India and Israel Against Islamic Terror

CHAPTER10
JUDAISM AND JUSTICE 135
d of Canaan?” ”Yes,” replied Kaskel, ”and that is why we

h ve come unto Father Abraham’s bosom, asking protection”.

”And this protection they shall have at once,” the President

remised. Though the General Order No. 11 was rescinded, the

damage to the Jewish prestige had been done. Sparks of bigotry

were fanned and spread to many colonies. While some Jews

were indeed guilty of illegal practices and were duly punished,

the majority of the Jewry stood solidly behind the Federal North.

The Christian media, particularly the Confederate press, was as

vituperative as the one in the North. In the slave states Jews

were held responsible for many crimes, real or imaginary, such

as illegal trade with the enemy, price inflation, creating artificial

shortage of goods, counterfeiting Confederate money, avoiding

military responsibilities and many more. The Jews of the South

reacted with anger and one Jew even challenged a Richmond

editor to a duel. Rabbi Wise spoke further for the entire American

Jewry in the following terms:
”Our sons enlisted in the Army, our daughters sew and knit

for the wounded soldiers and their poor families, our

capitalists spend freely, our hospitals are thrown open to the

sick soldiers of all creeds, our merchants represented at

every benevolent association contribute largely to the wealth

and prosperity of the cities, give bread and employment to

thousands; we keep away from politics, gambling houses,

public offices, penitentiaries, and newspaper publicationswhat

else must we do to heal these petty scribblers from

their mad prejudice?”
In 1965, Rabbi Maurice N. Eisendrath, the President of the

48th General Biennial Assembly of the Union of American

Hebrew Congregations, replied to the charge of ’Communistic

leanings’ hurled at the American Jewry, that it was not a crime

to criticise the foreign policy of the Administration. To seek a test

ban treaty, was once considered unpatriotic in America. But it

was finally adopted due to pressure of public opinion, was that

1:0 be a Communist? To oppose Multilateral Force, considered

lndispensable earlier, and now all but abandoned, is that being

a ’Communist’? The right of dissent, he emphasised, even in
ill
li 136 INDIA AMD ISRAEL CHAPTER 19
inconsequential as also in the church was a-prominent distinction

between dictatorship and democracy. As a religious Jewish

community, seeking justice, the Jews could not still their conscience

or muffle their voice, on issues they felt so strongly about. And

so he went on.
During this time, the owner of Hilton hotel refused

permission to a Jewish leader, Seligman, on the plea that he did

not like the Jews as a class and he did not mind losing his

custom on that count. The controversy aroused wide scale interest

in America, leading to publication of innumerable articles and

editorials from both sides. As the controversy was about to be

dying down Austin Corbin, the President of Long Island Rail

Road, the leading Company, sparked off another conflagration

by his statement that he hated Jews and could do without their

custom. The fire of enmity between Jews and Christians was

flamed again with the boycott of the Company’s business.

However, during this turmoil, Revered Henry Ward Beeches, a

famous Protestant minister of the times, whose sister wrote the

novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, became an outstanding champion of

the Jewish cause and advised the jews to ignore petty insults

hurled at them. His famous statement, ” A hero may be annoyed

by a mosquito; but to put on his whole armour and call on his

followers to join him in making war on an insect would be

beneath his dignity,” calmed the temper somewhat. Ten years

after the Seligman-Hilton controversy the anti-Semitic impulse of

the time forced President Grover Cleveland to retract from
/
appointing a Jew as a U.S. Minister to Turkey. Beecher again

pleaded with the President to take the right course for the

Jewish cause. He lauded the American way of life, their human

values, concern for Jews’ freedom and love for equality. He

exhorted, ”Why should we not make a crowning testimony to

the genius of our people by sending a Hebrew to Turkey? The

ignorance and superstition of medieval Europe may account for

the prejudices of that dark age. But how a Christian in our day

can turn from a jew I cannot imagine. Christianity itself sucked

at the bosom of Judaism, our roots are in the Old Testament.

We are Jews ourselves gone to blossom, and fruit. Christianity is
,^- n1fi JUDAISM AND JUSTICE 137
CHAPTER ’”
i vm jn Evolution, and it would be strange for the seed to

against the stock on which it was grown.” Oscar Straus, the

)U lewish cabinet member under President Theodore Roosevelt,

an ardent supporter of President Wilson’s ideas of peace

fter war, which resulted in the covenant of the League of Nations.

As the Senate hesitated to permit the U.S. to join the League,

Salmon Levinson, a Jewish lawyer in Chicago, made out a case

in his publication The Outlawry of War which became the basis

of Kellogg-Briand Pact signed by fifteen nations at Paris in 1928.

After the arrival of Hitler when oppressions on Jews reached

unacceptable levels, the American Jewry petitioned the

Government to increase the quota of Jewish migrants from

Europe much higher than the earlier figure of 168,000. These

were not ordinary Jews, the poor huddled masses or wretched

refuse but the greatest flight of talent the world had ever seen.

These were scientists, musicians, artists, university professors and

twelve future Nobel Laureates.Then came the great World War.

Never in any American war had the Jews played such prominent

role. Sixteen of them reached the rank of admirals or generals.

Ten thousand of a total of 600,000 who fought the war were

decorated for bravery. Major General Maurice Rose, son of a

synagogue official in Denver, Colorado, led the 3rd Armoured

Division in Belgium and was the first army commander since

Napoleon to invade the Gernvn Reich from the west, the first

one to breach the Siegfried Line, and the first to capture a

German town. There were many other Jewish officers and nurses

who helped in the American war effort. Hadassah, the Women’s

Zionist Organisation of America, was founded in New York by

thirty-eight American Jewish women and its many branches all

Over the world helped in humanitarian causes on every call.

Hospitals and nurses from this organization went out all over the

world to care and heal. Mount Scopus near Jerusalem is home

°the most ultra-modern hospital in the world, financed entirely

V the American Jewish women and is located alongside a new

^edical center of 300-acre site in the Judean Hills. It is significant

hat these 318,000 American Jewish women who recognised

eir religion’s emphasis on social justice devoted so much of

e’r time, money and energy to serve all mankind.
138 INDIA AND ISRAEL CHAPTER 10
Nevertheless the story of the Jews in America is one of

constant fight against inequality, injustice, discrimination and denial

of equal rights to all communities. This sentiment was re-echoed

by 721,000 Jews, half of all the Jews in the world outside Israel

who lived in America in 1968.
1J.
The Struggle and

The Homecoming
There are three pioneers who conceived the idea of a Jewish

State in the Land of Israel. Dr. .Leo Pink in in his book Auto

Emancipation, Theodore Herzl in his work Jewish State and

their Precursor, Moses Hess, spelt out his ideas in his work

Rome and Jerusalem. In effect, while Moses Hess can be

considered as the founder of the modern Zionist system of

thought, it was, Herzl, the Chairman of the 1st Zionist Congress

in 1897 and the High Priest of Zionism, and Baron Edmond de

Rothschild, the father of Yishuv, who laidthe foundations of the

formation of the new Jewish State.
The conference at Vienna, the Dryfus’s trial and the events

preceding these, had convinced the European Jewry that Jews

can expect no justice from any quarter unless they have a land

of their own. While Dr. Chaim Weizman, with his personal

charm, proceeded on the diplomatic course, Rothschild, the

richest man of his time, opened his coffers for the resettlement

of Jews in their homeland. We shall skip over the earlier political

and diplomatic efforts to the formation of the Jewish State and

arrive at the momentous year of 1917 when the British Prime

Minister, Balfour, made his famous declaration of providing a

national homeland for the Jews in Palestine . However, the actual
140 INDIA AND ISRAEL CHAPTER 11
struggle for Palestine began when the British drove out the Turks

from the fertile crescent, whereafter began three decades of

British mandate under the sanction of the League of Nations in

1921. The conflict with the Arabs, who were the existing residents,

was inevitable. The Israeli historian Yehoshua Porath states that

”In 1891 the leaders of the Muslim and Christian communities

in Jerusalem petitioned the sultanate to prohibit Jewish

immigration to Palestine and the purchase of land by the Jews.

Before the Turks withdrew they had warned the Palestinians and

the general Arab public that the British’ conquest meant Jewish

rule.”
Ahad Ha- Am, a cultural Zionist, wrote a warning in 1891:
”We abroad have a way of thinking that Palestine today is

almost desert, uncultivated wilderness, and that anyone who

wishes to buy land there can do so to his heart’s content.

But that is not in fact the case. It is difficult to find any

uncultivated land anywhere in the country... We abroad

have a way of thinking that the Arabs are all savages, on a

level with the animals, and blind to what goes on around

them. But that is quite mistaken. The Arabs, specially the

townsmen, see through our activities in their country, and

our aims, but they keep silent and make no sign, because

for the present they anticipate no danger to their own future

from what we are about. But if the time should ever come

when our people have so far developed their life in Palestine

that the indigenous population should feel more or less

”--cramped, then they will not readily make way for us....”

How prophetic!
The British policies from 1917 which had sown the seeds of

Arab-Jewish conflict bore its bitter fruit in 1948 when the State

of Israel came into being. While the ambivalent policies were

responsible to a certain extent, the real cause of their conflict

was a refusal of the Arabs to accept the existence of a Zionist

led Jewish nation on their soil. While the Zionists admitted to

settling into Palestine as many Jews as possible, Jerus’alen was

totally devastated during World War I, with famine and disease,

shortage of clean water, useable roads, and electrical breakdowns.
THAPTW 11 ^Hf STRUGGLE AND THE HOME COMING 141
Even though the military Government did carry out essential

repairs and improvement works, foreign investment was the

^ain instrument for the reconstruction of the town. Tourism

and pilgrim trade revitalised the economy of Jerusalem as new

schools and libraries were opened along with the centres for

learning. Many churches were constructed. Hadassah Hospital

came up on Mount Scopus along with the Jewish National Library

and later the Hebrew University in 1925. The posh King David

Hotel was built in 1930 and the flurry of construction activity

continued with the construction of the American colony and

Sheikh Jarrah east of Jerusalem. The new Jewish developments

came up in the western part of the city: Romemah (1921),

Talpiyot (1922), Rahavia (1924), Bayit Vagan (1925), Kiryat

Shmuel (1928), Ceula (1929), and Tel Arza (1931). Beit Hakerem

was the first suburban settlement constructed in 1923 on the

western edge of Jerusalem. The British tilt towards the Arabs

resulted in the construction of large number of Arab churches,

mostly of Anglican adherents. There were also churches of

different countries. By the end of it all the British Administration

left a reasonable, liveable and well-developed Jerusalem. The

British ambivalence and contradictory promises to Arabs and

Jews made their positions in the Middle East in 1917 untenable.

France and Britain divided the spoils of the lands vacated by the

Turks into their areas of influence; France opting for Lebanon

and Syria and the British for Egypt and Palestine. As a result of

the Sykes-Picot Agreement of May 1916, the map of Middle

East was redrawn as stated above with Russia having some areas

°f influence. It was this secret agreement that allowed Britain to

be given its mandatory power over Palestine by the League of

Nations. As Syria was cheated of its dreams of expansion and

a Greater Syria, King Hussein of Jordan too was short-changed

’n Transjordan and western Palestine. It was a no-win situation

Or the British as the creation of an Emirate in Transjordan in

y2Q infuriated the Zionists, who considered this action as a

p^rayal to the cause of their national home in the whole of

Palestine, which to them included Transjordan and western
alestine as well. The Balfour declaration of November 2,1917

read:
142 IHDIA AND ISRAEL CHAPTER 1 -\
”His Majesty’s Government view with favour the

establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish

people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the

achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that

nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and

religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine

or the rights and political status enjoyed by jews in any

other country.”
This Declaration was not entirely philanthropic in content,

since there was a political percentage attached to it as explained

by Eugene Bovis in the following words:
” Some British statesmen came to believe that, if given a
chance, many jews would flock to Palestine after the war to

settle and that if Great Britain supported the idea of a Jewish

national home in Palestine, it might be able to establish a

British protectorate over the country, thus assuring exclusive

British control rather than international control. The Balfour

Declaration would thus give moral weight to a British claim

to be the protecting power, just as the military conquest

then in progress would give the British claim a material basis.”

There had been many waves of immigration into Eretz Israel

called ’Aliyas.’ Mention has been made of the First Aliya consisting

of the founding fathers who on arrival bought land and settled

in various parts of Palestine. The second wave or Aliya was a

result of the abortive Russian revolution of 1905 and the bloody

pogroms that followed.. The dislocations caused by the 1st World

War and the conclusion of the Russian revolution as also the

Balfour Declaration of 1917, turned the earlier trickle into a tide

which formed the^core of the Third Aliya. The immigrants of the

third wave came mostly from eastern Europe and Russia, totaling

about 35,000, mostly men and women in their early 20s,

passionately inspired by an anti-authoritarian idealism to which

formal Government was an anathema. The new settlements

called ”chalutzim” were to be voluntary establishments t°r

communes of the like-minded democratic enthusiasts. These

ideas of the young minds soon evaporated into hard realit’65

due to the need for discipline and cooperation. The credo °