Information Issued by the Association of Jewish Refugees in Great Britain

Vol. XV No. 6 June, 1960 INFORMATION ISSUED BY THE ASSOCIATION OF JEWISH REFUGEES IN GREAT BRITAIN t FAIRFAX MANSIONS, Otfict and Consulting Houn : FINCHLEY ROAO (Comer Fairfax Read), LONDON, N.W.3 Mondtty to Thurtday 10 a.m.—l p,m. 3—6 p.m. Telephone: MAIda Vale 9096'7 (General Officel Friday 10 a.m.—I p.m. MAIda Vale 4449 (Employment Agencv and Social Services Dept.) Robert WeUsch a book written with an almost broken heart, and at the end he put the following lines: ", . Dreaming is also some sort of filling the time which we are spending on this earth. THE DREAM AND THE REALITY A dream is not as different from action as many believe. All actions of men were dreams at first and become dreams again." Some Reflections on the Herzl Centenary These were the last words that Thcodor Herzl published, apart from the political struggles of his last months. He was a dreamer of a new th °'''*'' Herzl, commemorated by Jews all over shaken him to the bottom of his soul. This experi kind, a dreamer who went on to action. "The •JJ^ *orld in these days, was born 100 years ago ence changed his whole personality almost over basic categories of his thinking are those of the n Budapest, but for all practical purposes he night and transformed him into a man of destiny. liberal world around 1900 in Central Europe, but I •^' he described as a Viennese Jew and a Although he rose against the predominant old he also had a critical eye for the politiwl and ^lOeral in the old nineteenth-century tradition of way of thinking and had to fight the opponents social intricacies of an age which was the begin J^ntral Europe. At his time German was the within his own world, he was part of this world. ning of radical change, although most people did "sua franca of European—and to some degree What kind of a world was that ? Let us look no* realise that at the time. The Industrial Revolu j^^n of American—Jewry. Leo Pinsker, a Russian back at the end of the last century in Central tion had conquered the whole of Europe, emanci field ^""^ Herzl's most prominent forerunner in the Europe. It was a time of ferment and unease. pation had over-reached itself as the Jews ,j^'",pf.Zionism, wrote his book "Auto-Emancipa Some men who gave this period its specific charac produced an increasing number of middle-class tion in German. In a wider sense Herzl can ter and reached a creative and active life at about intelligentsia and professional men. Herzl realised Safftl C ^*-*"^«". A" ^ TTi'UWl. ^S.-l±i>^ XAVli.1 vail that the anti-Semitism which raised its head in nat 1 '^^^^^••ibed as a " German " Jew (though 1900, were bom a hundred years ago. Among them are several Jews of world fame ; after 1848 Central Europe was not a transient phenomenon, aturally not in the political meaning of " reichs- not a matter that could be minimised as the y"sch "). Looking back at his life in historical a new Jewish type had slowly emerged in Central Europe—the post-assimilation intellectual Jew. " socialism of the fools ", but the symptom of the perspective, without the tension of the political emergence of new classes and a new philosophy j^^ôyersy of his days, we are tempted to say Two years ago the civilised world celebrated of nationalism combined with raciaUsm, supported l^^t his personality and his way of thought may the centenary of the Moravian Jew Sigmund by the jealousy of the newly rising middle-class ^, more properly understood by people who against the Jews and their occupations, iginated from the same inteUectual and cultural Freud, who has revolutionised the thought of man background. kind in many fields of life. Last year there was the centenary of a great thinker who opened new Utopia Conceived Jewish State Founded lanes of thought and became the founder of a philosophy from which was derived what is today In contrast to the predicament of dispersed is n^^^ ^^^ ^^^ founder of political Zionism and called Existentialism, Eduard Husserl, a Jew from Jewry in a world of growing anti-Semitism, Hesji naturally venerated in the State of Israel today, the Moravian town of Prossnitz. This year we conceived his glowing vision of a Jewish life that g^" ^Ptember 3, 1897, after the first Zionist Con- celebrate two centenaries of great Jews of similar should be perfect in every respect. His Jewish ? JfSs m Basle, he wrote in his diary: "' In Basle geographical and cultural origin. Gustav Mahler, State idea cannot be equated to the nationalist taini^^ founded the Jewish State. ... In five, cer- who expressed in music the suffering of the human aspirations of other European—and in our age Exa 1 '" ^f'y years, everyone will see that." soul and its redemption, the totality of life and also Asian and African—nationalities, which were i^^yy fiftv years after, the United Nations the never-ending search for God ; Theodor Herzl, directed solely towards independence. To him, Her I- °" '^* establishment of the Jewish State, who was revered by his followers, but post independence had to provide an opportunity of yea political endeavours in the short seven humously came to world-wide fame, as many creating a form of community life in which the tj.J^ °f his leadership were widespread and fan- writers and historians, concerned with explaining highest human—not nationalistic—ideals should (with • t,*^^ wanted to win over the Gennan Kaiser the " miracle" of the State of Israel, discover be implemented. His book " Judenstaat", and Bad \ ^^^^ **^ ^^^ friend, the Grossherzog of suddenly that a Viennese Jew conceived that idea still more his novel " Altneuland "—^the " dream " to t^v ^^^ '"^'^ *° induce Britain and Russia in 1896. to which he wrote the epilogue quoted above— to a T ^^ ^^^^ ''* i°*^"<^'08 the Sultan to agree are both in the nature of Utopia. In this respect storv i!'^'' State in Palestine. It is a fascinating Auslro-Hungarian Civilisation he was influenced by a book published shortly With tK ""^'^ understandable only in connection before in Vienna by one Theodor Hertzka, the "?? .political constellation of those days when These men who came from the old Austro- " Freiland ", describing a human society of social clouH "^'^"tal Question" hung like a menacing Hungarian Empire, were rooted in an old cos perfection. Herzl believed that thanks to the it all °^^^ Europe for forty years. Ultimately mopolitan civilisation which at that time was progress of technical science such a blueprint is t i^"*'**' iu frustration. In Israel today Herzl already in decline—^perhaps decadent—^but with could for the first time in history be transformed and t,-^^'^'âry figure and the cult of his name the highest refinements in art, music, thought and into practical results. He was not concerned with Stat k ^°'"*' is par' of 'he paraphernalia of the poetry. In many pronouncements of art and saving Judaism or Jewish culture. The seven-hour has I ' '' '^ '^° *^r*' 'hat the young generation literature from this " world of yesterday "—as working day was more important to him than nor ^ ^ ^^"^ ^^'''' ^'^^^ ^^ *ho he really was, Stephan Zweig called it—we feel in retrospect a the Hebrew language. The national flag which hQ_,^^ they much interested in this question. Any- sUght, moving melancholy, a foreboding of he suggested was not decorated with nationalistic fojj ' Herzl was more fortunate than other approaching doom, sometimes unconscious, some or religious symbols; it consisted of the seven *ho of young States, e.g.. Thomas Masaryk, times identified with human destiny as a whole, stars that symbolised the short working day, which as in the symphonies of Gustav Mahler. Reality at that time was an ideal of sociaUsts and p_.. ^^ name must not even be mentioned in the assumes a somewhat dreamlike character. Dreams reformers—albeit then considered in the region title %.? "liberated" (in 1919 he was given the are a regular feature in the poetry of all ages of Utopia. and t- " ^''^sident Liberator "). History goes on and all peoples, not least in the Bible. In that jjg ''™es are changing fast. The times of Theodor Vienna they became the token of a philosophy of For Herzl, the form of political independence The I faded away and his world has vanished, resignation. Shakespeare's famous lines : " We was not as essential as its content, the establish the nf^°*^ has taken the place of reality. On are such stuff as dreams are made on", were ment of what he called a new society. Herzl, as strep? h^'" hand, in the mind of the man in the almost literally re-created, consciously quoted or a man of the nineteenth century, was far too is rath emergence of the State of Israel in 1948 not, by Hugo von Hofmannsthal : power-conscious to believe in the viability of gra-plher linked with the ignominious and dis- miniature States without intemational backing. He nir^^ "^"le of Hitler than with the noble and " Wir sind aus solchem Zeug wie das zu thought of such precedents as the old East India •^'ng personality of Herzl. Traeumen , . ." Company, which had been established by a Charter. This was the very word which Herzl in v'^ °"^ °^ ^^^ enigmas of history that in 1895 At the same time as a whole series of Schnitz applied to the Zionist aim. But naturally the e(jy '^Ptâ, of all places, a man of the origin and ler's—100 years in 1962—novelettes circle around Concession granted to the Jewish Company would seetn^H ° °^ Herzl conceived this idea, which the tension between Dream and Reality, Beer- be worthless without a guarantee by the Great 'enin^ revolting, if not ridiculous, to his con- Hofmann wrote " Ja'acob's Traum", and, of Powers.

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