often festive atmosphere of Jewish social life in a period of wartime
prosperity. (Howard M. Sachar, A History of the Jews in America, 1992, p. 550)
Over the centuries the dispersion of the Jews had a functional utility:
whenever some part of the Jewish community was under attack, it depended on
help from the other Jews. In the period of the Nazi regime, this help did not
come. (Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews, 1985, p. 1052)
This question has haunted me ever since the war: Why did the Jews of the free
world act as they did? Hadn't our people survived persecution and exile
throughout the centuries because of its spirit of solidarity? ... When one
community suffered, the others supported it, throughout the Diaspora. Why was
it different this time? (Elie Wiesel, Memoirs: All Rivers Run to the Sea,
1995, p. 63)
A less indulgent view, however, is that Jews not under Nazi occupation - particularly American
and British Jews - knowingly, willfully, calculatedly sacrificed their trapped European
coreligionists:
In his book, "In Days of Holocaust and Destruction," Yitzchak Greenbaum
writes, "when they asked me, couldn't you give money out of the United Jewish
Appeal funds for the rescue of Jews in Europe, I said, 'NO!' and I say again,
'NO!' ... one should resist this wave which pushes the Zionist activities to
secondary importance."
In January, 1943, the leadership of the absorption and enlisting fund
decided to bar all appeals on behalf of rescuing Jews. It is explicitly stated
in the "Sefer Hamagbis" (Book of Appeals) that the reasons for this prohibition
were because of other obligations in Eretz Yisroel.
In the beginning of February, 1943, Yitzchak Greenbaum addressed a meeting
in Tel Aviv on the subject, "the Diaspora and the Redemption," in which he
stated:
"For the rescue of the Jews in the Diaspora, we should consolidate our
excess strength and the surplus of powers that we have. When they come to us
with two plans - the rescue of the masses of Jews in Europe or the redemption
of the land [in Palestine] - I vote, without a second thought, for the
redemption of the land. The more said about the slaughter of our people, the
greater the minimization of our efforts to strengthen and promote the
Hebraization of the land. If there would be a possibility today of buying
packages of food [for Jews in Nazi captivity] with the money of the "Keren
Hayesod" (United Jewish Appeal) to send it through Lisbon, would we do such a
thing? No! And once again No!" (Reb Moshe Shonfeld, The Holocaust Victims
Accuse: Documents and Testimony on Jewish War Criminals, 1977, p. 26, emphasis
added)
Mr. Schwalb expressed the complete Zionist ideology and stated clearly and
openly the politics of the Zionist leaders in the area of rescue: the shedding
of Jewish blood in the Diaspora is necessary in order for us to demand the
establishment of a "Jewish" state before a peace commission. Money will be
sent to save a group of "chalutzim" (pioneers), while the remainder of Czech
Jewry must resign itself to annihilation in the Auschwitz crematoria. (Reb
Moshe Shonfeld, The Holocaust Victims Accuse: Documents and Testimony on Jewish
War Criminals, 1977, p. 28, emphasis added)
We have previously quoted the words of Yitzchak Greenbaum, chairman of the
"rescue committee" of the Jewish Agency in Eretz Yosroel, who refused to