Victor Jacobson

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Victor Jacobson (born October 24, 1869 in Simferopol , Crimea , Russian Empire ; † August 23, 1934 in Bern , Switzerland ) was a Zionist politician, diplomat, and publicist.

Life

Jacobson was already active in the organization Hibbat Zion as a youth . He studied chemistry in Switzerland and Berlin, where he joined the Russian-Jewish Scientific Association and from 1897 became involved in the newly founded Zionist World Organization .

From 1906 to 1908 he headed the Beirut branch of the Anglo-Palestine Bank , from 1908 to 1913 the branch in Constantinople , registered there as the "Anglo-Levantine Banking Company". At the same time, as the predecessor of Richard Lichtheim, he was the unofficial representative of the World Zionist Organization (WZO) in the then Ottoman capital. Jacobson supported the Young Turkish movement in its early liberal phase after 1908. In the magazine "Jeune Turc", which he founded, he tried to influence the Young Turkish movement in the spirit of Zionism (see below).

In 1913 Jacobson became a member of the Zionist Action Committee and moved back to Berlin. During the First World War he headed the Copenhagen office of the WZO, from 1918 he was active in London at the new headquarters of the organization. Jacobson and his successor in Constantinople, the German Richard Lichtheim, like numerous other Zionists, supported the German side in World War I until 1918 because they hoped a German victory would strengthen the Zionist idea.

During the 12th Zionist Congress in 1921 Jacobson propagated the Arab-Jewish cooperation in Palestine together with Arthur Ruppin , which laid the ideological foundation for the later organization Brit Shalom , which was founded in Jerusalem in 1926. From 1926 until his death in 1934 he represented the WCO in Paris and Switzerland at the seat of the League of Nations .

Press activities

  • Jeune Turc (1908–1915): Jacobson bought a French-language anti-Semitic newspaper "Courrier d'Orient" together with Sami Hochberg , David Wolffsohn (then President of the WZO) and other Zionists and brought them on a pro-Zionist course. Prominent employees of the Jeune Turc were the Russian-Jewish journalist and revolutionary and at times German Social Democrat Alexander Parvus and the Turkish writer and intellectual Celal Nuri Ileri . Vladimir Jabotinsky and Sami Hochberg were the editor-in-chief of the paper and co-editor . The "Jeune Turc", which at times also financial support from the Foreign Office had received in 1915 from the German pro-military junta to Enver , Cemal , and Talat Pasha , who had coup to power in 1913, and for the genocide of the Armenians in Anatolia in 1915 to 1918 was responsible, like other publications of the liberal wing of the Young Turks forbidden. Lichtheim was expelled from Turkey in 1916 as an alleged American spy. Hochberg died "accidentally" in February 1917 of food poisoning after visiting a restaurant. The Zionist helpers of the Young Turks had become a nuisance to the Young Turks and their German allies after the publication of the Balfour Declaration in 1917.
  • La Palestine Nouvelle (from 1928): with the Comité des Amis du Sionisme

Quotes about the "Jeune Turc"

“In their attitude towards foreign journalists, I found the Turks invariably friendly. The Jewish-German publishers of newspapers such as the ' Ottoman Lloyd ' or the 'Jeune Turc' were less polite. (...) As' Mr. Graef 'or' Grafs' I myself received some of the arrows of the non-Turkish hirelings of the Young Turks , whom British critics of intrigue, reaction - as all-encompassing a word as Bolshevism and fascism have become - accused of Turkophobia and venality and even ruthlessly Germanized their names. "

- Philip Graves , Correspondent for the Times (London) in Constantinople until 1914

literature

  • Richard Lichtheim: Return - Memoirs from the early days of German Zionism. DVA, Stuttgart 1970.
  • Richard Lichtheim: Dr Victor Jacobson - An Appreciation , Palestine Post, September 3, 1934 Link
  • Jewish Virtual Library: entry Victor Jacobson

Web links

Commons : Category: Victor Jacobson  - Album with pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Richard Lichtheim: Return - Memoirs from the early days of German Zionism. DVA, Stuttgart 1970.
  2. ↑ There is a biography in Hebrew about Hochberg by the Israeli journalist Igal Sarna: Shany Littmann: Saved from History's Black Hole: Haaretz, November 12, 2010 link (29.4.2017 - 21:18)
  3. ↑ Irmgard Farah: The German press policy and propaganda activities in the Ottoman Empire from 1908-1918 with special consideration of the "Ottoman Lloyd". Beirut texts and studies, Volume 50. Edited by the Orient Institute of the German Oriental Society, Beirut 1993, ISBN 3-515-05719-6
  4. ↑ Original quote: In their attitude towards foreign journalists I found the Turks invariably courteous. The Jewish-German editors of such newspapers as the Osmanischer Lloyd and the Jeune Turc were less polite. Mr. Bourchier , the famous correspondent of The Times in the Balkans, as careful and truthful a journalist as ever lived, was their special target. He was generally described as "Mr. Bautzer". As "Mr. Graef" or "Grafs" I received some of the shafts of the non-Turkish hirelings of the CUP who accused British critics of intrigue, reaction - a word as all-embracing as "Bolshevism" and "Fascism" have become - Turcophobia and receiving subsidies, and callously Germanized their very names.
  5. ^ Philip P. Graves: Briton and Turk . Thames and Hutchinson, London 1941, p. 154
personal data
SURNAME Jacobson, Victor
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Jacobson, Avigdor; Jacobson, Viktor
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Russian Zionist politician, diplomat and publicist
DATE OF BIRTH October 24, 1869
PLACE OF BIRTH Simferopol , Crimea , Russian Empire
DATE OF DEATH August 23, 1934
Place of death Bern , Switzerland