Brit Shalom Through the Eyes of Soviet Intelligence

In late October 1928, the Foreign Section of the Counterintelligence Department of the State Political Directorate of the Ukrainian SSR (INO KRO GPU Ukrainian SSR) prepared a detailed memorandum on the activities of Zionist parties and organisations in Mandatory Palestine. Part of the memorandum concerned Brit Shalom, an organisation active in Eretz Israel. Its name means “covenant of peace” in Hebrew.

From the Chekists’ point of view, the central figure in Brit Shalom was Arthur Ruppin — referred to in the document as “Runits,” probably because of a typo. He was described as a “veteran Zionist” of German origin. The document noted that Ruppin, a prominent scholar and the author of serious studies on the economies of Syria and Palestine, had substantial capital of £150,000, acquired during the First World War.

Soviet intelligence was particularly interested in Ruppin’s visit to the USSR in 1927, where he studied the experience of Jewish colonisation and later gave it “favourable reviews.”

Another notable figure was Chaim Margolis-Kalvarisky, who had worked in Palestine for forty years. He began his career as a director of the JCA, the Jewish Colonization Association, a philanthropic organisation operating under Rothschild patronage and involved in Jewish colonisation. Later, after joining the Zionist movement, he focused on work with the Arab population, but eventually left his post at the JCA because of disagreements over the Arab question.

The biography of Dr Magnes, a religiously observant American Jew who became rector of the Hebrew University, was also of interest to the INO KRO GPU Ukrainian SSR. The document paid particular attention to his arrest in the United States in 1918 for pacifist activity and “sympathies for the Bolsheviks.” As the document noted, however, Magnes had cooled toward Bolshevism “under the influence of terror,” though he remained a pacifist.

The memorandum also gave brief descriptions of other founders of the pacifist organisation.

It noted Brit Shalom’s distinctive understanding of Zionism. Although the organisation supported the Balfour Declaration and the British Mandate, it opposed the creation of a Jewish state and even the formation of a Jewish majority in Palestine. This gave Soviet analysts reason not to classify it among anti-imperialist groups.

According to the memorandum, 1928 marked a turning point in Brit Shalom’s activity. In its publications, Brit Shalom sharply criticised the “short-sighted and chauvinistic policy” of the Zionist leadership, stressing that Palestine’s Jewish population of 150,000 was surrounded by a “many-million-strong Arab sea,” and that in the event of conflict the British authorities would not always be able to protect the Jewish population.

On this basis, Brit Shalom actively supported the demand for the creation of a local mixed Arab-Jewish parliament, put forward by the 7th Palestinian Arab Congress, arguing that this was necessary not only for reaching an agreement with the Arabs, but also in the interests of the Jewish population itself.

Soviet intelligence paid special attention to the organisation’s contacts with Arab public figures. The document noted that the Palestinian Arab elite of the time was divided between two aristocratic families: the Husseinis, who controlled the Majlis Islamiyya, the Supreme Muslim Council, and held anti-imperialist positions; and the Nashashibis, who controlled the Jerusalem municipality and cooperated with the British authorities.

Members of Brit Shalom maintained close contacts with the Nashashibi family and regularly published in the newspaper Mir’at al-Sharq, which was close to them.

This position provoked sharp rejection within the Zionist movement. The Zionist press published numerous critical articles, especially condemning the organisation’s members for their publications and public statements in the Arab press. It is noteworthy that some members of the organisation also provided financial and moral support to the Palestinian branch of MOPR, the International Red Aid organisation, which further complicated their relations with the Zionist establishment. According to the GPU, the only party relatively tolerant of the “pacifist group” was Hapoel Hatzair.

Soviet intelligence characterised Brit Shalom as an elite committee. Its influence was based not on numbers, but on the intellectual and public authority of its members, who included philosophers, scholars, writers, and administrators. The organisation was a unique phenomenon within the Zionist movement: it sought compromise with the Arab population while remaining loyal to the British authorities.

The J-Doc digital archive also contains the GPU Foreign Section’s assessments of other Zionist organisations and prominent figures of the Jewish national movement, as well as its analysis of the socio-economic situation in Mandatory Palestine in the second half of the 1920s.

Freddy Rotman