Response of the Jewish Daily Press in Palestine to the Accession of Hitler, 1933
The article reviews and analyzes the attitudes of four Jewish dailies in Palestine – Ha’aretz, Do’ar ha-Yom, Davar, and the Palestine Post – to Hitler’s rise to power and to the new chancellor’s policies in 1933. The examination sheds light on the various Yishuv approaches to the problems raised while at the same time probing one of the chief instruments that fashioned the variety of public opinion. The inquiry concludes that by and large the Palestinian Jewish press focused on Hitler’s Jewish policies rather than on the wider threat to European and world order, or democracy in general, that his regime posed. Little intellectual-journalistic effort was expended in trying to get to the root of the Nazi malaise and ideology. Moreover, in great measure the attitudes and postures adopted in the various newspapers regarding the plight and future of German Jewry were utilitarian and instrumental insofar as the courses advocated were adopted with an eye to furthering the interests of the Yishuv and the Zionist movement. This approach certainly influenced attitudes towards a possible economic boycott of Nazi Germany and the “Transfer Agreement,” as well as attitudes towards aliya from Germany.
