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ABBA HILLEL SILVER and AMERICAN ZIONISM of Related Interest ABBA HILLEL SILVER AND AMERICAN ZIONISM Of Related Interest The Shaping of Israeli Identity: Myth, Memory and Trauma edited by Robert Wistrich and David Ohana Fabricating Israeli History: The 'New Historians' by Efraim Karsh Reuven Shiloah – The Man behind the Mossad: Secret Diplomacy in the Creation of Israel by Haggai Eshed The Stern Gang: Ideology, Politics and Terror 1940–1949 by Joseph Heller U.S.-Israeli Relations at the Crossroads edited by Gabriel Sheffer The Politics of Christian Zionism 1891–1948 by P. Merkley Abba Hillel Silver and American Zionism Edited by MARK A. RAIDER State University of New York JONATHAN D. SARNA Brandeis University and RONALD W. ZWEIG Tel Aviv University FRANK CASS LONDON • PORTLAND, OR First published in 1977 in Great Britain by FRANK CASS PUBLISHERS 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN and in the United States of America by FRANK CASS PUBLISHERS 270 Madison Ave, New York NY 10016 Transferred to Digital Printing 2005 Website: http://www.frankcass.com Copyright © 1997 Frank Cass Publishers Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Rabbi Abba Hillel Silver and American Zionism / edited by Mark A. Raider, Jonathan D. Sarna, and Ronald W. Zweig. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-7146-4824-8 (hc). – ISBN 0-7146-4377-7 (pbk.) 1. Silver, Abba Hillel, 1893–1963. 2. Rabbis–Ohio–Cleveland– Biography. 3. Zionists-United States–biography. 4. Zionism– United States–History. 5. Ben-Gurion, David, 1886–1973. I. Raider, Mark A. II. Sarna, Jonathan D. III. Zweig, Ronald W. BM755.S544Z56 1997 320.54'095694 [B]-DC21 97-26840 CIP r97 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Abba Hillel Silver and American Zionism 1. Silver, Abba Hillel – Political and social views 2. Rabbis – Biography 3. Zionism I. Raider, Mark A. II. Sarna, Jonathan D. III. Zweig, Ronald W. 320.5'4'095694'092 ISBN 0-7146-4824-8 (cloth) ISBN 0-7146-4377-7 (paper) This group of studies first appeared in a Special Issue on 'Abba Hillel Silver and American Zionism' in The Journal of Israeli History, Vol.17, No.l, Spring 1996. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Frank Cass and Company Limited. Contents i Introduction Mark A. Raider, Jonathan D. Sarna and Ronald W. Zweig 1 Zionism and Judaism: the Path of Rabbi Abba Hillel Silver Rabbi Alexander M. Schindler 9 Abba Hillel Silver as Zionist within the Camp of Reform Judaism Michael A. Meyer 33 A Comparative Study of Zionist Leadership: Abba Hillel Silver and David Ben-Gurion Anita Shapira 45 Zion and America: the Formative Visions of Abba Hillel Silver Hasia R. Diner 71 Between Ideal and Reality: Abba Hillel Silver's Zionist Vision Arthur A. Goren 87 Where American Zionism Differed: Abba Hillel Silver Reconsidered Mark A. Raider 123 Index Introduction In his lifetime Rabbi Abba Hillel Silver (1893–1963) was among the giants in Jewish life who labored effectively on the world stage for the creation of the State of Israel during the turbulent period preceding the birth of the modern Jewish state. He ranks with American Zionist leaders such as Louis D. Brandeis, Stephen S. Wise and Henrietta Szold, and Zionism's preeminent international figures, Theodor Herzl, Chaim Weizmann and David Ben-Gurion. Silver's career has only recently begun to receive systematic scholarly scrutiny. The microfilm edition of the Abba Hillel Silver Papers, a treasure trove hitherto inaccessible to all but a select few, was acquired for Brandeis University through the generosity of the Lucius N. Littauer Foundation. To celebrate, Brandeis University invited distinguished scholars and students of American Jewish life and Zionism to utilize the Silver microfilm and other research materials to reexamine the life and career of this extraordinary figure. The resulting April 1996 symposium on "The Zionist Career of Rabbi Abba Hillel Silver" was inspired by Mr. Jacques Torczyner and supported by Brandeis University's Jacob and Libby Goodman Institute for the Study of Zionism and Israel and the Department of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies. The conference was also generously supported by Mr. Raphael D. Silver and family. The essays present, for the first time, a comprehensive overview of Silver's Zionist thought, political strategy and vision. They illuminate central questions concerning Silver's distinctive contribution to the Zionist enterprise: How, for example, did his career as a rabbi inform his approach as a Zionist leader? What was the source of his political strength? What kind of impact did he have on the campaign for Jewish statehood? The present volume seeks to demonstrate that Silver's biography holds significant implications for modern Jewish history and, in particular, the history of the Jewish national movement and the State of Israel. The centenary of political Zionism and the fiftieth anniversary of the establishment of the State of Israel make this a timely initiative. The essays, INTRODUCTION which originally appeared in a special issue of the Journal of Israeli History, shed new light on the path of this distinguished tribune of American Judaism and champion of Zionism. We express special thanks to the scholars who participated in the symposium at Brandeis University for allowing us to include their papers in this volume. We are most grateful to Sylvia Fuks Fried of the Tauber Institute for the Study of European Jewry, Miriam Greenfield of the Journal of Israeli History, and Jonathan Manley, editor of Frank Cass, for their invaluable efforts in seeing this volume through to publication. Mark A. Raider Jonathan D. Sarna Ronald W. Zweig Albany, New York Waltham, Massachusetts Tel Aviv Rosh Hodesh lyar 5757 Spring 1997 1 Zionism and Judaism: The Path of Rabbi Abba Hillel Silver Rabbi Alexander M. Schindler BBA HILLEL SILVER WAS ONE OF THE GIANTS of his generation, Aendowed with a commanding personality, with rare oratorical talent, with a wide-ranging intellect and uncommon political skills. He was a powerfully persuasive lobbyist for Zionism in Washington and at the United Nations. In the 1930s, others may have challenged his pre-eminence; however, during the fateful 1940s, no one else on the American Jewish scene exceeded him in stature. Unfortunately, Abba Hillel Silver's preeminence was overshadowed by subsequent events. In this he shared the fate of Stephen S. Wise, his arch- rival and that other rabbinic titan of his time. Their greatness was eclipsed by their successes. They strove to redeem the Jewish people from the genocidal crimes of Nazism by assuring the establishment of modern Israel. They succeeded gloriously, but only to be quickly replaced in the historical spotlight by the leaders of the newborn Jewish state. They sought to reorganize the American Jewish community and to mobilize its latent political power. But in this arena too they were soon replaced by federations and lay organizations that ultimately became the main wielders of American Jewish communal influence. The stature of these rabbis and their allies among lay leaders has been diminished also by more than a few modern Jewish historians who, at best, have obscured their heroism for us by depictions of raw, rude and contentious politics in which they participated as midwives to the diplomatic birthing of Israel. At worst, American Jewish leaders of the period are portrayed as impotent, or even as criminally culpable in their inability to halt or slacken the genocidal onslaught. Indeed, some historians have charged that American Zionist leadership ignored or even sacrificed rescue efforts for the sake of building the Jewish community in Palestine and transforming the Yishuv into a state. The American Jewish Commission on the Holocaust, formed in September of 1981 with Arthur Goldberg as chair, was riven by internal dissension within the year and did little to modify this perception. Thus it was that the greatness of Silver and Wise was eclipsed, not only by their successes, but also by their perceived failures in a historical context dramatically different from our own, which, once taken into account, considerably softens the harsh judgment of their failures even as it amplifies our appreciation of their triumphs. 2 ABBA HILLEL SILVER During the years of the Great Depression, the rise of Nazism had cast a global penumbra of anti-Semitism. In the late 1930s an American Jewish Committee study found that more than one-third of Americans believed that Jews were "too powerful." This proportion actually grew to a majority during the war. More than sixty per cent of all Americans at the time believed that the "persecution of Jews in Europe had been their own fault." And of this hostile sector, twenty per cent said that they would "drive Jews out of the United States" naming them as a "menace to America," not unlike the Germans and the Japanese who resided in America. American Jews and their leadership faced an environment bristling with anti-Semitic organizations and rabble rousers, such as the German-American Bund, the Silver Shirts, Father Coughlin, Gerald L.K. Smith, and the American aviator hero Charles Lindbergh. Discrimination against Jews consistently revealed itself in housing, employment and education. Add to this a thirty per cent unemployment rate, and an anti-immigration fervor that resulted in the introduction of 60 anti-immigration bills in the year 1939 alone. So extreme was opposition to immigration that in a survey taken that year, more than two-thirds of the American public opposed a one-time exception to quota limits that would have allowed 10,000 refugee children to enter the United States. Conceivably a true mass movement in favor of rescue might have moved President Franklin D.
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