The SS President Arthur: the Zionist Mayflower Part II: “The most prominent Jews of the world”

Judge Strahl announced the new shipping line in October 1924 when he returned from Palestine, “where he arranged for port facilities at Haifa for the first Jewish steamship line.” He promised, “When the President Arthur sails next March, she will carry more than 600 of the most prominent Jews of the world.” [i] At the end of November, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported that the officers of the American Palestine Line had gathered in the Brooklyn yard where the ship was being reconditioned to raise the “Jewish Flag” for the first time in history.[ii]

November 1924 Captain Breen & Judge Strahl

Not all publicity was free. On November 2, 1924, the Forward carried a full-page advertisement in Yiddish announcing that the American Palestine Line would link the two lands of America and Eretz Yisrael.[iii] The ad was both detailed and rhetorical. Prices ranged from $550 to $850 per person for first-class passengers, and $275 to $450 for second class, with deep discounts for children. In addition, special arrangements could be made through the steamship line for land accommodations. It also urged readers (in Yiddish):

The Forward, November 2, 1924

“Who among you will go up with me . . . with the modern Ezra the Scribe from our time to see our beautiful land, to see how our wonderful pioneers build the Jewish homeland for our millions of homeless brothers, who are spread over the entire world. To see how our colonies blossom, to see the newly founded modern Jewish city, Tel Aviv; to see the industrial enterprises; it is to see a lesson.”

Ezra the Scribe was Nathan Straus, who was prominently featured at the top of the ad. At the time, Straus was well known for his philanthropy, especially in Palestine, and his Zionist views. The implication of the copy was that Nathan Straus would be leading the children of Israel from America to Palestine. Straus apparently had issued his challenge at a reception in honor of educator and Hebraist and vice-mayor of Jerusalem David Yellin at the Hotel Astor on October 23, 1924.[iv]

Maxwell House Coffee

The ad was the first of many to run in the Forward over the next several weeks. In February 1925, a one-column display advertisement that was repeated weekly announced in Yiddish, “the only true direct ship” with “hundreds of the … best Jews from America”; it would be “truly kosher with the supervision of the Union of Orthodox Rabbis.”[v] In late February and early March, larger ads in the Forward featured a drawing of the President Arthur in conjunction with products:  Horowitz Brothers and Margareten’s “Matzah with Taste” and Maxwell House coffee.[vi]

A glossy brochure for the maiden voyage also emphasized that prospective passengers would not be going to Palestine in the same manner they – or their parents – may have come to America. “ALL Cabins, both first and second class, are well above the water line of the vessel. It is planned to have assigned to full-tour passengers only such rooms as afford natural light by day.”[vii] Most importantly:  “The S.S. ‘President Arthur’ will carry no steerage passengers.” The refurbished ship, which previously had accommodated as many as 2,300 passengers, would carry 550 first- and second-class passengers only.[viii] (The October 10 New York Times article had said 675.)

Featuring a swimming pool that would be filled every day with ocean water, a gymnasium “equipped with the latest appliances for health-giving and body-building exercises,” and “lecture[s] on subjects pertaining to the land at the journey’s end,” not to mention “MANY of the world’s most noted Jews,” the ship’s maiden voyage promised “most unusual and inspirational” shipmates for the journey. [ix] “The passenger list for the March 12^th trip,” the brochure promised, “already reads like a ‘Who’s Who in Judaism.’”[x]

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[i]   “Zionists to Run a Fleet.”

[ii]   “Raise Jewish Flag on Ocean Liner,” JTA Jewish News Archive, November 27, 1924.

[iii]   “America with Eretz Yisrael,” Forward, November 2, 1924, 24. I am grateful to my husband, Rabbi Fred N. Reiner, for his assistance in translating all original materials we found in Yiddish and Hebrew.

[iv]  “Papa’s Diary Project.” The 1924 diary of Harry Scheuerman, transcribed and annotated by his grandson, Matt Unger. Scheuerman’s entry for October 23, 1924: “Attended a beautiful reception meeting for David Yellin from Palestine at the Astor, where I met countless friends.” http://papasdiary.blogspot.com/2007/10/thursday-oct-23.html.  Accessed June 10, 2011.

[v]   Forward, January 18, 1925; February 1, 1925; Sunday, February 8, 1925.

[vi]  “When the ship … departs … [it] will have a shipment of our famous matzah products . . .” Forward, February 25, 1925, 8. “Maxwell House Coffee on the President Arthur,” Forward, March 11, 1925.

[vii]  “1925 American Palestine SS President Arthur Interiors” brochure, 7. http://pages.ebay.com/viewitem_popup.html?domain=ebay.com. Accessed March 18, 2009.

[viii]  Ibid., 4.

[ix]    Ibid., 3.

[x]     Ibid., 6.

The SS President Arthur: The Zionist Mayflower, Part I

Once I tracked down the story of my great-grandfather's death at sea and burial in Haifa (see June 19, 2012, blog entry), I was determined to learn as much as I could about the circumstances surrounding his voyage. 

In fact, it was an historic voyage for many reasons, many "firsts," but I never have been able to determine why he was on it.  Was he a fervent Zionist?  Was he planning to make aliyah?  Though he had a round-trip ticket, that may have been a requirement of the British mandate government.  Was he planning to go, as were so many of his fellow travelers, to the opening ceremonies of Hebrew University?  At almost 70, was he looking for a thrill:  to be on the first ship to display the "Zionist flag"?  Or was it simply the next ship leaving for the Middle East?  Alas, no one will ever know.

The ship itself, however, and its voyage, prove to be irresistibly interesting to me.  While a Wikipedia entry gives an outline of its story, I found so many more details to fill in.  Unfortunately, I couldn't find anyone interested in publishing it, so I will take the route of many and tell the story here in several installments.

For Jews in the United States and around the world, Wednesday, April 1, 1925, marked a watershed moment, the founding of Hebrew University on Mount Scopus in Jerusalem. The institution fulfilled the dreams of many Jews, including – among the most prominent – Albert Einstein, Sigmund Freud, Martin Buber, and the first president of the State of Israel, Chaim Weizmann.

Many American Jews attending the ceremonies had arrived only the day before on a steamship that deserves its own place in Jewish and Zionist history. Its story is more than a footnote to the many forms the Zionist dream has taken over centuries; at the same time, its short life demonstrates how a group of entrepreneurs appropriated that dream until it literally went up in smoke.

Jacob S. Strahl

Jacob S. Strahl, an active Zionist and municipal court judge from Brooklyn, headed a syndicate of owners of the new American Palestine Line and its ship, the S.S. President Arthur. On October 9, 1924, these owners announced their intent to operate regular passenger service between New York and Palestine.[i]

For what they said was “the first of the ships to be operated by the new line,”[ii] they purchased a 25-year-old ship built by A. G. Vulkan of Stettin, Germany (now Szczecin, Poland). Originally a passenger ship for the Hamburg-American Line to be named the Borussia, and then the Teutonia, it was finally launched as the Kiautschou. The North German Lloyd Company bought it and changed its name to the Princess Alice. 

The U.S. captured it in 1914 and renamed it the Princess Matoika before using it as a troop transport through the rest of World War I.  In 1920, the Matoika was a last-minute substitute that carried some members of the U.S. Olympic team to Antwerp. They found conditions on the ship, which by then had been converted to a mail carrier, so terrible that they “mutinied.” After a total reconstruction, the Matoika made nearly a dozen trips from Europe, bringing immigrants to the U.S. It had two more owners and finally was renamed the President Arthur to conform with the names of other ships owned by the United States Lines company. [iii]

Strahl clearly was a master at publicity. Prior to his announcement on October 9, 1924, he had traveled to Palestine, and while passenger lists routinely appeared in the New York Times, his name always had a modifier. Among the passengers departing on the Paris on July 23, 1924, was Strahl, on his way “to Jerusalem to organize a Jewish life insurance company.”[iv] When Strahl returned on the France, the Times described him as “one of America’s leading Zionists.”[v]

 

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[i]  “Zionists to Run a Fleet,” New York Times, October 10, 1924, Sports/Automobiles section, 21.

[ii]  Ibid.

[iii]  A complete history of the ship appears on rootsweb.ancestry.com. Joe Hartwell, “USS Princess Matoika,” http://freepages.military.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cacunithistories/Princess_Matoika.html. Accessed March 18, 2009.

[iv]  “Ocean Travelers,” New York Times, July 23, 1924, 6. The company became the Judea Industrial Corporation, which Strahl and others ran from 1927 to 1929.  “Celebrate Stock Sale,” New York Times, August 15, 1927, 11; “Start New Fire Insurance Company,” New York Times, July 6, 1928, 32; “ “To Invest Funds in Palestine,” New York Times, August 16, 1928, 33; “Judge Strahl Feted in Jerusalem,” New York Times, August 17, 1928, 5; “Asks Judea Accounting,” New York Times, April 13, 1929, 14; “Fight Adding Stock in Judea Company,” New York Times, July 6, 1929, 14; “Judea Directors Upheld,” New York Times, May 9, 1930, 24.

[v]  “Jusserand Due to Arrive Today,” New York Times, October 3, 1924, 11. Accessed December 10, 2009.