Nahum Goldmann
Encyclopedia
Nahum Goldmann (July 10, 1895–August 29, 1982) was a leading Zionist
and the founder and longtime president of the World Jewish Congress
.
, a shtetl
in the Pale of Settlement
(now Višnieva
, Belarus
), the son of a teaching and writing family, whose father was an ardent Zionist. At the age of six, he moved with his parents to Frankfurt
, Germany
where his father entertained leading Zionists and intellectuals. In 1911, while still in high school, he and his father attended the Tenth Zionist Congress. Goldmann went on to study law
, history
, and philosophy
in Marburg
, Heidelberg
, and Berlin
. He graduated in law and philosophy.
In 1913, he visited Palestine for four months, publishing his impressions the following year in his book, Eretz Israel, Reisebriefe aus Palästina (Eretz Israel, Travel letters from Palestine), which was published in two editions. In 1918, while working at the Jewish division of the German Foreign Ministry, he attempted to enlist Kaiser Wilhelm
's support for the Zionist ideal. In 1922 he founded the Eschkol-Publikations-Gesellschaft (Eschkol Publication Society), and was involved in publishing a Zionist periodical. In 1929 he and Jakob Klatzkin
started the project Encyclopaedia Judaica
, which reflected the work of the leading Jewish scholars of the day. Eschkol published ten volumes of the Encyclopaedia Judaica in German and two volumes in Hebrew
. Goldmann was falsely denounced by the Nazis as a secret communist agent shortly after the Beer Hall Putsch
.
In November 1934, Goldmann petitioned Mussolini
's support in relation to the Jews of the Saar
, a region about to reunite with what was then Nazi Germany. In 1933, by a twist of fate, he managed to escape arrest by the Gestapo, because he was in Palestine for his father's funeral.
In 1935 he was stripped of his German citizenship, became a citizen of Honduras
thanks to the intervention of the French Minister Louis Barthou
.
Later he moved to the United States, settling in New York City
, where he represented the Jewish Agency for several years. In 1936, Goldmann and Reform Rabbi Stephen S. Wise established the World Jewish Congress
(WJC).
He is credited with the early prediction of the threat posed by Hitler and Nazi Party
. In the spring of 1942, he said, "Who can foretell what the Nazi regime, once brought into the position of the surrounded killer, will do in the last moment before it goes down to shame?" Addressing the Zionist Organization of America
in October 1942, having heard the reports of genocide, he lamented, "Our generation is in the tragic position that one-half of the generation is being slaughtered before our eyes, and the other half has to sit down and cannot prevent this catastrophe." Goldmann took up residence in the United States
in June 1940, eventually took out citizenship, and remained there until 1964.
Goldmann died in Bad Reichenhall
, Germany. He was buried in Jerusalem's Mount Herzl
National Cemetery in the section reserved for leaders of the World Zionist Organization.
Goldmann found the Jewish leadership in the U.S. divided, with no cohesive policy in place at a time when unity of "intention and purpose was vital." Deeply frustrated over this divided leadership, he said:'In all my years in Jewish politics, I have never felt so impotent, so grimly bitter as I did over this. All of us who speak for the Jewish people in those days-- and I emphatically include myself --bear a share of the guilt.'
Both he and Stephen Wise
, working closely together, had been exponents of the 'democratization of Jewish life', that is, "an informed and assertive public," but under the stress of wartime conditions, and on the eve of the 1940 American presidential elections
, they came to doubt the efficacy of public pressure, preferring a quiet diplomacy behind the scenes as the more effective means of pursuing viable goals. It was this view, shared by Goldmann and Wise, which led them to strongly oppose Hillel Kook
's (Peter Bergson) more aggressive and public methods of attempting to rescue Jews.
Consistent in his view that "in exerting political pressure at home, one must always be cautious and tactful or risk incurring the hostility of influential diplomatic figures," neither Goldmann, nor the Jewish leadership around him, mounted a public campaign against the American immigration quota system, even as European Jewry were seeking refuge from Nazism. Some American Jews, including Louis Brandeis
and Felix Frankfurter
, did try their hands at quiet diplomacy with some success, such that the quotas were being filled by 1939. The worsening of the refugee problem after the Anschluss
in 1938, however, created additional pressure, leading President Roosevelt to call for an international conference known as the Evian Conference
which met in France in July of that year. The conference goal was to find homes for the hundreds of thousands of displaced Jews. Goldman attended as an observer for the World Jewish Congress. Of the 32 nations that attended, only the Dominican Republic
agreed to accept additional refugees.
In such circumstances, efforts were mainly directed towards the old programme of 'rehabilitating Palestine'. Goldmann called for an extraordinary Zionist conference in 1942 to form a cohesive strategy to attenuate the devastating effects of Nazi policies on European Jews, and the outcome was the Biltmore Program
, which called for, among other things, unrestricted Jewish immigration to Palestine. In his address to the conference, Goldmann warned that Nazi rhetoric was to be taken seriously, and that there were foreseeable genocidal consequences for European Jews, were the Nazis to press on with their policies. At the May 1943 American Emergency Committee meeting, Goldmann, along with Abba Hillel Silver
, was an advocate of the rationale that the struggle against the MacDonald White Paper
was a step in the establishment of the Jewish commonwealth.
In January 1945, Goldmann was instrumental in the creation of a committee combining the efforts of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee
(JDC) and the Jewish Agency for the rescue and rehabilitation of the remnants of the Jewish people in Europe. Goldmann had long supported the creation of two states in Palestine, one Arab
and one Jewish; his view was that independence was more important than controlling a specific territory, and his definition was that the aim should be to create 'a viable Jewish state in an adequate area of Palestine’. After the war he worked actively with David Ben Gurion towards the creation of Israel, although he, with Moshe Shertok, advised Ben-Gurion, in vain, that the declaration of independence be delayed in order to allow more time for reaching a diplomatic entente with the Arabs. He was concerned that an Arab-Israeli war would break out after the British
left their Mandate and the State of Israel was proclaimed.
From 1951 he was the Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Jewish Agency. In that year, he convened a meeting in New York City of 23 major national and international Jewish organizations to address the task of negotiating an agreement with the West German government for the reparations to Jews for losses caused by Nazi Germany and the Holocaust. The Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany (also known as the Claims Conference
) was the organization that emerged from this meeting. On September 10, 1952, after six months of negotiations, a reparations agreement
between the Claims Conference and Konrad Adenauer
's government of West German was reached. Noting the historic import of the agreement, David Ben-Gurion
said in a 1952 Dr. Goldmann, “For the first time in the history of the Jewish people, oppressed and plundered for hundreds of years…the oppressor and plunderer has had to hand back some of the spoil and pay collective compensation for part of the material losses.” In 1954 a similar treaty was signed between Austria
and Israel.
Goldmann served from 1948 to 1977 as president of the World Jewish Congress, the coordinating body for many Jewish organizations outside Israel. He supported Israel in other countries, even though he was a profound critic of official Israeli policies. From 1956 to 1968, Goldmann served as the President of the World Zionist Organization. In that capacity Goldmann was openly critical of the Israeli Government's actions in the abduction of Adolf Eichmann
and urged using an international court. He became a citizen of Israel in 1962, and of Switzerland
in 1969. He never took up permanent residence in Israel, dividing his time between Israel and Switzerland. During his life he had seven citizenships, and lived the last part of it in Paris
, France
.
as Goldmann felt that a Jewish state would not answer all the needs of the Jewish people. He was concerned about Jewish assimilation
, and fought to strengthen Jewish education, culture, and institutions outside of Israel.
Goldmann was critical of Israel for what he saw as an over-reliance on military might, and for not making more concessions after the 1967 Six-Day War
, advocating a position that the only chance of long-term survival for Israel was to accept the rights of the Palestinians as a people.
In October 1967 he met Yugoslav leader Josip Broz Tito
and asked him to inform other Communist leaders as well as Arab leaders about his ideas for a peaceful settlement. In early 1970 he was invited to talks by Egypt
ian president Gamel Abdel Nasser, but was stopped by the Israeli government. Attempts to contact Palestine Liberation Organisation leader Yasser Arafat
in 1974 were even seen as high treason
. Goldmann thought this behavior to be foolish. In 1982 he called on the Israeli Prime Minister not to reanimate anti-Zionism
and anti-Semitism
with the campaign in the Lebanon.
Consulted by a senior figure of the PLO during the siege of Beirut, he set forth five political principles that would prove conducive to securing the PLO's political battle on a firmer footing. (1) Abandon Beirut (2) put an end to terrorism (3) relocate in Tunis
, the only area where the Palestinian leadership could enjoy real political liberty (4) set up a provisory government, which would immediately be recognized by at least 150 countries (5) recognize Israel. If these measures were taken, Goldmann advised, the PLO would establish the basis for the creation of a Palestinian state alongside that of IsraelGoldmann's vision was to make Israel the spiritual and moral centre for all Jews, also a neutral state, somewhat on the model of Switzerland
, with international guarantees of its security, existence and borders, and perhaps even a permanent symbolic international presence.
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...
and the founder and longtime president of the World Jewish Congress
World Jewish Congress
The World Jewish Congress was founded in Geneva, Switzerland, in August 1936 as an international federation of Jewish communities and organizations...
.
Biography
Nahum Goldmann was born in Vishnevo, Russian EmpireRussian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
, a shtetl
Shtetl
A shtetl was typically a small town with a large Jewish population in Central and Eastern Europe until The Holocaust. Shtetls were mainly found in the areas which constituted the 19th century Pale of Settlement in the Russian Empire, the Congress Kingdom of Poland, Galicia and Romania...
in the Pale of Settlement
Pale of Settlement
The Pale of Settlement was the term given to a region of Imperial Russia, in which permanent residency by Jews was allowed, and beyond which Jewish permanent residency was generally prohibited...
(now Višnieva
Vishneva
Vishneva is a township in Valozhyn Raion, Minsk Voblast, Belarus, near the border with Lithuania.-History:In 1921-39 the town was part of the Second Polish Republic as part of Nowogródek Voivodeship....
, Belarus
Belarus
Belarus , officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe, bordered clockwise by Russia to the northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Its capital is Minsk; other major cities include Brest, Grodno , Gomel ,...
), the son of a teaching and writing family, whose father was an ardent Zionist. At the age of six, he moved with his parents to Frankfurt
Frankfurt
Frankfurt am Main , commonly known simply as Frankfurt, is the largest city in the German state of Hesse and the fifth-largest city in Germany, with a 2010 population of 688,249. The urban area had an estimated population of 2,300,000 in 2010...
, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
where his father entertained leading Zionists and intellectuals. In 1911, while still in high school, he and his father attended the Tenth Zionist Congress. Goldmann went on to study law
Law
Law is a system of rules and guidelines which are enforced through social institutions to govern behavior, wherever possible. It shapes politics, economics and society in numerous ways and serves as a social mediator of relations between people. Contract law regulates everything from buying a bus...
, history
History
History is the discovery, collection, organization, and presentation of information about past events. History can also mean the period of time after writing was invented. Scholars who write about history are called historians...
, and philosophy
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
in Marburg
Marburg
Marburg is a city in the state of Hesse, Germany, on the River Lahn. It is the main town of the Marburg-Biedenkopf district and its population, as of March 2010, was 79,911.- Founding and early history :...
, Heidelberg
Heidelberg
-Early history:Between 600,000 and 200,000 years ago, "Heidelberg Man" died at nearby Mauer. His jaw bone was discovered in 1907; with scientific dating, his remains were determined to be the earliest evidence of human life in Europe. In the 5th century BC, a Celtic fortress of refuge and place of...
, and Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
. He graduated in law and philosophy.
In 1913, he visited Palestine for four months, publishing his impressions the following year in his book, Eretz Israel, Reisebriefe aus Palästina (Eretz Israel, Travel letters from Palestine), which was published in two editions. In 1918, while working at the Jewish division of the German Foreign Ministry, he attempted to enlist Kaiser Wilhelm
Kaiser Wilhelm
Kaiser Wilhelm is a common reference to two German emperors:* Wilhelm I, German Emperor , King of Prussia; became the first Kaiser of a united Germany...
's support for the Zionist ideal. In 1922 he founded the Eschkol-Publikations-Gesellschaft (Eschkol Publication Society), and was involved in publishing a Zionist periodical. In 1929 he and Jakob Klatzkin
Jakob Klatzkin
Jakob Klatzkin, Yakov/Jakub Klaczkin , 1882 - 26 March 1948, Vevey, Switzerland) was a Jewish philosopher, publicist, publisher.He was a son of Rabbi Eliyahu Klaczkin ....
started the project Encyclopaedia Judaica
Encyclopaedia Judaica
The Encyclopaedia Judaica is a 26-volume English-language encyclopedia of the Jewish people and their faith, Judaism. It covers diverse areas of the Jewish world and civilization, including Jewish history of all eras, culture, holidays, language, scripture, and religious teachings...
, which reflected the work of the leading Jewish scholars of the day. Eschkol published ten volumes of the Encyclopaedia Judaica in German and two volumes in Hebrew
Hebrew language
Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...
. Goldmann was falsely denounced by the Nazis as a secret communist agent shortly after the Beer Hall Putsch
Beer Hall Putsch
The Beer Hall Putsch was a failed attempt at revolution that occurred between the evening of 8 November and the early afternoon of 9 November 1923, when Nazi Party leader Adolf Hitler, Generalquartiermeister Erich Ludendorff, and other heads of the Kampfbund unsuccessfully tried to seize power...
.
In November 1934, Goldmann petitioned Mussolini
Benito Mussolini
Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was an Italian politician who led the National Fascist Party and is credited with being one of the key figures in the creation of Fascism....
's support in relation to the Jews of the Saar
Saar (protectorate)
The Saar Protectorate was a German borderland territory twice temporarily made a protectorate state. Since rejoining Germany the second time in 1957, it is the smallest Federal German Area State , the Saarland, not counting the city-states Berlin, Hamburg and Bremen...
, a region about to reunite with what was then Nazi Germany. In 1933, by a twist of fate, he managed to escape arrest by the Gestapo, because he was in Palestine for his father's funeral.
In 1935 he was stripped of his German citizenship, became a citizen of Honduras
Honduras
Honduras is a republic in Central America. It was previously known as Spanish Honduras to differentiate it from British Honduras, which became the modern-day state of Belize...
thanks to the intervention of the French Minister Louis Barthou
Louis Barthou
Jean Louis Barthou was a French politician of the Third Republic.-Early years:He was born in Oloron-Sainte-Marie, Pyrénées-Atlantiques, and served as Deputy from that constituency. He was an authority on trade union history and law. Barthou was Prime Minister in 1913, and held ministerial office...
.
Later he moved to the United States, settling in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, where he represented the Jewish Agency for several years. In 1936, Goldmann and Reform Rabbi Stephen S. Wise established the World Jewish Congress
World Jewish Congress
The World Jewish Congress was founded in Geneva, Switzerland, in August 1936 as an international federation of Jewish communities and organizations...
(WJC).
He is credited with the early prediction of the threat posed by Hitler and Nazi Party
National Socialist German Workers Party
The National Socialist German Workers' Party , commonly known in English as the Nazi Party, was a political party in Germany between 1920 and 1945. Its predecessor, the German Workers' Party , existed from 1919 to 1920...
. In the spring of 1942, he said, "Who can foretell what the Nazi regime, once brought into the position of the surrounded killer, will do in the last moment before it goes down to shame?" Addressing the Zionist Organization of America
Zionist Organization of America
The Zionist Organization of America , founded in 1897, was one of the first official Zionist organizations in the United States, and, especially early in the 20th century, the primary representative of Jewish Americans to the World Zionist Organization, espousing primarily Political Zionism.Today,...
in October 1942, having heard the reports of genocide, he lamented, "Our generation is in the tragic position that one-half of the generation is being slaughtered before our eyes, and the other half has to sit down and cannot prevent this catastrophe." Goldmann took up residence in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
in June 1940, eventually took out citizenship, and remained there until 1964.
Goldmann died in Bad Reichenhall
Bad Reichenhall
Bad Reichenhall is a spa town, and administrative center of the Berchtesgadener Land district in Upper Bavaria, Germany. It is located near Salzburg in a basin encircled by the Chiemgauer Alps ....
, Germany. He was buried in Jerusalem's Mount Herzl
Mount Herzl
Mount Herzl , also Har HaZikaron , is the national cemetery of Israel on the west side of Jerusalem. It is named for Theodor Herzl, the founder of modern political Zionism. Herzl's tomb lies at the top of the hill. Yad Vashem, which commemorates the Holocaust, lies to the west of Mt. Herzl....
National Cemetery in the section reserved for leaders of the World Zionist Organization.
Jewish and Zionist activism
Both he and Stephen Wise
Stephen Samuel Wise
Stephen Samuel Wise was an Austro-Hungarian-born American Reform rabbi and Zionist leader.-Early life:...
, working closely together, had been exponents of the 'democratization of Jewish life', that is, "an informed and assertive public," but under the stress of wartime conditions, and on the eve of the 1940 American presidential elections
United States presidential election, 1940
The United States presidential election of 1940 was fought in the shadow of World War II as the United States was emerging from the Great Depression. Incumbent President Franklin D. Roosevelt , a Democrat, broke with tradition and ran for a third term, which became a major issue...
, they came to doubt the efficacy of public pressure, preferring a quiet diplomacy behind the scenes as the more effective means of pursuing viable goals. It was this view, shared by Goldmann and Wise, which led them to strongly oppose Hillel Kook
Hillel Kook
Hillel Kook , also known as Peter Bergson , was a Revisionist Zionist activist, politician, and prominent member of the Irgun.-Early life:...
's (Peter Bergson) more aggressive and public methods of attempting to rescue Jews.
Consistent in his view that "in exerting political pressure at home, one must always be cautious and tactful or risk incurring the hostility of influential diplomatic figures," neither Goldmann, nor the Jewish leadership around him, mounted a public campaign against the American immigration quota system, even as European Jewry were seeking refuge from Nazism. Some American Jews, including Louis Brandeis
Louis Brandeis
Louis Dembitz Brandeis ; November 13, 1856 – October 5, 1941) was an Associate Justice on the Supreme Court of the United States from 1916 to 1939.He was born in Louisville, Kentucky, to Jewish immigrant parents who raised him in a secular mode...
and Felix Frankfurter
Felix Frankfurter
Felix Frankfurter was an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court.-Early life:Frankfurter was born into a Jewish family on November 15, 1882, in Vienna, Austria, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in Europe. He was the third of six children of Leopold and Emma Frankfurter...
, did try their hands at quiet diplomacy with some success, such that the quotas were being filled by 1939. The worsening of the refugee problem after the Anschluss
Anschluss
The Anschluss , also known as the ', was the occupation and annexation of Austria into Nazi Germany in 1938....
in 1938, however, created additional pressure, leading President Roosevelt to call for an international conference known as the Evian Conference
Evian Conference
The Évian Conference was convened at the initiative of US President Franklin D. Roosevelt in July 1938 to discuss the issue of increasing numbers of Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi persecution. For eight days, from July 6 to July 13, representatives from 31 countries met at Évian-les-Bains, France...
which met in France in July of that year. The conference goal was to find homes for the hundreds of thousands of displaced Jews. Goldman attended as an observer for the World Jewish Congress. Of the 32 nations that attended, only the Dominican Republic
Dominican Republic
The Dominican Republic is a nation on the island of La Hispaniola, part of the Greater Antilles archipelago in the Caribbean region. The western third of the island is occupied by the nation of Haiti, making Hispaniola one of two Caribbean islands that are shared by two countries...
agreed to accept additional refugees.
In such circumstances, efforts were mainly directed towards the old programme of 'rehabilitating Palestine'. Goldmann called for an extraordinary Zionist conference in 1942 to form a cohesive strategy to attenuate the devastating effects of Nazi policies on European Jews, and the outcome was the Biltmore Program
Biltmore Conference
The Biltmore Conference, also known by its resolution as the Biltmore Program, was a fundamental departure from traditional Zionist policy with its demand "that Palestine be established as a Jewish Commonwealth." The meeting was held in New York City at the prestigious Biltmore Hotel from May 6...
, which called for, among other things, unrestricted Jewish immigration to Palestine. In his address to the conference, Goldmann warned that Nazi rhetoric was to be taken seriously, and that there were foreseeable genocidal consequences for European Jews, were the Nazis to press on with their policies. At the May 1943 American Emergency Committee meeting, Goldmann, along with Abba Hillel Silver
Abba Hillel Silver
Abba Hillel Silver was a U.S. Rabbi and Zionist leader. He was a key figure in the mobilization of American support for the founding of the State of Israel.-Biography:...
, was an advocate of the rationale that the struggle against the MacDonald White Paper
White Paper of 1939
The White Paper of 1939, also known as the MacDonald White Paper after Malcolm MacDonald, the British Colonial Secretary who presided over it, was a policy paper issued by the British government under Neville Chamberlain in which the idea of partitioning the Mandate for Palestine, as recommended in...
was a step in the establishment of the Jewish commonwealth.
In January 1945, Goldmann was instrumental in the creation of a committee combining the efforts of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee
American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee
The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee is a worldwide Jewish relief organization headquartered in New York. It was established in 1914 and is active in more than 70 countries....
(JDC) and the Jewish Agency for the rescue and rehabilitation of the remnants of the Jewish people in Europe. Goldmann had long supported the creation of two states in Palestine, one Arab
Arab
Arab people, also known as Arabs , are a panethnicity primarily living in the Arab world, which is located in Western Asia and North Africa. They are identified as such on one or more of genealogical, linguistic, or cultural grounds, with tribal affiliations, and intra-tribal relationships playing...
and one Jewish; his view was that independence was more important than controlling a specific territory, and his definition was that the aim should be to create 'a viable Jewish state in an adequate area of Palestine’. After the war he worked actively with David Ben Gurion towards the creation of Israel, although he, with Moshe Shertok, advised Ben-Gurion, in vain, that the declaration of independence be delayed in order to allow more time for reaching a diplomatic entente with the Arabs. He was concerned that an Arab-Israeli war would break out after the British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
left their Mandate and the State of Israel was proclaimed.
From 1951 he was the Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Jewish Agency. In that year, he convened a meeting in New York City of 23 major national and international Jewish organizations to address the task of negotiating an agreement with the West German government for the reparations to Jews for losses caused by Nazi Germany and the Holocaust. The Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany (also known as the Claims Conference
Claims Conference
The Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, or Claims Conference, represents world Jewry in negotiating for compensation and restitution for victims of Nazi persecution and their heirs...
) was the organization that emerged from this meeting. On September 10, 1952, after six months of negotiations, a reparations agreement
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...
between the Claims Conference and Konrad Adenauer
Konrad Adenauer
Konrad Hermann Joseph Adenauer was a German statesman. He was the chancellor of the West Germany from 1949 to 1963. He is widely recognised as a person who led his country from the ruins of World War II to a powerful and prosperous nation that had forged close relations with old enemies France,...
's government of West German was reached. Noting the historic import of the agreement, 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...
said in a 1952 Dr. Goldmann, “For the first time in the history of the Jewish people, oppressed and plundered for hundreds of years…the oppressor and plunderer has had to hand back some of the spoil and pay collective compensation for part of the material losses.” In 1954 a similar treaty was signed between Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
and Israel.
Goldmann served from 1948 to 1977 as president of the World Jewish Congress, the coordinating body for many Jewish organizations outside Israel. He supported Israel in other countries, even though he was a profound critic of official Israeli policies. From 1956 to 1968, Goldmann served as the President of the World Zionist Organization. In that capacity Goldmann was openly critical of the Israeli Government's actions in the abduction of Adolf Eichmann
Adolf Eichmann
Adolf Otto Eichmann was a German Nazi and SS-Obersturmbannführer and one of the major organizers of the Holocaust...
and urged using an international court. He became a citizen of Israel in 1962, and of Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
in 1969. He never took up permanent residence in Israel, dividing his time between Israel and Switzerland. During his life he had seven citizenships, and lived the last part of it in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
.
Views and opinions
Though a strong supporter of Zionism, Goldmann was also a strong supporter of the idea of a healthy DiasporaDiaspora
A diaspora is "the movement, migration, or scattering of people away from an established or ancestral homeland" or "people dispersed by whatever cause to more than one location", or "people settled far from their ancestral homelands".The word has come to refer to historical mass-dispersions of...
as Goldmann felt that a Jewish state would not answer all the needs of the Jewish people. He was concerned about Jewish assimilation
Cultural assimilation
Cultural assimilation is a socio-political response to demographic multi-ethnicity that supports or promotes the assimilation of ethnic minorities into the dominant culture. The term assimilation is often used with regard to immigrants and various ethnic groups who have settled in a new land. New...
, and fought to strengthen Jewish education, culture, and institutions outside of Israel.
Goldmann was critical of Israel for what he saw as an over-reliance on military might, and for not making more concessions after the 1967 Six-Day War
Six-Day War
The Six-Day War , also known as the June War, 1967 Arab-Israeli War, or Third Arab-Israeli War, was fought between June 5 and 10, 1967, by Israel and the neighboring states of Egypt , Jordan, and Syria...
, advocating a position that the only chance of long-term survival for Israel was to accept the rights of the Palestinians as a people.
In October 1967 he met Yugoslav leader Josip Broz Tito
Josip Broz Tito
Marshal Josip Broz Tito – 4 May 1980) was a Yugoslav revolutionary and statesman. While his presidency has been criticized as authoritarian, Tito was a popular public figure both in Yugoslavia and abroad, viewed as a unifying symbol for the nations of the Yugoslav federation...
and asked him to inform other Communist leaders as well as Arab leaders about his ideas for a peaceful settlement. In early 1970 he was invited to talks by Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
ian president Gamel Abdel Nasser, but was stopped by the Israeli government. Attempts to contact Palestine Liberation Organisation leader Yasser Arafat
Yasser Arafat
Mohammed Yasser Abdel Rahman Abdel Raouf Arafat al-Qudwa al-Husseini , popularly known as Yasser Arafat or by his kunya Abu Ammar , was a Palestinian leader and a Laureate of the Nobel Prize. He was Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization , President of the Palestinian National Authority...
in 1974 were even seen as high treason
High treason
High treason is criminal disloyalty to one's government. Participating in a war against one's native country, attempting to overthrow its government, spying on its military, its diplomats, or its secret services for a hostile and foreign power, or attempting to kill its head of state are perhaps...
. Goldmann thought this behavior to be foolish. In 1982 he called on the Israeli Prime Minister not to reanimate anti-Zionism
Anti-Zionism
Anti-Zionism is opposition to Zionistic views or opposition to the state of Israel. The term is used to describe various religious, moral and political points of view in opposition to these, but their diversity of motivation and expression is sufficiently different that "anti-Zionism" cannot be...
and anti-Semitism
Anti-Semitism
Antisemitism is suspicion of, hatred toward, or discrimination against Jews for reasons connected to their Jewish heritage. According to a 2005 U.S...
with the campaign in the Lebanon.
Consulted by a senior figure of the PLO during the siege of Beirut, he set forth five political principles that would prove conducive to securing the PLO's political battle on a firmer footing. (1) Abandon Beirut (2) put an end to terrorism (3) relocate in Tunis
Tunis
Tunis is the capital of both the Tunisian Republic and the Tunis Governorate. It is Tunisia's largest city, with a population of 728,453 as of 2004; the greater metropolitan area holds some 2,412,500 inhabitants....
, the only area where the Palestinian leadership could enjoy real political liberty (4) set up a provisory government, which would immediately be recognized by at least 150 countries (5) recognize Israel. If these measures were taken, Goldmann advised, the PLO would establish the basis for the creation of a Palestinian state alongside that of IsraelGoldmann's vision was to make Israel the spiritual and moral centre for all Jews, also a neutral state, somewhat on the model of Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
, with international guarantees of its security, existence and borders, and perhaps even a permanent symbolic international presence.
Published works
- Erez-Israel - Reisebriefe aus Palästina 1914: online at archive.org
- Von der weltkulturellen Bedeutung und Aufgabe des Judentums (Of the world-cultural meaning and task of the Jews) München 1916
- Staatsmann ohne Staat (Statesman Without a State, autobiography), 1970, Köln: Kiepenheuer-Witsch. ISBN 3-462-00780-7 in french: online at archive.org
- Mein Leben als deutscher Jude (My Life as a German Jew), 1982, München: Langen-Müller. ISBN 3-7844-1771-X.
- (Fall 1978). Zionist Ideology and the Reality of Israel, Foreign Affairs.
- 3 works in Yiddish language: online at archive.org
Further reading
- Medoff, Rafael (2001) Baksheesh Diplomacy: Secret Negotiations Between American Jewish Leaders and Arab Officials on the Eve of World War II Lexington Books, ISBN 0-7391-0204-4
- Patai, Raphael (2004) Nahum Goldmann: His Missions To The Gentiles University of Alabama Press, ISBN 0-8173-5095-0
- Raider, Mark A. Editor (2009) Nahum Goldmann, Statesman without a State: partly online at google-books
External links
- Biography from the Jewish Virtual Library
- Central Zionist ArchivesCentral Zionist ArchivesThe Central Zionist Archives The Central Zionist Archives The Central Zionist Archives (CZA; Hebrew: (הארכיון הציוני המרכזי (אצ"מ) is an archive in Jerusalem, Israel, housing the historical archives of the Zionist movement from 1880-1970 and documenting the growth of the Zionist movement throughout...
in Jerusalem site. Office of Nahum Goldmann (S80), Nahum Goldmann's offices in New York and Geneva (Z6)