Mascha Kaléko

Arnold Zweig was one of the most important writers of the Weimar Republic. He was a critical political mind who supported both progressive Zionism and left-wing socialist politics. Sales of his books were extremely high. In 1933 he left Germany for Palestine with his wife Beatrice, a highly talented visual artist.

When they arrived in Eretz Yisrael, there was no welcoming committee for the two. The Yishuv had no particular interest in dignitaries from Nazi Germany , not knowing whether it was their belief in the Zionist project or their forced exile that had brought them to Palestine. Within a few months, Arnold Zweig had lost his entire readership. In Germany, his books were burned, and in Palestine they were not translated into Hebrew. He became a major unread author.

Like all newcomers, he was expected to learn Hebrew and no longer speak German as his first language. But he suffered from a severe eye problem that prevented him from learning a new language in a new alphabet. He continued to speak German and encouraged other German speakers to both speak their language and maintain their sense of German identity and belief in the values of German culture . This attitude led to constant conflict with the majority of Jewish immigrants in Palestine, who at that time came mainly from Russia, Poland and other Eastern European countries. The majority of Jews in the Yishuv had little understanding of his predicament.

Zweig became increasingly critical of political Zionism with its strong anti-Arab orientation. Most German Jews were interested in finding a constructive way of communicating and living together with the Palestinian Arab population. He became an outsider and had enormous difficulties in establishing himself as a writer.

Eventually he turned away from the Zionist idea of establishing a separate state and became vocal in his opposition. He co-founded The Orient, a left-wing magazine published in German in 1943-44. The militant Zionist revisionists considered him their enemy, and the building in which The Orient was printed was destroyed by Jewish terrorists in 1944.

His Germanness had become the mark of Cain.