John S. Sills Lecture delivered on fuly 5,1992 at the Magnes Museum, Berkeley, California

DAVID N. MYERS University of California, Los Angeles

Judah L. Magnes M.useum Berkeley, California rs ago, Judah L. Magnes has had a posthu- ence no less ironic than the life he led.

morializedby a prestigious scholarlypress and an impressive museum that bear his name, Magnes has nonetheless dwelt in relative anonymity since his death in 1948. In considering the pantheon of luminar- ies of twentieth-century Jewish history and culture, we quickly call to mind the brooding Central European genius of Kafka, Freud, Scholem, and Einstein' Though and occasional adversary of these f udah Magnes was a con temPorary, acquaintance, men, his own reputation has proven far more evanescent' Were one to walk the streets of San Francisco or Oakland, where Magnes was born and raised, or Cincinnati or Berlin, where he studied, or New York, where he first gained wide fame, one woulcl encounter blank stares at the mention of his name' Even in t" is a household Ierusalem, where he spent the last quarter of his life, Magnes hardly name-unknown to many of my own generation, including those who study at the veryUniversitywhich Magnes helped found,'What may explain this obscurity is the fact that Magnes created no school of thought or academic discipline, led no coherent ideological movement, and attracted few students or followers. When perusing his writings, we are not struck, as the philosopher Hugo Bergmann has noted, by a rigorously-argued, architectonic systenl of ideas'2 What then warrants our attention? What prompts an observer as sophisticated

as Hugo Bergmann to count Magnes as "one of the crucial figures in the develop- meili of lewish religiaus thoughi and lifb in our tirncl"3'fo begin r.vith, fuIagnes'life path traver-seEl the major centers of Jersish culture world-wide. From his formative years ir-r San Francisco anrl Oak-lanc!, Vlagnes traveilecl to Cincinna-ti, horne of Reform Iudaism in America, and from there to llerlin, New York City, and finally

|e msa!ern. At each stop, lviagnes founr.i his way to, and becarrre an adjunct mernber o( leaJerusalem. His mix ofprincipled commitrnent aiid organizational involvenlslll-av6iding the extremes of a Luftmensch,on one hand, and an apparal:chik, an the other-led Gershom Scholern to designate Magnes a "true radical." With his typically acerbic judgment and arnbiguous praise, Scholenr underscored the "fatal.qeriousness" with which Magnes clung to his principles.a And yet, this righteous seriousness did not yield to an unbending authoritarianism or an appetite for destruction. Magnes believed that ideas and ideals were most meaningful when in the service of a constructive agenda serving the spiritual and social needs of the people. Between the idealisrn and pragmatism, theory and praxis, of Judah [,. Magnes lies a complex and multi-faceted personality. My own personal encounter with Magnes began while I was conducting research in Jerusalem on the first generation of Jewish historical researchers at the Hebrew University, Insofar as Magnes was not himself an active scholar in Jerusalem (though he did receive a Ph.Il frorn Fleidel- berg in Semitics), he began as a figute of secondary impcrit to my project-relevant more to the institutional than the intellectualhistory r.rf the periorl. Yet, the more I came to know Magnes-by exploring his extensive correspondence , jou rnal entries, and essays-the stronger a hold he exerted on rrle. Ttre Juclah Magnes who emerged from my archival inquiries was a man of stunning contrasts: not only fiercely passionate in his convictions, but also consistently dloof in his social bearing; a visionary of great institu tions an d an often mediocre adr-ninistrartor of thern; a bitter opponent of political Zionism and a man comrnitted in rvord and deecl to a spiritual of oppositic;ns had honrelan{ fbr t|e Jewisfi pettple irt E,rt:ts Yisrsel. Thi.s last set n I was conducting research particular ref.;onance in the sunrltter airrl fall eif I 989 whe ew and Arab appear"4 .ug1 ncrle in )erusalem. At that tirne, the struggle betr,veen f depths' fuJagnes' intractable, wilh rhetorical ancl p|ysical violence reaching new his letters aird sixty yea'i-old pleas for intcrcottiinrlnai harnrony, strewn througbout niglrt froirr tlre ivlagnes speectres, were utterly compelling, As I wallted back ai an erninenf Archive to his oicl neighborhoocl of l{ehavia, past.tlre location r'vhere i couldn't help but think of Jewish historian had been niurclered shortly before, as I the Magnes'total abhorrence al'rd conclelnnation of violence, And witnessed its effect intensification

what is the nature and essence of Jetvish nationalism? ls it like the nationalism of all the nations? 'l'he answer is givcn by our attitude towards the Arabs, so that the Arab question is not onlyof tl-re utmost practical importance; it is also tlie torrchstone and test of tlur ludaistn.5

as naive by Io4agnes' call for mora! re sponsibility anclself-accoun tability, decried many in his own day ancl subsqcluelltly, has tio{ lost its ilrgency for rne' Indeed'' though hii; ultir;rate iurpar.t on tire po!itical culture of iewi.sh Palestiile seemecl, at he had a measure of integrity tir'es, t.o be little rrrore ttran that of a troubtresome gnat, anci vigion, even cliiit'voyance, vr'l-,icli is sorely lacl

he was raised in a society free quite ciifferent flrom his hero's, unlike Ahad I]a-am, mass of His first two of anti-Jewish persecution and without a large critical Jews' languageswereEnglishandGernran,notYiddishandHebrew.Hisformative religiousupbringingcamenotinanunrulyorthocloxsftul,butratherinthe If anything, fiis dignified, classical ILeform Temple Emanu-El of san Francisco. Eastern European fervs profile fits the composite drawn by Ahad Ha-am and other to complete alienation of the assimilated western Jew who stoocl perilously close unwittingly defied that compos- from Iudaism. Nevertheless, Magnes wittingly and ite. carried forth by his For oie thing, despite the lingering traces of German culture lineage. His father was mother and grandmother, Magnes was of mixed German a Hasidic family' And his mother born in a small town outside of Loclz., Poland to with Poland which served was born in Posen, tlren a Prussian province cont.iguous Many from Posen' as a gateway to tlie west for Eastern European fews' Jews passionatelydevotedtohighGermanculture'language'andliterature'werethem- of settlement in llussia' This was selves barely a generation removecl from the Pale Eastern European not always a well-advertised fact; the impulse to deny one's and self-identity as origins v,rent hand in hand with the desire to fortifo one's 'status aGerman.Flowever,theAmerican-bornMagnes'whoexperiencedlittleofthe felt no such need, He was not social pressures facing nineteenth-century Posen Jews, contrary, he was interested in embarrassecl by his Eastern European roots. on the discover sorne of the secrets exploring them;believing that, in the process, he might of Jewish national life. he was not yet twenty years old' In a precocious article published in I896 when and spiritual journey Magnes servecl notice that he had begun his intellectual entitled "Palestine-or eastward. What is relnarkable'about tl-ris essay, starkly treatise while' Death,l'is that Magnes lvrote what amountecl to a proto-Zionist Hebrew Union College sturiying at an overwhelmin.gly anti-nationalist institution, pr'rblished in the ne"wsletter in Cincin nati. Eve' more remafhable is that the essay rvas Franci";co' an instituticn of Magnes'l-,onre cor-rgregation, Ternple Errranu-El oIsan terms' this essay which also clefined its;eli as fiercely anti-Zirinist. In intellectual Ha-atn. I{e inveighed against reveals Magnel;'first il1tuitive apirreciation of Aha,l I{eforrn who patronized the ideoliigy of assirniiatiorr fotrncl among the kind of Jervs tliat theii'rvillir:gness to Temple Ernanu-tii anci Hebrew UnioLi ci-rl1e3e, wai'rlilig irreversible loss of identity' FIe surrender large chr.rnks of their Iudaisrn riskecl an a churctr then concluded by arguing that '"the establishment in Palestine of Iewish and State Iis] the only saivation of present-day ludaism'"' farnily Magnes' words {nust hrave ireen jarring to the }leform sensibiiities of hrs was lv'lagnes' anel friends. The rabbi of Temple Erna.nu-El, Jacoh voorsanger' wh6 first rnentor, did allow the article to be printed in the Teinple newsletter, blrt intrnediately issued a rejoinder to l"4agnes assailing Zionism as a dangero6s dcc- trine. Voorsanger was not alone; it seems that Magnes' parents were llot enthrallert it with their son's nationalist inclinations either"10 T'o ptrace this in a wicler context, to the is fair to say that the degree of receptivity to Magnqs'views was proportionate is to say' enthusiasm of American Jews frir Zionism in generai at this time-whictr quite limited"ll Still, in retrospect, this article is significant in id.entifyingthe starting point of Magnes' journey in search of the "Hatrmonious Jew" who stood at the crossroads of East and West. Following his ordination from Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati in 1900' Magnes decided to pllrsue advanced graduate training in Germany. Though the direction frorn America to Germany was in fact eastward, one might think that Magneshad abancloned the path ofJewish self-discovery, dfterall, was not Germany the bastion of Iewish assimilation? lVas it not there that the pressures of anti- Semitism created a desperate Jewish thirst for German culture and Gentile norms- to the point of self-negatiGn? Of course, there were more than a few German Iews who either felt no residual attachment to their iewishness or felt the need to renounce their iudaism in order to aclvance socially or professionally' But the was Germany which Judah Magnes visited in the first years of the twentieth century For a more complex Jewish environment than one of unchecked assimilation' instance, Berlin, the cosmopolitan capital, was home to a growing community of and pitiable Ostjuden, Eastern European f ewish 6migrds. These vsere not the priniitive traditional i1 faith and habit, who rvere stereotyped in Ge rman-Jewish literature of the time. They rvere rather stuclents in search of higher education who were driven from Russia by strict quotas on Jewish un iversity attendance. This stream of Eastern low thousands' European Jewish students, which numberecl in the hundreds, even by the first decade of the twentieth century, carried to Germany a wide array of doubt Jewish nationalist and socialist ideologies. Their presence in Berlin no scandalized sonre German Jews who deemed their expressions of Jewish national pride threatening. But their influence on a smaller sr:b-set of the German-lewish intelligentsia was of a different natule. Chaim Nahman Bialik, the great Hebrew l3 poet, onee pondered the irnpact of the meeting between Eastern European and German Jews in Beriin with the l'ollowing words: their Many of . ..the bearers of l{ebrew culture (from the East) found way to Berlin, the same Ilerlin which was the birthplace of the Iervish F,nliglitenment and the seat of Jewish scholarship in its western

sanre inn. Ts it coneeivable that their meeting rvill be fcrr naught?12

Recent rnemoirs and scholarlystudies have suggested that their meetingwas not for naught--in fact, that the presence of the Eastern Europeans in Berlin initiated assimila- a process of what has treen called "dissimilation," recoil from the ideal of tion and social integration-alnong certain elite segments of German )ewry'u The process of dissimiiation reached its heights during and after the First World War' though the plrenornenon ean be noticed earlier in the neo-Romanticist ambiance of Eu ropean the tu rn of the century when a newly-positive evaluation of Eastern iewish culture, especially [{asiclislr, first surfaced. The Eastern Europeans represented to t:lissimilating Gerrnan Jews a holistic Jewishness which the latter ortheirparentshad surrendered in their zealous embrace of Deutschtum (Gertnanness)' The Eastern Eurnpeans knew intimately the ritual practices and folkways of the traditionalJew, ev*n though many had ceaseel to practice thern; they spolce the gritty Iewish vernacular, Yiddish, and the ancient national tongue, Hebrew; and they were unapologetic in their support of a Jewish national revival. For those Eastern Europeans rvho managed tg migrate tvestward, Berlin provicled a breath of fresh air' liberation frcrni the repressive measures ofCzarist Russian autl'iorities' They, in turn, created a vibrant )ewish sub-culture in Berlin which drew in smail numbers of such as the Liernia;r jews. Horne te-r t6is sqb-cuiture were Berlin's trustiing cafds fa;neC Caf€ Mo;ropol vrhere cr:rn;reting factions ofJewish stuCents and intellectuals their oceupie

in Cierrnany rnain- the first-gelieration leactrers of the fledgling Zi6nist rnovement Btit there is also evidence tained a pate ruatristie stance towards Eastern Europe;ans'15 nabtrinical that smail groups of German Jews, such as those stuclying in the modern dissimilation and seminaries cf Berlin and Breslau, were unetrergoing a process of The ilterest cf exhibiting a pCIsitive interest in Eastei'rl Enropean iewish culture' European poirrt these German Iews, and their actual interaction with Eastern !ews, and educational to a fascinating cultural rnoment when national, class, religious' barriers collapsed. For the young Judah N4agnes, this blurring $f cultural bc;undarics perfecttri' a doctorate at suited his clesires. Magnes had come to Germany to pursue work on acadernic research in Iewish a German university. Germany was the home of serious Magnes with an studies, and the imprimatur of one of its universities would provide with important measure of intellectual validation' His experience did provide him university that-in the form of a Ph.D from Heidelberg in 1904. But in addition to tire studies, Magnes took courses at the liberal rabbinical seminary in Berlin, he Lehranstelt ffir die Wissenschaft des ]udentutn$ there, as the sole American, Germans developed warm social relations with his fellow students, who were mostly Magnes helped with a smattering of Eastern Europeans.r6 Alongwith some ofthem, an act which found a Jewish nationalist student organization atlhe Lehranstalt, walls angered the institution's anti-Zionist faculty and administration. Beyond the meeting of the Lehranstalt,Magnes sojourned throughout Berlin, visiting the caf6s, halls, and synagogues where the city's recent Eastern European Jewish 6rnigr6s congregated. Magnes' previous admiration for Zionism and Easterrt European He now carne face to flace with Jewish culture was no longerbased on an abstraction. new the bearers of an authentic )ewish national culture, and the result was a bold sense of mission, In fact, the clarity of purpose which this encounter produced recalls one ofthe central features of religious corrversion discussed in Willianr iames' The Varieties af tleligious Experience.rT in a letter from 1901, Magnes sought to explain the intensity of his conviction.s ttl his parents who' in the glorious tradition of parenthood, were nlore coucerned with his livelihood than with his ideology" Zionism, Magnes wrote:

besides making my intellectual, my spiritual interest different, has worked a change in my mode of lile. I se ek to live now more like a Iew, i, e., you would call it, more like an Orthodox Jew' l5

To fulfill lris newly-cliscovered Lebensptrogratffiftt or life mission' as he described it, N{agnes felt it necessary to irivestigate further his own cultural roots in Eastern by Etirope,rs He planned a trip to Galicia in the summer of 1901, but was warned off a prominent Jewish writer of the clay, Karl En'ril Franzos. Franzos was himself a Galician-born author of German fiction whose upbringing and career epitomized tlie urgent desire to escape the insular world of Eastern European lewry. Propelled by this desire (and despite his orvn heritage), Franzos referred to Russian, Polish and Galician co-religionists by the ccndescending term "Half-Asian."1e Given his pa- tronizing attitude, it is no surprise that Franzos counseled Magnes not to make the jourley. "It is better," Franz.os advised, "that you cling to your present ideas about the Ostjuden ( Eastern European Jews)."'?O As it turns out, a lack of funds, rather than Franzos' admonition, dissuaded N'[agnes from embarking on the trip' Twenty years later, however, Magnes did take a trip to his father's home town in Poland' Hewould have done well, it seems, to heed Karl Ernil Franzos' advice. With brutal candor, Magnes recorded his impressions of the visit in a journal entry of August 5, 1922:

[Ylou think most of the filthy street, with the shallow gutter as sewer, and the bad smells (Oriental also?)-and the people! I am for the

Jewish garb, and the Jews, and they are my people and the chosen people, and the greatest of all peoples. But how otTensive they get when they mob you...and ask for money. How dirty, and sick, and ragged and unfortunate.2r

And we might add, hr-rw far ttris observer was from the young man who earnestly sought to rediscover his Eastern roots. Magnes' romanticizedimageof the Ostjuden was abruptly and, at least temporarily, shattered" This episcde does expose some of h4agnes'youthful idealism and,naivet6;but, I hasten to add, itr,vas not representative of his overall attitude towards Eastern European Jews and their culture. In fact, between the time that lre first planned to visit Galicia in l90l and his actual visit to Folarid iry 1,922" Magnes was a frequent champion of the interests of F.astern I:.uropean Iews. This expanse rlf time is tnore or less coterrninous with Magnes' tenure in New Yorl< where he settled afier receiving his doctorate in Germany' In Nerv York, Ivf agnes assurned a num'ber of presrigious rabbinical positions, and

brecame a leaelingsocial activistwithin the Jewisl-r community. It is during tl-ris period -the that bie fostereci ties with the Gerrrian-)ewish aristoci'acy ofthe Upper East Side-- Warburgs, the Strauses, the Schif,fs--for whom he became an eloquent voice of 16 conscience. Magnes also cultivated his contacts with the Eastern European Jews of the Lower East Side in New York, heiping to conceive ancl finance a host of culturai, educational, anel soeial welfare programs for their benefit" In his myriad activities, Ldagnes served as an agent for the excl'range of cr-iltural valmes an

The Iew has always been a great mediator, a great interpreter- He has had Ithe] experience of both East and West. Palestine is on the high road, between East and West, and the Jevr must regard it as one of his chief functions to exPlain one to the other.28

Here we are again witness to Magnes' conception of the Jew as cultural mediator-this time as bridge-builder between Orient and Occident. The institu- IB

it rnust tional home of this Jew, the Hebrew University, lnust be, above all, inclusive; never succtimb to "any nationalistic, chauvinistie arrogance"'2e'Ihis last point, reflecting Nlagnes' own aversicn to a dc,ctrrnaire political nationa-lism, alrnost of necessity insnreel that his vision of a cosmopolitan, notr-partisan, Jewish urriversity wauiel find detractors. For one thing, many Zionist supirorters of the University did and expect that, as a Jewish national institution, it woulel firli under the institutional ideological control of the World Zionist Organization. Unyielding in their own breliefs, this group of Zionists was but one stran

was the ahrsence of chaim studies. one good reason for the absence of acrirnony of the Institute, weir-rnann. on Decemb er 25, the day after the inauguration in the previous day's weizrnann wrote to Magnes that he had only read of the event from Jerusalem LondonTimes. Apparently, theletter of invitation sent toweizmann neither able to come in arrived three days after the event itself, and he was thus Accidental or not' person nor even to issue his own statement of congratulations.13 weizmann and this episode exacerbated the strain in the relationship between that the Institute, and Magnes" For lvlagnes, it was a matter of utmost importance open three months later' be the broader Hebrew university which would formally lly contrast, weizmann beyond the control oF the worlcl Zionist organiz.ation' organization whose long-time believed that conrrol rightly belonged to the Zionist historical bond' The differences support of the University idea bespoke a legal and the issue of institutional between Magnes and Weizmann were not restricted to control;theyalscltool

We i:u rrran n. fu{agnes and Ir4uch n.rrtre coulclbe said about the troubied reiationshipbetween of space .weizmann, arrd its effects on the Hebrew University. liut constraints should be noted that this re

Endnotes

to convince higlr l.I.r could be argued that one of Magnes'last major public acts-his attempt state in Palestine- Arnerican officials in May 1948 to support abi-national ratlier than a Jewish as to encourage the suppression of so thotouglrly deviated from the Zionist Political consensus ed' Dissenterin zion: his nremory in Israel. on Magnes'eflorts in 1948, see Arthur A. Goren, From rhe Writings of ludah L. Magnes (Cambridge, MA, l9B2)' 55' 488-497 '

2. SamuelH.Bergnran, I:aithandReason:AnlntroducbontoModernlewishThought,trtnsiatedand edited by Alfred Jospe (Washington, 1961), 142'

3. rbid. Devarimba-go,val'Il 4. Gershorii Scholenr, "Adanrliolshi ," Be'ayot(Tan.rmuz 5707), reprintedin ('l'el-Aviv, 1982) paperback edition, 489-491'

5. seetheletter of Fcbruary 6,7%AinDissenterin zion,286' For amoreconventionalperspective' of the Naticlr," translated ct-. I)avid llen-Gurion's 1930 iectgre <-rn "T'irc [ixiernal Policy Jewish (ferusalem' 1975)' 99' in D Hardan, ed. sowces of contetnporary leu,ish'I'hought, vol'5

6. SeethetranscriptofMagnes'sermon,"TheHarmoniousJew,"atTempleEmanu-ElinNevsYo|k in T'he American Hebreq, (January 25,1907),311' originally publisl:ed in 7. See Ahad Ha am's es.say, "Medinatha-yehuriim ve-'tsarat ha-yehudim'," 'Al vol II (Berlin 1921) Ha-Shiloah3 (']'evet 5658 ) and reprin ted in par ashat ha-daakhim, ' , '28 '

ti. "The Harmonious )ew," 311.

in Marc Lee llaphael, "Cincinnati: !r. See "Palesiine---cr l-)eath, " Ernanuel(lznuary 6, i896), quoted Mngnes' 'flre Eariier arr,l Later Ycars," Like Atl the Nalions: The I'ife and I'egacy of ludah I'' William Iv{. Brinner and Moses Rischin, ed' (Albany, 1987), 3l' 24

10, Vocisanger's response appeared in The American Israelite(Ianaary 23,1896),5. See Yohai Goell, "Atiyah in the Zionism of an American oleh: Judah L. Magnes," American Jewkh Historical light euarterly65 (December 1975),99-101. However, Moses Rischin has recentlybroughtto a set of interestingietters from Voorsanger to Magnes which reveals a richer and more complex relationship between the eminent rabbi rnd his young charge, One of these letters, froin 1905' expresses Voosanger's reluctant approvai of Magnes' Zionist activity even though the San Francisco rabbi was velremently opposed to the new nationalist ideology. Voorsanger was wiiling to tolerate Magnes' Zionism, lirst, because he admired his talen!s, and, seconci, because he believed that Magnes was dedicated to the revitalization of Judaism and Jewish identity. See Moses Rischin, "The Jewish Experience in America: A View from the West," [*tsof the Amencan Wesf, Moses Rischin and John Livingston, ed. (Detroit, 1991)' 42' of the I l. Melvin L Urofsky note.s that Arnerican jewry was largely opposed to Zionism at the tuln century, with especially fierce resistance emanating from Reform quarters' See American Zionism from Herzl to the Holocaust (New York, 1976), 85-91'

12. Devir | (1922123),xli.

13. For an elaboration of the term "dissimilation," see Shulamit Volkov, "The Dynamics of Dissimilation: Ostjudenand German Jews," in Jehuda Reinlrarz- and Walter Schatztrerg, ed- The I l. See also Gershom Scholem's le.wish Response to German Culture(Hanover, NI{, 1985 ), 95-21 memoir, From Berlin to Jerusalem, translated by Harry Zohn (New York, I980).

Shai 14. For a brief discussion of the caf6 cuiture in Ile rlin, see Stanley Nash, ln Search of Hebraism: Hurwitz andhis Polemics in the Hebrew Press, (Leiden, l9B0)' 170-i75'

of the German 1B9i-1914 15. See Jeh uda Reinharz, Fatheiland or Proraiscd Land: The Dilemma lew' (Ann Arbor, 1975), 127 -133, there 16. Though the overwhelming majority of Ihe Lehransf alf 's student pop ulation was German, lo'Iagnes were a number ofstudents from Eastern and East-Central Europe. In the ycars in which attended this institution, the geographic breakdown during sutnmer semeste rs was as follows: (21 1900 ( ls from Germany, 5 from Austria-Hungary,2 ftom Russia, I from America); 1901 from German/, 5 from Austria-I{ungary, I from Russia, 1 from America); 1902 (28 from Germany,4 from Austria-Hungary, I from Russia, and I from America.) These figures aretaken from volumes 19-21 of the Bcrichteof the Lehranstalt filr dieWissenschaft da Judentums. Aryeh Goren 17. Willianr )ames, The Varieties of Religious Experience (New York, 1902), I 36-253. observes that Magnes took up Zionism in Berlin "with the ardour of a convett." See A' Goren, .,Judah L. Magnes' Trip to Przedborz," stttdie.s in contemporary Iewryl (1984), 163'

18, Magnes'letter of October 9, 1901 i's included \tt DissenLer in Zion' 65'

East 19. Scc Stevcn E. Aschhcim's surnmary of Franzos'life and work in Brolhers and Strangers:The j (Madison, WI - European lew in Cerman and German Jewish Consciousness, 1r800- 192 ,1982)'27 31. 25

fr ien d lul ax Schl oessin ger in I 94'1' 20, See Magn cs's recollectiol o n the tl-rirticth d ay rnemorial fo r his published in In the Perplexity ol theTines (Jerusalem, 1946), 150'

21. Goren, "]udah L. Magnes'Trip to Przedborz," I70'

22. L)issenter in Zion,28.

23. Goeli, "Atiyah in the Zionism of an Arnerican Olelr," 110'

24. Encyclop aedia |udaica 9:147O. ha-Briti' 1917-1948"' 25. See Gir.leon Biger, "Binuyah shel Yerushalayim bi-tekufat ha-shilton (Jerusalem' 1989), 183-215' Yerushalayimba-toda'ah u-va-ma'asehha-tsiyonit,Hagit Lasky, ed' of the People 26. Undated notes fr.om tlre Magncs Papers, central Archives for the History Jewish (Jerusalem), P3/1936.

in on December 22'1924 27. Sce Magnes' open ing address at the Institute of Jewish Studies |erusalem (Iniversity (}erusalem, in Addressr's by the Chancellor of rhe I-Iebrew |936),7,

28. April L4,1925, Magnes Papers, P311914.

29. fournal entry, Magnes Papers, P3/1936.

e s urro un ding the creation an d early years of 30. F or a more ccmpreh ensive d iscussion of tbe intrigu thc Hebrew University, see David Nathan Myers, "'From Zion will go forth Torah': Jewish Scholarship and tlre Zionist I{eturn to History," Columbia University doctoral dissertation, 199 l, especiallY 5 2-l2O'

31. Myers, "From Zion will go forth Torah," 80-81'

32. Kitve Davrd Yellin, vol. 5 (lerusal em, 197 6), 2O6'

33. Myers, "|rom Zion will go forth Torah," 85.

34. Dissenter in Zion,265.

the of Studies, 35. In a lette r to Fclix Warburg, his frie nd and tl.re leading patron cf Institute Jewish resign his Magnes cffered to surrender leaclership of the University provided that Weizmann Magnes to Warburg' position as president of the Zionist Organization and mor'e io Falestilre' (microfilm #l884)' Jily 29,1925. Felix Vlarburg Papers, American )ewish Archives, box 222

N a tians?' 133' S6. See Biale , "Thc I dea of a Je r,vish Un iver sity," I'ike All the

sec Myers, "from Zion 37. For more cxtensive trcatmcnts 15f the controvcrsy ovcr a Yiddish cilair, plan tsu shafn will go foith Toralr," t'Z4,l32,and Aryeh-Lcib Pilcvskr, "Di polemik atum dem in |9,27 a katedre in yidis}r in Yerushalayi n,'' Di goldene keyt 93:|B|-22o'

r,v University, ftle l4l3 39. L,lagnes tc David Sl.rapiro ,Jantary 24,1928, Central Archivrs lor the Hebre '

39. DespitethesupportofMagnesandtheCermancircle,nochairinYiddishwasestablishedinl92/ Un iversity's in response to David Shapiro's offer. In fact, it was n ot until 1947 th at the Ilebrew not I,{umanities Faculty approved the creation of positions in Yiddish and Ladino. And it was until 1951 thatthe Yiddish position was actually filled by Dov Sadan, Myers, "From Zicn rdll go forth Torah," l\l- 132, 392.

40, See Agnon's unfinished novel, Shirah (Tel-Aviv, 1971), recentlytranslated into English as .Shira, trans, Zeva Shapiro (New York, 1989), as weil as Arnold Band's commentary, rvith specific reference to lvlagnes, in "Gown and Town," Like All the Nations?, 155- 163.

41. Scholem, "Aclam bofshi," I)evarim ba-go, II 489. this reading gains credibility in light oF Scholem's condescending, though fond recollection of Magnes as "an eterrtal student," Ilid., 490.

42. AbbaEban, AutibiograptrT (|Iew Yofk, 1977), 57; quoted in Bernard wasserstein, "The Arab- Jewish Dilemm a," Like AII the Nations?,197. Eban repe ateri this description at a l9l)2 syrirp*rsium - uponwhichthevolume LikeAlltheNationsiwasbased.seeMo.sesRischin'sintroductiontolike AII the Nations?,3. -forah," 43. On Klausner and Magnes, see Myers, "From Zion will go forth 79,I70'

44. Among thc important contributions to a new anthropological literature which challenges the notion o[ "essentialist" cultures are ]ames Clifford, The Predicament of Culture: Twentieth

Century Ethnography, Literature and Art (Cambridge, MA, 1988 ), J ames Ciiflord and Ceorge E. Marcus, ecl., Writing Cubure: 'I'he Poetics and Politics of Ethnography (Bcrkeley, 1986), and George E. Marcus and Michael M. J. Fischer, Azrlr opology as Cultural Critique: An Experirnental Moment in the Human Sciences (Chicago, 1988).