Haim Arlosoroff
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Vitaly Viktor Haim Arlosoroff (Hebrew: חיים ארלוזורוב, also known as Haim Arlozorov or Haim Arlozoroff, 1899-1933) was a notable Zionist and a proponent of the State of Israel and the return of Jews to the Land of Israel.
Arlosoroff was born in Romny, Ukraine, but anti-Semitism forced his family to leave his birthplace and to settle in Berlin, Germany following a pogrom in 1905. This is where Haim grew up and went to school; later, being very interested in economics, he studied at the University of Berlin where he received a doctorate in that subject. While he was attending the university, Arlosoroff wrote articles on Zionist matters, such as getting money to the settlers in Palestine, and planning a program of cooperation between Jews and Arabs. While still in Germany, in 1918, he co-founded Ha-Po'el ha-Tza'ir, a party which attracted many intellectuals of the time.
In Berlin, his sister, Lisa, was one of the closest friends of Magda Goebbels with whom he had a long affair. After finishing his studies he left Germany for the British Mandate of Palestine in 1924. In 1926 he was chosen to represent the yishuv at the League of Nations in Geneva.
Arlosoroff became a leader of Mapai, the most important Jewish political party of the time, and was a close friend of the Jewish scientist and statesman, Haim Weizmann. His talents were recognized early, and Arlosoroff was soon appointed head of the political department of the Jewish Agency. At first he believed that the British would help settling Jews in Palestine, so he worked with the British government which was in charge of running that territory. Soon Arlosoroff came to feel that the British could not be trusted and that the Jews must risk angering them in order to rebuild their own homeland and save the Jews of Europe from the nationalist and authoritarian regimes under which they lived, especially in Nazi Germany.
[edit] The Ha'avara (transfer) agreement
At this point, Haim Arlosoroff visited Nazi Germany to negotiate the controversial Ha'avara (transfer) agreement with the Nazi government, an agreement which allowed for the emigration of Jews to Palestine along with most of their property. The Nazis were happy to get rid of Jews, but unwilling to allow them to take their property with them. Via this agreement, the Jews had to put their money into a special bank account. This money was then used to purchase German goods for export to Palestine (and other countries). The proceeds of the sale of these goods were given to the Jews on their arrival in Palestine. For the Nazis, this helped them get rid of Jews, while overcoming any attempts at a boycott of Nazi exports (especially from a moral point of view - it was the Jews themselves importing the goods). For the Zionist settlement, this huge influx of capital gave a much-needed economic boom in the midst of worldwide depression.
[edit] Arlosoroff's assassination
On June 16, 1933, just two days after his return from negotiations in Germany, Haim Arlosoroff was murdered. He was killed while walking with his wife Sima on a beach in Tel Aviv. The death of Arlosoroff greatly aggravated political relations within the Zionist movement. Abba Ahimeir, the head of an activist group, the Brit HaBirionim, was charged by the Palestine Police Force with plotting the assassination. Ahimeir was also a leader of the nationalist Zionist Revisionist faction whose publication, "Hazit Ha-Am" continuously attacked the Labor movement and Zionist leaders, including Arlosoroff. Two rank-and-file Revisionists, Abraham Stavsky and Zevi Rosenblatt, were arrested as the actual murderers and were identified by Arlosoroff's widow. All three vehemently denied the accusation.
The district court acquitted Ahimeir and Rosenblatt but convicted Stavsky, who, however, was eventually acquitted by the Supreme Court for lack of corroborating evidence. The defense accused the police of manipulating the widow’s testimony and other evidence for political reasons, and expounded the theory that the murder was connected to an intended sexual attack on Mrs. Arlosoroff by two young Arabs. Stavsky later rose within Irgun ranks and was responsible for the procurement of the Irgun arms vessel known as the "Altalena." He was killed while attempting to land this ship in the shores of Israel.
For years figures belonging to the right-wing map felt prosecuted in a blood libel and wrongfully accused by Mapai of being responsible for Artlosoroff's death. (Yibaneh, p. 17) This view of wrongfully being accused has its logic. While Arlozoroff had his disagreements with Jabotinsky and the Revisionists, Arlozoroff was moving closer to the Revisionist view that there may be a confrontation with the British. No doubt, the murder of Arlozoroff gave the opponents of Jabotinsky a weapon to discredit the Revisionists.
There is another theory. During the first world war, a Magda Behrend met and became close friends with Lisa Arlosoroff, Haim Arlozoroff's sister. Haim Arlozoroff began to seriously date Magda Behrend. The young lady, although Christian German , began wearing a Jewish star as the two planned their future on a distant kibbutz. By the end of the war, the couple broke up and went their separate ways. On December 19, 1931, Magda married Goebbels with Hitler as a witness. A year and a half later, Haim went to Germany to negotiate the Ha'avarah (transfer) agreement with high Nazi officials.
It is quite plausible that with Haim Arlozoroff's personal involvement in the negotiations, Goebbals took notice of his wife's former Jewish lover and sought to erase what might have been an embarrassment for Magda & Joseph Goebbels. It should be noted that Magda's former Jewish stepfather, Richard Friedländer, was arrested on Goebbels orders and died in the concentration camp in 1938. Haim Arlozoroff was murdered in 1933, two days after having returned from Germany.
On March 1982 the Israeli government, now led by Menachem Begin, established a formal investigative committee. It was led by the former High court of Justice Judge David Bachor. Its purpose was to decide whether Rosenblatt and Stavsky were responsible for assassinating Arlosoroff, or not. The committee decided unanimously that Rosenblatt and Stavsky had nothing to do with the murder. The committee was inconclusive about the identity of the real murderers or whether or not the murder was politically motivated.
Arlosorff's memory is honored today by the many streets named after him throughout the towns of Israel and in the names of the yishuvim Kfar Haim, Kiryat Haim, and kibbutz Giv'at Haim.
