The question, “What next for American Zionists, now that Israel is established?” has been a central topic in organized Jewish life for many months now. Arthur Hertzberg, long active in Zionist affairs, here presents his analysis of why the adherents of the movement seem to be as far from agreement on any program for the future as when the discussion began.
_____________
My Grandfather was not a Zionist, and yet my first experience of Zionism was an act of identification with him—and rebellion against my father. It came right after my Bar Mitzva. My father, who was too much of an old-fashioned Hasid to force the hand of the Messiah, could no longer oppose the new tendencies invading his home, and so finally, rather behind his back, I joined the Gordonia youth group. As its name shows, it was sponsored by the Labor Zionists.
It is always tempting to read back into early adolescence attitudes acquired or clearly formulated later, but I rather think that even then, in a dim sort of way, I was not quite satisfied with the Jewish values of my home. Or, perhaps, as the son of a rabbi I felt left out of things, as indeed was the case, for I was made to study the Talmud during winter afternoons and all day during the summer while others were playing. A child is very lonely with a big folio in front of him—and Henty’s stories of the Napoleonic wars, which I read when I was supposed to be reviewing (iberchazern is the traditional word), simply made the loneliness more poignant by contrast with such deeds of heroism.
Joining Gordonia was my first independent decision of consequence. It meant the beginning of a Jewish experience of my own. Of course, it was a decision compounded not of ideas but of symbols. My grandfather was still alive in Poland and my memory retained a sort of snapshot image of him. I had been taken to see him in Lemberg when we were leaving for America and I could still see a long gray beard close to my five-year-old head. He was not well off and my parents were too poor to do much to help him or the rest of the family. As Hitler came more and more into my consciousness—and I read more of Jewish martyrology—my grandfather’s image acquired deep furrows in the face, a bent back, and troubled eyes. I knew that he was not a Zionist, and yet my Zionism was in large part an act of piety towards him.
It was also, as I said, an act of rebellion. That, too, was crystallized in a symbol, the leader of our group. He was a young man of twenty-two or twenty-four who had a way of life definitely his own. He wore blue, open-collar shirts (the emblem of Hashomer Hatzair) in any weather, did not attend synagogue, and I knew that he ate trefah. What he talked of was the new life being created in the kibbutz, the Palestinian collective, where he would soon go. I identified myself with him and dreamed of being able to be a new kind of Jew, free and strong and taking part in a life more real than school or Talmud.
So I took the Jewish National Fund box in hand and trudged the streets of the east side of Baltimore. It was painful to ask strangers for money, but Grandfather was being saved, I was assuring my independence from my father, and the new Jewish world was being built—all through the little blue box.
_____________
Both Zionism and I have changed a bit since those days sixteen years ago. From a minority movement in a rather indifferent Jewish community and a world which did not take it very seriously, Zionism has risen to eminence. It has succeeded in creating a new state and—what is perhaps more difficult—in achieving around itself, at least from 1945 to 1948, a startling unanimity of Jewish opinion. During those three years there was about Zionism the compelling atmosphere of a moral crusade in which all of world Jewry participated. Bevin was the common enemy and the need of the refugees was sore. We all had felt helpless, frustrated, and, in our inmost hearts, immoral during the war as European Jews were being slaughtered. The fight for Israel united us so completely, I suspect, because it was at least a chance to make the world of murderers bend to our will, and also, perhaps, relieve our sense of guilt.
Now that Israel exists, the unity generated by the struggle is fast disappearing. As Oscar Wilde once said: there are two tragedies in the world—one is not getting what you want and the other is getting it. Now that the world Zionist movement has achieved its object, it is in a peculiar and difficult position. In the struggle for Israel, Diaspora Zionism created the greatest élan and the strongest organized instruments in modern Jewish experience. Zionism feels the need to continue its endeavors—certainly all is far from well with the Jewish world, both in Israel and internationally—and yet it is caught in an impasse between its own slogans, platforms, and previous record, and the realities of Jewish life today.
My grandfather is dead—he was killed in Lemberg by the Nazis—and what remained of my family in Europe is now in either Israel or the United States. Of course I know that there are still Arabic-speaking Jews who, even though rather foreign to me, are my brothers, and whom I must help towards Israel. The sense of responsibility for that task does not, however, provide the content for a stirring Jewish emotion. Indeed, it may have an opposite effect. It keeps reminding me that I really am thinking in terms of two categories of Jews—those who feel sufficient pressure to want to leave their homes, and we Americans who, in the vast majority, do not intend to move permanently to Israel. And yet, did not Herzl say in the Judenstaat that all of Jewry must return to the homeland? Is this not still an almost unquestioned doctrine of Zionist thinking in Israel?
As a Zionist, I face an impasse. Without passing moral judgment on either myself or Israel, I know that I am something other than the Israeli, by upbringing, by my allegiance to America, and by my desire to be part of the cultural traditions of the Western world. And yet Zionism has been part of the under-pinning of my life, that part which gave it the greatest zeal and vitality. It is not easy to let it go.
_____________
What shall I do with my Zionism? I know that I am not alone with this problem, that it is now being much discussed. But I have yet to hear any suggestion that really hits the mark. The attempt to maintain the political character of the movement does not excite me. It is true that a Zionist movement still remains in the political arena, and that Israel is still young and far from secure in the tides of international affairs. Yet the tasks left to bodies other than the Israeli government are of the nature of a political mop-up operation. American Zionist leadership speaks of dangers that may arise for Israel, in the face of which world Zionism must remain strong, standing ever ready on guard; but standing guard, as every soldier knows, is at best only tedious duty.
Indeed, it is becoming increasingly evident that the emergence of the new state will inevitably strip Diaspora Zionism of all political functions. In the heyday of the recent struggle for the state, I had a very real sense of participation. Wires and directives from the Zionist Emergency Council—the joint political high command of all Zionist bodies—were an almost daily occurrence. All this activity took time and pains, and therefore satisfied the heart. It satisfied my heart because I was still, down deep, thinking of my grand-father and of the cousins I had never met. I was helping to build a home for them and for other grandfathers and cousins.
But even Zionists are human beings and not selfless saints. When one builds a home for one’s relatives, several emotions are brought into play. Certainly the one that predominates is the sense of kinship and personal responsibility. However, once the home is built, there are also the less creditable desires to receive gratitude, to exercise a continuing right to make the ultimate decisions, or, at the very least, not to be embarrassed or greatly displeased by the decisions that are made. The political direction of the state of Israel has already jarred these emotions and bids fair to deepen very fundamental divisions within world Jewry. I know that this was inevitable and so pass no moral judgment—but a very difficult situation does exist and needs description.
_____________
When Mr. Sharett, the foreign minister of Israel, was in the United States some months ago to help UJA fund-raising, he made it pointedly clear that his government would allow no political interference by Jews outside its borders. In this he reflected the mood of Israel, which definitely regards the new state as primarily, indeed solely, the creation of its own desperate courage and military skill. Israel feels that it owes to the Diaspora the obligation to do nothing to injure the position of Jews in other lands and to accept within its border those who wish to come. On the other hand, it considers itself entitled to economic aid because of its open door for the refugees, whom it quite correctly regards as a charge upon the conscience of world Jewry.
Theoretically speaking, Diaspora Zionists have no quarrel with Mr. Sharett. The fear of the accusation of dual allegiance is very real and American Zionist leadership has given repeated assurances that it will not—indeed cannot—meddle in the internal affairs of Israel. I, for one, on the basis of general feeling more than specific and tangible evidence, do not quite believe these assurances. First of all, Zionism cannot possibly give up, without a struggle, its influential position. Zionist leaders simply have too much political interest and experience to stay out of the arena. In the second place, Israel’s political policy, both domestic and foreign, is more important to Jews outside the state than is the policy of Ireland to the American Irish. Americans of Irish descent were rather embarrassed but not basically endangered by Irish neutrality during the war. Israeli policy has much more direct effects on the situation of the world Jewish community. A pro-Russian Israel would probably not face the present difficulties with Russia’s satellites about the virtual stoppage of emigration. On the other hand, that kind of Israel would make American Jewry very unhappy. Diaspora Zionist leaders, particularly those not in agreement with the political tendencies of the present coalition government of Israel, are therefore not ready to entrust the future of world Jewry entirely to the Israeli political leadership. Fearful of the charge of dual allegiance if they act overtly, they can play only the card of economic power. Shades of the JNF box of my adolescence!
However, the fund-raising campaign bids fair to vanish as the content of Zionist endeavor. The reason is not to be found merely in the fact that, for a wide variety of reasons, UJA is past the peak of its fund-raising success, or even in the fact that Israel is coming to be viewed for the most part as another field of economic investment. What is more important is that economic aid to Israel is now no longer regarded as a Zionist activity. Last February the United Palestine Appeal, after a bitter losing fight by Dr. Silver and Dr. Neumann, became basically non-Zionist in character. Behind the opposition to Zionist control was felt the hand of the Israeli Labor party, which dominates the government. It seems increasingly evident to close observers that Israel is today quite willing to have done with old-time political Zionism. What the state wants is money, with no strings attached, and it prefers to get it through those Jewish leaders who will demand a minimum of political influence and accountability.
_____________
Inevitably, as a Zionist, I will look for content in the direction of cultural endeavor. The homeland has always been envisaged by an important body of Zionist theory as the center which would feed the spiritual energies of Jews the world over. The Hebraic values being revitalized and created by the renascent national culture would provide stimulation for all the Jewish world. This was the emphasis of Ahad Haam fifty years ago, when he struck off the phrase zarat ha-Yahadut, the survival of Judaism.
Talk about cultural Zionism is more fashionable today than it has been in many a year. Both the Zionist Organization of America and the Labor Zionist group in the United States have recendy held important formal deliberations on the theme. At both these meetings the political and economic sides of Zionism were reaffirmed in the usual way, but cultural notes were sounded more emphatically than heretofore. In the Rifkind report of the ZOA, points 7 and 8 of a suggested program for American and world Zionism read as follows:
7. To foster among the Jews of America self-awareness and a sense of kinship with Jews everywhere and stimulate Jewish cultural creativity.
8. To encourage the spread of the He-brew language and of Jewish culture among the Jewish youth and the Jewish population generally.
In its formal declaration, the National Assembly for Labor Israel also reaffirmed, from its pro-Mapai point of view, the political and economic motifs of Zionism, but in the third paragraph the cultural note was sounded: “Israel and American Jewry both face the necessity of reviving the tradition of Jewish culture in order to integrate into a more meaningful and organic relationship many Jews who are driven together or held together by circumstances. In this endeavor, it is essential for American Jewry to maintain a close bond with the developing culture of Israel, and in turn Jewish culture in Israel can gain in breadth and significance by constant attentiveness to Jewish cultural expression in America.”
However, the whole discussion at the ZOA meeting was on whether the report was to be made binding on the convention or be referred to the next administration. The issues as such were not grappled with and there is not a word of elaboration about the cultural problem in the Rifkind report beyond the two short sentences of pious wish that I quoted above. The Labor Zionist session did hear a speech by Professor M. M. Kaplan, as a commentary on its paragraph on culture. He had several significant things to say, such as a strong disclaimer of any desire for large-scale American emigration to Israel, but on the cultural problem he was not very en-lightening. He made again his well-known point about the “peoplehood” of world Jewry, its character as a cultural nation that can be sustained only by an act of group will. But how sustain the will in the group, when it is increasingly unwilling? Why sustain it at all? Is the existence of a Jewish Diaspora an end in itself?
So far the cultural discussion has been both skimpy and vague—and it leaves me, for one, quite cold. Jews in the Western democracies, particularly in America, have no great enthusiasm for becoming a cultural minority. The course of nationalism in our time is away from cultural pluralism in the post-World War I “minorities” pattern. There is no great likelihood that for Jewish national reasons American Jewry will swim upstream and steep itself in Hebrew language and Hebrew culture. Israeli national culture will be admired by world Jewry, but not really shared, for we are not in the mood for becoming artificial cultural irredentists.
_____________
Nor is it likely that the reservoir of Zionist energy will be siphoned off into the field of religion, for the simple reason that this field has long since been inundated. Cultural Zionism will surely suffer from its too great success in ideologically conquering the synagogue in the Diaspora. Zionist culture has become the predominant concern of the synagogue—to my mind to the neglect of the synagogue’s spiritual responsibilities. And even despite this ideological homogeneity, Zionist organizations will not be graciously welcomed by religious institutions into the fields of Hebraic education, both youth and adult—institutions readily share ideas but are most reluctant to share jurisdictional authority.
In any case, an attempt to make Israel’s religion—the plural, “religions,” is really more correct—the norm for world Jewry and the tie that binds would be foredoomed to failure. The religious expressions of Israel today are either completely Orthodox or the mystique of nationalism. Neither of these Judaisms can possibly be made the norm for Jews of the Diaspora, who are increasingly heterodox and do not, at least in democratic countries, think of themselves as a national group.
The dilemma is painful: the religious and cultural uniformity that Jewry has been losing in the last two centuries must somehow be made to return now, if Jewish unity is to be preserved—and yet no one wants either a Vatican or a ghetto. The dilemma has been well known for a long time, but all that we have got from leaders of movements and schools of thought has seemed, at least “according to the poverty of my understanding,” little more than descriptions of the problem and platitudes of hope.
There are two remaining possibilities for Zionist action which have been brought up in recent considerations. One suggestion, organized emigration to Israel, has really come from Israel, and only the second, civic-defense work, has been based on the realities of the Diaspora.
Everyone I talked with this summer in Israel asked, “When are you Americans coming to settle here?” For the Israelis, Zionism means only one thing—personal identification with the country. All else is mere verbiage. With complete candor David Ben Gurion, Premier of Israel, in a recent address to a visting delegation of American Zionists in Tel Aviv, expressed this sentiment: “Although we realized our dream of establishing a Jewish State, we are still at the beginning. Today there are only 900,000 Jews in Israel, while the greater part of the Jewish people is still abroad. Our next step will not be easier than the creation of the Jewish State. It consists in bringing all the Jews to Israel . . . . We appeal chiefly to the youth of the United States and other countries to help us achieve this big mission. We appeal to the parents to help us bring their children here. Even if they decline to help, we will bring the youth to Israel . . . .”
Zionist bodies in America have recently given some small support to the idea of emigration. The Rifkind report says in point 4 that the movement should “facilitate the immigration of Jews into Israel and encourage Halutz [pioneer] movements among the youth”—but I note, perhaps pedantically, that these clauses do not specifically say “American youth” and “American immigration.” The Labor Zionists, though encouraging halutziut as a firm part of their traditional work, did not mention it at all in their declaration—and at the meeting Professor Kaplan denied the possibility of any large-scale success for such a movement. Those who know American Jewry agree with him. Obviously Zionism in America cannot generate mass enthusiasm, at this juncture, as a recruiting agency for emigrants.
_____________
The civic-defense possibility is mentioned only in the Rifkind report, which in its very last point speaks of “cooperating with other organizations in defense of Jewish rights and other matters of common concern.” This is really the newest and, in many ways, the most interesting note in the whole discussion. All major Jewish organizations have eventually come to be concerned with anti-Semitism, and to join that fight is the lowest common denominator of Jewish identification in the Diaspora.
Here, too, the Zionism of the future will have a hard road to travel. The movement has always centered its attention on Israel. It is true, as Zionist leadership is now increasingly insisting, that its interest in defense of Jewish rights the world over, wherever at-tacked, has always been great. Indeed the only world-wide organization in the field of civic defense, the World Jewish Congress, was created and fostered by Zionists between the two wars. Still, the Zionist attitude toward civic defense needs major revision before it can really make sense in America.
In Zionist theory, anti-Semitism has always been not simply the enemy to be fought on home grounds; its existence—and its inevitable intensification in all lands outside Zion—has also been the “proof” that emigration to Palestine is the sole solution. That is why in America the fight against anti-Semitism was left to other agencies. European Zionism has always stood on Herzlian ground and regard-ed anti-Semitism as a sort of satanic ally in the creation of Israel—it would inevitably make the Jews go to the homeland. Even to-day the average Israeli still says to the American Jew: “Get out to Israel, before the day comes when you will be driven out.” American Zionism has never really faced anti-Semitism on the level of theory. To have done so would have meant either to accept Herzl’s viewpoint, which American Jews will not, or to split off on a basic matter from the rest of the movement and, in particular, its most important part, Israel.
_____________
A true revision in Zionist theory is dependent not merely upon a crystallization of opinion among the Zionists of the Diaspora. It requires also an assent by the people of Israel. There can be no world-wide Zionist community—indeed no sense of an integrated Jewish world as a whole—until the various parts understand clearly what they stand for and how they are and can be related to each other. It is certainly too early to tell what will develop, but several trends are, to my mind, fairly clear.
- The Jewish Agency as a political body is finished and it is now being refashioned as a colonization instrument in Israel and an agency for cultural interchange.
- By the same token, the World Zionist Congress in its present form will soon be dissolved. Stripped of political factions, its successor will continue to work in the field of public relations under the domination of the Israeli government.
- On the other hand, various Diaspora Zionist bodies, particularly the American, will become increasingly rebellious against Israel-centered programs. They will return to an old Zionist slogan, Gegenwartsarbeit, and make of the work in the present, on home ground, their most major interest.
- The absorption of immigration into Israel will end in a year or two at most. Charity funds for Israel will correspondingly lessen.
Of course, all these individual points that I am making, and the others that could be made in this connection, revolve around a fundamental perception—that the Jew of the Diaspora and the Jew of Israel have today different cultures and different Jewish experiences. The experience of Israel, a nation in the making, is complex on the surface but in reality simple—it is the problem of getting on with the job. The problems of the Diaspora, under the tension of both Jewish and general spiritual allegiances, are rather less precise and more difficult. The Diaspora has chosen to live on as such. How to make it live on creatively and how to maintain inner identity between it and Israel—these are the most important questions that face us today.
_____________
I must return once again to my earliest symbols. The JNF box is still on my mantel-piece, but even after some years as a rabbi I do not like to ask others for money. The young man who led my Gordonia club is now still in the United States, still talking of the new life in Israel, but he has not moved there. The only image that has not tarnished for me is my grandfather. My Palestine-born cousins have inherited from him his strength in the face of hardship and adversity, his capacity to start over again after failure, his ingenuity. What remains to me is the echo of his piety, the tefillim he sent me for my Bar Mitzva and the books of homilies and tales of Hasidic saints that came in the same package. I know that this is the 20th century and it is in some circles bad form to look back, particularly to ghetto Jews. In spite of that perhaps we should. Perhaps all of us, Israelis and the rest, should start over again from our grandfathers to make of our Jewish experience the deepest of all emotions and the greatest of all ties. Perhaps together we might all become what we ought to be, their grandchildren.
_____________
