The Transfer Agreement (62 page)

Reciting statistics testifying to the bleakness of Gennany's trade, and explaining how Germany's overindustrialized society was dependent upon commercial prosperity, Tenenbaum predicted,
"If
Nazi Germany can be encompassed by a cordon of economic quarantine, ... a well-organized boycott, there is no doubt that the so-called 'second revolution' which Hitler dreads will soon come to pass."
⁴⁸

Turning to the losses American investors would suffer if Germany's commerce and bond-repaying ability collapsed entirely, Tenenbaum stated, "There are times when material benefits fade into insignificance in comparison with the moral obligations incumbent upon humanity.
If
Germany is
permitted to continue on the steep road leading to utter disintegration of all that civilization stands for, [toward] war and moral pestilence, [then] the sacrifices which humanity will be forced to offer . . . to rid itself of this gigantic menace will exceed everything imaginable in ... material goods."
⁴⁹

Tenenbaum then introduced the Congress' boycott consultant, Dr. Max Winkler, economics professor at City College of New York. Winkler explained how Nazified statistics hid the true economic hardship in Germany and how German industrial dependency made the boycott the one anti-Hitler weapon that could triumph.
⁵⁰

There were more noble statements about the need to fight Hitler, the value of the boycott, the justification, and the devastating effects the boycott would inflict. As the speeches continued, however, many listening began to understand that this was rhetoric. The local leaders at the meeting knew that the time for talk and expectations had passed. Americans needed concrete organization, a
plan.
A speaker was making a theoretical point when the group suddenly became unruly. A man in the audience yelled out, "Get on with really doing something about the situation!" Another cried, "Instead of leading the masses ... Mr. Deutsch and Dr. Wise obstructed the boycott movement and did not fulfill their duty to the Jewish people!" A rabbi shouted, "We must throw a
cherem
[an excommunication or curse] upon Jews who handle or import German goods!" Others bitterly protested that so much time had been wasted.
⁵¹

Then Joseph Schlossberg, secretary-treasurer of the Amalgamated Tailors' Union, stood up and advised against
any
boycott, anti-Nazi or otherwise. Schlossberg charged that boycotts were mere propagandistic devices designed to "pour gas on the fires of the working world." They were bad for labor.
⁵²

That statement led to chaos as delegates angrily denounced Schlossberg's comments. Dr. Tenenbaum could barely gavel the group back to order. One prominent labor lawyer rose and declared that Schlossberg stood alone, that all the labor unions—Jewish and non-Jewish—were "in favor of the boycott of Hitler and his gang."
⁵³

Amid the tumult a rabbi stood to speak. His name was Rabbi Jacob Sunderling. Months before, he had risen to speak of the indescribable horrors confronting Jews in Germany at an emergency conference chaired by members of the American Jewish Committee. Then he had been silenced. But since that dramatic moment in early April, Rabbi Sundering had become a leading figure in anti-Nazi circles.

No longer a man to be swept aside at a public meeting, Rabbi Sunderling spoke and the crowd listened: "I rise, as a German Jew. I rise as a man whose kith and kin at present are suffering from all these things you have heard and we know. And if I deplore one thing, I deplore that even a discussion is taking place as to the necessity of the boycott. I am in favor one thousand
percent of a boycott—in spite of the fact that I know my own people will suffer."
⁵⁴

He then explained in his humble way, and in the simplest words possible, what every Jew in the world needed to grasp if European Jewry was to survive: "Ladies and gentlemen, don't you understand. We still believe that ... a diplomatic manner at certain places in Europe or here will finally bring results. [It] will not. For one reason—we are left alone. We have to fight our own battle. We have to die our own death.
If
we are not going to help, nobody is going to help. They will register facts. They will deplore things. But they will not
do
things unless the Jew takes the step that he is going to do things.
⁵⁵

"Where do you belong? With whom do you want to be reckoned? Are your ours—or are you our enemy!" He made it clear that there could be no middle ground for any reason. ''And if you are
not
with us, you are against us.
That is the boycott!''
⁵⁶

Many in the audience wept openly. Others tried to hide their tears. Action was needed. A plan, or at least a leader. That was clear to everyone at the conference. They called out for Samuel Untermyer. So in a unanimous resolution, the Executive Committee voted to summon the boycott crusader from his home to give whatever guidance he could.
⁵⁷

When Untermyer's elderly figure appeared at the door, the entire meeting—pro-boycott and against—rose to their feet in spontaneous cheering. Untermeyer could offer the crowd no more specifics than Tenenbaum or Max Winkler because they were all awaiting the organizational structure to be formed at Geneva under Stephen Wise. Nonetheless, Untermyer gave them hope. His words were brief: "I want to thank you for having invited me. And I congratulate you upon ... the resolution for boycott. It was what I had been hoping and wishing for, and I know that so many of your people were in favor of it
.... You may remember the effect of the Jewish boycott on Henry
Ford .... Well, what we did there on a small scale, we can accomplish on a large scale .... [Germany] cannot stand the economic strain that is being put on her .... [but] this is not a subject for oratory. This is a subject for work. Good, hard, practical work." The leader of the world boycott exhorted them, "I hope you will go forth from here and everyone of you do his share.
If
you do, Germany will crack this winter!"
⁵⁸

Every person in the room was aware of the calendar. Precious few days remained to push the Third Reich into upheaval. In this moment of potential triumph, it was essential that all Jews unite throughout the world. At least for a few months, until victory over Hitler had been achieved. They were also aware that the next day, August
21
,
the most organized Jewish entity in the world was to gather in Prague. On August 21,
the Zionist movement—all its factions and wings, it parties and coalitions—would convene the Eighteenth Zionist Congress.

Untermyer told the audience he had just cabled Zionist leaders at Prague urging them to join the boycott movement. And it was well known that the Revisionist Zionists were intent on making Prague a battleground to dethrone Mapai and lead Zionism to total war with Germany.
If
in the presence of their own collective consciences as Jews and Zionists, the Eighteenth Zionist Congress would follow the Revisionist and rank-and-file demand to devote the Zionist movement to the boycott, the Hitler regime
would
crack.

All eyes now turned to Prague.

I
N
ZIONISM'S
great moment of challenge, the movement was a confusing and contradictory patchwork. The Zionist Organization was a government without a land. Under its authority existed territorial federations from every country, religious and philosophical unions, political parties, factions, and splinter groups. Each was embroiled in ideological and personality struggles pitting faction against faction, creating bizarre, often transient alliances. Frequently there were separate alliances for separate issues. One faction might join its philosophical nemesis on a religious issue, and then oppose that same temporary ally on an immigration question. As such, Zionism resembled any democracy, which is after all little more than a civilized method of constant disagreement.

It would be an oversimplification to characterize the clash between Mapai and Revisionism solely as a dispute over the Hitler crisis. Broad issues divided these two camps: labor policy, immigration attitudes, economic philosophy, religious identity, and sovereignty questions. But as the Eighteenth Zionist Congress approached, the constellation of conflicts between Mapai and Revisionism focused most spectacularly on the Zionist response to Nazism.

The Mapai-Revisionist clash was hardly the only rift in Zionist politics. For example, the movement was divided over whether Chaim Weizmann should resume the presidency of the Zionist Organization. In July
I
933,
Weizmann had actually journeyed to the American Zionist convention in Chicago in part hoping to commit U.S. delegates to support him for reelection at Prague. Stormy Chicago convention scenes cut the American Zionist community into equal halves, with Stephen Wise leading the half staunchly opposed to Weizmann's return.
¹

Adding to the rift was a Weizmann precondition for resuming the presidency: the total expulsion of all Revisionists from the Zionist movement. Therefore, a vote for Weizmann was a vote to expel Jabotinsky and his supporters. That drove Stephen Wise of the General Zionist party even further into the Revisionist corner, because a vote for the Revisionists was not only a vote for the boycott, it was a vote against Chaim Weizmann.

Another major conflict pitted the religious Mizrachi Zionists against the Zionist Organization itself. This struggle, essentially revolving around questions of religious predomination in Jewish Palestine, was as important as the Weizmann issue because Mizrachi held a decisive swing vote. So at Prague, Mizrachi support for the Revisionists would be, in large part, an effort to force religious planks on the more secular mainstream Zionists.

Despite assumed alliances, the question of whether Revisionists or Mapai would prevail was indeed unanswerable. Mapai tried to ensure their success by continually comparing Revisionism to Nazism, and by spotlighting the Arlosoroff assassination as proof that Revisionists were terrorists who had no place in the Zionist movement.
²

Just before the worldwide elections for delegates to the Zionist Congress, the Revisionists themselves succumbed to a party squabble and actually split into separate majority and minority parties. The majority followed Vladimir Jabotinsky personally. The minority, led by Meir Grossman, called themselves alternately Grossman Revisionists or Democratic Revisionists. The split was essentially internecine; the two factions still acted in concert on vital issues. But this temporal split allowed Mapai-influenced Zionist election boards to disqualify the majority Jabotinsky candidate lists in many locales, based on technicalities.
³

In mid-July, Congress election bureaus opened in virtually every country on every continent—from traditional Zionist strongholds such as Poland and Canada to scant Zionist communities in Uruguay and New Zealand. Depending upon the Zionist rules in any given country, voters could cast their votes for any party strong enough to qualify for the local ballot. The parties in turn sent delegates to the Congress based on electoral strength. Any Jew paying the token biblical shekel (about twenty-five cents) could vote.

It took days to count the votes—more than half a million worldwide. Charges and countercharges of terrorism at the polls and vote fraud led to numerous post-election disallowances and recounts. But when it was allover, Mapai had garnered 44 percent of the delegates, up from its approximate third achieved in the previous election two years before. The two Revisionist parties attracted about 20
percent of the vote, down from the approximate one-fourth captured two years earlier.
⁴

The defeat dashed Jabotinsky's dream of leading a worldwide voter revolt against the Zionist establishment. Whereas Revisionism with alliances had previously held a tenuous half-control over the movement, the Revisionists were now the third most powerful. Moreover, with Mapai able to wield an alliance of the second-ranked General Zionists and the tiny Radical Zionists, Revisionism became an isolated minority within the movement.
⁵
The power of Mapai's accusations and the Arlosoroff murder backlash was overshadowing the Revisionist stance on Hitler. The only way Jabotinsky could now save his movement, and force Zionism to join the anti-Nazi campaign, was through a floor fight at the Eighteenth Zionist Congress itself. Jabotinsky was convinced that with the world watching, he could rouse the hearts and consciences of delegates, regardless of party.