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The Americanization of Zionism, 1897–1948 Page I Cohen: The Americanization of Zionism, 1897–1948 page i The Americanization of Zionism, 1897–1948 Cohen: The Americanization of Zionism, 1897–1948 page ii blank Cohen: The Americanization of Zionism, 1897–1948 page iii The Americanization of Zionism, 1897–1948 Naomi W. Cohen Brandeis University Press Cohen: The Americanization of Zionism, 1897–1948 page iv Brandeis University Press Published by University Press of New England, 37 Lafayette Street, Lebanon, NH 03766 © 2003 by Brandeis University All rights reserved This book was published with the generous support of the Lucius N. Litthauer Foundation, Inc. Printed in the United States of America 54321 Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data Cohen, Naomi Wiener, 1927– The Americanization of Zionism, 1897–1948 / Naomi W. Cohen. p. cm. — (Brandeis series in American Jewish history, culture, and life) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1–58465–346–9 (alk. paper) 1. Zionism—United States—History. 2. Jews—Attitudes toward Israel. 3. Jews—United States—Politics and government—20th century. 4. Israel and the diaspora. I. Title. II. Series. .. 320.54'095694'0973—dc22 2003018067 Cohen: The Americanization of Zionism, 1897–1948 page v Brandeis Series in American Jewish History, Culture, and Life Jonathan D. Sarna, Sylvia Barack Fishman, . , The Americanization of the Synagogue, 1820–1870 , , Follow My Footprints: Changing Images of Women in American Jewish Fiction , Taking Root: The Origins of the Canadian Jewish Community , , Hebrew and the Bible in America: The First Two Centuries , Observing America’s Jews , These Are Our Children: Jewish Orphanages in the United States, 1880–1925 , Alternatives to Assimilation: The Response of Reform Judaism to American Culture, 1880–1930 , , The American Synagogue: A Sanctuary Transformed , A Breath of Life: Feminism in the American Jewish Community , , Sephardic-American Voices: Two Hundred Years of a Literary Legacy , , Talking Back: Images of Jewish Women in American Popular Culture Cohen: The Americanization of Zionism, 1897–1948 page vi , A People Divided: Judaism in Contemporary America . , , Encounters with the “Holy Land”: Place, Past and Future in American Jewish Culture , Shul with a Pool: The “Synagogue-Center” in American Jewish History . , , Jews in America: A Contemporary Reader . , , A Second Exodus: The American Movement to Free Soviet Jews . , In Search of American Jewish Culture . , Jacob H. Schiff: A Study in American Jewish Leadership , Suddenly Jewish: Jews Raised as Gentiles . , , Jewish American Poetry: Poems, Commentary, and Reflections . , Irreconcilable Differences: The Waning of the American Jewish Love Affair with Israel . . , , Women and American Judaism: Historical Perspectives , , The Soviet Jewish Americans , , Jews of Brooklyn Cohen: The Americanization of Zionism, 1897–1948 page vii -, Diaspora and Zionism in American Jewish Literature: Lazarus, Surkin, Reznikoff, and Roth . , Fixing the World: Jewish American Painters in the Twentieth Century , The Jews of Prime Time . , , California Jews . , The Americanization of Zionism, 1897–1948 . , , The Dynamics of American Jewish History: Jacob Rader Marcus’s Essays on American Jewry . , Through the Sands of Time: A History of the Jewish Community of St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands , An American Orthodox Dreamer: Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik and Boston’s Maimonides School . , “How Goodly Are Thy Tents”: Summer Camps as Jewish Socializing Experiences Cohen: The Americanization of Zionism, 1897–1948 page viii blank Cohen: The Americanization of Zionism, 1897–1948 page ix To the memory of G.D.C. Cohen: The Americanization of Zionism, 1897–1948 page x blank Cohen: The Americanization of Zionism, 1897–1948 page xi Contents Acknowledgments xiii Introduction 1 Chapter 1 Forging an American Zionism: The Maccabaean 15 Chapter 2 A Clash of Ideologies: Reform Judaism vs. Zionism 39 Chapter 3 Zionism in the Public Square 64 Chapter 4 A Modern Synagogue in Jerusalem 95 Chapter 5 The Social Worker and the Diplomat: Maurice B. Hexter and Sir John Hope Simpson 113 Chapter 6 Jewish Immigration to Palestine: The Zionists and the State Department 137 Chapter 7 The American Jewish Conference: A Zionist Experiment at Unity and Leadership 165 Chapter 8 Out of Step with the Times: Rabbi Louis Finkelstein of the Jewish Theological Seminary 189 Afterword 213 Notes 219 Index 249 Cohen: The Americanization of Zionism, 1897–1948 page xii blank Cohen: The Americanization of Zionism, 1897–1948 page xiii Acknowledgments I have studied and written about American Zionism ever since I was a graduate student at Columbia University. Along the way I have benefited from the wis- dom and insights of teachers, colleagues, students, and friends. To all of them, beginning with my revered mentor, the late Professor Salo Wittmayer Baron, I am grateful. This book, which ties together segments of my research over many years, represents some of their contributions. The libraries I have used are too numerous to thank individually, but the fol- lowing librarians deserve special mention: Adina Feldstern of Hebrew Union College in Jerusalem, Cyma Horowitz of the American Jewish Committee, Kevin Proffitt of the American Jewish Archives, and Mira Levine of the Insti- tute of Contemporary Jewry (Jerusalem). Many friends and associates have contributed to the completion of this book in a variety of ways. Nor do I minimize their help when I single out only two to whom I am particularly indebted: Jonathan Sarna, professor at Brandeis University, who read the first draft of the manuscript and offered incisive and valuable suggestions, and Phyllis Deutsch, editor at the University Press of New England, whose investment of time and energy in my work helped me shape a more sharply focused book. I alone, however, am responsible for any inadequa- cies that remain. It is also a pleasure to give special thanks to my research assist- ant, Charlotte Bonelli, and to my children, Jeremy Cohen and Judith Rosen, for their unstinting aid and encouragement. Some material that I published previously has been reworked for this book, and I wish to thank the original publishers for permission to include that material here: Chapter 1: “Forging an American Zionism: The Maccabaean,” from “The Maccabaean’s Message: A Study in American Zionism until World War I,” Jew- ish Social Studies 18 (July 1956): 163–78. Chapter 3: “Zionism in the Public Square,” from “The Specter of Zionism: American Opinions, 1917–1922,” in Melvin I. Urofsky, ed., Essays in American Zionism (Herzl Year Book, Volume 8) (New York: Herzl Press, 1978), pp. 95–116, and from The Year after the Riots: American Responses to the Palestine Crisis of 1929–30 (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1988), ch. 3. xiii Cohen: The Americanization of Zionism, 1897–1948 page xiv Chapter 8: “Out of Step with the Times: Rabbi Louis Finkelstein of the Jew- ish Theological Seminary,” from “‘Diaspora Plus Palestine, Religion Plus Nationalism’: The Seminary and Zionism, 1903–1948,”in Jack Wertheimer, ed., Tradition Renewed: A History of the Jewish Theological Seminary, vol. 2 (New York: The Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1997), pp. 113–76. xiv The Americanization of Zionism, 1897–1948 Cohen: The Americanization of Zionism, 1897–1948 page xv The Americanization of Zionism, 1897–1948 Cohen: The Americanization of Zionism, 1897–1948 page xvi blank Cohen: The Americanization of Zionism, 1897–1948 page 1 Introduction riting a few years after the organization of the Zionist movement in W 1897, Dr. Max Nordau, a prominent European Zionist leader and close associate of Theodor Herzl, said: “Zionism’s only hope is the Jews of Amer- ica.”1 In large measure he spoke correctly. But for the financial support and po- litical pressure of American Jews, a group whose numbers and socioeconomic importance made them by midcentury the most powerful Jewish community in modern history, Israel might not have been born in 1948. Indeed, the Ameri- can Jewish investment in the development and preservation of the Jewish state has continued to the present day. Nordau, however, could not have foreseen the compromises and vicissitudes, or the achievements and inadequacies, that molded the character of Zionism in the United States. The result was an Ameri- can Zionism, one that differed markedly from Nordau’s own interpretation of Jewish nationalism. Much has been written on the subject of Zionism—its origins, leaders, ideol- ogy, and development. American Zionism, however, with features peculiarly its own, requires separate treatment. Like the Zionist movement worldwide, it went through several chronological phases before the founding of the state of Israel. But different from the movement in Europe, Zionism in the United States was shaped by its American context. In each of its phases it responded to the same elemental factors: the needs of Jews in America (as well as in Europe), the stand of the American government, and the demands of American public opinion. Nor could it ignore the forces operating within the American Jewish world—a passion for acculturation and acceptance, the struggle over commu- nal leadership, and the impact of American antisemitism. On the Zionist lead- ers, therefore, devolved the task of accommodating their movement and its message to the realities of the American and American Jewish scenes. The product they created was an Americanized Zionism, a movement
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