Nahum Goldmann

Goldmann was born in Vishnevo, then in the Russian Empire and now in Belarus.[1] Several biographical sources describe the same birthplace as Lithuania, reflecting differing geographic frames.[2][4] He came from a Litvak family associated with teaching and writing.[1] His father, Solomon Zevi Goldmann, was a writer and Hebrew teacher whose commitment to Zionism shaped his upbringing.[2][4] During his childhood, the family moved to Germany, and he grew up in Frankfurt in an environment steeped in Jewish life.[1][2] He began writing and delivering Zionist speeches while young, later recalling: “I can hardly say when I became a Zionist. Even as a child I was a Zionist without knowing it.”[5]

At fifteen, Goldmann published an anonymous article attacking Solomon Reinach, vice president of the Alliance Israélite Universelle; the article contributed to Reinach’s resignation.[2] While still a high-school student, Goldmann accompanied his father to the Tenth Zionist Congress in Basel in 1911.[1] He subsequently studied law, history, and philosophy at the universities of Marburg, Heidelberg, and Berlin, receiving qualifications in law and philosophy.[1] His postwar education included doctorates in law and the humanities at Heidelberg.[4]

In 1913, Goldmann made his first visit to the Land of Israel, spending four months there and renting an apartment in Jerusalem.[1][5] Although he loved the land, he returned to Germany rather than remain there.[5] His impressions appeared in 1914 in the German-language book Eretz Israel: Travel Letters from Palestine, also identified by its German title, Eretz Israel, Reisebriefe aus Palaestina.[1][2] The journey thus became both an early personal encounter with the Jewish homeland and the subject of one of his first substantial publications.[1][5]

During World War I, Goldmann worked in the Jewish section of the German Foreign Ministry and favored a pro-German orientation for the Zionist movement.[2] In 1918, he attempted to enlist Kaiser Wilhelm’s support for Zionism.[1] His subsequent career developed along parallel political and cultural paths: he participated in Zionist institutions while building publishing projects intended to serve Jewish intellectual life.[1][2]

With the Jewish philosopher Jacob Klatzkin, Goldmann published the Zionist periodical Freie Zionistische Blaetter in 1921–1922 and developed plans for a German-language Jewish encyclopedia.[2] Their Eshkol publishing enterprise issued ten German volumes and two Hebrew volumes of the Encyclopaedia Judaica before Nazi rule interrupted the project.[1][2] Publication began in 1928 and continued into 1934.[2][6] Decades later, Goldmann helped initiate the encyclopedia’s English-language revival in Jerusalem, which appeared in 1971.[6]

Goldmann attended every Zionist Congress from 1921 and joined the Radical Zionist faction in 1923, after an earlier association with Ha-Po'el ha-‘Air.[7][2] In 1926, he was elected the faction’s representative on the Zionist Actions Committee.[2] He criticized Chaim Weizmann’s proposal to enlarge the Jewish Agency through the inclusion of non-Zionists, although he subsequently participated in the Agency.[2][7] He also argued that Zionist leaders gave insufficient attention to the political and cultural needs of Diaspora Jews, maintaining that Eretz Israel could not absorb all Jews and should inspire Jewish renewal beyond its borders.[2]

At the Seventeenth Zionist Congress in 1931, Goldmann chaired the Political Committee and played a decisive part in assembling the majority against Weizmann’s reelection as president of the Zionist Organization.[2] After the Radical faction dissolved in 1933, he moved closer to Weizmann and eventually cooperated with him.[2] His political work also included participation in negotiations with the British government after Lord Passfield’s White Paper.[8]

In August 1932, Goldmann organized a preparatory conference in Geneva, at the invitation of the American Jewish Congress, to advance the creation of a World Jewish Congress.[3] He explained its purpose as establishing “the permanent address of the Jewish people” amid the “fragmentation and atomization of Jewish life,” with a legitimate collective body entitled to address governments and Jews themselves.[3] The conference elected an Executive Committee that included Goldmann and Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, and further preparatory conferences followed in 1933 and 1934.[3][9]

Before the founding plenary, the preparatory committee, frequently represented by Goldmann, contacted governments and the League of Nations, promoted an economic boycott of Germany, organized rescue and relief efforts, and investigated and documented deteriorating Jewish conditions in Europe.[9] The World Jewish Congress was formally established at its first plenary assembly in Geneva in August 1936, with Goldmann and Wise among its principal organizers.[3] Goldmann became chairman of its Administrative Committee and worked with Maurice Perlzweig in advocacy before the League of Nations and Eastern European governments.[3]

His work in this period also drew on the Comité des Délégations Juives, an umbrella organization seeking guarantees of Jewish minority rights in Central and Eastern Europe.[4] Goldmann became its chairman at the end of 1933, following Motzkin’s death, and in 1935 became the Jewish Agency’s representative at the League of Nations.[2] Through these overlapping offices, he represented both Zionist aspirations and the immediate protection needs of Jewish communities.[4][6]

Goldmann worked to prevent Nazi discriminatory laws from applying in Upper Silesia, protested anti-Jewish legislation in Romania, and appealed for the protection of Austrian Jews after the Anschluss.[4] He represented the Jewish Agency and World Jewish Congress at the Evian Conference on refugees, participated in the anti-Nazi boycott movement, and took part in negotiations over the Haavara, or Transfer, Agreement between the Jewish Agency and German authorities.[4] He also petitioned Benito Mussolini in November 1934 concerning Jews in the Saar, which was approaching reunion with Nazi Germany.[1]

Goldmann narrowly avoided Gestapo arrest in 1933 because he was in Palestine for his father’s funeral.[1] Deprived of German citizenship in 1935, he obtained Honduran citizenship following the intervention of French minister Louis Barthou.[1] He spent part of his exile in Switzerland before moving to the United States in June 1940, where he continued his work for the Jewish Agency and the World Jewish Congress.[4] In Switzerland, he had met Gerhart Riegner, who subsequently agreed to serve as the World Jewish Congress’s representative there.[10]

After moving to New York, Goldmann worked with Stephen Wise to mobilize American public opinion on behalf of Jews in Nazi-occupied Europe.[4] He established the Zionist Emergency Council for political work and represented the Jewish Agency Executive, later becoming chairman of its American Section.[2] After receiving the Riegner cable in August 1942, Goldmann and Wise publicized information about the Final Solution.[4]

The catastrophe unfolding in Europe formed the setting for Goldmann’s call for an extraordinary Zionist conference in 1942.[1] The resulting Biltmore Program called, among other objectives, for unrestricted Jewish immigration to British Mandatory Palestine.[1] In an address that year, he described the anguish of Jews beyond Nazi control: “Our generation is in the tragic position that one-half of the generation is being slaughtered before our eyes, and the other half has to sit down and cannot prevent this catastrophe.”[1]

Goldmann chaired the New York-based Advisory Council on European Jewish Affairs, whose representatives came from eighteen countries.[4][6] Its work included aid parcels, food and medicine shipments for Jews in ghettos and camps, rescue planning, and proposals for postwar rehabilitation.[4][6] A rescue plan was submitted to the Bermuda refugee conference in 1943.[6] In 1944, Goldmann proposed a broad rehabilitation program that included German payments, the use of heirless Jewish property for reconstruction, and punishment of Nazi criminals.[6]

In the struggle for Jewish sovereignty, Goldmann strongly supported partition by 1937, regarding independence as more important than possession of a particular territory.[2] He supported a Jewish state alongside an Arab state and defined the objective as “a viable Jewish state in an adequate area of Palestine.”[1] This approach led him to support David Ben-Gurion at the Biltmore Conference and to participate in diplomatic and public-relations efforts for statehood through May 1948.[2] He also lobbied the American and British governments in favor of separate Jewish and Arab states.[7]

After the war, Goldmann worked to secure the admission of survivors to Palestine and collaborated with Ben-Gurion toward Israel’s creation.[4][1] He nevertheless advised delaying the declaration of independence to allow additional time for a diplomatic understanding with the Arabs; that advice was not accepted.[1] After Israel’s establishment, he became one of two chairmen of the Executive of the Zionist Organization, serving alongside Berl Locker.[2]

In 1951, at the request of Israeli Foreign Minister Moshe Sharett, Goldmann convened the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany in his capacity as co-chairman of the Jewish Agency, rather than as president of the World Jewish Congress.[3] Established in New York by twenty-three national and international Jewish organizations, the Claims Conference elected him president.[11] Its purposes included relief, rehabilitation, and resettlement for Jewish victims of Nazi persecution, reconstruction of Jewish communal life, indemnification for injuries, and restitution of confiscated property.[11]

Goldmann helped arrange preliminary contacts with West German officials, particularly Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, and led the Claims Conference delegation in the reparations negotiations.[2] He acknowledged the importance of earlier advocacy by Noah Barou, saying he was “not at all sure” that an agreement would have been possible without him.[3] His preliminary discussions also involved his position as chairman of the American Section of the Jewish Agency.[12] In one secret meeting undertaken on Ben-Gurion’s behalf, Goldmann sought Adenauer’s acceptance of Israel’s claim as the basis for negotiations and later delivered the chancellor’s signed approval to Ben-Gurion.[13]

Formal negotiations between West Germany, Israel, and the Claims Conference opened at The Hague in March 1952.[11] They lasted six months and passed through several crises, including a heated dispute over the amount in May.[14][15] During an April meeting, Adenauer raised Germany’s financial constraints and the possible effects of Israel’s demands on separate creditor negotiations in London.[16] Goldmann accepted a requested two-week delay while warning that Israel’s government needed an immediate result for domestic political reasons.[16]

German banker Hermann Abs subsequently approached Goldmann at his London hotel with a proposal for goods worth $100 million over several years.[16] Goldmann rejected it as an insult, saying it represented only eight percent of Israel’s original demand.[16] Negotiations also addressed the composition of deliveries: Israeli representatives insisted that goods strengthen the country’s economic foundations rather than consist largely of consumer items, and Adenauer agreed to limit consumer goods to three percent of the total.[16]

The agreements were signed at Luxembourg City Hall on September 10, 1952, by Adenauer, Sharett, and Goldmann.[15] They provided for deliveries of goods and services to Israel and assistance to Jewish victims through the Claims Conference, alongside arrangements concerning personal compensation and property restitution.[11] One protocol committed West Germany to provide the Claims Conference with DM 450 million over a decade for victim assistance and Jewish communal and cultural reconstruction.[11]

Goldmann’s reconstruction work extended beyond material compensation.[2] In 1965, the Claims Conference established the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture with initial capital of $10,432,000.[11] Goldmann established the foundation using German reparations funds to help develop scholars, intellectuals, rabbis, and communal and cultural leaders after the destruction of Europe’s Jewish cultural elite.[17] He served as its president from 1965.[7]

Goldmann became acting president of the World Jewish Congress after Stephen Wise’s death in 1949 and served as president from 1953 until 1977.[7][6] Upon relinquishing the presidency, he was named founder-president.[2] At the 1956 Zionist Congress in Jerusalem, he became president of the World Zionist Organization and chairman of the Jewish Agency, receiving reelection at the 1960–1961 and 1964–1965 congresses.[18] His presidency of the Zionist organization ended in 1968.[1]

He participated in formulating the 1951 Jerusalem Program and negotiated with the Israeli government over the World Zionist Organization’s status and its covenant with the state.[2] At the 1964–1965 congress, he urged the Zionist movement to assume greater responsibility for Diaspora communities and assist Jews facing spiritual decline and assimilation.[18] His institutional work also included chairing the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations from 1954 to 1959, creating the Conference of Jewish Organizations in 1958, and founding the World Council of Jewish Education.[7][2]

Goldmann regarded Israel as central to Jewish life while defending the legitimacy and continuing necessity of the Diaspora.[2] He believed the Jewish state could not meet the needs of all Jews and that Israel depended on world Jewry and international support.[19] Assimilation, which he associated with emancipation and postwar prosperity, was in his view a major threat to Jewish continuity; preserving Jewish distinctiveness therefore required sustained educational work.[2]

In a clarification published during a 1976 discussion of exile and Diaspora, Goldmann affirmed the Diaspora as a legitimate sphere of Jewish life without assigning it significance equal to that of the Jewish state.[20] He described galut as “a holy concept, mystical,” and characterized the Jewish people’s relationship with the Land of Israel as “irrational,” extending into religion and mysticism.[20] His defense of Jewish life outside Israel thus accompanied an understanding of the land’s distinctive religious and historical place in Jewish identity.[20]

Goldmann became an Israeli citizen in 1962 but did not settle permanently in the country, dividing his time principally between Israel and Switzerland.[1] He also acquired Swiss citizenship.[1] His autobiography appeared in 1969.[7] He remained active in Jewish affairs until his death in Bad Reichenhall, Germany, on August 29, 1982, and was buried at Jerusalem’s Mount Herzl National Cemetery.[1] He was survived by his wife Alice and their sons Guido and Michael.[1]

In 1953, Goldmann campaigned to improve the position of Soviet Jews, warning that they faced spiritual annihilation.[21] He sought links between Soviet Jews and the World Jewish Congress and worked for renewed Yiddish publishing and Jewish cultural life.[21] At a 1957 Executive meeting, he argued that Jewish organizations should no longer hesitate to bring the circumstances of Soviet and Eastern European Jews before the world.[21] He chaired the first international conference for Soviet Jewry in Paris in 1960.[2]

Goldmann supported both emigration and the preservation of Jewish life for those who remained in the Soviet Union.[21] After the 1970 Leningrad trial of Soviet Jews who had sought to leave the country, he condemned the proceedings, called for freedom to emigrate to Israel, and demanded full opportunities for Jewish religious, cultural, and communal activity.[21] In later diplomatic discussions, he emphasized freedom to publish and worship, regarding such cultural rights as no less important than emigration.[22]

His approach to Arab-Israeli relations similarly emphasized negotiation.[1] In 1970, a possible meeting with Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser was abandoned after the Israeli government expressed disapproval.[2] Goldmann continued to pursue contacts across national lines, seeking a gathering of prominent Jewish and Arab intellectuals, including Israelis and Palestinians, tentatively planned for Vienna in January 1978.[22] He described the proposed encounter as a potential “moral breakthrough.”[22]

In discussions recorded during this period, Goldmann urged Israelis not to make major concessions for anything less than full peace and warned that a prolonged peace process could end in a tragic war.[22] He also reported regular meetings with an emissary of Yasser Arafat and conveyed the emissary’s proposal concerning possible talks between the United States and the Palestine Liberation Organization.[22] These were contacts and proposals that Goldmann himself reported during his diplomatic discussions.[22]

The World Jewish Congress, Claims Conference, and revived Encyclopaedia Judaica embodied three enduring fields of Goldmann’s work: collective Jewish representation, material reconstruction after Nazi persecution, and the preservation and renewal of Jewish knowledge.[3][6] His institutional activity also encompassed Jewish education, coordination among communal organizations, and the training of a new cultural leadership through the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture.[2][17]

Goldmann’s conception of Jewish peoplehood joined support for sovereignty in Israel with responsibility for communities outside it.[2][19] His support for partition, work toward Jewish statehood, and insistence on continued Diaspora vitality formed connected elements of his public program.[2] His later calls for Arab-Israeli engagement and Soviet Jewish cultural rights likewise reflected his preference for sustained diplomacy alongside institution-building.[21][22]

His papers and organizational records preserve correspondence, speeches, statements, and proposals spanning several decades.[9] They include material on economic assistance to Poland in 1939–1940, studies of Jewish conditions, his leadership of the World Jewish Congress, and his relations with Israel.[9] His role in the reparations negotiations has also remained a subject of documentary treatment, including a film in which he was presented as a central participant.[23]

Negotiating with West Germany provoked profound opposition among Jews who regarded compensation as “blood money” or feared that accepting it would imply forgiveness.[11] Menachem Begin led the struggle against the agreement, while supporters distinguished material restitution from moral and historical claims.[11] Opposition included Herut, Mapam, and members of Mapai; following violent protest on January 7, 1952, the Knesset approved negotiations by sixty-one votes to fifty.[13]

Goldmann’s preference for quiet diplomacy over Soviet Jewry brought him into sustained conflict with leaders and student activists seeking public protest.[21] In 1965, he called accusations against the Soviet Union unjustified and potentially harmful to Soviet Jews.[21] During a 1966 debate, he contrasted those who liked “to beat the drum” with his preference “to play the flute”; when challenged to “conduct the whole orchestra,” he replied that he had no assurance his baton would be followed.[21]

His criticism of Israeli leaders also caused friction, particularly after the Six-Day War, when he faulted reliance on military strength and urged greater conciliation toward the Arabs.[2] Some Zionist parties opposed his continuation as World Zionist Organization president, and he did not seek reelection in 1968.[2] His support for Egypt’s position in peace negotiations drew sharp criticism in 1978.[2]

Wartime advocacy has generated criticism as well: Jewish Review of Books reports that Goldmann tried in 1944 to persuade Roosevelt administration officials to have Peter Bergson deported or drafted, amid disputes over Bergson’s more assertive campaign.[24] This allegation concerns conflict within Jewish wartime leadership rather than Goldmann’s broader rescue and rehabilitation program.[24][6]