Rather than emphasizing the region’s commercial interests, as did most of the other pavilions, the Palestine Pavilion highlighted the influx of Jews to Eretz Yisrael and their hard work to develop and rebuild the land. Ten exhibition halls presented Jewish history and achievements in the land, but the most dramatic display may have been Emek Yizrael (the Jezreel Valley) where, through the use of a complex set of mirrors, an optical illusion instantly transformed the Bedouin Valley of Death into a lush and fruitful landscape.
In an article on the Palestine Pavilion, David J. Cope, a noted World’s Fair historian, tells the delightful story of an elderly gray-haired visitor standing for almost an hour trying to understand the science behind this dramatic effect: “Finally, shaking his shaggy head in bewilderment, Albert Einstein wandered away.”
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In May 1939, the British government released the notorious White Paper, pursuant to which, among other things, no Jewish state would be permitted absent Arab support, and immigration to Eretz Yisrael would be severely restricted. Ironically, the fair’s Palestine Pavilion was formally dedicated five days later, in an event that drew more than 100,000 people. Because of the White Paper, huge police protection details were assigned to the British Pavilion, and many demonstrations and protests, by Jews and non-Jews, took place.
Activists distributed white cards in front of the British Pavilion condemning the White Paper; several elderly rabbis protested by praying and singing Tehillim (Psalms) inside the Pavilion (they departed peacefully at the request of British officials); and the American Christian Emergency Council for Palestine denounced the White Paper as “a veritable calamity of catastrophic proportions to the hapless refugees seeking escape from virtual extermination.”
The inauguration ceremony began with the emotional installation in the Pavilion’s Memorial Hall of the ner tamid (eternal flame), which had been lit in Jerusalem on a few weeks earlier by Rabbi Moses Ornstein, the Kotel Rav, and brought to the World’s Fair in a bronze oil lamp.
Mayor La Guardia characterized the Pavilion as a “temple of thanksgiving, a token of gratitude from a people who gave civilization the fundamentals of law and order,” and Albert Einstein – who served as honorary chairman of the fair’s Science Advisory Committee – presented the principal address:
The World’s Fair is in a way a reflection of mankind, its work and aspirations. But it projects the world of man like a wishful dream. Only the creative forces are on show, none of the sinister and destructive ones which today more than ever jeopardize the happiness, the very existence of civilized humanity…. Sheer brutal mob violence would rob [Eretz Yisrael] of its achievements won at the price of hard work and bitter sacrifice. It is exposed to constant attack, and every one of its members is forced to fight for his very life, even over and above the bitter economic struggle for survival…. Nothing of this shows here. We see only the quiet, noble lines of a building and within it a presentation of the Palestine homeland…. I am here entrusted with the high privilege of officially dedicating the building which my Palestine brethren have erected as their contribution to the World’s Fair. The thing that will strike the discerning observer about this structure is its quiet nobility.
In his address from Paris, Chaim Weizmann, who was preoccupied with the White Paper, said:
The decision of the British government, amounting in effect to a retraction of the pledge made 22 years ago [i.e., the Balfour Declaration], came as a rude and painful shock to the Jews and deeply stirred the conscience of large numbers of non-Jews in both hemispheres. But this decision cannot become the verdict of history. The great historical process of the return of Jews to the land of their ancestors will not be abruptly terminated by this decree. It will go on. It is the prophecies of old and the living determination of Jews of today that will eventually triumph…. I have always been deeply appreciative of the recognition given by the government and Congress of America to our rights in Palestine and the interest taken by American leaders in our work and struggle. We confidently hope to retain that sympathetic interest in the future.
Initially expected to draw about a million attendees, estimates of the record-breaking number of visitors to the Palestine Pavilion ranged from three to four million. Moreover, Weisgal’s vision to project de jur Jewish statehood, notwithstanding that no state actually existed, succeeded far beyond the dreams of Zionist leaders.
An unanticipated and crucial side benefit was the mobilization of the then disorganized American Jewish community in support of the Pavilion. This cementing of Jewish solidarity on the eve of the Holocaust would later come into play not only in facilitating provision of assistance to the victims of the Shoah but also in organizing broad American support for the birth of the Jewish state in Eretz Yisrael.
