Harold Katz, Harvard, and Hatikva
Our hope is not yet lost
“Optimism and hope are not the same. Optimism is the belief that the world is changing for the better; hope is the belief that, together, we can make the world better. Optimism is a passive virtue, hope an active one. It needs no courage to be an optimist, but it takes a great deal of courage to hope.”
—Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, To Heal a Fractured World
Writing a post for this year’s Yom HaZikaron and Yom Ha’Atzmaut season was especially challenging. In a year like this, it is easy for someone to be pessimistic or lose hope. I decided to look for inspiration by returning to my favorite Toldot Yisrael interview, Harold Katz.
His story was captivating, his speech was eloquent and refined, and his account resonated with me in a very powerful way. Our shared American Jewish background allowed me to imagine myself in his shoes. And the courage he had to act on his convictions inspires me to this day.
I first heard of Harold long before Toldot Yisrael, even before we made aliyah, when he appeared in the 1997 Academy Award winning documentary film The Long Way Home:
“There I was in the ivory tower of the Harvard Law School and I became aware for the first time of what had transpired in Europe. And I didn't see how I as a Jewish boy could stay there while history was being made. The Harvard Law School would always be there. This was a moment in history. This was when the Jews were changing the world. They were leaving the ghettos of Europe and they were going to go to Palestine and they were going to form their own state and I had to be a part of that.”
Harold was one of the first people we reached out to when Toldot Yisrael started interviewing in June 2007. This is his story:
Harold Katz was born in 1921 and grew up in Terra Haute, Indiana, where his father was the acting rabbi and Hebrew teacher. An excellent student, he was valedictorian of his high school, and attended Harvard College back when it wasn’t easy for people named Katz to get in to school there. In his senior year, WWII broke out and Harold accelerated his courses, skipped commencement, and enlisted in the Navy.
In May 1943, Harold was in a waiting room and came across a Time Magazine article about Shmuel Zygielbojm that had a profound impact on him. Zygielbojm escaped from the Warsaw Ghetto and came to the West to report on what was happening. He quickly grew discouraged in his meetings with Western Jewry. “At 11 in the morning you will begin telling... about the anguish of the Jews in Poland, but at 1 o'clock they will ask you to halt the narrative so they can have lunch. That is a difference which cannot be bridged.” Zygielbojm became deeply despondent by their lack of urgency, and, while alone in his hotel room, committed suicide. Harold tore the article out of the magazine and kept it hanging above his desk for the rest of his life.
At the end of the war, Harold enrolled in Harvard Law School. It was there that for the first time Harold and his non-Jewish classmate Hugh McDonald began to hear about the concentration camps. In a series of articles by award winning journalist IF Stone, they read how the survivors of the Holocaust were trying to get to Palestine but were prevented from doing so by the British. Stone had written about his experiences joining a group of DPs (displaced persons) on their journey to break the British blockade to Palestine as part of the Haganah's Aliyah Bet (illegal immigration) operation.
“We now learned that there was such a thing as Aliyah Bet, and Hugh and I decided that we had to do it. We couldn’t just sit in law school while this was going on — this was history being made.”
The Haganah recruiters were proud to have two accomplished members like this join the program. “What do you think, just the pool room bums volunteer for this thing? We got Harvard boys, too!”
Katz and McDonald departed Baltimore on a ship called Tradewinds to surreptitiously pick up the Jewish refugees from Italy. With over 1,400 passengers crammed on board, they set sail for Palestine, hoping to evade the British blockade.
“After a couple of days, we were overflown by a big British plane… It flew over us, came back and flew over us again… Shortly after that, the British ships appeared on our horizon, and very soon, we were surrounded by the cruiser Ajax, and a couple of destroyers. We still kept our direction to the shores of Palestine, and we intended to resist.”
Now, with nothing to hide, the ship changed her identity and took on the name Hatikva (The Hope).
“At one point, a destroyer came alongside and he said, "We know who you are. You are overloaded, you are in danger of capsizing, it's a danger to your passengers. We ask you to surrender your ship to us, and we will take you to Cyprus. I want to speak to your captain." Whereupon, we took a young fellow, 10 years old, we put a captain's hat on him… we put him there with a megaphone…and he said, "I am the captain." At that point, they knew that we were not interested in their negotiations. They pulled away. Then the destroyer came directly towards us. When he got close, he turned sharply away to create backwash waves, and deliberately, the ship started to rock one side then the other side.”
The American crew tried to fend off the British, but soldiers in battle gear boarded the ship and succeeded in taking over command. On May 17th, 1947, British destroyers towed the Hatikva into Haifa harbor. The refugees and crew were sent to Cyprus.
After two and a half months in Cyprus, Harold and the other American Aliyah Bet volunteers were sent to Atlit, the British internment camp in Palestine. While imprisoned in Atlit, Harold was standing by the fence when a delegation of American Jews came to visit. Judith Epstein, two time President of Hadassah, the Women's Zionist Organization of America recognized Harold from his time in Boston and said, “Harold Katz, what are you doing behind barbed wire?" Harold replied, “Mrs. Epstein, what are you not doing behind barbed wire?” paraphrasing Thoreau’s famous response to Emerson, when asked what he was doing in prison over a matter of principle.
I share Harold’s account in every presentation I make about Toldot Yisrael and in many media interviews. I admire his moral clarity and his incredible understanding of what is truly important, and more significantly, when it is time to take action. Most of all, I aspire to his courage to hope.
This Yom Ha’Atzmaut, let us remember the words of Hatikva, od lo avda tikvatenu, our hope is not yet lost.
Harold Katz passed away on December 31, 2019. May his memory be for a blessing and continue to inspire future generations.
Chag Sameach!
You can watch the full interview here.
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Great stuff. Good interview. You’ve undertaken a significant work!!! And are doing it well