BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 X-WR-CALNAME;VALUE=TEXT:CES: "A Dreadful Experience" How the 1946 Zionist Congress in Basel Changed the Center of Gravity of Jewish Politics PRODID:-//Harvard events data//EN BEGIN:VEVENT UID:event_950451_0 SUMMARY:CES: "A Dreadful Experience" How the 1946 Zionist Congress in Basel Changed the Center of Gravity of Jewish Politics DESCRIPTION:

 

Jews in Modern Europe Study Group

 

Simon Erlanger
Professor of Judaic Studies and Theology, University of Luzern

 

In this talk Professor Erlanger will discuss the 1946 22nd Zionist Congress in Basel, the first after the holocaust and the last such gathering before the establishment of the state of Israel.

About

In his memoirs "Trial and Error" Chaim Weitzmann describes the eery scene, when the delegates of the Zionist movement met for the first time since 1939:

"It was a dreadful experience to stand before that assembly and to run one’s eye along row after row of delegates, finding among them hardly one of the friendly faces which had adorned past Congresses. Polish Jewry was missing; Central and Southeast European Jewry was missing; German Jewry was missing. The two main groups represented were the Palestinians and the Americans; between them sat the representatives of the fragments of European Jewry, together with some small delegations from England, the Dominions, and South America. The American group, led by Dr. Abba Hillel Silver, was from the outset the strongest, not so much because of enlarged numbers, or by virtue of the inherent strength of the delegates, but because of the weakness of the rest."

Sponsors

 

 

 

LOCATION:Adolphus Busch Hall, Hoffmann Room, 27 Kirkland Street, Cambridge STATUS:CONFIRMED DTSTART:20170130T211500Z DTEND:20170130T230000Z END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR