Introduction

When authoritative reports about the magnitude of the systematic murder of millions of Jews appeared in print, the profound public concern of the Hebrew-language press metamorphosed into an outpouring of Jewish national anguish that had not been heard on its pages to that time – an outcry that reflected the inexhaustible grief of most Jewish inhabitants of Palestine over the loss of family members in Europe; a protest against the fact that the free world was in no rush to offer assistance and denied the Jews the ability to fight their war against the Nazis under their national flag; and self-flagellation due to the lack of a public response even when semiauthoritative reports about the mass murders began to arrive in the summer of 1942. In the last-mentioned manifestation, the press did not accuse the public of deliberately having disregarded its brethren’s suffering; instead, it singled out the syndrome of optimistic self-delusion, which had induced paralyzing complacency.

The response was louder in the Hebrew press than in the Diaspora, evidently due to the national role that this press had undertaken. Therefore, as construed by the Hebrew press, the silence had evolved into a national blunder. So it was, the Hebrew newspapers ruled, even though this silence contained no element of gagging; indeed, all the grim reports had found their way to the front pages. Rather, they sidestepped a grave interpretation that, half a year later, proved only too true. Did this truth, apart from the personal and public pangs of conscience that its revelation evoked, change the assessment of the Jewish national condition? Did the public entertain new hope for rescue actions as a result of intervention by the democracies, or did the Jewish press respond with de facto acquiescence in the national tragedy due to its sober political realization that rescue was out of the question for many of the doomed? These are the main questions that will occupy us in this part of the study.