Response to Hava Wagman Eshkoli

I read with great interest Hava Wagman Eshkoli's article, “Three Attitudes toward the Holocaust within Mapai, 1933–1945.”1 She writes that she, together with Yoav Gelber and Yechiam Weitz, “views more seriously” [more than myself or Dina Porat] factors of ideology and mentality that determined Zionist rescue policy, especially the policy of Mapai. She then states what her conclusion will be: Even though ideological considerations did not have an influence on the feasibility of large-scale rescue efforts, they undoubtedly influenced attitudes towards more basic questions of assistance for European Jewry. In the short term, ideology affected the scope of even small relief efforts, and in the long term, it harmed the image of Zionist leadership as a pan-Jewish one.