Chaim Arlosoroff
Encyclopedia
Haim Arlozoroff was a Zionist leader in Palestine during the era of the British Mandate for Palestine and head of the political department of the Jewish Agency. Arlosoroff was assassinated while walking on the beach in Tel Aviv
in 1933.
, Ukraine
on February 23, 1899. In the Ukraine, he was referred to by his family as Vitaly, which is the equivalent of the name Chaim in Russian. When living in Germany, however, he was commonly known as Viktor. Dr. Arlosoroff's paternal grandfather was the Rabbi Eliezer Arlosoroff of Romny, an author of commentaries relating to religious issues and the Jewish Talmud.
At the very young age of six years old, Arlosoroff became painfully aware of the harsh reality of anti-Semitism. In
1905, the Arlosoroff's family home in Romny was attacked in a violent pogrom
.The hateful incident caused his immediate family to relocate across the German border in East Prussia. Seven years later the Arlosoroff family made Konigsberg, Germany their refuge.
As a result of his family's exodus from Romny, Ukraine into Germany, Arlosoroff grew up a fluent speaker of the German language; in addition, he acquired understanding of Hebrew through a tutor provided for him at home by his parents.
When the First World War began in 1914, the Arlosoroff family did not have German citizenship, and they were threatened with deportation. The family was eventually able to obtain leniency from the German authorities, and they were allowed to move to Berlin. Because of the ongoing war, however, Chaim's father, Saul Arlosoroff, became cut-off from his Russian business contacts. When Saul returned to the Ukraine in order to resecure business connections, he was advised by authorities he could not go back to Germany until the war ended. The teenage Chaim Arlosoroff would never see his father again. Regrettably, before he could return to Berlin, Saul Arlosoroff passed away after contacting cholera.
Later, being very interested in economics
, Chaim Arlosoroff studied at the University of Berlin where he received a doctorate in that subject. While he was attending the university, Arlosoroff wrote articles on Zionist matters, such as getting money to the settlers in Palestine, and planning a program of cooperation between Jews and Arab
s. While still in Germany, in 1918, he co-founded Ha-Po'el ha-Tza'ir, a party which attracted many intellectuals of the time.
In 1919, Arlosoroff published the treastise "Jewish People's Socialism", his first major written contribution relating to a nationalistic hope for the Jewish people in Eretz Israel.
Arlosoroff first visited the Holy Land in 1921. An anti-Jewish riot
by Arabs broke out during his visit. This event helped draw Arlosoroff's focus to the need for better relations between Jews and Arabs. Arlosoroff would come to the position that peaceful compromise with Arabs would not weaken or undermine the establishment of Jewish national interests in Eretz Israel. In addition, he would openly acknowledge the undeniable existence of an Arab national movement in Eretz Israel.
Despite his young age, Arlosoroff rapidly rose to prominence in the Zionist movement. In the 1923 Zionist Congress, Arlosoroff was elected to the Zionist Action Committee. He was only 24 years old at the time. Turning down an university position, he left Germany for the British Mandate of Palestine in 1924. In 1926 he was chosen to represent the yishuv
at the League of Nations
in Geneva
.
Arlosoroff's hope for peaceful cooperation and compromise with Arabs would be severely tested. In 1929, the consciously agressive Betar Youth Movement, organized under Ze'ev Jabotinsky's Union of Revisionist Zionists, sought to assertively enforce and enlarge a Jewish presence in the proximity of the Wailing Wall. The activities of Betar inflamed an explosive reaction from the Arab community, as it was perceived Muslim mosques on the adjacent Temple Mount had been dishonored. Violent riots ensued, and many Jewish civilians were killed as a result. In lieu of inciting further Arab tensions, Arlosoroff strongly criticized the Revisionists for insensitively provoking the controversy.
Labour Party. Through the Mapai's political muscle, Arlosoroff received election as part of the Zionist Executive at the 1931 Zionist Congress. In addition, he was naned Political Director of the Jewish Agency for Palestine, a prominent position he filled until his 1933 assassination.
Arlosoroff was a close friend of the Jewish scientist and statesman, Haim Weizmann. Among Arlosoroff's closest Zionist contemporaries, Weizmann was considered to be the most politically moderate.
On April 8, 1933, Arlosoroff organized a historic event at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem on the Jewish Agency's behalf. The luncheon, attended by Weizmann and prominent Arab leaders in Palestine, would be the first time Jewish Zionists and key Arabs would meet to help promote cooperative efforts between the two groups. However, not everyone was pleased with Arlosoroff's vision for Jewish/Arab collaboration, nor the possibility of a bi-nationalistic future in Eretz Israel. Arab radicals openly chastised Transjordan's Emir Abdullah and others who had attended the luncheon. Jewish opposition to the King David Hotel meeting would also became apparent. The major party of religious Zionism, Mizrachi, demanded that Arlosoroff resign from his position as Political Director. Some in the Revisionist Movement went even further and questioned Arlosoroff's right to be alive.
As the Jewish Agency's Political Director, Arlosoroff first believed that the British
would help settling Jews in Palestine, so he worked with the British government which was in charge of running that territory. Soon Arlozoroff came to feel that the British could not be trusted and that the Jews must risk angering them in order to rebuild their own homeland and save the Jews of Europe
from the nationalist and authoritarian regimes under which they lived, especially in Nazi Germany
.
.
. The death of Arlozoroff greatly aggravated political relations within the Zionist movement. Abba Ahimeir
, the head of an activist group with fascist tendencies, the Brit HaBirionim
, was charged by the Palestine Police Force
with plotting the assassination. Ahimeir was also a leader of the nationalist Zionist Revisionist faction whose publication, "Hazit HaAm" continuously attacked the Labor movement and Zionist leaders, including Arlosoroff, calling him with names and stating that the Jewish people "will know how to react to such villains". Two rank-and-file Revisionists, Abraham Stavsky
and Ze'evi Rosenblatt, were arrested as the actual murderers and were identified by Arlosoroff's widow. All three vehemently denied the accusation.
The district court acquitted Ahimeir and Rosenblatt but convicted Stavsky, who, however, was eventually acquitted by the Supreme Court for lack of corroborating evidence, as the law then required. The defense accused the police of manipulating the widow’s testimony and other evidence for political reasons, and expounded the theory that the murder was connected to an intended sexual attack on Sima Arlozoroff by two young Arabs. Stavsky later rose within Irgun
ranks and was responsible for the procurement of the Irgun arms vessel known as the "Altalena
." He was killed in the altercation involving the control of the arms with the newly established Israel Defense Forces
on the Beach of Tel Aviv.
In addition to the theories that people connected to the revisionist movement are the perpetrators of murder and that it was an intended sexual attack by two Arabs there are theories connecting it to the Soviet and Nazi regimes. One involves the Nazi leader Joseph Goebbels
: During the first world war, Magda Behrend
, who later became the wife of Joseph Goebbels, met and became close friends with Lisa Arlosoroff, Haim Arlosoroff's sister. The nature of her relationship with Haim Arlozoroff is unknown. Magda married Goebbels on 19 December 1931, with Adolf Hitler
as a witness. A year and a half later, Arlozoroff went to Germany to negotiate the Ha'avarah (transfer) agreement with high Nazi officials. The theory is that with Haim Arlosoroff's personal involvement in the negotiations, Goebbels took notice of his wife's former Jewish friend and sought to erase what might have been an embarrassment for the Goebbelses. Magda's former Jewish stepfather, Richard Friedländer, was arrested on Goebbels orders and died in the concentration camp in 1938. The Soviet connection was promoted by Shmuel Dothan in 1991 to counter what the Soviet considered as a global military plot against them.
For years figures belonging to the right-wing claimed to be wrongfully accused by Mapai
of being responsible for Arlosoroff's death. About fifty years after the murder, following the publication of a book on the assassination by Shabtai Teveth
in 1982,
the Israeli government, now led by Menachem Begin
, established a formal investigative committee. It was led by the former High court of Justice Judge David Bachor. Its purpose was to decide whether Rosenblatt and Stavsky were responsible for assassinating Arlosoroff, or not. The committee decided unanimously that Rosenblatt and Stavsky had nothing to do with the murder. The committee was inconclusive about the identity of the real murderers or whether or not the murder was politically motivated.
, a large neighborhood of Haifa, Giv'at Haim, a kibutz and Kfar Haim
, a moshav
.
Tel Aviv
Tel Aviv , officially Tel Aviv-Yafo , is the second most populous city in Israel, with a population of 404,400 on a land area of . The city is located on the Israeli Mediterranean coastline in west-central Israel. It is the largest and most populous city in the metropolitan area of Gush Dan, with...
in 1933.
Biography
Dr.Chaim Arlosoroff was born in RomnyRomny
Romny is a city in the northern Ukrainian Oblast of Sumy. It is located on the Romen River and is the administrative center of the Romny Raion...
, Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
on February 23, 1899. In the Ukraine, he was referred to by his family as Vitaly, which is the equivalent of the name Chaim in Russian. When living in Germany, however, he was commonly known as Viktor. Dr. Arlosoroff's paternal grandfather was the Rabbi Eliezer Arlosoroff of Romny, an author of commentaries relating to religious issues and the Jewish Talmud.
At the very young age of six years old, Arlosoroff became painfully aware of the harsh reality of anti-Semitism. In
1905, the Arlosoroff's family home in Romny was attacked in a violent pogrom
Pogrom
A pogrom is a form of violent riot, a mob attack directed against a minority group, and characterized by killings and destruction of their homes and properties, businesses, and religious centres...
.The hateful incident caused his immediate family to relocate across the German border in East Prussia. Seven years later the Arlosoroff family made Konigsberg, Germany their refuge.
As a result of his family's exodus from Romny, Ukraine into Germany, Arlosoroff grew up a fluent speaker of the German language; in addition, he acquired understanding of Hebrew through a tutor provided for him at home by his parents.
When the First World War began in 1914, the Arlosoroff family did not have German citizenship, and they were threatened with deportation. The family was eventually able to obtain leniency from the German authorities, and they were allowed to move to Berlin. Because of the ongoing war, however, Chaim's father, Saul Arlosoroff, became cut-off from his Russian business contacts. When Saul returned to the Ukraine in order to resecure business connections, he was advised by authorities he could not go back to Germany until the war ended. The teenage Chaim Arlosoroff would never see his father again. Regrettably, before he could return to Berlin, Saul Arlosoroff passed away after contacting cholera.
Later, being very interested in economics
Economics
Economics is the social science that analyzes the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. The term economics comes from the Ancient Greek from + , hence "rules of the house"...
, Chaim Arlosoroff studied at the University of Berlin where he received a doctorate in that subject. While he was attending the university, Arlosoroff wrote articles on Zionist matters, such as getting money to the settlers in Palestine, and planning a program of cooperation between Jews and Arab
Arab
Arab people, also known as Arabs , are a panethnicity primarily living in the Arab world, which is located in Western Asia and North Africa. They are identified as such on one or more of genealogical, linguistic, or cultural grounds, with tribal affiliations, and intra-tribal relationships playing...
s. While still in Germany, in 1918, he co-founded Ha-Po'el ha-Tza'ir, a party which attracted many intellectuals of the time.
In 1919, Arlosoroff published the treastise "Jewish People's Socialism", his first major written contribution relating to a nationalistic hope for the Jewish people in Eretz Israel.
Arlosoroff first visited the Holy Land in 1921. An anti-Jewish riot
Jaffa riots
The Jaffa riots were a series of violent riots in Palestine on May 1–7, 1921, which began as a fight between two Jewish groups but developed into an attack by Arabs on Jews during which many were killed...
by Arabs broke out during his visit. This event helped draw Arlosoroff's focus to the need for better relations between Jews and Arabs. Arlosoroff would come to the position that peaceful compromise with Arabs would not weaken or undermine the establishment of Jewish national interests in Eretz Israel. In addition, he would openly acknowledge the undeniable existence of an Arab national movement in Eretz Israel.
Despite his young age, Arlosoroff rapidly rose to prominence in the Zionist movement. In the 1923 Zionist Congress, Arlosoroff was elected to the Zionist Action Committee. He was only 24 years old at the time. Turning down an university position, he left Germany for the British Mandate of Palestine in 1924. In 1926 he was chosen to represent the yishuv
Yishuv
The Yishuv or Ha-Yishuv is the term referring to the body of Jewish residents in Palestine before the establishment of the State of Israel...
at the League of Nations
League of Nations
The League of Nations was an intergovernmental organization founded as a result of the Paris Peace Conference that ended the First World War. It was the first permanent international organization whose principal mission was to maintain world peace...
in Geneva
Geneva
Geneva In the national languages of Switzerland the city is known as Genf , Ginevra and Genevra is the second-most-populous city in Switzerland and is the most populous city of Romandie, the French-speaking part of Switzerland...
.
Arlosoroff's hope for peaceful cooperation and compromise with Arabs would be severely tested. In 1929, the consciously agressive Betar Youth Movement, organized under Ze'ev Jabotinsky's Union of Revisionist Zionists, sought to assertively enforce and enlarge a Jewish presence in the proximity of the Wailing Wall. The activities of Betar inflamed an explosive reaction from the Arab community, as it was perceived Muslim mosques on the adjacent Temple Mount had been dishonored. Violent riots ensued, and many Jewish civilians were killed as a result. In lieu of inciting further Arab tensions, Arlosoroff strongly criticized the Revisionists for insensitively provoking the controversy.
Political career
In 1930, Arlosoroff was influential in unifying the two major Zionist socialist political parties, the Polei Zion and the Hapoel Hatzair. This merger caused the establishment of the MapaiMapai
Mapai was a left-wing political party in Israel, and was the dominant force in Israeli politics until its merger into the Israeli Labor Party in 1968...
Labour Party. Through the Mapai's political muscle, Arlosoroff received election as part of the Zionist Executive at the 1931 Zionist Congress. In addition, he was naned Political Director of the Jewish Agency for Palestine, a prominent position he filled until his 1933 assassination.
Arlosoroff was a close friend of the Jewish scientist and statesman, Haim Weizmann. Among Arlosoroff's closest Zionist contemporaries, Weizmann was considered to be the most politically moderate.
On April 8, 1933, Arlosoroff organized a historic event at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem on the Jewish Agency's behalf. The luncheon, attended by Weizmann and prominent Arab leaders in Palestine, would be the first time Jewish Zionists and key Arabs would meet to help promote cooperative efforts between the two groups. However, not everyone was pleased with Arlosoroff's vision for Jewish/Arab collaboration, nor the possibility of a bi-nationalistic future in Eretz Israel. Arab radicals openly chastised Transjordan's Emir Abdullah and others who had attended the luncheon. Jewish opposition to the King David Hotel meeting would also became apparent. The major party of religious Zionism, Mizrachi, demanded that Arlosoroff resign from his position as Political Director. Some in the Revisionist Movement went even further and questioned Arlosoroff's right to be alive.
As the Jewish Agency's Political Director, Arlosoroff first believed that the British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
would help settling Jews in Palestine, so he worked with the British government which was in charge of running that territory. Soon Arlozoroff came to feel that the British could not be trusted and that the Jews must risk angering them in order to rebuild their own homeland and save the Jews of Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
from the nationalist and authoritarian regimes under which they lived, especially in Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
.
Ha'avara agreement
At this point, Haim Arlozoroff visited Nazi Germany to negotiate the controversial Ha'avara Agreement with the Nazi government, an agreement which allowed for the emigration of Jews to Palestine along with most of their property. The Nazis were happy to get rid of Jews, but unwilling to allow them to take their property with them. Via this agreement, the Jews had to put their money into a special bank account. This money was then used to purchase German goods for export to Palestine (and other countries). The proceeds of the sale of these goods were given to the Jews on their arrival in Palestine. For the Nazis, this helped them get rid of Jews, while overcoming any attempts at a boycott of Nazi exports (especially from a moral point of view - it was the Jews themselves importing the goods). For the Zionist settlement, this huge influx of capital gave a much-needed economic boom in the midst of worldwide depressionGreat Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
.
Assassination
On 16 June 1933, just two days after his return from negotiations in Germany, Haim Arlozoroff was murdered. He was killed while walking with his wife Sima on a beach in Tel AvivTel Aviv
Tel Aviv , officially Tel Aviv-Yafo , is the second most populous city in Israel, with a population of 404,400 on a land area of . The city is located on the Israeli Mediterranean coastline in west-central Israel. It is the largest and most populous city in the metropolitan area of Gush Dan, with...
. The death of Arlozoroff greatly aggravated political relations within the Zionist movement. Abba Ahimeir
Abba Ahimeir
Abba Ahimeir was a Jewish journalist, historian and political activist. One of the ideologues of Revisionist Zionism, he was the founder of the Revisionist Maximalist faction of the Zionist Revisionist Movement and of the clandestine Brit HaBirionim....
, the head of an activist group with fascist tendencies, the Brit HaBirionim
Brit HaBirionim
Brit HaBirionim was a clandestine, self-declared fascist faction of the Revisionist Zionist Movement in the British Mandate of Palestine, active between 1930 and 1933. It was founded by the trio of Abba Ahimeir, Uri Zvi Greenberg and Dr...
, was charged by the Palestine Police Force
Palestine Police Force
The Palestine Police Force was a British colonial police service established in the British Mandate for Palestine on 1 July 1920, when High Commissioner Herbert Samuel's civil administration took over responsibility for security from General Allenby's Occupied Enemy Territory Administration...
with plotting the assassination. Ahimeir was also a leader of the nationalist Zionist Revisionist faction whose publication, "Hazit HaAm" continuously attacked the Labor movement and Zionist leaders, including Arlosoroff, calling him with names and stating that the Jewish people "will know how to react to such villains". Two rank-and-file Revisionists, Abraham Stavsky
Abraham Stavsky
Abraham Stavsky was an activist member of Betar, the youth movement of a Revisionsit Zionist group founded by Vladimir Jabotinsky....
and Ze'evi Rosenblatt, were arrested as the actual murderers and were identified by Arlosoroff's widow. All three vehemently denied the accusation.
The district court acquitted Ahimeir and Rosenblatt but convicted Stavsky, who, however, was eventually acquitted by the Supreme Court for lack of corroborating evidence, as the law then required. The defense accused the police of manipulating the widow’s testimony and other evidence for political reasons, and expounded the theory that the murder was connected to an intended sexual attack on Sima Arlozoroff by two young Arabs. Stavsky later rose within Irgun
Irgun
The Irgun , or Irgun Zevai Leumi to give it its full title , was a Zionist paramilitary group that operated in Mandate Palestine between 1931 and 1948. It was an offshoot of the earlier and larger Jewish paramilitary organization haHaganah...
ranks and was responsible for the procurement of the Irgun arms vessel known as the "Altalena
Altalena Affair
The Altalena Affair was a violent confrontation that took place in June 1948 between the newly formed Israel Defense Forces and the Irgun, a right-wing Jewish paramilitary group...
." He was killed in the altercation involving the control of the arms with the newly established Israel Defense Forces
Israel Defense Forces
The Israel Defense Forces , commonly known in Israel by the Hebrew acronym Tzahal , are the military forces of the State of Israel. They consist of the ground forces, air force and navy. It is the sole military wing of the Israeli security forces, and has no civilian jurisdiction within Israel...
on the Beach of Tel Aviv.
In addition to the theories that people connected to the revisionist movement are the perpetrators of murder and that it was an intended sexual attack by two Arabs there are theories connecting it to the Soviet and Nazi regimes. One involves the Nazi leader Joseph Goebbels
Joseph Goebbels
Paul Joseph Goebbels was a German politician and Reich Minister of Propaganda in Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945. As one of Adolf Hitler's closest associates and most devout followers, he was known for his zealous oratory and anti-Semitism...
: During the first world war, Magda Behrend
Magda Goebbels
Johanna Maria Magdalena "Magda" Goebbels was the wife of Nazi Germany's Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels...
, who later became the wife of Joseph Goebbels, met and became close friends with Lisa Arlosoroff, Haim Arlosoroff's sister. The nature of her relationship with Haim Arlozoroff is unknown. Magda married Goebbels on 19 December 1931, with Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
as a witness. A year and a half later, Arlozoroff went to Germany to negotiate the Ha'avarah (transfer) agreement with high Nazi officials. The theory is that with Haim Arlosoroff's personal involvement in the negotiations, Goebbels took notice of his wife's former Jewish friend and sought to erase what might have been an embarrassment for the Goebbelses. Magda's former Jewish stepfather, Richard Friedländer, was arrested on Goebbels orders and died in the concentration camp in 1938. The Soviet connection was promoted by Shmuel Dothan in 1991 to counter what the Soviet considered as a global military plot against them.
For years figures belonging to the right-wing claimed to be wrongfully accused by Mapai
Mapai
Mapai was a left-wing political party in Israel, and was the dominant force in Israeli politics until its merger into the Israeli Labor Party in 1968...
of being responsible for Arlosoroff's death. About fifty years after the murder, following the publication of a book on the assassination by Shabtai Teveth
Shabtai Teveth
Shabtai Teveth , is an Israeli historian.Shabtai Teveth began working as a journalist for Haaretz newspaper in 1950, eventually becoming its political correspondent...
in 1982,
the Israeli government, now led by Menachem Begin
Menachem Begin
' was a politician, founder of Likud and the sixth Prime Minister of the State of Israel. Before independence, he was the leader of the Zionist militant group Irgun, the Revisionist breakaway from the larger Jewish paramilitary organization Haganah. He proclaimed a revolt, on 1 February 1944,...
, established a formal investigative committee. It was led by the former High court of Justice Judge David Bachor. Its purpose was to decide whether Rosenblatt and Stavsky were responsible for assassinating Arlosoroff, or not. The committee decided unanimously that Rosenblatt and Stavsky had nothing to do with the murder. The committee was inconclusive about the identity of the real murderers or whether or not the murder was politically motivated.
Legacy and commemoration
Arlozoroff is buried at the "Trumpeldor Cemetery" in Tel Aviv. Arlozoroff's memory is honored today by the many streets named after him throughout the towns of Israel and in the names of several places in Israel: Kiryat HaimKiryat Haim
Kiryat Haim is one of the five Krayot suburbs located north of Haifa, Israel. In 2003, Kiryat Haim had a population of 40,000. Kiryat Haim is within the municipal borders of the city of Haifa, and lies on the shore of the Mediterranean Sea.-History:...
, a large neighborhood of Haifa, Giv'at Haim, a kibutz and Kfar Haim
Kfar Haim
Kfar Haim is a moshav in central Israel. Located in the coastal plain near Netanya, it falls under the jurisdiction of Hefer Valley Regional Council. In 2006 it had a population of 500....
, a moshav
Moshav
Moshav is a type of Israeli town or settlement, in particular a type of cooperative agricultural community of individual farms pioneered by the Labour Zionists during the second aliyah...
.