D O C U M E N T 2 0 7 J U N E 1 9 2 8 2 0 1 207. From Felix Moritz Warburg London, 1 June 1928 Dear friend, Two days ago I received here the news, more than disappointing for me, that your health does not allow you to participate in the university meeting, and I am not only sorry, but also truly sad that the main goal of my trip to Europe has been thwarted by your absence.[1]— I knew, of course, that your judgment of my friend Magnes was unfavorable, and both he and Weizman had hoped that a conversation between you and us three would produce some clarification.[2]— I came here for that reason, against my doctors’ wishes, and I am returning to New York from Hamburg on June 29.— Whether empty-handed or not depends on you.— “God protects the Jews from their friends they protect themselves against their enemies.”[3] I have seen Weizman suffer from the meanness of his so-called col- leagues in New York & on our common voyage here we tried to console one an- other for our difficulties.[4] Your three valuable letters to Weizmann have been before my eyes for a few hours now, and I am very unhappy that these bombs have been thrown into the meeting.[5]— My goal in these lines that I am writing down in this terrible form between 3 and 4 o’clock in the morning is to persuade you to change the passages that are so unjust and aggressive in nature that they only wound unnecessarily and prevent progress.— I have now known Magnes for more than twenty years and have talked so inti- mately with him that I am able to judge him and his ideals.[6]— He has always fought for what he considers right, with a youthful impatience and without always seeing in advance the consequences for himself. As a rabbi, he could not always bend and change his convictions & preferred to give up the most influential, best position in Emanuel Temple when he [felt] that he could not fulfill his ambitions for Judaism there.[7]— In the Kehilla he took up the battle for the masses in New York and thereby lost many influential friends, but also won the admiration and love of thousands.[8]— He had the pain of losing many of his American friends at the beginning of the war, because he felt that a rabbi should not preach blood and thunder, but rather plead for peace, and because he could not agree overnight, like almost everyone, that as a result of the declaration of war by their rulers all Germans were transformed from good people into Huns and beasts.[9]— He was the first to begin charitable work for us in Poland after the war, putting his health at risk, and afterward, instead of playing a leading role in America he felt that Pal- estine must be the place from which Zion’s light must come, and with his coura- geous wife—who was certainly not brought up for this—he decided to take his
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