Zimel Resnick, right, David Ben Gurion, and Molly Resnick were in Israel in 1967. Photo courtesy Barbara Michaels
May 06, 2008
Growing up in Holmdel, Pearl Stern Kessler was close to her Uncle Zimel, who came to the United States from Russia in 1911.
He loved his adopted country, but he was also a passionate Zionist who was devoted to the establishment and preservation of a Jewish state.
Uncle Zimel, born in 1897, was Zimel Resnick, who collected and transported arms, explosives, and other weaponry to the outnumbered and under-equipped Jewish defense forces in Palestine in 1948.
It was a risky business. Resnick’s activities violated the U.S. State Department’s embargo on arms shipments to the Middle East.
“Zimel was a Zionist while he was growing up in Europe,” Kessler, who now lives in Middletown, told NJJN. “His belief in the establishment of an Israeli state grew stronger every year. He was not afraid to take risks.”
He developed that fearlessness at an early age. When he was five years old, his father took him to another Russian town where there was a cheder. His father told the boy to fend for himself and then drove away in a horse and wagon, Kessler said.
“As a child, Zimel was considered to be extremely smart, and his family wanted him to get a Jewish education,” she said. “We don’t know the details, but despite being left alone in a strange town at such a young age, he found room and board and got admitted to the school and completed his education there.”
After returning to his parents’ home, he also obtained a secular education in a larger, nearby town, Kessler said.
When Resnick came to the U.S., he settled in Perrineville and met Molly Stern, the sister of Kessler’s father, and the two were married a few years later.
Molly Resnick also was a Zionist, and supported her husband’s vision of a Jewish homeland. The couple had no children, but raised Dorothy Greenfield, a young, orphaned cousin, as if she was their own daughter, Kessler said.
The Resnicks operated a general store in Perrineville, but during World War I, Zimel Resnick wanted to go to Palestine and applied to the Jewish Brigade, a branch of the British army. He trained in Nova Scotia and arrived in Palestine just as the war ended, Kessler said. His army bunk-mate was a young man named David Ben-Gurion, who became Resnick’s lifelong friend.
‘He gave it his all’
Zimel Resnick fulfilled a life-long dream when he visited the Western Wall in Jerusalem in the late 1960s.
Photo courtesy Pearl Kessler
During the 1930s, the Resnicks moved to Asbury Park, where Zimel Resnick and a partner, Eddie Lang, bought Palace Amusements, which was located on the boardwalk.
In 1938, Resnick’s Jewish friends in Europe began to inform him of the increasing persecution of the Jewish population. He also received a letter from the Jewish Agency for Palestine that asked him to help the Jewish defense forces.
Sometime during 1946 or 1947, Resnick also was contacted by his friends in Palestine, including Ben-Gurion. Resnick began to collect funds and guns from friends, relatives, and veterans organizations throughout New Jersey, according to researcher and author Jean Klerman Hershenov of Fair Haven.
In Peddler to Suburbanite: The History of the Jews of Monmouth County, a book she co-authored in 1981, Kessler writes that Resnick collected more than 10,000 guns.
According to the history, weapons and explosives were hidden in friends’ basements, on an area farm that was owned by a Jewish farmer, and in a Wall Township warehouse owned by Charles Lowy, a non-Jewish man who was in the moving and storage business. He also was a close friend of Resnick.
Many of Resnick’s secret meetings with his contacts took place in a carriage on top of the Ferris wheel at his amusement park, where they could talk without being overheard, Kessler said.
On many occasions, Resnick drove trucks loaded with explosives through the Holland Tunnel to his contacts at New York Harbor. Resnick also had contacts at the New Jersey piers in Leonardo, she said.
“He showed great courage and ingenuity,” Kessler said. “The family knew what he was doing, but Zimel didn’t really discuss his activities with us. But we knew that if he believed in something, he gave it his all, and the concept of an Israeli state meant everything to him.”
In 1948, Lowy and several other men were at the Leonardo pier where they were stocking a boat bound for Palestine. A neighbor observed some “unusual activity” at the pier and called the police, Kessler said. When they arrived and found explosives on board, Lowy and the others were arrested, and the news made the front page of the Asbury Park Press.
In the newspaper, the Monmouth County prosecutor’s office expressed concern about the possibility of large numbers of weapons and explosives hidden throughout the county that might be destined for the Jewish underground, Kessler said.
As a result, Lowy was charged with storing explosives without a license and held at the county jail in lieu of $15,000 bail. Resnick was able to post $500 bail for each of the other men, according to Klerman Hershenov.
However, public opinion was becoming more supportive of the concept of a Jewish homeland, and the Asbury Park Press then printed an editorial that supported the sale of weapons to the Jews “fighting for their freedom” in Palestine, Kessler said.
As a result, the charges against Lowy were reduced, he paid a $500 fine for unlawful storage, and spent very little time in jail, she said.
For reasons that remain unknown, the authorities did not impound the explosives found in Leonardo, and the cargo eventually reached Palestine, Kessler said.
When war in the Middle East broke out in 1948, arms and ammunition destined for the Jewish forces in Palestine were delayed by loading strikes and embargos designed to slow down delivery. Resnick and his contacts in the U.S. and Palestine were able to outfox the authorities (there are no available details that describe exactly how this was done) and the weaponry arrived at its destination.
A dream come true
Pearl Kessler of Middletown is the niece of Zimel Resnick, who collected and sent arms to Israel in 1948.
Photo by Jill Huber
When the war ended, Resnick’s dream of a Jewish homeland was realized. He proceeded to make many trips to Israel and fulfilled another life-long dream when he visited the Western Wall in Jerusalem in the late 1960s.
Resnick continued to support other Zionist causes (after 1948, he no longer secured weapons for Israel) for the rest of his life. When he died in 1971 at age 74, his body was taken to Israel, where he was laid to rest in the Jewish Legion Cemetery, an Israeli military cemetery near Tel Aviv.
“I have such good memories of Zimel,” Kessler said. “He lived in a home with beautiful Judaica and a wonderful library. He conducted beautiful seders, and in addition to family members, he also invited many non-Jews to attend.”
And whenever Resnick and his niece had a conversation, his belief in a Jewish homeland always dominated their discussions.
“He said the Jewish people needed a homeland, that the Jews in Europe needed a safe place,” Kessler said. “He shared his passion of Israel with me, and he made me a Zionist before it was fashionable to be that supportive of an Israeli state. He followed his heart and his dreams came true.”
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