Before the beginning of World War II, Zionists in Palestine, Europe, and America, were hard at work trying to create a national homeland for the Jewish peoples. Many different views were present within the Va’ad Leumi (National Council) of Palestine on how the ambition of Zionist ideology could be achieved. There was a distinct split between the Zionist political parties at the time: Mapai, the socialist-labor party of David Ben-Gurion, and Zeev Jabotinsky’s right-wing Union of Zion Revisionists. Although both parties sought to establish a homeland for the Jewish peoples, after the rise of Adolf Hitler they had very different visions on what strategies were needed in order to accomplish their individual goals.
After the rise of the Nazis, there was heightened fear of Jewish persecution, but many Zionists saw this rise as an opportunity to be taken advantage of. In the Seventh Million: The Israelis and the Holocaust, Segev states that the rise of the Nazis “was seen as confirming the historical prognosis of Zionist ideology.” (Segev p.18) The rise of Hitler was seen as advantageous for Zionist movements, as it used the persecution of Jews as a basis for the Zionist goal of creating a Jewish state. With the guidance of Ben-Gurion, the Jewish Agency pursued an agreement with Germany, the haavara (transfer) agreement, which “was based on the complementary interests of the German government and the Zionist movement.” (Segev p.20) However, the German Jewish population did not share the same interests as the Zionists and wished to remain in their homeland, creating further problems for the Zionist movement. On top of these factors, the Revisionists desired an international Jewish boycott against Germany, in order to weaken its economy and to instill a type of Jewish solidarity against antisemitism.
The haavara was reaffirmed between the Jewish Agency and Nazi Germany in 1935, and the boycott was rejected by the Va’ad Leumi. The haavara agreement negotiated the transfer of capitalist Jews, who could pay £1000 in order to shift their property from Germany to Palestine. In reaction to this agreement, the Revisionist youth movement, Betar, became active in several German cities where they distributed nationalist pamphlets, propagated Zionism (in music and fliers), and were under the protection of the Gestapo during their operations. (Segev p.32) It is interesting to note that the Betar and the Revisionists were trying to negotiate with Germany to transfer thousands of Jews (despite their economic power) to Palestine, the socialist-labor Mahai party insisted on payment for the transfer of capitalist Jews. The Revisionist Irgun branch and its pretenders the Lehi, believed that fascist ideology was the best to follow in order to create a Jewish national homeland, and tried to negotiate with Mussolini and the Nazis to drive out British forces.
Ben-Gurion and the yishuv (early Jewish settlers of the Zionist movement) believed in the difference between Zionists who wanted to move to Palestine and refugees that fled to Palestine against their will, and stated that the refugees were referred to as “Hitler Zionists.” (Segev p.134) It is indeed hypocritical that the man who negotiated with Hitler on the transfer of capitalist Jews would call those fleeing from the destruction of Nazi Germany “Hitler Zionists.” Especially since Ben-Gurion believed that the persecution of Jews in Germany would benefit the creation of Zion. After the war, the last remnants of the European Jewish population were mostly young, and adhered to new training camps, the kibbutz and hakhsharah. Patt describes in his research that many of the leaders of the kibbutz were from the “surviving members of Zionist youth movements and political parties who undertook the self-help work and in turn became most active among those seeking to convince survivors to avoid a return to Eastern Europe.” (Patt p.106)
For most of the young, Jewish DPs that survived the carnage of the Nazis, the kibbutz was a place to alleviate loneliness and to find a new family, after having lost most of their loved ones during the war. Furthermore, America and the allied controllers of divided Germany, believed that kibbutz were the best option for displaced Jews, as well as a remedy to their overpopulation problems in Europe. (Patt p.116) The kibbutz did give a place for Jews to heal and strengthen after World War II, they were also operating as Zionist propaganda centers. Although World War II devastated the Jewish population in the aftermath of German genocide, it can be observed that Zionists used every tactical advantage in its passing to help motivate the survivors to help create a new Jewish homeland. The state of Zion was in fact achieved from the horrendous fallout of World War II, and the insights to its formation are complicated and still quite controversial.
A Patt, Living in Landsberg, Dreaming of Deganiah – Jewish Displaced Youths and Zionism after the Holocaust-rescan.PDF
Songs, B. (n.d.). Betar songs lyrics, Song Meanings, videos, full albums & Bios. SonicHits. Retrieved October 19, 2021, from https://sonichits.com/artist/Betar_Songs.
T Segev, The Streets Are Paved with Money, in The Sevent Million – The Israelis and the Holocaust (1993).pdf
I appreciate your approach to the issue of Zionism as a very nuanced subject. It is easy for us to assume that every person given the opportunity to return to their “homeland” would choose to do so. Likewise, when I read the beginning of all of these articles, it seemed that there was a significant amount of focus on an inevitable outcome of the war. They proposed that it was inevitable that Jews would return, and desire to return, to Zion. Of course, none of the authors maintained this for long, but it is interesting that you point out such contrast of the nuance.