35. Interpellation
GERMANY liked what happened in Prague on August 24. Before the end of the day, the six-month suspension of the ZVfD's Juedische Rundschau had been lifted without explanation. As if to vindicate itself, the Rundschau quickly printed Congress coverage that explained, "Within the Congress it was of course only the small, but very militant Revisionist group which wanted to convert the Zionist Organization into a sort of fighting unit. This group ... [proposed] a boycott resolution .... The Congress defeated this motion by a vast majority whereupon turbulent scenes ensued .... The Congress ... clearly demonstrated that Zionism does not fight with weapons of that sort." [1]
Der Deutsche, the newspaper of the Nazi Labor Front, devoted most of its August 25 front page to a positive reaction to Dr. Ruppin's emigration plan. "The view of the Zionist Congress represents a proposal which is acceptable and interesting," Der Deutsche said. "Without doubt, Jews living in Germany have all kinds of opportunities to get along in the world, even outside Palestine .... The emigration of a large part of the Jews from Germany would, aside from other things, provide room for German unemployed." Der Deutsche added, however, that the question of just how much in Jewish assets could be transferred was still in debate. [2]
German newspapers took care to continue their scintillating leaks about the Transfer Agreement. [3] Many Jews around the world were beginning to understand what this Transfer Agreement was all about. It was more than just an assets transfer. It was an assets transfer in exchange for a merchandise market in Palestine.
Holders of German bonds, loans, and investments around the world, had all been implored to forgo the material gain of trafficking in Nazi wares to alleviate losses should the Reich economy collapse. But now the Zionist Organization was willing to betray the boycott in exchange for the same economic stimulus many in the world were being urged to relinquish. In the minds of boycotting Jews, the Transfer Agreement was an unthinkable breach of the boycott -- dressed up with emigration, rationalized by the urgent need to develop Palestine, but nonetheless a great breach of the boycott.
Anti-transfer telegrams began arriving in Prague by Friday morning, August 25. Paris: "DEEPLY SURPRISED AT NEWS ABOUT RUPPIN'S NEGOTIATIONS WITH NAZI GOVERNMENT RE EXPORT CAPITAL JEWISH EMIGRANTS IN THE FORM OF NAZI GOODS STOP ... AGREEMENT IS INADMISSIBLE BECAUSE IT COUNTERACTS THE BOYCOTT MOVEMENT AND IS IMMORAL FOR JEWS STOP. .. WE ASK YOU TO DISAPPROVE THESE NEGOTIATIONS STOP ... signed DEFENSE COMMITTEE FOR PERSECUTED GERMAN JEWS." [4]
Warsaw: "WE HAVE LEARNED ABOUT RUPPIN'S STATEMENT RE AGREEMENT ALLEGEDLY CONCLUDED WITH GERMAN GOVERNMENT CONCERNING EMIGRATION GERMAN JEWS STOP WE REJECT CATEGORICALLY IDEA OF NEGOTIATIONS WITH NAZI GOVERNMENT STOP SHOULD SUCH NEGOTIATIONS AND AGREEMENT REALLY HAVE TAKEN PLACE THE UNDERSIGNED ORGANIZATIONS PROTEST IN THE NAME OF MANY MILLIONS OF POLISH JEWS STOP ... OUR PROTEST ALL THE MORE VIGOROUS SINCE THIS AGREEMENT WAS CONCLUDED ON EVE OF WORLD JEWISH CONGRESS IN GENEVA signed CENTRAL UNION OF MERCHANTS CENTRAL UNION OF JEWISH CRAFTSMEN CENTRAL UNION OF RETAILERS." [5]
New York: "SOME DAYS AGO I SENT LIPSKY LONG CABLE URGING BOYCOTT RESOLUTION . . . ASKING IT TO BE READ TO CONVENTION ON WHICH I RESPECTFULLY INSIST STOP FEEL CONVENTION SHOULD ALSO VOTE ON BOYCOTT RESOLUTION REGARDLESS signed UNTERMYER." [6]
Telegrams from important members of the Zionist community did not dissuade Mapai forces from enacting their program. The Friday-morning August 25 session began with an announcement by Ben-Gurion that henceforth halutzim must be accorded precedence for labor immigration certificates to Palestine. [7] Halutzim were the young pioneers of the Zionist movement. Idealistic youths would enter the program, then move on to training camps known as hachsharah to learn the manual and agricultural skills as well as philosophical insights needed to become leaders in Eretz Ysrael. When Jewish Palestine had a place, selected halutzim immigrated, and assumed key positions in the labor force and on kibbutzim. By 1933, more than half the Jewish Palestinian work force and about 80 percent of the kibbutzniks were halutzim. The vast majority of this Zionist vanguard were steeped in European socialist thought and were active members of Mapai. [8]
But in Germany, there were fewer than 3,000 halutzim, [9] and many of those were non-Germans residing in the Reich. Clearly the pauperized German Jewish masses -- traditionally not involved in Zionist youth training -- would have great difficulty being selected for entry to Palestine. However, Mapai wanted the worker immigrant quota filled not so much by German halutzim as by halutzim from Poland, Czechoslovakia, Rumania, and other nations. Dr. Ruppin had in fact hinted that the great Palestinian structure to be yielded by the German crisis would have to serve the needs of Jewish communities throughout Europe, and not just Germany. [10]
Halutzim of course were far better prepared for the rugged living and working conditions in Palestine. Many a middle-class immigrant, similar to the German Jews, had failed in Palestine for lack of the necessary manual or agricultural training. But Ben-Gurion drove home his ideological priorities when he told the Congress that Friday morning why halutzim should be taken first: "If this is a class war, we shall carry it on. But the problem between capital and labor cannot be decided at the Zionist Congress .... The Zionist Congress is concerned only with the most rapid building up of Palestine." Nor was Ben-Gurion interested in widening the halutz program to encompass those who were not true believers of the Mapai mold. In fact, he had every intention of keeping undesirable elements out, including the Revisionists. [11] The result would be a Jewish State cast in the image of Mapai.
Ben-Gurion's demand provoked criticism from the other parties, who understood that Mapai's control would now allow it to usurp the entire immigration certificate system. But while the Mizrachi, General Zionists, and Radical Zionists were busy responding to Mapai's immigration position, Revisionist delegates were thinking about the Transfer Agreement. Although they had walked out en masse the night before when their boycott resolution was denied a vote, they had decided to remain for subsequent sessions. The Transfer Agreement, still shrouded in ambiguity, had raised a storm of protest around the world. If the agreement was what the Revisionists suspected, the details had to be aired before the delegates, the world media, and world Jewry.
The presidium could block almost any attempt to debate the transfer issue. But one of the Revisionists believed he could circumvent the presidium by invoking the right of interpellation. The parliamentary procedure of interpellation guaranteed delegates the right to introduce a special question for clarification. In the middle of the Friday session, Meir Grossman stood up and announced; "The Democratic Revisionist faction poses the following question .... In yesterday's newspapers there was a report that an agreement has been concluded between Zionists and the German government ... that Palestine will purchase 3 million marks' worth of goods from Germany and that in return the German government will release a like amount of the property of the Jews." [12]
Grossman's unexpected comments captured the attention of the delegates. He went on to protest that the Transfer Agreement would divide the Zionist movement from a world Jewry bent on boycotting Hitler. "We consider this agreement to be an outrage and not compatible with the Jewish people's moral and material interest," declared Grossman. "We are asking the Executive whether this agreement was concluded with the Executive's encouragement or knowledge and whether agencies or offices of the Zionist Organization are participating in these negotiations. [13]
"We consider clearing up this matter to be urgent and important, particularly since yesterday the majority of the Congress refused a general debate about the events in Germany and has thereby made a detailed investigation of these events impossible. We expect the Executive will reply to this inquiry quickly and thereby give the Congress an opportunity for discussion. My faction has raised this subject because it is one more proof of the need for vigilance. We are beset by dangers and certain people are not as reliable as we had thought." At that, Grossman received an outburst of applause from the delegates. [14]
Up to that point, the Zionist leaders involved in the Transfer Agreement had been able to avoid the question of their involvement. Ruppin had identified Mr. Sam Cohen as the negotiator of the deal. If in fact the Transfer Agreement had been negotiated by and was to be implemented under the Zionist Organization or its components, the Congress plenum would have the right to discuss and ratify the question.
Grossman was waiting for his answer. The curious and by now apprehensive delegates of all the parties were waiting. What was the Transfer Agreement and who was responsible for it?
The presidium conferred briefly, and Grossman received his answer: Due to the approaching sunset, the Congress would adjourn for Sabbath. Motzkin gaveled and the session was over. [15]
Before the delegates and reporters dispersed, however, Jabotinsky called an impromptu press conference outside the hall. Over one hundred journalists and scores of delegates gathered around as the fiery orator delivered the full anti-Nazi speech he had been prevented from presenting the day before. He tore into both the Congress' refusal to join the boycott and the Transfer Agreement. "We sympathize with the position of our German brethren. Let them remain loyal to Germany. But Hitlerism is a danger to the sixteen million Jews all over the world, and ... the German Jews cannot influence us not to fight our enemy. Our enemy must be destroyed!" [16]
Jabotinsky then declared that because the Zionist Organization had refused to establish the international network needed for the boycott, the 100,000 members of the Revisionists, all their offices and resources all over the world would do so. There would be no haggling over leadership with such people as Samuel Untermyer. The Revisionists would cooperate fully with all existing boycott groups. As for the Transfer Agreement, Jabotinsky flatly denounced it as humiliating. He vowed that the Jews in Palestine would never abandon the boycott, never purchase German goods imported via the agreement, and that the agreement and those connected with it were doomed. Jabotinsky called for the Jews of the world to unite, abandon the Zionist Organization, and take up their rightful place in the economic trenches confronting Hitler. [17]
***
The Saturday-night session, just after Sabbath, was reserved for general debate. Mapai and their allies wanted to suppress any discussion of the Transfer Agreement and instead continue the verbal war against Revisionism. But before the chair could designate the first speaker, Meir Grossman again invoked his privilege of interpellation. "Yesterday we addressed an urgent interpellation to the Executive and asked for a reply," Grossman stated. "In the meantime, the English press had published reports about an agreement between Germany and Zionists -- a matter which the English cannot understand [referring to Germany's trade advantage]. We request that the Executive ... reply today to our urgent inquiry." [18]
Presidium chairman Motzkin answered, "In the bylaws about interpellations, there is nothing that says when an interpellation is urgent." [19]
Grossman shot back, "I propose that the Congress determine the urgency of our interpellation and instruct the Executive to provide a reply sometime tomorrow." [20]
At this point Berl Locker spoke up. Locker was the Executive member who had worked with Sam Cohen on his initial deal in May. Locker stated, "The interpellation referred to by Mr. Grossman has no connection with any action or negotiation conducted by the Executive or ordered by it. In view of today being the Sabbath, the Executive has had no opportunity to conduct a meeting. But it will deal with the interpellation at its next session and will inform the Congress whether it will submit its findings in this matter to the Congress or to a committee." [21]
Before Grossman could respond, Motzkin said, "We acknowledge this statement by the Executive. I only wish to say that it is entirely up to the Executive whether it gives or does not give an answer. We will now proceed with the general debate." [22]
Locker had forestalled an unpredictable delegate reaction first by lying about the Executive's involvement, and then by appearing to be reasonable by offering to investigate and then report either to the Congress or to a committee. The or was carefully added so the Executive could simply make that report to a "committee" and yet live up to the promise uttered before the entire plenum.
To turn the Congress away from the transfer and back to Mapai's preferred enemy, Palestinian Labor leader Zalman Rubaschov -- who would later become Israeli president Zalman Shalazar -- then launched an acidic attack against the Revisionists, characterizing them as "gangrene" that had to be cut away at the proper time. Jabotinsky, upon hearing Rubaschov's words, demonstratively stood up and walked out of the hall. Rubaschov all the more emphatically urged his fellow Laborites to remove the "pernicious, obnoxious elements in our midst." [23]
Joseph Schechtman, a Jabotinsky associate, rose to voice a Revisionist rebuttal. However, before his first sentences were complete, the entire Mapai delegation stood up and walked out. Even as they were exiting, Schechtman denounced their "milk and water resolution on the German situation" and the Congress' refusal to join the boycott as "capitulation to the forces of Hitlerist Germany." [24]
When the session finally resumed, Revisionists were anxious to demand more details of the Transfer Agreement. But the proceeding was interrupted by what many believed was a staged emergency. Someone dramatically handed Motzkin a telegram: Motzkin reacted with a look of shock. The presidium then passed the telegram around, conspicuously whispered among themselves, and announced that the session would be adjourned at once. [25]
The presidium made no formal announcement, but word quickly spread that the cable had come from Palestine. It claimed that one of the Revisionists on trial for the murder of Arlosoroff had "confessed to the crime." Mapai could now rally the Congress in a moment of passion to expel the entire Revisionist party. The Laborites were ecstatic. The Revisionists reacted to the news with confusion and fear. [26]
Both camps were milling about in the lobby when Jabotinsky reentered from his previous walkout. Supporters nervously explained news of the cable from Palestine. Jabotinsky immediately broke into laughter. He summoned all his followers to a caucus and urged them not to despair. "I guarantee that the telegram is a fake.... It is late, and I advise you to get some sleep. And when you wake in the morning, you will find out that the telegram was a fake." [27]
The next day, the Congress delegates quickly learned the "confession cable" was in fact a fake. [28] Still, the false alarm had served to foreclose debate one more day on the truly pressing issue: the Transfer Agreement. But that issue would soon become irresistible. The Nazis were waging a propaganda war, and they had more news to release.