The Transfer Agreement: The Dramatic Zionist Rescue of Jews from the Third Reich to Jewish Palestine

Edwin Black, joined by Rabbi Stuart Weinblatt of Congregation B’nai Tzedek and Mitchell Bard of the JVL, gave a special 90-minute presentation on The Transfer Agreement for the release of its 25th anniversary edition on October 30, 2009. The event was sponsored by the HNN, co-sponsored by JVL, and carried on C-SPAN.

Read the author’s Introduction to the 2009 edition.


HISTORICAL JOURNALISM AT ITS BEST. Black has authored an exhaustive, compelling, well-written and edited work. It is historical journalism at its best.
– Alexander Zvielli, Jerusalem Post

OVERWHELMING AND COHESIVE. Edwin Black’s research is striking in its dimension and scope. The vast uncovering of source material and its extensive use are almost overwhelming. He succeeds in crystallizing the various aspects of an almost worldwide problem into fluid and cohesive analysis.
– Yoav Gelber, Yad Vashem

SPELLBINDING. A spellbinding, exciting book exploring new dramatic facets. Despite the voluminous literature on the Third Reich, Mandate Palestine, modern Zionism and the Holocaust, this subject had not been previously explored. It adds a significant new dimension to our understanding of this critical period.
– Sybil Milton, Simon Wiesenthal Center

METICULOUS, ESSENTIAL. Black… has meticulously documented this obscure but important slice of world history… makes an essential contribution to an understanding of Israeli politics and the strife in the Middle East today.
– Gladwyn Hill, Los Angeles Times

A PAINFUL CHAPTER. A struggle to write a painful chapter in Jewish history. What Black began uncovering was a tangled account of an anguished moment in history, one that he at the center had to piece together from… forgotten archives, newspapers from the pre-WWII era, and government records.
– Jan Cawley, Chicago Tribune Magazine

HELPS UNDERSTANDING. In the hands of a different writer, this material … could have formed a much different story, damning Zionism and the State of Israel… It does not. Black is trying to increase our understanding and appreciation of what we have in the Jewish State of Israel and at what hidden costs.
– Larry Cohler, Long Island Jewish World


The Transfer Agreement is Edwin Black’s compelling, award-winning story of a negotiated arrangement in 1933 between Zionist organizations and the Nazis to transfer some 50,000-plus Jews and $100 million of their assets to Jewish Palestine in exchange for stopping the worldwide Jewish-led boycott threatening to topple the Hitler regime in its first year. The Transfer Agreement was originally published in 1984, updated in 2009 with a 25th anniversary edition featuring a new introduction, and published in 2021 in Portuguese translation as Haavara: O Acordo de Transferência: a Dramatica Historia do Pacto Entre a Palestina Judaica e o Terceiro Reich.


The Transfer Agreement tour kicked off at the Frankfurt (Germany) Book Fair in October 1999 and wrapped up at Temple Sinai in Long Island in November 2000. During the tour, Edwin visited many cities including Austin, Detroit, DC, London, and Phoenix.


The Transfer Agreement is available from the author (with optional autograph), Amazon, Amazon-CA, Amazon-UK, B&N, and other fine booksellers worldwide. Investigative journalist and historian Edwin Black is the author of Banking on Baghdad, BP and the Redline Agreement, The Farhud, Financing the Flames, IBM and the Holocaust, Internal Combustion, Nazi Nexus, The Plan, The Transfer Agreement, War Against the Weak, and a 1999 novel, Format C: