Words of Truth and Peace

Lema'an achi vere'i! After the disorders in Eretz Yisroel in 1929, the Chief Rabbi of the Orthodox Jewish Community, Rabbi Yosef Chaim Sonnenfeld, zt"l, issued a touching appeal to the Arab population to live in peace with the Jewish community, and assuring them that the Jewish people have no designs on the Temple Mount nor Arab properties.

This appeal, presented in English translation, as printed in Arabic in the leading Arab newspaper as well as in Loshon Kodesh in the Agudah weekly, Kol Yisroel on November 22, 1929:

It is fifty-seven years since the L-rd allowed me to ascend to the Holy Land, to take pleasure in its stones and to enjoy its earth. Providence has permitted me to be a witness to the rebuilding of the ruins of Jerusalem, may it be built and established, to the expansion of its settlement beyond the city's walls. Houses were built and neighborhoods were founded. They established charitable institutions, foundations of Torah and service to G-d. Workshops were also established. Men who live by the toil of their hands and by trade have ascended to our Holy Land.

During the days of my dwelling in the Holy Land, the L-rd has aroused the spirit of certain esteemed individuals to fulfill the commandment of settling the land of Israel both by working the earth in order to partake of its fruit and be satiated by its goodness, and by fulfilling the commandments connected with the land. And with His help, may He be blessed, settlements have been established in Judah and the Galilee, which, afterwards, were a delight for me to walk through and give praise and thanks to the One who establishes the border of the widow.

The "Western Wall", the place from which the Divine Presence has not departed, even in its ruination, has been a place of refuge for all the inhabitants of the Holy Land to pour out their hearts. Whenever a Jewish soul has thirsted for closeness to G-d, whatever the supplication, whatever the prayer, he has gone to this holy place, and his prayer has ascended to heaven and he was helped.

This holy place also serves as a tower for the entire world. The dispersed of Israel, in far off lands, direct their hearts in prayer to this place where the Divine Presence dwells, and when they are in distress, they turn to their brothers in Jerusalem to arrange supplications for them by this "Western Wall".

There was no fixed time for this outpouring of prayer. Neither day nor night have the feet of Jews ceased treading in this holy corner. I too, have been favored by the L-rd to be among the visitors to this place. I too, have not, had a fixed time for this, and many times my feet stood in this holy place, late at night, alone, and in seclusion with the One who caused His name to dwell in this house. And all of these decades even after the land came under the mandate of His Royal Majesty's government, the government of Great Britain, may His Majesty be exalted, peace and tranquility prevailed in the land. The inhabitants of the land who are not the Children of Israel looked favorably upon the blossoming of the settlement. Antagonism to religion, which, lamentably is prevalent in many lands abroad, had no place in this sanctified land. The One who makes peace in His heavens had spread the tabernacle of His peace over the land and the city which He chose, and there was no violence or outrage in our streets. Our esteemed neighbors honored the Jews, and the Jews respected the other inhabitants of the land. On many occasions one group was helped by the other, as is fitting proper for tranquil neighbors, who together desire the success of their community. Also the Arabs knew and still know that the Jews seek their peace and well-being, and bring a blessing upon the entire land. All of them together awaited the great day of the L-rd, on which his Divine Presence will return to Zion, to restore its sanctity and glory, as in days of old, to be a light to the nations and kingdoms.

But behold now, woe unto us that such a thing has arisen in our days, a raging storming wind is turning upon the Jews of the Holy Land. Hatred and slander is taking root, causing the spilling of innocent blood and the destruction of holy settlements. The soil of the Holy Land is saturated with the blood of pure, innocent souls, and the voice of the blood of brothers cries out to us from the ground.

To our great sorrow, false accusations have been spread, invented by lovers of strife, which ascribe evil intentions to the Jewish inhabitants in order to arouse anger and vengeance, and to turn our quiet Holy Land into a battlefield and place of catastrophe, G-d forbid. The severe consequences of the dispute and belligerence bring a great loss to the entire community. And if the situation continues, G-d forbid, any longer, it is liable to bring misfortune and ruin upon the entire community and upon hundreds of thousands of its inhabitants.

I am eighty years old today, and in the days of my old age, the L-rd has bound me to see the destruction of the foundations of the settlement, which was built over a period of many years, with the toil and sweat of men who sacrificed themselves for it, and which was nurtured and reared by strong men, out of holy devotion and out of a strong will to secure the foundations of a settlement in the Land of Israel.

I turn to all sections of the population of the Holy Land, and in particular to those who are not of the Children of Israel and from the depths of my sad broken heart, I ask to to have pity on the Holy Land, and to say to the angel of destruction, "cease!" Remove hatred from your hearts, and don't allow yourselves to be misled by the false prophecies and seductions of men who, either with evil intent or because of mistaken assumptions are trying to increase division among the various parts of the population.

Don't turn your ears to slanders and false charges that are baseless. The Jewish inhabitants of the Holy Land do not seek, G-d forbid, the harm of the rest of the inhabitants. They desire, just as the other inhabitants of the land that which is good for the land and good for all those who dwell in it. The Jews do not want to encroach upon the rest of the inhabitants. The Holy Land is a beautiful land, in which, with the growth of the community and its expansion, there is room for all of its inhabitants to dwell in peace, without anyone interfering with his neighbor to the slightest degree.

The Jews do not want, in any way, to take that which isn't theirs. And they certainly don't want to contest the rights of the other inhabitants to the places held by them in which they regard with honor and consider holy. And in particular there is no foundation to the rumor that the Jews want to acquire the "Temple Mount". On the contrary, from the time that, because of our sins, we were exiled from our land, and our Holy Temple was destroyed, and we have been lacking the purity required by the Torah, it is forbidden for any man of Israel to set foot upon the grounds of the "Temple Mount", until the coming of the righteous Meshiach, who with the spirit of the L-rd, which will hover over him, will rule righteously, for the good of all creation, and will return to us the purity required by the Torah.

We request only that they leave us the most holy place that is left for us, as a refuge, the site of the Western Wall, so that we will still be able to pour out our prayers before our father in heaven, concerning any trouble that may befall us, G-d forbid, and whenever a Jewish soul desires this holy place, without any disturbance and with peace of mind, as was always the case.

I declare my words before everyone and I hope that all righteous peoples of the world will recognize the justic of my words and because of this recognition will make every exertion and explore every possibility to restore peace to the Holy Land, and to remove suspicion and jealousy from the hearts of all the inhabitants. And then the L-rd will take pleasure in our deeds and strengthen the work of our hands, in order to see the building of our Holy Land, and its blossoming, for the enrichment of the entire world, and then His Presence will dwell amongst us as in ancient times.

Awaiting speedy salvation

Yosef Chaim Zonenfeld

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TRUTH AND PEACE

The "Holy Land", upon which the eyes of the L-rd our G-d are from the beginning of the year until the end of the year, the land from which comes forth blessings for all the peoples, and in which the prohets of the L-rd forsaw the promises of the future and the perfection of all humanity, and from which they called for the peace of all creation, has groaned and cried for two years because of pain and insult, and it soil, which is permeated with holy memories of purity of heart and morality of character, has become a witness to raciel hatred and strife between neighbors. And the atmosphere of spiritual life is filled with suffocating clouds which poison every understanding heart, and remnant of human love.

The prolonged controversy and dissention is repelling the Divine Presence and is removing G-d forbid, the blessing of the L-rd from the beautiful and bountiful land, which is destined and assured by providence. And in its place come aching souls, quarrels between brothers, scheming hearts, lack of faith and trust in the L-rd, and mistaken and misleading suspicions of one another.

As one of the leaders of the "Holy Land", who has been privileged, with G-d's help, to be in this land, now nearly sixty years, and who has been an eyewitness to years of tranquility, security and complete peace between the inhabitants, I permit myself to turn to all the inhabitants of the Holy Land, regardless of race or religion, the people which the Divine Providence has given the privilege of dwelling in the land which is holier than any other land, to ask them, from the depts of my broken and said heart to have pity upon the bountiful land and upon the various ethnic groups that dwell in it, to come together to rebuild the moral ruins and to reestablish the broken fragments of humane feeling and divine ethnics, which have been ruined and shattered during the last few years.

Uproot every grudge from your hearts. Remove the suspicions that come from false prophecies and seductions which nest there, and pave the road to peace. The heads of the Jewish People in the Holy Land will be the first to call for peace, and the hearts of the leaders and heads of the Arab People will in turn be aroused to the restoration of peace to the people.

The blessing of the L-rd will accompany the goodwill of the inhabitants. It will enrich and crown this will with success and saturate the holy ground with the dew of life. And may we be privileged to see the new light which the L-rd will cause to shine on Zion, and nations will go by His light.

As the entreaty of one who awaits and longs for heavenly mercy,

Yosef Chaim Zonenfeld

These are the opening words of a message entitled "Words of Peace and Truth" which Rabbi Sonnenfeld composed under the shadow of the 1929 massacres. No doubt today they are liable to be dismissed as a timely expression of nostalgia on the part of an octogenarian whose experience of insecurity and oppression during the sixty of his years spent in the Old City was now mercifully obliterated by a medley of sweeter memories; but the evidence of his clarity and steadfastness to the last favours their acceptance as his assessment of the relationship between Jews and Muslims at its best or, at any rate, his appreciation of instances of kindness and consideration shown to a defenceless group at the mercy of an excitable populace. Deprived, to his sorrcw, of his trusted and skilful intermediary, the Rabbi felt stirred to make a personal appeal for good-will and restraint, based on traditional aversion to quarrels with the peoples of the world as well as on traditional fear.

The final paragraph in the above-quoted letter to Kisch ran as follows:

I got a letter (in a government envelope) telling me that I shall be killed if I do not leave Palestine before the 24th. I know that the question whether it is advisable or not to kill me is seriously discussed in the circles which you have the honour to represent".

De Haan was not intimidated: he had predicted his assassination by the Zionists to the Tharaud brothers when they visited him several months before, and he appears to have cherished his dismissal from the Law College (in the wake of Zionist hooliganism at his lectures) and the pressure on the Dutch newspaper to sever its connection with him as signs that his penitence was acceptable. Yet while, on his friends' testimony, he spent his last year on earth in calm and deliberate preparation for martyrdom, he did not interrupt his work or vary his daily routine. On Monday, 30th June, 1924, he had completed his arrangements to accompany an Aguda delegation, as legal adviser, to London in order to present the community's objections to the proposed Communities Ordinance at the Colonial Office. After despatching his last message to the Daily Express (6.5 p.m.) he made his way to the synagogue in the Sha'arei Sedeq Hospital where he prayed twice daily. When the evening service was over and the worshippers had reached the hospital gates, three shots rang out. De Haan fell to the ground. His devoted friend, Dr. Wallach, the hospital's founder and director, rushed out to attend him, but his soul had already fled from his blood-stained body. "When news of the murder reached Rabbi Sonmenfeld", wrote another friend, H. A. Goodman, "he tore his clothes in mourning. De Haan's funeral on the Mount of Olives was a demonstration of the entire religious population against this strange murder, for this was the first time in our generation that Jew stretched out his hands against Jew. Rabbi Sonnenfeld and many other Rabbis and communal leaders came to grant him the final honour, all of them outraged by the murder. During the seven days of mourning, representatives of the Arab Executive and the Muslim-Christian Association paid visits of condolence to Rabbi Sonnenfeld" (Jewish Post, 6th May 1960). Furthermore, among the eloquent eulogies published in the communal fortnightly was a (translated) tribute from Musa Kazim Pasha alHusayni, the Mayor of Jerusalem.

Expressions of shock at the crime by the Government and the Zionist Executive (who were also represented at the funeral) were matched by their concern to prevent the discovery of the criminals. The only Zionist of note to publish an unequivocal condemnation, albeit in a periodical with a restricted circulation, was .Moses Beilinson, who settled in the country at about that time.

The movement's flag should not be stained by the blood of either the innocent or the guilty. Otherwise, our movement will be in bad way. For blood always attracts bloodshed after it. Blood is always avenged, and if a step is taken on this path, there is no knowing where it might extend. We are strong enough to allow our enemies to remain alive and, if they use illegitimate means, to regard them with contempt; but we are not strong enough to adopt methods of war liable to involve moral destruction in the movement. Political sensitivity, concern for the purity of our movement and moral feeling compel us-irrespective of De Harm's personality or the motives of the perpetrators of this action-to issue a severe verdict on De Haan's murder.

Most Zionist editorial writers found it easier to condemn De Haan: admittedly, the more `liberal' tended to pronounce the victim-not his murderers-insane as they sorrowfully shook their heads over the tragedy of-to descend to their jargon a man of education and talent falling under the sway of mediaeval obscurantists. All evidently agreed that in papers read exclusively by Jews there was little point in pretending that the assassination had been instigated, planned and carried out by non-Jews. (For external consumption, the event was generally reported as "shrouded in mystery"). A change came with the hurried publication of a little book, by a party hack with the effrontery to re-name himself Ben-Yishai. The term ‘sublimation’ had obviously not yet reached the ‘enlightened’ circles of his home-town. Accordingly, be felt free to impute to De-Haan the sins which the poet's KwatAjnen were designed to dispel even from his unguarded phantasy. This unscrupulous propaganda line, which was calculated not only to defame the murdered man but also to divert the murder-hunt to Arab quarters, met with some success in the secularist camp. Arnold Zweig relates how on 6th March 1932 he was, to his surprise, convinced that "De Haan war gar niebt von Arabern ermordet, sondern von einem juden, einem politischen Ged er, einem radikalen Zionisten, den viele Leute im Lande kennen and der noch dort lebe" (Sigmund Freud-Arnold Zweig Briefweehset, Berlin 1968; p. 55f). The next day Zweig began dictating his unilluminating novel on the subject, "De Vriendt kehrt heim°, which was published in Berlin at the end of 1932.

Among the faithful, however, no amount of Zionist propaganda could shake De Haan's credentials. They had themselves witnessed his meticulous observance of the Divine precepts and could testify to his flawless conduct, humility, compassion and contrition. What proof could be more valid than his adherence to, and acceptance by, their spiritual leaders, his arduous endeavours in obedience to their instructions and, above all, his death at the hands of their enemies? I wish I could reproduce the tone of reverence and affection in which he was mentioned by the select hand of friends and admirers whom I was twice priveleged to accompany to his grave on 29th Sivan. And he is still commemorated-particularly by the Guardians of the City, whose frail periodical has never allowed this anniversary to pass without a hagiographical memoir.

Nor has the Other Side grown indifferent to him: over the years its press agents continue to write about him from time to time, their dreary and inaccurate articles betraying ignorance of the nature of both penitence and poetry and, more generally, reinforcing De Haan's disdain for their puny culture. Take the Haganah's eventual confession in its official history (Toledoth Ha-Haganah, Vol. 11 Part 1 1964 pp.251-3). The order allegedly came from Joseph Hecht, who instructed Zachariah Urieli, the Jerusalem commander, to have De Haan killed by the smallest possible group; and a couple of (anonymous) immigrants, too recent to have heard of De Haan, answered Urieli's call for volunteers. From this account, the Haganah would appear to have been an autonomous force free to inflict the death penalty without the Zionist leadership's consent or even knowledge-and all on the authority of a single individual, for the writer gives us no indication of the composition of the court which passed the sentence. He is content to cite the case of Colonel Redl, an Austro-Hungarian staffofficer who was blackmailed into selling military secrets to the Russians, and to assert, without a shred of evidence, that De Haan had been similarly induced to collaborate with the Arab Executive. Analogies, however far-fetched, with the peoples of the world are, of course, part of the Zionist mystique; but the comparison with Redl is even more ludicrous than that with T. E. Lawrence, who at least shared with De Haan an acquaintance with the Arabic language. Published verses on the Divinely-contrived conflict in the human heart scarcely expose the poet to blackmail; Zionist secrets, whether military, political or economic, were inaccessible to him; and the idea of anyone 'using' Rabbi Sonnenfeld is as conceivable as a plan for manipulating Mount Everest. De Haan may perhaps be haunting the inward points of his enemies' souls and demanding to be exorcised by their acknowledgement of the Truth.

However, the quality of Zionist propaganda is of very minor importance to us; that our heroes are their villains and vice versa lies at the root of our situation; and we ought to be more perturbed by efforts to blur the differences. Fundamentally De Haan was murdered for publicizing these differences, for advertising to the world what the Zionists want to suppress, the fact that there are Jews who love Zion passionately and hate Zionists as defilers and despoilers of Zion. Accordingly, our homage is to be paid to the penitent who rose from the idol's feet to spit in its face and sacrificed his life to rescue the faithful from its clutches. In these uncertain times when Satan, having lavishly fullfilled his side of the bargain, is feared to be about to exact his price, the martyr's intercession is sorely needed. May the memory of his sacrifice mount to the Throne of Glory, arouse Heaven's compassion for the Remnant of Israel and hasten the Redemption of Zion, Amen.

BACKGROUND NOTES

1. The Zionist furor over Rabbi Sonnenfeld's visit to the Sharif Husayn must be understood in the light of Arab nationalism's liberal phase. Most of the anti-Zionist declarations drawn. up by Arab leaders in the early twenties distinguished between Jews and Zionists; and the generosity of their sentiments induced some Oriental Jews to add their signatures to anti-Zionist petitions. In 1823, a group of them met in one of their synagogues to protest against Zionist rule and call for Jewish Arab friendship. The Zionist leadership was shocked and alarmed by this demonstration, which it managed to keep out of the newspapers. However, the 1929 outbreak put an end to this development: their own losses forced the vast maiority of Zionism's Jewish opponents, both European and Oriental, to rely on Zionist ‘protection’.

2. Zionist newspapers have named the assassins as Abraham Krichevski (Giora) and Abraham Silberg (Tahomi)-the former is said to have died in Tel Aviv in 1942, the latter to have emigrated to California-and identified Isaac Ben-Zwi, his wife, Rachel Yanait, Moses Eisenstadt and Aviezer Yellin as prominent in the Haganah's Jerusalem branch at the time. Hecht, to whom the Haganah's historian ascribes the sole responsibility for the order to kill De Haan, was dismissed from his command by the Zionist leadership as the result of an investigation into the Haganah's failure to give prior warning of the 1929 outbreak

Words of Truth and Peace by Yosef Chaim Zonenfeld zi"a