Azriel Carlebach
Encyclopedia
Dr. Ezriel Carlebach was a journalist
and editorial
writer during the period of Jewish settlement
in Palestine and during the early days of the state of Israel
. He was the founder and first editor of the newspaper Ma'ariv.
, Germany, in 1909; descendant of a family of rabbi
s. His parents were Gertrud Jakoby and Ephraim Carlebach
(1879–1936), a rabbi and founder of Höhere Israelitische Schule in Leipzig. Ezriel had two sisters, Hanna, Rachel (Shemut) and Cilly, and two brothers, David and Joseph (Yotti).
in Lithuania
. First at the Slobodka yeshiva in Kaunas
' suburb Slobodka
(now Kaunas-Vilijampolė
), then with Rabbi Joseph Leib Bloch at the Rabbinical College of Telshe in Telšiai
. He recalled this time in two articles in the journal Menorah.
In 1927 he immigrated to Palestine, there learning in Abraham Isaac Kook
's Mercaz haRav
yeshiva, though afterwards becoming secular. In Jerusalem, one family regularly invited him – as usual for Talmud
students – on Shabbat
for a free meal. His host had a son, Józef Grawicki, who worked in Warsaw
as Sejm
-correspondent for the Yiddish daily Haynt (הײַנט, also Hajnt, Engl.: Today)
.
Once on his way for a visit in Germany, Carlebach stopped by in Warsaw, which he had long wanted to see. There he visited Józef Grawicki, as recommended by the father. They got to know each other and Grawicki, hearing about Carlebach's literary work, encouraged Carlebach to write for Haynt in Yiddish. Carlebach felt quite a challenge and accepted. He wrote, among others, on the conflict between the Zionist Rabbi Abraham Kook and the anti-Zionist Rabbi Yosef Hayyim Sonnenfeld in Jerusalem.
Carlebach's name wasn't unknown in Warsaw, since three uncles of Ezriel Carlebach, Emanuel Carlebach (1874–1927) and Leopold Rosenak (1868–1923; an uncle by marriage), both Field Rabbis
of the imperial German Army
, and the educator Rabbi Joseph Carlebach
, who was assigned to them in 1915, were active in promoting German culture among the Jews in Lithuania and Poland during the German occupation (1915–1918). Erich Ludendorff
's intention was to evoke pro-German attitudes among Jews, in order to prepare the installation of a Polish and a Lithuanian state dependent on Germany. Part of the effort was the establishment of Jewish newspapers (e.g. the folkist
Warszawer Togblat ווארשאווער טאָגבלאט), of Jewish organisations (e.g. Emanuel Carlebach initiated in Łomża the foundation of the hassidic
umbrella organisation Agudas Yisroel
of Poland, part of a non-Zionist movement founded in Germany in 1912) and of modern educational institutions of Jewish alignment. Joseph Carlebach founded the partly German-language Jüdisches Realgymnasium גימנזיום עברי in Kaunas
and directed it until 1919. Carlebach's uncles mostly came down for Hassidim
and faced Zionists
rather critically. Thus the name Carlebach sounded rather suspicious in the ears of Haynt's audience.
, receiving a degree as a doctor of law. At that time Carlebach continued to write for Israelitisches Familienblatt
, ensuring his livelihood. When Haynt, stricken by a strike, asked for help, Carlebach complied and sent articles from Germany without payment.
Haynt later requited by financing Carlebach's extensive expeditions. He explored Jewish communities all over Europe and the Mediterranean, covering communities like the Lithuania
n Karaites
, Sephardi Jews
of Thessaloniki
(to be later almost completely extinguished by the Nazi occupants), Maghreb
ian Mizrahi Jews
, Yemenite Teimanim
, and the crypto-Jewish Dönmeh
(Sabbateans) in Turkey as well as Mallorquin Conversos
, some of whom he detected while travelling. Carlebach sent regular reports to Haynt, which later became the basis for a book. He also wrote a series of articles describing his travels through Germany, including an encounter with an anti-Semitic gang which left him severely beaten.
In June 1931 a publishing house in Leipzig, Deutsche Buchwerkstätten, awarded him its novelist prize of the year, which he shared with Alexander von Keller. Carlebach's prizewinning novel is set in the Jewish quarter of Jerusalem's old town.
He also worked as a free-lance journalist for newspapers such as the Hebrew Ha'Aretz
, and starting in 1931 – under a permanent appointment – with the Hamburg
-based Israelitisches Familienblatt. This paper presented in its cultural insert music, performing and visual art by examples of creative works by Jewish artists. Four to five evenings of the week Carlebach went to the theatre and afterwards composed his reviews, dictating them – freely phrasing – to his assistant Ruth Heinsohn, who right away typed them.
In summer 1932 – again financed by Haynt – he travelled to the USSR, among others to Crimea
and Birobidzhan
, in order to give an account of Jewish life under communist reign. In his report ('Sowjetjudäa', In: Israelitisches Familienblatt and in Haynt) he came to the conclusion that there were neither the possibilities nor an adequate milieu for a genuine Jewish life.
Albert Einstein
occasionally brought the Sowjetjudäa series up for discussions, so that they had a much broader response than usual. Especially adversaries of Hitler
, who relied on the USSR and who naïvely or willfully downplayed the crimes there, were incited to rimunate or to be angry with Carlebach. He assessed the broad controversy on the subject being a journalistic success.
"The articles brought forth a flurry of anonymous threatening letters and a vile pamphlet attack upon him from Hamburg's 'Jewish Workers' Study Group.'" The camouflage name of this group (in German: Arbeitsgemeinschaft jüdischer Werktätiger, Hamburg) aimed at rather disguising the harassing of Carlebach, the avowed Jew, by the Communist Youth Federation
, section Hamburg.
On the night of January 3, 1933, the harassment culminated in an assassination attempt. A gunshot cut through his hat just luckily missing him. Carlebach fell over, got concussed and lost consciousness. The police found him later senseless. Israelitisches Familienblatt offered a reward of 2,000 reichsmarks for the capture of the person who did it. By February he had recovered so far that he could resume his work for Israelitisches Familienblatt. Soon after he moved to Berlin.
Such experience notwithstanding he didn't quail to attack Nazism. Earlier Carlebach had unveiled, that Joseph Goebbels
, who so vehemently defamed Jews and their alleged detrimental influence, had studied with Jewish professors, whom he owed his scholarship at that time.
Right after the Nazis
' Machtergreifung
Carlebach got arrested. He attributed his arrest to Goebbels, who resented Carlebach for unveiling facts from the times, when Goebbels was still studying. Carlebach was lucky, since the prison guards hadn't yet been brought into dictatorial line and still clung to constitutional practices. He was released from custody, because no judicial warrant existed. Just out of prison, Carlebach had to go into hiding, for the Nazis meanwhile noticed, that he had been released, and started to search for him.
He found aides, who provided him with a hideout and forged papers. In order to move about freely in the streets of Berlin, Carlebach ran a high risk, dyed his hair and dressed in an SA uniform. In such venturesome ways he monitored from within how Nazism tightened its power in Germany and wrote daily articles, which appeared in Haynt in Warsaw under the pseudonym Levi Gotthelf (לוי גאָטהעלף).
On May 10, 1933, he incognito attended as an observer the central book-burning
on Opernplatz
in Berlin, where also his books were thrown into the fires. Meanwhile Haynt strove to get Carlebach out of the country. Finally – bearing the counterfeited papers of an Upper Silesian coal miner – aides smuggled him over the border close to city of Katowice
in the then Polish part of Upper Silesia
.
in New York. In concert with the Zionist Jehoszua Gottlieb, the folkist journalist Saul Stupnicki (Chief editor of Lubliner Tugblat לובלינער טאָגבלאט) and others Carlebach organised in Poland a countrywide series of lectures named Literary Judgments on Germany. The German ambassador to Poland, Hans-Adolf von Moltke, attended the start lecture in Warsaw, sitting in the first line.
Carlebach was then permanently appointed at modest salary with Haynt, whose articles – like that one on 'The anti-Semitic International' (of Nuremberg
) reappeared in other newspapers such as Nowy Dziennik in Cracow, Chwila in Lwów
, Di Yidishe Shtime (די יידישע שטימע) in Kaunas, Frimorgn (פֿרימאָרגן) in Riga
and Forverts in New York.
Living in Polish exile he got onto the second list (March 29, 1934) of Germans, which were arbitrarily officially denaturalised
according to a new law, which also ensued the seizure of all his property in Germany.
In the years 1933 and 1934 Carlebach almost incessantly travelled for Haynt to report, among others, from the Zionist Congress, the International Congress of National Minorities
and from Goebbels' speech held as German main delegate at the League of Nations
in Geneva
on September 29, 1933. His speech An Appeal to the Nations was an éclat and the subsequent press conference accordingly well attended. Nevertheless on the sidelines Carlebach and Goebbels had a sharp argument on co-operatives examplified by the newspaper company Haynt.
Carlebach reported, how the Upper Silesian Franz Bernheim succeeded to prompt the League of Nations
(Bernheim-Petition http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Ve3pHo1qH40J:www1.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/Microsoft%2520Word%2520-%25206006.pdf+bernheim-Petition&hl=de&ct=clnk&cd=2&gl=de&client=firefox-a) to coerce Germany to abide by the German-Polish Accord on East Silesia. According to that treaty each contractual party guaranteed in its respective part of Upper Silesia
equal civil rights for all the inhabitants. So in September 1933 the Reich's Nazi government suspended in Upper Silesia all anti-Semitic discriminations already imposed and excepted the province from all new such invidiousnesses to be decreed, until the Accord expired in May 1937.
In 1935 Carlebach was appointed chief editor of the then still daily Yidishe Post (יידישע פאָסט) in London. But he continued to cover travelling the rest of Europe, except of Germany. In Selbstwehr (Prague) Carlebach published a regular column Tagebuch der Woche (diary of the week). In April 1935 Carlebach called attention to Kurt Schuschnigg
's anti-Semitic policy in Austria in an interview with the Federal Chancellor
. He adopted an increasingly sharper tone in relation to non-Zionists, whose intentions to stay in Europe, he regarded negligent in view of the development. From 1936 on British policy on Palestine (Peel Commission
) stood at the centre of Carlebach's editing.
, afterwards becoming its editor. In early 1939 Carlebach travelled again to Warsaw, meeting with friends there – not knowingly to see many of them for the last time.
In 1948, while chief editor of Yedioth Ahronoth, a disagreement broke out between Carlebach and Yehuda Mozes, owner of the paper. Carlebach and several senior journalists left Yedioth Ahronoth and founded a new newspaper, Yedioth Ma'ariv, which first appeared on February 15, 1948, with Carlebach as its chief editor. After several months, the paper's name was changed to Ma'ariv, to avoid confusion between it and Yedioth Ahronoth.
Ezriel Carlebach edited the Ma'ariv newspaper from its founding until his death in 1956. While he was editor, Ma'ariv became the most widely-read newspaper in the country. He is regarded as one of the great journalists of his period.
Carlebach and his paper opposed the Zionist Socialist party government and its head, David Ben-Gurion
. He was also a leader in the opposition to the opening of direct negotiations between Israel
and Germany after the war, and the Reparations Agreement between Israel and West Germany
.
In 1952 after president Chaim Weizmann
’s death Carlebach suggested Albert Einstein
in a telegram to become Israel’s president. Einstein felt honoured but refused, as he told Carlebach in a letter dated November 21, 1952, written in German.
Carlebach deprecated musical censorship as it was demanded by the then Israeli government on the occasion of Jascha Heifetz
' tour in Israel: "The education minister, Professor Dinur
, requested that no Strauss
be played. And the justice minister, Dr. Rosen
, seconded that request (despite his different personal views on the identification of an artist with his art). … And he sent that request by special messenger … to Jascha Heifetz in Haifa a short time before the concert.
Yet Jascha Heifetz received the request from two ministers of Israel, shoved it into his pocket, said whatever he said about opposing musical censorship – and refused to comply. He played Strauss in Haifa, and afterwards in Tel Aviv as well."
Carlebach was sympathetic towards conciliation between Jewish and Arab Israelis. Under his pseudonym Rav Ipkha Mistabra he published a series of essays and editorials, in Yedioth Ahronoth, Ma'ariv or in Ner, the journal of the Brit Shalom
movement (Engl. lit. Covenant of Peace). By and large, however, Carlebach remained skeptic in how far an understanding with avowed representatives of Islam were possible.
Carlebach criticised, that after the verdict of Israel Kasztner the Israeli government appealed the conviction literally overnight, unable to properly examine at all the substantial grounds for the judgment.
In 1954, Carlebach spent a three-week trip in India. "During this visit he met with Nehru
and other leaders of the state and the Congress Party." His book about the trip, India: Account of a Voyage, long the only Hebrew book on India, was published in 1956 and became an instant best-seller, appearing in several editions in the years after its initial appearance.
Tommy Lapid recalls, Carlebach "shut himself up in the Dan Hotel and from there he sent us his typewritten pages, ready for the printing press. I was his very young secretary, and I watched, with thirst and surprise, the birth of the book. Carlebach was driven to write the book by a powerful inner force, in a creative endeavour that was almost compulsive. Two months later he was dead, at 48. He left a widow, a daughter, and an orphaned newspaper, and this book – a creative outburst of the greatest journalist who wrote in Hebrew."
Dr. Carlebach died of a heart attack on February 12, 1956, at the age of 47. Thousands attended his last conduct. Especially for his publications issued under the pseudonym Ipkha Mistabra, he is considered to be one of the most talented and influential authors of editorials in Hebrew journalism. In Tel Aviv the street, where the offices of Ma'ariv are located, has later been renamed after Carlebach.
In 2005, he was voted the 149th-greatest Israeli of all time, in a poll by the Israeli news website Ynet
to determine whom the general public considered the 200 Greatest Israelis.
Journalist
A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...
and editorial
Editorial
An opinion piece is an article, published in a newspaper or magazine, that mainly reflects the author's opinion about the subject. Opinion pieces are featured in many periodicals.-Editorials:...
writer during the period of Jewish settlement
Yishuv
The Yishuv or Ha-Yishuv is the term referring to the body of Jewish residents in Palestine before the establishment of the State of Israel...
in Palestine and during the early days of the state of Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
. He was the founder and first editor of the newspaper Ma'ariv.
Biography
Ezriel Carlebach was born in the city of LeipzigLeipzig
Leipzig Leipzig has always been a trade city, situated during the time of the Holy Roman Empire at the intersection of the Via Regia and Via Imperii, two important trade routes. At one time, Leipzig was one of the major European centres of learning and culture in fields such as music and publishing...
, Germany, in 1909; descendant of a family of rabbi
Rabbi
In Judaism, a rabbi is a teacher of Torah. This title derives from the Hebrew word רבי , meaning "My Master" , which is the way a student would address a master of Torah...
s. His parents were Gertrud Jakoby and Ephraim Carlebach
Ephraim Carlebach
Ephraim Carlebach , was a German-born Orthodox rabbi.Carlebach belonged to a well known German rabbi family. His father Salomon Carlebach was rabbi in Lübeck. He had seven brothers and four sisters...
(1879–1936), a rabbi and founder of Höhere Israelitische Schule in Leipzig. Ezriel had two sisters, Hanna, Rachel (Shemut) and Cilly, and two brothers, David and Joseph (Yotti).
In Lithuania and Palestine (1926–29)
He studied at two yeshivotYeshiva
Yeshiva is a Jewish educational institution that focuses on the study of traditional religious texts, primarily the Talmud and Torah study. Study is usually done through daily shiurim and in study pairs called chavrutas...
in Lithuania
Lithuania
Lithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the biggest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, whereby to the west lie Sweden and Denmark...
. First at the Slobodka yeshiva in Kaunas
Kaunas
Kaunas is the second-largest city in Lithuania and has historically been a leading centre of Lithuanian economic, academic, and cultural life. Kaunas was the biggest city and the center of a powiat in Trakai Voivodeship of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania since 1413. During Russian Empire occupation...
' suburb Slobodka
Slobodka
Slobodka , Slabodka , Slobidka is a diminutive from "sloboda", a kind of settlement. The word may refer to one of the following:*Slabodka, Belarus...
(now Kaunas-Vilijampolė
Vilijampole
Vilijampolė is an elderate in the city of Kaunas, Lithuania, located on the right bank of the Neris River and the Nemunas River, near their confluence. The elderate covers 1,720 hectares and houses about 32,000 people....
), then with Rabbi Joseph Leib Bloch at the Rabbinical College of Telshe in Telšiai
Telšiai
Telšiai , is a city in Lithuania with about 35,000 inhabitants. It is the capital of Telšiai County and Samogitia region, and it is located on Lake Mastis.-Names:...
. He recalled this time in two articles in the journal Menorah.
In 1927 he immigrated to Palestine, there learning in Abraham Isaac Kook
Abraham Isaac Kook
Abraham Isaac Kook was the first Ashkenazi chief rabbi of the British Mandate for Palestine, the founder of the Religious Zionist Yeshiva Merkaz HaRav, Jewish thinker, Halachist, Kabbalist and a renowned Torah scholar...
's Mercaz haRav
Mercaz haRav
Mercaz HaRav , more properly, Mercaz HaRav Kook ), is a national-religious yeshiva in Jerusalem, Israel, founded in 1924 by Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook. It has become synonymous with his teachings....
yeshiva, though afterwards becoming secular. In Jerusalem, one family regularly invited him – as usual for Talmud
Talmud
The Talmud is a central text of mainstream Judaism. It takes the form of a record of rabbinic discussions pertaining to Jewish law, ethics, philosophy, customs and history....
students – on Shabbat
Shabbat
Shabbat is the seventh day of the Jewish week and a day of rest in Judaism. Shabbat is observed from a few minutes before sunset on Friday evening until a few minutes after when one would expect to be able to see three stars in the sky on Saturday night. The exact times, therefore, differ from...
for a free meal. His host had a son, Józef Grawicki, who worked in Warsaw
Warsaw
Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River, roughly from the Baltic Sea and from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population in 2010 was estimated at 1,716,855 residents with a greater metropolitan area of 2,631,902 residents, making Warsaw the 10th most...
as Sejm
Sejm
The Sejm is the lower house of the Polish parliament. The Sejm is made up of 460 deputies, or Poseł in Polish . It is elected by universal ballot and is presided over by a speaker called the Marshal of the Sejm ....
-correspondent for the Yiddish daily Haynt (הײַנט, also Hajnt, Engl.: Today)
Haynt
Haynt was a Yiddish daily newspaper, published in Warsaw from 1906 until 1939.Newspaper Yidishes tageblat was founded in 1906 by Zionist Shmuel Yankev Yatskan, a former contributor to the Hebrew language paper Ha-Tsefirah.In 1908 Yidishes tageblat changed its name to Haynt and quickly established...
.
Once on his way for a visit in Germany, Carlebach stopped by in Warsaw, which he had long wanted to see. There he visited Józef Grawicki, as recommended by the father. They got to know each other and Grawicki, hearing about Carlebach's literary work, encouraged Carlebach to write for Haynt in Yiddish. Carlebach felt quite a challenge and accepted. He wrote, among others, on the conflict between the Zionist Rabbi Abraham Kook and the anti-Zionist Rabbi Yosef Hayyim Sonnenfeld in Jerusalem.
Carlebach's name wasn't unknown in Warsaw, since three uncles of Ezriel Carlebach, Emanuel Carlebach (1874–1927) and Leopold Rosenak (1868–1923; an uncle by marriage), both Field Rabbis
Military chaplain
A military chaplain is a chaplain who ministers to soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines and other members of the military. In many countries, chaplains also minister to the family members of military personnel, to civilian noncombatants working for military organizations and to civilians within the...
of the imperial German Army
German Army (German Empire)
The German Army was the name given the combined land forces of the German Empire, also known as the National Army , Imperial Army or Imperial German Army. The term "Deutsches Heer" is also used for the modern German Army, the land component of the German Bundeswehr...
, and the educator Rabbi Joseph Carlebach
Joseph Carlebach
Dr. Joseph Hirsch Carlebach was an Orthodox rabbi and Jewish-German scholar and natural scientist ....
, who was assigned to them in 1915, were active in promoting German culture among the Jews in Lithuania and Poland during the German occupation (1915–1918). Erich Ludendorff
Erich Ludendorff
Erich Friedrich Wilhelm Ludendorff was a German general, victor of Liège and of the Battle of Tannenberg...
's intention was to evoke pro-German attitudes among Jews, in order to prepare the installation of a Polish and a Lithuanian state dependent on Germany. Part of the effort was the establishment of Jewish newspapers (e.g. the folkist
Folkspartei
The Folkspartei was founded after the 1905 pogroms in the Russian Empire by Simon Dubnow and Israel Efrojkin. The party took part to several elections in Poland and Lithuania in the 1920s and 1930s and did not survive the Shoah.-Ideology:...
Warszawer Togblat ווארשאווער טאָגבלאט), of Jewish organisations (e.g. Emanuel Carlebach initiated in Łomża the foundation of the hassidic
Hasidic Judaism
Hasidic Judaism or Hasidism, from the Hebrew —Ḥasidut in Sephardi, Chasidus in Ashkenazi, meaning "piety" , is a branch of Orthodox Judaism that promotes spirituality and joy through the popularisation and internalisation of Jewish mysticism as the fundamental aspects of the Jewish faith...
umbrella organisation Agudas Yisroel
World Agudath Israel
World Agudath Israel , usually known as the Aguda, was established in the early twentieth century as the political arm of Ashkenazi Torah Judaism, in succession to Agudas Shlumei Emunei Yisroel...
of Poland, part of a non-Zionist movement founded in Germany in 1912) and of modern educational institutions of Jewish alignment. Joseph Carlebach founded the partly German-language Jüdisches Realgymnasium גימנזיום עברי in Kaunas
Kaunas
Kaunas is the second-largest city in Lithuania and has historically been a leading centre of Lithuanian economic, academic, and cultural life. Kaunas was the biggest city and the center of a powiat in Trakai Voivodeship of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania since 1413. During Russian Empire occupation...
and directed it until 1919. Carlebach's uncles mostly came down for Hassidim
Hasidic Judaism
Hasidic Judaism or Hasidism, from the Hebrew —Ḥasidut in Sephardi, Chasidus in Ashkenazi, meaning "piety" , is a branch of Orthodox Judaism that promotes spirituality and joy through the popularisation and internalisation of Jewish mysticism as the fundamental aspects of the Jewish faith...
and faced Zionists
Zionism
Zionism is a Jewish political movement that, in its broadest sense, has supported the self-determination of the Jewish people in a sovereign Jewish national homeland. Since the establishment of the State of Israel, the Zionist movement continues primarily to advocate on behalf of the Jewish state...
rather critically. Thus the name Carlebach sounded rather suspicious in the ears of Haynt's audience.
In Germany (1929–33)
As from 1929 on Carlebach lived again in Germany and studied in the Frederick William University of Berlin and the University of HamburgUniversity of Hamburg
The University of Hamburg is a university in Hamburg, Germany. It was founded on 28 March 1919 by Wilhelm Stern and others. It grew out of the previous Allgemeines Vorlesungswesen and the Kolonialinstitut as well as the Akademisches Gymnasium. There are around 38,000 students as of the start of...
, receiving a degree as a doctor of law. At that time Carlebach continued to write for Israelitisches Familienblatt
Israelitisches Familienblatt
Israelitisches Familienblatt was a rather impartial Jewish weekly newspaper, which directed at Jewish readers of all alignments...
, ensuring his livelihood. When Haynt, stricken by a strike, asked for help, Carlebach complied and sent articles from Germany without payment.
Haynt later requited by financing Carlebach's extensive expeditions. He explored Jewish communities all over Europe and the Mediterranean, covering communities like the Lithuania
Lithuania
Lithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the biggest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, whereby to the west lie Sweden and Denmark...
n Karaites
Karaite Judaism
Karaite Judaism or Karaism is a Jewish movement characterized by the recognition of the Tanakh alone as its supreme legal authority in Halakhah, as well as in theology...
, Sephardi Jews
Sephardi Jews
Sephardi Jews is a general term referring to the descendants of the Jews who lived in the Iberian Peninsula before their expulsion in the Spanish Inquisition. It can also refer to those who use a Sephardic style of liturgy or would otherwise define themselves in terms of the Jewish customs and...
of Thessaloniki
Thessaloniki
Thessaloniki , historically also known as Thessalonica, Salonika or Salonica, is the second-largest city in Greece and the capital of the region of Central Macedonia as well as the capital of the Decentralized Administration of Macedonia and Thrace...
(to be later almost completely extinguished by the Nazi occupants), Maghreb
Maghreb
The Maghreb is the region of Northwest Africa, west of Egypt. It includes five countries: Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, and Mauritania and the disputed territory of Western Sahara...
ian Mizrahi Jews
Mizrahi Jews
Mizrahi Jews or Mizrahiyim, , also referred to as Adot HaMizrach are Jews descended from the Jewish communities of the Middle East, North Africa and the Caucasus...
, Yemenite Teimanim
Yemenite Jews
Yemenite Jews are those Jews who live, or whose recent ancestors lived, in Yemen . Between June 1949 and September 1950, the overwhelming majority of Yemen's Jewish population was transported to Israel in Operation Magic Carpet...
, and the crypto-Jewish Dönmeh
Dönmeh
Dönmeh refers to a group of crypto-Jews in the Ottoman Empire and present-day Turkey who openly affiliated with Islam and secretly practiced a form of Judaism called Sabbateanism...
(Sabbateans) in Turkey as well as Mallorquin Conversos
Marrano
Marranos were Jews living in the Iberian peninsula who converted to Christianity rather than be expelled but continued to observe rabbinic Judaism in secret...
, some of whom he detected while travelling. Carlebach sent regular reports to Haynt, which later became the basis for a book. He also wrote a series of articles describing his travels through Germany, including an encounter with an anti-Semitic gang which left him severely beaten.
In June 1931 a publishing house in Leipzig, Deutsche Buchwerkstätten, awarded him its novelist prize of the year, which he shared with Alexander von Keller. Carlebach's prizewinning novel is set in the Jewish quarter of Jerusalem's old town.
He also worked as a free-lance journalist for newspapers such as the Hebrew Ha'Aretz
Haaretz
Haaretz is Israel's oldest daily newspaper. It was founded in 1918 and is now published in both Hebrew and English in Berliner format. The English edition is published and sold together with the International Herald Tribune. Both Hebrew and English editions can be read on the Internet...
, and starting in 1931 – under a permanent appointment – with the Hamburg
Hamburg
-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...
-based Israelitisches Familienblatt. This paper presented in its cultural insert music, performing and visual art by examples of creative works by Jewish artists. Four to five evenings of the week Carlebach went to the theatre and afterwards composed his reviews, dictating them – freely phrasing – to his assistant Ruth Heinsohn, who right away typed them.
In summer 1932 – again financed by Haynt – he travelled to the USSR, among others to Crimea
Crimea
Crimea , or the Autonomous Republic of Crimea , is a sub-national unit, an autonomous republic, of Ukraine. It is located on the northern coast of the Black Sea, occupying a peninsula of the same name...
and Birobidzhan
Birobidzhan
Birobidzhan is a town and the administrative center of the Jewish Autonomous Oblast, Russia. It is located on the Trans-Siberian railway, close to the border with the People's Republic of China....
, in order to give an account of Jewish life under communist reign. In his report ('Sowjetjudäa', In: Israelitisches Familienblatt and in Haynt) he came to the conclusion that there were neither the possibilities nor an adequate milieu for a genuine Jewish life.
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein was a German-born theoretical physicist who developed the theory of general relativity, effecting a revolution in physics. For this achievement, Einstein is often regarded as the father of modern physics and one of the most prolific intellects in human history...
occasionally brought the Sowjetjudäa series up for discussions, so that they had a much broader response than usual. Especially adversaries of Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
, who relied on the USSR and who naïvely or willfully downplayed the crimes there, were incited to rimunate or to be angry with Carlebach. He assessed the broad controversy on the subject being a journalistic success.
"The articles brought forth a flurry of anonymous threatening letters and a vile pamphlet attack upon him from Hamburg's 'Jewish Workers' Study Group.'" The camouflage name of this group (in German: Arbeitsgemeinschaft jüdischer Werktätiger, Hamburg) aimed at rather disguising the harassing of Carlebach, the avowed Jew, by the Communist Youth Federation
Young Communist League of Germany
The Young Communist League of Germany was a political youth organization in Germany. It was formed in 1920 from the Free Socialist Youth of the Communist Party of Germany, which itself was formed in October 1918, with support from the Spartacus League . The KJVD was created in 1925...
, section Hamburg.
On the night of January 3, 1933, the harassment culminated in an assassination attempt. A gunshot cut through his hat just luckily missing him. Carlebach fell over, got concussed and lost consciousness. The police found him later senseless. Israelitisches Familienblatt offered a reward of 2,000 reichsmarks for the capture of the person who did it. By February he had recovered so far that he could resume his work for Israelitisches Familienblatt. Soon after he moved to Berlin.
Such experience notwithstanding he didn't quail to attack Nazism. Earlier Carlebach had unveiled, that Joseph Goebbels
Joseph Goebbels
Paul Joseph Goebbels was a German politician and Reich Minister of Propaganda in Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945. As one of Adolf Hitler's closest associates and most devout followers, he was known for his zealous oratory and anti-Semitism...
, who so vehemently defamed Jews and their alleged detrimental influence, had studied with Jewish professors, whom he owed his scholarship at that time.
Right after the Nazis
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
' Machtergreifung
Machtergreifung
Machtergreifung is a German word meaning "seizure of power". It is normally used specifically to refer to the Nazi takeover of power in the democratic Weimar Republic on 30 January 1933, the day Hitler was sworn in as Chancellor of Germany, turning it into the Nazi German dictatorship.-Term:The...
Carlebach got arrested. He attributed his arrest to Goebbels, who resented Carlebach for unveiling facts from the times, when Goebbels was still studying. Carlebach was lucky, since the prison guards hadn't yet been brought into dictatorial line and still clung to constitutional practices. He was released from custody, because no judicial warrant existed. Just out of prison, Carlebach had to go into hiding, for the Nazis meanwhile noticed, that he had been released, and started to search for him.
He found aides, who provided him with a hideout and forged papers. In order to move about freely in the streets of Berlin, Carlebach ran a high risk, dyed his hair and dressed in an SA uniform. In such venturesome ways he monitored from within how Nazism tightened its power in Germany and wrote daily articles, which appeared in Haynt in Warsaw under the pseudonym Levi Gotthelf (לוי גאָטהעלף).
On May 10, 1933, he incognito attended as an observer the central book-burning
Nazi book burnings
The Nazi book burnings were a campaign conducted by the authorities of Nazi Germany to ceremonially burn all books in Germany which did not correspond with Nazi ideology.-The book-burning campaign:...
on Opernplatz
Bebelplatz
The Bebelplatz is a public square in the central Mitte district of Berlin, the capital of Germany.The square is located on the south side of the Unter den Linden boulevard, a major east-west thoroughfare in the city centre...
in Berlin, where also his books were thrown into the fires. Meanwhile Haynt strove to get Carlebach out of the country. Finally – bearing the counterfeited papers of an Upper Silesian coal miner – aides smuggled him over the border close to city of Katowice
Katowice
Katowice is a city in Silesia in southern Poland, on the Kłodnica and Rawa rivers . Katowice is located in the Silesian Highlands, about north of the Silesian Beskids and about southeast of the Sudetes Mountains.It is the central district of the Upper Silesian Metropolis, with a population of 2...
in the then Polish part of Upper Silesia
Autonomous Silesian Voivodeship
The Silesian Voivodeship was an autonomous province of the interwar Second Polish Republic. It consisted of territory which came into Polish possession as a result of the 1921 Upper Silesia plebiscite, the Geneva Conventions, three Upper Silesian Uprisings, and the eventual partition of Upper...
.
In Poland and Great Britain (1933–37)
Carlebach's series of articles, being the first inside story on the Nazis' takeover, appeared in Haynt and was republished in Forwerts (פֿאָרווערטס)The Forward
The Forward , commonly known as The Jewish Daily Forward, is a Jewish-American newspaper published in New York City. The publication began in 1897 as a Yiddish-language daily issued by dissidents from the Socialist Labor Party of Daniel DeLeon...
in New York. In concert with the Zionist Jehoszua Gottlieb, the folkist journalist Saul Stupnicki (Chief editor of Lubliner Tugblat לובלינער טאָגבלאט) and others Carlebach organised in Poland a countrywide series of lectures named Literary Judgments on Germany. The German ambassador to Poland, Hans-Adolf von Moltke, attended the start lecture in Warsaw, sitting in the first line.
Carlebach was then permanently appointed at modest salary with Haynt, whose articles – like that one on 'The anti-Semitic International' (of Nuremberg
Nuremberg
Nuremberg[p] is a city in the German state of Bavaria, in the administrative region of Middle Franconia. Situated on the Pegnitz river and the Rhine–Main–Danube Canal, it is located about north of Munich and is Franconia's largest city. The population is 505,664...
) reappeared in other newspapers such as Nowy Dziennik in Cracow, Chwila in Lwów
Lviv
Lviv is a city in western Ukraine. The city is regarded as one of the main cultural centres of today's Ukraine and historically has also been a major Polish and Jewish cultural center, as Poles and Jews were the two main ethnicities of the city until the outbreak of World War II and the following...
, Di Yidishe Shtime (די יידישע שטימע) in Kaunas, Frimorgn (פֿרימאָרגן) in Riga
Riga
Riga is the capital and largest city of Latvia. With 702,891 inhabitants Riga is the largest city of the Baltic states, one of the largest cities in Northern Europe and home to more than one third of Latvia's population. The city is an important seaport and a major industrial, commercial,...
and Forverts in New York.
Living in Polish exile he got onto the second list (March 29, 1934) of Germans, which were arbitrarily officially denaturalised
Naturalization
Naturalization is the acquisition of citizenship and nationality by somebody who was not a citizen of that country at the time of birth....
according to a new law, which also ensued the seizure of all his property in Germany.
In the years 1933 and 1934 Carlebach almost incessantly travelled for Haynt to report, among others, from the Zionist Congress, the International Congress of National Minorities
International Congress of National Minorities
The International Congress of National Minorities was an organization formed after the First World War to lobby for the rights of ethnic and religious minorities living in the nations of Europe and much of Asia, especially in the aftermath of the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Ottoman...
and from Goebbels' speech held as German main delegate at the League of Nations
League of Nations
The League of Nations was an intergovernmental organization founded as a result of the Paris Peace Conference that ended the First World War. It was the first permanent international organization whose principal mission was to maintain world peace...
in Geneva
Geneva
Geneva In the national languages of Switzerland the city is known as Genf , Ginevra and Genevra is the second-most-populous city in Switzerland and is the most populous city of Romandie, the French-speaking part of Switzerland...
on September 29, 1933. His speech An Appeal to the Nations was an éclat and the subsequent press conference accordingly well attended. Nevertheless on the sidelines Carlebach and Goebbels had a sharp argument on co-operatives examplified by the newspaper company Haynt.
Carlebach reported, how the Upper Silesian Franz Bernheim succeeded to prompt the League of Nations
League of Nations
The League of Nations was an intergovernmental organization founded as a result of the Paris Peace Conference that ended the First World War. It was the first permanent international organization whose principal mission was to maintain world peace...
(Bernheim-Petition http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Ve3pHo1qH40J:www1.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/Microsoft%2520Word%2520-%25206006.pdf+bernheim-Petition&hl=de&ct=clnk&cd=2&gl=de&client=firefox-a) to coerce Germany to abide by the German-Polish Accord on East Silesia. According to that treaty each contractual party guaranteed in its respective part of Upper Silesia
Upper Silesia
Upper Silesia is the southeastern part of the historical and geographical region of Silesia. Since the 9th century, Upper Silesia has been part of Greater Moravia, the Duchy of Bohemia, the Piast Kingdom of Poland, again of the Lands of the Bohemian Crown and the Holy Roman Empire, as well as of...
equal civil rights for all the inhabitants. So in September 1933 the Reich's Nazi government suspended in Upper Silesia all anti-Semitic discriminations already imposed and excepted the province from all new such invidiousnesses to be decreed, until the Accord expired in May 1937.
In 1935 Carlebach was appointed chief editor of the then still daily Yidishe Post (יידישע פאָסט) in London. But he continued to cover travelling the rest of Europe, except of Germany. In Selbstwehr (Prague) Carlebach published a regular column Tagebuch der Woche (diary of the week). In April 1935 Carlebach called attention to Kurt Schuschnigg
Kurt Schuschnigg
Kurt Alois Josef Johann Schuschnigg was Chancellor of the First Austrian Republic, following the assassination of his predecessor, Dr. Engelbert Dollfuss, in July 1934, until Germany’s invasion of Austria, , in March 1938...
's anti-Semitic policy in Austria in an interview with the Federal Chancellor
Chancellor of Austria
The Federal Chancellor is the head of government in Austria. Its deputy is the Vice-Chancellor. Before 1918, the equivalent office was the Minister-President of Austria. The Federal Chancellor is considered to be the most powerful political position in Austrian politics.-Appointment:The...
. He adopted an increasingly sharper tone in relation to non-Zionists, whose intentions to stay in Europe, he regarded negligent in view of the development. From 1936 on British policy on Palestine (Peel Commission
Peel Commission
The Peel Commission of 1936-1937, formally known as the Palestine Royal Commission, was a British Royal Commission of Inquiry set out to propose changes to the British Mandate of Palestine following the outbreak of the 1936-1939 Arab revolt in Palestine...
) stood at the centre of Carlebach's editing.
In Palestine and Israel (1937 on)
In 1937 Carlebach immigrated to Palestine under an appointment as foreign correspondent of Yidishe Post. In the same year he became a journalist at the newspaper Yedioth AhronothYedioth Ahronoth
Yedioth Ahronoth is a daily newspaper published in Tel Aviv, Israel. Since the 1970s, it has been the most widely circulated paper in Israel. In a TGI survey comparing the last half of 2009 with the same period in 2008, Yedioth Ahronoth retained the title of most widely read newspaper in Israel...
, afterwards becoming its editor. In early 1939 Carlebach travelled again to Warsaw, meeting with friends there – not knowingly to see many of them for the last time.
In 1948, while chief editor of Yedioth Ahronoth, a disagreement broke out between Carlebach and Yehuda Mozes, owner of the paper. Carlebach and several senior journalists left Yedioth Ahronoth and founded a new newspaper, Yedioth Ma'ariv, which first appeared on February 15, 1948, with Carlebach as its chief editor. After several months, the paper's name was changed to Ma'ariv, to avoid confusion between it and Yedioth Ahronoth.
Ezriel Carlebach edited the Ma'ariv newspaper from its founding until his death in 1956. While he was editor, Ma'ariv became the most widely-read newspaper in the country. He is regarded as one of the great journalists of his period.
Carlebach and his paper opposed the Zionist Socialist party government and its head, David Ben-Gurion
David Ben-Gurion
' was the first Prime Minister of Israel.Ben-Gurion's passion for Zionism, which began early in life, led him to become a major Zionist leader and Executive Head of the World Zionist Organization in 1946...
. He was also a leader in the opposition to the opening of direct negotiations between Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
and Germany after the war, and the Reparations Agreement between Israel and West Germany
Reparations Agreement between Israel and West Germany
The Reparations Agreement between Israel and West Germany was signed on September 10, 1952, and entered in force on March 27, 1953...
.
In 1952 after president Chaim Weizmann
Chaim Weizmann
Chaim Azriel Weizmann, , was a Zionist leader, President of the Zionist Organization, and the first President of the State of Israel. He was elected on 1 February 1949, and served until his death in 1952....
’s death Carlebach suggested Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein was a German-born theoretical physicist who developed the theory of general relativity, effecting a revolution in physics. For this achievement, Einstein is often regarded as the father of modern physics and one of the most prolific intellects in human history...
in a telegram to become Israel’s president. Einstein felt honoured but refused, as he told Carlebach in a letter dated November 21, 1952, written in German.
Carlebach deprecated musical censorship as it was demanded by the then Israeli government on the occasion of Jascha Heifetz
Jascha Heifetz
Jascha Heifetz was a violinist, born in Vilnius, then Russian Empire, now Lithuania. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest violinists of all time.- Early life :...
' tour in Israel: "The education minister, Professor Dinur
Ben-Zion Dinur
-Biography:Dinaburg was born in 1884 in Khorol in the Russian Empire . He received his education in Lithuanian yeshivot. He studied under Shimon Shkop in the Telz Yeshiva, and became interested in the Haskalah through Rosh Yeshiva Eliezer Gordon's polemics. In 1898 he moved to the Slabodka yeshiva...
, requested that no Strauss
Richard Strauss
Richard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till...
be played. And the justice minister, Dr. Rosen
Pinchas Rosen
Pinchas Rosen was an Israeli politician and statesman, and the country's first Minister of Justice, serving three times during 1948-51, 1952–56, and 1958-61. He was also leader of the Independent Liberals during the 1960s.-Biography:...
, seconded that request (despite his different personal views on the identification of an artist with his art). … And he sent that request by special messenger … to Jascha Heifetz in Haifa a short time before the concert.
Yet Jascha Heifetz received the request from two ministers of Israel, shoved it into his pocket, said whatever he said about opposing musical censorship – and refused to comply. He played Strauss in Haifa, and afterwards in Tel Aviv as well."
Carlebach was sympathetic towards conciliation between Jewish and Arab Israelis. Under his pseudonym Rav Ipkha Mistabra he published a series of essays and editorials, in Yedioth Ahronoth, Ma'ariv or in Ner, the journal of the Brit Shalom
Brit Shalom
Brit Shalom was a group of Jewish 'universalist' intellectuals in Palestine, founded in 1925, which never exceeded a membership of 100.The original "Brit Shalom" sought a peaceful coexistence between Arabs and Jews, to be achieved by renunciation of the Zionist aim of creating a Jewish state...
movement (Engl. lit. Covenant of Peace). By and large, however, Carlebach remained skeptic in how far an understanding with avowed representatives of Islam were possible.
Carlebach criticised, that after the verdict of Israel Kasztner the Israeli government appealed the conviction literally overnight, unable to properly examine at all the substantial grounds for the judgment.
In 1954, Carlebach spent a three-week trip in India. "During this visit he met with Nehru
Jawaharlal Nehru
Jawaharlal Nehru , often referred to with the epithet of Panditji, was an Indian statesman who became the first Prime Minister of independent India and became noted for his “neutralist” policies in foreign affairs. He was also one of the principal leaders of India’s independence movement in the...
and other leaders of the state and the Congress Party." His book about the trip, India: Account of a Voyage, long the only Hebrew book on India, was published in 1956 and became an instant best-seller, appearing in several editions in the years after its initial appearance.
Tommy Lapid recalls, Carlebach "shut himself up in the Dan Hotel and from there he sent us his typewritten pages, ready for the printing press. I was his very young secretary, and I watched, with thirst and surprise, the birth of the book. Carlebach was driven to write the book by a powerful inner force, in a creative endeavour that was almost compulsive. Two months later he was dead, at 48. He left a widow, a daughter, and an orphaned newspaper, and this book – a creative outburst of the greatest journalist who wrote in Hebrew."
Dr. Carlebach died of a heart attack on February 12, 1956, at the age of 47. Thousands attended his last conduct. Especially for his publications issued under the pseudonym Ipkha Mistabra, he is considered to be one of the most talented and influential authors of editorials in Hebrew journalism. In Tel Aviv the street, where the offices of Ma'ariv are located, has later been renamed after Carlebach.
In 2005, he was voted the 149th-greatest Israeli of all time, in a poll by the Israeli news website Ynet
Ynet
Ynet is the most popular Israeli news and general content website. It is owned by the same conglomerate that operates Yediot Ahronot, the country's secondleading daily newspaper...
to determine whom the general public considered the 200 Greatest Israelis.
External links
- Esriel Carlebach, 'Telschi. I. Die Jeschiwah': 4 parts (part 1), In: Menorah; vol. 4, No. 1 (January 1926), pp. 37–44. (1926, German)
- Esriel Carlebach, 'Telschi. I. Die Jeschiwah': 4 parts (part 2), In: Menorah; vol. 4, No. 2 (February 1926), pp. 112–116. (1926, German)
- Esriel Carlebach, 'Telschi. I. Die Jeschiwah': 4 parts (part 3), In: Menorah; vol. 4, No. 4 (April 1926), pp. 231–235. (1926, German)
- Esriel Carlebach, 'Telschi. I. Die Jeschiwah': 4 parts (part 4), In: Menorah; vol. 4, No. 12 (December 1926), pp. 692–694. (1926, German)
- Esriel Carlebach, 'Das Städtchen (Telschi)', In: Menorah; vol. 5, No. 2 (February 1927), pp. 105–108. (1927, German)
- Ezriel Carlebach’s telegram to Einstein (1952, English)
- Albert Einstein’s letter to Carlebach (1952, German)
- Esriel Carlebach (under pseudonym "איפכא מסתברא" Ipcha Mistabra), 'זעקי ארץ אהובה' ('Cry, The Beloved Country!'), In: Ma'ariv, December 25, 1953. (1953, Hebrew)
- Ezriel Carlebach, 'Schrei auf, geliebtes Land!' ('זעקי ארץ אהובה', (under pseudonym "איפכא מסתברא"), In: Ma'ariv, 25. Dezember 1953; dt.), Ruth Rürup (trl.), in: Babylon. Beiträge zur jüdischen Gegenwart; vol. 3, No. 4 (1988), pp. 111–118, ISBN 3-8015-0228-7 (1953, download of the German translation)
- Ezriel Carlebach, 'You Can't Come To An Understanding' (Shortened version of an essay on the Jewish-Israeli relationship with Muslims, published in Ma'ariv, 1955; Engl.), in: Outpost, Americans For a Safe Israel (ed.), New York, vol. 10, No. 2 (February 2002). (1955, English translation)
- Ezriel Carlebach, 'לאָמיר זיך דערמאָנען' (Lomir zikh dermonen; letter to Chaim Finkelstein September/November 1955), in: Chaim Finkelstein (חיים פֿינקעלשטיין), Yiddish: הײַנט: א צײַטונג בײַ ײדן, תרס״ח־תרצ״ט (Haynt: a Tsaytung bay Yidn, 668–699, {1908–1939}), Tel-Aviv: פֿארלאג י.ל. פרץ (Farlag Y.L. Perets), 1978, pp. 363–367. (1955, Download of the Yiddish Original named Part 2, p.356-367 in the left column, within the pdf-file from p. 363 on)
- http://www.haynt.org/363.htmEzriel Carlebach, “Let Us Remind Ourselves” ('לאָמיר זיך דערמאָנען' {Lomir zikh dermonen; letter to Chaim Finkelstein, September/November 1955}), Mort Lipsitz (trl.), in: Chaim Finkelstein (חיים פֿינקעלשטיין), Yiddish: הײַנט: א צײַטונג בײַ ײדן, תרס״ח־תרצ״ט (Haynt: a Tsaytung bay Yidn, 668–699, {1908–1939}), Tel-Aviv: פֿארלאג י.ל. פרץ (Farlag Y.L. Perets), 1978, pp. 363–367.] (1955, English translation)
- Shalom Rosenfeld, 'Recollections of Ezriel Carlebach and the Founding of 'Ma'ariv' ', in: Kesher קשר; No. 30, May 2002 (2002, English)
- Mordecai Naor, 'The Great 'Putsch' in Israel's Press History', in: Kesher קשר; No. 33, May 2003 (2003, English, article on Carlebach's putsch at Yedi'ot Akharonot)