The Warburgs

by Ron Chernow

  Nevertheless, in February 1935, Friedaflix sailed with Chaim and Vera from Genoa to Palestine. The sixty-four-year-old Felix now traveled with a heart doctor in tow. When they steamed into Haifa harbor, the Holy Land worked its old magic upon Felix. He toured his one-hundred-acre orange grove near Rehovoth and was delighted to hear German spoken along with Hebrew. Yet he was disheartened by Tel Aviv’s helter-skelter growth, a housing and land shortage, and flagrant inequalities among Jewish settlers. Most of all, he feared flaring tensions with the Arabs, as more than sixty thousand Jews arrived that year. Amid fears that Arabs might try to kidnap them, guards were posted along the roads that Felix and Frieda traveled. The trip confirmed Felix’s view that German Jews should be widely dispersed to many countries, while Weizmann thought this would merely complete Hitler’s dirty work by scattering Jews to the earth’s four corners.10

  In September 1935, Weizmann had resumed the presidency of the World Jewish Organization and the Jewish Agency. For some time, Felix had suspected that behind a facade of cooperation with rich non-Zionists, the Zionists ran the Jewish Agency through the Executive Committee. This seemed to violate the parity agreed to in the 1929 “pact of glory,” and Felix felt betrayed.11 He found the committee chairman, David Ben-Gurion—a socialist from Russian Poland—arrogant, ruthless, and dishonest. Once again, Felix brought genteel expectations to the rough-and-tumble of Jewish politics. As he told Weizmann, “You see I am not a politician but a practical businessman, and in business partners are not treated quite so roughly as this.”12 On some level, he never jettisoned the idea that Zionism was a charity and that large donors should run the show. He expected the Executive Committee to report to him and other non-Zionists on the Administrative Committee then abide by their wishes.

  These arcane organizational disputes mattered intensely as the question of Jewish statehood arose suddenly on the historical agenda. For years, Weizmann had told Felix that their disagreements concerned only trivial details. Whenever the term “Jewish State” arose and Felix winced, Weizmann patiently explained that the term was being used figuratively. Indeed, Weizmann was ejected from the Zionist leadership in the early 1930s as too moderate on the statehood issue, which he then considered a wonderful but distant dream. For Weizmann, the Zionist state could only emerge after a protracted interim phase of infrastructure development.

  Hitler speeded up the timetable of Zionism in a way nobody could have foreseen. As Weizmann said, the world for Jews was “divided into places where they cannot live and places where they may not enter.”13 Barred elsewhere, Jews poured into Palestine, and more emigrated there in the three years after Hitler’s rise than in the previous twelve combined. There was now an overwhelming need for a state.

  For skittish Arabs, the influx evoked the specter that Jews might soon form a majority in Palestine. In April 1936, this produced anti-Jewish rioting by Palestinian Arabs. Forming the Arab Higher Committee under the grand mufti, they launched a general strike. For the non-Zionist Warburgs, who had imagined Palestine as a peaceful oasis, this was a shocking turn. Paradise became a bloodstained battlefield. Felix thought Zionist bombast about a Jewish state had thrown matches on a tinderbox. Weizmann asked Felix for money for self-defense groups to protect Jewish settlers and told hair-raising stories of butchered women and children. Felix wouldn’t budge, warning Weizmann, “you know how strongly we feel that we never wanted and always objected to arming on both sides, and I am afraid we must stick to that decision.”14

  To ease Arab-Jewish tensions, the high commissioner proposed a Legislative Council with both sides represented. Supporting this initiative, Felix even offered to finance a Peace Garden in Palestine where Jews and Arabs might meet in amity. Irate at his advocacy of a Legislative Council, Weizmann believed this would only doom the Jews to eternal minority status and eviscerate Zionism. “The soul goes out of our work if we are reduced here to the same minority position as anywhere else,” he said.15 He thought Felix was duped by Arab moderates whose views didn’t reflect the more extreme views of the masses.

  Among Jewish businessmen, Felix proselytized for pacifism, telling Simon Marks that it was better to disarm Arab and Jew alike “than to make a shooting gallery out of Palestine.”16 He saw Arab-Jewish relations slipping into an unending revenge cycle and cautioned Sir Herbert Samuel, “all this big talk about Jewish Nation and Arab disdain can only mean bloody heads and misfortune.”17

  In truth, events were now rendering obsolete the position of the wealthy non-Zionist benefactors. In the 1920s, they could set up a farm or school in Palestine as a straightforward charitable act, whereas every donation was now enmeshed in partisan politics. Weizmann prodded Felix to replace Baron Edmond de Rothschild and finance pro-Jewish propaganda in the Mideast. Felix balked, citing his current expenses in combatting anti-Nazi activities in the United States.18 He wouldn’t cross the line into political activism.

  To mollify the Arabs, Britain curtailed immigration certificates. The last door clanged shut for German Jews just as life in Germany grew intolerable. Although Palestine had been the major mecca for emigration, a far smaller percentage of German Jews emigrated to Palestine in 1937 than in 1933. The Reichsbank also issued new rules making it harder to transfer money to Palestine, persuading Max that Palestine had reached the limits of its absorptive capacity. As he said, “For the time being, Palestine is the most expensive colony that has ever been created in the world.”19

  To study the Mideast uprising, the British government appointed the Peel Commission in May 1936. As it held hearings in Palestine, a critical realignment occurred in Jewish politics. In closed session, the commission broached to Weizmann the idea of partitioning Palestine, which Weizmann thought the Jews could only reject at their peril. It even occurred to him that the Palestinian Arabs might prefer having a Jewish state—if they had one of their own as well.

  As statehood gained ground, Felix felt hoodwinked by the Zionists. With a Jewish state now within reach, Zionists no longer had to truckle to their wealthy non-Zionist patrons. Felix was deeply depressed to learn that at one Zionist gathering somebody had said that the presence of Felix Warburg in Jewish philanthropy was a calamity.20 After his enormous contributions to Palestine, Felix was dismayed by such ingratitude.

  In March 1937, he gathered up several black notebooks of memoranda and went to London for a meeting of the Zionist Organization in Great Russell Street. So long dismissed as the pleasant, carefree Warburg brother, he now carried with him the entire burden of the non-Zionist wing of the Jewish Agency. His London days were minutely budgeted to deal with different causes, and desperate people from across Europe flocked to consult him. As associate Dr. Maurice J. Karpf recalled, “It was almost as if a King had come on a visit, and the people came to do him homage and seek his help.”21

  Weizmann was ready for Felix to vent his bile against the Zionists. Instead of reacting sympathetically, he bad-mouthed Felix as a nuisance. “He is coming over with a cargo full of grievances and complaints and he is becoming more and more peevish and primadonnish as time goes on,” Weizmann griped to Lola. “God only knows why!”22 It irritated him that Felix dwelled on the issue of Executive Committee power. “Frankly,” he told Lola, “I have no slightest interest in all these ‘problems’ which are of no importance in my estimation but to which he seems to attach such undue value.”23 Suddenly, Weizmann forgot that Felix and his ilk had saved the Zionist movement from bankruptcy in the 1920s.

  Whether he liked it or not, Weizmann had to deal with Felix’s displeasure at the March 24, 1937, meeting. Famous for his fresh carnation and bright, flashing smile, Felix arrived in a somber mood. He reviewed the pact by which Zionists and non-Zionists had split power fifty-fifty in the Jewish Agency. He described how Zionists had subverted that pact while he kept quiet. “But I have held my horses as long as I could.… It is not fair. We have worked hard, we have given millions … your American friends are leaving the ship because you continually ask them to pay fare wit
hout admitting them to the dining room.… It cannot go on. We refuse to remain in an uncalled-for minority.… This may be my swan song. If so, I regret it, but what I say here, I mean.”24 Like Aby, Paul, and Max before him, Felix was chastened by history. This was a different man from the jaunty, blithe socialite. As Maurice Karpf remembered, “His eyes were filled with tears, his chin quivered, and his voice broke. He had to stop.”25

  Eloquently, Weizmann rebutted him. He noted that non-Zionists were an amorphous group of individuals, while the Zionist movement had to answer to its members. Driven by historical imperatives, it couldn’t always observe the niceties. “We have the unpleasant business of having to make friends and we cannot choose our bedfellows. We do this not for our glory, but for the cause.” Then Weizmann voiced the tacit resentment that had always lurked below the surface. “Fortunately for you, Mr. Warburg, your position is different. Your constituency is different. We are life and death in this thing and your people are not.”26 For rich non-Zionists, Palestine indeed represented a dream; for the Zionists, it meant survival. Nonetheless, Felix extracted a pledge from the Agency Executive that the old fifty-fifty formula of 1929 would be honored.

  On July 7, 1937, the Peel Commission recommended sharp cuts in Jewish immigration. Calling the post-World War I British Mandate unworkable, it proposed a three-way partition of Palestine into separate Arab and Jewish states, with a British Mandatory zone in between. The Zionists were upset with the tiny strip of land designated as their state, while for Felix this small patch of ground confirmed his worst fears. He thought Jewish settlers would quickly cover the narrow space, producing one of two unpleasant outcomes. Either they would have to curb Jewish immigration—defeating the entire idea of a Jewish sanctuary—or risk creating uncontrollable population pressures that would, in the end, provoke strife with their Arab neighbors. Also convinced that such a state would be an economic fiasco, Felix said it would come yearly to Kuhn, Loeb, begging for loans. Instead of statehood, Felix favored having three unarmed provinces, one Jewish, under the same British Mandate.

  Even before the Peel report, Felix and others in the American Jewish Committee held secret talks with the Arabs to negotiate a settlement. They explored a deal by which the Arabs would agree to a sizable jump in the Jewish population so long as it never exceeded the Arab population. As Felix cabled Max, the American non-Zionists believed that “partition is a definite declaration of impossibility of Arabs and Jews living together.”27 Weizmann bluntly rejected these negotiations and questioned whether the participating Arabs spoke with the blessings of the mufti or the masses. He couldn’t accede to a formula that again condemned the Jews to minority status.

  With these matters debated against the backdrop of Nazi Germany, passions ran high. Both sides thought their solution would allow the largest influx of Jewish refugees. Felix thought that while a deal with the Arabs might consign Jews to minority status, it would also relieve Arab anxiety and save lives by permitting a prompt increase in Jewish settlement. No less fervently, Zionists believed that Hitler had shown the overwhelming need, now and forever, for a Jewish state. Palliatives would no longer suffice.

  In late July, Felix met with Irving Lehman, Cyrus Adler, and other Jewish leaders in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, to discuss whether Felix should attend the August meeting of the Jewish Agency Council in Zurich. It was decided that he should go “so that I may not be charged with being a deserter at this serious moment,” Felix explained.28 In poor health, he defied his doctors’ advice to skip Zurich—a fact he kept from his colleagues. Even before sailing, he was besieged with cables, telegrams, and telephone calls that drained his strength. Many people noted that Felix had suddenly aged. He seemed tired and without the old elastic step.

  By the time he arrived at the Zurich Tonhalle, many non-Zionists had defected to the Zionist side on partition. Haggard from lack of sleep, Felix was the first speaker in the General Debate on August 18. Some would remember his speech as poised and dignified, but the content was bitterly accusatory. Felix recounted the glorious founding of the Jewish Agency in that same Tonhalle years before. “Since those days we have tried to turn into reality a dream of beauty and true help; this is now about to be cruelly reduced.” Still clinging to the old Warburgian dream of universal brotherhood and acceptance, he noted that America had shown how people of diverse religions could live together. He also stressed that American Jews had funneled millions of dollars to Palestine and that non-Zionists had donated much more than Zionists. Then he came to the nub of his speech: “We believe that the plan submitted to us should not be pursued any further without first making a serious effort to obtain an understanding from Jews and Arabs in Palestine.” After evoking a rather farfetched vision of the ideal Palestine being a second Switzerland, he concluded with a warning: “If this Council’s efforts will be directed merely towards the establishment of a Jewish State and not the simultaneous fulfillment of responsibilities towards its neighbors, we won’t be able to go along with you.…”29

  When Magnes presented a non-Zionist resolution for an Arab-Jewish state, the audience grew surly. Interrupted by heckling, Magnes said, “What is the Jewish State that is being offered? It is a Jewish State which, in my opinion, will lead to war, to war with the Arabs.”30 Weizmann tried to placate Felix, while the feisty Ben-Gurion scorned halfway measures. Weizmann engineered a compromise by which five non-Zionists would sit with seven Zionists on the Executive Committee of the Jewish Agency. This was all public relations. The reality was that partition was approved, albeit reluctantly, with the Executive authorized to negotiate for a Jewish state with Britain. After the Arabs rejected the plan, it came to naught. That same month, a new British White Paper further curbed emigration to Palestine.

  After the Tonhalle meeting, Felix and Maurice Hexter strolled back to their hotel together. “I remember walking home with him to the Baur-au-Lac, a broken man,” recalled Hexter. “It was only then that the bitter antagonism which [Felix] carried to the end emerged.…”31 Felix was now a broken man with glimmers of his own mortality. At one point he mentioned to Hexter that he was the last surviving founder of the Palestine Survey Committee of the 1920s. “When is my turn coming?” he asked.32 He handed Hexter two closed manila envelopes, both addressed to friends, and asked him to deliver them if he died.

  Suffering from fatigue, Felix met his daughter, Carola, in London and they sailed back to New York aboard the Berengaria. By coincidence, Ben-Gurion was on the same boat. Felix waved and went to speak with him. At first, he couldn’t resist some sarcasm about Ben-Gurion’s behavior in Zurich, but the two ended up having a pleasant journey. Ben-Gurion softened somewhat his opinion of Felix and saw that he wasn’t a haughty grandee. “I saw before me a man who undeniably loves Eretz Israel,” he said. “He has a wholly Jewish heart, but he is a petty man and narrow-minded.… Surrounded as he is by sycophants and servants, it is difficult for him to come to terms with a people’s democratic movement and even more difficult for him to understand it.”33 This view paralleled Weizmann’s impression of Felix. For his part, Felix didn’t modify his view of Ben-Gurion, whom he regarded as a fanatical propagandist lacking in statesmanlike calm or judgment.34

  The clash between Felix and Ben-Gurion went far beyond personalities. Ben-Gurion believed that Felix and other rich, charitable Jews felt threatened by a Jewish state, which would supplant the old elite. A Jewish state, said Ben-Gurion, would jeopardize their “property, status, rights, and influence.”35 This reflected a long-standing resentment felt by poorer Jews against those aristocratic leaders who had pleaded their cause in European ministries. The Zionist movement was, in part, a populist revolt against Jewish banking royalty. As Weizmann exulted, “The Warburgs and the Rothschilds and their methods have gone for ever.”36 At the same time, the rise of the welfare state meant that responsibilities once borne by wealthy Jewish elders were now assumed by secular officials.

  Felix was so angry with Weizmann that the Warburgs thought the tw
o men would never talk again. In a last-ditch effort in late September, Felix summoned an emergency meeting of Jewish leaders at Briarcliff Lodge overlooking the Hudson River where he made an impassioned plea to repudiate Weizmann and partition and pushed his plan for Swiss-style cantons in Palestine. Weizmann and Ben-Gurion rightly believed that Felix felt threatened by a Jewish state, which, he now said, would disenfranchise world Jewry and would be governed solely by those “who live in Palestine, vote in Palestine and belong to its government.”37 Though Felix got the executive committee of the Joint to condemn partition, the larger battle had been lost.

  A few weeks after the conference, on October 18, 1937, Felix suffered a heart attack. The pain, he joked, was nothing compared to what Weizmann had inflicted upon him.38 Torn apart by the partition dispute and worried about Max and his family in Germany, Felix had labored under a double strain. Frieda blamed both factors for his heart attack. Two days later, he died at age sixty-six, with Frieda and his five children by his bedside. He was honored with a large funeral at Temple Emanu-El at which his sons carried the coffin. Scores of financial and political luminaries—including John McCloy, Sidney Weinberg of Goldman, Sachs, and George Brownell of Davis Polk—attended the service. Felix was buried in Salem Fields Cemetery in Brooklyn.

  Frieda reacted to Felix’s death with the same self-effacing dignity she had shown throughout their marriage. Even as he lay dying, she telephoned one mistress—she apparently knew the number by heart—and said, “Hulda, I think you’d better come.”39 On less intimate terms with the other women, Frieda asked Edward to help. “Now, Edward,” she said awkwardly, “there are certain things I can’t do.”40 She mentioned several opera singers that Felix had escorted over the years. Stoic about the double standard of her day, Frieda told Edward that she didn’t feel jealous but grateful to Felix’s mistresses, who had apparently given him something that she could not.41 It was a remarkably tolerant view, to put it mildly, and couldn’t have captured all of her true feelings. Despite Felix’s philandering, she would always remember him with great love and joy.