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Detroit, Michigan Holiday Greetings to All Our Friends CONTINENTAL FOOD BROKERAGE CO. 17501 West Eight Mile Road Detroit, Michigan 48235 255 - 5880 Best Wishes For A Happy and Healthy New Year IRON From Eddie & Gl S l% Sho Janie Citron If, 29500 Greenfield at Lincoln Green Lincoln Building , 968-1110 23077 Greenfield Advance Building (Lower Level) Southfield, Mi. 48075 559-9119 for a -Wappy , -Wealth y and Peace/tit new gear How Smolar Brought Together Soviet, Zionist Delegations at UN in 1947 By BORIS SMOLAR (Copyright 1973 JTA, Inc.) (Editor's Note: This article is a chapter from the forth- coming book by Boris Smolar relating high points of his worldwide journalistic ex- periences. In this chapter, Smolar relates how he was instrumental in bringing to- gether the Jewish Agency delegation and the Soviet delegation at the United Na- tions during the discussions there on the historic "Parti- tion Resolution" which re- sulted in the proclamation of Israel). In the spring of 1947, the British government, which then held the Palestine Man- date, handed over the Pales- tine issue to the UN. It was stated that Britain was going to abandon the mandate be- cause she could not solve the conflicts between Jews and Arabs. The UN then ap- pointed a commission of 11 members to inouire into the Palestine problem and to make the necessary recom- mendations. The commission returned two reports. A majority recommended the partition of Palestine into two separ- ate states. Jewish and Arab. A minority report recom- mended the introduction into Palestine of a form of Fed- erated Republic in which Jews and Arabs would have autonomous regions. The State Department — but not President Truman— was at that time more pro- Arab due to the influence of the British government which threatened that the Arabs would murder all the Jews of Palestine after the last English troops would have left the country. At that time the attitude of the Soviet delegation in the UN on the two recommendations was unknown. The head of the Soviet delegation, Andre Gromyko, and his assistant, Semeon Tsarapkin, were silent. It was important to get to know their views. The Jewish Agency was unable to make the least effort to find out what the Russians were thinking, if only be- because it was well known that Moscow had always been opposed to Zionism, and that it had considered the Zionists "agents of Bri- tish imperialism." The delegation of the Jew- ish Agency, led by Moshe Shertok — later famous as Moshe Sharett when he Hebraized his name after the proclamation of the state of Israel — was in favor of the "Partition" recommendation which, for the first time in 2,000 years, gave the Jews the opportunity to re-estab- lish their own state. The great problem was whether sufficient members of the UN would vote in favor of "Partition." Votes of the Soviet bloc in the General Assembly of the UN were to be a decisive factor. Without them there was not the least chance of obtaining a major- ity of votes in favor of "Par- tition" in the UN General Assembly. It was important to find out what were the views of Gromyko and Tsarapkin on the "Partition" recommen- dation. In the lobby set aside for UN diplomats — at that time the UN did not have its own building and was conducting BORIS SMOLAR its sessions at Lake Success near New York in a large building which had previous- ly been a factory for mili- tary industry — I used to meet, in my journalistic capacity, during those his- toric days, with leading members of the American delegation and with delega- tions of other countries which played a leading role in the course of the UN ses- sions. I had many intimate friends among them who kept me informed on views prevailing among their own delegations. I did not, however, have such contact with the Soviet delegation. Their members kept themselves isolated. One of the leading mem- bers of the Soviet delegation was a Jew, Prof. Boris Stein, whom I knew well and whom I often met when I worked in Moscow as an American correspondent; but at the UN he pretended not to know me. I have reason to think that he was grateful to me that I was deliberately avoiding him, and that I was not even greeting him as an acquaint- ance. He was the "legal ad- viser" at the Soviet For- eign Office in Moscow and was appointed the third leading member of the So- viet UN delegation, after Gromyko and Tsarapkin. However, although I avoid- ed making any attempt to talk to Prof. Stein, I did decide to talk to Tsarapkin. I introduced myself to him in tihe diplomatic lobby as chief editor of the JTA and told him that 20 years earlier I had worked in Moscow as a correspondent of Pulitzer's New York World. I talked to him in Russian, and I did not expect to hear any extra- ordinary news from him. I was pleasantly surprised to find Tsarapkin was friend- ly and that he was showing willingness to talk with me when I assured him that the conversation would not be used by me for the press. We were talking about acquaintances in general whom I had known in Mos- cow at the foreign office, going back to the years when I, as an American corre- spondent, had to come there every day to have my cables to New York censored. I also talked about some Soviet writers whom I had known personally. Naturally, this was an introduction for me to discuss the UN with him and, above all, the Palestine problem which was the focus of the discussions at the ses- sions of the UN General As- sembly and special commis- sions — discussions In which his delegation participated. A well-trained diplomat— he is now the deputy of the foreign ministry in Moscow and the leading figure in the Soviet-American arms reduc- tion negotiations—Tsarapkin was a smooth talker, but he did not tell me anything apart from what was already known. I thought that this first talk of ours, though I learned nothing from it, would open the door for pos- sible additional conversation with that important Soviet Midrash Lore diplomat in the course of the UN sessions. I therefore con- on Marriage sidered it tactically better Before a man marries, his not to ask then about the love goes to his parents; after he marries, his love goes to his wife. —Pirke de-R. Eliezer Rabbi Judah said: "If a Rabbi Jacob said: "He who has no wife lives with- man does no work, people out good, or help, or joy, or speak about him and say, blessing, or atonement." `How does so-and-so manage Rabbi Joshua of Sikhnin to eat and drink?' It is like (Sogane), in the name of a woman who has no hus- Rabbi Levi, added that such band, but who decks herself a man is also without life. and goes into the street, and Rabbi Hiyya ben Gammada people speak about her." Rabbi Me'ir said: "He who said that he is not really a complete man, and some say does not work in the week that he diminishes the Divine will end by working on the Likness. —Bereshit Rabba Sabbath. How is this? If a There was once a pious man is idle for two or three man who was married to a days, he will have nothing to pious woman, and they had eat, and he will steal. They no children. They said, "We will catch him, hand him are no profit to God." so they over to the government, and divorced one another. The cast him into prison, where man went and married a bad he will have to work on the woman, and she made him Sabbath." bad. The woman, on the Rabbi Eleazar ben Azariah other hand, went and mar- said: "Great is work, and ried a bad man, and she each craftsman should walk made him good. This proves abroad with the implements that all depends up on the of his calling, and be proud woman. —Bereshit Rabba of them. Thus the weaver The bridegroom should not should appear with a shuttle enter the marriage chamber in his hand, the dyer with until the bride gives him wool in his arms, and the leave.— Pesikta Rabbati. scribe with his pen behind There is no greater adul- his ear. All have a right to tery than when a woman, be proud of their craft. Even while her husband has inter- God speaks of His own work course with her, thinks of (Gen. 2:2); how much more another man. should man!" —Abot d'R. Nathan —Tanhuma Buber, Naso Great Is Work! Soviet attitude to the "Par- tition" recommendation, and to leave it for another occa- sion. But I did put a ques- tion to him to which I re- ceived a rather unexpected and important answer: "Would you like me to introduce a representative of the Jewish Agency to you?" I asked him, knowing that his delegation had no con- tact with the Jewish Agency delegation. I was sure that he would tactfully reply "no." I was surprised when he answered in a very natural and friend- ly tone, "why not . . ." Such a short and positive reply by Tsarapkin I had not expect- ed. I looked around in the diplomatic lobby to see which of the leaders of the Jewish Agency happened to be there, and I saw Dr. Emanuel Neumann sitting quietly in a corner and talk- ing to a man from Washing- ton. "Here is Dr. Neumann sitting, one of the main lead- ers of the Jewish Agency in America," I told Tsarapkin, "can I bring him over to you?" "Certainly!" was his reply. I left him alone for a few seconds, and I harried over to Dr. Neumann and told h'm that I had arranged for him to see Tsarapldn now. Surprised, he excused him- self from his friend from Washington and I led him to Tsarapkin and introduced them to each other. Since Dr. Neumann does not speak Russian — though Tsarapkin speaks good English — I re- mained between the two of them as a participant in the conversation, and I assisted here and there, translating a word from Russian which Tsarapkin might use in the course of the conversation. Before long the eyes of various diplomats who were present in the lobby were turned to the corner where the Tsarapkin - Neumann meeting was taking place. This was the first time in the history of the UN that anyone had seen a leading Soviet delegate talking to a leading Zionist openly, at the time when Zionism was pro- hibited in Soviet Russia. The astonished diplomats drew proper diplomatic specula- tive conclusions from this. By itself the conference between Tsarapkin and Neu- mann did not contain any- thing of momentous political importance. They did not talk about the "Partition" recommendation or even about the Palestine problem in general. On the past of Tsarapkin it was not more than a hint that the doors of the Soviet UN delegation were open for a delegation from the Jewish Agency. That in itself was an extra- ordinary achievement. Par- ticularly important was the fact that Tsarapkin talked to Dr. Neumann in public. The meeting between Dr. Neumann and Tsarapkin was the beginning of the informal meetings held later between the delegation of the Jewish Agency led by Moshe Sher- tok (Sharett) and the Soviet delegation in the building of the Soviet consulate in New York which culminated in the Soviet vote at the UN for the Partition Resolution.