The Zionist Faith - American Jewish...

The Zionist Faith

Y O N A T H A N S H A P I R O

Since the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, the Zionist movement has been in a state of decline. Leaders and followers alike have fallen into confusion and conflict on the fundamental goals of the organization. A protracted discussion on the aims of Zionism has been continuing within the movement since 1948, primarily between Israeli and American Zionist leaders. The majority on the Israeli side agree that only those Jews who are ready to take part in the ingathering of the exiles in the Jewish State are true Zionists; only in the Jewish State, they assert, is the national survival of the Jews feasible. This ideological conviction is apparently shared also by many of those Israeli leaders who, however, do not insist that Zionists must migrate to Israel lest such an intransigent position destroy Zionist influence in the United States and weaken the bonds that unite the two Jewish communities. In reply to the Israeli chal- lenge, the American Zionist leaders contend that the United States represents for the Jews a diaspora, not an exile. The national survival of American Jewry is, therefore, possible in the United States, and there is no need for American Jewry's migration to the Jewish State. Furthermore, they say, there is no room in Israel for all Amer- ican Jews, and responsible American Jewish leaders cannot advocate the migration of American Jews to a country unable to accommodate them.

One aspect of these deliberations among the Zionist leaders cannot escape the notice of a student of social movements. The Zionist Organization was an ideological movement, greatly concerned throughout its history with political theories. It had produced a fair number of theoreticians who contributed to the movement's numer-

Dr. Yonathan Shapiro, who earned his Ph.D. in sociology at Columbia University, is a member of the Tel-Aviv University faculty.

ous publications; their arguments, echoed in the deliberations of the representative bodies of the organization, resulted in manifestoes and ideological programs approved by Zionist Congresses and considered binding on all members. All this body of Zionist ideology is rarely mentioned in current discussions among the leaders, nor are their followers aware of this omission.

It is this "ahistoricism" of the Zionists, so unusual for members of an ideological movement, that we wish to understand in the following short historical survey of the Zionist Organization in Europe, Palestine, and the United States. W e shall argue in this essay that the Zionist ideology was first developed by East European Jews in response to social conditions peculiar to their community; that the function of this ideology was to help the adjustment of its followers to these conditions. Different social conditions experienced by Jews who emigrated from Europe to the United States and Palestine led each of these communities to develop its own version of Zionism. As a result, the body of Zionist ideology developed in Europe cannot help sustain the goals of Zionism to which either the American or the Israeli Zionists now subscribe, even though all belong to the same World Zionist Organization.

The Zionist idea was originated in Eastern Europe by Jewish intellectuals reacting to the social conditions that prevailed there during the second half of the nineteenth century. Theodor Herzl, the Viennese journalist who founded the World Zionist Organiza- tion and convened its first Congress in 1897, succeeded in building a viable organization, largely because the Zionist groups already in existence in Eastern Europe joined his movement. It was the East European Jewish intelligentsia which provided the rank and file of the Zionist Organization, and it was its leaders who directed the movement after Herzl's death. The masses of East European Jews began to take a real interest in the organization only during the 1920'~.

These Jewish intellectuals were attracted to the nationalist ideology current among other national groups in Eastern and Central

THE ZIONIST FAITH 1°9

Europe; for them, Zionism was the Jewish version of the nationalist ideology. Such an approach to Zionism differed from that of Herzl and his associates from Western Europe. Herzl wished to build a strong organization which would pressure the European governments to grant the Jews an international charter allotting them a piece of land on which to build an independent state. After obtaining the charter, the Zionist Organization would organize mass migration by its members to the Jewish state. Herzl's plan consisted thus of two phases: during the first phase, the aim of the Zionists was to attain, through diplomacy and political pressure, an international charter. Only after this had been accomplished would the Zionists go on to organize a mass migration of Jews to their country and build a modern and progressive state.

This scheme was not acceptable to most East European Zionists. Their concept of the Zionist idea was influenced by the romantic- nationalist theories of the German philosophers - Johann Gottfried von Herder, Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Friedrich von Schlegel, and others -who provided the philosophical foundations of European nationalism. Applying such theories to the political realities, the nationalists aimed at building a mass democratic organization which would awaken the national consciousness of the masses through the revival of their national language, their literature, and the study of the nation's history. The awakening of the masses, the nationalists believed, was essential for the success of the movement; the masses were the social force that shaped human history, and only they could change its course. Following these ideas, the East European Zionists believed that, if they succeeded in awakening the national consciousness of the Jewish masses, these masses would come to desire a state of their own. A migration to Palestine, the ancient homeland, would start with the nationally conscious masses, who would establish a Jewish state.I

A brief examination of social and cultural conditions in Eastern Europe during the nineteenth century will help explain why impor-

I For a good summary and analysis of the ideological positions adopted by the East European Zionists and by Herzl and his associates, see Isaac Gruenbaum, The History of Zionism (Tel-Aviv: The Zionist Library, 1947)~ Vo1. 11, passim.

tant segments of the Jewish intelligentsia were attracted to such nationalist theories.

At the beginning of the nineteenth century, an intelligentsia began to emerge in East European Gentile society. It started among those members of the upper class who were imbued with the ideas of the Enlightenment - the beliefs in humanism, liberalism, rationalism, and progress - which filtered through from Western Europe. Under the influence of such ideas, this group became estranged from its semifeudal society. With the development of commerce and industry, the intelligentsia grew in numbers, especially among the merchant class, the professionals, and the factory workers, who found themselves outside of the traditional society. The search of this group for new values started in the realms of the arts and literature; it was slowly transferred to the political sphere, where it led to the development of secular political ideologies and the establishment of political ~ a r t i e s . ~

The same developments contributed to the emergence of an intelligentsia among the Jews.3 Many of the sons and daughters of well-to-do merchants broke away from the traditional-religious Jewish society and its culture. They immersed themselves in the task of reviving the Hebrew language and developing a secular Hebrew literature. The secular Hebrew culture was a means whereby the intellectuals hoped to uplift the Jewish masses and carry them away from the stagnating Jewish religious tradition into the modern world. The Hebrew language was to be used as a tool to teach the masses the values and ideas of modern Europe. The early Jewish intellectuals wished to integrate their community with the secular Gentile society, not to create a separate culture and nationality.

Gradually, however, it became apparent that the Gentile liberal

Richard Pipes, "The Historical Evolution of the Russian Intelligentsia," in Richard Pipes, ed., The Russian Intelligentsia (New York: Columbia University Press, 1961), p p 47-62,

3 For an excellent account of the East European Jewish intelligentsia, see Louis Green- berg, The Jews in Russia (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1941-1951). z ~01s.

THE ZIONIST FAITH I 1 1

intelligentsia was not inclined to follow the principles of rationalism and humanism in its attitude towards the Jews. Russian liberals did not accept the Jews as their equals. When this was recognized by the Jewish intellectuals, many of them, in their disappointment and frustration, turned to nationalism for solace.

The first push in this direction came after the Polish rebellion of 1863. Reacting to the Polish nationalist uprising, a number of Russian intellectuals became Russian nationalists. Others, motivated by a desire to maintain the unity of the Russian Empire, supported the racist theory of pan-Slavism. This principle could have united most national groups in the European Russian Empire, but excluded the Jews. Even the Polish rebels refused to accept the Jews within their ranks on terms of equality, since, they contended, Jews who happened to live in Poland were not Polish nationals. One of the first published stories in Hebrew -its author was the first Jewish nationalist novelist, Perez Smolenskin - describes the disappointment of a Polish Jew who considered himself a Pole and joined the Polish uprising only to be turned away by the rebels because of his Jewish origin.4

Many a Jewish intellectual was left in a state of shock and humiliation when he saw the Narodnaia Volia movement, the one important revolutionary movement in Russia at the time, evince sympathy for the peasants who participated in the pogroms of I 881 and 1882, or when he heard its leaders and other Russian progressives make anti-Semitic statements supporting, or at least condoning, these pogrom^.^ This was a particularly painful experience for those Jews who participated in the activities of Russian progressive organizations. The first Zionist groups, the Chovevei Zion societies, were founded by such disillusioned intellectuals. Their conversion to Jewish nationalism enabled Jews who had heretofore advocated the Russification of all Jews - their absorption into Russian society and culture - to preserve their self-respect when they were hurnil- iated and deserted by their Russian colleagues. As Jewish nationalists, they could proudly tell the Russian and the Polish nationalist

4 Ibid., I , I 39.

Ibid., 11, 57-59.

intelligentsia who had so offended them: W e Jews are a nation like any other nation; we possess a unique national language and share an ancient culture and history; we, therefore, have the right to a country of our own and the power to establish it.

As the early Zionists explained, Zionism was for them a synthe- sis: the thesis was the culture of enlightened liberal Europe which they had absorbed and wished to share; the antithesis appeared in the racial anti-Semitic theories prevalent among the Gentiles and preventing the integration of the Jews into liberal Europe. The syn- thesis incorporated modern European ideas within a framework of Jewish nationalism enabling modern Jews to face Gentile Europe on terms of equality - this was Zionism.

But the Zionist ideology contained its own contradiction. In order to achieve equality with other national groups in Europe, said the Zionists, Jews would have to tear themselves away from Europe, go to Palestine, and there establish their own separate society. But how could they do both: abandon Europe, on the one hand, and, on the other, achieve equality with other nationalities within her?

This basic contradiction within Zionism gave the movement a chronic ambivalence. It was reflected in the thinking of Zionist leaders, and affected their actions and the policies which they pursued in the Zionist Organization. It was this desire of Zionists to find a respectable place in modern Europe which prevented the Zionist Organization from ever becoming a Palestinian movement dedicated to the migration of Jews to Palestine. As will presently be seen, migration to Palestine was the prime objective of the Socialist-Zionist organizations whose Zionism was the product of a different intellectual tradition. The bulk of the Zionists, who became known as General Zionists, concerned themselves with the awakening of a national consciousness among the Jewish masses in the diaspora. This activity, to be pursued by Zionists in the countries in which they resided, was for them the sine qua non of Zionism. Only the success of such ground work, called in Zionist parlance Gegenwarts- arbeit, could change the course of Jewish history; nationally conscious Jews would then be motivated to migrate to Palestine, where they would eventually establish a Jewish state.

Restrictions on the activities of the Zionist Organization in

THE ZIONIST FAITH "3

Russia were imposed by the government only when Vyacheslav K. von Plehve, the minister of the interior and a known anti-Semite, realized that the Zionists were not primarily concerned with emi- gration to Palestine, but with nationalist agitation. This he explained to Theodor Herzl during their famous meeting at St. Petersburg in 1902. After his meeting with von Plehve, Herzl called Russian Zionist leaders together in St. Petersburg. H e demanded that they stop their nationalist propaganda; they ought to devote themselves exclusively to diplomatic work aimed at attaining recognition by the European governments for Jewry's right to a state of its own, a state to which all Zionists would emigrate.6 This interpretation of the aims of Zionism was unacceptable to the Russian Zionists. The convention of the Russian Zionist Federation in 1906 adopted the Helsingfors program, a document which called on Zionists to awaken the national consciousness of the Jewish masses in Russia and to lead the fight of Russian Jewry for national minority rights in the Empire. The Russian Zionist Federation, it was asserted, had to organize itself for this purpose as a political party and contest the elections to the Duma, the Russian parliament. A similar program was adopted by the Austrian Zionist Federation.7

"Diaspora nationalism" - agitation for civil and cultural rights for the Jewish minority -became, in effect, the main occupation of the Zionist Federations in Eastern Europe. In a programmatic manifesto issued in October, 1918, by the Central Zionist Bureau, a statement subsequently known as the Copenhagen Manifesto, it was declared that these political and cultural activities in the diaspora were as important for the success of the Zionist Organization as the building up of Palestine.

Very few leaders and members of the Zionist Organization immigrated to Palestine before Adolf Hitler's accession to power in

Gruenbaum, History of Zionism, 11, 76-78.

7 Ibid., 111, 48-65.

Adolf Bohm, Die zionistische Bewegung (Berlin: Jiidischer Verlag, 1gj5), I, 68990.

Germany in 1933. Many more who found life in Eastern Europe intolerable emigrated to the more enlightened and liberal countries of Western Europe. Chaim Weizmann, the greatest among the Zionist statesmen, went to England and settled in Manchester, where he became a professor of chemistry at the univer~ity.~ Asher Ginz- berg - "Achad Ha'am" - the foremost Zionist ideologue, did not join the pioneers who boarded the Palestine-bound ships in his home town of Odessa; he went in the opposite direction, to Western Europe. For nearly fifteen years, Achad Ha'am resided in London as the agent of the Wissotsky Tea Company. When he ended his wanderings in Europe, he arrived in Tel-Aviv an old and withered man.''

These Zionists loved bourgeois liberal Europe, her culture and traditions. It was this affection which made Gentile Europe's rejection of them so painful, and it was this attachment which made them in turn unable to reject Europe. Departure from the European continent was intolerable, and so they did not participate in the great exodus of East European Jewry to the United States. Among the two million Jews - a third of the East European Jewish population - who emigrated to the United States between I 880 and 1924, the number of Zionists was extremely small. Furthermore, the Zionist literature of the period hardly mentioned this mass exodus. The Zionists were European intellectuals, and the United States was even further removed from Europe than was Palestine.

The acceptance of Zionist ideology as a means of adjustment to life in nationalist Europe rather than as the first step in the process of migration to Palestine was demonstrated again after the First World War. An increasing number of European Jews joined the movement in the 1920's. This took place, however, only after migration to the United States and Palestine had come to a halt. Only when emi- gration as an outlet was withdrawn, and European Jews had to stay in Europe, did many of them turn to Zionism.

One may illustrate the weakness of the Zionist program by com-

9 Isaiah Berlin, "The Biographical Facts," in Meyer W . Weisgal, ed., Chaim Weizmann: A Biog~aphy by Seve~al Hands (New York: Atheneum Press, I 963), p. 28.

I a Hans Kohn's introduction to Natimalinn and the Jewish Ethic: Basic W~itings of Ahad Ha'am (New York: Scribner Books, 1962), pp. 27-30.


paring the number of Jews who emigrated from Europe to the United States and Palestine with the number of Jews who joined the Zionist Organization in the decade between I 92 I and 193 I . Until 1924, the average annual immigration to Palestine was about 7,000. In 192 I , however, I zo,ooo Jews emigrated to the United States. In that year, the first law was passed in the United States to restrict immigration, and as a result only 50,000 Jewish immigrants entered the United States annually between 1922 and 1924. The Johnson- Lodge Immigration Act of 1924 brought this immigration almost entirely to a halt. The stoppage of immigration to the United States coincided with a further deterioration in the condition of Polish Jewry, the community which had supplied the bulk of the Jewish immigrants to the United States, and the result was that 33,000 Polish Jews emigrated to Palestine during 1925. Palestine at the time, however, could not absorb immigrants the way the United States was able to do. Palestine was a barren country, living conditions there were poor, and the settlers had to endure great hard- ships. Most of the Polish immigrants who arrived in Palestine during 192 5 and 1926 did not possess the idealism that had motivated the other settlers to spend their days building roads and reclaiming the desert land. A serious economic crisis followed this influx of immigrants, most of whom could not find employment and suitable ac- commodations, and further immigration to Palestine waned. So many of the immigrants returned to Poland from Palestine that, during 1927 and 1928, the number of Jews who left Palestine exceeded the number of those who entered the country. Following the crisis - and, in fact, until 1933 - only a few European Jews immigrated into Palestine.ll

It was precisely at this historical juncture, when the European Jews felt trapped in Europe, that an increasing number of them joined the Zionist Organization. Membership figures are not very accurate, but the upward trend after 1925 is unmistakable. The best way to demonstrate the growth of the Zionist movement is to ex-

11 The figures on Jewish immigration to the United States are from The American Jewish Ycar Book, XXVII ( I ~ z s - I ~ z ~ ) , 399; figures for Jewish immigration to Palestine are from Lisel Straus, Dic Einwandcrung nach Paliistina scit d m Wcltkricgc (Geneva, 1938), P. 41.

amine the number of voters who participated in the elections to the biannual Zionist Congresses. Passive membership in itself tells us very little, but participation in Zionist elections signifies a strong identification with the movement, and the sharp growth in the number of voters after I 92 5 is very telling. In I 927, about I z 3,000 members took part in the elections; in 1929, over zoo,ooo members went to the polls; and, in 193 I , their number exceeded 2 33,000. This growth occurred primarily in the East European countries which had provided most of the Jewish immigrants to the United States and Pales- tine before 1926. In Poland, where most East European Jews lived, over 58,000 Jews participated in the elections of 1927; in 1929, their number grew to over 88,000; while more than 1z4,ooo people took part in the elections of 193 I .Ia

The above figures suggest that the act of joining the Zionist Or- ganization was an alternative to emigrating from Europe. In the face of the hostility of the majority and the humiliation caused by having to endure it without recourse to migration, many Jews joined the nationalist movement. Zionism taught them to be proud of themselves, of their culture and history, and inspired them to fight for their rights on the European continent.

The nationalist ideology and cultural activities of the Zionist Organization caused it to remain primarily a movement for the intelligentsia and the middle classes. Its membership consisted of writers, poets, journalists, teachers, representatives of the liberal professions, and enlightened merchants. The members studied He- brew, subscribed to Hebrew and Yiddish literary magazines, contributed to the publications sponsored by the Organization, and debated among themselves the past history and future prospects of the Jewish people and of Judaism. Facing the indigenous nationalist society which contained powerful and vocal anti-Semitic elements, they were aided by such activities to maintain their self-respect in their relations with the majority. Furthermore, Zionist leaders were often recognized as spokesmen for the Jewish group, and this gave them an enhanced position in their respective countries. Many Zion- ist leaders became members of parliament representing the Jewish

l2 These election figures were compiled from the reports of the Zionist Congresses for the years 1927, 1929, and 1931.

T H E ZIONIST FAITH 1 1 7

minority. For example, Isaac Gruenbaum, the leader of the Polish Zionists, led the Jewish party in the Seym; and Dr. Max Solowei- tschik, the leader of the Lithuanian Zionists, served for a time as minister for Jewish affairs in the Lithuanian government.

The majority of those Zionists who did migrate to Palestine before 1933 belonged to the Socialist-Zionist organizations. A minority among European Zionists, the Socialist-Zionists became a majority in Palestine. This is not to say that no members of the General Zionist organizations migrated to Palestine. Figures are, unfortu- nately, unobtainable, but the election results to the biannual Zionist Congresses and to the Representative Assembly of Palestinian Jewry suggest the predominance of the Socialists.

The Socialist predominance at the polls is, however, partly at- tributable to the fact that most Socialists arrived in Palestine in organized groups, while most General Zionists came individually. T h e latter were absorbed primarily into the new towns and villages as small businessmen, professionals, officials in the Zionist institutions, and school teachers in the community's school system. The organized groups of Socialists established agricultural settlements and founded a strong trade union movement and a network of coop- eratives; they organized a Jewish military defense organization against Arab marauders, and dominated the political life of the community.

The difference between the group migration of the Socialist- Zionists and the individual migration of the General Zionists stemmed from their different ideologies, which affected the structure and the activities of their respective organizations. While the General Zion- ists were most concerned with the awakening of a national consciousness among the Jewish masses, the Socialist-Zionists were concerned primarily with Jewish migration. The early leaders and theoreticians of the Socialist-Zionists - Ber Borochow, Aaron David Gordon, Nachman Syrkin, and others - viewed migration to Pales- tine as a unique historical opportunity to build a new society based on universal ideals of social justice and equality. Many of them were

Marxists who contended that the position of the Jews in the economic structure of East European society forced them to migrate. East European Jews were subjected, they said, to a process of non- proletarianization. While Jews, as a result of inevitable developments in the economy, were being squeezed out of the lower middle- class positions which most of them had occupied for generations, racial discrimination prevented them fiom joining the working class and from being absorbed into the expanding industrial scene. They had, therefore, to move to another society where they would be admitted into working class jobs and where they could participate in the class struggle to gain control over the means of production.

At first the Socialist-Zionists did not think it imperative that the new society for the Jewish working class be established in Palestine, the ancient homeland. Such a notion they dismissed as a silly religious- bourgeois dream. Any country would do, thought Syrkin, who himself immigrated to the United States. When Ber Borochow became convinced that the new society for the Jews had to be built in Pales- tine, it was not the influence of nationalist theories that led him to change his mind. His theories remained within the context of a ma- terialistic interpretation of historical change. Jews would have to build a new society where no other social structure existed. If Gen- tiles controlled the means of production, the liberation of the Jewish working class would not be accomplished. Racial discrimination against the Jews would not be eliminated by the coming socialist revolution unless the Jewish working class took over the means of production. The Jewish workers would be freed, therefore, only if the revolution was both social and national. T o attain this double goal, they had to migrate to Palestine and build there a socialist Jewish state.13

IMMIGRATION AND SETTLEMENT The Socialist-Zionist dream of a working class society in Pales-

tine and their rejection of the moral and political values of liberal Europe eased their departure from Europe. The main h c t i o n of their organizations in Europe was to prepare their members for a

'3 Gruenbaum, History of Zionism, 11, passim.


productive life as proletarians in Palestine, where the socialist dream would materialize in a Jewish state. They were the utopians of the Zionist camp, and the Jewish state was part of this utopia.

Once they were in Palestine, surrounded by a hostile Arab population and within the jurisdiction of the unkiendly rulers of the Ottoman Empire, the main concern of the Socialist-Zionist settlers became the security and the political future of the small Jewish community. They had to establish independent Jewish economic and political institutions and organize self-defense against Arab attacks on Jewish settlements, but the survival of the community depended on the arrival of more immigrants to strengthen the small cornmu- nity and on economic aid to finance the costly projects undertaken to transform the desert into inhabitable country. The necessary support was provided by the World Zionist Organization, which sub- sidized the immigration of settlers from Europe, built banks and industries, and supported the agricultural settlements.

T o represent their special interests in the World Zionist Organ- ization, the Socialist-Zionists in Palestine established political parties that took part in the elections to Zionist Congresses and were rep- resented in the various Zionist institutions. These parties and their representatives in the Zionist bodies developed and articulated their own version of Zionism. Since they had lefi Europe and had never shared the romantic-nationalist ideology of the General Zionists or their concern with the awakening of national consciousness among the Jewish masses in the diaspora, and since they were burdened with the needs of the struggling community in Palestine for money and manpower, the Socialist-Zionists concluded that the sine qua non of Zionism was aliyah vehityashvut, immigration to and settlement in Palestine. The revival of the Hebrew language and the renaissance of its literature, they argued, could only follow, not precede, the settlement of the Jewish masses in Palestine.

Joseph Aronowitsch, the first delegate of Hapoel Hatzair (the predecessor of the present-day Mapai party) to the Zionist Con- gress in 1907, presented the case for the Palestinian Socialists in the general debate. In an impassioned speech, he suggested to the Zionist delegates that Zionism could be accomplished only if the Zionists would immigrate to Palestine. Instead of barren theoretical

discussions and futile activities in the diaspora, he argued, the Zionist leaders should settle in Palestine. This speech, a severely cut version of which appeared in the published minutes of the Congress, apparently made no impression on the delegates.Id

After the First World War , the growth of the Jewish community in Palestine led to increasing Socialist-Zionist power and influence in the Zionist Organization. Their growing power in Zionist institutions was, in part, the result of an electoral law, according to which every vote cast in Palestine in the elections for the Zionist Congresses equalled two votes in the diaspora. During the ~gzo's, the two groups, the European nationalists and the Palestinian Social- ists, disagreed on questions of Zionist policy more ofien than before.

One important issue that occupied the Zionist Congresses during the nineteen twenties was the establishment of the extended Jewish Agency for Palestine. This plan delegated the responsibility of the Zionist Organization for Palestinian economic development to an appointed body whose ruling committee was equally divided between Zionist members and non-Zionist Jewish capitalists. T h e strongest opposition to the plan came from the European nationalists. One such influential group, the Radical Zionists, bitterly opposed the plan and voted against it in 1929 despite the severe economic crisis in Palestine. The nationalists believed that the task of building up Palestine should be lefi in the hands of the nationally conscious masses and their elected representatives. It was the Jewish masses, not the wealthy Jews, who would create the Jewish state. The So- cialists, too, felt uncomfortable about the projected partnership between Zionists and Jewish capitalists. They knew that such a transfer of power would lead inevitably to the strengthening of pri- vate enterprise and the non-socialist sector of the economy in Pales- tine. They nevertheless supported the plan, since they hoped that the new organization would pour money into the Palestinian economy, would strengthen the Jewish community, and would alleviate the continuous economic crisis which had brought Jewish immigra-

'4 Ibid., 111.

THE ZIONIST FAITH 1 2 3

tion to Palestine almost to a complete stop. The national interest of the whole community rather than class interests dictated this deci- sion.15

National considerations led to collaboration between the Socialist- Zionists and the middle-class Zionist Organization of America, which, as we shall see, became concerned solely with financial aid for the Jewish community in Palestine and with support for its political aspirations. Their collaboration became an important element in Zionist politics. For example, when Chaim Weizmann, the president of the Organization, advocated greater moderation in the attitude of the Zionists and the Palestinian Jewish community toward the country's British rulers, it was the united opposition of the more militant Socialist-Zionists and the American Zionists which contributed to his resignation in 1931; the same coalition led to Weiz- mann's defeat in the Zionist Congress in 1946.

The state of crisis created for European Jewry after Hitler's accession to power in Germany in 1933 relegated ideological discussions and disputes within the Zionist organization into the back- ground. Saving Jews and getting them into Palestine became the concern of all. It was only after the establishment of the State of Israel that the American and Israeli Zionists discovered their fundamental disagreements on the meaning of Zionism and on the goals of the Zionist Organization.

The Zionist Organization of America - the Z. 0. A. - and the Federation of American Zionists - the F. A. Z. -which had pre- ceded it were neither committed to Jewish nationalism, nor did they advocate the migration of their members to Palestine. The social function of the Zionist ideology in the United States was the same as in Eastern Europe, namely, to facilitate the adjustment of Jews to American society. A few groups within the Organization adopted a nationalist ideology or wished to migrate to Palestine, but these groups never exercised great influence in the Organization. Dr. Sol-

'5 Herbert Solow, "The Sixteenth Zionist Congress," The Menorah Journal, XVII (OC- tober, 1929), 23-40.

omon Schechter, a founder of Conservative Judaism, was a Zionist whose ideas on Zionism commanded attention and whose lead was followed by many of the early leaders of the F. A. 2. Dr. Schechter affirmed the need for the Americanization of the Jews. The aim of Zionism, he argued, was to prevent their assimilation after they had become Americanized; the task of Zionism in the United States was to preserve a separate American Jewish group which would be at the same time an organic part of the American nation and its culture.16

This interpretation of Zionism differed from its European coun- terpart. The two versions of Zionism reflected the different conditions of Jewry in the two societies, primarily in the position of the Jews vis-a-vis the majorities in the United States and in Eastern Europe. The main differences in the conditions of the two Jewries were :

First, while attempted Russification of Jews was discouraged by most Russians who considered the Jews alien to their nation, the Americans demanded the Americanization of the Jews in the United States. Underlying this different reaction was a basic distinction between the American and the East European cultural traditions. Nation and State were separate concepts in Eastern Europe: the national group provided a distinct culture and language for its members and took care of their formal education, at least on the primary level. The state was responsible for law and order in the country and organized the police force, the army, and the court system. Such a separation between the functions of state and nation was not accepted in the United States, where both concepts were used inter- changeably. Thus, whereas a distinct Jewish nationality was a per- fectly legitimate situation in Eastern Europe, Jewish nationalism in the United States conflicted with the values of American culture.

Second, once the American nationality of the Jewish citizens in the United States was acknowledged by the majority, the Jews were not going to embrace an ideology which would jeopardize this achievement and separate them from their fellow Americans. The

I6 Herbert Bentwich, Solomon Schechter: A Biography (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society o f America, rg38), pp. 2 I 5 ff.

THE ZIONIST FAITH 125

attitude of the Jews was encouraged by the fact that anti-Semitism was not as intense in the United States as on the European continent. Anti-Semitism was seldom publicly expressed by respectable members of American society. In contrast with the European situation, it was rarely argued openly in the United States that Jews had no right to reside there or that they had no part in American culture. In the social sphere, however, Jews were exposed to discrimination. Low ethnic status was ascribed to them, and they were thus denied full social equality. As a result, their feeling of belonging to America was never free of doubts. It was this uncertainty about their belonging, asserted the well-known social psychologist Kurt Lewin, which plagued the Jews in the United States.='

The Zionist intellectuals who came to the United States from Eastern Europe realized that Jewish nationalism as they knew it in the old country would not be acceptable to American-born and American-educated Jews. They, therefore, never seriously attempted to awaken the national consciousness of American Jews or to revive the Hebrew language and its literature in the United States. Moreover, in the United States, the foreign-born intellectuals were losing the influence over the cultural and political life of the Jewish community that they had had in Europe. They found themselves estranged from the rapidly acculturating community, and an insurmountable gulf developed between them and the new generation of Jews born and educated in the United States. In their desperate efforts to find their place in the new community, the foreign-born Zionist intellectuals evolved, in cooperation with a number of American-born Zionists, a new interpretation of the Zionist ideology, an interpretation that appealed to a growing number of American Jews. Zionism, they now said, demanded that all Jews aid the Jewish colonies in Palestine and support the aspirations of Palestinian Jewry for political independence.

This Zionism appealed to many American Jews who had been hurt by social discrimination and by the majority's ascription of a low status to their ethnic group. Their identification with the achievements of the Palestinian Jews helped to enhance their self-

'7 Kurt Lewin, Resolving Social CrmfIicts (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1948), p '79.

I 2 6 AMERICAN JEWISH ARCHIVES, NOVEMBER, 1966

respect as Jews. Their support of the national aspirations of the Jewish community in Palestine provided an outlet for their own national sentiments, which were augmented by the majority's slight- ing attitude to the Jewish group. At the same time, this manifestation of Jewish nationalism did not conflict with their loyalty to the Amer- ican nation and its culture.

The first major effort to convert the Federation of American Zionists into an organization devoted to financial aid to Palestine took place in 191 2, when the Zion Association for men and the Hadassah chapters for women were founded. In the resolution adopted by the annual convention of the Organization setting up these bodies, it was explained that "such forms of organization em- bodying the principle of supporting Palestine institutions with one- half of all hnds received by such organizations, have a peculiarly strong appeal to all Jews interested in the future of our nation." The resolution went on to say that "such a plan imposes upon members no large burden of active attendance - so that they are particularly appropriate for the business and professional men and women."^* Hadassah became the largest Zionist organization in the United States. The goals of Hadassah were restricted to the building of health services and welfare institutions in Palestine. Hadassah was the only Zionist organization which did not require its members to sign the Basle program, the political program of the Zionist Organization.19

In the following years, an increasing number of American Jews responded favorably to fund-raising campaigns for Palestine, and it became the Zionist Organization's main concern. The amount of money collected became the measure of its success, and the con- tributors became an influential group in the Organization. These people, complained a visiting European Zionist leader in a report to the central Zionist office in London, were "totally uninformed and uninterested in the principles of the Zionist doctrine." More sur- prising to this European intellectual was the fact that, as they wished to impress others with their "businesslike practicality," these Zion-

I 8 The Maccabean, XXI (July, 19 I z), 14, 29.

' 9 Ibid., XXIII (July, 1913), 203.

THE ZIONIST FAITH 127

ists proudly exhibited their lack of knowledge of Zionist programs or the ideas of leading Zionist theoretician^.^^

The American-born and American-educated Jewish intelligentsia was not attracted to such an organization. The interest of even those intellectuals who did get involved in Zionism was usually short- lived. This contrasted sharply with the European Zionist organizations, in which the intelligentsia was the backbone of Zionism. In Europe, the intellectuals led the Organization and articulated the Zionist ideology. The American Organization was composed, largely, of businessmen, rabbis and Jewish communal workers, pol- iticians, and the remnants of the foreign-born intelligentsia.

W e have examined three varieties of Zionism, shaped by different social experiences and cultural traditions to which Jewish communities were exposed in Eastern Europe, the United States, and Palestine. But underlying the three versions of Zionism which developed in the three communities, one common element persisted: the desire for the separate existence of the Jewish group. The need to preserve the distinctiveness of the Jewish people was the essence of the Zionist faith.

The particular forms of Zionism varied because Jews were dis- persed among many nations and subjected to diverse social conditions. In this survey, three varieties of Zionism have been singled out, but Zionist ideologies are as diverse as are the societies in which Zionists are found.

Chaim Arlozorov (Victor Chaim ArlosorofT) to Felix Rosenblueth, London, March I ,

1929 (The Central Zionist Archives, Jerusalem).

The Zionist Faith - American Jewish...

Documents

Transcript of The Zionist Faith - American Jewish...