Moshe Sharett (1908-1965)

A portrait of Moshe Sharett on the 20 New sheqalim banknote issued by the Bank of Israel.

Mavi Boncuk |

Moshe Sharett (1908-1965)

Moshe Sharett was born in 1894 in Kherson (Ukraine). He moved to Palestine, then part of the Ottoman Empire, with his family in 1908, making their first home in the Arab village of Ein Sinia; the experience left him with a command of Arabic and Arab customs.

Sharett and his family moved in 1910 to Jaffa, where they became one of the founding families of "Ahuzat Bayit," the earliest nucleus of the city of Tel Aviv. Moshe was a member of the first graduating class of the first Hebrew high school in the country, the Herzliya Gymnasium.

He graduated from the first class of the Herzliya Hebrew High School, even studying music at the Shulamit Conservatory. He then went off to Constantinople to study law at Istanbul University, the same university at which Yitzhak Ben-Zvi and David Ben-Gurion studied. However, his time there was cut short due to the outbreak of World War I. He served a commission as First Lieutenant in the Ottoman Army, as an interpreter.

He then worked as an Arab affairs and land purchase agent for the postwar Palestine Jewish Community's Representative Council. He was a member of "Achdut Ha'Avoda" (Unity of Labor) and later of "Mapai" (Israel Workers' Party). From 1922 to 1924, he studied at the London School of Economics and was active in "Poalei Zion" (Workers of Zion). He then became deputy editor of the Histadrut Labor Federation's daily Davar newspaper in 1925 and edited its English-language weekly until 1931, when he assumed the post of Secretary of the Jewish Agency's Political Department.

From 1933 until 1948, Sharett was in effect the Zionist movement's ambassador and chief negotiator vis-a-vis the British Mandatory Authorities. Though the British incarcerated him for four months in Latrun detention camp, he later succeeded in establishing the British Army's Jewish Brigade in 1944, which provided the postwar lifeline and illegal repatriation route to Mandatory Palestine for tens of thousands of the remnant of European Jewry.
In 1947, he appeared before the United Nations General Assembly in the vital partition debate and was one of the signatories of Israel's Declaration of Independence.

Sharett became Israel's first Foreign Minister in 1949, establishing the nation's diplomatic service and bilateral relations and embassies with dozens of countries. As Foreign Minister, he led the Israeli delegations to the protracted cease-fire negotiations during and after the War of Independence.

In January 1954, after David Ben-Gurion retired, Sharett became Premier. As Prime Minister and as Foreign Minister, Sharett presided over a continuation of the extraordinary pace of national socioeconomic development and immigrant absorption which characterized Israel during that era. When Ben-Gurion returned to political life in November 1955, Sharett yielded the post of Prime Minister to him, but remained Foreign Minister until June 1956.

Upon retirement, he became the head of the "Am Oved" (Working Nation) publishing house, Chairman of Beit Berl College and representative of the Labor Party at the Socialist International.

In 1960 he was elected by the World Zionist Congress to the chairmanship of the World Zionist Organization and the Jewish Agency.

Sharett passed away at the age of 71 in 1965.

Joel Brand (25 April 1906 – 13 July 1964) was a leading member of the Aid and Rescue Committee (Va'ada Ezra ve'Hatzalah, or Va'ada), an underground Zionist group in Budapest, Hungary, that smuggled Jews out of German-occupied Europe during the Holocaust to the relative safety of Hungary. Brand had been told by the Jewish Agency by return cable that "Chaim" would meet him in Istanbul. Convinced of the importance of his mission, he believed this was Chaim Weizmann, president of the World Zionist Organization, later the first president of Israel. In fact the man who had arranged to meet him was Chaim Barlas[*], head of the Istanbul group of Zionist emissaries. Not only was Barlas not there, but there was no entry visa waiting for Brand, and he was threatened with arrest and deportation. Brand saw this as the first betrayal by the Jewish Agency.[41] Bauer argues that Brand, then and later, failed to grasp that the Jewish Agency was powerless. That his passport was in the name of Eugen Band would have been enough to cause the confusion. The visa situation was sorted out by Bandi Grosz and the men were taken to a hotel, where they met the Jewish Agency delegates.[42] Brand was furious that no one sufficiently senior was available to negotiate a deal.[43] The Jewish Agency agreed to arrange for Moshe Sharett (previously Shertok), head of its political department and later second prime minister of Israel, to travel to Istanbul to meet him. 


[*] Chaim Barlas חיים ברלס, an emissary of the Jewish Agency Vaad ha-Hatzala in Kushta (Istanbul) assisting Holocaust survivors in Germany. 

In the photo: Barlas is on the left. Photographed in 1946 or 1947.

Turkey remained neutral until the end of World War II.  

Turkish leaders, like their Ottoman predecessors, maintained a liberal attitude toward allowing Jewish refugees to enter the country.  As a result, Turkey was a safe haven for thousands of European Jews fleeing the Nazis and their allies.  In addition, Turkey became the headquarters for numerous rescue operations headed by Zionist and US organizations.

In the 1930s, Turkish officials allowed Jewish refugees from Germany and Austria to enter the country.  An estimated 1,000 refugees, most of them Jews, were allowed into the country.  They were employed as professionals by numerous Turkish institutions.  These early refugees contributed to Turkish business, medicine, the arts, and academic pursuits.  Other Jewish refugees were allowed to enter Turkey if they could show that they had proper documentation to travel to British Palestine or other destinations.  Beginning in April 1943, the Turks granted transit visas to numerous Jewish families.  Between April and December 1943, approximately 1,300 Hungarian, Bulgarian and Romanian Jews entered the country.  An additional 312 entered Turkey leaving from Greece.  At this time, approximately 2,000 Jews were allowed to transfer to Palestine.

These immigration schemes were organized by representatives of the Jewish Agency for Palestine (Yishuv).  Twenty delegates from Palestine were sent to see what could be done to facilitate rescue and immigration to Palestine.  The delegation was headed by Chaim Barlas.  The initiative for these operations came from David Ben-Gurion, leader of the Jewish Agency.  

Barlas was also later able to help 542 Polish Jews enter Turkey from Teheran.  This was due to the efforts of the Polish ambassador stationed in Anakra. 

The Yishuv representatives chartered a number of boats to take refugees from Europe to Turkey.  After May 1944, British authorities gave the Yishuv permission to grant visas to Palestine.  Between January and August 1944, approximately 3,000 Jewish refugees came to Istanbul as a waystation on the way to Palestine.

By the end of 1944, 1,200 Jews were given visas and arrived in Turkey.  An additional 800 Jews were rescued from Greece.

Of this limited rescue success, Barlas said: "the results...in numbers are in no comparison with the tragic situation...but taking into consideration the almost unsurmountable difficulties, I may say that it is a miracle that even this small number has escaped from the hell" (Laqueur, 2001, p. 642).

The US War Refugee Board was created in 1944 after the disclosure that the US State Department had been impeding and even blocking the rescue of Jewish victims of the Nazis.  The War Refugee Board set up an office in Turkey to try to aid Jewish refugees.  This effort was led by American Ira Hirschmann.  Hirschmann worked closely with the US embassy in Ankara, which was led by Ambassador Laurence Steinhardt.  Steinhardt, who was Jewish, encouraged and worked closely with rescue efforts on behalf of beleaguered Jews in Eastern Europe.

Barlas, Hirschmann and Steinhardt made contact with Papal Nuncio Monsignor Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli.  They requested that Roncalli issue Vatican documents that would grant asylum to Jews in Nazi-occupied territories.  Roncalli indicated that his papers would be approved by the British authorities and would allow the recipients to transfer to Palestine.  Roncalli also suggested that he could issue baptismal certificates to Jews, as these documents would provide the Jews protection from deportation.  Roncalli became Pope John XXIII, being elected to Pope in 1958.  In 2016, he was designated a saint by the Catholic Church.

Turkey was also an important listening post for the Yishuv representatives and for the representatives of the War Refugee Board.  Reports of the murder of millions of Jews were smuggled to officials who then released the information.

There were a number of Turkish diplomats stationed throughout Europe who aided and rescued Jews from their posts.  The most famous of them is Consul General Selahattin Ulkumen.  Ulkumen was stationed on the island of Rhodes and protected a number of Jewish families from deportation.  For this, the Germans bombed his consulate and fatally injured his wife. 

Ulkumen was declared Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center, for his actions.  He is the only Turkish diplomat so honored.  Monsignor Roncalli has yet to be honored by the State of Israel for his rescue activities on behalf of Jews.

Survival of Jews in Turkey

Jews of Turkey – 56,000.[1] Several thousand Jewish refugees were permitted entry to Turkey during the war, many from Germany.  In April 1943, the Turks granted transit visas to 1,350 Jews from Hungary, Bulgaria and Romania, and 300 to Greek Jews to travel through Turkey on the way to Palestine. An additional 2,100 Jews in Turkey also traveled to Palestine.[2] The Turkish government allowed several Jewish rescue and relief agencies to operate in the country. This included the Jewish Agency for Palestine (Yishuv). It organized clandestine immigration to Palestine. The Rescue Committee of the Jewish Agency in Turkey, of the Joint Rescue Committee, brought in 5,080 Jews from German occupied territories.[3]  Agents of the American War Refugee Board (RWB) also operated in Turkey. 1 Turkish citizen has been honored for rescuing Jews.[4]

[1] Gutman, 1990; Benz, in Laqueur, 2001, The Holocaust Encyclopedia, s.v. “Death Toll,” p. 141

[2] Rubin, in Laqueur, 2001, The Holocaust Encyclopedia, s.v. “Turkey,” pp. 641-643

[3] Ofer, in Gutman, 1990, Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, “Rescue Committee of the Jewish Agency in Turkey,” pp. 1259-1262

[4] Note: Turkish Consul Selahattin Ülkümen save 40 Jews from deportation from the German occupied island of Rhodes.  Bender & Weiss, 2007, The Encyclopedia of the Righteous among the Nations: Europe (Part I) and Other Countries, s.v., “Turkey,” p. 528

Source 


SEE: Refugees of the Bosphorus Istanbul, 1944: A Bloomingdale’s executive and a future Pope teamed with Jewish intelligence agents to save hundreds of Eastern European Jews.

By CHARLES KING

Excerpted from Midnight at the Pera Palace: The Birth of Modern Istanbul by Charles King. Out now from W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.

"In the blustery February of 1944, a raven-haired Bloomingdale’s executive found himself in an unlikely place: at a luxury hotel in Istanbul, surrounded by German soldiers and Japanese diplomats. Ira Hirschmann was new to Turkey—a neutral state for most of the Second World War—and if circumstances had been different, he might have passed his time negotiating a deal for cloth shipments to New York’s Garment District.


But Hirschmann spent most days in the Turkish city as a detail man: leasing rust-bucket cargo ships, re-outfitting them for passengers, and interceding with harbormasters. Before he retired to dinner at Istanbul’s Park Hotel, he finished each day at the office by burning his working papers. What few of the other guests would have known was that Hirschmann was at the leading edge of one of the single largest efforts to rescue Jews from the Holocaust. It was a project that would eventually involve Jewish secret agents, U.S. government officials, and a future pope—and a Muslim country’s role as a conduit for Jews seeking to escape Nazi-dominated Europe..."

SEE ALSO: Dina Porat Tears, Protocols and Actions in a Wartime Triangle:Pius XII, Roncalli and Barlas In: “Cristianesimo nella Storia,” 2006, Vol. 27, No. 2; 599-632  

"...The various Yishuv bodies sent about 15 delegates to Istanbul. Chaim Barlas was the senior delegate, representing the Jewish Agency. Born in 1898, he was the elder among the delegates. Menachem Bader represented the kibbutz movement. Barlas was the only one among the delegates to have a formal Jewish Agency appointment acknowledged by both the British and Turkish authorities. It was mainly between Roncalli and Barlas that the contact was intensively maintained for almost two years, until Roncalli left for Paris towards the end of 1944 (601-2). Born in 1925, he became bishop and an Apostolic Visitor in Bulgaria. Some ten years later he became a Apostolic Delegate in Turkey and Greece..."