ABSTRACT
The initial Zionist response to the new conditions in Romania was for increased aliya. Gruenbaum reiterated his warning at the Jewish Agency Executive (JAE) meeting of February 2,1938, but few supported his call for a boycott. Moshe Shertok, for instance, advocated a transfer agreement to ease the aliya of Romanian Jewish capitalists. The entire series of aliya-related problems experienced in 1936 and 1937 continued and, in many cases, grew in 1938. Capitalist aliya represented only one aspect of a general Zionist crisis that developed directly from British immigration policy. In February 1938, the Colonial Office announced that henceforth London would publish only broad guidelines for aliya policy; details of number to be permitted to immigrate would again be in the High Commissioner’s hands. On April 3, 1938, the JAE expanded the rescue aliya program to include Austria, placing it within the German Department’s sphere of authority.
