B’nai B’rith and Israel: The unbroken covenant 15

CHANGING FOCUS: B’NAIB’RITH AFTER WORLD WAR I

By the outbreak of Wolrd War I, theimpact of B’nai B’rith—with only fourlodges in all of Eretz Yisrael—on the devel-oping Yishuv was unparalleled. The popula-tion of the Yishuv had reached 85,000, andHebrew had become the daily language ofan ever-increasing number of workers,teachers, and young people. But World WarI wreaked havoc in the country. TheOttoman regime levied heavy taxes on theJewish population, confiscated property,even expelled Turkish citizens, includingEliezer Ben-Yehuda and David Yellin. Withcontagious diseases rampant and starvationthe rule rather than exception, thousands ofJews perished. The Turkish military admin-istration, headed by Jamal Pasha instructedall Zionist and Jewish organizations inPalestine to cease operations. The JerusalemLodge members continued to meet clandes-tinely in a private home. Someone playedthe piano throughout the evening sessionsso as not to arouse Turkish suspicions.

Visit of High Commissioner Herbert Samuel at the city council—1920. Sitting right to left:Jaref Mejohas, son of Weizmann, Chaim Weizmann, Herbert Samuel, Menachem Ussihkin,David Yellin

On December 11, 1917, the British army,commanded by General Edmund Allenbyentered Jerusalem, and Ottoman rule overthe Holy Land came to an end after 401years. Two months later B’nai B’rithJerusalem Lodge officially reconvened—Jesaias Press was elected president—and theAbarbanel Library, soon to be transferred tothe WZO, was reopened. During theBritish Mandate, the administrative andpolitical landscape of the Yishuv changeddrastically. The Va’ad Leumi (NationalCommittee), the main executive organ ofthe Jews in Palestine, now shared responsi-bility with the Jewish Agency for providingcertain services to the Yishuv, in particular,education, health, social welfare, land devel-opment, immigration, and settlement. TheYishuv, by organizing and centralizing itsenergies, was setting the stage for the estab-lishment of an independent Jewish state.

The effect on B’nai B’rith was inevitable.The organization, which had been such akey player in the cultural, social, and politi-cal development of the Yishuv, now, in thenatural course of things, had to change its

16 B’nai B’rith and Israel: The unbroken covenant

focus, concentrating on social and welfareservices. Lodges were established through-out the Yishuv, in Tiberias, Hadera, RishonLeZion, and Ramat Gan, and, in 1922, thefirst women’s lodge, Bat Zion, was foundedin Jerusalem.

During the years immediately followingWorld War I, over 35,000 Jews immigratedto Palestine. Most of the newcomers wereyoung Zionists, but the impoverished andsmall Yishuv was incapable of absorbingthem all. Some formed collective settle-ment groups, others worked on construc-tion sites, but many remained unemployedand not a small number found themselveswithout a roof over their heads.

Although the Jewish Agency was respon-sible for immigration policies (within thelimitations delineated by the BritishMandatory Administration), it was theJerusalem Lodge of B’nai B’rith that createdthe country’s first absorption center. In1920 the organization acquired a smallseven-room 24-bed house called Beit Olim

Certificate of Indebtedness—B’nai B’rith Palestine Housebuilding Fund, Ltd.

(Immigrants House). Providing shelter fornewly arrived Jews until they found employ-ment, Beit Olim was forced to close itsdoors in 1926 for lack of funds. But thecenter’s activities had impressed a well-con-nected Jerusalemite, Chana Strashlovsky,who raised what was needed to purchase alarge house next to the Jerusalem Lodgebuilding on B’nai B’rith Street.

While Beit Chana, as the absorption cen-ter came to be called, was undergoing reno-vations, the Jerusalem Lodge rented twosmall houses to help alleviate the plight ofthe thousands of Jews fleeing Germany. In1936, Beit Chana opened its doors. A two-story complex, it had 24 rooms, four audi-toriums and could house up to as many as100 new immigrants. By 1940 Beit Chanahad provided bed, board, and emotionalsustenance to over 22,000 new immigrants.

The upper floor of the hostel was used asthe temporary quarters of the B’nai B’rith’sChildren’s Home, a facility for emotionallydisturbed children that was established in1943, at the suggestion of Henrietta Szold,the founder of the Hadassah MedicalOrganization. Initially intended for recentarrivals from Teheran, the home soon beganabsorbing and treating scores of Jewish chil-dren, many of them orphans, who hadexperienced firsthand the horrors of theHolocaust.

While helping with temporary housing for new immigrants, B’nai B’rith also set itssights on renewing its settlement activities.At the urging of lodge president JesaiasYehoshua Press, the Jerusalem Lodge estab-lished in 1924 the B’nai B’rith PalestineHousebuilding Fund with money providedby the Constitution Grand Lodge in theUnited States. Press had his eye on an areaof 25,000 dunams of wasteland on thewestern outskirts of Jerusalem, and, in thesame year, B’nai B’rith purchased the landand established Achuzat B’nai B’rith, thenucleus of what is today’s Bayit Veganneighborhood. The neighborhood’s syna-gogue still bears the B’nai B’rith title thoughmost current residents would be hardpressed to explain why. It was in BayitVegan that American B’nai B’rith Womendecided to build permanent quarters for theChildren’s Home, which includes sophisti-cated educational and treatment facilities.

B’nai B’rith and Israel: The unbroken covenant 17

B’nai B’rith also established RamatAharon, a settlement near Rehovot, inmemory of Aharon Eizenberg, one of theleading figures of the Yishuv at the time anda founder of Rehovot. In his life, Eizenberghad been a vocal advocate for greater settle-ment activity by B’nai B’rith through theestablishment of small settlements near themore established moshavot. When hepassed away, his family bequeathed 26.5dunams of land to B’nai B’rith upon whichthe settlement was founded, with the B’naiB’rith Palestine Housebuilding Fund pro-viding loans to each settler.

THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THESTATE OF ISRAEL

In the years leading up to the establish-ment of the State of Israel, as the Zionistleadership laid the groundwork for inde-pendence, B’nai B’rith in Palestine focusedmost of its energies on the social and wel-fare needs of the local Jewish population—on refugees from war-torn Europe, onmaintaining its building funds, on its manycultural and educational facilities for chil-dren, teenagers and adults.

While B’nai B’rith in the Yishuv was ableto recede, quite naturally, from the politicalarena, American B’nai B’rith worked tire-lessly to ensure that independence would beachieved. As Jewish immigration and settle-ment resumed following World War 1, theB’nai B’rith Supreme Lodge Convention in1925 in Atlantic City passed a resolutionexpressing “full sympathy with the practicalwork and construction” in Palestine.

In 1934, Chaim Weizmann proposed toB’nai B’rith in the United States that it pur-chase land in order to help create Jewish-owned acreage. An unheard-of sum of$100,000 from the Emergency Relief Fundwas designated to buy 1,000 acres of land.It was an unprecedented move: AmericanJewry’s oldest and largest organization wasconcretely supporting a continuing Jewishpresence in Palestine. With these funds,land was purchased in the lower Galileeupon which moshav Moledet B’nai B’rithwas founded in 1937 by a group ofGerman refugees.

Two years after the British issued their

Bayit Vegan—general view.

Ramat Aharon

Ramat Aharon

infamous White Paper in 1939 severelyrestricting Jewish immigration to Palestine,an additional $100,000 was pledged atB’nai B’rith’s 16th General Convention forthe purpose of buying land, also in thelower Galilee, to create another refuge forEuropean Jewish refugees. The moshav wasfounded in 1942, and after the death ofB’nai B’rith president and ardent ZionistHenry (Zvi) Monsky, it was renamedRamat Zvi.

During his tenure as president, Monskyappealed to leaders of the United Nationsand to State Department officials to safe-guard the rights of the Jewish people intheir historic homeland. A few days afterMonsky’s sudden and untimely death onMay 2, 1947, grieving delegates to theSupreme Lodge’s triennial meeting inWashington passed a resolution demandingthe cancellation of the White Paper andcalling upon the U.N. “to facilitate the

18 B’nai B’rith and Israel: The unbroken covenant

establishment of a homeland for Jewishpeople in Palestine.”

In September 1947, when it became clearthat by a majority report, the UnitedNations Special Committee on Palestine(UNSCOP) was going to recommend thepartition of the country into two states, oneJewish, the other, Arab, Frank Goldman,the newly elected president of B’nai B’rith,sent a telegram to President Harry Truman,appealing to him for an “immediate publicstatement supporting the principle ofUNSCOP majority.”

Jewish rejoicing over the PartitionResolution, adopted on November 29,1947, was soon followed by grave concern.The resolution was rejected by the Arabstates. This sparked riots throughoutPalestine, and the U.S. State Department,always sympathetic to Arab interests and

opposed to Jewish statehood, succeeded inchanging U.S. policy at the U.N. with aproposal that partition be suspended infavor of a “temporary” U.N. trusteeshipover the area. The Zionist leadership recog-nized that adoption of trusteeship coulddoom the hope for a Jewish state.

The Zionist leadership in the UnitedStates attacked the White House incessantly,infuriating President Truman. The doors tothe White House were bolted shut to allZionist and Arab leaders. The president ofthe WZO, Chaim Weizmann, who hadtraveled to the United States in earlyFebruary 1948 to appeal personally to theAmerican president to restore U.S. supportfor partition, lay ill in bed at the WaldorfAstoria Hotel in New York, unable to get anappointment to see the American president.

It was the B’nai B’rith leadership thatbroke the deadlock. Frank Goldman, in achance meeting with Weizmann’s aid in thehotel lobby, learned of Truman’s refusal tomeet with Weizmann. Goldman then con-tacted Eddie Jacobson of Kanasas City,Missouri, a long-time B’nai B’rith memberand World War I friend of Truman’s andhis former partner in a Kansas Cityhaberdashery.

Jacobson had once told Goldman that hewas not a Zionist, but he reluctantly agreedto see what he could do and visited Trumanon March 13, 1948. After exchanging per-sonal greetings, Jacobson brought up thesubject of Palestine. Truman became tenseand grim, saying he was sick of the way theZionists had badgered him. Despite all ofJacobson’s powers of persuasion, the presi-dent remained firm and immutable in hisrefusal to meet with Weizmann. WhenJacobson was about to leave he noticed astatue of the president’s hero, AndrewJackson, on his desk. Jacobson turned toTruman and said: “Harry, all your life youhave had a hero. Well, I too have a hero, aman who is, I think, the greatest Jew whoever lived. I am talking about ChaimWeizmann.” A few seconds passed. Trumaneventually looked Jacobson straight in theeye: “You win, you bald-headed son-of-a-bitch,” he is quoted as replying.

Elaborate precautions were taken to con-ceal Weizmann’s presence in Washington

Moledet B’nai B’rith—1937. First truck unloads in the plowing fields.

Moledet B’nai B’rith—1937. Erecting the walls.

B’nai B’rith and Israel: The unbroken covenant 19

Moledet B’nai B’rith—1941. The guard tower.

from the press. He registered at aWashington hotel in the name of the B’naiB’rith executive vice-president, MauriceBisgyer. On March 18, 1948, Weizmannentered the White House through a sidedoor. The discussion lasted nearly an hourand was cordial. Weizmann’s unfailing dig-nity and charm had their effect on the pres-ident, and U.S. support for partition wasrestored. “When he left my office,”Truman later wrote, “I felt that he hadreceived a full understanding of my policyand that I knew what it was he wanted.”

On May 14, 1948, David Ben-Gurionannounced the establishment of the State ofIsrael, the first sovereign Jewish state in 19centuries. Moments later, PresidentTruman extended de facto recognition tothe State of Israel, the first country to recog-nize the new state and on January 31, 1949,Truman extended de jure recognition. Theonly guests invited to the signing ceremonyin the Oval Office were Jacobson,Goldman, and Bisgyer.

In May 1965, at the Supreme LodgeConvention in Israel, the new B’nai B’rithbuilding was dedicated in Tel Aviv to thememory of Eddie Jacobson. At the ceremo-ny, a message from Harry Truman was readto the audience: “Although my sympathieswere already active and present in the causeof Israel, it is a fact of history that EddieJacobson’s contribution was of decisiveimportance.”

So, too, was that of B’nai B’rith. It hadfought hard for the revival of Hebrew andfor the cultural unity of a people in theirancient homeland. B’nai B’rith activelyencouraged resettlement of the land; aidednew immigrants and veteran soldiers andsupported educational endeavours for theyoung and old, Ashkenazi and Sephardi,religious and secular. It had fought longand hard for enlightenment, for toleranceand for justice. When the State of Israelcame into being, a chapter of B’nai B’rith’shistory had come to a successful close. Anew one was already beginning.

The activities undertaken by B’nai B’rithon behalf of Israel following independence,both by its international leadership andmembers and by its members in Israel, aretoo numerous to cover in this publication.

The following are just a sample of some ofthe major initiatives.

Immediately after Israel had proclaimedits independence, the armies of seven Arabnations invaded the fledgling state. B’naiB’rith’s response was immediate. Food,clothing, medical supplies, trucks, and jeepswere carried by ship after ship to Haifa port.The total value of these shipments was wellover $4,000,000.

During the Six-Day War in 1967, under

From left to right. U.S. President Harry Truman, Eddie Jacobson, MauriceBisgyer and Frank Goldman at the birth of the State of Israel.

the presidency of Dr.William A.Wexler, and againduring the Yom Kippur Warin 1973, under the presiden-cy of David Blumberg, B’naiB’rith members demonstrat-ed their ability to mobilizemanpower and rally behindthe State of Israel. Not onlydid B’nai B’rith succeed inselling millions of dollars inIsrael Bonds—more than anyother Jewish organization—but through local Hillel

foundations enlisted scores of volunteers forservice in Israel. Perhaps most moving werethe rallies of solidarity for the beleagueredJewish state.

Of course, B’nai B’rith did not limit itsefforts to wartime activities. At the B’naiB’rith International Convention in 1950,two resolutions were passed concerning thenew state. One called upon the United

20 B’nai B’rith and Israel: The unbroken covenant

States and the U.N. to use “their respectivegood offices to bring about the cessation ofthe flow of arms and ammunition to theArab countries.” The second resolution waspassed to protest the U.N. resolution tointernationalize Jerusalem. The same year,the 200th Hillel unit was established at theHebrew University and in the 1950s, B’naiB’rith donated funds to build recreationcenters for Israeli war veterans. Until B’naiB’rith brought these institutions into being,the disabled Israeli veterans had only thecrudest kind of recreational facilities. B’naiB’rith also established a RehabilitationFund, granting loans to new immigrants, inparticular for the purpose of establishingsmall businesses.

In 1954, B’nai B’rith launched a monu-mental project—the planting of half a mil-lion trees as a memorial to both B’nai B’rithmembers who perished in the Holocaustand European lodges that had beendestroyed. A grotto was also hewn out ofsolid rock to serve as a central memorial.When the Martyr’s Forest was fully plantedin 1965, in time for the 1965 Conventionheld in Israel, a decision was made to plantanother half million trees. The result is oneof the Jerusalem area’s most popular picnicand recreational spots. Set in the midst ofthe forest is the B’nai B’rith “Scroll of Fire”Monument. Dedicated in 1972, it is anevocative relief sculpture, commemoratingthe victims of the Holocaust and the tri-umphant birth of the Jewish state.

Capt. Shalom P. Doron (far left), an unidenti-fied woman and Capt. Yehoshua Yardeni exam-ining food parcels marked “B’nai B’rith Foodfor Israel”—New York, 1949.

Shalom P. Doron presenting tribute to Authur Lellyveld, director, B’nai B’rithHillel Foundation; Prof. Hugo Bergman; and Rabbi Maurice Pekarsky, the firstdirector of Hillel in Jerusalem—1952.

B’nai B’rith and Israel: The unbroken covenant 21

Always an organization of firsts, in 19591,300 B’nai B’rith delegates gathered inJerusalem for the first international conven-tion of any Jewish group ever held in Israel.B’nai B’rith President Philip Klutznickopened the Supreme Lodge Convention inJerusalem’s new (the roof was not yet fin-ished) convention center, Binyanei Ha’uma.The highlight, of the convention was PrimeMinister Ben Gurion’s nighttime address atthe Hebrew University amphitheater atGivat Ram. B’nai B’rith held another con-vention in Israel in 1965, electing Dr.William A. Wexler—who, after retiringfrom professional activity, became the onlyB’nai B’rith president to settle in Israel—assuccessor to Label Katz. B’nai B’rith’s thirdconvention in Israel was held in 1974.Originally planned for London, the ‘74convention was moved in answer to theBritish government’s pro-Arab policies dur-ing the Yom Kippur War of 1973. B’naiB’rith was the first Jewish group to visitEgypt, at the invitation of President Anwarel-Sadat—only six weeks after Israel andEgypt signed the Camp David Accords.And when the U.N. Security Council votedin 1980 for an Arab-sponsored move not torecognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, B’naiB’rith responded by establishing its WorldCenter in the nation’s capital.

Entrance to the grotto at the B’nai B’rith Martyr’s Forest Memorial Shrine.

Entrance to B’nai B’rith Martyrs’ Forest in Israel. Since its opening in 1954,over 1,088,000 trees have been planted.

22 B’nai B’rith and Israel: The unbroken covenant

“Scroll of Fire” Monument. Dedicated in 1972, set in the midst of the B’naiB’rith Martyr’s Forest.