TORAH-JUDAISM AND THE STATE OF ISRAEL
BYURIEL ZIMMER
The Great Disaster and the Post-War Era
The great disaster of World War II and the destruction of European Jewry are events the full meaning of which none of us can yet grasp up to this day, some fifteen years later. All that has been spoken, written and said in this respect is only as a mere phrase compared with its true impact, for all the statements on it have already become so commonplace as to be devoid of meaning. Nor is it our intention here to repeat or even to make an attempt to give verbal expression to the feelings of grief and agony that certainly fill every Jewish heart whenever the memory of the great disaster comes to mind. Here we shall dwell upon these matters only inasmuch as they have a direct and immediate bearing on our topic.
The disaster was not only a massacre of six millions out of sixteen millions; with it, the central and main artery of life of the Jewish People was severed. If, after this terrible disaster, the Jewish people survived at all, it is one of the most miraculous mysteries beyond the comprehension of human reason and an additional tangible proof of the meta-historical character of the Jewish People which is not only not a nation like other nations, but constitutes a unique entity, a special creation of G-d "the People which I have created for Myself", as we have tried to explain earlier.
After the catastrophe, all the surviving remnants in the camps were broken physically, morally and spiritually, and bitterly disappointed. Throughout the holocaust, they had nourished the hope that when the fortunate hour should finally strike, they would find themselves re-united with the assembly of their Jewish brethren, that they would find the remnants, however few and broken, of the "Klal Yisroel" in which they had grown up, for participation in which they had been tortured and bereaved. Instead they found a multitude of arrogant busybodies as the self- appointed leaders and spokesmen for World Jewry, more often than not with additional and very dubious ulterior motives.
Never throughout the Nazi holocaust and thereafter have Zionist leaders ceased their string-pulling maneuvres. When the entire Jewish people was stunned with agony by the terrible fate of their brethren, which had penetrated the Zionist-wrought curtain of silence when it was already too late to help, the time was considered ripe for continuing the process of "wholesale surgery" whereby the Jewish people was to be transformed into a "normal nation", for forcibly putting "an end to Galuth" through the establishment of the Jewish State. This "string-pulling" throughout the era of massacre and thereafter contains various chapters which should have been, and undoubtedly will one day be, recorded and discussed. Some of these facts emerged during the Kastner trial which was held in Jerusalem several years ago. Public discussion of them still goes on. Interesting and vital as this subject may be, it is not part of our topic. Nonetheless, it may be worth while to relate here one "small" but typical example which I have heard myself from the late Rabbi Michael Ber Weissmandl, THE reliable witness of this entire tragedy (A man who was called 'the righteous one' even by the Attorney General of Israel Mr. Chaim Cohen, see "Criminal File 124" ed. Yediot Acharonot, Tel Aviv).
Rabbi Weissmandl once told me the following story:
The first piece of information about the existence and nature of the extermination camp of Auschwitz-Bierkenau was received early in 1942, through two young Slovak Jews (the so-called "Protectorate" of Slovakia was the first country under the Nazi orbit to send Jews to extermination camps) who had miraculously managed to escape back to Slovakia. They presented detailed testimony, figures, maps, diagrams and all, records of which were taken in the presence of a neutral Consular official (the document has already in part been published in several periodicals, and has now been published in its entirety in the memoirs of Rabbi Weissmandl). Through various devices, at the risk of his own life and safety, Rabbi Weissmandl managed to send this document to the representatives of "World Jewry" (the Jewish Agency, the JDC etc.) in Switzerland. An answer was finally received after long waiting: "I have handed your letter over to Chayim (Weitzman), and he will greatly enjoy it. It will help us get the State" . . . .
In his memoirs (just now published), Rabbi Weissmandl quotes the original text of a letter received from the same Zionist representation in Switzerland, in reply to a plea for help addressed to them by Mrs. Gizella Fleischman, a veteran Zionist and an active rescue worker during the war. Her plea also contained explicit directions as to how help could be given, etc. The answer was "All allied nations shed the blood of their sons in the war effort. What we want is a Jewish State, and (“rak b'dam tih'ye lanu ha'aretz”) only with blood will we get the country"
Those who so eloquently accuse others of "blood-libel" for mentioning these facts, had better read Rabbi Weissmandl's book and the documentation contained therein. But, we repeat, it is not our intention here to go into this matter. The above examples were only quoted in order to illustrate the trend of Zionist thought.
The above-mentioned representative of the Jewish Agency was right, after all. The great disaster in Europe and the desparate situation of its remnants in Refugee camps after the war served as a trump card in the hands of the Zionist leadership in negotiations in the corridors of the UN, in the White House in Washington and in other world-capitals. On November 29th, 1947, the United Nations' General Assembly with a two-thirds majority of votes ratified the resolutions calling for the partition of Palestine, involving the establishment of a sovereign Jewish State on part of the territory of the former Palestine Mandate.
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