ABSTRACT
Zurich, August, 1929. The reconstruction of the Jewish world after World War I came to fullness when, after years of negotiation, non-Zionist notables entered into the "Pact of Glory" with the Zionist movement to found the Jewish Agency for Palestine. The agreement was joyously made official at the Zionist Congress, held as usual in Switzerland. Then, after a few heady days, began the rapid, steep, and almost uninterrupted descent. Louis Marshall, the recognized head of American Jewry and main negotiator with Chaim Weizmann, fell ill after the Jewish Agency assembly and was dead in three weeks. As Marshall lay dying, a bloody onslaught by Arabs on the Jewish National Home exposed its physical weakness, and made clear a depth of Arab hostility that few had reckoned with. Great Britain started its long retreat from the promise of the Balfour Declaration and the stipulations of the Palestine Mandate. The disturbing summer of 1929 ended with the first massive crack in the United States stock market, and other cracks followed until the securities market lay in ruins. Unemployment and business failures increased monthly, while banks collapsed and the world's financial system came into peril. The international dimensions of the economic crisis gave point to the alarming reports being received from Germany over the rising power of the Nazi movement.
