"Americanized" Zionism: the Forgotten Role of Horace M . Kalten

SARA S. SCHMIDT "Americanized" Zionism: the Forgotten Role of Horace M. Kalten In the annals of American thought the chronously in two civilizations," wrote name of Horace M. Kallen is best known the late theologian, Rabbi Mordecai M. for his early explication of the concept of Kaplan, to Kallen in 1952, on the occa• cultural pluralism, that theory which sion of Kallen's seventieth birthday. urges the maintenance of various ethnic Kaplan's appraisal was correct, for identities in the United States to ensure Kallen was unusually successful in the preservation of the unique contribu• defining and living his life both as an tion each one is capable of making to American and as a Jew from the single American culture. Those who knew perspective of Hebraism, the source, Horace Kallen better recognized the according to Kallen, of both cultures. roles he played in the development of Hebraism, "individualism...; the right to active movements on behalf of adult edu• be oneself, the right to be different," cation, consumer's rights, civil liberties allowed Kallen to perceive his "Jewish and environmental preservation in the difference [to] be no less real, worthy and United States. honorable than any other." It helped Little is known, however, of the other him, also, to articulate an 'American• side of Kallen's life, one which con• ized' version of the Zionist idea, one that sciously reflected his awareness of him• today continues strongly to influence self as a Jew living in America. "I have the perceptions of most American Jews always regarded you as the foremost of what Zionism means to them. Those creative American Jewish thinker who who wish to understand the American demonstrates by actual example that it Jewish community, therefore, would do is possible to live with distinction syn- well to become acquainted with the con• cepts that Kallen first expressed some Sara S. Schmidt is currently the Resident eighty years ago. Director of the Rockland Community College Kallen, born in Germany in 1882 was Program in Israel. brought to the United States when he FORUM-56 65 66 FORUM-56 was five years old. His father was an ideal whose goal was the re- Orthodox Jewish rabbi and, paralleling nationalization of the Jewish People, the experience of many immigrant sons, became for Kallen the means through Kallen soon found his new world alien which he could affirm the past he had from that of his father. By the time he nearly discarded and remain within the was an adolescent, Kallen had denied for Jewish community, i.e., his link with himself any validity in the Jewish doc• Jewish association. Essentially, then, trine, discarding entirely both its theo• Kallen adopted Zionism as a new way to logical and ritual content; in later years interpret Judaism. The 'Jewish Idea,' as he liked to refer to himself as an "atheis• it had originally come to him, had tic humanist." But in 1902, Professor seemed the antithesis of the freedom and Barrett Wendell, Kallen's "Tory Yan• democracy implicit in the 'American kee" teacher of American literature at Idea.' After 1902, Kallen began to Harvard, helped bring him back to an construe the Old Testament as the identification with the Jewish People, a source of the American Idea, the basis of need which had become pressing with the Declaration of Independence and of Kallen's sense of difference and insola• the Bill of Rights. Instead of being the tion at Harvard. embodiment of the rituals of Jewish In his later years Kallen liked to recall theology, the Old Testament became the how Wendell had emphasized the role of catalyst that had encouraged the forma• the Old Testament in defining a certain tion of a free society with notions of perspective and way of life. "He [Wen• equal liberty to all individuals and to all dell] showed how the Old Testament had groups, no matter how different. Zion• affected the Puritan mind [and] traced ism, an ideal that Kallen felt would help the role of the Hebraic tradition in the to create another state dedicated to these development of the American charac• same concepts of freedom and equality ter... And so I developed the interest in was, therefore, highly compatible with what you might call the Hebraic, the the American Idea. A Zionist, Jewish or secular, the non-Judaistic component of non-Jewish, was an individual express• the entire heritage and that naturally ing, in another mode, dedication to linked with what I knew about Zionism, American ideals; this particularly held the Herzl movement." true, however, for Jewish-Americans, When, however, Kallen 'returned' to with their special attachment to the Old 'Jewishness,' it was a Jewishness quite Testament and their longstanding com• different from that of his father. Kallen mitment, to the humanistic values of lib• continued to reject what he called the erty and justice for all. Judaist component of Jewish tradition — It is important to emphasize here that the theology, rituals, laws and regula• Kallen's decision to become a Zionist tions of Jewish observance. Instead, he was an entirely personal one, based on identified with what he defined as the an abstract formulation and influenced Hebraic past of the Jewish People, a neither by the Jewish community nor by Hebrew-Jewish way of thought that con• the fledgling American Zionist move• stitutes a culture and binds a people ment. In fact, Kallen did not recall know• together. Zionism, a secular Hebraic ing about any Zionist organization in HORACE KALLEN 67 1902; his awareness of Herzl went back soul and setting before him definite con• to conversations in his father's home trolling ideas." Since, Kallen argued, the and in the synagogue when he was a message of the Hebraic prophets con• young child. Thus when Kallen later tinues to be valid, the Jewish race has an became active in the Zionist movement, ethical right to maintain its self-hood. his approach and stance were rather dif• But to do so, it, like the other nations of ferent from those whose Zionist motiva• the world, needed to have "permanent tion emerged from any one of several occupation of a definite territory. ... European Zionist,traditions. Signifi• People's individuality cannot receive cantly, his formulation of Zionism was its highest and most adequate expres• to appeal most to other American intel• sion under an alien environment." lectuals who had become alienated from Kallen asserted. Jewish tradition and who were search• He then turned to the role of the Jews, ing for some other way to retain or particularly those living in America. "In regain ties to the Jewish community. America our duty to Zion is our duty to In 1906 Kallen came to the attention of our children... For of all things, the reali• the Federation of American Zionists, zation of the race-self is the central who invited him to give a paper at their thing." Kallen demonstrated, alsoa 'rad• annual convention. Preparation of "The ical' streak, unusual for an American Ethics of Zionism," an interpretation of Jew in the early twentieth century, by the Zionist idea based on Aristotle's demanding that Jews be willing to fight Politics and Ethics, caused Kallen to clar• for the justice of their cause."Our duty ify his own nascent views on Zionism is tojudaize the Jew... We have to crush and in it he began to develop a cohesive out the Marrano [secret Jew], chameleon expression of his Zionist reasoning. [assimilationists], and spiritual mongrel He began by rejecting two traditional [Jews who imitated non-Jewish rituals]; Zionist positions — that Zionism is a we have to assert the Israelite." charity to help free the masses from In "The Ethics of Zionism" Kallen anti-Semitic persecution, and that Zion• first wrote of the themes he was to ism is the fulfillment of an age old reli• develop further in later years — his gious instinct. Instead he felt that emphasis on abstract reasoning rather Zionism needed a new rationale, one than on tradition or sentiment in that could show that the Jews deserved explaining the need for a Jewish state; to live as a separate people in a country his concern with the survival of the com• of their own. plex of culture he called Hebraism; his In a rather elaborate exposition, conception that "each man in the human Kallen extended the Darwinian princi• family has the right to live and to give ple of survival of the fittest from the his life ideal expression" — an idea that individual to the social group, and app• he was to develop some years later into lied this principle to the history of the "cultural pluralism;" his stress on the Jewish People. Longer than any other need for self-respect on the part of Amer• people of recorded history the Jews had ican Jews, a need that Zionist affiliation survived, remaining "masterful and would help to promote; his willingness ever assertive,... molding the Western to advocate self-assertion. 68 FORUM-56 By chance, Solomon Schechter, the observances, no Jewish nationalistic renowned Biblical scholar and then leanings, no racial-cultural interests. At president of the Jewish Theological several public occasions Brandeis had Seminary of America, happened to hear clearly enunciated his strongly held Kallen read his paper. In later years view that "habits of living or of thought Kallen recalled, "In that paper I auto• which tend to keep alive difference of matically applied what I had learned in origin or to classify men acording to my courses... and while most of the audi• their religious beliefs are inconsistent tors either couldn't make out what I was with the American ideal of brotherhood, driving at or were opposed anyhow — it and are disloyal." was foreign to them in many ways and it In 1913, however, hearing that Bran• was militant — Schechter liked it." deis had expressed some interest in an Schechter's positive response to economic venture in Palestine Kallen sat Kallen's Zionist formulations, at a time down to write him something of his own when the majority of his audience could Zionist philosophy.

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