PART I—
FROM AMERICA TO PALESTINE

Chapter 1—
America, 1906–1930

The Agranats

Simon Agranat's first memory was that of tearfully imploring his father not to take the family to Palestine. He was three or four years old, frightened by the thought of crossing the ocean by boat. He remembered his father, otherwise doting and tender, asserting flatly that "Palestine was their true home" and that "they would be going there, soon."

Simon was born in 1906 in Louisville, Kentucky, to Aaron-Joseph and Polya (Pauline) Agranat, both Russian immigrants who had recently arrived in the United States. Almost a quarter of a century would pass before the family fulfilled the Zionist dream of leaving the United States to settle in Palestine. Simon's memory illustrates how insistent, throughout his childhood, was his awareness that Palestine was their true home.

The name Agranat carries two meanings. In Russian the letter h sounds like the English g; thus the name Agranat is Russian for Ahranat or Aharon. In Jewish tradition, Aharon, Moses's brother, was the great priest, the mediator between God and the people. His offspring, the Kohanim (Hebrew for "priests") continued to serve in this capacity until the destruction of the Second Temple. According to this version, Agranat traces a family lineage that goes back to the priesthood in the ancient Kingdom of Israel. Another interpretation leads to Spain in the Middle Ages. In 1492 Spain expelled its entire Jewish population. As the Jews moved east, to Germany, Poland, and Russia, their Spanish heritage faded. Agranat

is a variation on Al-Granad—"the one from Granada"—and links the family to medieval Spain. The Agranats liked the first version better. Perhaps they preferred the attributes of priesthood over the Spanish connection, or perhaps they were more democratic, preferring the rather common Kohanim to the atypical Spanish extraction.

Simon's father, Aaron Agranat, was born in Chislavitch, Russia, to an "avid Mitnagged"—a member of the Jewish Conservative camp opposing innovation and reform.^[1] He spent his childhood receiving religious Jewish education, aspiring to study in the great Lithuanian Yeshivah of Mir. Like many young Jews of his generation, however, Aaron's aspirations were decisively altered after he encountered the Haskalah movement, the Jewish equivalent of the Western Enlightenment. Haskalah meant more than the immersion of oneself in Western culture—it emphasized the revival of Jewish culture. Hitherto, religion was the essence of Jewish identity. Culture was incidental to, and embedded within, Jewish Orthodoxy. The Haskalah sought to reverse this process, to make Jewish culture the essence and religion incidental, to restore to center stage the secular manifestations of Jewish life: history, literature, the Hebrew language. The Haskalah signaled the disintegration of traditional Jewish life in Eastern Europe and the beginning of a search for new, human-made remedies for Jewish misery. Zionism, an ideology seeking a political-nationalist solution, was built on the foundations laid by the Haskalah.

Aaron Agranat was not a zealous ideologue. He wanted to acquire a profession before immigrating to Palestine. Because Russian universities did not welcome Jews, he dreamed of pursuing academic studies in Switzerland. Meanwhile, making a living by teaching Hebrew, he fell in love with one of his pupils, Polya Shnitzer. Polya's mother, a tough-minded widow, imposed one condition before giving her consent to marriage: that Aaron agree to join the family in emigrating to America. In 1904, as the bloody Kishinev pogroms signaled once again the fearful conditions of Jewish life in Russia, Aaron and Polya's brother, Yekhi'el, arrived in the United States and, for unclear reasons, headed to Louisville, Kentucky. The rest of the family joined them in 1905. Polya and Aaron were married, and Simon, the first of their two sons, was born the following year. Soon the family moved to Chicago, where Simon grew up. The move to Chicago was probably motivated by Aaron's desire for an education, but it was also precipitated by a rift between the opinionated young Zionist, committed to modernity, and the Orthodox Jewish establishment in Louisville.

Aaron earned his living in Louisville by teaching Hebrew. A ministorm

erupted when Aaron was observed late one Friday afternoon at the barber shop having a haircut, in violation of the Sabbath. Aaron refused to be bound by rules that he regarded as rigid and out of touch with the times, and a heated argument ensued between Aaron and his employers about the viability of Orthodoxy in modern Jewish life. It is not clear whether Aaron was fired or was merely censured as a result of this incident, but he certainly felt humiliated. The story entered the family lore and made an impression on young Simon. From an early age he was sensitized to the struggle about the meaning of Judaism, the heavy-handedness of Orthodoxy, and the price one paid for daring to be different. The move to Chicago signaled Aaron's understanding that his aspirations could only be fulfilled in a modern environment.

During the opening decades of the twentieth century the city of Chicago experienced wild growth. From a small midwestern town it had expanded into a thriving metropolis, a center of industry and wealth that attracted immigrants. In 1920, 72 percent of its people were of foreign stock. Chicago had the second largest Jewish population in the United States.^[2] Into this dynamic environment Aaron moved his family. He found a position as head of the Hebrew Department of the Marks Nathan Jewish Orphans Home and began to explore the possibility of academic studies. Those who saw Hester Street, a vivid historical film about the life of Jewish immigrants in America, may remember the stocky, vulgar manager of the sweatshop bantering that "in America the [ignorant] peddler is the boss and the Yeshivah bokher [learned student]—a mere employee." Most educated immigrants would welcome a modest teaching position, which would allow them to escape the harsh life of laborers. They would leave to their children the task of pursuing professional careers. Aaron was more ambitious than most of his fellow immigrants and regarded teaching Hebrew as a temporary job. Yet even he had to compromise. He wished to study medicine, but this seemed impossible for a poor Jew with a family to support. Dentistry emerged as an acceptable compromise. He enrolled in the College of Dental Surgery, and earned a D.D.S. Thus he placed himself among the 2.6 percent of American Jews who were professionals at the beginning of the century. Practicing dentistry, first at home in near-north Chicago and then from a rented office, he provided his family with a comfortable life and could look forward to a secure future.

Friends and relatives in densely Jewish northwest Chicago described Aaron as a short, flamboyant, and vivacious man who was rather meticulous about his appearance. Many commented on his perfectly pressed,

knife-pleated trousers. Self-confident and witty, he was steeped in literature and passionate about the opera, to which he would listen while following the score.^[3]

Aaron's years of struggle gave him a deep affection for America. During World War I, he was so overwhelmed by patriotic zeal that he wished to volunteer for military service, but for reasons of health he was not eligible. Still, his real passion remained Zionism. Irving Howe observed that "[b]y 1905 the total Zionist membership (mostly on paper) came to 25,000, representing a tiny fraction of American Jews. Of these, only a few hundred were at all active."^[4] Most American Jews, traumatized by the long, painful, and uprooting journey from Europe, were not emotionally prepared to think of another major dislocation. That could be one reason why they remained unmoved by an ideology which proclaimed that only in Zion would Jews be at home. Indeed, it is quite possible that family stories about the hardships of travel frightened young Simon and made him dread a trip by boat on the high seas.^[5] Aaron and Polya were among the few dedicated Zionists and among the fewer still who actually planned to merge theory with practice and move to Palestine.

Polya Agranat, who in the United States adopted the name Pauline and in Palestine took the Hebrew name Pnina, was a quiet, strong-willed woman, often described as pedantic and domineering. Simon described her as "tall, good looking, and practical minded." She had a beautiful voice (her husband claimed that she could have been an opera singer), and her son remembered her singing as she did housework during the morning hours. She supported her husband's gregarious nature by helping him turn their home into a center of social activity. They entertained almost every Zionist leader who came to Chicago, from Chaim Weizmann to Chaim Arlosoroff, and later, in Haifa, they opened their home to the local intelligentsia. Dorothy Kurgeans, who later married Justice Arthur Goldberg, recalled attending evening Hebrew classes with Polya, who was learning Hebrew in anticipation of their immigration.^[6] Polya had an independent mind. Simon recalled that in the 1928 presidential elections, she refused to vote for Al Smith, the candidate favored by her husband and sons, for fear that "he would take orders from the Pope." In 1929 she sailed to Haifa by herself and set up the house and the dental clinic, in expectation of the family's arrival. After her husband's death, Polya experienced a transformation. The wife and homemaker turned into a political activist, and she chaired her local chapter of the Women's International Zionist Organization. She also blossomed into a feminist, critical, Simon recalled, of "this, a man's world," where "laws were drafted by men, for the benefit of men."

In 1949, the first Israeli elections, she campaigned for the Women's Party. Carmel, Simon's wife, recalled that Polya "persuaded" the entire family, including Simon, then already a justice of Israel's Supreme Court, to vote for her party. Aaron did not live to see either the birth of the Jewish state or the rise of his son to the highest judicial office. He died in 1946.

Home and Family

First child and first grandchild in his extended family, Simon was much loved and cherished during his childhood, and he reciprocated this affection. The family moved often, leading Simon to change schools, which may have contributed to his shyness and probably made the family an even more important center of his life. Despite this instability and an affliction with stomachaches—which doctors kept promising would disappear as he grew older—he remembered his childhood in Chicago as a happy one, with occasional trips to the theater to see a beloved Gilbert and Sullivan show and exciting visits to the playing field to watch his favorite game, baseball. Unlike many of his peers, who had to share household chores, Simon was free to indulge his own interests. He attributed his freedom to the fact that his mother did not need the extra help because she did not hold a job. Her being a full-time homemaker, however, says as much about Aaron's traditional conception of family life. That Aaron did not wish his wife to work was a sign that, although he wished to revolutionize the condition of the Jewish people, he did not think that the status of women or of the family needed to be changed. This arrangement also suggests that Polya may well have raised her sons as the Jewish princes she probably considered them to be.

Simon's relationship with his father was close and warm. Aaron was deeply involved in his son's activities and supervised his education, making sure his public-school curriculum was supplemented by Jewish instruction and hiring private tutors to expand his horizons and hone his skills. Aaron was proud of Simon. He would often take him to public, mainly Zionist, meetings, where he would cheerfully boast about him. Father and son spent many hours together, discussing politics and other matters. Simon adored and trusted his father and often sought his advice. But even though Simon inherited a gifted mind and broad perspective from his father, he did not have Aaron's flamboyant personality or spontaneous manner. By all accounts, Simon was a reserved boy, more like his mother, whose physique he had also inherited.

In school Simon was an excellent student and active in public affairs—he was president of the Victory Club (the club of the graduating class). Twelve-year-old Simon's biographical statement in the Von Humboldt Elementary School Record contains the motto, "The earnest are not hindered by trifles." The anonymous author of a "Can You Imagine" column in the same publication asked rhetorically, "Can you imagine—Simon Agranat not serious?"^[7] Girls described him as "a long-legged, tall, and somewhat stooped boy who was shy, aloof, detached." To the boys in his neighborhood, with whom he shared jokes, played baseball, and went to the movies, "Sy" was "just an ordinary, nice guy, totally unaffected, unassuming, natural."^[8]

But his seriousness was always spiced by a light touch of humor and a sense of irony. Ben Sackheim, his closest childhood friend, recalled how Simon "could knit his brows like nobody else"—thereby mocking the heavy self-image. The origin of a lifelong friendship between the two provides a glimpse into Simon's personality. Ben's father extolled Simon's virtues, presumably contrasting Simon with the rebellious and defiant Ben. Ben, who had just returned home after a long battle with tuberculosis, immediately resolved to hate "this brilliant Hebrew student, this obedient and attentive son, this paragon of all virtues." But Ben, whose illness made him exquisitely insightful, soon managed to grasp Simon's vulnerability and sensitivity as well as his modesty: "[a]lmost instantly I was nonplussed and disarmed."^[9] On his part, Simon was attracted to Ben's sparkling, buoyant laughter—a lightness that complemented his own heavy demeanor. They spent hours together, sipping tea in the kitchen and discussing books, politics, and themselves. In Ben's trusted presence, Simon revealed his yearning for harmony: his favorite pastime was pretending to be an orchestra conductor, making music with an imagined baton. Elias Canetti observed that "there is no more obvious expression of power than the performance of a conductor. . . . He stands on a dais [when all others are seated, standing reflects power]" and controls both the audience and the orchestra. For the audience, he is the leader; even though they cannot see his face, they are led by him and will not move until the music is finished. For the orchestra—"an assemblage of different types of men"—the conductor is "omniscient, for, while the players have only their own parts . . . he has the whole score in his head, or o n his desk." Thus, "during the performance, . . . the conductor [is] the ruler of the world."^[10] Of course, because Simon only fantasized about being a conductor, this fantasy may well disclose a sense of powerlessness in real life, and yet it also imparts an ambition to lead, to make a difference. His

love of music, particularly the operas he admired—Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor and Wagner's Tristan und Isolde —also reveal the romantic, passionate self behind the serious, aloof appearance. This passion nurtured his interest in the Progressive movement, whose values were imprinted in his heart and mind.

Growing Up an American:
The Cry for Justice

If the human race is gradually to be lifted to higher and higher levels, if civilization is to be truly democratic and progressive, and if we are ultimately to come to as high a degree of perfection in government . . . it ought to be here in America . . . for we had here the best opportunity.
—ROBERT M. LA FOLLETTE, The Political Philosophy of Robert M. La Follette, comp. Ellen Torelle (Madison, Wis.: Robert M. La Follette Co., 1920), 147.

"Progressivism," Richard Hofstadter wrote, "was that broader impulse toward criticism and change that was everywhere so conspicuous after 1900 . . . [affecting] the whole tone of American political life." Progressivists wished to revive democracy and promote social justice by eliminating tenements, forbidding sweatshop labor, protecting the working class, and restoring economic entrepreneurship. "Vital to the search for social justice," Arthur Ekirch observed, "was the idea of wholeness—the concept that reform should be comprehensive and continuous rather than piecemeal and spasmodic."^[11] Chicago was one of the major strongholds of the Progressive movement during the early decades of the twentieth century, and Progressivism dominated Simon's childhood.

He grew up in an atmosphere of optimism, of combative civic alertness that seemed to succeed. He breathed optimism at home, as he saw his father become a dentist and improve the family's socioeconomic status. He felt it in school. Von Humboldt, one of the public schools that Simon attended, looked blithely into the near future as it announced plans to become "larger and better," building "an assembly hall with a seating capacity of 1,000" and "the largest gymnasium in any grammar school in Chicago."^[12]

As an adolescent, Simon, then associate editor of the Tuley High School Review, echoed the same spirit of collective pride and civic duty: "Therefore, Tuleyites, your duty, as regards school spirit, lies not only in your ready compliance with financial contribution, not only in your presence at school events, but mainly in your conduct towards your studies, in the

enthusiasm with which you acquire your education, and in your earnest attempt to make the Tuley High School, THE High School of Chicago."^[13]

Simon had already displayed an interest in public affairs as a grammar-school student. His ambition, competitiveness, and willingness to be publicly judged for his argumentative skills began to show as he chaired and personally participated in many debates. On one occasion, his opponent produced a newspaper clipping, read its contents to the audience, then walked over to Simon, and, with a theatrical gesture, placed it on his podium, as if to indicate that Simon had lost the argument. Quickly reading over the item thus handed to him, Simon realized that his opponent had omitted its final paragraph, which in fact supported his position. Simon slowly read it to the audience, then dramatically dropped the document on his opponent's podium.

A schoolmate, imagining the future of the Von Humboldt class of 1919 in the school's Record, wrote: "I visited a courtroom. The judge looked strangely familiar. It was Simon Agranat, and I thought he had expected to be a dentist."^[14] It is not the prescience but the insight that is interesting here. The writer was able to see that, although very close to his father, Simon would not follow Aaron into a profession that was rather technical and mechanical. She perceived, as did his close friends, his reflective nature, his tendency patiently to sort out the ingredients of a dispute and seek a fair solution.

The topics Simon debated reflect his awareness of the political issues of the second decade of twentieth-century America: the death penalty; Charles Evans Hughes's plan for the reduction of naval armament; whether the city of Chicago should own and operate its transportation system. The last issue, in particular, represents a nutshell of all the great domestic problems of the Progressive Era: urbanization, monopoly, the question of political graft.^[15] The massive concentration of people in the cities made mass transit indispensable. To the streetcar companies, monopoly meant higher prices. To the ordinary person, it meant paying a dime rather than a nickel for a ride. The Progressives exposed the contradiction between franchise renewal and local self-government. If government were of, by, and for the people, why was mass transit controlled by a monopoly? Simon, nevertheless, was not happy about arguing for public ownership. He worried that he could not persuade his classmates to vote for the radical proposition that "Chicago own its traction." The incident reveals the tension he would always experience between his commitment to social justice and his yearning to abide by the general consensus.

If in economic matters he was a moderate (like most Progressives, including Louis D. Brandeis, whom he admired), he was a radical, and remained one, concerning the death penalty. He abhorred the brute force, the affront to human dignity, in the spectacle of organized government taking someone's life. Like most Progressives, he believed that crime was the consequence of wretched social conditions and that reform, not capital punishment, would cure it. Even after he had retired and looked back on his public career, he singled out his debate against the death penalty with confident pride.

Robert La Follette, George Norris, Clarence Darrow, and Upton Sinclair were his heroes. Ben Sackheim remembered sitting with Simon for hours in the Agranat family kitchen, discussing The Cry for Justice . An anthology of the literature of social protest, the book was described by its editor, Upton Sinclair, as "a Bible of the future, a Gospel of the new hope of the race. It is a book for the apostles of a new dispensation to carry about with them; a book to cheer the discouraged and console the wounded in humanity's last war of liberation."^[16] Divided into "Books," it addressed "Toil," "Revolt," "Mammon," "Children," "Struggle for Equality," and "The New Day" in poetry and prose. In the introduction to the first edition, Jack London wrote that he expected "this humanist Holy book . . . to serve the needs of groping, yearning humans who seek to discern truth and justice amid the dazzle and murk of the thought-chaos of the present day world."^[17] The fascination of Simon and Ben with this book reveals the high level of social consciousness and the political involvement of the two youngsters. The question of social justice played an important part in the formation of Simon Agranat.

Simon's thoughts about a future career were rooted in these concerns. He vacillated between law and journalism. Sensitive to the printed word, perhaps stirred by the heroes of the Progressive movement—the muckrakers—he was drawn to journalism. Unlike the muckrakers, he recalled imagining himself not as the person who uncovered intricate corruption in government but, rather, as the writer of leading editorials, inspiring his readers to remedy social ills. He certainly expected, consciously or not, to become "somebody," to make a mark. The other avenue he considered, and eventually pursued, was a career in law. But during his childhood he did not imagine himself as a judge. Rather, he fancied himself a famous lawyer (a young Clarence Darrow?), delivering a fiery speech, urging the jury, persuading them—he recalled, raising his hand up—to acquit the defendant who may be "guilty according to black letter law, yet innocent according to principles of higher law." Higher law, values

aspiring to transform reality, were the themes that nurtured the young Agranat.

If school encouraged his American identity and his Progressive instincts, home nurtured a Zionist commitment. Not surprisingly, the Progressive agenda of comprehensive social reform, rooted in the yearning to restore "a golden age," resonated well with Zionist ideology, the cardinal tenets of which were the liberation and reconstruction of the Jewish people on a restored homeland of Zion.

Growing Up an American Zionist

Aaron Agranat was attracted to Zionism even before Theodor Herzl published "The Jewish State" in 1896.^[18] In Russia he joined the Lovers of Zion—the late-nineteenth-century movement that anticipated Zionism and was close to the noted Zionist leader Menachem Ussishkin. Aaron believed in political Zionism—in the need to build international support for a Jewish National Home—but he went further, to consider the revival of Jewish culture as Zionism's essence. In this spirit he raised his sons.

In the United States Aaron did not encounter the zeal for Zionism with which he was familiar in his native Russia. In Chicago he joined the Knights of Zion, an organization with only a handful of Jews, mainly Russian immigrants, centered in the Midwest. He was also a member of the Federation of American Zionists. By 1914, a decade after Herzl's death and Aaron's arrival in the United States, "the Zionist organization in the United States was weak, in financial distress, and with no influence in the Jewish Community. A spirit of gloom and defeat engulfed the few dedicated leaders."^[19] Simon grew up amidst this struggle, with his father instilling in him a commitment to Zionist ideology.

His afternoons were devoted to Jewish education. For a while he attended the Yiddishe Nazionalische Socialistische Schule, where he sang Yiddish songs and learned Jewish history from the perspective of Jewish cultural revival. Later, his father removed him from that school, to give him more time to study Hebrew. Hebrew, the sacred language now revived, was so central to Aaron that he even objected to Simon's pursuing violin lessons, despite Simon's overt interest, on the ground that the violin might come at the expense of the Hebrew.

Religion was an integral part of the Agranat family life: they observed the ritual of Sabbath dinners and attended the Orthodox neighborhood

schule on the holidays (Conservative synagogues were still rare). The family's religiosity, however, was selective and flexible. Simon's mother never attended religious services, and his father worked regularly on Saturday mornings. Like many sensitive children, Simon had his "religious period" at the age of twelve or thirteen, when he prayed daily and, following Saturday services, arrived at his father's office to discuss the rabbi's sermon. "If you wish to pray every day, at least use a biblical chapter as your prayer," he remembered his father's advising. This admonition reflected Aaron's belief, in the spirit of the Haskalah, that one should deemphasize the rabbinical texts developed in exile and restore the centrality of the Bible—the book written when the Jews were an independent nation. The Agranats had a constructive approach to religion. They would neither subordinate their lives to religious rules and dogma, as the Orthodox had done, nor adopt a thoroughly secular lifestyle. Thus Simon grew up in a moderate home, one that acknowledged the value of religion without obeying religion's overbearing, fundamentalist commands.

As Simon entered adolescence, Jewish life in Chicago became more organized. The Conservative movement and Young Judea began to take root.^[20] Both sought to adjust religion to modernity in general and to American reality in particular. In 1921 Sam Strauss, one of Simon's childhood friends and an active member of the Young Judea club, described the movement:

Stand outside of a public school, in a Jewish neighborhood, and think of the hundreds of Jewish children who crowd the school—how many are learning Hebrew? Very few. . . . [W]hat do these . . . boys and girls do? They roam the streets, play with the non-Jewish children in the neighborhood, and little by little they forget whatever they ever knew about Judaism. . . . Then Young Judea steps in. The older children join a Young Judea club. The scene is transformed. They begin to ask their parents questions on Jewish history and customs. Presently the parents' stock of knowledge is exhausted. The children begin to teach their parents! The parents begin to take an interest in their children's Jewish education. . . . They seek to better their environment. They become Jewish to the core.^[21]

Aaron Agranat suggested that a Young Judea club be established in northwest Chicago, after Simon, then eleven or twelve years old, expressed an interest in pursuing some organized public activity. In the club, which met twice a week at the Talmud Torah of the United Congregation, the children discussed and celebrated Jewish holidays and engaged in debates with members of other Young Judea clubs, on such topics as "Purim is a greater holiday than Hanukkah," or "Public utilities [should] be nationally

owned and controlled immediately upon the establishment of the Jewish state."^[22] Simon was an active member of the club, first as a regular member and later as a Young Judean leader. Club members became his closest and lifelong friends: Harry Ruskin, later a prominent Chicago lawyer; Meyer Handler, later an international correspondent for the New York Times ; and Ben Sackheim, later the owner of a successful advertising agency in New York. The youngsters adored their instructor—Isaac Schour—known for his propensity for reconciliation and compromise. In the Northwest Young Judea Club, Simon's ambition and talents bloomed. He decided to publish a monthly magazine, The Herzlite , therein to explore his world and the world of his peers. The ambitious project yielded only one issue, whose pages reflect the mix of American Progressivism and utopian Zionism that dominated Simon's world in those years.^[23]

The Young Judeans took to the task of publication enthusiastically. They created a staff complete with an editor-in-chief (Simon), an associate editor (Harry Ruskin), an assistant editor (Meyer Handler), a staff artist (Leo Wolf), and a business department with a circulation manager, an advertising manager, and staff stenographers. They turned out a twenty-three-page publication complete with editorials, articles, comic strips, advertisements, and an aesthetic cover featuring a royal portrait of Theodor Herzl, the founding father of Zionism.

Leo Wolf, the staff artist, who later ran a commercial art firm in Chicago, remembered the excitement of assembling the magazine. Leo's father, a tailor, owned a large, long table on which he would cut cloth. The table was cleared, and the youngsters used it to spread out the sheets of paper and assemble the magazine. The Agranats' involvement in the project is clear from the "contributions" section, which featured the extended Agranat family: parents, aunts, uncles, and family friends.

The Herzlite reflects the efforts made by Simon's generation to come to terms with the meaning of being Jewish in America and with the impact of Zionism on their emerging identity. All of them either had been born in the United States to immigrant parents or had immigrated themselves at a tender age. Their parents struggled to make a living—as tailors, shopkeepers, day laborers. The cultural world of their parents was the shtetl. At home they heard Yiddish. At school they were initiated into the American world. It was a world that retained the familiar stereotypes of their parents' world, yet held so much hope for a better future. Simon himself did not recall any incidents of anti-Semitism in northwest Chicago in the Wilson era, but his fellow Young Judeans had many stories to tell.

For example, Mary Satinover, who lived not far from Simon, remembered verbal abuse and anti-Semitic epithets hurled at her as she crossed the "Polish" neighborhood on her way to buy ice at a discount place. But there was also a sunny side to America. These teenagers believed that the anti-Semitism was not official. As Americans, they were to be the beneficiaries of Progressivism. They possessed the firm confidence that talent and hard work would be rewarded. Indeed, all did enjoy successful careers as businessmen or professionals.

How, then, would they reconcile these contradictory aspects of their identity? What did it mean to hear Yiddish at home but feel more comfortable speaking English? The joke section of The Herzlite is a good-humored effort to make sense of the mystery of the conflicting languages and cultural traditions in the world of Simon's generation:

Mystery
I know who put the itch in Itchkovitz
And I know who put the awful booze in Bam
But the thing that's really worse
Than the names I've named at first
Is the fact that there's a ham in Abraham.

The Herzlite was published during Passover, the most powerful Jewish statement against exile. Was America another form of "exile"? Could one faithfully repeat the sentence that ends the seder, "Next year in Jerusalem," and yet be fully American?

These issues touched the nerves of both Zionism and American patriotism. If Zionism meant a radical denial of galut and insisted that Jewish liberation could be attained only through life in a Jewish state, did that mean that the sense of comfort Jews were experiencing in America was false? If American nationalism required a melting pot, did it reject the retention of cultural identity, or did it tolerate ethnic pluralism, a symphony of traditions?

The Passover Haggadah depicts four sons arguing about the significance of Passover: the wise, the wicked, the simple, and the one "who knows not to ask a question." The Herzlite 's leading article, entitled "The Four Modern Sons of the Hagadah," written by a fellow Young Judean, J. Licterman, but bearing the marks of Simon's influence, explores the dimensions of the Jewish dilemma. It provides an insight into the world of these youngsters, who were deft at making arguments in support of Zionism yet conflicted by their own love for America, who felt abandoned by the large majority of American Jews who rejected Zionism yet longed

for a legitimating synthesis between their particular tradition and the ethos of the melting pot.

The Herzlite presents "self" as the modern rendition of the wicked son: a stereotype of the newly emerging, materialistic, American Jew, "interested in nothing but his own affairs." Clearly, this character is unattractive to the public-spirited youngsters. Even the drawing that accompanies the article depicts "self" in profile, whereas the other three sons face the reader. His dismissal sets the stage for the titanic wrestling between the Zionist (the "wise") and the assimilationist (the "simple") sons.

The assimilationist rejects the relevance of Passover to American reality: "How does it concern us now?" he asks, "It all happened long ago." And furthermore, "I am very comfortable here. This country suits me." The Zionist invokes the argument most compelling to European Jewish ears: that exile entailed catastrophe, pogroms, and persecution. But the assimilationist is not persuaded, for the argument fails to reflect his American reality: "We're not persecuted here"; "America is free to all. We have just as much rights as anybody else." In rebuttal, the Zionist resorts to anti-Semitism: "You are mistaken. We are only tolerated. Go to any college and try to join a fraternity. See if they will take you." It is interesting that the assimilationist does not rebut this argument. Apparently the youngsters could not agree about the impact of anti-Semitism on their future. Even the Zionist makes his argument about anti-Semitism only halfheartedly and immediately proceeds to his next argument—false consciousness. "Because here to [sic ], in America, a free country, you are a slave. Not a physical but a moral slave, doing as all around you do, losing all your Judaism, trying to live up to your gentile neighbors, and I must admit, to my sorrow, that you for one are succeeding very well." Here the argument stopped. Not surprisingly, the assimilationist was not endowed with enough sophistication to turn this weapon against the Zionist and accuse him of "false consciousness."

The Herzlite ends the dialogue with the assimilationist cheerfully dismissing the subject as "a heap of nonsense" and joining "self" for a night at the movies. Before they leave, however, The Herzlite marks the assimilationist with the quintessential attribute of assimilation—self-hatred: "Yes, let's go. . . . Live in a Jewish country? I see enough 'Kikes' here." The assimilationist is a self-hating Jew who has internalized the prejudices of anti-Semitism and identified with the victimizers. Rushing to a happy end, the article has the "wise son" and the "one who knows not to ask a question" conduct their own brief dialogue, whereby the innocent son is "convinced of the necessity of Zionism" as well as of the desirability

of joining the Young Judeans. A moral was added in capital letters: "WHERE THERE IS LIFE THERE IS HOPE."

Simon's contribution to the dialogue between assimilationist and Zionist is most emblematic of the dilemmas that Zionism posed to American Jewish youth. Simon suggested that the very first argument advanced by the Zionist be the need to have a country of one's own. At his suggestion, the Zionist introduced his position by quoting from Sir Walter Scott's poem, The Lay of the Last Minstrel:

Breathes there a man, with soul so dead,
Who never to himself hath said,—
This is my own, my native land!

The message was clear: Zion was the Jews' own native land. Ironically, the context in which Simon had become acquainted with the poem was American patriotism, not Zionism. At school Simon participated in a play entitled The Slacker , based on Edward Everett Hale's story, The Man without a Country . The story, incorporating Scott's poem, was widely taught in American elementary schools, presumably to nurture patriotism and love of country in the immigrant children. The man without a country was a young military officer convicted of treason during the War of Independence, who cavalierly told the judge, "Damn the United States! I wish I may never hear of the United States again!" He was sentenced to have his wish fulfilled: never to set foot in the United States, nor receive any information about the country. The story describes the misery of the young man, exiled aboard U.S. navy ships for more than forty years, as he came to realize the barrenness of life without a country. His last wish was that a stone be placed in his memory, saying: "He loved his country as no other man has loved her; but no man deserved less at her hands." In Simon's mind the Zionist argument, that outside Zion Jews were persons without a country, was associated with the travails of Hale's expatriate. Palestine (Zion) was an abstract notion; the concrete country was America. He took the only "love to country" that he had actually experienced—love of America—and, through Sir Walter Scott's poem, transferred it to Palestine. There was a double irony here: the name of the ship aboard which the officer died was The Levant —French for the Middle East. In Hale's story the Levant was exile and America was home. Simon inverted the ingredients, making America exile and the Levant (Zion) the Jew's native land.^[24]

The problem was that Simon and his friends did experience themselves as American. Love of Zion, certainly the claim that Zion was the true

native land, raised the scary specter of disloyalty. Louis D. Brandeis, leader of both the Progressive and the Zionist movements and the first Jewish justice on the U.S. Supreme Court, showed them how to resolve the conflict.

Louis D. Brandeis, American Zionism, and the Brandeis-Weizmann Dispute

By 1919 Brandeis had transformed American Zionism from a 12,000-person movement into an organization with 176,000 members. He achieved this stunning success by adopting a counteroffensive approach. The Reform Jewish establishment insisted that Judaism was a religion, not a nationality; Jews were thus not "hyphenated Americans" but, rather, Americans of the Jewish faith.^[25] Zionism, with its emphasis on Jewish nationhood, threatened this conception, and the Reform Jewish leadership urged the immigrants to ignore it, for fear that it might taint all Jews with the stain of double loyalty. Brandeis rejected this conception. For him, true Americanism meant not the obliteration of ethnic origins in the name of uniformity but the opposite: the full exercise of the right to express ancestral endowment. Brandeis thus legitimated Zionism in a formula that enchanted Simon's generation: "To be better Americans we must become better Jews, and to be better Jews we must become better Zionists."^[26]

But Brandeis did not remain the captain of American Zionism for long. Chaim Weizmann—then president of the World Zionist Organization and Brandeis's ally in persuading Great Britain to issue the Balfour Declaration—entered into a virulent clash with Brandeis. By June 1921 the discord ended with Brandeis's defeat in the convention of the American Jewish Congress in Cleveland, Ohio, and with Weizmann's declaration that "[t]here is no bridge between Washington and Pinsk."^[27]

The event, known as the Split in the chronicles of American Jewish history, is of particular significance for understanding Simon Agranat. For the first time in his life he experienced the pull of two enormous forces: Weizmann represented everything about Jewish revival that his father stood for. Brandeis represented his own American world. The split between the two men reflected a split in his own soul, a split that would torment him and that he would always try to heal.

The immediate reason for the disagreement between Brandeis and Weizmann concerned a financial institution called Keren ha-Yesod. Weiz-

mann and the European Zionist leadership decided to establish a special fund of 25 million English pounds to finance the development of the Jewish community (the Yishuv) in Palestine. Brandeis thought ill of this idea. He criticized the budget as inflated, the American share as too large, and the commingling of donations and investments as fiscally unacceptable and managerially unwise.^[28] Weizmann, whose relationship with Brandeis had been rocky for some time, took the opposition as a casus belli. He decided to come to the United States and directly challenge Brandeis's leadership. The struggle over the path of the Zionist Organization was, as Weizmann acknowledged, "a revival, in a new form and a new country, of the old cleavage between 'East' and 'West,'"^[29] between tradition and modernity. He was referring to the 1904 struggle between his own Eastern European group—the Democratic Fraction—and Theodor Herzl, which ended with Weizmann's victory. Brandeis and his followers had stirred in Weizmann the same old resentments against the well-to-do, urbane, and sophisticated westerners, like Herzl, who presumed to tell the Eastern Europeans how to conduct themselves. The rivalries were now revived on the American scene. Weizmann, who would ridicule Brandeis's Jewishness as "Yankee Doodle Judaism,"^[30] painted Brandeis and his group as "plain Americans"—rule oriented, dogmatic, materialistic, calculating, and, above all, cold. By contrast, the Europeans presented themselves as men of vision, imbued with Jewish spirituality (yiddishkeit ), generous, and (of course) warm. One of Weizmann's chief campaign speakers captured the distinction vividly when he claimed that Americans had goyische kops (gentile heads) whereas the Eastern Europeans possessed yiddische herzen (Jewish hearts).^[31]

The voters in the Cleveland Convention, mostly immigrants, loved this juxtaposition. It allowed them to express their resentment of American culture and legitimized their own background as Europeans. For the first time they were permitted to feel superior to Americans, both culturally and temperamentally. Weizmann was a man they could both identify with and be proud of, and they gave him overwhelming support. The defeated Brandeis camp left the movement, feeling betrayed and humiliated.

Simon was unhappy about the Split. His father was a loyal soldier in the Weizmann camp. The controversy dominated their home for months. Aaron lobbied for Weizmann and, as a delegate to the Cleveland Convention, voted in his favor. Simon's close relationship with his father left him no choice but to support Weizmann's agenda. But his loyalty to Brandeis did not dissolve. He was grateful to Brandeis for having so masterfully resolved the conflict between American and Zionist loyalty. He

adored Brandeis, the outspoken Progressivist. He was proud of Brandeis's elevation to the highest court of the land. The attack on the American character was also an attack on his own sense of self. America was rejected in no uncertain terms when Weizmann, elated with his victory, made his bridge proclamation.

The Split is mentioned only in the editorials of The Herzlite? penned by Simon. One editorial praised Keren ha-Yesod, the financial institution that became the point of contention between Weizmann and Brandeis. Placid and factual, the editorial hailed the Keren as a "noble institution" that would provide "for the reconstruction of . . . our country [Palestine]."^[32] The content, Simon said sixty years later, was dictated to him by his father. Was he conflicted about this piece? The clue may lie in his second editorial, dedicated to Moses. Because the occasion was Passover, it would seem natural to praise the greatest of prophets, who led the people of Israel from slavery to freedom. Simon praised Moses, "educated in an Egyptian Court, taught a religion of idolatry," who nevertheless adhered "to his own Nation and People." Moses, Simon wrote, possessed the qualities of a great leader; for example, he had "a great and almost everlasting patience." Why Moses? Why patience? Brandeis's biographer Philippa Strum observes that when Brandeis gave his famous speech in support of Zionism in Boston's Symphony Hall, the corridors were filled with cries of "the New Moses, the New Moses."^[33] The story is told that in Cleveland Felix Frankfurter was confronted with the charge that Brandeis lacked yiddishkeit . Frankfurter responded, "But so did Moses, raised as an Egyptian Prince."^[34] Simon, who was thoroughly familiar with Brandeis's career, may have picked up this analogy between the founding father of Jewish liberation and the founding father of American Zionism. His editorial, dedicated to one great prophet, may well have been about another.

When I suggested to retired Chief Justice Agranat that the teenaged editor-in-chief may in fact have had Brandeis in mind, he pondered, then asked: "And what did I say there?" "You counseled patience," I said. "Ah, these were Brutus's words, 'Be patient till the last,' in Caesar's funeral." It is not surprising that Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, a tale of politics, the meaning of leadership, and treason, was on Simon's mind as he contemplated the Split. Nor was it unusual that Simon included Brutus, "the noblest Roman of them all,"^[35] in his editorial. Like Brutus, Simon was "with himself at war,"^[36] torn between Brandeis and Weizmann. Like Brutus, he grieved over the need to choose between country and friend. Did he feel he did not love Pinsk (his father) less, but Washington (his American self) more? Or did he feel "enslaved" by the foreign-born, with their yiddische

herzen, who mocked American culture, deposed the prophet of democracy, and restored paternal authority? Simon, the editor-in-chief, urged his peers: "YOUNG JUDEANS: . . . If the YOUNG JUDEAN ORGANIZATION does not act . . . in accordance with your wishes . . . do not begin to lament over its 'foolish' step. Do not blame the Leaders. Cling to Moses' doctrine . . . BE PATIENT."^[37]

Simon's reserved reaction to the Split reveals his way of dealing with conflicts: restrained, avoiding overt confrontations, deliberative, patient, bowing politely to authority, but not losing his inner conviction. Henceforth he dreaded splits with all of his heart and always strove to build bridges and pursue a balanced course, neither defying authority nor accepting its harsh judgment.

A Failed Migration to Palestine, 1922

The Tuley High School Record, describing the graduating class of 1922, stated that Simon was "a three and a halfer"—completing his high school work in three and a half years instead of the customary four. Aaron, anxious to move to Palestine, supported Simon's accelerated pace. Aaron had no relatives in Palestine, but he was acquainted with a good number of the Zionist leaders through his activities in Russia and in Chicago. Like all fervent Zionists, he turned a blind eye to the costs of leaving behind extended family and many friends, the material security, and the physical safety of America for the instability of Palestine, where Palestinian resistance to the Zionist cause was already turning violent. His impatience to migrate, apart from his Zionist zeal, reflected the changing international status of Palestine. On 2 November 1917 Lord Balfour, the British minister of foreign affairs, issued the famous Balfour Declaration. It was the culmination of Zionist political activity, the first meaningful gain for Zionism. In the 1920 San Remo Agreement, England was given the mandate over Palestine. Negotiations were under way between England and the World Zionist Organization about drafting a charter, designed to implement a Jewish National Home. An eminent British Jew was appointed as high commissioner of Palestine. The Zionist dream appeared to be on the verge of becoming a reality, and Aaron ached to be present at the creation.

Aaron sold his dental practice, signed an agreement that he would not practice in his neighborhood for five years, and helped his wife pack their belongings and professional equipment. Leo Wolf, one of Simon's friends,

probably reflected the mood at their departure. He recalled fear for the Agranats' safety in Palestine, the "backward land of the desert."^[38] The family took a boat to Marseilles, France, and there boarded the Sphinx on its way to Alexandria, Egypt. In the early 1920s the only way to arrive directly in Palestine was through the Jaffa seaport, where ships could not reach the shore, and passengers had to disembark at sea and be hand carried to the pier. Alexandria had a more modern harbor. From there the Agranats took an Egyptian train to Kantara and then a Palestinian train to Tel Aviv. The tense, fatigued Aaron, on his way to the promised land, with no one to welcome him at their destination, received the first sign that his dream was coming true: the conductor's badge was printed in Hebrew. Exile was over. "I was impressed, but he was ecstatic," Simon recalled. As they arrived at Tel Aviv, his exaltation spiraled at hearing people actually communicating in Hebrew. They stayed at Hotel Eden, then rented an apartment in a house on Allenby Street, owned by an American Jew.

"Why Tel Aviv and not Jerusalem?" I asked.

Because that was the Jewish city. Agranat's face lit up as he emphasized "the." "It was a lovely city, clean. You can't imagine." Indeed, Tel Aviv was the jewel of the Zionist project. Named after the town in Herzl's utopian novel, Altneuland, Tel Aviv of the early 1920s was a residential suburb, with small houses surrounded by thriving gardens. The painter Reuven Rubin, who also settled in Palestine in 1922 and who had spent a few months in Jerusalem before deciding to settle in Tel Aviv, captured the difference between the two cities in terms of social character: "Jerusalem and Tel Aviv were completely different from one another, . . . physically . . . [and] in character. . . . Jerusalem, with its stone buildings, old and new, and its population, made up mainly of government employees and Zionist officials, had nothing in common with the happy-go-lucky, worker population of Tel Aviv. . . . One had to live there and be part of its life to feel the vitality that was creating the future character of the Jewish homeland."^[39]

The Agranats soon discovered that there were very few stores, with still fewer articles for sale, no regular supply of fresh fruit, vegetables, meat, or milk, and inconvenient public transportation to Jaffa, where real city life actually occurred. It was a massive adjustment for a family accustomed to life in metropolitan Chicago. But the lack of electricity was crucial. Aaron's health did not permit him to operate his dental equipment manually, and he was dependent on electricity: without electricity there was no clinic and no way to make a living.

While trying to decide how to proceed, the family began adjusting to everyday life. The Tel Aviv intelligentsia was predominantly of Russian

stock, and they embraced Aaron as their lost brother. It was no small matter to have in their midst one who had tasted success in America and yet decided to uproot his family a second time and come to the land of Israel. Aaron's arrival confirmed what the intelligentsia longed to hear: that between America and Palestine, Palestine was the right choice for the Jews.

It was not easy for the children to adjust. They understood Hebrew and Yiddish, but they were Americans. The bright light of Palestine, so loved by native Israelis, so lamented by immigrant painters accustomed to the soft, gray shades of Europe, also affected the American children: it was not conducive to playing baseball. In that bright light it was impossible to fix one's eyes on the ball as it went up.

The centerpiece of Tel Aviv of the early 1920s was its high school, the Gimnasyah Hertsliyah. The school was the most impressive building in Tel Aviv. It towered over the small residential houses. Its facade, an imitation of no other than the Second Temple, was majestic. Its educational program was consciously ideological, designed to form the true Zionists, the perfect "Hebrew" men and women, sabras, raised free in their own homeland.

From Simon's perspective, however, the Gimnasyah Hertsliyah did not compare well with Tuley High School. The teachers made it clear that their European education was superior to the American system. They placed Simon in the eleventh grade, theorizing that it was the equivalent of a freshman year in an American college. For the second time in two years, Simon encountered the belief that European culture was superior to his. He later spoke about the incident with characteristic irony, thereby expressing disagreement. At the same time, he described himself as "stunned" by the lack of discipline, by the noise in the classroom, by the teachers' inability to control the class. Tuley's pupils waited for teachers to call on them. The Gimnasyah Hertsliyah's pupils thrust themselves aggressively to the forefront of the classroom discussion. This playful, sometimes impudent, defiance of authority was culturally significant. It was a reaction against the stereotype of the Jew in exile—weak, subdued, deferential to authority. Direct and contentious speech, disrespect for manners and rules, regarded as expressions of decadent "exile" culture, were all considered attributes of the "healthy" sabra personality. They came together with a deep commitment to the Zionist program: to rebuild the land at all cost, with personal sacrifice.

Simon was delighted to partake in the Jewish Renaissance, but his actions reflected the hardships of dislocation and the resistance he was developing to the pressure to shed his American self as if it were unwanted skin. The most salient manifestation of his ambivalence was his conscious choice to continue speaking English at home. Hebrew signified the new

era, redemption, victory over exile. The teachers at the Gimnasyah Hertsliyah were toiling to translate material from foreign languages into Hebrew, so that teaching and learning would be done in Hebrew exclusively. Tremendous pressure was put on children, especially, to speak only Hebrew and to force their parents to do the same. Yet Simon spoke English with his father. "We resolved to speak Hebrew. We both had good knowledge of Hebrew. But it didn't work. Somehow it seemed artificial." Until Aaron's last day, English remained the medium of communication between father and son. Simon was also attracted to the company of Americans. He befriended the only other American at school, Ed Bernstein, and the two established the Association for Life, designed to encourage young Zionist leadership and cultivate relations between Palestine and America. There is no evidence that the association acquired any membership beyond its two founders.

Within three months of their arrival in Palestine, the Agranats began to plan a return to Chicago. The family's favorite explanation for the abrupt move was the absence of electricity. It is not clear how much of this explanation is myth, as plans to bring electricity to Tel Aviv were already under way. Other possible explanations include the economic recession and the boys' education. Pursuing higher education in Palestine was impossible, for the country had neither a university nor professional training in law or medicine, the paths chosen by the Agranat children. It may well be that the Agranats concluded that the boys would be better off if they obtained an education in the United States, where neither language nor culture presented a barrier. Regardless of the motive, the decision was painful, an admission of failure as well as a desertion of the collective. The family found some solace in resolving to return. In Haifa, Aaron found a distant relative, Yehuda Itin, who had attended heder (Jewish primary school) with him in Russia. He bought a plot of land and left Itin in charge of building the Agranats' future home. The family then sailed back to America. As they arrived in New York, Aaron was so tormented by an ulcer that he needed hospitalization. One can imagine that his entire being grieved over the failed immigration and that his family grieved with him. They would stay seven more years in Chicago before finally settling in Palestine, this time for good.

Dreams of Glory

On 1 April 1925 Jerusalem was an ecstatic city. Jews from all over Palestine, as well as distinguished dignitaries from Europe and

the United States, assembled on Mount Scopus. Lord Balfour was the guest of honor. They came to lay a spiritual foundation for the Jewish National Home: the Hebrew University.

Jerusalem in 1925 was a small, almost medieval town. There were no facilities to accommodate a massive pilgrimage, let alone modern tourism; there was not even a hall to hold the guests during the opening ceremony. The organizers resorted to a natural amphitheater facing a deep canyon on the northeast slope of Mount Scopus. Tiers of seats were arranged along the rock formation. From a platform set on a bridge hastily built over the canyon, one could see the blue sky and the magical gold and copper tones of the Judean desert reflecting the setting sun. Here, a cultural center for Zionism was being inaugurated.^[40]

The idea of a Hebrew University was emblematic of the basic Zionist program. Ahad ha-Am, the chief ideologue advocating the centrality of cultural rejuvenation, wrote to Chaim Weizmann shortly after the British occupation of Palestine, when permission to open a university was granted: "By . . . [a Hebrew University] . . . I mean . . . not a mere imitation of a European University, only with Hebrew as the dominant language, but a University which, from the very beginning, will endeavor to become the true embodiment of the Hebrew spirit of old, and to shake off the mental and moral servitude to which our people has been so long subjected in the Diaspora."^[41]

In Chicago the event aroused "great excitement in the Jewish community and . . . was celebrated with great fanfare in an impressive public gathering."^[42] For the Agranats, the event was particularly joyful. During their stay in Tel Aviv the family had taken several trips to Jerusalem to visit the site on Mount Scopus. The inauguration of a university was still more proof that the dream was becoming a reality, that Palestine was modernizing and joining the "civilized" world.

Simon and his father each commemorated the event with articles in the Chicago Yidisher Kuryer . This was Simon's first publication in a real newspaper, a mainstream Jewish daily published in Yiddish with a weekend supplement in English. His article, "Concerning the Hebrew University," was a juxtaposition of old and new in Jewish culture. Fifty years later, Agranat remembered it as an effort to synthesize political and cultural Zionism. Political Zionism, preached by Theodor Herzl, sought to cure the Jewish predicament by providing the Jews with a state of their own. Cultural Zionism, preached by Ahad ha-Am and his follower Chaim Weizmann, maintained that only cultural rejuvenation could rescue the Jewish people from stagnation and decay. In his article Simon tried to merge the two: "Today we witness a harmonization of Achad ha-Amism

and Herzlism. The spirit is entering the 'flesh' of the haven of Palestine and is ready to accept the Hebrew University."^[43] More important, the article contained a critique of Jewish culture in exile. In their homeland, Simon stated, the Jews produced the Old Testament, "a spiritual contribution that is as yet a non-pareil." In exile they remained productive, but their product, such as the Talmud, was "inferior in content to the Old Testament, and often full of dry 'dinim [legal rules]' and drier." Furthermore, whatever Jews produced "in Goluth [exile] . . . has become impressed with a gentile stamp. . . . And so I need not add that a Maimonides was under the spell of an Aristotelian philosophy." Most significantly, "exile culture" "has exerted hardly any influence on the peoples of this universe." Take the Talmud, Simon asked rhetorically. "Have any other nations considered it?" And the enlightened literature of the Haskalah: "There is our Hebrew literature of the past two hundred years. Do the other peoples take note of it—except probably to remark it as a passing phenomenon that may someday perhaps blossom into an influence?" Simon insisted that "exile" had not killed the Jewish creative genius: "It is ever present and ever functioning, . . . but under foreign banners: who indeed has not heard of Einstein, a 'German' scientist; Bergson, a 'French' philosopher; Brandes, a 'Danish' critic; and Antikolsky, a 'Russian' sculptor?"

The conclusion followed readily. In order to bloom, Jewish "genius" needed Jewish soil. Only in Zion would Jews liberate their talents, striving toward "the highest sort of perfection imaginable": "We are convinced that the future Hebrew culture will inspire the universe with such lofty ideals as it has never before experienced."

Simon's critique expressed the perennial theme in Zionist ideology—"rejection of galut ." This rejection of the "culture of the present" was accompanied by the romantic, utopian message that in their own homeland, Jews would build a model society. The model society also entailed "a model culture," and Simon dreamed of that glory while he extolled the establishment of the first university in Jerusalem.

Beyond the standard Zionist ideals, there could also be personal reasons for his eloquent yearning to see his future culture put on a pedestal. The young Chicagoan had to account for his commitment to rebuilding a faraway swampland when his contemporaries were basking in the materialistic delights of the Roaring Twenties—a commitment the wisdom of which was cast in doubt after the family's abrupt return from Palestine. Simon, having experienced Palestine and having decided that upon completing his studies he would indeed return to settle there, must have

been rethinking the meaning of his American identity. The glorification of the future Zionist culture compensated for the perceived need to suppress the American part of himself.

Also, Simon's flat dismissal of "exile culture," the assertion that the "Jewish genius" in exile manifested itself best "under foreign banners," may be read as a veiled assertion of the superiority of Brandeis's way over Weizmann's. Indeed, "Concerning the Hebrew University" mentioned neither Brandeis nor Weizmann, who was the major force behind the Hebrew University. But "Brandes, a 'Danish critic,'" was included with Einstein, Bergson, and Antikolsky as examples of Jews of international acclaim. The nineteen-year-old college senior was telling his father's generation that yiddishkeit , judged by international standards, was a secondary subculture and that if a Jew were to live in exile, then his creativity would be much more valued if he followed Brandeis's way.

Clearly, Simon perceived himself as a soldier in the Zionist camp. Jewish revival, politically and culturally, had become a vocation, an aspiration that would guide him throughout his life. The deeper questions raised by the utopian dream were not addressed. Nor could they be addressed by a young ideologue: if galut culture were rejected, on what concrete foundations should the Zionists build their new culture? How much of a Jewish flavor would it retain, and how much Western influence should it absorb? Were the Jewish people to become a nation like all nations (in Zionist parlance, a "normal nation") or a light unto the nations? Only when Simon became a justice on Israel's Supreme Court, and in a position to influence the development of Israeli legal culture, would he begin to confront these problems.

Fifty-four years after the publication of "Concerning the Hebrew University," in the very same magnificent Mount Scopus amphitheater, the Hebrew University bestowed on retired Chief Justice Agranat the Solomon Bublik Award. The history of the university's campuses reflected the history of modern Israel. Built to reflect the modest aesthetics of the Yishuv at the time, the campus was evacuated during the Jordanian siege of Hebrew Jerusalem during the 1948 War of Independence. For almost two decades it remained in ruinous neglect. Another campus was built. After the unification of Jerusalem, on the heels of victory in the 1967 Six Day War, the university returned to its original home. Grand marble edifices were erected on the shaven mountain—monuments to post-1967 Israeli prowess. Agranat, coming to the new-old campus to accept his award,

no longer the zealous youth of 1925, addressed the assembly. His recollection of his 1925 essay contained a twist: "All I remember today is the . . . final conclusion [of the article]. . . . [T]he event of inaugurating the Hebrew University . . . symbolizes the laying of the foundations for . . . the spiritual center of the Jewish people, . . . where the Jewish genius will be free to develop . . . on the one hand; and on the other hand  . . . will influence the [Jewish] communities in the diaspora, revitalize them and retain their general unity ."^[44]

Times had changed. The passion of Agranat's youth had turned into a sober assessment of reality. He no longer expected Israeli culture to be "the highest sort of perfection imaginable." Nor would he undervalue the role of the Jewish communities in Diaspora. In fact, during his last years in the United States, he was already striving to build bridges between the American Jewish community and the Yishuv in Palestine.

The University of Chicago

Simon celebrated the future glory of the Hebrew University while a junior at the University of Chicago. For him, life as a college student was quite similar to life in high school: he lived at home, associated with his high-school friends, many of whom were also taking advantage of the excellent education the University of Chicago had to offer, obsessed about Zionism ("Could you, once, refrain from discussing Zionism in your writing?" he recalled his English professor asking), and immersed himself in the study of history, philosophy, and French. French he took for pragmatic reasons: it was the language of the educated classes in the Middle East, and his father persuaded him that it would be a useful skill once he had settled in Palestine.

But even though he lived at home and followed his father's advice, he progressively gained a measure of autonomy from his father's overbearing intellectual presence. His independent positions on politics were beginning to crystallize, and they were decidedly Progressive. He became an avid reader of the New Republic and an admirer of the French libertarian socialist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. In 1924, still ineligible to vote, he supported Senator Robert La Follette's presidential bid as the Progressive Party candidate. That year he also had his first encounter with Chicago politics. His political science professor dispatched student volunteers to serve as observers in various precincts. In the second ward of Chicago, to which he was assigned, Simon queried the chairman, "a man

with an Uncle Sam beard," about some procedural irregularities. "Almost immediately I was surrounded by thuggish-looking young men. I thought a retreat was the better part of valor. I was scared," he recalled. He spent the rest of the day at another precinct, "where the reality resembled somewhat more closely the classroom theory."

History and philosophy were Agranat's true love—and his strength. His college record shows that in 1925 he received an honorable mention for "Excellence in Junior College Work," and in 1926 he won a scholarship that gave him full tuition to continue his graduate work in history. It was a very tempting offer, which only his commitment to Zionism could make him refuse. The Jewish people were making history, the National Home was being rebuilt, and Simon was determined to acquire a profession that would contribute to this effort. Medicine, the field his father would have preferred for him, was not an option, for he had little interest in the sciences. Teaching history, he feared, would not make enough of a difference. In 1926 he enrolled in the University of Chicago Law School.

His first encounter with legal education felt like "being kicked in the stomach." It was a class in torts, taught by James Parker Hall, and the discussion centered around the fourteenth-century case of De S. and Wife v. W. De S.^[45] The facts of the case revolved around one W., who aimed a hatchet at a woman "but did not touch her." Because actual harm was intended but not done, could she recover damages? Professor Hall used the case as an introduction to the difference between assault and battery. Assault did not require actual injury; battery did. Agranat recalled: "For me it was like a kick in the stomach. . . . [To me], who studied history and philosophy . . . it was so disappointing . . . so prosaic . . . nothing theoretical. . . . Now I am used to it, but in the beginning it was very hard."

Hall's teaching represented the case-method approach to legal education, in which "the teacher was a Socratic guide, leading the student to understand the concept and principles hidden as essences inside the cases. The teacher showed how these concepts unfolded, like a rose from its bud, through study of a series of 'correct' cases over time."^[46] The case method was the predominant pedagogic device in legal education in the 1920s, and most of Agranat's professors adhered to its tenets. However, at the University of Chicago the case method had a serious contender in the figure and educational approach of Ernst Freund. Freund, one of America's first exponents of the integration of the study of law into liberal education, rejected the notion that legal science could be "pure," independent of social and political influences. He urged his students to adopt a broad approach

that would attempt to comprehend the social base of legal rules, and he urged his colleagues to impart knowledge to the students through lectures rather than through the Socratic method.^[47] Thus Agranat was exposed to the major drama in American jurisprudence before the New Deal: the rivalry between legal formalism and sociological jurisprudence, or what Agranat would later call "the closed and the open systems of law."^[48] Legal formalists held that law was a science unto itself, independent of society, immune to historical changes and developments. Proponents of sociological jurisprudence insisted that legal rules reflected social and historical forces, had to be understood in their context, and could and should change to meet the new challenges of the bureaucratic and welfare state.

Agranat was only dimly aware that he was witnessing an intense drama. Most of his professors imparted a legal approach that reflected some synthesis of the two schools. For example, James Parker Hall, dean of the law school and practitioner of the Socratic method, also taught his students that balancing the various interests underlying any particular legal problem was an essential tool in legal reasoning. Balancing was a cardinal tenet of sociological jurisprudence. It may well be that Agranat perceived the struggle as merely a difference in emphasis among various teachers.^[49] During his three years in law school he came to appreciate the rigorous case method and the emphasis on conceptual thinking favored by the legal formalists. But while his mind absorbed the technique of "thinking like a lawyer," his heart went after sociological jurisprudence. In interviews he pointed to Ernst Freund as the professor who had influenced him most. He found Freund's lectures on administrative law fascinating and thought provoking and loved the professor's effort to ground law in larger systems of political and social theory. He also recalled, sixty years after the fact, that the most exciting moment in his career as a law student was reading Benjamin Cardozo's The Nature of the Judicial Process , in which Cardozo elaborated his philosophy that judging included the fine tuning and adjustment of law to perceived social needs.

Agranat's academic achievement in law school, unlike his college record, was less than stellar (his average at graduation was 70). Even in the class he loved best, constitutional law, he received a grade of 71. A number of reasons might explain the difference between Simon's law-school performance and his excellent college record. Bad luck was one. Hurrying to take the constitutional law examination, on a snowy day, he recalled slipping on ice and injuring himself badly. He arrived at the examination with a severe headache, which affected his performance. Another examination period coincided with his mother's surgery, which in-

terfered with his ability to concentrate. It may also be that his natural inclination to ponder both sides of an issue, to peel off each problem until he reached its core, hindered the delivery of the one clever, quick, clear answer valued by teachers of the case method.^[50]

Moreover, this was the time when the Agranats were finalizing their plans to move permanently to Palestine. In his final year in law school Simon was living by himself for the first time. He must have been troubled by these events. The awareness that the American chapter of his life was coming to an end must have introduced ambivalence about integration into the life of the law school.^[51] His status as a "confirmed Zionist"^[52] and his declared intention not to practice law in the United States failed to garner sympathy from his peers. They must have come to view him as an outsider, thereby reinforcing his feeling that he no longer belonged.^[53] One classmate, Leon M. Despres, offered this recollection of Agranat: "When he was in law school, he gave no hint of the rich talent and intellect he later displayed. He was very quiet, dull in manner, reclusive in class, undistinguished in recitation. . . . When I was in Jerusalem, I went to visit the Supreme Court principally for the purpose of seeing him. . . . I was amazed to see how active and energetic he was in questioning the lawyers and raising points. His obvious mental agility and acuity were a surprise."^[54] Some of this unflattering judgment could be attributed to the competitive spirit of law school. It is not easy to watch a lusterless contemporary reach the apex of the professional pyramid, albeit in a foreign land. But there could be a kernel of truth in Despres's observations. Agranat's talents did not shine at the University of Chicago Law School. From the perspective of his legal career, he was a late bloomer.

That impending relocation to Palestine absorbed and disturbed him is evident from Agranat's interaction with Ernst Freund. Agranat so admired the Jewish professor, "Teutonic in manner and style," friend of Louis D. Brandeis and Julian Mack, that he decided to seek his advice about his Zionist plans.^[55] Much to his disappointment, he found in Freund an indifferent and unsympathetic ear. For confirmation that he was making the right plans, for support and solace, he had to turn elsewhere. The student organization Avukah became the focus of his social life.

Avukah

American Jewish students of the 1920s were not particularly interested in Jewish affairs, let alone in Zionism. Most were beleaguered

enough by the sheer effort to survive in the academic universe and to improve their lot. The socially conscious among them preferred a cosmopolitan stance. Who needed Zionism when democracy promised liberty and justice for all? If the world, at least the United States, were turned into one big community, then distinctions between Gentiles and Jews would wither away—and with them the "Jewish question." Identity formation also played a part: most students were either first-generation Americans or had been brought to the United States as young children. Zionism's emphasis on the national component of Jewishness was experienced as a barrier to full integration in America. Also, Brandeis's dramatic walkout after the Split left Zionism associated with immigrant culture. It is not surprising, therefore, that Jewish organizations on the American campus were rather anemic and that the Intercollegiate Zionist Association was practically defunct.

In Palestine, the leadership of the Yishuv was assessing how best to develop a socioeconomic base for a future Jewish state. In the unfolding Arab-Jewish dispute it was less likely that Britain would actively support the Zionist cause, and the rise of Fascism in Europe made the prospects of forging alliances on the Continent unlikely. Eyes turned to the United States. Its growing Jewish population could provide financial and political support; its government, instrumental in delivering the Balfour Declaration, could be of substantial help in the international arena. In the spring of 1925 a delegation traveled to the United States "to arouse interest among our youth in Zionism."^[56] Two active Zionists, Max Rhoade, a young Washington lawyer, and Joseph Shubow, then a graduate student at Harvard University and later a noted leader of the Boston Jewish community, met with the Palestinian delegation. They formed a new Zionist student organization—Avukah (Torch)—aimed at organizing Jewish support for Zionism on American campuses.^[57] In Chicago a student from Palestine, Yitzhak Chizik, volunteered to establish an Avukah chapter.

Chizik's family was a household name in the Yishuv. His parents were among the first pioneers to settle in the Galilee. His sister, Sarah, died in the battle of Tel Hai, a battle that instantly turned into the foundational myth of Israeli nationalism, underscoring the Zionist quest for peaceful coexistence with the Arabs as well as the Jewish determination to fight and die for the homeland.^[58] It would soon become clear that the Chiziks' sacrifice for the homeland made a strong impression on Simon.

Chizik, a hard-core Labor Zionist, enlisted Simon in Avukah, and Simon soon became chairman of the local chapter. Among the other members were Arthur Goldberg (later a justice on the U.S. Supreme Court),

then a student at the Northwestern University School of Law, and his wife, Dorothy Kurgeans. After Simon had immigrated to Palestine, Goldberg took over as chairman of Avukah. At their meetings the members discussed Zionism, its meaning for American Jews, and its social and political platform. Dorothy remembered the debates as "feverish and abstractly intellectual, above and beyond my grasp." Chizik introduced the group to Labor Zionism: the idea that Jewish liberation would fail if Jews confined themselves to the professional class. The secret of liberation was in the "conquest of labor"—the development of an educated, socially conscious Jewish working class. Jews should leave the ranks of the bourgeoisie—or abandon their aspirations to join the ranks—and become farmers or industrial workers.^[59] Simon had already been exposed to Labor Zionist ideology during his brief sojourn in Tel Aviv, but only now did he begin to give it serious thought. So far, and under his father's tutelage, he was concerned mostly with the political and cultural theories of Zionism. Through Avukah he came to encounter the tension between his father's liberal Zionism and socialist Zionism, advocated by Chizik, and he found many of its aspects appealing. They fit well with the Progressive ideology he had supported in American politics.

As chairman of the Chicago chapter, Simon persuaded his comrades to dedicate the summer of 1927 to "an analysis of American youth and its 'Zionist potentialities'" and to the "history of the Palestine Youth movement," with "specially prepared papers." A proposal was drafted to enable American Zionists to partake in the concrete activity of Labor Zionism, even if they were unwilling to immigrate to Palestine. A nine-page report, authored by Simon, was published in an impressive format by the Chicago chapter and submitted to Avukah's national headquarters in New York.^[60] Simon and Chizik hoped that the national leadership would adopt the project and channel Avukah's resources to its implementation.

The project sought "to establish between ourselves and Palestine a living liaison." "Palestine youth has decided to attach to the soil," Simon stated in the report, "since they have found in agriculture the medium for the assertion of their individuality." Avukah should assist a group of high-school graduates in Tel Aviv to form a kibbutz, or kvutzah (small communal settlement): "Engagement to aid the youth of Palestine in colonizing the land will bring us into definite contact with them for the next few years. The precise plans of the colony, the choice of its site, the evolution of its social forms, the composition of its personnel, and the various and manifold details that are involved with colony-making—all these will demand our joint attention."

The pamphlet had two distinctive characteristics, revealing Simon's state of mind at the time. Substantively, it was a pragmatic, level-headed approach to American Zionism, sidestepping as improbable the expectation that American Jewish youth would personally partake in "the conquest of labor." At the same time, the idea of a transatlantic partnership, in which decisions would be made "jointly," assured a high level of meaningful involvement in "colonization." The gist of the project was the effort to avoid the alienation likely to follow when one partner (the Yishuv) worked, while the other (the American Jews) paid. But the pamphlet also had an air of restlessness, a youthful defiance of authority, a demand for action to combat stagnation. The condition of the young generation, in both the United States and Palestine, was painted in gray: "apathy," "indifference," "standstill," "disintegration," and "staleness" described the members of Avukah. "Dissatisfied," "disgusted," "constrained," and "discouraged" were the sons and daughters of the Yishuv. Both were turned off by their parents' generation: "Our wholly different training, . . . varied experience . . . make up, contrasts sharply with that of the adult Zionists. . . . We should be stifled or lost in the meeting room of our parent organization." The pamphlet asserted that the youth of Palestine similarly felt that their "training and experience . . . [had] equipped them with an outlook on life that . . . broke too fundamentally with the . . . weltanschauung of the adult colonists." Settlement in existing colonies would be as stifling as sitting in the meeting room "of our parent organization": "existing colonies . . . have either swallowed them up, or forced them out . . . leaving them dissatisfied with life as a whole."

The pamphlet concluded that a breakthrough was needed, to rescue that "inherent vitality" held captive by the adult world: "The time has come for something very tangible, which is right in front of our nose, that we may see and feel."^[61]

At the age of twenty-two, one year before he graduated from law school, Simon was asserting intellectual independence. He was no longer the teenager who would dutifully endorse his father's support of Weizmann in his editorial in The Herzlite or the college junior who had soared on the wings of his elders' dreams about a university that would create a culture "the like of which the world has never seen" (in his project, Simon deviated from Avukah's official policy, which made the Hebrew University the focus of its attention; his pamphlet alluded to the university only once as "other designs" not "so close and akin to our own spirit—as youth"). Simon was getting ready to be his own man, and Progressive Zionism suited him well, with its emphasis on self-expression and self-

fulfillment, on the value of the community, on practical, concrete objectives (agricultural settlement), and on the promise of a model society based on distributive justice. It separated his brand of Zionism from his father's and founded it on more socially sensitive grounds.

Yet the depressive tone of the pamphlet could also convey anxiety about the future. Chicago was Agranat's home, English was his language, and American culture was his natural habitat. In Palestine, he already knew from previous experience, he would be an outsider, slowly making new friendships and painfully trying to adjust. Unlike European Zionists, under whose feet the ground was burning and who therefore saw Palestine as a haven from persecution, Simon's Zionism was thoroughly idealistic. American anti-Semitism, though existent, was not a serious menace to his prospects in Chicago. The devil of pragmatism must have been whispering in his ear. Why go to backward, preindustrial Palestine when people his own age were leaving Palestine in "alarmingly swelling numbers"?^[62] Why join a Jewish community embattled by Arab violence and threatened by signs that Britain was cooling its support for the Jewish National Home? He, American-born, with a fine education and bright opportunities—why should he leave, when others would give anything to be in his shoes?

The Avukah project was an effort to lock Simon's American generation into a permanent, dynamic relationship with its peers in Palestine. Thus he would have the best of both worlds: he would fulfill Zionism while retaining his American ties. It may well be that this sense of urgency was the force that released the incredible energy and skill with which Simon promoted his project. With Chizik he raised funds at home,^[63] campaigned to make the project the "outstanding topic of discussion" in Avukah's Third Annual Convention in Pittsburgh,^[64] and lobbied frantically to secure support.

But they soon felt the cold shoulder of the national leadership. Max Rhoade, national president of Avukah, feared that fundraising could be demoralizing and poisonous to any prospects of true cultural endeavor: "Time enough for money raising after the college days are over," he wrote in his annual report presented at the Pittsburgh Convention of July 1928. Simon, anticipating opposition, devoted a special section of his pamphlet to "Possible Objections." But Rhoade was not persuaded: "The arguments of the cultural possibilities inherent in the project, while theoretically persuasive, are in practice an illusion. . . . [M]oney raising will reduce the cultural benefits to a vanishing point." Rhoade cleverly turned the ethos of Labor Zionism—individual self-sacrifice for the public good—against Simon's project: "Those Zionistically mature members who feel such a

great personal need for the Project, must simply sacrifice their feelings in favor of their duty to dedicate themselves . . . to the task of leading the 'educational work' per se for their immature comrades."^[65]

Simon and Chizik arrived in Pittsburgh ready to fight. The odds against them were great,^[66] but one development fed their optimism: in Chicago they had met with Chaim Arlosoroff, and the influential politician had promised to support the project at the national convention. That endorsement, they felt, would swing the delegates in their favor.

Seven years older than Simon, Chaim Arlosoroff was a rising star in the Zionist movement. A widely admired intellectual with a doctorate in economics, Arlosoroff's Zionist theorizing emphasized the centrality of Socialism in Jewish national revival.^[67] The Federation of Labor (Histadrut), established to provide the means for creating a productive infrastructure for the Yishuv, sent Arlosoroff to the United States to raise Zionist consciousness. In an effort to strengthen contacts with Jewish youth, Arlosoroff was made a member of Avukah's Executive Committee. During his visit to Chicago, Simon and Chizik enlisted his support for the project and hoped that his weight would tilt the convention in their favor.^[68]

In Pittsburgh, tensions rose as the assembly turned to consider the project. Simon spoke, then Chizik. The Boston chapter supported Chicago. New York was adamantly opposed. Then Arlosoroff rose to speak. Simon and Chizik were flabbergasted to hear him propose another project, uttering not a word about the proposal he had promised to endorse. Chizik, the uninhibited sabra, could not contain his fury, rose, and shouted, "Traitor!" Simon, reserved and polite, swallowed the defeat in silence. Fifty years later, Simon recounted the unforgettable events with great excitement. It was his very first political campaign and his first failure. Anger at having been let down by the charismatic, influential Arlosoroff mixed with bitter feelings of disappointment at seeing his project doomed and with regret that all of his efforts had been in vain. On the eve of his immigration to Palestine Simon was a sad young man. It was one thing to accept that there was no bridge between Washington and Pinsk. But no bridge between Chicago and Tel Aviv?

A Gun and a License to Practice Law

Toward the end of Simon's third year in law school, his mother left for Palestine; his father and brother joined her soon there-

after. In his heart, Simon recalled, he did not feel as though he had had his fill of the student life. Nor was he ready for an independent life. He wished he could follow in the footsteps of his hero, Ahad ha-Am, sitting in the British Museum surrounded by interesting books. But he took no steps to fulfill this dream. Years later he recalled the riots in Palestine as the reason: "In these moments of danger I wanted to be with my family." The riots, however, erupted in August 1929, after he graduated from law school. Had he thought seriously of going to London, he would have taken steps prior to these events. More likely, Simon, even though quite independent intellectually, was not yet ready for separation from his family.

When separation came, it was so traumatic that he always wished to forget the experience. Renting a room of his own, caring for everyday necessities, and coping with loneliness were so stressful that he told me he "didn't want to talk about it." He remembered bidding his father goodbye at the Chicago train station. "He cried like a child, as if he would never see me again." It might have been twenty-three-year-old Simon, who "hated scenes, especially sentimental ones,"^[69] who felt like a crying child, fearing that he would never see his father again.

A week later he failed the bar examination. "They wanted clear-cut answers," he recalled; "I gave complex ones." This awareness of complexity revealed a heart unprepared for the cruelty of Solomonic judgments. But to the bar examiners, it probably proved that he could not "think like a lawyer." Simon postponed his departure and immersed himself in preparations for retaking the bar examination. The second time found him calmer and better disciplined to give the examiners the answers they expected. He passed the bar and was qualified to practice law in Illinois.

While in Chicago preparing for the bar, Simon turned to his extended family for emotional support. Unhappy about living alone, he moved in with Mini, his mother's sister, and her husband, Louis. Simon later wrote to them affectionately (revealing the affection that he was so well aware he could not display in person): "I hate scenes, especially sentimental ones. I had no courage to tell you face to face . . . [of] the fullness of my heart, that is, akin to gratefulness and gratitude, when I think of the experience I have undergone in your house . . . the home that . . . [illegible] in substitute for the one that I had temporarily lost."^[70]

A week after Aaron arrived in Palestine, Arab violence against Jews swept the land. In Hebron more than sixty Jews—men, women, and children—were slaughtered. The significance of the new wave of violence was unmistakable: the Palestinian Arabs would fight the Zionist attempt to colonize the land. The dimensions of the violence proved that the Arab

community was powerful and organized: the entire Yishuv was threatened, not merely isolated spots.

In Chicago, Simon was frantic. In his hunger for every bit of news, he turned to the Yiddish newspapers. For two weeks the Chicago Yidisher Kuryer devoted its front pages to news from Palestine with such headlines as: "Horrifying slaughter. . . . [W]ild tribes from Syria are marching on Palestine,"^[71] and "The entire Jewish population runs away from Haifa."^[72] The Chicago rabbis declared days of fasting and mourning. Five thousand Jews gathered to protest the "message of horror, terror, and plunder and death."^[73] Family members and friends were questioning the wisdom of leaving for that "storehouse of social dynamite" at that moment in history.^[74] Did Jews leave the pogroms in Russia to beget pogroms in Palestine? The anxiety was so consuming that Simon, a loyal student of politics, hardly remembered the October stock-market crash. In his mind, the economic crisis that occurred at the same time was dwarfed by the events in Palestine, for it was on Palestine that his mental energy was focused.

But if Palestine was to be his home, why take an Illinois bar examination? Simon must have been torn—between America and Zionism, between the safety of the orderly world and the unknown fate awaiting him in Palestine. From Louisville, Kentucky, where he went to bid his grandmother farewell, he wrote to his aunt and uncle: "It was of course quite a change to leave a city of hustle and bustle, where I was in the thick of the maelstrom."^[75] He was comparing Chicago with Louisville, perhaps thinking of Haifa. And so he felt conflicted in Louisville, the town of his birth. A rush of memory of rejection of his father, years ago when he was still an infant, upset his day. When he was asked to speak in the same Russische Schule in which his father had worked, he refused. When he was finally coaxed, he heard himself introduced as a "Louisville boy come home." The anger struck. "Somehow there kept recurring to my mind the story of how Pa left Louisville . . . impending poverty . . . feeling of discouragement . . . revolt at the hypocrites . . . the Jewry of Louisville."^[76] Simon could easily be speaking of himself. His own "independent youth," "revolt at the hypocrites"—his friends who preached Zionism but stayed behind, Arlosoroff's failure to fulfill his promise. Addressing the audience, among them his grandmother, he said: "Tho [sic ] I was born in Louisville; and tho [sic ] I visited it periodically, I never resided therein and could not call Louisville my home nor myself a Louisville boy." Thus disowning his birthplace, Simon was almost prepared for his new life.

There were two more things left to do. In Louisville he bought him-

self a revolver, a 45mm Colt—"like the one cowboys had"—and bullets, the better to protect himself in Palestine. On 13 February 1930, in Springfield, Illinois, he paid a fee of five dollars and was admitted to the bar. Armed with a gun and a license to practice law—symbols of disorder and order; his security blankets for life in Palestine and in the United States—he left for New York and from there sailed on the RMS Mauritania to Palestine.

Simon disliked sailing, yet as soon as he embarked he felt relieved. Warm spring breezes filled the air and made the overcoat he had brought with him unnecessary. The calm Atlantic soothed him and inspired a cheerful letter to his aunt and uncle in Chicago.^[77] The boat was full of Greeks and Jews who were returning to their respective homelands, he wrote. The Jews were "the usual variegated collection, ranging from the ultra pious to the ultra radical, containing rights, lefts, centers, left-centers, right centers and what-not." The fact that this cross section of the Jewish people shared an attachment to Palestine raised his spirits and fortified his confidence in Zionism: "To hear . . . their separate stories . . . is to become inspired all over again. Even tho [sic ] I myself . . . have been through this . . . so many times before, [I] have considered myself satiated with it in the Galut." Once the flame of Zionism was rekindled, Chicago became galut, and Simon was leaving it to return to his true home: the land of Israel.

Chapter 2—
Palestine, 1930–1948

Haifa

Things had changed since Simon last visited Palestine. In 1922 the country had no commercial port; the Agranats had sailed to Alexandria and then taken a train to Tel Aviv. By 1930 the Haifa harbor was under construction, soon to become an international port with modern facilities. That the Mauritania could anchor in Haifa itself was a mark of the rapid development Palestine was experiencing under British rule.

Still, it was British, not Jewish, rule that awaited him in Palestine, and Simon was carrying a gun precisely because he realized that Jews and Arabs were already engaged in a fierce fight over the land. He became increasingly worried about his gun. It was illegal to import weapons, and Simon was a law-abiding fellow. Fear propelled him to throw the bullets into the Mediterranean, but pragmatism prevented him from discarding the gun. Impatient to see his son, Aaron came on board prior to disembarkation, and hearing of his son's predicament, offered to smuggle the gun himself. Simon refused. He would not shift the responsibility to someone else. Wary, he tied the gun with a rope around his waist and looked sufficiently innocuous to British customs officers to avoid a search.

At home, he found his family in good shape, well on its way to integration into life in Palestine. Aaron, who had not done so well in his practice in Tel Aviv, now tasted prosperity. His stationery, on which Simon wrote his first letters to Chicago, discloses interesting information about the Agranats and Haifa of the early 1930s. Dr. Agranat's post-office box

number was 4 and his telephone number was 547—both indications of how few people used these "advanced" features of modernity. The possession of such luxuries also shows that the family's social status had improved as a result of immigration; they were now members of the upper class. Dr. Agranat's name and credentials appeared in Hebrew, English, and Arabic; evidently, despite the ethnic tension, Aaron expected to treat Arabs as well as Jews and Brits.^[1] The stationery also presented Dr. Agranat as an "American Dentist," as did the sign outside his clinic. There was some irony in the reference to himself as "American," because he had always insisted that life in the United States was merely temporary. Undoubtedly that was a pragmatic decision: with American credentials one could attract more clients, especially among the British civil servants. But in a society of immigrants one is identified by one's place of origin, and by then Aaron was more American than Russian.

Simon spent the first weeks in his old-new homeland touring the country while waiting for his settler's visa. He visited Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, the Dead Sea, and the magnificent Valley of Yizra'el—the pride of labor Zionism and locus of the first kibbutzim—glowing in the bright blue sky amidst spring wildflowers. In Kibbutz Ein-Harod he wrote, I "had my eighth successive egg-meal during my three-day journey through the Emek [valley]" (the kibbutzim of the period were high on spirit and low on meat and poultry). The high morale was contagious, and Simon came out buoyed by what he saw: "the irresistible, irrepressible conclusion formulated itself, that Arab or no Arab problem, Inquiry Commission report or not, we Jews have nothing of which to be ashamed, a whole lot of which to be proud, and a great, legitimate hope of succeeding."^[2]

Exile and Redemption

Having sojourned so long amidst the gentile nations, having assimilated so much of their art of thinking and way of living, we too in the death of a Chizik feel more keenly and more vividly our passage, whether mental or physical—from "Galuth" [sic] to "Geulah" [from exile to redemption].
—SIMON AGRANAT, "A Modern Maccabean, The Life and Death of Ephraim Chizik," Avukah Annual 5 (1930): 104.

There was one more aspect to the alarm that shook Simon in Chicago when he heard of the 1929 riots in Palestine. He became personally acquainted with the toll extracted by the Arab—Zionist conflict. On 26 August 1929 Ephraim Chizik, younger brother of Sarah, who herself

died in the battle of Tel Hai and of Yitzhak Chizik, Simon's partner in the Avukah project, was killed while defending the settlement of Huldah against Palestinian attack. His death brought home the menacing meaning of the Arab resistance to Zionism and cast a dark shadow on innocent dreams of constructing utopia in the ancient homeland. By 1929 the Yishuv had already realized that it could not rely on the Mandatory government to protect it against Arab threats. A voluntary organization—the Haganah—was established to provide for Jewish self-defense. Ephraim Chizik did not live in Huldah. He was sent by the Haganah to the agricultural settlement—located between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv—leading a force of thirty volunteers. As Simon told the story, the group encountered a thousand Arabs and was doomed before the battle even started. Chizik personally provided cover for his men as they retreated into the sand-bagged main house and was fatally wounded just as he was about to find shelter himself. When British forces finally arrived, after midnight, they refused to let the besieged pioneers evacuate Chizik's body. "It was left, wrapped in a white sheet, at the side of the tank-car."^[3]

Now in Palestine, Simon decided to write a eulogy for Chizik, to be published in the 1930 volume of Avukah . It was his opportunity not only to reassess the meaning of Zionism but also to justify the not altogether rational decision to trade the safe environment of Chicago for turbulent Palestine. In a moving and at times deeply philosophical tribute to Chizik, whom he had not personally known, Simon expressed the emerging Zionist ethos concerning the Arab—Zionist conflict. He began by contrasting the martyr with the hero in Jewish history. Chizik, he wrote, symbolized Jewish Renaissance, the healthy effect of the land on its people. Indeed, in exile, Jews also showed courage and bravery, but it was the bravery of martyrs, passive, rooted in the abnormal circumstances of a people without a land. Zionism revived the Maccabean spirit, when Jews, outnumbered by their enemy, fought for independence and liberty: "[T]he Chiziks . . . mark the return to the annals of our race of an old-new type of hero, of the 'Gibbor,' absent since the days of . . . Bar Kochba [the leader of a Jewish revolt against Rome in the second century A.D.]. It was the 'Gibborim' [heroes] who fought for the concrete evidences of the national unity, for the tangible fatherland, for their country, for the national soil . . . and when they ceased to appear, we ceased to be discernible as a national entity."^[4]

Ephraim was twenty-seven years old when he died. Simon was twenty-five years old when he wrote the eulogy. Ephraim was the antithesis of Simon: son of a Galilean village, fearless and combative. In his physical

vigor and farming background he epitomized the "new Jew" romanticized by Zionist ideology. Simon, the boy from Chicago, highly educated and reluctant to defy authority, was both paying respects to and identifying with Chizik: "His was not an abstract principle of Jewish Nationalism evolved rationally; nor yet a patriotic sentiment brought to the surface at the moment of the national crisis; but rather a deeply ingrained intuition that his star was inevitably united with the destiny of the New Israel."^[5]

It is interesting to compare Simon's 1925 tribute to the Hebrew University with his Chizik eulogy. In 1925 he emphasized the cultural significance of Zionism—the belief that the return to the homeland would liberate the Jewish genius and launch an era of unprecedented intellectual creativity. In the eulogy, the return to the homeland was still hailed as a transformative experience, but in the realm of the physical rather than the cultural. Jewish power, not spirit, had become the focus. Nationalism had become the message: in exile, Jews lost the ability to fight for their country and thus "to the world . . . ceased to be discernible as a national entity."^[6] Chizik-like acts of heroism heralded the arrival of the "New Israel" and restored the Jewish place among the family of nations, lost since the destruction of the Kingdom of Judea.

The "public" aspect of the eulogy, the fact that it was his "formal statement" to the world he left behind, led him to accentuate even more forcefully the nationalist theme. The eulogy displayed none of the ambivalence he privately experienced about immigration and appears to have been the equivalent of a rite of passage. He identified with the Zionist ethos, praised the virtues of national heroism and the willingness to sacrifice oneself for the land, and became a full-fledged member of the Yishuv.

Law, Politics, and the Arab-Zionist Conflict

Since his Avukah days, Simon had toyed with the idea of joining a kibbutz—the correct move from the perspective of Labor Zionism. The thought was on his mind as he visited the kibbutzim in the Valley of Yizra'el. But despite his pride in the accomplishments of the kibbutzim, he returned home with the realization that "the kibbutz life was not for me, [for] you are constantly a part of the group. There is no privacy. You eat together. Live together." His American individualism was resistant to the Russian-inspired communitarianism of the kibbutz ideology. And there was more: beneath the phrase "we Jews" lay tangled

diversity. In his letter from the Mauritania, Simon had already alluded to the cornucopia of Jewish types: the left and the right, the ethnic diversity. Most kibbutz members were Eastern European. The tension between East and West, reminiscent of the Weizmann-Brandeis dispute, resurfaced. Clearly the kibbutz was not for him. He began to explore the possibilities of joining the legal profession.

To obtain a license to practice law in Palestine, Simon had to pass an examination for foreign lawyers, clerk for eighteen months, and pass the Palestine bar examination. He began to prepare for the foreign lawyers' examination while looking for a suitable place to clerk. The entire legal profession in Palestine numbered about three hundred lawyers, two-thirds of whom were Jews. Simon did prefer to train with a Jewish lawyer, but he was unhappy about what Haifa had to offer.^[7] Although Haifa was a thriving town, its residents jokingly referred to it as a place "with neither a past, nor a present but a great future";^[8] it did not yet have a lawyer of a national caliber. Simon wished to train with someone prominent, whose skills and range of practice would make the transition from the sophisticated American legal system to Levantine Palestine a little less shocking. He began to contemplate doing his clerkship in Jerusalem.

Moving to Jerusalem had its downside. Again he would separate from his family, a prospect he was not thrilled about, even though he was better prepared for it now that he had experienced living alone in Chicago and had traveled by himself to Palestine. More difficult was the realization that he would have to rely for financial support on his parents, as clerkship came without a salary. But his ambition prevailed. Mordechai Eliash agreed to employ him as a clerk, and Simon moved to Jerusalem, renting a room at the house of Yosef Sprinzak. Sprinzak was a noted leader of Ha-Poel Ha-Tzair (the Jewish Socialist Party, the left wing of the Zionist movement, founded in 1905), a founder of the Histadrut, and later the first speaker of Israel's Knesset. At the Sprinzak home Simon was embraced as one of the family, and he found himself in "the thick of the maelstrom" of Zionist and Mandatory politics. There, he frequently participated in heated political debates with people who wielded power and made policy. These were crucial times for the Yishuv. Since the 1929 riots, one important political event followed another. England was reassessing its commitment to the Jewish National Home, Palestinian Arabs were on the verge of rebellion, and the Zionist leadership was trying to come to grips with this, along with Hitler's rise to power abroad and the rise of right-wing Zionism at home.

Did Simon aspire to become involved in politics, to join the ranks of

decision makers? Everything in his personal history pointed in this direction: his intense interest in politics since childhood, his aspiration to become a journalist, his involvement in Avukah. Indeed, his first steps in Palestine tell the story of a young man hesitantly testing the terrain to see what niche he would find for self-expression. He explored the possibility of becoming a political commentator. Shortly after the 1929 riots, Davar, the powerful Histadrut daily newspaper, began to publish an English supplement. Simon was interested in joining the supplement's editorial board. Yitzhak Chizik, who had connections in the Labor leadership, arranged a meeting with Moshe Sharett, the supplement's editor and later Israel's first minister of foreign affairs and second prime minister. But Sharett was a busy man and failed to show up. Disappointed and disheartened, Simon took the episode to signal a lack of interest and abandoned the idea.

He was following closely the British efforts at greater reconciliation with the Arab population. One of the means suggested was the creation of domestic governing institutions, to enhance self-rule. As a first step, a legislative council with limited authority was proposed (leaving considerable power with the executive branch, to remain in British hands), to be elected democratically by the entire population, Arabs and Jews. Because Palestine had far more Arabs than Jews, it was expected that the Arabs would enjoy a majority in the council. Britain hoped that such open recognition of the majority would quell Arab fears that the interests of world Jewry were preferred to those of the local population and encourage the moderate elements in Palestinian society.

The Yishuv was split on the proposal, which would inevitably reflect its numerical inferiority and recognize its status as a minority in its own land. The main speakers in the debate were Chaim Arlosoroff and Berl Katznelson, both noted leaders of MAPAI, the Jewish Socialist Party. Arlosoroff, by then head of the Political Department of the Jewish Agency (the "foreign minister" of the Yishuv), thought that reform was inevitable and imminent; hence, it would be a mistake for the Jews to boycott the plan. A boycott, Arlosoroff insisted, would only strengthen the Arabs and allow them to use their new legislative powers against the Jews. Arlosoroff urged cooperation, explaining that the proposed constitutional reform contained some advantages to Jews. Berl Katznelson and David BenGurion opposed the plan ferociously. This brand of etatism, they claimed, would marginalize the Yishuv and cripple hopes for a Jewish National Home. They advocated autonomy and self-rule for both Arab and Jewish communities, as a means to safeguard Zionist interests.

Simon sided with Berl. As the war of words intensified, he entered the arena by sending a letter to the editor of the magazine Ahdut ha-Avodah, which had previously published both Arlosoroff and Berl on this issue. In fluent Hebrew (he had mastered the language during his previous stay in Tel Aviv, nine years earlier), Simon identified a major weakness in the British proposal for a legislative council: the plan reserved the powers over the budget to the high commissioner, thereby denying the legislature the power of the purse. Berl had already seized on this detail, in order to prove that the British did not intend to relinquish meaningful power. Arlosoroff argued that the executive power over the purse was benign and simply reflected the constitutional arrangements in England itself. Simon devoted four handwritten pages to refuting Arlosoroff. He argued that the analogy with Britain was misleading because the British executive was accountable to Parliament, which had the power to topple the executive, whereas in Palestine the executive was independent of the legislative branch. In the United States, he pointed out, where the principle of separation of powers obtained, the power over the purse was in the hands of Congress.^[9]

Agranat's letter took a narrow approach. It refrained from entering the heart of the political debate: should the Jews oppose the democratization of institutions in Palestine, as long as they remained a numerical minority? He was hoping to assist the Yishuv in opposing the plan, while side-stepping the question of democratization. A Progressive and a reader of the New Republic, he was just beginning to learn about the full constitutional ramifications of the Arab-Zionist conflict and was only halfheartedly prepared to accept that the Zionist cause required the bending of cherished principles.

The letter was never published. There were a few weeks of anticipation. He even asked Arlosoroff about it during one of the eminent leader's visits at the Sprinzaks. Then came the cold realization that this was yet another failed attempt to engage in public affairs. It was not easy, even in the small Yishuv, to be taken seriously by the power holders, especially when one confined oneself to legalistic arguments.

Mordechai Eliash, for whom he was now clerking, was also a power holder. A man of letters, he was asked by the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science to contribute an article to a special volume dedicated to Palestine. Simon was asked to prepare a draft.

The topic was "The Rutenberg Concession and the Dead Sea Concession," Rutenberg, one of the more colorful characters in the Yishuv, was a Russian revolutionary who had lost faith in revolution as the cure

for anti-Semitism and developed a passion for Zionism. An engineer by training, charismatic, well connected, and enthusiastically backed by the Zionist leadership, Rutenberg persuaded the British to grant him a concession to establish electric and hydraulic power plants in Palestine. His Palestine Electricity Corporation eventually became Israel's Electric Corporation.^[10]

It so happened that in 1914 the Ottoman government had already granted a similar concession to a Greek national, Euripides M. Mavrommatis. A legal battle ensued, concerning the respective validity of the two concessions.^[11] Underneath the legalese raged a battle over control of Palestine's economy. Should it be vested in the hands of Jews, to further Zionist objectives, or should it be placed in the hands of the local inhabitants, mainly Arabs, who perceived the Jewish interest as inimical to their own welfare? Agranat's task was to review the history of the electricity concession with an eye toward validating the legality of the Mandatory power. By reviewing the Constitution of Palestine—the Charter of the Mandate—Agranat tried to show that the obligations of the British government under Article 11 of the Mandate—to "safeguard the interests of the Community in connection with the development of the country . . ." and its discretionary power to "arrange with the Jewish Agency . . . to . . . develop any of the natural resources of the country"—were perfectly harmonious. With conviction and dedication, he was deploying his budding legal skills in furtherance of Zionism.^[12]

However, just as politics would not stay separated from law for long, so would it not leave scholarship secure in its ivory tower. The Palestine volume, conceived by Harry Viteles—an enthusiastic American Zionist—as a tribute to the emerging Jewish National Home in Palestine, was "discovered" by the Palestinian Arabs, who insisted on balanced representation. The war over public opinion or, if you wish, over political truth, reached everywhere—even the Annals . Viteles was compelled to solicit articles presenting the Arab point of view,^[13] and what he read concerning the electric concession chilled his enthusiasm. Publication of the rejoinder, he concluded, would hurt the Zionist cause, yet omitting the rejoinder "would show discrimination."^[14] "My dear Eliash," he wrote, "[Y]ou have again been offered as a sacrifice to the 'Cause'—probably not the last time. I was confronted with the question of either allowing Bury's article to be published (you have seen it), or omitting the subject from the Volume. Of course, the latter was the only possible course under the circumstances. . . . I hope that you will understand and not be too hard on me." Referring to the exasperation brought by the effort to have Arabs and Jews tell the story

of Palestine, he concluded: "It was an ill-omened day when I thought of a Palestine volume."^[15]

"Eliash was unhappy," Agranat quipped some fifty years later, "that his name did not appear on an article he did not write." Indeed, but so did Simon feel disappointed, after sweating over the thirty-one-page legal memorandum. Once again his efforts were thwarted because of external political considerations. He was experiencing the Zionist ethos: that one should always expect to sacrifice and be sacrificed for the greater goal of building the Jewish National Home.

Palestine's Legal System:
Between London and Istanbul

If Ephraim Chizik was the epitome of the Zionist man of the future—the rough, direct, fearless sabra—Mordechai Eliash was the epitome of the modern, suave Jew. When Simon met him he was a middle-aged man with delicate features, gold-rimmed glasses, and a groomed goatee, noted for his meticulous dress and his broad-brimmed hats. Born in Ukraine and Yeshivah educated, he exuded Eastern European yiddishkeit —that which, in Weizmann's eyes, constituted the essence of Jewishness. In Berlin and London, where he had acquired his legal education, he learned to coat this yiddishkeit with fine social manners. Thus Eliash was at once Westernized and rooted in tradition. His Jerusalem home was the center of high society. He entertained high British officials, members of the Arab aristocracy, and leaders of the Yishuv. An enthusiastic Zionist, he served as legal counsel to the aspiring institutions of self-rule of the Yishuv and was involved in its politics.^[16] He was known for his singing in the Yeshurun synagogue in Jerusalem, which he had helped establish. In short, he was very much like Simon's father and was the perfect mentor for the young man.

Simon had approached Eliash after he heard the famous lawyer deliver an oral argument in court. The brilliant eloquence of Eliash must have stirred the memory of another great lawyer, Clarence Darrow, whose legendary mastery of oral argument influenced Simon's decision to pursue a legal career. Eliash's office was located in the "Habashim" (Ethiopians) Street, a narrow road lined with stone houses. Typical of Jerusalem of the 1930s, the street was unpaved, and Simon recalled that "in the summer your shoes would be covered with dust and in the winter with mud." The place served Eliash as both an office and residence (distance was maintained, and the clerk was never invited into the residential quarters). The

office had two rooms. One was reserved for the master, and the other functioned as a multipurpose room, accommodating "two typists, a Yemenite male secretary, a junior lawyer, the clerk, and clients waiting to see Eliash."^[17] Turkish, Arabic, Yiddish, Russian, and Hebrew filled the air, while Eliash met with his clients over tiny cups of Turkish coffee or steaming sweet tea, as was the custom of the day. Simon remembered his clerkship as "akin to slavery"; for the sheer privilege of doing the clerkship and for little pay, a clerk was expected to run errands and perform various services for Eliash. Yet Simon managed to develop a good feel for the legal system, learn much, make contacts, and strike up a friendship with Isaac Olshan, the junior lawyer and MAPAI activist, who in time became one of the first appointees to the Supreme Court and whom Agranat would succeed as chief justice.

The culture shock Palestine's legal system inflicted on Western law graduates was described by Eliyahu Mani, who himself became a justice of the Supreme Court of Israel: "In the beginning of 1932 I came back to Palestine and . . . I felt engulfed in darkness. I was educated on the knees of English law. I have seen courts respected by all, courts the appearance of which inspired awe. And what have I seen here? Stables."^[18]

The abysmal state of the facilities was not as startling as the practice itself. The first thing Eliash instructed Simon about was the chronic disease of Palestinian legal culture: corruption. Corruption was the legacy of the Ottomans, who had ruled until the British took over in 1917. It meant that practically everyone in the administration (with the exception, perhaps, of British officials, who were superimposed on the bureaucracy inherited from the Turks) expected and responded favorably to baksheesh. Simon was required to check all the files pending before the courts every other day, to ascertain that they were still in place and that neither the documents introduced therein nor the temporary court orders had been altered. While engaged in this daily routine, Simon learned another aspect of colonial life: because English was the master's language, Simon's fluency in it gave him an advantage, for some of the master's superiority rubbed onto him. At times, when frustration at disappearing files and mysterious changes in court orders were overwhelming, he would find that a stream of angry English prose provided some (temporary) relief. Documents would miraculously be "found," files straightened.

The judge could be an additional obstacle on the road to justice. In 1925 Bernard Joseph, a young lawyer of Canadian descent and later Israel's minister of justice, described in a memorandum to the Mandatory authorities the "normal modus operandi" in the Palestine courts: "The

judge carries on business through the medium of some . . . intermediary . . . who is on the one hand sufficiently shady to do work of this character, but on the other hand sufficiently respectable to inspire confidence in all concerned, and the agreed bribe is deposited with this intermediary. If the judge can put through the business, the bribe is duly handed over to him. If . . . he fails to secure the desired judgement, the bribe is duly returned to the unsuccessful litigant."^[19] Shmuel Y. Agnon, the Nobel laureate in literature, was less charitable: "Yesterday you gave the judge such and such a sum to rule in your favor, next morning before the court you see your nemesis winning, not because justice was on his side but because he had doubled the sum. Not only did you lose in court, you also lost your bribe money."^[20]

The Mandatory government responded by protecting itself. Governmental litigation before the Palestine courts entitled the government to insist on judicial panels with a majority of British judges. It was not only an admission of mistrust but also an acquiescence in the situation, a recognition that the disease was too chronic for treatment.

From Joseph's memorandum we learn more about the legal system of Palestine in the 1920s. No public library in the entire country possessed a complete collection of laws or court opinions. Lawyers had private collections but, out of competition, were reluctant to share them. In 1931, before taking the preliminary examination for foreign lawyers, Agranat searched in vain for a copy of the Ottoman Commercial Code. He took the test without having the slightest idea about the contents of that code. Also, despite the fact that the courts adhered to precedent, no law reports were officially published. As a clerk, Agranat took advantage of the fact that his office, by virtue of Eliash's prominence, received carbon copies of Supreme Court rulings. He copied the opinions and brought "the treasure" with him to Haifa when he opened his own law office. But this system was not error proof. "Fighting back tears of rage," he realized that he lost the very first case he ever argued because he failed to know about a recent ruling, presented to the Court at the last minute by his adversary.

The solution for the sorry state of the law, sought by young attorneys—some educated in England, and some in the English law classes in Jerusalem—was aggressive British intervention: the replacement of "Ottoman law" with Mandatory (British colonial) law. Its partial implementation would create a perennial problem for Israeli law: a tapestry woven out of many legal traditions. A layered system had existed before the British took over Palestine. Moslem law governed Ottoman territories before the modernization of Turkey by Kemal Ataturk in the 1920s;

French, Swiss, and German law were imported into Ottoman territories as part of the efforts at modernization, sometimes replacing but often superimposed on the existing Moslem law as well as religious law (Moslem, Christian, or Jewish) regulating family matters. Now the English common law and principles of equity would join to create yet another layer.

By and large, the Jewish legal profession looked down upon Ottoman law as "antiquated" or "primitive."^[21] Moshe Silberg, later a justice on Israel's Supreme Court, wrote in 1934: "The Law in Palestine is Janus faced: one face overlooks Damascus, the vast wasteland of the great desert, awakening periodically from its generational slumber to the slow rhythm of camels' bells, and the other is bowing and curtsying to European legislation, with its quick tempo of a car's wheels and airplane's wings."^[22] In fact, not all of Ottoman law was premodern or useless. Much of it was rather advanced, and parts of it would in time prove much more in keeping with the communitarian philosophy of Labor Zionists than modern, individualistic English law would ever be.

The reasons for the Jewish profession's antipathy to Ottoman law should be found elsewhere: in the corrupt administration which gave it a bad odor, in the fact that it was inaccessible to most of the immigrants, who found it difficult enough to master the English language and who were reluctant to learn Turkish and French. Furthermore, the immigrants, some of whom had studied law in London, admired English law, which they associated—not always justifiably—with progress and modernity. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, Ottoman law was the legal system of the native population; it predated Zionism and the international recognition of the Jewish National Home. Equating Ottoman law with "a vast wasteland" and replacing it with another legal system would conveniently obfuscate the colonialist face of Zionism. Thus the battle over the normative content of the law of Palestine was informed by the tension between East and West, between tradition and modernity, and between the native population and the Yishuv.

British judges, recruited by the department of the colonies, were divided. Some leaned toward the importation of British law; others believed that changes in the local law should be minimal and await self-rule. Palestinian Arabs were generally unenthusiastic. Many experienced reform as an assault on their authentic culture. "Should I replace my snow white headdress of a Sheikh with this goat-hair?" a senior Arab judge scoffed when the British introduced the traditional wig into the courtrooms of Palestine.^[23] The Arabs also understood that progress and modernity came hand in hand with the Jewish National Home, that it would be the

educated, highly motivated, "Western" (in fact most of them were Eastern European, and thus "Western" only from a Middle Eastern point of view) Jews who would be the spearhead of progress. Inevitably, the dilution of native culture in service of reform would put the Jewish elite in control of the economy, to the advantage of Jews over Arabs. Those among them who understood progress as a tool to advance Zionism preferred to stall modernity: better backward and Arab than modern and Jewish.

As a clerk, Simon worked on one landmark case, in which the Privy Council in London ordered a reluctant Palestine Supreme Court to modernize Ottoman law in the spirit of English equity. It was a suit brought by the Ayoub family against Sheikh Suleiman Taji Farouqi. The Ayoubs sold land to Farouqi, a blind Arab poet and politician, who agreed to pay them 2,500 Palestinian pounds (at that time, the last phase of his clerkship, Simon was earning twenty pounds per month) if he failed to comply with any of the contract's provisions. When Farouqi failed to pay an installment of 400 pounds as stipulated, the Ayoubs took him to court. Eliash was their lawyer. Agranat encountered one of the basic differences between Ottoman and English law (and vicariously, the difference between the law of Palestine and American law): English law permitted only liquidated damages (proportionate to the transaction), not penal damages. Under English law, Farouqi would not be compelled to pay 2,500 pounds for having failed to pay an installment of 400 pounds. On the other hand, Ottoman law did not have the remedy of specific performance, available under English equity law, which enabled a court to order the delinquent party to comply with its obligations.

Farouqi was represented by another prominent lawyer in Jerusalem, Bernard Joseph, author of the 1925 memorandum describing bribery in Palestinian courts. At issue was Article 46 of the Palestine Order in Council, 1922, which provided that in cases of lacunae (failure of the law to provide for a solution) the courts in Palestine might resort to the principles of the British common law and equity.^[24] This was a potent instrument to help shape Ottoman law in the English image. Through interpretation, the judges of Palestine could find endless instances of lacunae and turn the law of Palestine into a sponge that would absorb English law and thereby radically change its content. Until the 1930s the courts were hesitant to use this power. Agranat watched as the battle over the content of the law of Palestine raged.^[25] The Privy Council instructed the lower courts to assess the Ayoub demand for 2,500 pounds: if it amounted to a penalty, it should not be awarded.^[26]

For Agranat this was an interesting educational experience. He was per-

sonally partial to Westernization and sympathetic to the basic notions of fairness encased in the British law of equity. Nevertheless, as the Ayoubs' attorney, he remembered working diligently to defend their case as well as he could. Law, despite its close kinship to politics, still possessed some independent features that enabled one to do a professional job, even on top of the volcano called Palestine.

The case of Farouqi v. Ayoub is instructive for yet another reason. Despite the havoc created by the 1929 anti-Jewish violence and the fact that Eliash represented many Jews injured during the riots, as well as official Zionist institutions, the Ayoubs hired him as their attorney. Farouqi hired Bernard Joseph. In Palestine, the legal system was one of the few places where Jews and Arabs fully interacted as equals. Practice with Eliash provided Agranat with his first encounter with the Palestinian Arabs. It gave him an opportunity to meet Arabs of diverse social and political backgrounds: the landed aristocracy, law graduates of Cambridge and the Sorbonne who maintained lucrative practices, seasoned and experienced judges, and vociferous anti-Zionists who regarded the idea of a Jewish National Home as yet another imperialistic colonial ploy. He observed the social divide and made only a few Arab friends, yet he did not demonize Arabs, as many of his contemporaries tended to do. At this period in his life he still hoped that reconciliation, in the framework of a binational state, was possible and that Jews and Arabs could mutually recognize and respect each other's interests and aspirations.

Eliash appreciated the quality work done by Agranat and encouraged him to stay in his prestigious firm as a junior partner. As an incentive he offered a raise—by itself proof of the enthusiasm that the parsimonious lawyer had for his clerk—and permission to do independent appellate work. The latter prospect was particularly enticing, as it would give Agranat an opportunity to argue before the Court while benefiting from Eliash's seasoned advice. Agranat was tempted. His father came to Jerusalem, and the two met with Eliash and weighed the terms of the offer.

At long last he decided to decline the offer. He feared that at the Eliash firm he would remain in the shadow of the great master. He was not inclined to rely on Eliash's goodwill in offering occasional raises. Haifa, with its international port, its oil refineries, and its railroad, was rapidly becoming a thriving industrial center. His good friend, Jacob S. Shapiro, with whom he had studied for the bar examinations (and who later became the first attorney general of Israel and minister of justice), a vivacious and entrepreneurial young man, was moving to Haifa because of its economic prospects. There were also personal considerations. Simon's

younger brother, Abel, had just left for the United States to study dentistry, and Simon felt that he should be closer to their parents. Most importantly, Simon had recently made the acquaintance of Carmel Friedlaender.

Marriage

Carmel, a gentle, youthful, good-looking elementary-school teacher in the prestigious Ha-Re'ali School in Haifa, was similar to Simon in one important respect. Like him, she had been born in the United States to immigrant parents who were dedicated Zionists and who saw America as "the large corridor" to Palestine.^[27] Her father, Israel Friedlaender, a noted authority on Semitic languages, was one of the first professors at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York and a prominent leader in the fledgling American Zionist movement.^[28] Her mother Lilian, née Bentwich, scion to an established Anglo-Jewish family with strong Zionist ties, was a formidable figure, active in Zionist affairs and patron of music and the arts.^[29] In 1920, when Carmel was nine years old, her father was assassinated in Ukraine. He was on a mission on behalf of the Joint Distribution Committee to the war-ravaged Jewish communities of Eastern Europe. Lilian decided to fulfill Israel's dream and, with her six young children, defied the advice of most of her friends and emigrated to Palestine.^[30] Thus Carmel shared Simon's American background and sensibilities—no mean feat in the sea of Eastern European and German immigrants who made up most of the Yishuv population. But Carmel also possessed an attractive difference—having spent her teen years in Palestine, she was practically a sabra, an attribute that must have had enormous appeal to the recently arrived Simon, who was eager to assimilate into his new homeland.

Carmel had been the apple of her father's eye,^[31] and it should not be surprising that Simon's familiarity with Friedlaender's scholarship and awareness of his stature in Zionist American circles augmented his attraction to her heart.^[32] A professor's daughter, she was attuned to and appreciative of the life of the mind, and that was precisely what the shy, reserved Simon had to offer in abundance.^[33] They quickly discovered that they had more in common than an American background (his Israeli friends called him Shimon; she called him Sy—his American name), American accent, and Chicago (her brother was studying there). Both fiercely believed in Zionism, and although they were bilingual, they observed the

cardinal tenet of Zionism and always spoke Hebrew at home. Both loved American and English literature, enjoyed classical music (she loved Mozart; he preferred Donizetti), had a tendency to speak in understatements, and were modest, even indifferent, to worldly goods and the trappings of social status.

They were engaged in November 1933 and married in May 1934. "Quite certainly," Lilian wrote, "Carmel's marriage is the climax of my life."^[34] Indeed, Carmel's mother invested in this event all of her considerable organizational skills. The wedding took place in Zikhron Ya'acov, an exquisitely beautiful colony south of Haifa, overlooking the Mediterranean, where the Bentwiches owned a magnificent estate. The grand mansion, the ravishing garden, and the regal row of Washingtonians at the entrance gave the wedding "a fairy touch."^[35] There is no doubt that Simon and his parents encountered a social lifestyle they could only have read about in novels about the aristocracy. The participants were extravagantly dressed,^[36] the reception was luxuriously elegant, and after the wedding ceremony a trio consisting of Carmel's brother, aunt, and second cousin played classical music. The event stood in stark contrast to the ascetic culture of the Yishuv, based as it was on socialist ethics, and next to Agranat's retirement party was probably the most spectacular event in his personal life.

Agranat remembered the aftermath as anxious. An Arab driver was waiting in a taxicab to drive the newlyweds to their honeymoon. Arab violence against Jews was rampant, and the roads were unsafe. To be driven by an Arab (arranged by his mother-in-law) just as night was falling was not exactly a confidence-building measure. When they arrived at Judah Magnes's summer house (Magnes, a close friend of Israel and Lilian, was president of the New York Kehilah before he immigrated to Palestine to become chancellor of the Hebrew University), lent to them for the occasion, they found that it was not as empty as they had expected. Magnes's son—a surprise houseguest—would be leaving only the next morning. But the guest was discreet and unintrusive, and the young couple persevered. Theirs became a warm and solid marriage, of mutual love, devotion, and respect, which ended only with Agranat's death in 1992.

Marriage to Carmel opened before Simon the doors to her array of formidable relatives. Between the Bentwiches and the Friedlaenders he had access to anyone worth knowing in the intellectual community of Palestine. Among her uncles were Norman Bentwich, the first attorney general of Palestine, Joseph Bentwich, a noted educator, Eugene Meyer, an economist of distinction, and Louis Finkelstein, the eminent American Jewish scholar and president of the Jewish Theological Seminary.

These people embraced Simon as one of their own. They offered him hospitality, erudite conversation, and intellectual stimulation. For the first time Agranat encountered the Zionist left and Brit Shalom, a Jewish group that was critical of mainstream Zionism and insistent on Arab-Jewish cooperation.^[37] He was sympathetic to their ideals, skeptical of their optimism, and admiring of their extensive libraries. He often came to rely on their collections when writing a judicial opinion.

Carmel and Simon Agranat had a traditional marriage: he was the breadwinner, she the homemaker. She described him as "working day and night," first as a young attorney and then as a judge. She, obliging his passion to research, write, and excel, left her job after their first child was born and devoted herself to running the household and raising the family. He, obliging her determination to have a large family, devoted all of his free time to her and the children. In an era when middle-class Israelis had at most two children, the Agranats had five.^[38] Even World War II did not deter them from enlarging their family. In interviews, Agranat readily volunteered that Carmel was the "life of the home."^[39] Generous, nurturing, and empathetic, Carmel kept their home lively and vibrant, full of children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, assorted relatives, friends—and flowers. She was also opinionated and strong minded. Since my interviews with Agranat began, she insisted that this should be an intellectual biography, blind to the private dimension of their family life. I have tried to oblige. Even though she was a major figure in Agranat's life, she and the children rarely appear in this book.

Practicing Law in Haifa

When Agranat joined the legal profession in Haifa as a solo practitioner, he was still living with his parents, associating with the few friends he had made while clerking in Jerusalem, and acquainting himself with the Haifa scene. He did not suffer from a lack of social interaction. His parents' house was the center of Haifa's Jewish community and gave him ample opportunity to meet interesting and influential people. In one such gathering he met Ya'acov Halevy, a young lawyer who had recently immigrated from Poland. Aaron liked the buoyant Halevy and encouraged his friendship with Simon, gently pushing the two toward a business relationship. He knew his son well. Simon was bright and motivated, but was not blessed with business acumen. Even though Aaron made an effort to channel his acquaintances and patients to Simon's office,

he knew that Simon needed a practical partner. The Agranat-Halevy partnership lasted until 1940, when Agranat was appointed a justice of the peace.

Haifa, built on the slopes of Mount Carmel, overlooks the Mediterranean and is divided into upper and lower towns. The commercial section, predominantly Arab, was concentrated in the lower part, close to the seaport. Lawyers tended to establish their offices in that area, and with Aaron's help Agranat and Halevy rented a three-room apartment on Jaffa Street, in a building owned by a prominent Arab merchant, Aziz Chayat. The two found that even though Palestine had no income tax (that came only in 1940), the practice of law was not particularly lucrative. The pair struggled to make a modest living. Generally, an ordinary, small legal practice is based on tort litigation, but the legal system of Palestine, based as it was on Ottoman law, did not have a body of tort law. The British postponed the introduction of torts until the practice of insurance had taken root. Only in 1947 was a torts ordinance enacted in Palestine. Simon's practice, therefore, consisted mainly of small real-estate transactions and negotiable instruments.

His scholarly bent showed immediately. One of his first steps as a lawyer was to purchase a set of Halsbury's Laws of England , the centerpiece of English positive law. It required a down payment of 25 English pounds—a serious investment for a young lawyer—and a payment of 3 English pounds every three months. Haifa's lawyers, provincial and trade oriented, looked amazed and amused at the lengthy, scholarly briefs that emerged from Agranat's office. "Why," noted a bemused Yitzhak Kahan (Israel's sixth chief justice), Agranat's apprentice in the 1930s, "Agranat even cited the Law Quarterly Review; whoever heard of that in those days?"^[40]

Simon's law partner described him as a young man who preferred the seclusion of his office, "thinking legal thoughts," to the hustle and bustle of commercial interactions. It also became clear that efficiency was not Agranat's strong suit. He would invest as much time in a case as was needed to crack the legal problems, unaffected by considerations of gain. In 1965, on the occasion of his appointment as chief justice of Israel's Supreme Court, he received the following letter:

You may not recall the case you handled when in private practice . . .in 1940. . . . My brother . . . [who was] mentally insane, was incarcerated in the Acre prison, and only a certificate from the High Commissioner could free him from [this] hell. . . . The matter involved lengthy correspondence . . . travel and many meetings, visits to the Acre prison and even private "lobbying."

You have taken upon yourself to do all this, without compensation (!) [sic ] in consideration of my parents' difficult financial circumstances. Moreover—even the expenses that incurred in the process—you covered from your personal funds.^[41]

The fact of the matter was that Simon remained a Progressive—or a halutz (pioneer)—at heart. He needed more than his small practice could offer; he craved the feeling of actually partaking in alleviating social suffering and in fulfilling Zionism.

How does one fulfill Zionism within the contours of a legal practice? By developing a militant, instrumental outlook toward law as the long arm of the Zionist revolution. Lawyers could contribute by challenging the limitations placed by the Mandatory government on the Jewish National Home. The hot issues of the day were two: restrictions on Jewish purchase of Arab land, and restrictions on Jewish immigration. Agranat joined forces with lawyers who fought the British efforts to shut the gates of Palestine in the faces of Jewish immigrants.

Illegal Immigration

Simon's arrival in Palestine coincided with the first serious British assessment of the consequences of the Balfour Declaration. Was a Jewish National Home compatible with the "rights of the inhabitants," or, more precisely, with rising Palestinian national aspirations?^[42] For a while it seemed as though the Zionist cause were losing ground. The British government concluded that the absorptive capacity of the land had reached its limits and prohibited further Jewish immigration.^[43]

The decision was a devastating blow to the Yishuv and to the Zionist movement. It undermined the Zionist raison d'être: the gathering of the exiles. Worse still, without immigration the Yishuv would have to resign itself to minority status and abandon its aspirations to achieve a majority that would legitimate self-governance. The Yishuv responded with a massive strike. From Haifa, Simon wrote his aunt and uncle in Chicago:

Today, the Jewish populace was on public strike, in emphatic protest against the recent edict of the British Government to close the gates of Palestine. . . . We here . . . consider . . . it to be . . . a slap in the face to the entire Jewish movement of Reconstruction. . . . [A]s one man all sections of the diversified Jewish multitudes . . . whether extreme orthodox, or liberal middle class, or labor elements, or whether Seffardi, Askenazi, or radical Revisionist—went

into strike. . . . It was impressed on the minds of everyone by the Jewish National Committee that the strike must be characterized by dignity and peaceful order. . . . [A]t twelve noon . . . all the Jewish shops—without exception—closed; all the Jewish busses stopped running; all Jewish building operations ceased. . . . How bitter and keen Jewish feeling is. . . . [It] is difficult to describe; . . . in all my experience I have never witnessed or read of an expression of public protest by so large a section of the population, that displayed as much dignity . . . calm and quiet—a calm that spoke of depths of silent determination and of inner strengths, a unified strength. I suppose you think I am exaggerating . . . but in truth I have hardly told the half of it.^[44]

Intensive Jewish lobbying brought about a reversal of British immigration policy. The gates to Palestine reopened. Between 1933 and 1939 the Jewish population of Palestine doubled. The growing vigor of the Yishuv, in turn, increased Arab-Palestinian hostility. In 1936 the Palestinian Arabs launched an armed rebellion against the Mandatory government, demanding self-rule. The British quelled the insurgence while agreeing, again, to restrict Jewish immigration. At the same time, the ascendance of Fascism and anti-Semitism in Europe and the surging hostility against Jews in the Arab world intensified the Jewish search for a haven from persecution. The number of applications for immigration visas far exceeded the number of certificates issued by the Mandatory government.

Illegal immigration, in defiance of British authority, organized and encouraged by Jewish institutions, was on the rise. Long before ships like the Exodus were forcing their way to Palestine, Jews were being smuggled across the borders. They came through Lebanon or Syria, led by guides familiar with the terrain. Many were caught and brought before English magistrates. In court they were assisted by lawyers recruited by the National Jewish Committee, the executive body of the organized Jewish community.^[45]

Agranat volunteered his legal services to the task. Once every two weeks he would take whatever transportation was available (he was not one of the few who owned an automobile) and go to the detention center in Safed to represent illegal immigrants before the court. Travel to Safed was itself a patriotic act. Vehicles were attacked regularly by Arab bands, intent on terrorizing the Yishuv and on driving out the British, whom they condemned as too friendly toward the Jews. In Safed, Agranat recalled, he would first meet with his local liaison, Itzhak Moshe Silber, an Orthodox Jew whose "eyes glowed like embers," who considered the rescue of illegal immigrants to be the fulfillment of the biblical commandment to ransom captives. Silber would brief Agranat about the files and,

in anticipation of a conviction, would prepare the application for bail. The lawyer's task was to persuade the authorities to allow bail pending deportation. The deportee would self-bail, disappear from sight, and never be traced again. Silber, who would typically sign a collateral bail, would then seek legal help to escape his fiscal responsibilities.^[46] The collaboration between Agranat and Silber symbolized the relationship between secular and religious Zionists. The two rationalized their motives differently but worked in tandem toward a common goal.

The encounter with British judges, in the context of the Zionist struggle, sensitized Simon to his position as a native under colonial rule, dependent on the goodwill of those in power. He recalled feeling humiliated when he was obliged to plead guilty for his clients, and even more so when he saw no other recourse but to appeal for judicial mercy. It was a far cry from the ideal image of the modern Maccabean who would stand up for his rights, by force if necessary. Agranat also recalled a defiant exchange in court, with his head high and his voice firm:

Agranat: Imagine a flesh and blood Englishman entering England without papers after years of absence. Even without papers, he is still an Englishman, is he not? Would he be sent to jail for such an offense?

Judge: What kind of an analogy is this?

Agranat: They consider themselves and we see them as citizens of this country.^[47]

The port of Haifa was another site of the struggle over immigration. Agranat remembered being called to the harbor one morning, where a Jewish fugitive had been found aboard ship, trying to escape from Austria in the aftermath of the Anschluss . British policy was to send fugitives back on the same boat, unless they were too ill to travel. The ship was to depart in the afternoon. Agranat needed a doctor who might be willing to declare the fugitive unfit for travel. His only hope was Dr. Thomson, a prominent British physician and one of his father's patients. Agranat recalled the frantic wait in the surgery ward, desperately watching the clock ticking away, and a happy ending to the story. The good doctor emerged in time to make the appropriate finding.

In pursuit of relief for the illegal immigrants, Agranat came to recognize that the official Zionist policy of supporting all immigration did not always translate into goodwill on the part of individual Zionist officials. He recalled representing a group of seventy-five Polish immigrants who, held without bail in wretched conditions, launched a hunger strike. Agranat appealed to Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, head of the National Committee

and later second president of Israel, urging him to set a meeting with the chief of police to release the prisoners. Ben-Zvi grudgingly agreed to attend a meeting, but only if Agranat could arrange one. Agranat was bitter. In Haifa, the pregnant Carmel was bedridden with malaria. In coming to Jerusalem, he had put the immigrants' interest ahead of his family. It was much more difficult for him, as a junior, anonymous lawyer, to set up a meeting with the chief of police than for Ben-Zvi, with his national authority and contacts. Through stubbornness and guile he managed to arrange a meeting, only to find himself trying to persuade both the British official and Ben-Zvi that raising bail in exchange for releasing the prisoners was the proper resolution of the crisis.^[48]

The encounter with the illegal immigrants was an important event in the education of Simon Agranat. Hitherto, he had understood Zionism to mean the creation of a model society, founded on liberty and social justice, where the Jewish genius could bloom and Jews would be strong enough to defend themselves. Zionism as a solution to anti-Semitism and persecution did not play a significant part in his ideology. Now he was beginning to perceive the urgency of the Jewish need for political shelter. Catastrophe Zionism, that strand in Zionist ideology which saw the Jewish homeland primarily as a haven for persecuted Jews, was now tempering his worldview and modifying his utopian aspirations.

Strife from Without and Within

Haifa of the 1930s, a mixed city, was fraught with strife and violence. During the Arab Rebellion of 1936, a general strike by Palestinian Arabs was particularly hard on Haifa, where both the harbor and town hall ceased to function. Snipers made everyday life perilous. Agranat joined the Haganah and was assigned to guard duty on Bourge Street, between Hadar Ha-Carmel (the Jewish neighborhood) and the lower city, an area populated by Arabs. He carried a revolver while on duty, but he was awkward with the gun; he was driven only by his strong sense of solidarity and the wish to contribute his share to the collective defense.

He also resisted the ghettoization instinct that swept the Jews as Arab violence mounted. He refused to acquiesce in the urging of his partner's wife that they move their office away from the predominantly Arab downtown to Hadar Ha-Carmel. "I would not give them [the Arabs] the satisfaction," he recalled. "I therefore had to cross the streets with the knowledge that snipers were at work."

Arabs did not hold a monopoly on violence. The display of Jewish solidarity and uniformity of spirit and purpose described in Simon's 1931 letter to Chicago was indeed impressive, but it was a thin veneer over an essentially volatile terrain. The Yishuv was a painfully polarized community, explosive with ideological tensions that increased after the assassination of Chaim Arlosoroff in 1933.^[49] Vladimir Jabotinsky, leader of the nationalist right, seceded from the World Zionist Congress and established his own Zionist movement. "I never forgave him for that," recalled Agranat, again disclosing the high value he put on unity: "One should fight from within, not by secession." A major divisive issue was the use of violence. The mainstream institutions of the Yishuv advocated "self-restraint." They calculated that world public opinion and British sympathies would favor their cause if self-restraint were displayed. The Irgun, the right-wing military underground, advocated a belligerent policy toward both Arabs and British, aggressive and uncompromising. Haifa was wrecked by several terrorist attacks, which rumors blamed on the Irgun. Simon knew firsthand of the Irgun's involvement. He was one of a two-member committee appointed by the Hadar Ha-Carmel Committee to investigate the matter.^[50] Even though he thought himself fair and impartial in the investigation, his heart was not with the Irgun.

By then he had already formed his opinion about the Arab-Israeli conflict. He sympathized with the pacifist Brit Shalom,^[51] with its vision of a binational state and Arab-Jewish cooperation, but he doubted that this was a realistic vision. He came to the conclusion that the road ahead could not be peaceful, that a bloody conflict was inevitable. He did not think of himself as a conventional person; he refused to join the Rotary Club, which promised diverse social connections, because "I refused to be a Babbitt."^[52] But when it came to the use of organized force, he firmly believed that unity and support of the Zionist leadership were essential. His natural aversion to lawless violence, as well as his deep conviction that a split within the Yishuv would be socially detrimental, nourished his disenchantment with the Irgun.

Toward the end of the 1930s, Agranat was appointed executive secretary to the steering committee of the Haifa Jewish bar. Haifa's attorneys, recognizing his superior scholarly background and intellectual bent, also elected him as cultural secretary, in charge of organizing activities and lectures to broaden the horizons of the local lawyers. (The cultural menu included such topics as the law of negotiable instruments and copyright.) Agranat was never an engaging lecturer. His manner of speech was rather dry and scholarly; some characterized it as boring. Still, either the sub-

stance of his talks was sufficiently interesting or Haifa's thirst for culture was insatiable—the fact was that other organizations in Haifa also invited him to lecture. He spoke twice before the Rotary Club, once on the American political system (which he, not surprisingly, considered superior to the English), and once on Winston Churchill, a man he deeply admired. Louis D. Brandeis, whom he now began to appreciate not only for his Zionist activity but also for his legal brilliance, was the subject of yet another lecture.

Agranat was also mulling over his present and future career. He was gaining a reputation as a "lawyer's lawyer," and his colleagues held him in high esteem. He did not do very well, however, with the rough, commercial side of the small-town legal practice, the constant competition for clients, the pressure to win cases, the ingratitude of clients who lost their cases, the hassle over payment, the lack of appreciation for a fine legal brief. He was ready for a change.

His father engaged him in long conversations. A judgeship came to mind. It might agree better with Agranat's temperament, insulate him from the dependence on the market, and enable him to develop his talents. With his fingertips on the pulse of the system, Aaron waited for an opportunity to speak to Carmel's uncle Norman Bentwich, Palestine's first attorney general, then retired. When the Agranats escorted Bentwich, a man close to the Mandatory administration and a professor of international law at the Hebrew University, to the Haifa harbor on a trip abroad, Aaron mentioned the idea of judgeship for Simon, and the seasoned Bentwich responded instantly. He scribbled something on a piece of paper and handed it over to Simon, to pass on to the high commissioner. The practice of protekstyah (favoritism), apparently, was not inaugurated in Israel of 1948. Agranat recalled taking the note and stacking it in his files. It offended his sense of self-dignity, he said, to use protekstyah , even if the practice was as much a part of Palestine as was baksheesh. Two years later, at a meeting of the Jewish bar, he heard that a position for a justice of the peace in Haifa had opened. He submitted his application.

The Crystallization of Identity:
Agranat Accepts Palestinian Citizenship

The interview with the appointment committee in Jerusalem was smooth and easy. Agranat's credentials were impeccable, and his fluency in both English and Hebrew made him an attractive candidate

for the Mandatory administration, which at that time was looking for a Jewish judge to join Moshe Landau, then the only Jewish magistrate in Haifa. As expected, the interviewers asked Simon if he had a hobby, and he, prepared for the question, responded without hesitation that, yes, he enjoyed playing tennis. Of course, he didn't. As a boy in northwest Chicago he occasionally played baseball, but tennis? That was the game of the upper classes. Moreover, reading, not sports, was his preferred activity. But he calculated that tennis would appeal to English sensibilities. He often saw British officers and civil servants play tennis in Haifa. Surely a colonial committee in quest of a native judge would look favorably on a tennis-playing candidate. His decades in Palestine had instilled in him some of the deference of the native—alienated from the government and yet aware that in order to join them, one must pretend to be like them. He felt unsafe being simply himself before the interviewers. By now he truly desired the job. At the same time, it could be his subconscious way of defying the process. By giving the obvious (and unlikely) answer, he was exposing the grotesqueness of it all, almost mocking the solemnity of the occasion. Be that as it may, the readiness to pretend to be another vanished within forty-eight hours. Summoned again before the committee, he learned that the position was his, conditional on his assumption of Palestinian citizenship. That meant losing his American citizenship. He balked.

"Will I become another Benedict Arnold?" The question leaped to his throat. He had taken himself out of America, but he could not uproot the American in himself. His inner world of associations and metaphors remained American. Benedict Arnold, the general who betrayed his country to the British during the American War of Independence, was the United States' symbol of treason. The image tortured him. Brandeis taught that to be a good American one must become a Zionist, but pledging allegiance to the British Crown? His American patriotic juices, long suppressed, began to flow. He was a son of the state of Illinois, Abraham Lincoln's home state, an admirer of Robert La Follette. He could not turn his back on the United States.

He sought advice from the American consul, who confirmed that pledging allegiance to Great Britain would, indeed, entail the loss of American citizenship. The consul also asked a provocative question: If Simon was a Zionist and wished to make Palestine his home, why not become a Palestinian citizen? Agranat hesitated. He needed to consult his father.

Aaron grew into the world with a different emotional package from that of his son. His memories were of czarist Russia, of persecution, of

America as a haven of safety and prosperity for Jews. Down at the Haifa harbor, boats filled with Jewish refugees were daily turned back by British troops. The future of the Jewish National Home was twisting slowly in the wind as Britannia, in anticipation of war, signaled its readiness to abandon the Balfour Declaration. Was this the time to renounce American citizenship? Could a Jew afford the luxury of believing that Palestine provided safety or that Palestinian citizenship carried meaningful protection? Aaron adamantly opposed the move, no matter what the cost.

The argument was heated. Simon recognized the sensibility of Aaron's position. That caution was the better part of valor was a norm he had already internalized. He now had a wife and two children. He himself had declined Palestinian citizenship before, even though it meant that he was disqualified from voting in the local elections. He remembered the observation of Britain's Peel Commission, appointed to investigate the causes of the 1936 Arab rebellion in Palestine, "that Palestinian 'citizenship' was . . . nothing but a legal formula devoid of moral meaning."^[53]

It was his worst personal crisis to date. He wanted the job. He did not wish to continue in legal practice. He dreaded pledging allegiance to the Crown and severing his ties with America. But there was also something deeper. He felt that the American consul's remarks captured a truth: a decision to decline Palestinian citizenship implied a vote of no confidence in Zionism. "Your advice flies in the face of the entire Zionist education you have given me," he recalled telling his father. Simon admired and cherished Aaron; his devotion to Zionism was the very proof of his deep identification with his father. But by now he had a mind of his own.

The acquisition of Palestinian citizenship reflected the psychological maturity of Simon Agranat. He knew what he wanted. He was ready to take risks. He had decided to live in Palestine and was willing to accept it as it was. He believed he should do as he had preached. It was also an act of allegiance to Carmel and their own budding family. Carmel, American-born but Palestine-raised, was passionately attached to Palestine. Their children were sabras, this was home, and if all it could offer was a wobbly Palestinian citizenship, and if it meant forfeiting that precious American citizenship, so be it.^[54]

A Judge in Palestine, 1940–1948

Agranat's first day as a judge was ceremonious. Representatives of the Jewish bar made a special appearance to congratulate

formally the second Jewish judge on the magistrate court. An Arab lawyer, waiting for his case to be heard, also rose to offer congratulations. Judges from the district court, housed in the same building—Arab, English, and Jewish—dropped by to welcome Agranat to the small judicial family of Haifa. In hindsight, the first week of judging seemed to have been his longest ever. He recalled feeling overwhelmed by the experience of heading this public forum, exposed to the scrutiny of lawyers, clients, policemen, the curious, pressured by the need to adjudicate case after case after case, and yet, "I immediately fell in love with the judicial work." Liberated from the "shackles of client interests," Agranat recalled feeling free to ponder the intricacies of the legal problem before him "objectively." The judicial task fit his temperament; he soon grew accustomed to the courtroom atmosphere and came to see judging as a vocation and the judicial chambers as his second home.

Like his first home, this second home was modest and humble. Arthur Koestler, in his book Thieves in the Night: Chronicle of an Experiment , written in Palestine during the early 1940s, described the chambers of the magistrate court in Haifa:

He . . . was surprised by the lack of ceremony in the proceedings, the bleakness of the court-room and the informal, almost familiar atmosphere prevailing in it. There were about twelve to fifteen rows of benches, on which policemen and civilians, Jews and Arabs sat mixed together, with the sleepy expression of school-boys when the sun shines outside. Facing them on a dais sat the Magistrate. . . . The dais was only a few inches high, but the table in front of the Magistrate had a marble top, which was the only solemn thing in the room. To the left of the dais were two separate benches at right angles to the others, representing the dock.^[55]

In the Mandatory judicial hierarchy, a magistrate judge occupied the lowest position. The colonial civil service consisted of junior and senior divisions, with the magistrates at the bottom of the senior division. In addition to low pay, other attributes served to accentuate low status. Magistrates did not wear judicial robes, were not addressed as "Your Honor" (attorneys in court addressed Simon as "Mr. Agranat"), and had limited jurisdiction, especially if they were native judges.^[56]

In everyday life in Palestine, the court was the place where Arabs, Jews, and Englishmen, generally segregated in their own semiautonomous communities, interacted most. Agranat now came into closer contact with Arabs that he ever had before, or ever would in the future. He would frequently hear cases involving Arab litigants or Arab attorneys. He also be-

friended some of the Arab judges on the court, and he remembered particularly Ahmad Bey Halil, who later was promoted to the position of senior magistrate. Halil, son of a wealthy family who had studied law at the University of Cambridge and occasionally served as liaison between the government and Arab nationalist groups, was the antithesis of the primitive Palestinian stereotype described in Zionist propaganda. It was at a party at Halil's house that Agranat was first introduced to whiskey. "How would you like your whiskey?" Halil asked. Agranat responded, "I never had any." Halil continued, "This will be your first time." For months afterward the English judges who were present at the party took a special delight in retelling the story. It probably fortified the stereotype of the Jew in British eyes, lacking in "cultivation" as compared with the "exotic" Arab urban classes.

World War II, which erupted shortly after Agranat joined the court, was an occasion to remind Englishmen, Arabs, and Jews that no matter what they thought of each other, they were tied to one another by a common destiny. The bombing of Haifa by Italian airplanes in 1940 subjected everybody to the terrifying realization that war was about arbitrary destruction, helplessness, and death and that it was oblivious to status or ethnic origin.^[57] It was Agranat's first experience with war, and it hardened him to the events yet to come.

At the same time, the war reminded all of the deep abyss separating Arabs and Jews. Each had a different stake in its outcome. Terror struck the Jews as Rommel's German troops positioned themselves to invade Palestine at the gates of El-Alamein. Jews joined the Palestine Voluntary Force (PVF), organized to face the invasion. Most Arabs rooted for a German victory, which they hoped would terminate the idea of a Jewish National Home. Agranat joined the PVF, went through minimal training, and served on duty regularly.^[58] It was a time fraught with anxiety, his first existential encounter with the Jewish vulnerability.

Within Mandatory judicial politics, the need to defend Zionist interests brought Agranat closer to the first Jewish judge on the magistrate court, Moshe Landau. Born in the free city of Danzig and, like Agranat's adored professor, Ernst Freund, Teutonic in manners and style, Landau was a fierce Zionist. The friendship and collaboration between the two would last a lifetime. One of their first endeavors was to preserve the status of Hebrew on the court. The two decided to write their judicial opinions in Hebrew. In 1942, ostensibly for reasons of efficiency and cost cutting, the president of the district court instructed them henceforth to write their opinions in English.^[59] They staged a minirevolt. In a meeting with

the president, Agranat recalled delivering a lecture on Zionism in which he insisted that "Hebrew and the Jewish People go together." The two hinted that if and when the Jewish bar, perhaps the Yishuv as a whole, heard about this policy shift, there would be a public uproar. It was, possibly, Agranat's very first political triumph. Within days the chief clerk informed them that the president had decided to postpone implementation of his order. The demand was never raised again. It is instructive that Agranat did not know whether a similar directive was sent to the Arab judges. When it came to Zionist interests, Jews preferred not to explore the possibility of a Jewish-Arab alliance against the British.

But despite the fundamental disagreements and adversity, there was enough in the necessities of everyday life to require Arab-Jewish cooperation. At the end of the war, when the English chief justice of Palestine decided to meet the dire shortage of judges by recruiting "temporary judges," enticing them with offers of pay higher than that offered the tenured judiciary (but no benefits), the judges of Palestine—Arabs as well as Jews—united to demand a raise. Ahmad Bey Halil and Agranat found themselves members of the same delegation, representing Haifa before the Mandatory government in Jerusalem and threatening a judicial strike should their demands go unmet.

A few of the cases before the magistrate court involved the criminal law, but most were cases about commercial papers or housing.^[60] The war, the influx of immigrants and refugees in the 1930s, and the territorial segregation between Arabs and Jews caused an acute housing shortage, and eviction litigation was common. For Agranat, these were akin to criminal proceedings: "From the point of view of the fate of the individual, they were almost like murder trials." What should a judge do when an apartment owner, who had previously rented a room or two, expanded her family, needed more space, and wanted to evict her tenants? For Agranat, the question of "Where will the tenant go?" was not legally irrelevant. He would often personally inspect the premises before he issued a ruling, and frequently he opted for solutions that partitioned property in order to accommodate all parties. Thus he preferred a balancing approach and a compromise over a strict application of the right to private property. More and more his judicial experience confirmed the insight he had read in so many critiques of legal formalism, that a judge intuits the result before he begins to write the opinion. He recalled that "I never wrote an opinion without knowing in advance what the result would be. I never started with the facts to see how it would go."

These were the years when Agranat's judicial philosophy was crystallizing. As a law student he had been introduced to the idea that every le-

gal rule was the result of the balancing of interests, that balancing was the preferred approach to legal problems, that the text of legal norms was not enough to make a good decision, and that context had to be taken into account. Now, with several years of legal experience behind him, he felt increasingly aligned with this approach, known as progressive jurisprudence.^[61] Its rival approach, mechanical jurisprudence or legal formalism—the idea that a legal solution followed automatically from the application of the legal rule—appeared to him more and more as pedestrian and narrow minded. He was now reading Holmes and Brandeis, Cardozo and Pound, with extra care and with ever-growing appreciation.^[62] The more he reflected on the nature of the judicial process, the more critical he became of the Mandatory system, which appeared to him as excessively formalistic, and the more he tried to show, in as discreet and inoffensive a way as he could, that a legal opinion need not be full of what Felix Cohen called "transcendental nonsense."^[63]

His opinions tended to be uncommonly long. Early in his judicial career he had developed what came to be known as the Agranat trademark: elaborate opinions, endlessly weighing arguments and counterarguments, meticulously listing and pondering precedents, exposing the historical roots of legal doctrine. Why did he write at such length, if he had already determined what the result should be? Later, when he joined Israel's Supreme Court, he explained this tendency as the need to elevate the level of legal discourse in the new state by setting an example, educating bench and bar about the value of legal analysis. But the fact that he developed the habit when he was still a magistrate suggests that this could not be the only explanation. As a magistrate he was not in a position to set an example or to educate, yet he adopted the elaborate style. One reason was ambition. He was hoping that a display of legal virtuosity would earn him a promotion to the district court. That explanation is fairly plausible.^[64] Another explanation surfaced in interviews with me: he was writing for himself. Sensitive to the indeterminacy of legal doctrine, to the two sides of each coin, he needed to persuade himself that his result was justified. He felt compelled to expose the process of legal deliberation in order to feel at peace with the result.

The Haifa bench and bar, however, were puzzled by his style. Mostly provincial and formalistic, viewing law as something one did for a living, not as an intellectual pursuit, the legal community felt that Agranat's opinions were a hindrance to an efficient resolution of legal problems and an unnecessary obfuscation of clear doctrine. The deputy president of the district court, particularly allergic to Agranat's opinions, would often sardonically begin an appeal with, "This is another lengthy judgment from

the learned magistrate." Yitzhak Kahan, then a practicing lawyer in Haifa, remembered these remarks as demeaning and humiliating. Only a few understood the fine legal quality of Agranat's work. Jacob S. Shapiro, later Israel's first attorney general, was one. Chief Justice Frederic Gordon-Smith was another. In 1943, sitting on appeal, Gordon-Smith broke the tradition of silence regarding the work of the lower tribunals to praise Agranat openly: "The judgment of the Magistrate goes into the facts and law at length, is lucidly expressed and, irrespective of whether the decision is right or wrong, is an admirable judgement which reflects great credit on the Magistrate (Mr. Agranat)."^[65] The praise was balm for Agranat's wounds, but when the promotion failed to arrive and the pay no longer covered the expenses for a family of six, he began to contemplate returning to private practice. In 1947 Acting Chief Justice Bernard Vidal Shaw urged the frustrated magistrate to wait. He was loath to lose one of the judiciary's most talented judges. Indeed, the 25 November 1947 issue of Ha-Arets, the Yishuv's mainstream newspaper, informed its readers that Agranat was recommended for promotion to the district court. Four days later, however, the United Nations passed the Partition Resolution, and all governmental activity came to a halt.

Aaron Passes Away, Spring 1946

Aaron Agranat was a fortunate man. He was a successful dentist. He was a public persona well known and respected in Haifa's social circles. He had lived to see Zionism rise from an ideology espoused by a few fanatics to a full-fledged movement supported by a substantial population. He witnessed the triumph of the Allies in World War II. His sons were married and established. Three days after he had suffered a stroke, Aaron passed away. Simon grieved. Aaron's untimely death signaled the end of an era. After the traditional shivah (seven days of mourning), Simon did not heed the halakhic (Jewish legal) rule of remaining unshaven for an entire month. Tradition, according to Agranat, could be and should be tempered by secular modernity.

The Struggle for Independence

As soon as the German threat to invade Palestine receded, relations between the British and the Yishuv took a turn for the worse.

The Zionist leadership insisted on the implementation of the Biltmore Program: the establishment of an independent Jewish commonwealth in Palestine.^[66] Tension kept mounting once victory over the Axis powers became final. In November 1945, Jewish resistance flexed its muscles by launching a major attack on railroads all over Palestine and sinking several coastal patrol boats. In June 1946, all the bridges connecting Palestine with neighboring countries were blown up. In an effort to break the back of the resistance, the British enacted the Defense (Emergency) Regulations,^[67] suspending civil liberties in Palestine. Choosing the one day when even secular Jews were expected to stay home—Saturday—the British army imposed a general curfew and arrested about 3,000 members of the Yishuv leadership.^[68] In Haifa the wave of detentions began at dawn, and the first arrests took place at 4:15 A.M. At about 6:00 P.M. police cars cruised Agranat's neighborhood announcing the curfew. The city sank into a state of siege. Armored cars and British soldiers filled the streets. The oppressive feeling was further aggravated by secrecy. Military censorship had effectively blocked all information about what came to be known as the "black Sabbath." Ha-Arets called it "the gravest and most sinister of the cabals schemed against our national home in the last twenty-six years."^[69] The next morning an armored army vehicle arrived at Judge Agranat's apartment building. He was taken to a downtown hotel, to administer the trials of curfew violators.

What does a judge do when he perceives justice and law to be set on a collision course? For Agranat, justice was on the Zionist side; the legal machinery deployed by the British to crush the political aspirations of the Yishuv was unjust. But as a judge, he believed he had to apply the law as it was. He was acutely mindful of the moral content of law. A philosophy advocating the separation of law and morality, which would make the application of unjust law less painful, was not a part of his worldview.^[70] Would he now assist the British, his employers, in enforcing a curfew designed to crush the political aspirations of his people? True, he could resign, return to legal practice, and use his legal skills to defend the Yishuv. But one less Jewish magistrate in the Haifa courts might mean less everyday justice for Jews; it would certainly mean a change for the worse in the balance of power between Arabs and Jews in governing Palestine. This was not the first time Agranat had been caught in such a moral dilemma. He had had occasion earlier to try Jews charged with stealing ammunition from British military bases or with smuggling refugees across the border. In those instances, he recalled, he sided with the law.

Again he avoided open defiance. He convicted the curfew violators but

imposed only nominal fines.^[71] He did not experience this as a betrayal of the Zionist cause. In an interview, he insisted that his loyalty to the Yishuv was explicitly stated when he had joined the Haganah, never resigning from its ranks even after he had been appointed a judge and when the organization was outlawed and went underground. Also, he was a regular payer of the voluntary tax known as kofer ha-yishuv . But he recalled feeling helpless and subdued as he discharged his judicial duties in the aftermath of Black Saturday.

It was an autumn night in Haifa on 29 November 1947 when the General Assembly of the United Nations considered the recommendation that the British Mandate be terminated and that Palestine be partitioned into Jewish and Arab states. Agranat recalled standing in the hall between his apartment and that of his neighbor, tensely listening to the debate, which was broadcast live from New York City. The Agranats had purchased their first small radio a few months earlier, but the neighbor's transmission was better, and Agranat was determined to hear everything. He had changed his mind since the first suggestion of partitioning Palestine was considered by the Peel Commission in 1937. For a long time he had favored a binational state, perhaps because of his strong sentiments against secession associated with the American Civil War. Now he believed that partition was inevitable. The two peoples, albeit each tied to the land in its own way, were incapable of jointly governing it. Simon's elation mounted as the votes were counted. When the result was announced, 33 to 13 in favor, with 10 abstentions, many Jews took to dancing in the streets, seeking togetherness to express their joy at being recognized by the international community. With four small children to care for, the Agranats celebrated at home. They were coming close to the dream they had cherished since childhood.

The Palestinian Arabs, however, immediately rejected the idea of partition. Britain, refusing to take sides, announced it was terminating the Mandate and evacuating its forces on 15 May 1948. Since the 1980s, with the benefit of hindsight, young historians have been able to demonstrate that the outcome was predictable, that the Jewish military organization was superior to the Palestinian forces, and that Jewish forces could even stand against the organized armies of the Arab states.^[72] But to ordinary Jews in 1947 the reality looked ominous. Panic struck many of Simon's friends, who doubted the ability of the tiny Jewish population to survive without British protection and yearned for the continuation of the Man-

date. Their European experience led them to fear that another Holocaust was imminent. A dispatch from the American Consulate in Jerusalem, concerning American citizens in Palestine, corroborated the sense of doom: "The question of protection of American citizens . . . is problematical. . . . [A] large number of the American citizens here are Jewish. Any Arab uprising will not distinguish between American and other Jews. . . . Americans of Palestinian Arab origin are making arrangements to leave the country as far as possible. A similar Jewish trend may be prevented by their inability to reach this Consulate in safety."^[73]

Agranat recalled drawing sustenance from the American War of Independence. He knew it was possible for the few to overcome the many and was hoping that, against all odds, the same would happen in Palestine. One more time, his positive American experience and his ability to identify with American history served as a source of strength and optimism.

Haifa had more than its share of violence and strife. From the adoption of the Partition Resolution in late November 1947 until the Jewish conquest of Haifa in late April 1948, 140 Jews and 184 Arabs were killed. Everyday activities were fraught with danger. Agranat's judicial session was once interrupted by bullets fired right into the courtroom. No one was hurt, but the judges were sufficiently alarmed to cancel the trials for the day. Because of the rising tensions, Agranat resumed service in the Haganah and again stood guard at the Bourge, the street connecting Jewish Haifa to the downtown, mainly Arab section.

Terror pervaded the atmosphere. Judge Landau suspected the young Arab clerk they had shared. The clerk seemed restless. Could they trust him? And the Arab litigants—would they not confuse a natural hostility litigants harbor against a judge ruling against them with their animosity toward Jews in general? Agranat and Landau acquired permits to carry pistols. Agranat took the pistol out of its leather pouch, filled it with bullets, and attached it to his belt under his coat, "like the Wild West," he recalled, only half joking.

Neither stories of the Wild West nor even a pistol tied to his belt can prepare a man for an actual encounter with violent death. One morning, early in 1948, as Agranat was crossing the street to enter the courthouse, a commotion froze him in his shoes. A man, hit by a sniper, was dying in a pool of blood in the middle of the street at the entrance to the court. A few yards away a British police car was parked, the soldiers inert, symbolizing the collapse of law and order. The dying man was alone. No one dared approach him, lest he or she be a live target for the unseen sniper. No scene could better describe the chaos that descended on Palestine during the dusk

of the British Mandate. A man shot in front of the courthouse—the symbol of the law—the police watching, determined not to get involved, the civilians petrified by fear and helplessness. Agranat was faced with a terrible dilemma: should he take the risk and approach the man? "I said to myself: I have a wife and four children. It is not fair to them to risk my life. Retreat is the better part of valor."

"What do you think of me, now that I told you this story?" he asked me. "Not too complimentary for my character, is it?" He puffed his pipe.

No. But it made him more human. It does take training, a certain hardening, to overcome fear in the face of death. Agranat did not have to tell the story, and, had he not done so, in all probability it would never have reached the printed page. He may not have been the most courageous member of a community terrorized by violence and strife, but he recognized that and did not spare himself. I remember him saying, in another context, that as a judge he would always warn himself: "There, but for the grace of God, go I."

Life went on even behind the roadblocks, barbed wire, and trenches that now marked the line between Jewish and Arab Haifa. Judicial work proceeded almost as usual. Businessmen, worried about the future of their vested interests, pressed for prompt decisions before the British evacuation. The Mandatory government decided that postponement of trials for reasons of extreme danger on the roads would not be permitted. Only official curfew would justify postponement.^[74] It must have felt strange to try cases without knowing whether the decrees would be enforced, without knowing whether one would still be a judge a few months hence. The British judges were scheduled to evacuate Palestine with the termination of the Mandate. Would there be a Jewish state? Would the new state invite Mandatory judges to continue their service? And what if the Jews lost the war?

Arab judges (the majority on the court) and Jewish judges were eyeing each other with anxious indignation. Each group was actively involved in the political struggle. Slowly the majority of the Palestinian middle class began to pack up and leave. The battle of Haifa took place during the third week of April, on the eve of Passover. On 21 April, Ahmad Bey Halil, the chief magistrate of the Haifa courts and the only remaining representative of the Arab High Committee, the executive body of the organized Palestinian-Arab community, left for Lebanon by sea.^[75] His departure signified the end of an era. Within two days the city of Haifa would be in Jewish hands. Of the 70,000 Arabs in Haifa in 1947, only 3,000 remained to witness the birth of the state of Israel on 14 May 1948.

It was a tragic irony of history that in celebrating the re-creation of the Jewish state after the forced exodus two millennia earlier, the Yishuv had helped bring about the exodus of the Palestinians. The fact that this was Passover evening, when Jews celebrate their own exodus from slavery in Egypt, only deepened the irony. The Agranats, however, experienced the joyful reality of Jewish victory. A civil war had raged, in which one lived or died. They had expected Arab victory to mean not only the end of the Zionist dream but also physical decimation. Like most Jews in Haifa, they were delirious over their victory and hardly thought about the misery of the defeated. Agranat, who himself harbored fear of but not animosity toward the Arabs, understood the Arab flight from Haifa to be voluntary, not coerced. He strongly insisted, until the end of his life, that "no one forced them to go. They left."

Victory in battle did not mean victory in war. Agranat was full of worries about the political future. The press reported that the United States preferred another trusteeship. The Arab states threatened to invade Palestine if a Jewish state were declared.^[76] Yet Agranat supported the bold move of declaring independence. When David Ben-Gurion declared the establishment of the state of Israel on Friday, 14 May 1948, Agranat pushed away his worries and rejoiced in the fulfillment of his dream. On Passover of 1922, as an adolescent of sixteen, Simon had argued passionately with his friends in Chicago about the necessity of a Jewish state. In 1948 the state came to be, and Simon felt privileged to partake in its creation.