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Underground to Palestine and Reflections Thirty Years Later
In the spring of 1946, I. F. Stone, then a young newspaper reporter, travelled the Jewish underground, offering eye-witness accounts of the emigration to Palestine of Europe's surviving Jews
271 pages, Paperback
First published December 1, 1978
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592 people want to read
About the author
I.F. Stone
34 books53 followersIsidor Feinstein Stone (better known as I.F. Stone or Izzy Stone) was an American investigative journalist.
He is best remembered for his self-published newsletter, I.F. Stone's Weekly, which was ranked 16th in a poll of his fellow journalists of "The Top 100 Works of Journalism in the United States in the 20th Century."
He is best remembered for his self-published newsletter, I.F. Stone's Weekly, which was ranked 16th in a poll of his fellow journalists of "The Top 100 Works of Journalism in the United States in the 20th Century."
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
November 9, 2009
In the spring of 1946, I.F. Stone left his usual newspaper assignments behind for a clandestine mission—to report on the illegal exodus of Jews from Europe to Palestine. With the help of agents of the Haganah, the Jewish military force in Palestine who were arranging this exodus, he travelled with Holocaust survivors from displaced person camps in Germany and Poland by rickety train and on foot, across at times unfriendly borders, to Southern Europe. From there, he joined more than a thousand refugees as they crammed into an illegal ship, manned by sailors from Brooklyn and elsewhere, and took off, with the aim of defying the British blockade.
Stone makes clear that this is no ordinary piece of dispassionate journalism—as a Jew, his heart is with the refugees and the Haganah agents who are shepherding them. Still, Stone brings all his powers as a journalist (and his knowledge of Yiddish and French) to convey their story in graphic detail, by offering a first person account that is comparable in clarity and power to Primo Levi’s The Reawakening. In doing so, he fulfills his goals of reporting about what he believed to be a major historical event of his time and advocating for pressure on Britain to change its policy.
For the 1978 paperback reissue edition of Underground to Palestine, Stone appends two essays in which he presents his criticisms of Israeli government policy regarding the conflict with the Palestinians. He says “History over and over again has proven magnanimity a better safeguard than myopic military thinking.” He decries efforts by leaders of the American Jewish community to stifle the kind of robust debate about Israeli policy, which, he points out, occurs all the time within Israel. In addition, he provides an historical overview of how leading figures in the Zionist movement, such as Achad Ha’am. A.D. Gordon, Judah Magnes, Moshe Smilansky, and Martin Buber, advocated fair treatment, generosity, and rapproachment with the Palestinians including, prior to 1948, pressing for the establishment of a bi-national state. Although the situation on the ground today is worse than it was 30 years ago (in some ways, as Stone predicted), Stone would still be urging readers to do what they can to promote what he calls “the Other Zionism, a recognition that two peoples—not one--occupy the same land and have the same rights”.
Stone makes clear that this is no ordinary piece of dispassionate journalism—as a Jew, his heart is with the refugees and the Haganah agents who are shepherding them. Still, Stone brings all his powers as a journalist (and his knowledge of Yiddish and French) to convey their story in graphic detail, by offering a first person account that is comparable in clarity and power to Primo Levi’s The Reawakening. In doing so, he fulfills his goals of reporting about what he believed to be a major historical event of his time and advocating for pressure on Britain to change its policy.
For the 1978 paperback reissue edition of Underground to Palestine, Stone appends two essays in which he presents his criticisms of Israeli government policy regarding the conflict with the Palestinians. He says “History over and over again has proven magnanimity a better safeguard than myopic military thinking.” He decries efforts by leaders of the American Jewish community to stifle the kind of robust debate about Israeli policy, which, he points out, occurs all the time within Israel. In addition, he provides an historical overview of how leading figures in the Zionist movement, such as Achad Ha’am. A.D. Gordon, Judah Magnes, Moshe Smilansky, and Martin Buber, advocated fair treatment, generosity, and rapproachment with the Palestinians including, prior to 1948, pressing for the establishment of a bi-national state. Although the situation on the ground today is worse than it was 30 years ago (in some ways, as Stone predicted), Stone would still be urging readers to do what they can to promote what he calls “the Other Zionism, a recognition that two peoples—not one--occupy the same land and have the same rights”.
May 28, 2012
I live in Los Angeles, a town where Israel cannot be introduced as a topic of dinner conversation unless everyone at the table accepts the possibility that we may all be enemies by the time dessert comes around. Israel has been under the hot button since before the place was even established as a sovereign nation. This I know from reading I. F. Stone’s engrossing, emotionally hijacking, horrific and inspiring piece of book-length adventure reporting Underground to Palestine. Immediately after World War II, the British Navy imposed a blockade around England’s Palestinian territories, the Eretz homeland that was the destination of hope and future to the refugee streams of European Jews who had survived the Nazi death camps. Stone goes undercover on clandestine trains and stealth ships, stowing away with the human cargo, bringing individuals into focus, giving testimony to harrowing atrocity and escape, recounting the hardships and ingenuities of the perilous journey, sharing the determination of men and women who insist not only upon living, but upon living free. Stone’s documentation of the people who formed the state of Israel is a vision of humanity the entire dinner table can applaud.
July 31, 2017
This was an amazing book. I. F. Stone brought the challenges and the pain the Jewish survivors of the Holocaust went through in order to reach the Land of Israel (then known as the Palestine Mandate). Each of the survivors who learned how to be pioneers had their own harrowing tales - surviving the camps as well as the vicious Antisemitism that they faced after the war. The most moving part was when the boat they were on finally neared Haifa harbor and the refugees could see the lights on the shore they all spontaneously broke out in singing Hatikva...it really brought tears to my eyes.
July 16, 2025
To be frank, this book is a ‘Merikle. It deserves a lilibet o’ respect.
July 26, 2019
Of all the reviews on the back cover of this book, a large number use the word "simple". They are referring to Stone's prose rather than his content, and I think it's an accurate descriptor. In 1946, in his role as journalist, Stone accompanied a group of Jewish displaced persons (i.e. refugees) as they travelled through Europe and into Palestine, an illegal immigration prompted both by the hideous experiences of World War 2 and the promise of a utopian homeland. A lot of what is described here are the stories of the refugees Stone meets along the way, and they are frequently so horrible that his choice to use simple language is I think the correct one, although in some places the narrative is simply too sparse for my taste.
This is, nevertheless, a strong and readable account that very quickly gives over any pretence of impartiality. Stone was himself Jewish, and came to quickly identify with the people looking for a new life and willing to endure the hardships of travel, making dangerous border crossings and being packed like sardines below the decks of chartered ships, trying to sneak through the British ships guarding the entrance to Palestine. (The British do not come across well here; Stone's first-hand experience proving deeply off-putting.) But because this book is written so thoroughly from the Jewish perspective, there's vanishingly little attention given by any of the travelers - including the author - to the people already living in Palestine. It's an enormous blind spot. On the one hand I can comprehend that perfectly: 70+ years later gives the benefit of hindsight, and the trauma of WW2 was so all-encompassing people cannot be blamed for clutching desperately at any straw that might deliver them from that environment, and the people who allowed it to happen. On the other... because the edition I read was published some 30 years after the initial printing, Stone has space to put an afterword, in which he explores the consequences of this action. It's a great deal dryer to read, but is also a lot more thoughtful, and takes genuine care to value the Palestinian perspective, and how poorly they have been treated. It goes a little way to providing balance to the book, which is still an interesting read despite its flaws.
This is, nevertheless, a strong and readable account that very quickly gives over any pretence of impartiality. Stone was himself Jewish, and came to quickly identify with the people looking for a new life and willing to endure the hardships of travel, making dangerous border crossings and being packed like sardines below the decks of chartered ships, trying to sneak through the British ships guarding the entrance to Palestine. (The British do not come across well here; Stone's first-hand experience proving deeply off-putting.) But because this book is written so thoroughly from the Jewish perspective, there's vanishingly little attention given by any of the travelers - including the author - to the people already living in Palestine. It's an enormous blind spot. On the one hand I can comprehend that perfectly: 70+ years later gives the benefit of hindsight, and the trauma of WW2 was so all-encompassing people cannot be blamed for clutching desperately at any straw that might deliver them from that environment, and the people who allowed it to happen. On the other... because the edition I read was published some 30 years after the initial printing, Stone has space to put an afterword, in which he explores the consequences of this action. It's a great deal dryer to read, but is also a lot more thoughtful, and takes genuine care to value the Palestinian perspective, and how poorly they have been treated. It goes a little way to providing balance to the book, which is still an interesting read despite its flaws.
December 20, 2017
I. F. Stone wrote this before his blacklisting in the McCarthy era. In this book he still has the optimism of post-war victory and the promise of new beginnings. Stone went underground and went as far east as the Slovak border to accompany Eastern European Jews leave war-torn Central Europe for war-torn Western Europe to make their ways to the flotillas heading to Palestine in 1946. Stone meets survivors of the Nazis with harrowing and heart-breaking stories to tell, but who now want to, as Stone says it several time, live as Jews after persecution as Jews. Stone still has his optimism for the Soviet Union's socialism here, so he soft-pedals the Stalin-era harsh treatment of both Jews and Poles, but the peoples' stories come through and the descriptions the hardship and effort to make the trip to Palestine touch even the hardest heart.
People need to read this book about events of the late 1940s because the same horrible refugee crises continue today, if only in different directions. The callousness of official government policies continue to provide the excuses for nothing being done. The generosity of individual citizens in all sectors of society offers hope.
People need to read this book about events of the late 1940s because the same horrible refugee crises continue today, if only in different directions. The callousness of official government policies continue to provide the excuses for nothing being done. The generosity of individual citizens in all sectors of society offers hope.
March 24, 2025
My favorite part of Stone's dreamy odyssey were the people singing their folksongs on the train to Bratislava, commemorating lost Ukrainian and Polish villages. They couldn't go home again. Their landing in Palestine was like the animals fleeing the forest fire, predators mixed in with prey, all desperate to escape annihilation. In one of the essays at the end, written later, clear-eyed Stone observes "Who knows how many more [Arab/Jewish wars] will be fought before both sides see the inescapable choice between coexistence and mutual extinction?" He was right then, and many awful events later, he remains right.
October 29, 2025
While Stone is politically far from my Marxist ideas (I'm a supporter of the Socialist Workers Party), he was one of those great rarities, an honest journalist and an honest liberal (I don't consider everyone who votes for the Democrats to be a liberal--liberals are ideologues. People who take the former position have no understanding of the class nature of politics or of US politics in general).
Stone, to his credit, defended the Socialist Workers Party in the sedition trial on the eve of World War II (see Teamster Bureaucracy and Socialism on Trial: Testimony at Minneapolis Sedition Trial), The Case of the Legless Veteran: The Story of a Man Who Fought and Defeated the Witch-hunters During the Joe McCarthy Era., the SWP's lawsuit against the FBI (see FBI on Trial: The Victory in the Socialist Workers Party Suit Against Government Spying, which contains the major government decisions in the case. Stone supported every other SWP defense case I know of. He also wrote an excellent review in the New York Review of Books of the The Autobiography of Malcolm X and Pathfinder's first book of his speeches, Malcolm X Speaks, which you can find on the pathfinderpress.com website.
The Socialist Workers Party, which again, I support, took a wrong position on Israel for many years, although we never said that Israel (or any other country) didn't have the right to exist! The very formulation is a call for mass murder. Anyone who doubts this should just take a look at Putin's formulation on Ukraine, and his attempt to massacre the mass of Ukrainians and the many Russians who disagree with him.
(Incidentally, the level of ignorance in the American mass media is well demonstrated by their attempt to identify mobs of Jew-haters with the antiwar movement during the Vietnam War. If you want to see an example of what we did, look at the Russian antiwar movement today [although functioning under much more repressive conditions]. See Out Now: A Participant's Account of the Movement in the United States Against the Vietnam War by Fred Halstead.
The whole record of what we wrote on Zionism (which we were correct in opposing--we're not Jewish or any other kind of nationalists) can be seen on the Militant website. It wasn't all wrong, but while we were correct that the Jewish question couldn't be solved under capitalism, we didn't see that it was still good to have a state that had to take in Jewish refugees. It simply flowed from the reality of the fact that the winners of the war had no interest in taking in the Jewish refugees or doing anything whatsoever to help them.
Unfortunately, in the long run, the Israeli Jews didn't have much sympathy for the displaced Arabs. But today there is also no Palestinian leadership that espouses the only just solution--a Palestinian state with borders to be negotiated. You can't negotiate with Hamas--they are openly supporters of Nazism who want to "complete" the Holocaust. But obviously that doesn't mean continuing to bomb Gaza. There are many innocent Palestinians getting killed. But also, simply calling for "peace" isn't any answer: Israel needs guarantees of safety.
(For the principled Marxist opposition to Zionism, see The Fight Against Jew-Hatred and Pogroms in the Imperialist Epoch and The Jewish Question: A Marxist Interpretation.
Incidentally, one can see from I.F. Stone how wrong those are who claim that Israel was set up by US imperialism. NO ONE was supporting Israel--the imperialists, British, American, (plus the Stalinists) were all trying to limit change in the Mideast and work with the reactionary Arab regimes to keep the oil flowing. Eventually the logic of the Cold War (now over!) ended up putting them on different sides later on. The PLO showed some progress, but it was also quite flawed and frequently oriented to terrorism. Israel was capitalist, but never came near the stage of imperialism, although for a time it served as their lacky, it clearly wasn't set up for that purpose.
The entire "Left," has shown itself to be both a wing of the Democratic Party, and supporters of "the socialism of fools," which is what Marxists have always called antisemitism. None of it has anything to do with the workers movement (and you will find very few workers supporting Jew-hatred--It comes primarily from college-educated elements, and whether they call themselves "left" or "right" makes NO DIFFERENCE).
While the publishers deserve credit for making this book available, there is no excuse for the number of typos. Books deserve serious proofreading by human beings. It looks like much of the rest of what this publisher reprints is conspiracy theories. Marxism is not a conspiracy theory; anticommunism is a conspiracy theory.
Stone, to his credit, defended the Socialist Workers Party in the sedition trial on the eve of World War II (see Teamster Bureaucracy and Socialism on Trial: Testimony at Minneapolis Sedition Trial), The Case of the Legless Veteran: The Story of a Man Who Fought and Defeated the Witch-hunters During the Joe McCarthy Era., the SWP's lawsuit against the FBI (see FBI on Trial: The Victory in the Socialist Workers Party Suit Against Government Spying, which contains the major government decisions in the case. Stone supported every other SWP defense case I know of. He also wrote an excellent review in the New York Review of Books of the The Autobiography of Malcolm X and Pathfinder's first book of his speeches, Malcolm X Speaks, which you can find on the pathfinderpress.com website.
The Socialist Workers Party, which again, I support, took a wrong position on Israel for many years, although we never said that Israel (or any other country) didn't have the right to exist! The very formulation is a call for mass murder. Anyone who doubts this should just take a look at Putin's formulation on Ukraine, and his attempt to massacre the mass of Ukrainians and the many Russians who disagree with him.
(Incidentally, the level of ignorance in the American mass media is well demonstrated by their attempt to identify mobs of Jew-haters with the antiwar movement during the Vietnam War. If you want to see an example of what we did, look at the Russian antiwar movement today [although functioning under much more repressive conditions]. See Out Now: A Participant's Account of the Movement in the United States Against the Vietnam War by Fred Halstead.
The whole record of what we wrote on Zionism (which we were correct in opposing--we're not Jewish or any other kind of nationalists) can be seen on the Militant website. It wasn't all wrong, but while we were correct that the Jewish question couldn't be solved under capitalism, we didn't see that it was still good to have a state that had to take in Jewish refugees. It simply flowed from the reality of the fact that the winners of the war had no interest in taking in the Jewish refugees or doing anything whatsoever to help them.
Unfortunately, in the long run, the Israeli Jews didn't have much sympathy for the displaced Arabs. But today there is also no Palestinian leadership that espouses the only just solution--a Palestinian state with borders to be negotiated. You can't negotiate with Hamas--they are openly supporters of Nazism who want to "complete" the Holocaust. But obviously that doesn't mean continuing to bomb Gaza. There are many innocent Palestinians getting killed. But also, simply calling for "peace" isn't any answer: Israel needs guarantees of safety.
(For the principled Marxist opposition to Zionism, see The Fight Against Jew-Hatred and Pogroms in the Imperialist Epoch and The Jewish Question: A Marxist Interpretation.
Incidentally, one can see from I.F. Stone how wrong those are who claim that Israel was set up by US imperialism. NO ONE was supporting Israel--the imperialists, British, American, (plus the Stalinists) were all trying to limit change in the Mideast and work with the reactionary Arab regimes to keep the oil flowing. Eventually the logic of the Cold War (now over!) ended up putting them on different sides later on. The PLO showed some progress, but it was also quite flawed and frequently oriented to terrorism. Israel was capitalist, but never came near the stage of imperialism, although for a time it served as their lacky, it clearly wasn't set up for that purpose.
The entire "Left," has shown itself to be both a wing of the Democratic Party, and supporters of "the socialism of fools," which is what Marxists have always called antisemitism. None of it has anything to do with the workers movement (and you will find very few workers supporting Jew-hatred--It comes primarily from college-educated elements, and whether they call themselves "left" or "right" makes NO DIFFERENCE).
While the publishers deserve credit for making this book available, there is no excuse for the number of typos. Books deserve serious proofreading by human beings. It looks like much of the rest of what this publisher reprints is conspiracy theories. Marxism is not a conspiracy theory; anticommunism is a conspiracy theory.
November 11, 2023
IF Stone was a Jewish dissident (and incidentally the grandfather of one of my best and most brilliant childhood friends). In this book he details the harrowing trip he took as a journalists with survivors of the Holocaust out of Poland as he risked his life and health to complete this journey that culminated in their illegal entry by boat to Israel/Palestine. In the edition I read Underground to Palestine and Reflections Thirty Years Later (which is listed on Goodreads with author unknown, so I review here instead), he writes about the terrible situation the world created for Palestinians and Jews by not accepting Jews into their countries before Hitler killed 6,000,000 of them-despite ample warnings in the mid-30s this would happen. Moreover, the United States press suppressed the open debate and concern occurring in the Israeli Jewish press, over the course Israel was taking to leverage the moral high ground bestowed upon Jews as a result of their persecution in order to undermine a two-state solution and secure geo-political alliances in our favor. Just as people knew the Jews would be annihilated by Hitler, so too did Arabs, many Israelis, and people throughout the world foretell the tragedy that has continued to unfold and worsen in the subsequent decades.
December 5, 2019
This is truly a gem. I really enjoyed the first section. The second section was a drag for the most part. However the last section gets the book back on track. The call for peace in the region is needed now more than ever. I believe the author has the perfect principles in mind to reach so. He has travelled to Israel many times over the course and witnessed its developments from very early from the ground.
My only hope is that the current leaders of Israeli society read this book, instead of shunning Stone (the author) as a delusional self hating Jew. The only way Israel can finally stretch their legs in peace is when they make friends with its Arab neighbours and in order to do so they must directly get the biggest victims of this whole conflict, the Palestinian people. Namely it’s refugees back on their feet.
My only hope is that the current leaders of Israeli society read this book, instead of shunning Stone (the author) as a delusional self hating Jew. The only way Israel can finally stretch their legs in peace is when they make friends with its Arab neighbours and in order to do so they must directly get the biggest victims of this whole conflict, the Palestinian people. Namely it’s refugees back on their feet.
April 1, 2024
Moving, exciting, deeply personal account of socialist journalist I F Stone documenting illegal Jewish refugees heading for Israel in 1946.
I cannot do justice to how moving their stories are or how honest Stone is as a writer and political thinker.
This edition also contains his observations in the late 1970s of how the Israeli turn to the right then was leading to instability and moral degeneration.
Prescient and supremely timely, we see how present conflicts reflect the past.
If only everyone read this book
I cannot do justice to how moving their stories are or how honest Stone is as a writer and political thinker.
This edition also contains his observations in the late 1970s of how the Israeli turn to the right then was leading to instability and moral degeneration.
Prescient and supremely timely, we see how present conflicts reflect the past.
If only everyone read this book
May 21, 2020
An excellent first-hand account of the process of an illegal journey into Palestine by I. F. Stone, a reporter for an American newspaper. Presented with clarity and honesty. Informative read. Highly recommended for anyone interested in the history of Israel and in world history in general in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War.
February 11, 2019
Fascinating first hand history of birth and early life of Israel
Amazing first hand account of the birth and early life of Israel, and the prophetic call to deal with the refugees of 1948. A must read for anyone interested in the Middle East, especially Israel and Palestine.
Amazing first hand account of the birth and early life of Israel, and the prophetic call to deal with the refugees of 1948. A must read for anyone interested in the Middle East, especially Israel and Palestine.
January 9, 2016
My thanks to NetGalley for this opportunity to read and review Underground to Palestine, by I. F. Stone.
Having read much about WWII-era history, I found a lack in my understanding when it came to the years immediately following, and in particular, to the rebirth of the nation of Israel. I F. Stone’s accounts, written at the time, and now collected in Underground to Palestine, helpfully filled in some of those blanks. To my delight, the author did not tell his stories in the typical journalist’s fashion of providing simple conclusory responses to the questions: Who? What? Where? When? Rather, Stone, in his creative nonfiction style, painted pictures of the personalities he met along his way as he accompanied Holocaust survivors voyaging to the Promised Land. As a result, these characters came “alive” for me, complete with their physical characteristics, their unique histories, and their visions for the future.
Having read much about WWII-era history, I found a lack in my understanding when it came to the years immediately following, and in particular, to the rebirth of the nation of Israel. I F. Stone’s accounts, written at the time, and now collected in Underground to Palestine, helpfully filled in some of those blanks. To my delight, the author did not tell his stories in the typical journalist’s fashion of providing simple conclusory responses to the questions: Who? What? Where? When? Rather, Stone, in his creative nonfiction style, painted pictures of the personalities he met along his way as he accompanied Holocaust survivors voyaging to the Promised Land. As a result, these characters came “alive” for me, complete with their physical characteristics, their unique histories, and their visions for the future.
May 29, 2024
This is a MUST READ for anyone who wants to understand the Jewish perspective on Israel after WWII. The additional essays written in 1978 about Zionism could have been written today, sadly. We still are unable to have a rational conversation that treats Palestinians with the same rights and dignity that Israeli Jews expect.
April 24, 2012
Excellent
March 24, 2017
The Underground Isn't Always a Railroad
Collectively our memories are short with trials and difficulties forgotten when the next "big" thing comes along. After liberation from the Nazi concentration camps the work of starting life again began with roadblock after roadblock to try to stop them. Amazing, strong-willed people.
Collectively our memories are short with trials and difficulties forgotten when the next "big" thing comes along. After liberation from the Nazi concentration camps the work of starting life again began with roadblock after roadblock to try to stop them. Amazing, strong-willed people.
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews