The Severed Wing, Part II (excerpts)
By Martin Berman-Gorvine writing as Martin J. Gidron

...Our argument was still going strong when we docked in Marseilles and boarded the ship for Haifa. It got so I overheard one well-dressed yekke, a German Jewish woman, complaining to her husband about "those two Polish loudmouths," but neither of us seemed capable of keeping our voices down. The whole thing boiled down to a few well-worn themes really.
"But look here, we have our own government in Europe."
Avishai would shake his head with slow gravity. "You do not. Don't you try and tell me the Va'ad is anything more than a bunch of unelected machers, big shots running around kissing Alexei the Bleeder's ass, licking Polonski's polished boots."
"Maybe they are," I'd respond, though of course I hated Grynszpan and all his ilk like the Torah commands us to love God, with all my heart, with all my soul, and with all my might. "But if Teddy Roosevelt hadn't been there at Versailles to insist on the Jewish autonomy clause, where would we all be now? Don't try and tell me your so-called Hagana could have done anything during the Succession Pogroms in 1940, or when Romania passed the Edict of Expulsion in '72, or when Polonski tried to fire all the Jews in the Polish civil service. You people have your hands full just fending off the British and fighting with the Arabs!"
"And if a few more clever young guys like you would come join us, we wouldn't have trouble at all. We'd have our own country!"
"And then they'd really come down on us."
"No, then they wouldn't dare touch us, in Palestine or in Europe. You've got your thinking backwards, my young friend..."
Copyright © 2001, Martin Berman-Gorvine
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Copyright © 2001, Martin Berman-Gorvine