Between Home and Homeland: Youth Aliyah from Nazi Germany

5. Conflicts and Resolutions

From Youth Aliyah’s inception, the participation of Orthodox Jews received special consideration and posed unique challenges to the program ’s unity and its ideological integrity. The organization committed itself to the immigration of observant Jews within the Youth Aliyah framework, yet realizing this goal proved troublesome. Of approximately¤ve thousand teenagers brought to Palestine by Youth Aliyah before World War II, only around eight hundred entered under Orthodox auspices . Even though these ¤gures re®ected the lack of Orthodox facilities in Palestine, rather than an ideological bias, the discrepancy exacerbated existing tensions between religious leaders and the agencies responsible for Youth Aliyah. This particular aspect of Youth Aliyah’s work demonstrates not only the fragile nature of Zionist unity but also the distinction between good intentions and the practical realities of relocating young Jews to Palestine. As early as the summer of 1932, Pinchas Rosenblüth of the Orthodox pioneering federation in Berlin contacted Recha Freier regarding the nascent Youth Aliyah project. Rosenblüth recommended transferring a group of observant youths from Germany to Hapoel Hamizrachi (religious Zionist workers’ party) settlements in Palestine.1 Though none of the leading ¤gures in Berlin or Jerusalem denied the need for including Orthodox groups in theory, the actual application of this ideal proved a persistent problem throughout the period preceding World War II and thereafter. In July 1933 the Jugendhilfe established a special department to handle Orthodox youth, while in Palestine Orthodox leaders founded the Com5 Con®icts and Resolutions mittee for the Preparation of Religious Youth from Germany in Eretz Israel.2 These bodies ensured that observant teenagers received proper representation in terms of both certi¤cates and funds. Furthermore, Orthodox delegates supervised the educational programming and religious observance at separate facilities instituted speci¤cally for religious pioneers . From the beginning, however, a problem became apparent that would continue to plague Youth Aliyah: the lack of Orthodox colonies suf¤ciently prepared to accept groups of young Jews from Germany. Aside from Rodges (now Kibbutz Yavneh), no other collective settlements offered this opportunity.3 That August, the committee proposed alternative locations, such as a Mizrachi girls’ school in Jerusalem, and the construction of new institutions for the bene¤t of Orthodox youth. Consequently, Freier remarked that the Orthodox groups had already begun to shift Youth Aliyah’s emphasis from its original intentions. Instead of bringing young Jews to kibbutzim, which implied commitment to a speci¤c social and educational ideology, religious leaders merely sought any physical accommodations .4 Toward the end of the year, the Jugendhilfe began receiving complaints from religious leaders in Palestine that certi¤cates were being distributed unfairly.5 In the political context of 1930s Palestine, religious Zionists may have viewed Youth Aliyah as a means to bolster their presence in the yishuv. To be sure, the urgent entreaties penned by religious leaders did not equate Youth Aliyah with rescue at this early stage. They did not demand that young Orthodox Jews be removed from Germany to Palestine, regardless of the host settlements’ political af¤liations. Religious Zionists, though willing to work with socialist leaders in a common cause, criticized the in®uence wielded by the left, and suspected that labor Zionists, particularly in the agricultural settlements, consciously conspired to suppress Orthodox Judaism in Eretz Israel.6 Nevertheless, the movement for religious Youth Aliyah found support in nonsectarian philanthropic circles, notably London’s Women’s Appeal Committee, an important group within the Central British Fund.7 This organization’s proposed budget for 1934 included the necessary capital investment in Rodges, signi¤cantly more costly than the erection of new barracks at Ein-Harod. The committee’s plan also called for settling a hundred Orthodox boys in urban locations to receive vocational training, as well as placing forty girls in a Mizrachi boarding school in Jerusalem. 130 Chapter 5 Since kibbutzim were the most cost-effective means of training Youth Aliyah students, the expenses for observant youths in Palestine ran signi ¤cantly higher than the ¤nancial requirements for young immigrants on nonreligious settlements.8 In December 1933 Szold noted the importance of determining an acceptable quota for observant youth, so Youth Aliyah and Orthodox representatives stipulated that the Jugendhilfe would allocate 25 percent of its certi¤cates for “religious” youth. Whether this ¤gure accurately represented the proportion of young Jews desiring placement on observant settlements is dif¤cult to determine, and most estimates would provide a ratio closer to 15 percent as representative. The Jugendhilfe felt compelled to establish a...