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FULFILLMENT ^^^Mi^^if" 41" THhODOR HERZL FULFILLMENT: THE EPIC STORY OF ZIONISM BY RUFUS LEARSI The World Publishing Company CLEVELAND AND NEW YORK Published by The World Publishing Company FIRST EDITION HC 1051 Copyright 1951 by Rufus Learsi All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher, except for brief passages included in a review appearing in a newspaper or magazine. Manufactured in the United States of America. Design and Typography by Jos. Trautwein. TO ALBENA my wife, who had no small part in the making of this book be'a-havah rabbah FOREWORD MODERN or political Zionism began in 1897 when Theodor Herzl con- vened the First Zionist Congress and reached its culmination in 1948 when the State of Israel was born. In the half century of its career it rose from a parochial enterprise to a conspicuous place on the inter- national arena. History will be explored in vain for a national effort with roots imbedded in a remoter past or charged with more drama and world significance. Something of its uniqueness and grandeur will, the author hopes, flow out to the reader from the pages of this narrative. As a repository of events this book is not as inclusive as the author would have wished, nor does it make mention of all those who labored gallantly for the Zionist cause across the world and in Pal- estine. Within the compass allotted for this work, only the more significant events could be included, and the author can only crave forgiveness from the actors living and dead whose names have been omitted or whose roles have perhaps been understated. With reference to many of the controversies to which Zionism gave rise, the author will no doubt be found to be a partisan, but not, he trusts, a blind partisan. Without the help of many devoted friends, this work could not have been accomplished. The two who have the largest claim on my gratitude are Sundel Doniger, the president of the Jewish History Foundation, and my son David Emanuel, who lightened the burdens involved in a work of this exacting nature. I had valuable help also from Dr. Joshua H. Neumann and his charming wife Tamar, and from my old and faithful friend Abraham Grayer. Professor Neumann, Mr. Doniger and Mr. Grayer, whose acquaintance with the Zionist Move- ment has been long and intimate, read the manuscript and made im- portant suggestions. The rich facilities of the Zionist Archives and collection Library of the Palestine Foundation Fund, particularly their of photographs, were made available to me by the director, Mrs. Mrs. Adinah Dorf- Sylvia Landress, and her assistants, especially man, and Mrs. Janet Deutsch Gendelman was an able secretarial to the considerateness and assistant. I owe a great deal, finally, help- fulness of the publisher and his staff. RUFUS LEARSI vii CONTENTS Foreword vii Part One: HARBINGERS OLD AND NEW I Introduction 3 ii Interregnum 9 m Prayers and Projects 21 iv New World Harbingers 31 v "Lovers of Zion" 41 vi The First "Wave" 51 Part Two: THROES OF REDEMPTION vii The World of Theodor Herzl 61 vin The Judenstaat 69 ix The Congress 80 x Friends and Foes 91 xi The Elusive Charter 99 xii Herzl Ends His Journey 110 xm Issues and Parties 116 xiv The Pace and the Need 128 xv Zionism Comes to America 141 xvi First Fruits 157 Part Three: BATTLERS AND BUILDERS xvn In a World at War 175 xviii The Balfour Declaration 187 xix The Legion 199 xx Postwar Battles 206 xxi Losses and Gains 223 xxn In Search of Allies 236 xxin Battlers and Builders 250 xxiv Revolt and Surrender 263 xxv The National Home, 1939 278 xxvi The World Movement, 1939 295 Part Four: FURY AND FULFILLMENT XXVH Martyrs and Heroes 313 xxvin War and Terror 327 xxix Up from the Ruins 346 ix CONTENTS xxx November 29, 1947 357 xxxi First Assault 366 xxxn The Proclamation 374 xxxni The War of Independence 384 xxxiv Fulfillment and After 398 Bibliographical Note 411 Index 413 ILLUSTRATIONS THEODOR HERZL frontispiece MAX NORDAU facing page 212 MENAHEM USSISCHKIN NAHUM SOKOLOW 213 VLADIMIR JABOTINSKY LOUIS DEMBITZ BRANDEIS 244 HENRIETTA SZOLD CHAIM WEIZMANN 245 DAVID BEN GURION MAPS FIRST FRUITS 167 THE NATIONAL HOME, 1939 289 THE STATE OF ISRAEL 387 JERUSALEM AND HER ENVIRONS 395 ISRAEL AND HER NEIGHBORS 405 Part One: HARBINGERS OLD AND NEW Chapter I: INTRODUCTION THE year 70 of this era the invincible legions of Rome put an end to the Second Jewish Commonwealth, and in 1948 the Third Jewish Commonwealth was born. A gulf of almost nine- INteen centuries lies between the two events, but in some quar- ters at least the connection between them was not lost. It was the theme of preachers and orators, it stirred the imagination of poets, and even a few statesmen, in whom as a group that faculty is not too conspicuous, were not insensitive to it. But the most dramatic demon- stration of this connection took place in Rome itself. The day was November 30, 1947. The night before the General Assembly of the United Nations, meeting at Flushing Meadows in New York, had by more than the required two-thirds majority voted for a sovereign Jewish state in Palestine. The world heard the news, and in Rome thousands of Italian Jews and Jewish displaced persons sojourning in Italy marched in a jubilant procession beneath the famous Arch of Titus. The Arch is the monument which the ancient Romans erected to celebrate the downfall of Judea and perpetuate the glory of her con- queror. What changes those nineteen centuries had wrought over the face of the earth! Old empires, among them Rome herself, had vanished, and new ones had risen up and flourished and passed on into the shadows. Hoary cultures had languished and died, some leaving'a trail of keen nostalgia, others buried in mounds and tombs and remem- bered only by antiquarians. The old faiths by which men lived and died had given place to new ones, and science had become monarch and oracle, teaching men how to live longer and less painfully and how to destroy each other more effectually. That shapeless extension of the Asiatic continent called Europe had spawned numerous new nations and created a culture which still dominates the entire globe. And scattered through all this welter of generation and dissolution, the people whose corporate life the Roman legions had extinguished 3 4 FULFILLMENT struggled and suffered, and survived to a vindication of faith and hope such as mankind in its long travail had never before witnessed. They survived, first of all, the slow but relentless attrition of time, the silent command of the years and centuries that denies per- manence to all things, including nations and cultures. They survived as a distinct ethnic and cultural entity essentially a nation though dispossessed of the attributes of land and polity, which are considered indispensable to national existence. They survived in the teeth of every variety of persecution crude and refined, slow and swift, "civilized" the insidious allurements of and savage. They survived, finally, against other and more glamorous cultures. They were smitten and afflicted, they suffered grievous wounds and losses and disasters, but they survived; and not only because they nursed memories of a great past but because they had a rendezvous with the future. And now they and their future had met. 2 But the Jews did more than just survive. Mere survival is impos- sible for the heirs of an ancient heritage: they must hearken to its commands or perish. Extinction of political life did not mean the decay of their spiritual and intellectual energy. In whatever lands the tides of chance placed them they continued to cultivate their peculiar heritage, never yielding its basic tenets and ideals, but adapt- ing its forms and modes to the pressures of time and circumstance. And wherever they lived in sizable numbers they built new struc- tures on the ancient foundations and, when not prevented, applied their exuberant energies to the cultural enrichment of the lands they called their own. About the year 200 the large and vigorous remnant that remained in the motherland after the overthrow of the state completed the great compendium of law and wisdom known as the Mishnah. Generations of sages known as tannaim contributed to the making of this code men like Hillel and Shammai, Johanan ben Zaccai, Akiba ben Joseph, Meir and Judah ha-Nasi. In the meantime, a numerous and powerful concentration had arisen in Babylonia and flourished for a thousand years. Generation after generation, the lore gathered in the Mishnah was elaborated by the amoraim of that center. About the year 500 their labors resulted in the Babylonian Talmud, which extended its authority over the entire Diaspora and became an object of intense devotion and passionate study. Day and night the wistful chant in INTRODUCTION 5 which the keen disputations of Samuel and Rab, of Raba and Abaye, of Ashi and Rabina and the other amaraim were studied has sounded across the centuries in homes, synagogues and academies throughout the world. In other communities, meanwhile, notably in Alexandria of Egypt, Jews also cultivated the wisdom of the Greeks and attempted to har- monize it with their own. But the most brilliant cultural efflorescence, in which the wisdom of the gentile found its place in their own, appeared in Spain. For nearly a thousand years, until greed and big- otry combined to bring about the total expulsion of 1492, a proud and noble Jewish community enriched the land that harbored it and left a remarkable deposit of spiritual, intellectual and artistic culture.