{"id":854,"date":"2012-04-29T14:07:34","date_gmt":"2012-04-29T11:07:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.maarav.org.il\/english\/?p=854"},"modified":"2012-04-29T14:07:34","modified_gmt":"2012-04-29T11:07:34","slug":"promised-lands-alfred-doblin-as-a-territorialist-ideologue-adam-rovner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/maarav.org.il\/english\/2012\/04\/29\/promised-lands-alfred-doblin-as-a-territorialist-ideologue-adam-rovner\/","title":{"rendered":"Promised Lands: Alfred Doblin as a Territorialist Ideologue \/ Adam Rovner"},"content":{"rendered":"
On November 5, 1923, three days before Hitler\u2019s failed Munich Beer Hall Putsch, mobs of unemployed men and nationalist thugs descended on the Scheunenviertel, a poor Jewish immigrant neighborhood of Berlin. They looted stores and beat anyone who looked Jewish. Assimilated German-Jewish author and physician Alfred D\u00f6blin, the man who later chronicled the district in his modernist masterpiece Berlin Alexanderplatz<\/em> (1929), called the pogrom Nazism\u2019s \u201cfirst shriek.\u201d[1]<\/a> In the wake of the riots against the mostly Polish Jews living in the Scheunenviertel, D\u00f6blin, who had his medical office nearby, was forced to reckon with his own religious identity.[2]<\/a> He realized he knew nothing about Jews or Judaism and began to attend Zionist meetings.[3]<\/a> A year later, in 1924, he left his beloved Berlin to seek out \u201cauthentic Jews\u201d in Poland. What began as one man\u2019s investigation into his origins soon turned into a spiritual quest to ensure the collective Jewish future in some sparsely inhabited corner of the world.<\/div>\n

When he set off for Poland, the forty-six-year-old D\u00f6blin looked the part of a bookish writer. He favored tweedy suits, wore eyeglasses that gave him a fishbowl stare, and had a pronounced crease in his brow that deepened with age. His two month tour, chronicled in Journey to Poland<\/em> (1925), brought him into contact with religious Jews, wonder-working rabbis, Zionists and Yiddishists. And though D\u00f6blin traveled by train through modern Europe, his journey led him straight into the depths of \u201cancient national feeling.\u201d His revelation that the Jewish \u201cnation remained whole\u201d despite having been \u201cthrown out of Palestine [\u2026] two thousand years ago\u201d roused D\u00f6blin to action. He contemplated Jewish rebirth through Zionism, wondering: \u201cWhat if history were turned backward and the Jews were really given Zion?\u201d But his flirtation with the Zionist movement was short-lived. D\u00f6blin ultimately sided with an anonymous Yiddish writer he met in Lodz who concluded that Zionism is \u201cnot where the future of the world lies\u201d; first \u201cthe world has to be humanized.\u201d[4]<\/a><\/p>\n

By the mid-1930s, as Germany descended into barbarism, D\u00f6blin dedicated himself to a humanist vision of Jewish redemption. He was influenced in large part by his Polish travels and his subsequent encounters with \u00e9migr\u00e9 Jewish intellectuals he met in Berlin. Formerly an alienated and indifferent Jew, the nearsighted D\u00f6blin emerged as a visionary ideologue for a group of Yiddishist social revolutionaries: the Freeland League for Territorial Colonisation (Frayland-lige far Teritoryalistisher Kolonizatsye<\/em>). The Freeland League took its name and inspiration from Jewish economist Theodor Hertzka\u2019s utopian novel of East African colonization, Freeland: A Social Anticipation<\/em> (1890). The similarly named Hertzka had been Theodor Herzl\u2019s journalist colleague for the Neue<\/em> Freie Presse<\/em>, and his programmatic novel had influenced the Zionist leader\u2019s own technocratic fantasies of the Jewish future both in his founding manifesto, The Jewish State<\/em> (1896), and his 1902 novel, Old-New<\/em> Land<\/em> (Altneuland<\/em>). Hertzka\u2019s vision of cooperative land ownership in East Africa had also impressed Herzl\u2019s hand-picked advisor on settlement issues, Franz Oppenheimer. Oppenheimer had even published a critical revision of Herzka\u2019s novel, Freiland in Deutschland <\/em>(1895), which promoted a system of economically rational, planned settlements in Germany. In 1903, Herzl invited Oppenheimer to address the Sixth Zionist Congress as an expert on settlement issues. Herzl hoped Oppenheimer\u2019s speech would reinforce for delegates the practical nature of the so-called Uganda Plan. Later, Oppenheimer\u2019s settlement system formed the blueprint for the structure of moshav<\/em> Merchavia. In their choice of name, Freeland League leaders thus borrowed equity both from Jewish intellectual history and from successful Zionist settlement schemes in Palestine in order to legitimize their own ill-starred colonization efforts.<\/p>\n

The Freeland League emerged in Poland as a response to rising anti-Semitism in that country and the growing belligerence of Nazism on its borders. A heterogeneous group of \u00a0intellectuals, scholars, belletrists and political activists formed the core of the nascent Freeland League in Warsaw in the early 1930s. They sought to provide Jews with an alternative to Zionism, non-territorial Bundism, and assimiliationist trends. This disunited cadre conceived of the Freeland League as a reincarnation of celebrated Anglo-Jewish author Israel Zangwill\u2019s defunct Jewish Territorial Organization (ITO), combined with the agrarian commitments of left-labor socialist revolutionaries. At one point, the British branch of the Freeland League even entertained the possibility of adopting the ITO name and platform.[5]<\/a> But even before officially chartering their organization at a London conference in 1935, Freeland supporters had published two issues of a short-lived periodical in Warsaw. Contributors to the journal, Frayland<\/em>, included the influential radical Haim Zhitlowski, socialist leader Ben-Adir (Avrom Rozin), demographer Jacob (Yankev) Lestschinsky, poet Melech Ravtich (Zekharye-Khone Bergner), and\u2014in both issues\u2014Alfred D\u00f6blin.<\/p>\n

D\u00f6blin fled Nazi Germany in February 1933 ahead of the Gestapo and arrived in Zurich. There he was said by a colleague to have discovered Herzl\u2019s legacy and taken a particular interest in the failed Uganda Plan.[6]<\/a> From Switzerland he made his way to France, where he settled. While his books were being burned in Berlin, in Paris he wrote two volumes of meditations on the question of Jewish collective renewal. In these works he presented Jewish Emancipation as a total failure. Instead, he advocated a revival of Zangwill\u2019s ITO plans for mass Jewish settlement in Angola,[7]<\/a> a plan he also revealed to confidantes in a letter from this period.[8]<\/a> D\u00f6blin envisioned a new territorialist organization that would be even \u201cfarther-reaching than Zionism.\u201d Indeed, he believed that his proposed movement would supersede Zionism as a means to rescue the millions of Jews \u201cwho live as a slave-people, near, on, or over the verge of destruction.\u201d[9]<\/a> His rejection of assimilation, his enthusiasm for Zangwill\u2019s ITO, and his socialist agenda caught the attention of the Freelanders. By November 1933 he had become a founder of the Ligue Juive pour Colonisation<\/em>, later to become the Paris branch of the Freeland League. The frustrations and fantasies of a small but influential circle of Warsaw-based Yiddishists had now found powerful expression in the writings of an internationally acclaimed author, a Jewish atheist who had first reconnected to his religious heritage in Poland. The Freelanders quickly translated some of D\u00f6blin\u2019s work to bring his Jeremiads to the Yiddish-reading public. And D\u00f6blin reported to Thomas Mann that he had begun learning Yiddish himself.[10]<\/a><\/p>\n

The first of D\u00f6blin\u2019s essays to appear in Frayland<\/em> in 1934, \u201cThe Tragic Fate of West European Jewry,\u201d presented a grim assessment of Jewish homelessness: \u201cSince Jews lost their land and state, they sit [\u2026] locked up in a cage like a pack of trapped animals [\u2026] because there is no security or law for Jews in the world, because behind the law there must be the sword, and the sword, as we know, is in the hands of others.\u201d He believed that assimilated Jewry stood at a crossroads, one marked by the bent-armed shadow of the swastika. Jewish \u201clovers of Goethe and Schiller are on trial,\u201d he wrote, tested by anti-Semitism. D\u00f6blin felt certain that without knowledge of \u201ctheir own history\u201d and without \u201cone shred of Jewish content,\u201d his Westernized coreligionists would fail to save themselves. He scorned these \u201cruins of the Jewish people, these end results of Western Emancipation,\u201d who persist in a \u201cone-sided love\u201d of European culture.[11]<\/a> D\u00f6blin, despite being every bit as assimilated as Herzl and Zangwill, here sounds more like a messianic prophet than a secular political activist.<\/p>\n

His second article for Frayland<\/em>, \u201cTerritorialism and New Judea,\u201d appeared at the end of 1934 and expanded D\u00f6blin\u2019s earlier vision. In this apocalyptic essay, he focused not on the original Zionist and territorialist question\u2014\u201cHow can we get a land for the Jews?\u201d\u2014but on the more fundamental question\u2014\u201cHow can we get Jews for a land?\u201d D\u00f6blin believed that Herzl\u2019s \u201cwavering between Palestine and Argentina\u201d in The Jewish State<\/em>, and his later readiness \u201cto come out in favor of Uganda\u201d at the Sixth Zionist Congress, were symptomatic of a weakness inherent both in Herzl\u2019s Zionism and \u201cthe old territorialism\u201d of Zangwill. In their narrow pursuit of land, both leaders had failed to consider the spiritual dimensions of the Jewish condition. While Herzl and Zangwill hoped to create a Europeanized sanctuary for Jews on foreign soil, D\u00f6blin believed that the struggle to ape Western civilization had already \u201cspiritually killed off half the Jewish community.\u201d He demanded that Jews \u201cstop\u2026turning towards the \u2018West,\u2019\u201d which for him was already synonymous with \u201ccold imperialism\u201d and \u201cwar-mongering.\u201d Instead, Jews must \u201cgather themselves together, define their own identity, restore themselves once again, and only then, acquire a land.\u201d How they were to do this in practice remained undefined, but D\u00f6blin drew on his study of Jewish history to suggest a path forward.<\/p>\n

He compared contemporary Judaism\u2019s \u201cbattle with assimilation\u201d to the Jewish \u201csituation after the destruction of the Temple.\u201d As the people of the Land of Israel, Jews once had an \u201corganic national structure,\u201d and to endure as the Diaspora People, their identity had to change. \u201cNow,\u201d he declared, \u201ca new form is needed\u201d to \u201censure the survival of Judaism, which is being threatened with catastrophe.\u201d Territory was not enough; D\u00f6blin sought nothing less than a complete revivification of Judaism. D\u00f6blin\u2019s rhetoric turned metaphysical in his depiction of a New Judea. Jewish life would be new<\/em> to the extent it would \u201cturn away\u2026from Western civilization\u201d and \u201csafeguard its own spiritual base.\u201d And Jewish life would be Judea<\/em>-ized when it acknowledged its relationship \u201cto an ancient people formed not through a belligerent or political act, but through a lofty spiritual<\/em> one.\u201d He explained further that New Judea \u201cwill be Jewish precisely in that it will carry out a task for humankind<\/em>. [\u2026] For that reason\u2014and not so as to be an ordinary people living within its own borders\u2014was the Jewish people formed thousands of years ago.\u201d[12]<\/a> Here the jab at Zionism\u2019s normalizing mission is unmistakable.<\/p>\n

Remarkably, excerpts of his writing on the Jewish condition appeared in Hebrew translation in a nine part essay, \u201cJewish Revival,\u201d published in the yishuv<\/em>\u2019s most influential cultural journal, Turim<\/em>, a weekly edited by the most important poet of the day, Avraham Shlonsky. D\u00f6blin\u2019s reflections on the failure of the Emancipation appeared from November 1933 through February 1934 in Turim<\/em>\u2019s pages alongside poetry by now canonical Hebrew authors. D\u00f6blin even penned a special introduction to his work for Hebrew readers in which he charged that little had changed for Westernized Jews since Herzl, a claim which must have puzzled many in the yishuv<\/em>.[13]<\/a> In the penultimate installment of \u201cJewish Revival,\u201d D\u00f6blin lectured his Hebrew readership that Jews \u201cmust aspire to mass settlement\u201d in \u201cunder-populated lands,\u201d maintaining that Zangwill\u2019s abandoned designs on Angola should be \u201cconsidered first of all.\u201d[14]<\/a> Surely such a suggestion would have stunned and outraged those reading his words in Tel Aviv and elsewhere throughout the British Mandate.<\/p>\n

The following summer, D\u00f6blin traveled from Paris to attend the London conference which formalized the Freeland League. There he presented the opening lecture on the \u201caims and character of the Freeland movement\u201d[15]<\/a> to delegates assembled at the Russell Hotel. Notables who lent their name to the cause included philosopher Bertrand Russell, author J.B. Priestley, Jewish communal leader and scholar Dr. Moses Gaster, politician and labor activist Arthur Creech Jones, and Israel Zangwill\u2019s widow, Edith.[16]<\/a> Though the meetings of the Preparatory International Conference of the League for Jewish Colonisation were ignored by the mainstream British press, coverage in London\u2019s Jewish Chronicle<\/em> focused on the gathering\u2019s \u201crealist attitude\u201d and noted in particular D\u00f6blin\u2019s speech.[17]<\/a> The yishuv<\/em> newspaper Davar<\/em> even devoted a long article to the \u201cnew territorialists\u201d and highlighted D\u00f6blin\u2019s role as the \u201cmovement\u2019s spiritual leader.\u201d[18]<\/a><\/p>\n

At the conference, D\u00f6blin stated his fervent belief that Jews \u201cstand at the end, at the catastrophic aftermath of the lost battle for emancipation.\u201d The \u201ccentral and essential task\u201d of the League, he wrote, \u201cis to enlighten and awaken the Jewish masses, for this is indeed a matter of establishing their own \u2018Freeland.\u2019\u201d But D\u00f6blin believed that prior to any territorial settlement, the Freelanders must \u201cbuild-up the people,\u201d a labor both spiritual and \u201cpolitical-diplomatic in character.\u201d His speech recognized Zionism\u2019s contribution to Jewish life and the eternal holiness of the land of Israel, while insisting that \u201cthe Jewish people are greater than the land.\u201d Thus D\u00f6blin declared that \u201cthe definitive impulse of the [Freeland] movement\u201d should be the \u201cformation of a new Jewish people.\u201d[19]<\/a> Before the close of the conference, many of the delegates paid their respects to Israel Zangwill by laying a wreath on his tombstone.[20]<\/a> Following the ceremony, attendees assembled for a closing session where D\u00f6blin reiterated that Hitler\u2019s rise demonstrated that Jews \u201ccould only live in peace in their own land.\u201d[21]<\/a><\/p>\n

The author served on the board of the Paris branch of the Freeland League until 1936,[22]<\/a> the year in which he became a French citizen and L\u00e9on Blum became France\u2019s first Jewish prime minister. But he continued to take an active role in the organization through 1937, and was considered to be something of a diplomat in the early months of that year, able to \u201cbridge the gulf\u201d between the Freeland League\u2019s various factions.[23]<\/a> In mid-November 1937, D\u00f6blin attended the Second General Freeland Conference in Paris, where fundamental questions of the movement\u2019s platform were debated.[24]<\/a> Wearied by the infighting, D\u00f6blin abandoned the League a few months later.[25]<\/a> By that time, his stirring meditations on the Jewish question, coupled with his vocal support for a spiritually inflected territorialism had made him the most well-known Freeland advocate. The Freeland League, never a popular movement, owed much of its ideology and early legitimacy to D\u00f6blin. The author\u2019s vigorous response, both in word and deed, to the growing persecution of European Jewry has been overshadowed by his eventual conversion to Catholicism as a result of a personal spiritual crisis.[26]<\/a> And though he died a Christian, D\u00f6blin lived his life during the perilous years of Nazism as a very public Jew.<\/p>\n

In late 1936, when the author was still active in the organization, the Paris Freelanders and the Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 d’\u00e9migration et de Colonisation Juive<\/em> (EMCOL) joined forces to create a Political-Geographic Committee in order to explore the possibilities of Jewish settlement in French territories.[27]<\/a> The Committee met on November 20th<\/sup> and 21st<\/sup>, 1936 in Paris to discuss whether French overseas colonies could be considered as possible sites for mass emigration.[28]<\/a> And though the Committee did not count D\u00f6blin among its members, he must have been aware of its progress, later informing his son that a Freeland expedition would be sent to New Caledonia and French Guiana.[29]<\/a><\/p>\n

The Freeland League and EMCOL directly approached the Minister of Overseas France, Marius Moutet, on December 16, 1936 to seek his support for Jewish colonization. <\/strong>Their aim, they explained to Moutet, was \u201cthe establishment of a new Jewish Center\u201d for those \u201cJews from Central and Eastern Europe who are compelled to leave the countries of their birth to settle in some corner of the immense [French] colonies which are so greatly underpopulated. Our preliminary investigations have drawn our attention more particularly to New Caledonia, Madagascar and French Guiana.\u201d[30]<\/a> Moutet not only had the proper administrative authority to enter into such negotiations, but he was seen as sympathetic to the Jewish plight, in part perhaps because his late wife had been a Russian Jewish immigrant to France.[31]<\/a> Those involved in drafting the letter included L\u00e9onard Rosenthal, the millionaire \u201cPearl King,\u201d and Julius Brutzkus, a physician, scholar, activist, and sometime ally of Vladimir (Ze\u2019ev) Jabotinsky. They met with Moutet a few weeks later, on January 14, 1937, to follow up.[32]<\/a> The powerful Rosenthal provided the Freeland-EMCOL delegation with direct access to Moutet, whom he considered a \u201cfriend and advisor.\u201d[33]<\/a><\/p>\n

Two days after their meeting, and exactly one month after receiving the Freeland-EMCOL letter, Moutet publicly announced that he was \u201cvery sympathetic to the idea of the eventual establishment of Jews in our colonies\u2026Madagascar, for example, presents a favorable opportunity if there is appropriate organization and financial backing.\u201d He went on to presume that \u201cupon the high plateaus of that great island suitable land might be found\u201d for settlements.[34]<\/a> At the same time, Moutet sent the Freeland-EMCOL representatives a private letter similar in tone and content to his public declaration. In his letter, Moutet reiterated his interest in the project and noted that the issue \u201cis now being studied both by my officials and by the respective local authorities.\u201d[35]<\/a> The Freelanders, whose program D\u00f6blin had championed for years, had clearly swayed Moutet to their cause. Moutet\u2019s pronouncement in January 1937 was hailed by territorialists as a French version of the 1917 Balfour Declaration. The Paris correspondent for Davar<\/em> singled out the Freeland League\u2019s role in obtaining what it cynically referred to as the \u201cMoutet Declaration.\u201d[36]<\/a> The diplomatic Moutet had made no mention of a \u201cnational home\u201d for the Jews in his pronouncement, as Lord Balfour had done two decades earlier. Nonetheless, Moutet sincerely believed that he could help Jewish \u201cvictims of political passions and religious and racial prejudice\u201d[37]<\/a> by resettling them in Madagascar.<\/p>\n

In late 1936, several months before the Freeland League had set the \u201cMoutet Declaration\u201d in motion, members of the Zionist establishment discussed resettling European Jews in Madagascar as well. Dr. Nahum Goldmann, a cosmopolitan figure who co-founded the World Jewish Congress (WJC) with Rabbi Stephen Wise, the most powerful American Jew in the pre-war era, considered the French island a possible refuge for Poland\u2019s beleaguered Jews. In a \u201cstrictly confidential\u201d telegram to Wise, Goldmann reported that Colonel J\u00f3zef Beck, Poland\u2019s Minister of Foreign Affairs, had asked the WJC to \u201cintervene [with the] French government\u201d regarding \u201cPolish Jewish immigration [to] Madagaskar.\u201d Goldmann informed Wise that the \u201cFrench government [is] not opposed in principle\u201d to the idea, and requested $5,000 from WJC coffers to fund an \u201cexperts commission\u201d to the island.[38]<\/a> In tandem, he encouraged Beck to establish \u201ca governmental level study committee and be ready to present the French Government with a concrete plan\u201d for Jewish resettlement there.[39]<\/a> Goldmann also wrote to the Governor General of Madagascar suggesting that Jewish artisans, tailors, cobblers, masons, carpenters and merchants represent the vanguard of Jewish settlers.[40]<\/a> Goldmann\u2019s communiqu\u00e9 to Wise concluded that successful resettlement of Polish Jews in Madagascar would give the fledgling WJC \u201cmuch prestige [and] importance.\u201d[41]<\/a><\/p>\n

Other Jewish organizations, including the Joint Distribution Committee (JDC), considered relocating refugees to the island. The JDC\u2019s two main decision makers in Europe met with Moutet\u2019s assistant and other officials in June 1937 and came away convinced of France\u2019s \u201csincere [\u2026] desire to make a fair trial in opening some of the French colonial possessions for Jewish immigration.\u201d Though the JDC officials were wary of endorsing \u201cthe so-called \u2018Beck plan\u2019 of Jewish evacuation from Poland\u201d to Madagascar, they concluded that \u201cit would be a great mistake for the responsible Jewish organizations to sidetrack the proposition. It fully merits at least a thorough competent investigation,\u201d[42]<\/a> The JDC even considered contributing to the costs of resettling Jewish immigrants there.[43]<\/a><\/p>\n

Official inquiries made by the Freeland League, the WJC, and the JDC, coupled with internal political forces in Poland and France, mounted through 1937. But by this time, D\u00f6blin had begun to distance himself from the Freeland League, and the Freeland League would soon distance itself from any effort to colonize Madagascar. What originated as a territorialist vision for Jewish revival and mass settlement championed by D\u00f6blin, quickly devolved into a notorious scheme for forced emigration endorsed by Polish anti-Semites, and later, the highest echelons of the Nazi leadership.<\/p>\n

Bibliography<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

Archival and Unpublished Sources<\/strong><\/p>\n

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\u201cA propos d\u2019un project d\u2019\u00e9tablissement d\u2019isra\u00e9lites dans les colonies fran\u00e7aises.\u201d\u00a0 Le Petit <\/em><\/p>\n

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Parisien<\/em>. 16 Jan. 1937. p.2. [French]<\/p>\n

Astour, Michael C. History of the Freeland League and of the Territorialist Idea<\/em><\/p>\n

[\u05d2\u05e2\u05e9\u05d9\u05db\u05d8\u05e2 \u05e4\u05d5\u05df \u05d3\u05e2\u05e8 \u05e4\u05e8\u05d9\u05d9\u05dc\u05d0\u05e0\u05d3-\u05dc\u05d9\u05d2\u05e2 \u05d0\u05d5\u05df \u05e4\u05d5\u05e0\u05e2\u05dd \u05d8\u05e2\u05e8\u05d9\u05d8\u05d0\u05e8\u05d9\u05d0\u05dc\u05d9\u05e1\u05d8\u05d9\u05e9\u05df \u05d2\u05e2\u05d3\u05d0\u05e0\u05e7<\/strong>]<\/strong>. Vol. I & Vol. II. New<\/p>\n

York: Freeland League, 1967. [Yiddish]<\/p>\n

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Feminist Studies<\/em>. Vol. 32. No. 2. (summer 2006): 299-331.<\/p>\n

Chanoch, N. \u201cMichtav M\u2019London.\u201d Davar<\/em>.\u00a0 9 Aug 1935 p. 2. [Hebrew]<\/p>\n

\u05d7\u05e0\u05d5\u05da, \u05e0. “\u05de\u05db\u05ea\u05d1 \u05de\u05dc\u05d5\u05e0\u05d3\u05d5\u05df.” \u05d3\u05d1\u05e8<\/strong>. 9 \u05d0\u05d5\u05d2. 1935 \u05e2\u05de’ 2.<\/p>\n

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[1926]<\/p>\n

—. Briefe<\/em>. Eds. <\/strong>Walter Muschg, Heinz Graber. <\/strong>Olten: Walter-Verlag, 1970. [German]<\/p>\n

—. \u201cZiel und Charakter der Freiland-Bewegung.\u201d in Horch. Schriften zu ju<\/em>\u0308dischen Fragen<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Solothurn: Walter-Verlag, 1995. pp. 312-322. [German]
\n—. \u201cJews Renew Yourselves.\u201d The Menorah Journal<\/em>. Volume XXIII, No. 1, (April-June 1935):<\/p>\n

pp. 80-87.<\/p>\n

—. \u201cTeritorialism un Neue-Yehuda.\u201d Frayland<\/em>. \u00a0[“\u05d8\u05e2\u05e8\u05d9\u05d8\u05d0\u05e8\u05d9\u05d0\u05dc\u05d9\u05d6\u05dd \u05d0\u05d5\u05df \u05e0\u05d9\u05d9-\u05d9\u05d4\u05d5\u05d3\u05d4.” \u05e4\u05e8\u05d9\u05d9\u05dc\u05d0\u05e0\u05d3.]<\/strong>No. 3-4.<\/p>\n

(Nov-Dec 1934): 14-25. [Yiddish]<\/p>\n

—. \u201cGzar-Din un Veg fun de Maarav Yidn.\u201d Frayland<\/em>. \u00a0“\u05d2\u05d6\u05e8-\u05d3\u05d9\u05df \u05d0\u05d5\u05df \u05d5\u05d5\u05e2\u05d2 \u05e4\u05d5\u05df \u05d3\u05d9 \u05de\u05e2\u05e8\u05d1-\u05d9\u05d9\u05d3\u05df.” \u05e4\u05e8\u05d9\u05d9\u05dc\u05d0\u05e0\u05d3]<\/strong><\/p>\n

No. 1-2. (Sept.-Oct. 1934): 42-49. [Yiddish]<\/strong><\/p>\n

—. \u201cTchiya Yehudit (part 8).\u201d Turim<\/em>. [“\u05ea\u05d7\u05d9\u05d4 \u05d9\u05d4\u05d5\u05d3\u05d9\u05ea (\u05d7).” \u05d8\u05d5\u05e8\u05d9\u05dd<\/strong>.] 8 Feb. 1934. pp. 5-6. [Hebrew]<\/p>\n

—. \u201cL\u2019korei Ivrit.\u201d Turim<\/em>. \u00a0[“\u05dc\u05e7\u05d5\u05e8\u05d0\u05d9 \u05e2\u05d1\u05e8\u05d9\u05ea.” \u05d8\u05d5\u05e8\u05d9\u05dd<\/strong>.]8 <\/sup>Dec. 1933. p.1. [Hebrew]<\/p>\n

Graber, Heinz. \u201cEditor\u2019s Introduction.\u201d in Alfred D\u00f6blin. Journey to Poland<\/em>. Trans. Joachim<\/p>\n

Neugroschel. New York: Paragon, 1991.<\/p>\n

Herman, N. \u201cHatzarat Moutet.\u201d Davar<\/em>. 1 Mar. 1937. p. 2. [Hebrew[<\/p>\n

[\u05d4\u05e8\u05de\u05df, \u05e0. “\u05d4\u05e6\u05d4\u05e8\u05ea \u05de\u05d5\u05d8\u05d4.” \u05d3\u05d1\u05e8. 1 \u05de\u05e8\u05e5 1937. \u05e2\u05de’ 2.]<\/p>\n

Horch, Hans Otto. Schriften zu ju<\/em>\u0308dischen Fragen<\/em>. Solothurn: Walter-Verlag, 1995. [German]<\/p>\n

Huguet, Louis. \u201cAlfred D\u00f6blin et le Judaisme.\u201d Annales de la Universite d\u2019Abidjan. Serie D<\/p>\n

Annales de l’Universit\u00e9 d’Abidjan. S\u00e9rie D, V.9. (1976): pp. 47-115. [French]<\/p>\n

Kruk, Josef. Tahat Diglan Shel Shalosh Mahapehot: Rusim, Polanim, Yehudim<\/em>. Vol. II. Trans.<\/p>\n

Halamish and Moshe Hurvitz. Tel Aviv: Mahbarot le-sifrut, 1970. [Hebrew]<\/p>\n

\u05e7\u05e8\u05d5\u05e7, \u05d9\u05d5\u05e1\u05e3. \u05ea\u05d7\u05ea \u05d3\u05d2\u05dc\u05df \u05e9\u05dc \u05e9\u05dc\u05d5\u05e9 \u05de\u05d4\u05e4\u05db\u05d5\u05ea: \u05e8\u05d5\u05e1\u05d9\u05dd, \u05e4\u05d5\u05dc\u05e0\u05d9\u05dd, \u05d9\u05d4\u05d5\u05d3\u05d9\u05dd. \u05db\u05e8\u05da 2. \u05ea\u05d9\u05e8\u05d2\u05d5\u05dd: \u05d7\u05dc\u05de\u05d9\u05e9 \u05d5\u05de\u05e9\u05d4 \u05d4\u05d5\u05e8\u05d1\u05d9\u05e5. \u05ea\u05dc \u05d0\u05d1\u05d9\u05d1: \u05de\u05d7\u05d1\u05e8\u05d5\u05ea \u05dc\u05e1\u05e4\u05e8\u05d5\u05ea, 1970.<\/p>\n

M\u00fcller-Salget, Klaus. \u201cD\u00f6blin and Judaism.\u201d in A Companion to the Works of Alfred D\u00f6blin<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Eds. Roland Dollinger, Wulf K\u00f6pke, Heidi T. Tewarson. Rochester, NY: Camden House,<\/p>\n

2004.<\/p>\n

\u201cRealist Attitude to the Jewish Problem.\u201d Jewish Chronicle<\/em>. 26 July 1935. pp. 36, 42.<\/p>\n

Rosenthal, Leonard. The Pearl Hunter: An Autobiography<\/em>. Trans. Herma Briffault. New York:<\/p>\n

Henry Schuman, 1952.<\/p>\n

Salomone, Sophie Romeuf. \u201cLe Pouvoir Colonial et Les Communautes Etrangeres a<\/p>\n

Madagascar 1896-1939.\u201d Thesis. Univ. de Lille III, 1990. [French]<\/p>\n

Tonini, Carla. Operation Madagascar<\/em>. unpublished English ms. translation of Operazione <\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em><\/p>\n

Madagascar: La Questione\u00a0 ebraica in Polonia, 1918-1968<\/em>. Bologna: CLUEB, 1999.<\/p>\n

[Italian] <\/em><\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> \u201c<\/strong>D\u00f6blin qtd. in Graber. \u201cEditor\u2019s Introduction.\u201d p. xii.<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Huguet. \u201cAlfred D\u00f6blin et le Judaisme.\u201d pp. 66-68.<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Huguet. \u201cAlfred D\u00f6blin et le Judaisme.\u201d pp. 66-68; M\u00fcller-Salget. \u201cD\u00f6blin and Judaism.\u201d p. 235.<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> Quotations in this paragraph taken from D\u00f6blin. Journey to Poland<\/em>. pp. 50, 102, 255.<\/p>\n

[5]<\/a> Minute book of Freeland League-London (date illegible). [CZA A330\/14]<\/p>\n

[6]<\/a> Kruk.\u05ea\u05d7\u05ea \u05d3\u05d2\u05dc\u05df<\/strong>. p. 448.<\/p>\n

[7]<\/a> <\/strong>D\u00f6blin. \u201cJews Renew Yourselves.\u201d p. 84.<\/p>\n

[8]<\/a> D\u00f6blin. Letter to Elvira & Arthur Rosin. 4 July 1933. Briefe<\/em>. p. 181.<\/p>\n

[9]<\/a> <\/strong>This and previous quote from: D\u00f6blin. \u201cJews Renew Yourselves.\u201d p. 87.<\/p>\n

[10]<\/a> D\u00f6blin. Letter to Thomas Mann. 23 May 1935. Briefe<\/em>. pp. 207-208.<\/p>\n

[11]<\/a> Quotations in this paragraph taken from: D\u00f6blin. \u201c\u05d2\u05d6\u05e8-\u05d3\u05d9\u05df \u05d0\u05d5\u05df \u05d5\u05d5\u05e2\u05d2 \u05e4\u05d5\u05df \u05d3\u05d9 \u05de\u05e2\u05e8\u05d1-\u05d9\u05d9\u05d3\u05df.\u201d \u05e4\u05e8\u05d9\u05d9\u05dc\u05d0\u05e0\u05d3<\/strong>. No. 1-2. (Sept.-Oct. 1934): 42-49.<\/p>\n

[12]<\/a> Quotations in previous two paragraphs taken from: D\u00f6blin. “\u05d8\u05e2\u05e8\u05d9\u05d8\u05d0\u05e8\u05d9\u05d0\u05dc\u05d9\u05d6\u05dd \u05d0\u05d5\u05df \u05e0\u05d9\u05d9-\u05d9\u05d4\u05d5\u05d3\u05d4.” \u00a0.\u05e4\u05e8\u05d9\u05d9\u05dc\u05d0\u05e0\u05d3<\/strong>No. 3-4. (Nov-Dec 1934): 14-25.<\/p>\n

[13]<\/a> D\u00f6blin. \u00a0.\u05d8\u05d5\u05e8\u05d9\u05dd <\/strong>“\u05dc\u05e7\u05d5\u05e8\u05d0\u05d9 \u05e2\u05d1\u05e8\u05d9\u05ea.”8 <\/sup>Dec. 1933 p.1.<\/p>\n

[14]<\/a> D\u00f6blin. \u201c\u05ea\u05d7\u05d9\u05d4 \u05d9\u05d4\u05d5\u05d3\u05d9\u05ea (\u05d7).\u201d <\/em>\u05d8\u05d5\u05e8\u05d9\u05dd <\/strong>. 8 Feb. 1934 p.5.<\/p>\n

[15]<\/a> D\u00f6blin. \u201cZiel und Charakter der Freiland-Bewegung.\u201d Title.<\/p>\n

[16]<\/a> \u201cRealist Attitude to the Jewish Problem.\u201d Jewish Chronicle<\/em>. 26 July 1935. p. 42.<\/p>\n

[17]<\/a> \u201cRealist Attitude to the Jewish Problem.\u201d Jewish Chronicle<\/em>. 26 July 1935. p. 36, 42<\/p>\n

[18]<\/a> \u05d7\u05e0\u05d5\u05da. “\u05de\u05db\u05ea\u05d1 \u05de\u05dc\u05d5\u05e0\u05d3\u05d5\u05df.” \u05d3\u05d1\u05e8<\/strong>. 9 \u05d0\u05d5\u05d2\u05d5\u05e1\u05d8 1935. \u05e2\u05de’2.<\/p>\n

[19]<\/a> Quotations in this paragraph taken from: D\u00f6blin. \u201cZiel und Charakter der Freiland-Bewegung.\u201d pp. 312-322.<\/p>\n

[20]<\/a> \u201cTribute to Israel Zangwill\u201d Jewish Daily Post<\/em>. 23 July 1935. n.p. [Zangwill Papers MS 294 18\/3\/2 HL]<\/p>\n

[21]<\/a> D\u00f6blin qtd. in Jewish Chronicle<\/em>. 26 July 1935. p. 36, 42.<\/p>\n

[22]<\/a> M\u00fcller-Salget. \u201cD\u00f6blin and Judaism.\u201d pp. 238-239.<\/p>\n

[23]<\/a> Letter J. Brutzkus to J. Leftwich. 1 Mar. 1937 [CZA A330\/14].<\/p>\n

[24]<\/a> Astour. \u05d2\u05e2\u05e9\u05d9\u05db\u05d8\u05e2 \u05e4\u05d5\u05df \u05d3\u05e2\u05e8 \u05e4\u05e8\u05d9\u05d9\u05dc\u05d0\u05e0\u05d3-\u05dc\u05d9\u05d2\u05e2.<\/strong>Vol. I. pp. 238-246..<\/p>\n

[25]<\/a> Huguet. \u201cAlfred D\u00f6blin et le Judaisme.\u201d p. 98.<\/p>\n

[26]<\/a> Huguet. \u201cAlfred D\u00f6blin et le Judaisme.\u201d pp. 105-108. D\u00f6blin converted in November 1941 but kept it a secret until July 1947, in part because of the sensitivities of his Jewish friends. <\/strong><\/p>\n

[27]<\/a> Astour. \u05d2\u05e2\u05e9\u05d9\u05db\u05d8\u05e2 \u05e4\u05d5\u05df \u05d3\u05e2\u05e8 \u05e4\u05e8\u05d9\u05d9\u05dc\u05d0\u05e0\u05d3-\u05dc\u05d9\u05d2\u05e2<\/strong>.Vol. I. pp. 184-187.<\/p>\n

[28]<\/a> Astour. \u05d2\u05e2\u05e9\u05d9\u05db\u05d8\u05e2 \u05e4\u05d5\u05df \u05d3\u05e2\u05e8 \u05e4\u05e8\u05d9\u05d9\u05dc\u05d0\u05e0\u05d3-\u05dc\u05d9\u05d2\u05e2<\/strong>.Vol. I. p. 186.<\/p>\n

[29]<\/a> D\u00f6blin. Briefe<\/em>. pp. 216-217. Letter to Peter D\u00f6blin 18 Sept. 1937.<\/p>\n

[30]<\/a> Freeland League to M. Moutet. 16 Dec. 1936. [CZA A330\/14] <\/strong><\/p>\n

[31]<\/a> Bash. “Gender and Survival: A Jewish Family in Occupied France, 1940-1944.\u201d p. 302.<\/p>\n

[32]<\/a> Astour. \u05d2\u05e2\u05e9\u05d9\u05db\u05d8\u05e2 \u05e4\u05d5\u05df \u05d3\u05e2\u05e8 \u05e4\u05e8\u05d9\u05d9\u05dc\u05d0\u05e0\u05d3-\u05dc\u05d9\u05d2\u05e2<\/strong>. Vol. I. p. 191.<\/p>\n

[33]<\/a> Rosenthal. The Pearl Hunter<\/em>. p. 128.<\/p>\n

[34]<\/a> This and previous quote from: <\/strong>\u201cA propos d\u2019un project d\u2019\u00e9tablissement d\u2019isra\u00e9lites dans les colonies fran\u00e7aises.\u201d\u00a0 Le Petit Parisien<\/em>. 16 Jan. 1937. p.2.<\/p>\n

[35]<\/a> \u201cPossibilities of Land Settlement in the French Colonies, America Joint Distribution Committee, European Executive Office, Paris. Sept. 1938.\u201d Letter from M. Moutet to Freeland League-EMCOL 19 Jan, 1937 reproduced in this document, henceforth referred to as \u201cPossibilities of Land Settlement in French Colonies.\u201d [Archive Nationales AJ43\/43]. Special thanks to Vicki Caron for helping me track down this source.<\/p>\n

[36]<\/a> \u05d4\u05e8\u05de\u05df. “\u05d4\u05e6\u05d4\u05e8\u05ea \u05de\u05d5\u05d8\u05d4.” \u05d3\u05d1\u05e8<\/strong>.1 \u05de\u05e8\u05e5 1937. \u05e2\u05de’ 2.<\/p>\n

[37]<\/a> \u201cA propos d\u2019un project d\u2019\u00e9tablissement d\u2019isra\u00e9lites dans les colonies fran\u00e7aises.\u201d Le Petit Parisien<\/em>. 16 Jan. 1937. p.2.<\/p>\n

[38]<\/a> This and previous quotations from: Telegram N. Goldmann to S. Wise 4 Oct. 1936. [WJC Papers; WL A15\/File 3 France 36-37]<\/p>\n

[39]<\/a> <\/strong>N. Goldmann qtd. in <\/strong>Tonini. Operation Madagascar<\/em>. p.11. Special thanks to Carla Tonini for providing me with her unpublished translation of her monograph.<\/p>\n

[40]<\/a> N.Goldmann qtd. in Salomone. \u201cLe Pouvoir Colonial et Les Communautes Etrangeres a Madagascar 1896-1939.\u201d p. 222.<\/p>\n

[41]<\/a> Telegram N. Goldmann to S. Wise 4 Oct. 1936. [WJC Papers; WL A15\/File 3 France 36-37]<\/p>\n

[42]<\/a> This and previous quote from: Letter to Charles J. Liebman from Dr. Bernhard Kahn and Dr. J. Rosen. 12 June 1937. In \u201cPossibilities of Land Settlement in French Colonies.\u201d [Archive Nationales AJ43\/43]<\/p>\n

[43]<\/a> Summary of \u201cPrevious Efforts on Behalf of Jewish Settlements in French Colonies.\u201d In \u201cPossibilities of Land Settlement in French Colonies.\u201d [Archive Nationales AJ43\/43] <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Jewish-German writer and doctor Alfred D\u00f6blin called to revive Zangwill\u2019s plan for a massive settlement in Angola. D\u00f6blin envisioned a new territorialist organization that would be even \u201cfarther-reaching than Zionism.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[33],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n