The Deadly Monopoly

By Steve Rodan

Jacob Rosenheim was a leader of Orthodox Jewry in both Europe and the United States. An outstanding orator, he was one of the founders of Agudat Israel and became its president in 1929. Unlike many of his colleagues, Rosenheim, a banker and publisher, sought to cooperate with the Zionist movement, particularly during World War II in an effort to rescue Jews.

That proved impossible. During the war, the Zionist movement, through the Jewish Agency, worked hard to torpedo the rescue of Orthodox, close to a majority of the Jewish community in Central and Eastern Europe. As Hitler accelerated the extermination, leading Zionists, particularly members of the ruling Mapai, blocked efforts by Agudah to obtain ships. They threatened ship operators and warned that Jews believed aligned with Agudah -- in other words Orthodox Jews -- would not be allowed on ships commissioned by the Jewish Agency.

The correspondence by Rosenheim documented the discrimination by the Zionist movement against Orthodox Jews, or simply those wearing beards, black hats or frocks. HIs correspondence was with the American Joint Distribution Committee, which provided millions of dollars to the Jewish Agency to rescue the Jews from the Final Solution. That money was meant to save all Jews.

Perhaps the most difficult period for Rosenheim and his colleagues was the summer of 1944. The SS had already deported more than half of the Jews of Hungary over the space of three months and was preparing to destroy the rest, located in Budapest. Some of the Jews had escaped to Romania and were awaiting ships that would transport them to safety in Turkey. There, they were promised British entry certificates to Palestine.

On paper, the Jewish Agency was to have provided six percent of certificates to Agudah, despite that the Orthodox comprised 50 percent of the Jewish community in Hungary. Regarding children and refugees, there was to be no selection based on party affiliation.

Romania, an ally of Germany for most of the war, was willing to allow rescue ships to leave for Turkey. The only condition was that the sponsors of the boats would have to guarantee that the refugees would leave Turkey as well rather than be forced to return to Romania. The only party that could provide this guarantee was the Jewish Agency, known in Hebrew as the "Sochnut."

"... the Sochnut for the moment refuses to give this declaration, stating different motives for their refusal," Rosenheim was informed in a letter from Ankara on July 2, 1944. "It may be pointed out that such refusal is given not only to the Aguda, but also to other large and influential organizations who would otherwise charter ships."

"There will have to be ascertained as soon as possible whether these motives are really as vital as they are made out, or whether they are only used in order to kill any initiative outside the monopoly of the Sochnut gentlemen, as we unfortunately noted in other cases," the letter said.

The bottom line was that Jews not selected by the Zionist movement would be trapped in Europe. Indeed, this had been Zionist policy, in coordination with the British government, since the start of the war.

In late 1942, the Zionist Executive in London lobbied against a proposal in parliament to establish a zone for Jewish refugees that was not Palestine. At one point, Rabbi Solomon Schonfeld had enlisted the support of 177 members of the House of Commons. Months later, the Jewish Agency torpedoed a rescue plan by South Africa, the Jewish community of which responded by stopping donations to the Zionists.

At one point, the United States, which pressured both Ankara and London, sought to coordinate the Zionist movement with Jewish groups to increase rescue efforts. U.S. ambassador to Ankara Lawrence Steinhardt convened Jewish and Zionist representatives to remove the logjams. But the Jewish Agency, backed by the British, were unyielding: It must control all rescue efforts that involve Palestine.

"We also wish to assist in keeping up as far as possible the prestige of the Jewish Agency," the July 1944 letter read. "But naturally this must not be utilized for a one-sided disregard of part of the Jewry..."

Until the end of the war, the Jewish Agency stopped Orthodox Jews from arriving in Palestine. In early 1945, four prominent rabbis from Poland who had managed to arrive in Palestine reported that "ruthless discrimination against non-Zionists is prevailing at all the transports organized by the Jewish Agency from Rumania to Palestine." The rabbis said this doomed thousands of "innocent non-Zionists to starvation and death."

"This discrimination," Rosenheim said in a letter to JDC on March 5, 1945, "was prevailing all the time during the last two years, when such transports from Rumania took place under the guidance of the Jewish Agency."

Rosenheim pleaded with JDC chairman Paul Baerwald to stop the Jewish Agency. The Agudah president said JDC must use its influence to "impress the gentlemen of the Jewish Agency with the moral obligation to comply with the full demands of orthodox and other non-Zionist Jewish groups in this hour of utmost distress."

JDC assured Agudah that Orthodox Jews would not be discriminated. But even after the war Agudah struggled with the unequal distribution of resources in Europe. In the fall of 1945, JDC managed to reopen the Jewish Hospital in Bratislava, inundated by tens of thousands of ill and starving Jews. Once again, the Zionist movement took most of the resources.

"The three leaders of the hospital, Messrs. Max Richter, Anton Reichman and Aaron Gruenhut write to me that your representatives in Bratislava had no understanding for any other kind of institutions but of those that are of a Zionist character," Rosenheim wrote to JDC on Aug. 27, 1945. "All the endeavours of the administration of the hospital to collaborate with representatives of the Joint had proven in vain and such collaboration had been explicitly refused."

Rosenheim's correspondence can be found in his file, available online, at the archives of JDC. http://search.archives.jdc.org/list.asp

Below: Jacob Rosenheim