Should Israel Have Accepted Reparations From Germany—and Egypt?
On Parshas Bo, Ben-Gurion, Begin, and Blood Money
The accompanying shiur is available on the Orthodox Union's parsha learning app: All Parsha.
The Egyptian slavery is slowly coming to an end.
One more plague, God informs Moshe, and afterwards the Jewish People will be free. You, Moshe, will lead them out of Egypt.
But there is one request God asks of Moshe before the final chapter of the Egyptian slavery.
Please speak to the Jewish People, God asks Moshe, and have them borrow silver and gold vessels from their Egyptian neighbors.
It’s a strange final request.
They’re on the footsteps of redemption from slavery and the Jewish People need to stock up on assets?! And the language the Torah uses is also strange. God asks them to “borrow” from their Egyptian neighbors. What exactly is this “borrowing?” Is this like when someone asks me if they can “borrow” a book—which I know is code word for take and never return? (I happen to be pretty miserly when it comes to book lending.)
Rashi always helps.
God was requesting the Jewish People borrow gold and silver, Rashi explains, so the tzadik Avraham would not have a complaint that God only fulfilled His promise to him of having his children in slavery, but not the promise of Avraham’s children leaving slavery with great wealth.
But even with Rashi we still need help.
Why is God just concerned about the promise he made to Avraham and not the potential complaints of the Jewish People? Surely, they also had a right to be upset if they were to leave without the wealth they were promised?
Why is the fulfillment of this promise brought about in such a strange way—God’s almost timid request, “borrowing” from the Egyptians, and blaming it on the promise He made to Avraham?
To understand this, let’s explore one of the most controversial debates in Israeli history: The question of receiving reparations from Germany in the wake of the Holocaust.
Special thank you to my friend Rabbi Andrew Markowitz of Congregation Shomrei Torah in Fair Lawn, New Jersey for first bringing this topic to my attention and sharing many of the sources within.
Even as the Holocaust was still underway, many leaders in the Jewish community began to call for some form of restitution for the Jewish property and personal belonging that were seized by Nazi Germany.
Slowly the calls became louder.
In September of 1944, Siegfred Moses published, ‘Jewish Post-War Claims,’ which insisted that the international community compensate—both individually and collectively—the Jewish People due to the atrocities they suffered during the Holocaust. It was a novel suggestion to insist on collective remuneration. How could the collective Jewish community be repaid for what they suffered? Moses suggested that the Jewish Agency should represent the Jewish communities in Mandatory Palestine—the State of Israel would not be established for another four years.
Chaim Weizmann, the future first president of Israel, broached the subject of reparations to the four occupying powers in Germany—the United States, USSR, England, and France. Building off of Moses’s pamphlet, Weizmann argued on moral grounds that the Jewish People as represented by the Zionist movement were entitled to the nearly 8 billion USD worth of property that was stolen by the Nazis. Weizmann understood that international law only recognized individual repayment, but given the magnitude of the atrocities, Weizmann urged the international powers to reconsider existing law.
In the late 1940s, the question of reparations was discussed exclusively in relation to the leading international powers, direct negotiations with Germany were not a subject anyone wanted to broach. Until that point, the norm, supported by overwhelming public support, was an all-out boycott of German goods and support. The pain from the Holocaust was still visceral and deeply enmeshed in the psyche of the Jewish People. That position began to change in 1949, a year after the creation of the State of Israel.
Germany was divided between the Western Powers and Russia—the former formed West Germany, while the USSR governed East Germany. Konrad Adenauer became the first chancellor of West Germany. There was no an official representative of Germany with whom leaders of Israel could directly negotiate.
In 1951, the Naftali Commission, named after its leader MK Peretz Naftali, made the radical recommendation: “The committee sees no likelihood of progress regarding adequate transfer without general arrangements that can only be reached by direct contact between the State of Israel and the German authorities.”
As Yaakov Sharret writes in his book (free to download!), The Reparations Controversy: The Jewish State and German Money in the Shadow of the Holocaust 1951-1952:
The Naftali Committee’s recommendations were revolutionary in the extreme: the committee was the first forum to deal with the question of how to receive compensation from Germany for Jewish property expropriated during the Holocaust. To a great degree its recommendations were the first step towards breaking the general boycott of Germany.
Leading the push for reparations within the Israeli government were David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister along with Foreign Minister Moshe Sharett, who would later serve as Israel’s second prime minister.
Israeli society and world Jewry at large were torn over this question. On the one hand, money from Germany could be the very salve that could save the fledgling State of Israel. After the existential War of Independence, Israel’s economy was barely holding on. Those who opposed any form of collective reparations from Germany did not want the government that ostensibly destroyed European Jewry to have any hand in building the state of Israel. Plain and simple, it was seen as blood money. Even the German name for reparations, Wiedergutmachund, “make good again,” sounded to many like Germany was trying to wash their hands clean from the atrocities of the Holocaust. Many didn’t want Israel to have anything to do with Germany. In fact, at the time, Israeli passports all stated “This document is not valid for Germany.” We don’t travel there, why should we accept their money?
Rabbinic leadership was also divided. In a letter to his student, Rebbe Avrahom Yitzhchak Kohn, the Rebbe of Toldos Ahron, the Satmar Rav wrote that while he is uncomfortable with the arrangement, he did not think people should protest since he sees both sides as reasonable positions.
Rav Soloveitchik, at least initially, was opposed to accepting reparations from Germany. As his student Rav Herschel Schachter writes (Nefesh HaRav p. 87), this was for two reasons. Firstly, accepting money gives the impression that the guilt for exterminating Jews can be paid off. Secondly, Rav Soloveitchik felt that a nation like Germany that tries to destroy the entirety of Jewish peoplehood has the Halachic status of Amalek for which it is forbidden to accept any money from. Later in life, Rav Schachter reports, Rav Soloveitchik, reconsidered his opposition for reparations after seeing how the money was used to repair Israel’s roads. Rav Schachter often adds, “Ever see the terrible state of Israel’s roads now though? Maybe Rav Soloveitchik was right.”
Rav Mendel Dov Weismandel, one of the most outspoken critics of Zionism following the war (who may have also been the inspiration behind Philip Roth’s story Eli, the Fanatic), wrote in the introduction to his work, From the Depths, that the souls of those martyred in the Holocaust have been forgotten for a penny. When asked if it was in fact forbidden to accept reparations, he responded, “It is forbidden to eat pig, but it is not forbidden to eat excrement? But still, who would do such a thing?!”
Rav Shlomo Lorincz, one of the few religious Knesset members, writes in his memoir that asked the Chazon Ish, Rav Avraham Yeshaya Karelitz, how he should vote. The Chazon Ish explained that deciding such matters is not simple, “I don’t just pull daas Torah from my hat!” Instead, the Chazon Ish suggested that he remain absent on the day of the vote.
The biggest showdown, however, was between David Ben-Gurion and his old nemesis Menachem Begin. They were old political adversaries—nearly bringing Israel to a civil war over the Altalena Affair, when Begin’s Irgun briefly fought against the IDF, then under Ben-Gurion’s command. Ben-Gurion would not even refer to Begin by name.
This matter was extraordinarily personal for Begin. His mother, father, and brother were all murdered in the Holocaust. Begin was in semi retirement when the reparations issue came to the fore. As Daniel Gordis reports in his magisterial biography, Menachem Begin: The Battle for Israel’s Soul, Begin was convinced to join the opposition after Yochanan Bader reminded him, “This is your moral obligation to your family, your obligation to your murdered mother.” Begin joined the fight against reparations.
Menachem Begin reappeared on the public scene in a dramatic way. On January 5th, 1952 he appeared before thousands of followers to protest the German reparations plan. In a symbolic move, suggesting this was much more than politics, he wore a black yarmulka. Many of the protestors were carrying Sifrei Torah. Like Rav Soloveitchik, Begin invoked the image of Amalek, insisting the German government should not be memorialized in any way in the founding of the State of Israel.
On January 7th, the Israeli government was scheduled to vote on the reparations agreement. Before joining Knesset, Begin gave one of his most fiery addresses ever:
The most shameful event that has ever occurred in the history of our people is about to take place this evening. At this bitter hour, we will recall our hallowed fathers, our slaughtered mothers, and our babies who were led by the millions to the slaughter at the hands of the Satan who emerged from the very bottom of hell to annihilate the remnant of our people.
They are on the verge of signing an accord with Germany and of saying that Germany is a nation, and not what it is: a pack of wolves whose fangs devoured and consumed our people, even though that blood was spilled like water, it was not for nought … That blood, the holy and sanctified, taught us to fight and lead us onto the enemy’s battlefield. And it is thanks to that blood that Ben-Gurion that little tyrant and big maniac, became prime minister.
Police were called to contain the protests. Begin compared them to the Gestapo. He then invoked the Altalena affair, “When you fired your cannon on me I gave the order no! Today I will give the order yes!”
Begin finally walked into Knesset. When he took the podium he openly asked of West Germany’s Chancellor Adenauer, “In which concentration camp was he interned?” Truth be told, Adenauer did oppose Hitler and spent time in jail because of his opposition. This was not enough to convince Begin. For Begin, the current German government were just sanitized Nazis.
Begin addressed Ben-Gurion directly:
I am turning to you not as an adversary against an adversary; as adversaries there is a chasm between us, there is no bridge, there cannot be a bridge, it is a chasm formed in blood. I am turning to you in the final moment as a Jew, as a son to an orphaned nation, as a son to a bereaved nation: Stop, don’t do this.
Ben-Gurion was unpersuaded. Looking at the protestors outside, Ben-Gurion asked, “And who brought these hooligans here?”
“You are the hooligan,” Begin responded.
When it was clear that he would not prevail, Begin lowered the temperatures by apologizing and assuring the Knesset that he would abide by their vote. “If we don’t succeed what can we do?” Begin said, “This is our nation.”
Ultimately the reparations agreement narrowly passed. A few months later, on September 10, 1952 the reparations agreement between West Germany and Israel was signed. Adenauer signed on behalf of Germany, Moshe Sharett signed on behalf of Israel—the question of who would sign on behalf of Israel was its own debate.
Moshe Sharett gave an press conference reflecting on the historical significance of the agreement:
Sharett briefly addressed his opponents in the press conference as well:
In a moving anecdote shared by Daniel Gordis on Russ Robert’s podcast, EconTalk (at the 44 minute mark), Benny Begin, Menachem Begin’s son got in touch with Gordis after the publication of his biography on his father. Benny Begin, Menachem Begin’s son, told Gordis that he was very hard on Ben Gurion in the biography. “My father was part of the opposition—he didn’t have to feed and put a roof over anybody and Ben Gurion did—what was he supposed to do?”
Which brings us back to our parsha.
Why did God have to ask the Jewish People to take gold and silver from the Egyptians?Rav Zalmen Sorotskin, in his work Aznaim L’Torah, explains that this episode was not fully understood until the modern day debate over German reparations. Imagine how the Jewish People felt towards the Egyptians, he writes. This is a country that enslaved the Jewish People, many Jews must have had family that was murdered by the Egyptians. They didn’t want to accept their money. Others, he imagines, wanted some form of remuneration for their centuries of work building Egypt.
So God pleads. I need you to take the Egyptian money, even though many of you don’t even want to and find it disgusting, but I made a promise to your forefather Avraham and I cannot renege on that promise.
And that story replayed again in modern Israeli history. And that original promise to Avraham is still unfolding before our eyes.
Shabbos Reads — Books/Articles Mentioned
Israel and the Question of Reparations from Germany: Post-Holocaust Reckonings (1949-1953), Jacob Tovy
The Reparations Controversy: The Jewish State and German Money in the Shadow of the Holocaust 1951-1952, Yaakov Sharett
Fact, Fiction and History in Philip Roth’s “Eli, the Fanatic,” Steven Fink
Menachem Begin: The Battle for Israel’s Soul, Daniel Gordis
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Great article,
One minor correction - Rav Weissmandl’s name was R’ Chaim Michael Dov, affectionally known as Reb Michoel Ber.