Zionist Relations With Nazi Germany

The Transfer Agreement is Edwin Black's compelling, award-winning story of a negotiated arrangement in 1933 between Zionist organizations and the Nazis to transfer some 50,000 Jews, and $100 million of their assets, to Jewish Palestine in exchange for stopping the worldwide Jewish-led boycott threatening to topple the Hitler regime in its first year. 25th Anniversary Edition.

This is a study of the ideological and political relationship between Zionism and anti-Semitism in modern Germany, from the nineteenth century through the Third Reich, focusing on the years between 1933 and 1942. It considers three contentious issues in post-Holocaust historiography and debate: the nature of modern German anti-Semitism; the decision-making process leading to the Nazi mass murder of the Jews of Europe; and the nature and role of German Zionism in German-Jewish history before the Holocaust. This study sheds more light on both the ideological and practical assault of German anti-Semitism and Nazi Jewish policy on the Jews of Central Europe, as well as the ideological and political response of some German Jews, the Zionists, to that assault. It concludes that the attitudes and policies of German anti-Semitism and National Socialism toward Zionism reflect a relatively consistent ideology that was applied in an inconsistent and contradictory manner.

Ambiguous Relations addresses for the first time the complex relationship between American Jews and Germany over the fifty years following the end of World War II, and examines American Jewry's ambiguous attitude toward Germany that continues despite sociological and generational changes within the community. Shlomo Shafir recounts attempts by American Jews to influence U.S. policy toward Germany after the war and traces these efforts through President Reagan's infamous visit to Bitburg and beyond. He shows how Jewish demands for justice were hampered not only by America's changing attitude toward West Germany as a post-war European power but also by the distraction of anti-communist hysteria in this country.

Nazi Germany's foreign policy towards the Soviet Union was carried out in accordance with ideological and political objectives. These were defined and planned well in advance, with a view to a final confrontation for the domination of Europe. This policy regarded 'Jewish Bolshevism' as the main obstacle to securing victory in the coming confrontation, hence its rise and fall constituted a yard-stick in the formulation of Germany's relationship with the Soviet Union. Soviet foreign policy towards Nazi Germany was much more pragmatic. Soviet diplomatic activity was aimed at thwarting the German threat to Soviet territorial integrity and its political regime. By putting ideological principles to one side, belittling the danger of Nazi anti-Semitic policy for Jews themselves and for free Europe in its entirety, and dismissing Jews from senior positions in the Soviet hierarchy they hoped to stave off the conflict. From both the German and the Soviet perspective, the Jewish factor was significant. The purpose of this book is to assess its place and influence upon the mutual relations between the two countries in the years 1933-1941. The book was originally published in Hebrew by the Magnes Press of the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, in 1986. This edition includes additional material published in Russia subsequently and newly revealed Soviet archival sources which were unavailable at the time the Hebrew edition went to press.

Ruppin’s immense contribution to the Zionist movement gave him the title “The Father of Jewish/Zionist settlement in Palestine.” Nevertheless, the common narrative sets Ruppin’s historical persona in an ambivalent position and suppresses his formative role and heritage. Part of the reason for this is that, in many ways, his history causes a crack to appear in the Zionist national “cover stories.”

German Jews faced harsh dilemmas in their responses to Nazi persecution, partly a result of Nazi cruelty and brutality but also a result of an understanding of their history and rightful place in Germany. This volume addresses the impact of the anti-Jewish policies of Hitler’s regime on Jewish family life, Jewish women, and the existence of Jewish organizations and institutions and considers some of the Jewish responses to Nazi anti-Semitism and persecution. This volume offers scholars, students, and interested readers a highly accessible but focused introduction to Jewish life under National Socialism, the often painful dilemmas that it produced, and the varied Jewish responses to those dilemmas.