8
THE CANADIAN JEWISH REVIEW
AUGUST 13, 1943
CANADIAN JEWISH* REVIEW
4a' Impartial Midivm for the Dlsaammatton of Jewish Mews and Views
Published Weekly by the Canadian Jewish Review
Montreal
80S, 1283 MeGUl College Ave. Phone MArquette 1203-4-6
Toronto Room 120?. 21 Dundes Square Phone ELgin 1436-7
Entered as Second-Class Mail at the Post Office at Ottawa, In December 1921, Subscription Price 61.00 per year, Unl'.ed States 62,00.
r. F. Cohen, Editor. Rabbi H. J. Stern, Contributing Editor.
George W. Cohen, Manager. _
I teaoSy approve of what you soy and win defend to the death your right to toy it. � Voltaire to Helvetiu*.
AUGUST 13, 1943
VOL. XXV, No. 45
British Zionists Capture Board Off Jewish Deputies
The Jewish Chronicle, pro-Zionist weekly, of London, England, says:
Three hundred and thirty-nine delegates attended the meeting of the Deputies and by a slender majority voted the Board into the power of Mr. BakBtanaky's Caueua. The new proprietors, for reasons not difficult to divine, are now bravely denying that proposition, &d as the chief organiser had previously announced that he really was out to capture the Board, this amounts to a declaration that he was defeated.
Germans, What Of Tomorrow?
Tfia Jaws Alone Win Seek No R.Yange
By Thomas Mann, la liberal Judaism
It would be interesting to know your innermost thoughts about the conduct of those who speak and act for you before the world without For example, what are your feelings, as human beings, toward the anti-Jewish atrocities in Europe? You continue to support Hitler's war, and you endure to the utmost, out of fear of what defeat must bring: fear of the vengeance that will be wreaked upon everything German by the maltreated nations of Europe.
The Jews alone wffl seek no such revenge. They are the most defenseless of all your victims, the least disposed to violence and broodthirstiness. Even today they are not yet your foes, but you are their enemies. You will fail to make this hatred reciprocal. Jews are virtually always philo-Ger-mans.
If you should be driven to the brink of disaster, as appears likely, it will be the Jews themselves, unemotional and mellow with the wisdom of ages, who will counsel against punishing you measure for measure. In all probability they wiH be your only friends, the sole pleaders of your cause in the Whole world. They have been bereft of power, disfranch-hied, dispossessed, and humbled in the dust . . . Is that not enough? What kind of human beings, what sort of monsters are they who are never sated with abuse, who find incentive in every misfortune they visit upon the Jews to plunge them more deeply and mercilessly into misery?
At first there was a semblance of reason and moderation m the treatment of this vestige of antiquity, which had, however, become closely woven into the fabric of modern Germany's national life. The impression was created that the Jews were to be segregated from the ruling population, ex* do Jed from public office and shorn of influence; they were to be allowed to live as tolerated guests but free to pursue, unmolested, their own spiritual and cultural life. That, how-
long past: t*e tartm^ of Jew* has tawwn no
^ stageof aimihfla-
But even the dullest wits will not be deceived by this unwonted modesty. The Board has, in very truth, been captured, and the sooner the Community at large wakes up to that fact the better.
It is true that, as the Duke of Wellington said after Waterloo, the struggle was "a damned dose thing.*' The results achieved were only rendered possible on the one hand oy the complete failure of the non-Caucus Deputies to organise, and on the other by the muster of "backwoodsmen" who, in some instances looking quaintly out of their element, and carefully shepherded according to plan, obediently registered their support for the Caucus. But the stark fact remains that, at the end of it all, the Caucus was left in possession of the Presidency, and of half the number of Vice-Presidents, and that it slew the Joint Foreign Committee, again in accordance with plan.
In due course, there can be no doubt, it will proceed to mop up the various Committees, securing these strong-points with or without appropriate camouflage. With the aid of its Zionist levies and those from the Federation of Synagogues, this should not be difficult Whether it will continue the Palestine Committee in existence now that the whole Board has become a Palestine Committee, is for our new lords and masters to decide. The fate of the Executive Committee, however, seems little open to question. That body, like the rest, wfll be condemned f or aH effectual purposes to wear the livery, of the Caucus bosses. Such is the position, as it stands after Sunday's fateful gathering!
Clearly, it cannot be left there. The Anglo-Jewish Association, for instance, whose co-operation in the protection of foreign Jewries has been repudiated, is compelled under its constitution to interest itseh* in the welfare of these coreligionists. If it proceeds to perform this duty, there wiH be two organisations knocking on the doors of harassed Government Departments, and both intent on the same mission in hand. Nor is it^thinkable that the grave^ domestic problems which may presently arise should be decided upon by men whose appointments and whose whole raison d'etre in public life have nothing to do with domestic administration or policy but have been solely concerned with Zionism. Many of them nhaf/s fa* al we fabow, shags the g^abi* view thai ah that matters is Zionism and that as soon as th* Zionist goal is
One More Effort To Arouse The Sympathies Off The World
The Nation says:
Two million Jews out of Europe's six million have already been slaughtered by the Nazis; most of the remainder seem doomed, for the rate of liquidation is being speeded up as German hopes of victory decline. This is the most colossal and atrocious crime in history, and it is a crime to which the democracies are accessories before the fact.
Now the Emergency Conference to Save the Jews of Europe is making one more effort to arouse the sympathies of the world. It has a number of concrete proposals to make, including an approach by the United Nations to the Axis satellites. Since the governments of these countries now see the writing on the wail, there is reason to believe that they might prove amenable to pressure.
Another proposal, is for temporary asylum in neutral Countries with an Allied guaranty of evacuatton of refugees received there within six months after the end of the war. This brings up the problem of permanent havens.
Many Jews could be absorbed in Palestine, but every proposal to open the gates of the (Balfour) Promised Land has met a blank refusal from the British government. It is, of course, true that an increase of Jewish inuragration into Palestine might mean trouble with the Arabs. But whatever the risks, they ought not to outweigh the certainty of the< loss of tens of thousands of lives which might be saved by letting down the bars.
<" We must note, however, that the United States would be in a stronger moral position to urge this policy if it were a little more open-handed itself.
ajrrtfc* he forced to re-the Uat Jew along the way. No BTtettgest hu&sm -being can possibly fathom the mental processes of these putrid brains. "To what end?" one asks oneself. "Why? What good does it serve? Will anybody be.better off if the Jews are annihilated? lias the miserable, reckless liar finally persuaded himself thai the war is the machination of 'world-Jewrythat it is a 'Jewish war* waged for and against the Jews? Does he believe that *worfcl-Jewry* wiH abandon the war against the Nazis in fear of the realization that the downfall of the Nazis will spefl the destruction of the last Jews in Europe?" Gundotfs misbegotten disciple, regards gradual defeat as possible. But the Nazis are deter-asaed not to go to Hades alone; they will attempt to drag the Jews with them. They cannot get along without Jews. It is their deep-rooted common destiny.
I believe, however, that the German armies that will be streaming back after the war wiH have something other than pogroms to think about But until they are beaten they will be in deadly, insane earnest about annihilating the Jews. Into the Warsaw ghetto�the inhabitants of which died so gloriously not Jong ago � they had crammed 500,000 Jews from Poland, Austria, Czechoslovakia and Germany, crowded them into two dozen squalid streets. More than 700,000 Jews have been murdered by the Gestapo.
If you Germans, in your isolated Germany, were allowed to know about such things as the tragic doom of the Jews in the Warsaw ghetto and the epic struggle that preceded it you would shudder before your rulers and before yourselves. This ghetto was nothing but a pit of famine, pest hence and death, whence arises the stench of corpses.
Are you Germans aware of this? And how does it strike you? Sometime ago in Unoccupied France 3,600 Jews were feathered from various concentration camps and shipped off to Eastern Europe. Before the death train started to move, 800 human beings committed suicide. Only children five years of age and upward were permitted to remain with their parents; the younger ones were left to their fate. This incident created much bad blood among the French people. What of your own blood, Germans?
WHhn a few days 16,000 Jews were rounded up in Paris, loaded into cattle cars and ti*naported. Whither? That is known only to the locomotive engineer of whom there was talk among the Swiss. He fled to Switzerland because he had been obliged to p�ot several trainloads of Jews which were halted on an open stretch of tracks, then hermetically sealed and fined with poison gas. The man could bear it no longer. But his experiences were by no means extaordinary.
There exists an authentic documented report about the kitting of 11,000 Polish Jews with poison gas. These were taken to a special execution field near Konin. in the Warsaw district j sunned into air-tight sealed cars, and transformed into corpses within a quarter of an hour. There is a detailed record of the whole procedure, of the shrieks and entreaties of the victims, and of the hght-hearted laughter of the Nazi (S.S.) Hottentots who perpetrated this tragic jest.
And yet you Germans are amazed, even indignant, that the crrifized work! has been taking common counsel to devise educational methods whereby generations of Germans, whose
figures, and argue that m pracjftft* tk* Board seems to be so equally divided that the Caucus wfll always have a hard task to make its decisions law. This wishful thinking ignores the
realities of the position. The non-Caucus members, many of them jiving in the distant provinces, wfll not attend Board meetings whose decisions will be determined beforehand by the fiat of Great Russell Street. On the other hand, the delegates of the Federation of Synagogues and its constituents-^ totalling over a hundred, or 25 per cent of the Board�and the followers of the Caucus (including the majority of salaried Zionist officials) will be always on the spot to respond to their master's voice and do as they are bid.
The non-party Deputies are without the organized efforts and power which the Caucus can and does use to meet any emergency and make its wishes prevail. So that it is a case of wistful hopes and inertia and the compelling distractions of business or professional life against concentrated and sleepless activity on the part of those who will always be there. Of the issue of that unequal conflict there can be no shadow of doubt The easy talk, therefore, about the Caucus "not having ft all its own way," or its "near defeat," and the consequent complacent attitude of letting matters slide can be at once dismissed.
Two alternatives offer. Those who were so narrowly beaten could now organise on similar intensive fines to that of their opponents, and become a sort of "His Majesty's Opposition" (or some such equivalent) equipped with whips, officials, offices, and all the paraphernalia of party administration, and m due course; run the elections from their headquarters. This would entail a heavy permanent expenditure and it is very doubtful if any such organisation could secure the necessary and regular funds.
Much more serious, it would turn the Board into a mock Parliament with aH the objections connected therewith. It would make it a cockpit of party strife, of huckstering and of intrigue, at a time when it desperately needs to be a deliberative assembly discussing how, with mutual amity and give and take, it may help to save the Jewish people. It would mean that when the Peace delegates assemble British Jewry would be revealed as childishly absorbed in the Party game. And there is even then no guarantee that under the handicaps already mentioned the Opposition would secure a fair 8hare of consideration.
Yet. either this is the pass to which the (immunity wfll have to reconcile itself, or�the second aKernaiive�the sane and forward-looking Zionists wiH persuade the Caucus to retrace its steps. Even the Caucus, flushed though it may be with success, can be asked to pause for a moment Under the impact of its assault the Board is no longer a free representative body of British Jewry but a partisan Committee meddling in Anglo-Jewish communal affairs. The Board, as it has existed for many generations, is to all intents and purpose* defunct and the Caucus has captured�a corpse.
How in the name of common sense can the Zionist cause, the most important cause in Jewry today, be said to have
gained from its death? How will it prof it from the fact � flaunted in the public's eyes � that its membership has to a large extent been captured by an electioneering caucus claiming to work in the interests of Zionism ? The manoeuvre has evoked the strongest disapproval and the gravest apprehension of a number of profoundly ardent-Zionists whose political acumen permits them to look beyond the petty victory to the tragic bill that will have to be paid later on.
Many such Zionists, by the way, are known to have voted against the Caucus in the decisions. Many of those who supinely permitted this operation of capture to go forward, satisfying their conscience with the lazy fallacy that it was anyhow a stroke for Zionism, are now bewailing the possibility of a communal split They should have thought of it before they allowed disruption to proceed on its course while they held their peace. But it is not too late, even now, for them to help undo the mischief.
Victories can be bought too dear. Let us remind the Zionist leaders of what happened alt the Restoration of the Monarchy in this island, when King (Xiarfes H was bade to his domain. The great, afi^owitfui A � - - tstm existed. It was sibsorufe and
>* and ultimately of--------�
the aB^powerful .Army preferred to atmreme acts of political far-eight�^ � veated the true source of England's greatness.
If those who have brought the present trouble On the Community will face up to its ultimate dire results, If they will exhibit the same broad statesmanship, the same political horse-sense, the same loyalty and indifference to personal sacrifice which marked the conduct of Englishmen nearly three centuries ago and have since been manifested at every supreme crisis in the story of this island, or if having won the day they now seek some wise and generous accommodation with those whom they have defeated, abandoning the stranglehold of the Board which they have so unwisely assumed, they will play the part of good Jews as well as sensible practical men.
Failing it the prospect must be disturbing, if not bleak. And as it takes material shape it Wffi not be only the Jews of Britain who will suffer but their oppressed brethren abroad, and, most serious of all, the very cause, Zionism which it has so misguidedly been sought to foster.
Are the Zionist leaders in this country big enough to do the brave and,the wise thing?
JEWISH HISTORIAN ~
DICS, WAS CALLED TO U.S. FROM GERMANY
mmds have been warped by National Socialism, might be tiansformed from rnoraJfy depraved, inonetrous killers into human beings!
(Continued from Pmge One/ at Breslau University and the Jewish Theological Seminary in that city. After a period of study in the CoUegio Rahblnico hi Florence, Italy, he became a lecturer In history and Bible exegesis. Prom 1902 to 1919 Dr. Elhogen was a lecturer in the Lehranstalt In Berlin, becoming a professor in 1919. He then taught the history of Jewish religion there until 1983.
About five years ago three American Jewish instnatfcsna, the Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, the Jewish Institute of Rett-gkm In New York and the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, invited Dr. Elhogen to New York from Germany as a research profesaor.
The Jewish Theological Seminary of America in 1937. awarded to him the degree of Hebrew Letters for his studies and leadership in the communal life of his country, and two years later he was honored by the Jewish Institute of Religion, which conferred upon him an honorary degree.
Dr. Elhogen was a member of the board of the Judaic Institute and the Council and Academy of Hebrew University In Palestine. He was also chairman of the So ciety for Jewish History and Literature.
He leaves a widow, Mrs. Regina Klemperer Elbogen, sister of Otto Khmrperer, rhe conductor; a son, Private Herman Elhogen of the Army, and a daughter, who lives in Palestine.
A funeral service was held at the Jewish Theological Seminary. Burial in Mount Hebron Cemetery, Que�
ZIONISTS PROTEST MILITANT RIVALRY PICTURED IN PALESTINE
(Continued from Page One) All through the Arab riots of 1936' to 1939. la the face of brutal pro. vocation, the Jews in Palestine exercised the maximum amount of aeif-reatrauit and disciplined patience ..."
The statement cited testimony by British military leaders and by Sir Harold MarttiihaeL ffcga Commissioner for Palestine, pay lag tribute to the contribution of Palestinian Jews to the H added:
"The Tunes correspomlent geats that the United Nations mi deal with the sttuailoa firmly if violence is to he avoided. The need for decisive action has long been apparent, hut H must be on-equivocal and oJknnrpfomistng. The tenor of The Times dispatches is suggestive of another course� some new engagement which might perpetuate past appeasements and Jeopanhze the future of the Jewish homeland is