Ben-Gurion David - Racing against history: the 1940 campaign for a Jewish army to fight Hitler

2018 by Rick Richman

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First American edition published in 2018 by Encounter Books, an activity of Encounter for Culture and Education, Inc., a nonprofit, tax exempt corporation.

Encounter Books website address: www.encounterbooks.com

God Bless America by Irving Berlin

Copyright 1938, 1939 by Irving Berlin

Copyright Renewed 1965, 1966 by Irving Berlin

Copyright Assigned the Trustees of the God Bless America Fund International Copyright Secured. All Rights Reserved. Reprinted by Permission.

A portion of Chapter IV appeared, in different form, in the December 2013 issue of The Tower Magazine.

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of ANSI/NISO z39.481992 (R 1997) (Permanence of Paper).

FIRST AMERICAN EDITION

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Names: Richman, Rick, 1945-author.

Title: Racing against history: the 1940 campaign for a Jewish army to fight Hitler / Rick Richman.

Description: New York; London: Encounter Books, [2017] | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2017031503 (print) | LCCN 2017032868 (ebook) | ISBN 9781594039751 (Ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Weizmann, Chaim, 18741952TravelUnited States. | Jabotinsky, Vladimir, 18801940TravelUnited States. | Ben-Gurion, David, 18861973TravelUnited States. | ZionistsTravelUnited StatesHistory20th century. | JewsHistory, Military.

Classification: LCC DS125.3.W45 (ebook) | LCC DS125.3.W45 R53 2017 (print) | DDC 940.54/12089924dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017031503

To the memory of my parents,

Ruth Elaine Richman and Matthew M. Richman,

who instilled in me a love of books

and gave me the lasting gift

of a Jewish education.

And to my brother,

James D. Richman,

a blessing to them and to me.

We have been assailed... by a persecution against which the medieval persecutions are dwarfed into insignificance... Community after community has gone under... First Germany, then Czechoslovakia, and last of all, Poland. Poland! With the greatest Jewish community in Europe.

Chaim Weizmann, January 16, 1940, addressing 4,000 people at the Shriners Temple, New York City

[T]here are still immense probabilities for quite decisive changes. One need not name them: enough to say that Gods box of tricks is by far not emptied yet.

Vladimir Jabotinsky, June 19, 1940, addressing 5,000 people at the Manhattan Center in New York City, after the fall of France

There is no time to lose. History will never forgive us if we fail to do in time whatever is humanly possible to give the Jewish community the chance of defending itself.

David Ben-Gurion, July 2, 1940, in a cable to the Zionist Organization of America, New York City

CONTENTS

The popular conception is that writing a book is a solitary endeavor. I have found instead that to research, write, edit, design, and publish a book, it takes a shtetl. It is a pleasure to record my thanks to those who have helped me through this extraordinary process.

My most profound gratitude is to Anne Mandelbaum, my incomparable editor, who also acted as the agent for Racing Against History. No bookor authorcould have a better friend. She immediately understood the significance of the project and gave me the immense benefit of her intelligence, insight, and inspiration; she not only edited the book but also assisted me in the research; gave the book its title; personally presented it to Roger Kimball, President and Publisher of Encounter Books; and co-designed the cover, with its suggestion of both a gathering storm and a light beyond the clouds. This is her book as well as mine.

I am deeply indebted to Roger and Susan Hertog for supporting the publication of this book.

I am enormously grateful to Norman Podhoretz, from whose encouragement I have benefited for more than a decade. I have used a technique he has frequently used in his books, providing frequent block quotations from primary sources, which permit a reader to evaluate an authors account more knowledgeably.

I have been blessed to have had an extraordinary group of people read the manuscript in whole or in part and offer their comments, including Gary Bialis, Professor Angie Cloke, Professor Phyllis K. Herman, Roger Hertog, Neal Kozodoy, Anne Lieberman, Seth Lipsky, Doris Wise Montrose, Norman Podhoretz, Magda Rados, David Richman, Judy Richman, Robert Richman, Dr. Robert Wexler, Professor Ruth R. Wisse, and Rabbi David J. Wolpe. Of course, any errors in this book are solely my responsibility.

I am grateful to Dr. David Hazony for publishing an early version of a part of Chapter 3 in The Israel Projects Tower Magazine; to Anne Lieberman and Seth Lipsky for impressing upon me Vladimir Jabotinskys historical importance, and to Louis Gordon for sharing his lifelong knowledge of him; to Irving White for a very helpful conversation about Chaim Weizmann; and to Dr. Robert Wexler for his close reading of the manuscript and his significant insight about David Ben-Gurion. Norman Podhoretz, Neal Kozodoy, and Ruth R. Wisse were especially generous, on multiple occasions, with their time and suggestions.

I have been fortunate to have had access to many exceptional libraries, and have been the beneficiary of the efforts of their dedicated librarians, including the Ostrow Library at American Jewish University in Los Angeles (Patricia Fenton, Jackie Ben-Efraim, and Stephen Singler); the Dorot Jewish Division of the New York City Public Library (Eleanor Yadin and Stephen Corrsin); the Center for Jewish History and the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research in New York City (Gunnar Berg, Michelle McCarthy, and Vital Zajka); the Library of the University of Southern California Cinematic Arts Division (Edward Sykes Comstock); the Los Angeles Public Library; and the Jabotinsky Institute in Tel Aviv (Amira Stern).

I thank OMelveny & Myers LLP, which provided me the office in which I wrote most of this book. I am grateful to my colleagues there for their assistance: Christopher C. Murray, who gave me the benefit of his expertise and experience on intellectual property law, and Eron Ben-Yehuda, who referred me to Einat Meisel, the head of OMelvenys Israel practice, who in turn introduced me to Ella Tevet and Roee Laor of Gross, Kleinhendler, Hodak, Halevy, Greenberg & Co. (GKH), one of Israels major law firms. They skillfully represented me in securing consents and releases for the letters, diaries, and speeches that form the heart of this book from the Archives at Yad Chaim Weizmann, Rehovot, Israel; the Jabotinsky Institute in Israel; and the Ben-Gurion Archives and Library, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. Avi Shilon, PhD, searched the Ben-Gurion Archives for the diary entries and letters for the period covered by Ben-Gurions 1940 trip. I am grateful to Aliza Perl Klainman and Ophir Klainman for their skillful translation of the Ben-Gurion documents from Hebrew into English for this book.