February 15, 2012

In Search of a Home -- 10/20/39


Rabbi Sidney Ballon, Tree of Life Congregation, Columbia SC, circa 1939
The following is among the first sermons Rabbi Sidney Ballon delivered at his first full-time pulpit, Tree of Life Congregation[i] in Columbia, South Carolina, where he served as spiritual leader from 1939 to 1948. 

In this sermon Ballon reveals his desire to remain optimistic about the fate of European Jewish refugees even as he expresses certain fears. He also expresses his admiration for President Roosevelt’s humanitarian stance, although many historians would argue that Roosevelt’s actions ultimately belie that conclusion. Remarkably Ballon makes about as strong a case for a new Jewish homeland in Alaska as he does for Palestine. Perhaps the most chilling aspect of this sermon is the mere fact that in 1939, without the hindsight that history provides us today, Ballon was left to contemplate how refugees would be handled regardless of which side would be victorious in the war. 
...and even if Hitler is victorious, there still will have to be some settlement of the problem....

Chilling indeed, to be living with the prospect of a Hitler victory!

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This week in Washington, President Roosevelt has furnished us with additional evidence, if such be necessary, of his broad humanitarian spirit. For at the call of the President there is now in session at the nation’s capitol the meeting of the intergovernmental committee on refugees. This meeting had been planned for some time and is indeed the outgrowth of another such gathering[ii], also initiated by the president, at Evian, France about fifteen months ago. But due to the war conditions now prevailing, it was considered possible that the great powers in their preoccupation with the tasks of war, would abandon their attempts to deal with the problems of the refugee and concentrate their energies solely on fighting the enemy, but Roosevelt persisted in his original purpose of holding such a meeting, and as a result, the committee, which is representative of thirty-two nations now in session and is searching for new homes for Europe’s afflicted wanderers.

The thought of such a gathering fills us at the same time both with hope and with despair. When we think of thirty-two nations consulting together at the call of the President of the United States, we feel that as last the conscience of the world is at work and something will be done. Out of such deliberations surely some plan will be evolved which will bring relief. But, on the one hand, when we think of the problem itself, when we think of how much more acute the situation becomes day by day, how little the last conference accomplished, we begin to fear that the task is an impossible one. It is no longer a problem of caring for a few political refugees who must be transported from one place of danger to another of safety; it is rather the problem of a whole world in upheaval, and can no longer be dealt with as if it were an isolated matter.

Just a few months ago the task was the comparatively simple one of resettling from two to three hundred thousand unfortunate people, who were for the most part young and healthy, who could go out to a new land and work, reestablish themselves and make a contribution to the welfare of the country which adopted them. But since the outbreak of the war, the number of the afflicted has been increased to millions, and the question of emigration has become a secondary aspect of the refugee problem and the situation is further complicated by the necessity of providing hundreds of thousands—old and young, strong and weak—with their daily bread. Ironically enough, in a certain sense the cruelties of the war have lessened rather than increased the immediate difficulties of the refugee committee.

Previously the major problem was emigration from German territories, how to evacuate as quickly as possible the thousands who found life under Nazi domination intolerable. As German aggression advanced the problem naturally became ever greater and the number to be helped increased. But now for the present at least the committee will find it impossible even to try to help most of those who are suffering under German rule as well as those Jews who are now in any other part of what was formerly Polish territory. For Hitler, now that the war is on, is unwilling to let Jews leave, while, of course Stalin never has permitted anyone, Jew or non-Jew to leave Russian soil. Hitler must conserve his manpower for the struggle which is coming, and Jewish labor, formerly despised, is now a welcome addition to his ranks, and so in Germany today, in the manner of Pharaoh of old Jews are enslaved by the government. The able bodied, condemned to work in the war industries plants, while the remainder given all manner of other shameful tasks to perform. Stalin will, of course, now subject his new people to the process of communist enlightenment, and God help those who fail to enlighten quickly enough in accordance with communist principle. And so that much of the committee’s problem is solved. There is no need at present for new homes for Polish and German Jews who are still in their native lands because it is now impossible for them to leave their old ones.

But in spite of these hundreds of thousands who are hopelessly trapped for the time being, and for whom nothing can be done, there are nevertheless many thousands who have escaped to Romania, Hungary, and the Baltic regions. There are still many thousands who are wandering about in Western countries both those in war countries and in neutral ones, who have only temporary visas and who have not yet found a permanent home. These people are in need of immediate relief and for them the governments of the world must act quickly.

But what can they do and to what lands can they look for help? Throughout the civilized world, in spite of expressions of sympathy, governments have, because of their own internal problems, raised their restrictions on immigration higher and higher, and as the problem grows greater, the world seems to grow smaller, and the prospects for immigration diminish. It is for this reason that so many wild and undeveloped lands have been suggested as cities of refuge, and we have been hearing of Ceylon, and Tanganyika, and Rhodesia, and Madagascar and other such places suggested as the solution to the problem, but before any large scale immigration to these places could be hoped for, millions of dollars would have to be spend and years of labor put in, until these wastelands were sufficiently developed. Unfortunately, most of those who need these places cannot wait so long. By the time all the necessary experiments were made and surveys conducted, the problem would solve itself in quite another way. There would not be many left to immigrate.

The situation, however, is not altogether hopeless, and there are at least two places to which the committee should give maximum attention. The first of these and most important of these is Palestine. During the last conference at Evian it was agreed beforehand that Palestine was by no means to be considered and was not in any way to enter into the discussion. A conference on refugees, however, that refuses to take Palestine into consideration is a vain conference, because at the present time the only land which seems to be ready and willing to absorb refugees in any great number is Palestine. The population of that land today is slightly over a million, but the possibility of Palestine supporting several millions of people has long ago been shown by experts.[iii] The only bar to immigration in Palestine has been the perfidious policy of the British and the supposedly insuperable difficulties with the Arabs. Today however, the war, unfortunate in so many respects, at least has the silver lining that the British need manpower in Palestine and are now in a mood to make concessions with regard to immigration. Only a short time ago the British White Paper[iv] limited drastically all further Jewish immigration and then because of the great amount of illegal immigration which resulted, it stopped immigration altogether for a period of six months from the first of this month to next March. But although the British attitude officially remains unchanged, unofficially, illegal immigration now is being ignored, boats are allowed to land their passengers in spite of their illegal status and the British consul in Trieste is reported even to have granted visas to over three thousand people. If the intergovernmental committee can persuade Great Britain to change its policy openly and officially so that full advantage may be taken of the possibilities which Palestine offers, it will have rendered a great service to the cause. As for the trouble between the Arabs and the Jews that, too, seems now to have completely disappeared. The past month has been one of almost complete peace...[illegible]...Arabs willing to sell land.... It would seem that with Great Britain distracted by the war, the Arabs could seize the opportunity to stir up a lot of trouble and win many concessions from Great Britain to keep them quiet.  But strangely enough, they have not done so and the reason may well be that all German diplomats have had to leave English territory and all other German citizens have been interned and so that there has no longer been any one around to spread German propaganda inciting the Arabs. And similarly the Italians due to their uncertain position in the war have had to temper their propaganda activities. The present peaceful attitude may be due to these facts, and if so, they point to the possibility of lasting Arab/Jewish peace to follow. A peace of which advantage must be taken.

The second great opportunity for the committee to be of service is in Alaska. This country is not immediately prepared to do as much as Palestine, but its development could be carried on much more quickly and is a much more certain project than any of the other distant places which have been mentioned. Secretary of the Interior, Ickes, has already mentioned the possibilities of Alaska as a refuge for the oppressed[v] but as yet no action has been taken on to open its doors. The territory is equal to about one fifth of the United States in area and yet its total population is only sixty thousand. The popular impression of Alaska is that it is a land of ice and snow and that especially in the wintertime its climate is rigorous and unfavorable for large-scale settlement, but according to reports this conception of the country does it a grave injustice. The southern parts of the land we are told are actually warmer than New York and Chicago, and only three percent of the country in the extreme north is perpetually covered with ice. It’s mineral resources and agricultural and industrial possibilities have been estimated to be sufficient to maintain not a population of thousands such as is found there now but rather a total of five million[vi], if the country were to be properly developed and all its resources put to good use. The only difficulty in colonizing the country thus far has been its lack of transportation facilities. Insufficient number of railroads and highways has kept prices high and made shipment of goods difficult, but while such a handicap would be too difficult for individual settlers to surmount, if the government would launch a huge settlement project, properly financed, this small handicap would be quickly overcome, and America would not only lived up to its good name as a home for the oppressed, but would have provided itself with a new outpost for defense and a market for its goods.

President Roosevelt in his welcoming message to the committee at a White House luncheon made the statement that because some of the nations are at war they can be asked to do little more than lend their sympathy at the present time in dealing with this problem. “Upon the neutral nations,” he said, “there lies and obligation to humanity to carry on the work.” It is to be hoped that Congress will take these words to heart[vii], and at its first opportunity will as a neutral power fulfill this obligation to humanity by making the vast areas of the north available. If such a project were contemplated American Jewry would be certain to cooperate, and the necessary funds would not be lacking.

There is one more great service that the intergovernmental committee can render, and this not with the immediate present in mind but looking forward to the future, to the time which must come when the war will be ended and the problem of the refugee will have to be taken up in earnest. President Roosevelt warned the committee that when the war is over there may be, to use his own words, “not one million, but ten million or twenty million men, women, and children belonging to many races and many religions living in many countries and possibly on several continents who will enter into the wide picture of the problem of the human refugee.”[viii] And this conference can now pave the way for that future. It must prepare itself to deal with whichever side is victorious and to insist that the problem of the refugee not be pushed aside in the eagerness to conclude a peace.  If the allies win, and it seems likely at least, the committee can exert a great influence and play a great role, if it is prepared with the proper suggestions, and even if Hitler is victorious, there still will have to be some settlement of the problem and the committee must be prepared to intervene and mitigate the severity of his actions.  

Thus the refugee situation is a dark one but there is much good that the committee can do. For one hope is that it will act and not merely talk. To quote the president once more, “it is not enough to indulge in horrified humanitarianism, empty resolution, golden rhetoric and pious words. We must face it actively if the democratic principle based on respect and human dignity is to survive--if world order which rests on the security of the individual is to be restored.” May god grant these men the wisdom and the will to act in accord with these words spoken to them by the President that they may truly bring a measure of comfort to a bereaved humanity.

Amen.


[i] Photo from In Pursuit of the Tree of Life: A history of the early Jews of Columbia, South Carolina, and the Tree of Life Congregation, Belinda and Richard Gergel, 1996. Current information on the congregation may be found at http://www.tolsc.org/
[ii] 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. Representatives from 31 countries met at Évian-les-Bains, France. With both the United States and Britain refusing to take in substantial numbers of Jews, the conference was ultimately seen as a failure by Jews and their sympathizers, with the result being that the Jews had no escape and were ultimately subject to Hitler's genocide. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89vian_Conference
[iii] Various sources provide differing data on the population of Israel in 1939. According to http://www.populstat.info/Asia/israelc.htm the population of Palestine in 1939 was 1.46 million. Regardless, history has borne out the hypothesis that the land could support multiple millions of people, inasmuch as the 2010 census has the population of Israel greater than 7.5 million according to the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics http://www1.cbs.gov.il
[iv] The White Paper of 1939 was a policy paper issued by the British government under Neville Chamberlain which proposed creating an independent Palestine governed by Palestinian Arabs and Jews in proportion to their numbers in the population by 1939. A limit of 75,000 Jewish immigrants was set for the five-year period 1940-1944, consisting of a regular yearly quota of 10,000, and a supplementary quota of 25,000, spread out over the same period, to cover refugee emergencies. After this cut-off date, further immigration would depend on the permission of the Arab majority. Restrictions were also placed on the rights of Jews to buy land from Arabs. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Paper_of_1939
[v] In November 1938, two weeks after Kristallnacht, US Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes proposed the use of Alaska as a "haven for Jewish refugees from Germany and other areas in Europe where the Jews are subjected to oppressive restrictions." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slattery_Report
[vi] The population of Alaska was 710,231 according to the 2010 census http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/02000.html
[vii] Although thousands of Jews had been admitted into the United States under the combined German-Austrian quota from 1938-1941, the U.S. did not pursue an organized and specific rescue policy for Jewish victims of Nazi Germany until early 1944. Once the United States entered World War II, the State Department practiced stricter immigration policies out of fear that refugees could be blackmailed into working as agents for Germany. It was not until January 1944 that President Franklin D. Roosevelt, under pressure from officials in his own government and an American Jewish community then fully aware of the extent of mass murder, took action to rescue European Jews. http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007094
[viii] The United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration was set up in 1943, to provide humanitarian relief to the huge numbers of potential and existing refugees in areas facing Allied liberation. UNRRA provided billions of US dollars of rehabilitation aid, and helped about 8 million refugees. This followed years of expulsions, and exterminations affecting millions more. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_evacuation_and_expulsion

February 1, 2012

Liberal Rabbis and Jewish Nationalism -- 3/5/37

Throughout its existence Israel has been subjected to significant criticism from within the Jewish community as well as from without. In this sermon, still from his days as a student-rabbi with the East Liverpool, Ohio congregation, Sidney Ballon takes to task those who equate the nationalist drive of Jews in pre-World War II Palestine with the nationalistic fervor of the totalitarian leaders of Europe at that time. In particular Ballon challenges the declarations of Rabbi Morris Samuel Lazaron[i] who was an outspoken and controversial anti-Zionist. Ballon asserts that all nationalism is not the same, and that enduring Jewish values help differentiate Zionist goals from those of the Nazis and Fascists.

Even a cursory consideration of the facts will suffice to show that the Jewish concept of nationalism is not only different from the fascist doctrines of Europe, but is altogether in direct opposition to them.


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Just a few weeks ago the biennial meeting of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations was held in the city of New Orleans. According to all reports, one of the finest addresses of the convention was that delivered by Rabbi Morris Lazaron of Baltimore. Rabbi Lazaron in his usual masterful fashion presented to the delegates of the convention his conception of what Judaism’s message to the world should be in its present crisis. With the greatest part of this address there can be little difference of opinion. Rabbi Lazaron presented a brilliant exposition of the meaning of Judaism which was everywhere acclaimed. On one point, however, he has been challenged by many of his colleagues, and, as I believe, justly so. When he spoke of the work which has been going on in Palestine for the past few years, a very serious and misleading charge against it was made. “Behind the mask of Jewish sentiment,” said Rabbi Lazaron, “one can see the specter of the foul thing which moves Germany and Italy. Behind the camouflage of its unquestioned appeal to Jewish feeling, one can hear a chorus of ‘Hell.’ Judaism cannot accept as the instrument of its salvation the very philosophy of nationalism which is leading the world to destruction.” The inference of this statement is clear. Nazism, fascism, and Zionism are here all placed together in the same category and all condemned as being equally undesirable.

Not only Rabbi Lazaron, but several other prominent Reform rabbis also have in the past weeks been guilty of similar misrepresentation and misconstruction of the meaning of Jewish Nationalism. In New York City one man even has gone to the ridiculous extreme of asserting that the Nazi Horst Wessel Song[ii] and the Zionist Hatikvah[iii] rank together in the offensiveness of their nationalistic spirit. There is room for a difference of opinion as to the merits of Zionism and the place it should occupy in Jewish life, but such an identification of Zionism and the belligerent nationalist movements of Europe today is altogether unwarranted and belied by facts.

The mistake upon which such expressions of opinion are founded is a presupposition that all nationalism regardless of its nature is inherently bad. We have before us the repugnant examples of German Nazism, of Italian fascists and of Spanish rebels, and because we are so completely terrified by the path that nationalism has taken in these countries we immediately jump to the conclusion that all nationalism must by its very nature be evil, and some of us in the anxious effort at any cost to keep liberalism above suspicion, band all nationalism together without any discrimination, without any effort to make a distinction between them, and label them all reactionary and a hindrance to social progress. It is not true however, that all nationalism is necessarily opposed to social idealism and is a stumbling block on the road toward the universal brotherhood of man.

There is a nationalism that works itself up into a frenzy of war and hate, but likewise there can be a nationalism of peace and justice. There is a nationalism that preaches the theories of a Hitler, but likewise, there can be a nationalism that preaches the ideals of the prophets. “Nations are no more than collective individuals,” says Dubnow[iv], the Jewish historian. There are some individuals who are continually motivated by the desire to dominate over others and to get ahead of their neighbor, regardless of consequence and regardless of whether or not there be any provocation for such acts. There are some, however, who while they desire to assert and develop their own individuality, at the same time respect the personalities of others and seek to live together in harmony with them.

The first type of man meets with our wholehearted condemnation, yet we do not for this reason condemn every individual person on the face of the earth. We rather cherish and respect the second type all the more because he knows how to live and let live. If it be true then that nations are no more than collective individuals, the same criterion of judgment must be applied to national life. We must distinguish between a national individualism which seeks to preserve and develop its own nationality and a national egotism which is aggressive and whose sole purpose is to suppress and annihilate all other peoples. Before we can jump to conclusions with regard to any particular brand of nationalism be it Jewish or any other kind, it is necessary to analyze completely its motif, to review its ideals and purposes, to note how these are being translated into action, and then to judge accordingly.

Even a cursory consideration of the facts will suffice to show that the Jewish concept of nationalism is not only different from the fascist doctrines of Europe, but is altogether in direct opposition to them. The nationalism of a Hitler is a concept which centers completely in the glorification of the state. All peoples are divided into political units, and to the political unit all of their loyalty must be attached. Their own individual wills and personalities must be suppressed as the state is deified and made supreme. The driving force which motivates such a nationalism is the lust for power and glory. It develops an inflated ego with a worldwide imperialism as its ideal goal. It feels itself superior to every other people and longs for the time when it can gain, if not political, then at least economic control over them all. The evils of such a view are too obvious to mention. But even if it wanted to, Jewish nationalism could not talk in such terms. Palestine is not even a state in its own right. It is still—and undoubtedly will continue for some time to be—under British supervision by authority of a mandate from the League of Nations. Zionists could not if they would give way to meaningless dreams of imperialist expansion, or any other similarly foolish political aspirations. The nationalism of the Jew is not political, but cultural. Not the exaltation of a Jewish state is its goal, but the creation of a center for the expression of the Jewish spirit, for the development of language and literature, the creation of its art, a refuge for the oppressed, the achievement of a social ideal. The nationalism of the Jew does not seek to dominate and to lord over other peoples. It is not of the type which divides the whole world into countless fighting units. It is rather of that type which can make for peace in the world and accords to all the right to live.

In the economic field especially is this difference very evident. Fascism is nothing but the attempt to prevent any change in the present economic system. It would retain it completely as it is and freeze the wealth of the few and maintain the poverty of the many. It has no social vision and seeks no improvement on the state of society. The building of Palestine on the other hand is significant for its social strivings and the economic experiments which are being carried on within its midst. From the very outset the program of official Zionism has sought to establish a society which would make for greater equality among its members. One of the first principles to be established was that of the public ownership of land. The moment the Jew was given the opportunity to create his own society he remembered the ancient law of the Bible, “The land shall not be sold, saith the Lord, for the land is mine.” Thus the Jewish National Fund was created to purchase land in Palestine in the name of the whole people of Israel and to hold it in perpetuity for them, their children, and children’s children. It is impossible for anyone to buy or sell this land. It can only be leased for a period of forty-nine years[v] with the privilege of renewal when the lease should expire. Of course individuals may still buy privately, land over which the National Fund has no control, but the Zionist movement in itself is based definitely on this principle of common ownership which was to be the first blow aimed at the monopolies of private greed.

A second social principle, which is entirely foreign to the nationalism of Europe, is the prohibition by the National Fund of all manner of human exploitation. No man is permitted to lease any national fund land except on condition that he work that land himself. Hired labor is forbidden on national fund property. No man may lease more soil than he can cultivate with his own hands and with those of his family. Not the absentee landlord who reaps the benefits of another man’s labors, but the laborer himself enjoys the fruits of his work. Here is another principle aiming at a blow at those very vested interests which fascism but seeks to protect.

Of even greater significance than either of these, however, is the rising power of the Jewish labor movement in Palestine. Over 85% of the laboring class are now members of the Histadrut, the federation of labor. Of this labor movement it may be said, without any fear of contradiction, that it is the only ethically motivated program of economic life which does not violate its own principles in attaining its goal, for it does not advocate violence to achieve peace nor dictatorship to establish democracy. In the fifteen years or so of its existence it has organized producers and “consumers” cooperatives, established its own banks, sick funds and insurance funds for laborers, hospitals, all types of educational institutions and sought to establish closer understanding and cooperation with the Arabs.

What this labor Zionism means to Jewish nationalism is best seen from a statement by A.D. Gordon[vi], the philosopher of the movement. “We must create the kind of life,” he says, “concerning which it will be said it is a national ego in the image of God, for without a national ego in the image of God, there is no personal ego in the image of God.”

This then is the nature of Jewish nationalism. What a far cry from the boastful arrogance of Germany and Italy! To these ideals in theory there are of course some exceptions in actual practice. The achievement of perfection in such a short space of time would be altogether too much to expect. We have our profiteers and land speculators who flood Palestine with their get-rich schemes and who have no regard for even a minimum of social ethics. We have our small group of Revisionists who seek in their amateurish way to imitate the methods of a Hitler and are deluded with visions of grandeur. With these tendencies we shall be forced to struggle for some time to come. But these are not the official ideals of Jewish nationalism, and no one condemns these tendencies more than do the Zionist leaders themselves. These exceptions are by no means sufficient reason for frightened liberals to condemn the whole of Zionism and throw it in the same class with the curses of Europe. The very fact that we look upon these things as undesirable exceptions instead of the accepted standard is in itself proof of how utterly different is the nationalism of the Jew. We have nothing to gain from sweeping condemnation of the Zionist movement. It’s our duty rather to ally ourselves with these aspects of the movement that seek to fulfill our social ideals that they may have added strength more easily to overcome the obstacles that lie before them. With us or without us Palestine will be rebuilt. If we have faith in the Jew we must have faith that the spirit of justice will eventually completely prevail. May it speedily and in our day.

Amen.


[i] Morris Samuel Lazaron (1888-1979) was ordained a rabbi by Hebrew Union College in 1914. Lazaron's efforts in the non-Zionist movement brought him into conflict with many pro-Zionist leaders, such as Stephen S. Wise, and led to his assisting in the founding of the American Council for Judaism, an organization dedicated to supporting the efforts and goals on the non-Zionist movement.
[ii] The Horst Wessel Song, written in 1929 by Horst Wessel, a Nazi stormtrooper, was the anthem of the Nazi Party from 1930 to 1945, and from 1933 to 1945 a co-national anthem of Germany, along with the first stanza of the Deutschlandlied.
[iii] Hatikvah, literally “The Hope” in Hebrew, is the national anthem of Israel, written by Naphtali Herz Imber, a secular Jew from the Ukraine who moved to the Land of Israel in the early 1880s. The anthem's theme revolves around the nearly 2000-year-old hope of the Jewish people to be a free and sovereign people in the Land of Israel.
[iv] Simon Dubnow, (1860-1941) Russian  Jewish historian, writer and activist.
[v] This parallels the biblical requirement that the Jubilee year was to be treated like a Sabbatical year, with the land lying fallow, but also required the compulsory return of all property to its original owners or their heirs.
[vi] Aaron David Gordon (1856-1922), Russian who emigrated to Palestine on 1904, more commonly known as A. D. Gordon, was a Zionist ideologue and the spiritual force behind practical Zionism and Labor Zionism. He founded Hapoel Hatzair, a movement that set the tone for the Zionist movement for many years to come. Influenced by Leo Tolstoy and others, it is said that in effect he made a religion of labor.