Memorandum by Joseph P. Walshe regarding a meeting with H. A. Goodman

Mr. Goodman, Secretary of Agudas Israel, came to see me yesterday. In order to avoid any confusion in our relations, I explained to him immediately that the transfer to Ireland of 500 Jewish refugee children had become exclusively an affair of the American and Irish Governments. That was why I had written to him before he left London and warned him to call at the American Embassy. It was particularly important to realise that any negotiations with the Irish community of Jews in relation to these children, if they ever come, would be carried on by the Irish Government. The Irish J. community did not feel too kindly towards an English Jew coming over here to advise them, or, still worse, to boss them or to admonish them, and he should be extremely careful in his relations with them.

At this, Mr. Goodman flared up and abused the Irish Jewish Council with great vigour, saying that he would report them to Agudas Israel and the World Council for being so selfish about helping their own people and hampering the good work which he was doing.

I told him that they had their own interests to look after, that they really were extremely good people. They were not only good Irish citizens, but they were very charitable towards each other. They were a small community with relatively slender resources, and he should not expect too much from them.

After this discussion, Mr. Goodman confined himself exclusively to the question of visas for Jews in Germany or German-occupied countries, and to the sufferings and approaching murder of Jews in certain concentration camps.

I promised to send a wire to our Chargé d'Affaires in Berlin asking him to do what he could in relation to the two camps named by him.

Mr. Goodman made a good deal of his position in the religious section of the Ministry of Information, of his close relations with the Foreign Office and of his position (Secretary) in the World Jewish Organisation of Agudas Israel. He is an Orthodox Jew. He holds very strongly that, if the Jews are to go back to Palestine, it must be for the purpose of reviving and practising the old religion there. He is entirely opposed to Jewish secularism and materialism as manifested in several of the modern Jewish settlements in Palestine. In that sense he is only a qualified Zionist. Although he is undoubtedly anxious to give himself a certain amount of prominence, and perhaps to exaggerate his official position somewhat, I think he is a sincere worker and really wants to help his people.

On the 16th October, Mr. Edwin Solomons called me on the 'phone and told me he had heard that 'this fellow Goodman' was coming over. He was quite sure I knew it already, but, in the opinion of the Jewish Council in Dublin, he had no authority to come and talk to them or dictate to them. This Agudas Israel was an extremist organisation, and the Jewish Council wanted to have nothing to do with it. The last time Goodman was over, he caused nothing but confusion.

I had Goodman at lunch today and I asked him was he going to see the members of the Jewish Council. He said he was not going to see them as such, but that some of his friends were organising a meeting for him tonight. Mr. Briscoe is probably organising the meeting, and, as he is not persona grata with the Jewish Council, Goodman's reputation with the latter is not likely to be enhanced.

While we should be ready to help Goodman as Secretary of Agudas Israel to secure every possible alleviation for suffering Jews in Europe, we should not accept him as in any way an intermediary between us and the Irish community of Jews.