Was Zionism about Rescuing Jews Fleeing Persecution? No.

For decades, Zionists have believed that their movement was primarily about saving Jews fleeing persecution. Yet every key leader of the Zionist movement from the 1880s-1948 rejected this idea.

Zionism During the Holocaust: The Weaponization of Memory in the Service of State and Nation by Tony Greenstein. (Photo: Book cover)

For decades, Zionists have believed that their movement was primarily about saving Jews fleeing persecution. Yet every key leader of the Zionist movement from the 1880s-1948 rejected this idea. Instead, they believed the interests of the state trumped the interests of persecuted Jews. This is a brief history of the most popular myth about Zionism today.

From 1880s-1914, the Zionist leadership rejected the overwhelming majority of Jews hoping to settle in Ottoman Palestine. Arthur Ruppin and Menahem Sheinkin, in charge of Zionist immigration policy, told ~61% of Jews who wanted to move to the colonies not to come.

The reason? They were too destitute. Ruppin and Sheinkin preferred wealthy Jews over poor ones. “The smaller the capital at the disposal of the applicant, the greater the likelihood that he would be advised not to go to Palestine,” as Israeli historian Gur Alroey explained. After all, the task at hand was to establish Jewish State in Palestine, it was not to save persecuted Jews. The latter goal was relevant to the extent that it facilitated the former, not the other way round.

Sheinkin even told Europe’s persecuted Jews why they were not welcome. “Until capitalists come to the country, there will be no room for workers.” It was a “capitalists first,” approach to immigration, to use Alroey’s words, the world’s foremost expert on the topic. The policy gave preference to middle- or upper-class Jews over poor migrants victimized by waves of pogroms. Those most in need of a safe haven were precisely those rejected.

In the 1920s, Zionist leaders continued to oppose “mass immigration” and “open borders.” Hundreds of thousands of Jews suffered in pogroms in Ukraine from 1918-1920 but that had little impact on the Zionist approach to immigration. 

Ruppin was worried a large influx of “inferior refugees,” to use his words, would pose a danger to the Yishuv, which needed candidates with the right “profession, state of health, and character.” The last thing the Jewish community in Palestine wanted was a large number of “undesirable elements,” or so Ruppin thought.

In fact, Ruppin sought to withhold absorption benefits to those neediest Jewish refugees who entered Palestine without official invitation from the Zionist community. He wanted to deny such Jews temporary accommodation, job opportunities, credit and free medical assistance and insurance against work accidents. The hope was that this would discourage them from coming to Palestine, where they would impede Zionists from building a Jewish State in an Arab country, a task already burdened with many challenges.

Chaim Weizmann, the central figure in the Zionist movement abroad, agreed. In 1919, he wrote that, ‘alas, Zionism can’t provide a solution for catastrophes,’ closing Palestine to thousands of Jews fleeing persecution in Ukraine. Weizmann preferred productive immigrants over needy refugees so much so that he even tried to persuade the British authorities to limit the Jewish immigration quotas from 1919-1929.  For Weizmann, the survivors of the recent pogroms would not be suited to the task of building a Zionist paradise in an Arab land.

The British approach mirrored the official Zionist position. In 1919, British Colonel Meinertzhagen wrote: “Zionism does not entail the flooding of Palestine with the poorer classes of Jew…immigration in its initial stages only means the introduction of the necessary capital for development, of skilled labour, and preparatory scientific brain power, in order to build up a healthy and prepared Home.” Jewish settlers with economic means, financial support or professional skills were preferred. 

During the early 1930s Jewish refugees tried all ways and manners to enter Palestine, but impoverished Jewish refugees were not wanted. Immigrants had to pay a large sum of money to obtain a certificate to enter the country. In other cases, they needed to have relatives with enough income to provide for the newcomer.

Then, in 1938, German Jews were subject to their worst pogrom yet, Kristallnacht, in which thousands of Jewish stores, businesses and homes were ransacked and destroyed throughout Germany. 

Shortly thereafter, a rescue effort was organized known as the “Kindertransport” in which Britain reluctantly agreed to allow 10,000 Jewish children from Germany to Britain.

In response, Ben-Gurion stated on Dec. 9, 1938: “If I knew that it would be possible to save all the children in Germany by bringing them over to England, or only half of them by transporting them to Israel, then I would opt for the second alternative, for we must weigh not only the life of these children, but also the history of the people of Israel” [1, 2, 3]. Much like Ruppin and Weizmann, Ben-Gurion understood saving Jews should not get in the way of building a Jewish State.

Ben-Gurion understood that the Zionist movement was at risk of becoming a back-burner issue among Jewish philanthropists. “If the Jews are faced with a choice between the refugee problem and rescuing Jews from concentration camps on the one hand, and aid for…Palestine on the other,” Ben Gurion said, “our people's entire strength will be directed at aid for the refugees.” He insisted that “Zionism will vanish from the agenda of world public opinion…we are risking Zionism's very existence if we allow the refugee problem to be separated from the Palestine problem.”

In short, the three most important Zionist leaders during the interwar period, Arthur Ruppin, Chaim Weizmann and David Ben-Gurion, expressed a clear preference for state building over Jew saving. Alas, Zionist leaders sought to rescue Jews from persecution only to the extent that it served the interest of the actual goal of Zionism, the establishment of a Jewish State in Palestine. For Zionists, the sanctity of the Jewish state trumped the sanctity of Jewish life.

If you enjoyed this article, check out our online courses for a comprehensive understanding of the history of Palestine and Israel.