The Organizer

In the spring of 1938, the Edelstein family decided to emigrate, but the Hechalutz movement requested that they postpone their trip to Palestine for a few months because Jacob's departure would jeopardize the political efforts before the Zionist Congress. While Edelstein was meeting with Palestinian Jewish politicians in Prague he learned that he had not undergone a sufficient retraining process on the kibbutz, a collective agricultural settlement, and thus might not be suitable for immigration to the country at all.

The refugee crisis following the occupation of the Czechoslovakian borderlands affected many, and he helped them get out of the country. Then came the German occupation, and Edelstein's organizational talents were needed more than ever. The gradually liquidated Jewish communities were at first misused in the introduction of anti-Jewish measures and the collection of property forbidden to Jews (radios, pets, fur coats, jewelry), but after the ban on any Jewish religious acts, they became completely meaningless. The only ones who had functional organizational structures capable of functioning in a totalitarian society were the Zionists - and the Communists. Jacob Edelstein decided to stay in the Protectorate and help save lives, even if it would cost him his.