinsky was prepared to do deals with the antisemitic Polish government post Pilsudski because he believed they might help him. He had this evacuation plan. He wanted to get one and a half million Jews from Poland to Palestine. Of course it was a crazy plan. At that stage, the Poles were not allies of the British, didn’t matter to them. There was even negotiations with Mussolini. I would trade with the devil if I thought it would save my family, and frankly it’s used today in the most appalling way, saying Zionists colluded with the Nazis. That propaganda actually came out of the Soviet Union. But that’s another story.
This is from Michael Block. Hi, Michael. The leader of Betar in South Africa, Tevye Leonard Kohin from the 1940s to the '60s passed on last week in Israel, nearly 96 years old. He built up the movement in South Africa and Rhodesia at this height, about 2,000 members. So that’s good information. Thank you, Michael. The Brits from the beginning of the mandate restricted Jewish immigration and waived on Arabs started by the Jew. Be careful, Mitzi. What I would suggest was the British were, my view, and I know William’s got a slightly different view, the British were in Palestine for their own ends more than anything else. They didn’t realise what they got into. In 1939, the Brits knew what the Nazis were doing, and they restricted Jews even after the war and put Jews in concentrations. Had England not put these restrictions in order, there wouldn’t have been a Holocaust.
Mitzi, I don’t think we can go that far. I think we’ve got to be very careful. In 1939, Nahum Goldmann, who was later, he was head of the World Jewish Congress. He said you would’ve needed the soul of a Dante to imagine the inferno. Nobody could have imagined Auschwitz. So I think the British did what they did to please the Arabs. Of course there was good old-fashioned Jew hatred there. Were they colluding in the Shoah? That’s a huge accusation, but, on the other hand, I do believe that there are elements in Israel today who do believe that the Shoah could have been stopped if the world had acted, and that is one of the reasons, I think, Israel doesn’t really take much notice of any other country’s opinions. Anyway, that’s just my personal view.
Yes, I know. I know they tried very hard, but I just wanted you to see it, Estelle. She objects to the white subtitles on a white background. This is such precious film. It was found in a left luggage in Grand Central Station. It was restored. And that is 1939 summer, Poland and, well, Vilnius and Warsaw. That is so precious. Yes, David, there are many similarities between the film of, with the East End of London. Ami says you would think that David. Oh, I wish I had, Carla, what language is that? Is that Yiddish? I don’t have Yiddish. My parents would never, they spoke Yiddish themselves, occasionally.
Q: How did Vilnius end up back under Lithuania again? A: Tim, that is a huge question. I will be, oh, it’s Dutch. Thank you. Carla’s written in Dutch, presumably. Are you telling me that that meant that you could understand Yiddish? Probably. Tim, I will answer that question later on. Sammy Marks was a huge inspiration and incentive for the immigration of Lithuanian Jews to South Africa in the last quarter of the 19th century.
Q: David Freud, would I go slowly through the list of six Jews as members of the committee? A: I will next week because I put all the papers away, and I don’t want to make a mistake.
Thelma. My South African aunt was stuck in New York during the war and became a very active revisionist and friendly with Mrs. Jabotinsky after he died suddenly. After the war, my aunt and her husband returned to Port Elizabeth and started the revisionist party and later welcomed Mr. Begin to Port Elizabeth. Oh, that’s a lovely story. This is, as I said to you many times, this is the joy of lockdown. Thank you, Rita. Shelly says she’d love to see the entire film. There are five, there were six films taken, we only have five of them. And I’m going to see if I can put them online for you.
Anyway, I wish you all goodnight. Next time I’m on, I’m going to be looking at how the Zionist reacted to news of the Shoah, and then I’m going to go on and look with you at '45 to '47 and what happened. And then we’ve got a lot of very good young historians coming in to talk about post '48. I don’t intend to go post '48, but I’ve got some very, very good people who will be. Anyway, thank you all very much, and try and have a good evening. God bless. Thanks. Thanks very much.