A Tale of Two Jews

By Steve Rodan

Eliahu Kirshbraun was a fighter in a war in which he had no chance of winning.

Born in Warsaw in 1882, Kirshbraun spent most of his life on the frontlines of the battle against anti=Semitism in Poland. He represented Agudat Israel, the rabbinical coalition that sought to obtain equality for its Orthodox constituency. He was a member of the Sejm from 1922 into the next decade. He also served as president of the Jewish community in Warsaw, the largest in Poland.

Life was not easy for Kirshbraun and his Agudah colleagues. On paper, the new Polish state, founded after World War I, was a democracy that respected the rights of minorities. In practice, the Jews were under constant pressure from the government, military and tax authorities. Kirshbraun battled against the Polish Army's campaign to confiscate synagogues, discriminate against Jewish soldiers and block religious freedom. Pogroms against the Jews were not uncommon and supported by the Polish elite.

Perhaps the biggest obstacle to Jewish freedom was the Zionist movement in Poland. The Zionist leadership saw Agudah as their rival for control of the Jewish community. The two sides were at loggerheads over a basic issue: The Zionists wanted Jewish rights without tradition. Agudah saw Torah education and observance as the key to the survival of Poland's 3.5 million Jews, the largest community in Europe before World War II.

The Zionist leader in Poland and the biggest nemesis of Agudah was Yitzhak Greenbaum. Like many of his colleagues, Yitzhak Greenbaum came from devout Jewish ancestors. His great grandfather was Rabbi Elimelech, known as the "Seer of Lublin," one of the Hasidic legends of Poland and Russia in the 18th Century, a descendant whom Greenbaum preferred not to mention. Greenbaum was educated in Plonsk, the hometown of David Ben-Gurion and was seven years his senior. He later studied medicine and law at the University of Warsaw.

Hate and revulsion

Like Ben-Gurion, Greenbaum viewed observant Jews with hatred and revulsion. As a journalist, he vilified Agudah, rabbis and Orthodox Jews as the bane of Poland and the chief reason for the nation's woes. In 1919, he was elected to the Sejim and recruited other minorities, including the Germans and Ukrainians, into a bloc that confronted the Polish establishment.

Since the start of the Polish state, the Zionists were seen as the largest Jewish movement. They elected double the number of deputies in the Sejm than Agudah. But the Orthodox movement was strong in Jewish community elections, called Kehillot. They were in control of the communities in several cities, including Warsaw and Lodz. Agudah's work in the cities was crucial as some of them tried to outlaw Jewish practice, particularly ritual slaughter. These issues meant little to Greenbaum and most of the Zionist leadership, who claimed to be atheists and saw Judaism as reactionary.

Agudah, determined not to anger the Polish elite, refused to join the minorities bloc. After World War I, Agudah also stayed away from the Zionist-dominated Temporary Jewish National Council. Later, the rabbinical-led group would join the Zionist-dominated Free Union of Deputies of Jewish Nationality but rejected any political program that marginalized if not denied, the need for religious observance. Agudah also dismissed the Zionist mantra that only left-wing Polish parties would help the Jews. [1]

A frustrated Greenbaum, head of the Al Hamishmar faction, used the Sejm to launch what his gentile colleagues regarded as hate-filled diatribes against Jews. He accused Agudah of collaborating with foreign elements against Warsaw during World War I. When the Nazis began to make waves in Germany, he said the Orthodox were worse than Hitler.

The Show in the Sejm

Greenbaum and Kirshbraun often crossed paths. In March 1928, the two men fought in the Sejm, much to the amusement of the gentile representatives. In a debate on the national budget, Greenbaum said Jewish deputies would support the government of Prime Minister Jozef Pilsudski, who led a coup in 1926. But most of his speech was spent attacking Agudah, which he termed a "certain Jewish group," and its policy of working with the conservative ruling coalition.

Later, Kirshbraun took the floor and turned on Greenbaum and his claim to represent Polish Jews. The two quickly got into a shouting match.

"It is unpleasant to polemize with Greenbaum, who is a demagogue," Kirshbraun said. "Greenbaum is a political adventurer. I alone am entitled to speak in behalf of the Orthodox Jews." [2]

The constant infighting marked the decline of Jewish influence in Poland. In the elections of 1928 and 1930 all Jewish parties sustained a major setback. Greenbaum saw the disintegration of his minorities coalition, with some of its gentile members joining in anti-Semitic tirades. Politicians became increasingly anti-Semitic, pointing to the Zionist program of mass Jewish emigration from Poland, which was never implemented. Jewish students were routinely assaulted in universities and sometimes forced to sit apart from other students. The Zionists lost much of its electoral power to the Bundists, who preached total assimilation for Jews.

In December 1929, Greenbaum crossed the line. In his address to the Sejm, Greenbaum attacked the spiritual leader, the Rebbe of Gur, Avraham Mordechai Alter,. Agudah convened an emergency session in which Greenbaum was termed oicher Yisrael, essentially an enemy of the Jews. The meeting didn't last long as Zionist thugs stormed the hall and began attacking the Agudah representatives. [3]

For his part, Pilsudski favored Agudah's conciliatory approach. His government awarded Kirshbraun the Polonia Restituta, or Order of Poland Reborn. Eschewing confrontation, Kirshbraun managed to preserve Jewish rights and even improve conditions for Jewish soldiers and inmates. He argued for the community in Polish courts, including Warsaw's High Court of Appeals.

By 1932, Greenbaum, regarded as a provocateur, could no longer live in safety in Poland. He fled to Paris but remained in control of the Zionist movement and its politics. Although he said he would not return, Greenbaum refused to give up his seat in the Sejm because it would have been taken by a member of Mizrahi, a loyal partner of Al Hamishmar. But Mizrahi was seen as observant, and Greenbaum would not help increase representation of the hated Orthodox. Instead, he left his seat empty

A year later, Greenbaum arrived in Palestine as a member of the Jewish Agency Executive and led the immigration department. But his war against the Orthodox was not over. Al Hamishmar's behavior became more violent toward Agudah. The Zionists would break up meetings to ensure that nothing was achieved.

In 1936, Greenbaum’s Al Hamishmar faction rejected a coalition with Agudah, leaving the Polish Jewish community leaderless. The result was that Warsaw’s Jews lost all power and influence. They now came under the control of a commissar appointed by the Polish government. For the Jews, it couldn't have come at a worse time. One-third of the Jews were living under the poverty line. They were victims of frequent pogroms and street killings. By the time war erupted, the Jewish community in Poland was in tatters.

Kirshbraun never saw the last years of Poland's Jewish community. On his deathbed, he begged Pilsudski to give Jews equal rights. He died in 1931, leaving his wife Rivka and six children. Four of them were killed in World War II by the invading Germans. Another son was killed by the British in Palestine in 1942. One son, Jacob arrived in Israel and fought in Jerusalem in the 1948 war of independence. He married and raised a family.

Greenbaum's son, Eliezer, also fought in the 1948 war. He had been a sadistic guard at Auschwitz, but was saved by his father, Israel's first interior minister, from being prosecuted as a collaborator. He was killed in the battle near Jerusalem's Kibbutz Ramat Rachel, reportedly by his own men who knew of his Nazi past.

Notes

1. The Politics of Tradition: Agudat Yisrael in Poland, 1916-1939. Gershon C. Bacon. Page 144. Magnes Press. 1996

2. Agudist and Zionist in Sharp Clash at Plenary Session of Polish Sejm. Jewish Telegraphic Agency. April 1, 1928

3. Agudath Israel Condemns Gruenbaum for Sejm Talk. JTA. Dec. 17, 1929.

Below: Eliahu Kirshbraun