.4*
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
Friday; September 3, 1982 15
Zionist Leader Dr. Nahum Goldmann Had Controversial Career
(Continued from Page 1)
death for a viral -infec-
tion. His wife, son and
secretary were with him
at the time of his death. "
In Paris, where
Goldmann had a home, Le
Monde, the country's lead-
ing newspaper, announced
Goldma-n-n's death in a
three-column article on the
front page. Most of the mes-
sages described Goldmann
as the world statesman who
helped shape the destiny of
the Jewish people, and as a
man bluntly honest and
firm in his convictions.
Goldmann was a promi-
nent member of virtually
every international Zionist
and Jewish organization
since coming to promi-
nence in 1927 when he was
first elected a member of the
Zionist Actions Committee
and served as one of the
members of the Political
Commission which
negotiated with the British
government of Ramsey
MacDonald after the publi-
cation of the Passfield
White Paper by Britain.
He was co-founder of the
World Jewish Congress in
1949 and its president until
1978 when he was suc-
ceeded by Philip Klutznick.
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Goldmann was also
president of the World
Zionist Organization from
1956 to 1968; the Memorial
Foundation for Jewish Cul-
ture; the Conference on
Jewish Material Claims
4 gainst Germany; and Beth
tefutsoth in Tel Aviv —
the Nahum Goldmann
Museum of the Diaspora. -
* *
Many Fights
with Israelis
Goldmann was fre-
quently at odds with Israel's
leaders, both Labor and
Likud. Some of his fiercest
controversies were with
Premier David Ben-Gurion
over the relationship be-
tween the Jewish state and
the Diaspora and on the
issue of who was a Zionist.
Ben-Gurion insisted that
only those who had made
aliya could be considered
Zionists; all others, at best,
could be considered as "lov-
ers of Zion" or "friends of Is-
rael," but not Zionists.
Goldmann contended that
one need not make aliya to
be a Zionist.
In one famous debate
with Ben-Gurion in the
1950s, Goldmann pointed
out that not every Jews can
adhere to the 613 mitzvot
and that observing only 612
did not diminish a person's
Jewishness. By the same
token, he argued, many
Jews could not make aliya,
but this did not diminish
their Zionism if they fought
for its basic principles out-
side Isfael. Goldmann, him-
self, divided his time in re-
cent years between France
and Switzerland where he
had homes.
Goldmann was also in-
volved in a sharp _con-
troversy with Louis Pin-
cus when the latter was
chairman of the World
Zionist Organization. In
the early 1970s, when
many Soviet Jews began
to seek exit visas, Pincus
maintained that all Jews
should leave the Soviet
Union because the very
nature of th Soviet. re-
gime restricted their
freedom to live and func-
tion as Jews. Goldmann
contended that not all
Jews want to leave, and
that for those who opt to
remain„the campaign of
world Jewry should be to
demand that the Soviet
government allow those
Jews to live as Jews. -
Goldman was an unyield-
ing opponent of the gov-
ernment of Premier
Menahem Begin. He re-
cently accused Begin of fo-
menting anti-Semitism
with the Israeli invasion of
Lebanon and described De-
fense Minister Ariel Sharon
as a wild man who ter-
rorized the Cabinet as well
as Beirut.
Goldman ran into a storm
of criticism when he,
Klutznick and former
French Premier Pierre
Mendes-France issued a
joint statement last month
calling on Israel and the
PLO to mutually recognize
each other to achieve peace
in the Middle East.
He managed throughout
the years after the state of
Israel was founded to irri-
tate almost every Israeli
leader he dealt with. When
Adolf Eichmann, the Nazi
leader, was brought to trial
in Jerusalem in 1961,
Goldmann said the jury.
should include judges from
every country that the
Nazis had occupied. The
idea was not well received.
He accused the gov-
ernment of Levi Eshkol of
failing to understand
Arab psychology and
charged it with major
mistakes in conducting
military reprisals and
with incompetence in
dealing with the Soviet
Union whose govern-
ment, Goldmann always
felt, could be swayed by
rational ,,arguments
rather than pressure.
He also often warned that
Western governments
would one day grow tired of
having to deal with Israel's
security problems and
would abandon it in order to
get on with other world eco-
nomic and political prob-
lems.
He was also at odds with
leaders of Jewish com-
munities in the Diaspora for
being more concerned as he
put it with fund raising
than with consciousness-
raising.
* * *
Prime Force in
Zionist Movement
During World War II,
Goldmann was a prime
force within the Zionist
movement in the United
States, tirelessly arguing
for America's help in the
creation of a Jewish home-
land.
In fact, Goldmann had
endorsed a controversial
British government
pro-
__
posal in 1937 that recom-
mended dividing Palestine
into both Arab and Jewish
states. Although many
Jewish leaders bitterly op-
posed such a partitioning of
Biblical Palestine,
Goldmann argued that a
sovereign state in even a
small part of Palestine was
preferable to a situation in
which immigration — a
matter of life or death for
thousands of refugees from
Germany and potential ref-
ugees from Eastern Europe
— was increasingly subject
to restrictions by Britain.
A number of historians
give credit to Goldmann for
his intense lobbying of the
Truman Administration for
support of the so-called Par-
tition Plan to establish an
independent Jewish state in
Palestine. Final, strong
support of the U.S. for the
(Continued on Page 16)
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