Michael: What if the first, most controversial deal with Nazi Germany wasn't made by a collaborator, but by the very leaders building the future state of Israel? And what if it was seen not as a betrayal, but as a brilliant, nation-building opportunity? Kevin: Wait, what? That sounds like a conspiracy theory, not history. Are you seriously suggesting that the founders of Israel were cutting deals with the Nazis in the 1930s? Michael: That's the explosive territory we're entering today with Tom Segev's The Seventh Million: The Israelis and the Holocaust. Kevin: Segev... I've heard that name. Isn't he one of those historians who likes to stir the pot in Israel? Michael: Exactly. He's a leading figure among Israel's "New Historians." His work is famous—and famously controversial—for using declassified archives to challenge the country's founding myths. This book, in particular, caused an uproar when it was published because it uncovered truths many people simply didn't want to face. Kevin: Okay, so this isn't just speculation. He has receipts. I'm hooked. Where do we even start with a story like that? Michael: We start in 1933, with a Nazi flag flying high in the middle of Jerusalem.

Kevin: A Nazi flag in Jerusalem? How is that even possible? Michael: It was on the German consulate on Prophets Street. And for six years, Zionist youth activists from the Betar movement would repeatedly try to tear it down, climbing the walls at night to steal it. And each time, the Germans would just raise a new one. It was this constant, visible symbol of the enemy's presence right in their midst. But the real story, the one Segev uncovers, is far more complex than just activists fighting a flag. Kevin: What could be more complex than that? Michael: While those activists were risking their lives, some of their leaders were in Berlin, shaking hands with Nazi officials. They were negotiating something called the Haavara Agreement, or the Transfer Agreement. Kevin: The Transfer Agreement? What does that mean? Michael: It was a deal. In the 1930s, Jewish organizations around the world were calling for a massive boycott of German goods to cripple the Nazi economy. The Haavara Agreement did the opposite. It allowed German Jews who wanted to emigrate to Palestine to deposit their money in a special bank account in Germany. That money was then used to buy German-made goods—tools, materials, machinery—which were exported to Palestine. The emigrants would then be compensated once they arrived. Kevin: Hold on. So, to save German Jews, the Zionist movement agreed to effectively break the worldwide Jewish boycott of Nazi Germany and pump money into the Nazi economy? That's a brutal choice. Michael: It was a devil's bargain, and it tore the Yishuv—the Jewish community in Palestine—apart. The conflict was so intense that it's believed to be the motive behind one of the most famous unsolved murders in Israeli history: the assassination of Haim Arlosoroff. He was a key Zionist leader, deeply involved in the Haavara negotiations. He was shot and killed on a Tel Aviv beach in 1933, right after returning from Germany. The case was never solved, but it poisoned the political atmosphere for decades. Kevin: So this wasn't just a debate, it was literally killing people. What was the justification? How did leaders like David Ben-Gurion defend this? Michael: Pure, cold pragmatism. One of Ben-Gurion's allies, after visiting Germany, sent a report back saying, "The streets are paved with more money than we have ever dreamed of in the history of our Zionist enterprise. Here is an opportunity to build and flourish like none we have ever had or ever will have." For them, the ultimate goal was building the state. If that meant dealing with the devil to bring in both people and capital, it was a price they were willing to pay. Kevin: Wow. That is a chillingly practical way to look at it. Michael: It gets even more surreal. To promote the idea of Jewish settlement in Palestine, the Zionist Organization invited an SS officer, Baron von Mildenstein, for a tour. He traveled around the country, was a guest at several kibbutzim, and wrote a glowing, 12-part series for Joseph Goebbels's newspaper titled "A Nazi Visits Palestine." Kevin: You're kidding me. An SS officer writing a pro-Zionist travelogue for a Nazi paper? Michael: It's true. And to commemorate the journey, the newspaper even minted a special medallion. On one side was a Swastika, and on the other, a Star of David. Kevin: A medallion with a swastika and a Star of David. That's... mind-bending. It completely flips the script on how we think about this period. It wasn't just good vs. evil; it was a messy, morally gray struggle for survival and state-building. Michael: Exactly. And that moral grayness doesn't end when the war is over. In fact, it gets even more complicated. The trauma of the Holocaust becomes a political tool. This brings us to the story of a writer known as Ka-Tzetnik.

Kevin: Ka-Tzetnik? What a strange name. Michael: It's a Yiddish term for a concentration camp inmate. The man's real name was Yehiel De-Nur, and he was a survivor of Auschwitz. For years, he wrote these incredibly graphic, almost surreal books about his experience. But the moment that seared him into Israel's consciousness was his testimony at the trial of Adolf Eichmann in 1961. Kevin: The Eichmann trial, of course. That was a huge moment. Michael: It was monumental. And Ka-Tzetnik was a star witness. On the stand, he spoke in this choked, hushed voice, describing Auschwitz not as a place on Earth, but as "another planet." He said, "Time there was different... The inhabitants of that planet had no names. They had neither parents nor children... Their names were numbers." As he was speaking, the memories overwhelmed him, and he collapsed in a faint, right there on the witness stand. Kevin: Oh, wow. I can only imagine the power of that moment, broadcast to the whole country. Michael: It was electrifying. It was one of the first times that the raw, unprocessed trauma of the Holocaust was displayed so publicly. It forced Israelis to confront the horror directly. Kevin: So this was the moment the trauma became public, became part of the national story? What was the attitude before that? Michael: Segev argues that for the first decade or so after the state was founded, there was a profound sense of shame and distance. The survivors were often looked down upon. They didn't fit the new national ideal of the strong, heroic, sun-bronzed Israeli farmer or soldier. They were seen as weak, as "human dust." There was this terrible, unspoken question: "Why didn't you fight back?" They were often called sabon, the Hebrew word for soap, a horrifying reference to the rumors that the Nazis made soap from Jewish bodies. Kevin: That's heartbreaking. They survive the unimaginable only to be judged and scorned by their own people. So how did the Eichmann trial change that? Michael: Ben-Gurion, who was Prime Minister, deliberately orchestrated the trial as a national lesson. He didn't just want to punish Eichmann; he wanted to educate a new generation of Israelis, those born in the country who had no memory of Europe or the Holocaust. He wanted to show them, "This is what happened to us when we were powerless. This is why we need a state. This is why we need an army." Eichmann wasn't just on trial for his crimes; he was a prop in a national drama about Jewish vulnerability and Israeli strength. Kevin: So the trial was a conscious act of nation-building, of forging a collective memory. Michael: A hundred percent. And once that memory became a political tool, it could be used by all sides. This is where the Kastner affair comes in. Rudolf Kastner was a Hungarian Jewish leader who had negotiated with Eichmann to save a trainload of about 1,700 Jews. But to do it, he was accused of sacrificing the other hundreds of thousands of Hungarian Jews by keeping them calm and not warning them about Auschwitz. Kevin: Another devil's bargain. Michael: Exactly. In the 1950s, a libel trial in Israel put Kastner's actions on display. The judge famously declared that Kastner had "sold his soul to the devil." The verdict was a political earthquake. It was used by the opposition, led by Menachem Begin, to attack the ruling Mapai party, suggesting that its leaders had been complicit, that they had collaborated. Kastner was later assassinated in Tel Aviv. Kevin: So the memory of the Holocaust becomes this high-stakes political football. One side uses it to say 'Never again, we must be strong,' and the other uses it to accuse leaders of betrayal. It's no longer just about mourning the dead. Michael: It's about defining the soul of the nation. Who gets to decide what the Holocaust means? Is it a story of victimhood or heroism? Betrayal or pragmatism? Segev shows that this struggle over the memory of the past is, in reality, a struggle for control of the present and future of Israel.

Kevin: It feels like the ultimate lesson here is that memory is never pure. It's always shaped by the needs of the present. And for Israel, the need was to build a nation, to create a story of strength from a story of unimaginable loss. Michael: Precisely. And that's the core of Segev's argument in The Seventh Million. The Holocaust isn't just a historical event for Israel; it's an active, living presence in its politics, its identity, and its soul. It's been used to justify everything from accepting reparations from Germany, which caused riots in the streets, to the development of a nuclear program, which Ben-Gurion saw as the ultimate guarantee against another Holocaust. Kevin: And in doing so, it creates this paradox. The desire to be a normal nation, yet one that is forever defined by an abnormal trauma. Michael: And Segev's book forces us to ask a really uncomfortable question: What is the price of that story? He concludes by suggesting that the real lesson of the Holocaust shouldn't just be about Jewish strength or the necessity of a Jewish state. The lesson, he argues, should be a universal one. Kevin: What does he mean by that? Michael: He means that the memory of the Holocaust should compel a nation to be a beacon of democracy, to fight racism in all its forms, and to defend human rights, not just for its own people, but for everyone. It's a call to turn the ultimate particularist tragedy into a universalist moral commitment. Kevin: A powerful and challenging thought to end on. It makes you re-examine every national story, not just Israel's. We'd love to hear what you all think. Does this change how you view the relationship between history and national identity? Find us on our socials and join the conversation. Michael: This is Aibrary, signing off.