This book documents the agreement between Nazi Germany and an organization of
German Zionists in 1933 to salvage some German Jewish assets and the voluntary
emigration of German Jews to Palestine before the Third Reich implemented
expulsion and then extermination. The Transfer Agreement rescued some 60,000
German Jews. A sweeping, worldwide economic boycott of Germany by Jews helped
spur a deal between the Nazis and Zionists.
The book also documents the controversy within the Zionist movement and
Jewish diaspora over the agreement, which Black shows "tore apart the
Jewish world in the pre-World War II era". In particular, it describes
the conflict between, on one side, German Zionists and German-descended
communal leaders in the US, who argued for the agreement, and, on the other
side, the mainstream Eastern European-descended American Jewish Zionist leaders
(such as the American Jewish Committee and Jewish War Veterans) who opposed
the agreement and argued instead for a full boycott of Nazi Germany.