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FOR THE PROBLEMS OF , WORLD JEWRY AND THE STATE OF ISRAEL FORUM

for the Problems of Zionism, World Jewry and the State of Israel

I

DECEMBER 1953

PUBLISHED BY THE INFORMATION DEPARTMENT OF THE JEWISH AGENCY EDITED BY N. ROTENSTREICH AND Z. SHAZAR

Printed in Israel by the Publishing Department of the Jewish Agency at The Jerusalem, Post Press, Jerusalem CONTENTS

Z. SHAZAR In Re-examination ...... 7

Part One: THE JEWISH PEOPLE AND THE WORLD

J. LESTSCHINSKY The Present State of the Jewish People . . 15 Z. ARANNE Exodus from Russia—Return to ... 26 I. EISENSTEIN The Great American Experiment .... 34 E. SELIGMAN Commentary on American Jewry .... 41 B. HALPERN The Problem of the American Chalutz ... 46 I. BERLIN Jewish Slavery and Emancipation .... 52 N. ROTENSTREICH The against the Background of the Emancipation 69

Part Two: ZIONISM AND THE STATE OF ISRAEL

D. BEN GURION The People and the State . 89 J. A. HELLER Zionism, Exile and Homeland 106 J. MELKMAN The Doctrine of Moderation 116 J. D. WILHELM What Can Israel Offer the Exile. .... 125 I. WOLFSBERG The Functions of Zionism To-day . . . . 128 J. AMIT The New Situation 137 S. HALKIN American Zionism and the State of Israel . . 146

Part Three: THE INDIVIDUAL IN THE STATE

S. H. BERGMANN Israel and the Dispersion 163 S. N. EISENSTADT Fusing the Aliyot in Israel 176 H. GREENBERG Seven Principles 183

Z. WOYSLAWSKY On Hayim Greenberg (Essay) 187 CONTRIBUTORS

JACOB AMIT, member of the editorial board of Al Hamishmar, organ of the United Labour Party (Mapam). ZALMAN ARANNE, leading member of the Israel Labour Party (Mapai) and of the ; recently nominated by his party for the post of Minister without Portfolio in the Cabinet of Israel. BEN GURION, first Prime Minister of the State of Israel. ISAIAH BERLIN, fellow of All Souls College; lecturer in philosophy at Oxford University; author of studies in political science and books on Marx and Tolstoi. S. H. BERGMANN, Professor of philosophy at the Hebrew University; author of volumes on Maimon, Kant, the theory of logic and knowledge. S. N. EISENSTADT, lecturer in sociology at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem; author of a book on the integration of immigrants. IRA EISENSTEIN, Rabbi of the Society for the Advancement of Judaism, New York; a leading exponent of the Reconstructionist Movement; author of Creative Judaism. HAYIM GREENBERG, late leader of the American Poalei Zion movement; editor of The Jewish Frontier and Yiddisher Kemfer; member of the Jewish Agency Executive and head of its Department of Education and Culture in New York. The article here included was written during the last months of his life, S. HALKIN, poet and scholar; Associate Professor of Hebrew literature at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem; author of a book on modern Hebrew literature and a novel Ad Mashber on Jewish life in America. BEN HALPERN, sociologist; member of the editorial board of The Jewish Frontier and of the staff of the Jewish Agency's Department of Education and Culture in New York. JOSEPH A. HELLER, formerly lecturer in the Hebrew Department of University College, London; editor of Tarbut, London; author of The Zionist Idea and other books. JACOB LESTSCHINSKY, veteran student of Jewish sociology; author of many volumes in that field, including The of Soviet Russia, published in a Hebrew translation from the original Yiddish, by "Am Oved". JOSEPH MELKMAN, leading Dutch Zionist; author and editor. NATHAN ROTENSTREICH, lecturer in philosophy at the Hebrew University, Jeru- salem. ELIEZER SELIGMAN, director of the Department of Political Science, University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon. ZALMAN SHAZAR, member of the Executive of the Jewish Agency; head of its De- partment of Information; former editor of Davar and first Minister of Educa- tion and Culture in the State of Israel. J. D. WILHELM, Chief Rabbi of Swedish Jewry. ISAIAH WOLFSBERG, editor and author; one of the spiritual leaders of religious Zionism. Zvi WOYSLAWSKI, author of essays and studies on sociological and cultural problems; author of Hevlei Tarbut and other volumes. In Re-examination

Zalman Shazar

HROUGHOUT all the stages of Zion- Jewish position in the world; examination ism's development, Zionist thought of the creative forces hidden within the Tpaved the way for Zionist action, Jewish people; the definition of the ideal and it was the fusion of the two that made towards which Zionist action strove and the up the life of the movement. intellectual accompaniment of Zionist ac- Zionist thought undertook to assess the tion, with all its corollaries and by-products. position of the Jewish people in the world During all the seventy years of the Zion- and to discover the forces that tended to ist movement diversity rather than uni- strengthen or, on the other hand, to under- formity characterized the thinking of its in- mine the people's existence; it studied ways tellectual leaders. They differed widely in and means to aid the former and weaken approach and expression even before the the latter, with a view always to facilitating movement was officially split into groups the rebirth of the nation and quickening the organized around special ideologies. Hess's factors within it that were to be the shapers theoretical analysis had little in common of the new life. As soon as these made their with Birnbaum's call to rebirth; Nordau's way to the Land, Zionist thought concerned passionate outcry was in marked contrast to itself with encouraging them, while it at- Ahad Ha'am's measured doctrine; and the tempted to uproot whatever would impede basic concepts of all four of them—both in their development. It aimed, in other words, nature and sources of inspiration—were at bringing the entire people into the work completely unlike those of such other Zion- of national revival and releasing all its pent- ist founding fathers as Rabbis Kalischer and up creative forces. Mohilever. There was a clear-cut, unmistakable inter- This diversity was naturally intensified to relationship between the level of Zionist a very great degree with the rise of parties thought and the effectiveness of Zionist ac- within Zionism, each proclaiming a par- tion. Whenever thought took on new life, it ticular philosophy, each following teachers intensified the urge to action; whenever who strove to mould Zionism in the terms activity flourished, thought grew stronger; of that philosophy. Inter-party strife at with any slackening of intensity, both de- elections to World Zionist Congresses, na- clined. Action included colonization and tional Zionist Conventions, Jewish commu- education, political work and organization. nity posts or places in certain European par- Zionist thought included analysis of the liaments, grew so sharp that active members

7 Zalman Shazar : In Re-examination

of the various groups began to believe kin and Rabbi Kook, Ruppin and Gordon, that the only unifying bond among them Ussishkin and Berl Katznelson and their was the fact that they were ideological op- comrades and disciples—whose distinction ponents within the same worldwide organi- it was, each in his own fashion, lovingly to zational framework. The more gifted they foster all the creative forces in the people were, the more adept they became at widen- and the Land, watching tremulously over ing the rifts between the groups. Many the pioneering beginnings in Israel until the rank-and-file Zionists and particularly the tiny pioneering element grew to become the younger recruits among them ceased to see saviour of the entire nation, and the opener the Zionist movement as a single unit of the way towards its independent develop- whose constituents differed only on matters ment. of secondary importance: for them the Basic Zionist thought consisted of all of movement consisted of distinctly isolated, these and of the many successors who trans- warring camps whose commanding officers mitted or reinterpreted their spiritual legacy met every two years, to go through the or struck out on completely new paths of formal, ritual motions of joint assembly. their own. And it was this basic thought Zionist thought was never simple. It was that breathed the spirit of life into all always complicated by the inevitable im- branches of Zionism, fructifying all of them, pact upon it in each country of the intellec- influencing all of them, sometimes even with- tual and social climate prevailing in that out their knowledge. Out of its fundamental particular country at that particular time. precepts came the approaches which de- It was always involved in the clash of termined Zionist action—factional and col- communal forces everywhere. Contributing lective, political and organizational, edu- to, and at the same time sustained by, the cational and economic, in the Diaspora and life of the community, it bore the stamp of in the uprooting of the Diaspora. time and place, the imprint of specific and All this was so until the hour of the great localized crises and problems. catastrophe came during the Second World Yet, over and above all variations of War. That incredible catastrophe, which style and of temporal and local influences, had lain lurking in the mysteries of Jewish the penetrating observer sensed the presence existence, burst all bounds, annihilating of a fundamental Zionist doctrine common every trace of Jewish life in most of the to all Zionists, inasmuch as all of them great Diaspora communities out of which, shared the same basic assumptions and were and on the basis of which, Zionist thought, guided by the light of the same vision. its theory and practice, had grown. Actually it was all the emphases and all All research into Jewish sociology in the the approaches jointly that made up Zion- Diaspora beginning with H. D. Horowitz, ism. There were the prophets of doom— Lestschinsky, Borochov and Ruppin, and all Pinsker, Syrkin, Idelsohn, Theilhaber, Ber- the strategy proposed to combat the defects ditchevsky, Borochov, Reines—who earned revealed by that research, were based on their fame by mercilessly exposing the de- the existence of masses of Jews, living as fects of Jewish life in exile and never ceas- more or less compact communities, consti- ing to point to signs of impending catas- tuting a relatively large percentage of the ׳trophe. There were the prophets of con- total population of their countries of re solation—Lilienblum and Ahad Ha'am, Wit- sidence, and, consequently, capable—if they

8 Zalman Shazar : In Re-examination so wished—of developing a national life of alien sea—achieve or even strive to achieve their own, cultural, educational, linguistic, what was desired and to some extent mira- and sometimes even political. Against the culously accomplished by the powerful, so- background of this quasi-autonomous mass lid pre-war European Jewish community, life, the Zionist political parties of the Dias- so rooted in its own authentic culture, so pora sprang up, and there developed the many-branched in its organization? ramified cultural and educational activities When disaster overwhelmed European which vitalized the movement, both through Jewry, mother of the younger communities their positive practical results and through overseas, those new centres of Jewish life the keen debates and arguments which were were orphaned. Though they were not no less fruitful in their effect. Out of the themselves directly affected by the Nazi on- roots of mass life in the Diaspora grew the slaught, they were, in their overwhelming varied halutz movement, its system of majority, so intimately related, ethnically* training, its sustaining ideals. The inesti- socially and culturally, to the parent Dias- mable educational value of the halutz move- pora, that they were utterly shocked and ment was diffused far and wide, penetrating shaken. Even the strongest and most ma- even to isolated individuals. It turned the ture of them which had managed to mani- sod of and Jewish spiritual fest organizational and creative powers of life. Overtly and invisibly, both, it nour- their own, were not yet able to stand on ished the whole of Zionism. their own feet in the many fields in which The Nazi cataclysm completely destroyed they depended for guidance and help on the mass life which had been so character- European Jewry—religion, politics, art, so- istic of Eastern European Jewry and had ciety. It was as if they had been forced existed on a smaller scale in the West. With prematurely to pit their strength against the ruin of the communities went the in- the outside world. Their economic power, tellectual system Zionist thought had worked it is true, has grown mightily and they out to preserve Jewry in the Diaspora. And have a highly developed sense of respon- to-day, of the remnant which has survived, sibility for the stricken sectors of the Jew- those behind the Iron Curtain are—at least ish people and for the future of the nation at present—doomed to silence, preserved —a sense of responsibility reflected in the for some great day to come. Those who abundance of the financial aid they have have come together in the rest of Europe been giving and may yet give even more have the right to express themselves as generously. Nevertheless, in their youthful^ European Jewish communities once used to, ness they are still not quite ready for open- but it is most doubtful whether they would eyed self-examination and they are still be able to do so, even if they were all with- somewhat fearful of assessing the world out exception faithful Jews and Zionists, about them realistically. eager to carry on the theoretical and prac- Never before has our movement of na- tical tradition of pre-Hitler Zionism. That tional revival been faced with a spiritual tradition has lost the life which bred and task of such vast historic dimensions as con- sustained it and has vanished without a fronts it to-day in the largest, wealthiest and trace. How, then, can brands plucked from most complacent of com- the burning—a tiny, scattered remnant, liv- munities. The movement must use all the ing like little islands in an all-engulfing wisdom of its experience, all the luminous-

9 Zalman Shazar : In Re-examination ness.of the national vision, to make clear arise out of it. And since the revolution to that community the course its life is Zionist thought has not yet found the op- taking, to encourage its will to live and to portunity seriously to consider what new help the development in it of those vital precepts and principles can fit the new elements which will identify themselves with situation. It is still overwhelmed and the forces of growth in the land of our re- weakened by amazement, still—inevitably— birth. groping its way through the cloud of glory. There are no precedents for this ap- To this all of us who are subject to that proach anywhere in the history of Zionist same compulsion will bear witness, each ac- thought. What we must do now is virtually cording to his standard and his charge. to create a special art, varying it to meet I shall not here enumerate all the prob- local conditions in each of the new Dias- lems; they are many and constantly in- pora centres. For all of them await the reve- creasing with the birth pangs of our time's lation of new commandments to govern greatness. It will be sufficient to point to a their life as Jews and Zionists. We must find few, so grave that they may bring us to the a way to help these communities to under- brink of the abyss unless light penetrates stand and withstand the temptations of their the cloud. environment, and to help their children, The rarest souls of our generation have born among those snares, to grasp and been overcome by a messianic passion for respond to the tidings that come to them perfectionism. from the homeland that is being rebuilt. A Socialist Utopia of a just social order Modern Zionist thought never had such realized by a nation of workers was the fateful responsibilities as the miraculous re- passionately desired goal of most of the birth of the Jewish State imposed upon it pioneering element in Zionism. The labour and continues daily to impose. And respon- settlements established among us are, for sibilities that are not met become problems. them, miniature patterns of the new form For five years now the compulsion of re- of life destined to dominate the redeemed birth has taken hold of us and urged us for- Land. ward, despite the difficulties and the prob- For those others—in Israel and outside of lems on our way. This advance is as difficult it—who are faithful to the religious trend for us to grasp as the very coming into being in Zionism, the dream is that of a nation of of the State itself. The guiding light of in- God-fearing men, living according to the tellectual analysis has not yet penetrated authentic tradition of Israel made into the cloud of glory that envelopes the his- binding law by the power of the State. toric transformation. Still under the charm In both cases, it was the vision, with all of our advance towards the miracle, still in- its glory and all the difficulty of its attain- capable of adjusting ourselves to it, we ment, that led its disciples through the struggle with ourselves and with the hard- wilderness to the land of promise. ships of our great day. Zionist thought be- Yet, in these five years of struggling and fore this revolutionary development reared hesitant advance within the new reality of us and prepared us for the historic con- the marvel-coming-into-being, both groups summation but provided us with no solu- have understood that they are morally tions-—or even hints at solutions—for the obliged to move cautiously. As sensitive many novel complications that were to Zionists, they have perceived that undue

10 Zalman Shazar : In Re-examination

haste toward the goal may adversely affect The after-effects of the War of Indepen- the ultimate attainment of the goal itself. dence make it impossible for us to deal with But the same sensitiveness warns them that the Arab minority among us in the spirit over-long failure to stress their goal may of perfect equality which we should prefer. deprive their movements of the strength Nor is it yet given to us to develop such and profound appeal they owe to the goal. relations with our neighbours as befit a Zionist thought before the State never people which itself originated in the East, dealt with this problem in concrete terms; acquired the heritage of the West and re- since the establishment of the State it has turned to its ancient home to live in free- not offered its help through analysis of dom once again. And over and above these timing and method. The cloudy lack of problems is the still more crucial one of the clarity in which we function is on the in- reflection in our movement of the political crease, rather than on the wane. In the end, cleavage in the world at large. That, too, it may well exact a high price from us, di- has not yet been given the benefit of coura- viding us, weakening our most dedicated geous and logical consideration. hands—unless the light of understanding Zionist thought stands to-day before breaks through before it is too late. The these historic difficulties upon which the light must illuminate not only our relation- fate of our people's redemption so largely ship to our end goals but even the practical depends. Yet, in these days of political reali- steps we should take—for they, too, in these zation and most intense Zionist practical five years of marvellous accomplishment work, Zionist thought—for all the wealth have been overcast by cloud. of its knowledge and the profusion of its Zionist thought has as yet given no posi- approaches to our history—seems almost tive answers to the problems posed by the helpless, and must begin virtually from the ingathering of the exiles and the quest for beginning again. the most desirable road to cultural amalga- We dare not conclude that the consum- mation. On still another front—the econo- mation was premature—that, to use the folk mic—we find ourselves in a bitter struggle idiom, Sabbath came upon us before we for self-sufficiency, subject to the impact of had made all our preparations for the holy sudden needs and emergencies. Even the day. Actually, the contrary is true. From legislative processes of the State, for all their the historic point of view, the hoped for Sab- sovereignty, freedom and vitality, are not bath was long delayed, and by the time it always free from temporary restraints and came, our numbers were decimated. Now that partisan, tactical considerations. In the field it is here with all its blessings and all its de- of cultural guidance we are merely at the mands upon us, we dare not linger any longer. beginning of our work with this nation of Will we have the spiritual strength and ours that is being reassembled in Israel: resilience to renew Zionist thought to-day far more remains undone than has been as it must be renewed in the light of the done. The mutual relationship between the revolutionary changes in the Diaspora and State and the Diaspora has not been ade- the redeemed homeland? Will we be able quately defined and is clear neither to the to make a new accounting now in place of citizens of the State nor to the Jews of the the one history has rendered obsolete: can Diaspora. That lack of clarity is a potent we re-evaluate the place of the Jewish source of danger to both. people in the world, of the State in the

11 Zalman Shazar : In Re-examination people's existence, of the individual in the If this situation continues unchecked and State, seeing them all in the light of our without hope of change, it will inevitably generation's vision of national redemption ? undermine the Zionist concern in the hearts Or shall we be condemned here, too, to of our scattered people and make it less and particularism, each group among us wor- less possible for the movement and the State shipping at its own mountain shrine, neg- to act as they should and must. lecting the building of the central sanctu- In establishing this modest literary forum, ary? Shall we continue to pay no heed to the movement aims to provide a meeting the thoughts and aspirations of others, con- place for thinking men from various poli- sidering them a priori as antagonists ? A re- tical and spiritual circles, with various lin- birth of collective Zionist thought can never guistic and cultural equipment, but sharing emerge out of these non-communicative the vision of national revival and the reali- monologues. zation of the historic change which has We are consumed by these intellectual come about in Jewish destiny. Here they disagreements rooted in partisan political will be able to voice their reflections arid considerations, but we suffer even more be- conclusions, each in his own way, granted cause of our geographical, cultural and lin- only mastery of subject matter and fitness guistic diversity. What is left of our people of style. Here they will speak to their lives to-day in eighty diasporas. It is true friends and colleagues and to all the alert that everywhere there are devoted souls, and interested in our scattered and divided completely dedicated to the concerns of the movement. people and the State, responsive to any If this attempt of ours is to succeed, we news that reaches them of new develop- must be fortified with a high degree of ments and events. But new ideas—for all tolerance towards the ideas of others. We their significance—do not have such wings. must resolve beforehand not to shrink from Thoughts born in the mind of a solitary re-examination of dogmas accepted by our thinker in some far-off community are re- generation and of assumptions basic to our stricted in their influence to their geo- movement. With courage and clarity of graphical or linguistic environment: they thought we must strive together to renew reach Zionists elsewhere only if they assume the youthful vigour of Zionist thought in a sensational character which—by its very the era of the rebuilt Zion. nature—negates their essential value as In the last analysis, the re-establishment serene, intellectual contributions to the of our Commonwealth was the result of the development of a renewed body of Zionist joint efforts of the representatives of the thought. Because of these distances and various communities and sectors and streams divisions that characterize our daily life, of thought in the movement—brought about even those solemn assemblies which on offi- by the love and sacrifice of vast numbers of cial occasions bring the leaders of the move- our people. So, too—one firmly believes— ment together for a few days at a time, tend will Zionist theory arise renewed out of to resemble discussions among the divided the depths of the spiritual searchings of men generation whose language the Lord con- of intellect in every branch of the move- founded during their attempt to build the ment. It will arise once more to consider Tower of Babel. and judge and give counsel.

12 PART ONE

The Jewish People and the World The Present State of the Jewish People

Jacob Lestschinsky

HE JEWISH people has been transform- during the past few decades. Although the ed in our own days and before our most recent physical calamity overwhelmed T very eyes. The transformation affects European Jewry alone, the destruction of geographical distribution, biological poten- the Jewish population of Eastern Europe tials, economic-social structure and break- has exerted a very deep and far-reaching down of classes, political status and prob- influence on the entire national fate and lems and, finally, the entire linguistic and fortune—influence in every sense of that cultural periphery. Inevitably, the possibili- word, in respect of national creative pos* ties of independent national creative work sibilities in all the new centres throughout and achievement are affected, as well as the the Diaspora, as well as the continued relations between those factors within the development and coloration of the State of Jewish people which make for assimilation Israel. and nationalism. Three phenomena constitute the principal Jewish history is rich in terrible events, results of those changes and transformations massacres and mass expulsions, persecutions which have taken place in Jewish life, and and mass migrations which within relatively are, in fact, the main factors determining brief periods brought about absolutely new the fate and future of the Jewish people : situations that fundamentally transformed (a) Virtually all the old Jewish popula- the economic basis of the majority of the tion. centres which enjoyed traditions be- Jews and, consequently, their political and tween one and two thousand years old, had cultural milieu. It is sufficient to recall the numerous societies and organizations, insti- cultural destruction of Spanish and Portu- tutions and institutes, played a vital part in guese Jewry, despite its high level of develop- the affairs of their countries and were more ment: this decline was the result of mass or less adjusted to their environment, have ! conversion and the fact that the overwhelm- now disappeared. Geographically speaking, ing majority of the exiles belonging to that from 87% to 88% of Jews now reside in Jewry found refuge in the more backward entirely new territories. They have been parts of the Ottoman Empire. residing en masse in these new territories Not even our exceptional history can for a period of fifty years at the most; but show so deep and comprehensive a change there are many countries in which they in all the conditions governing the existence have spent barely a decade. If, however, we of the majority of Jews as has come about take the term "new" not so much in its

15 Jacob Lestschinsky : The Present State of the Jewish People geographical as its cultural and political foundly affecting the Jewish population implications, we may conclude that more centres of the Diaspora. The difficult pro- than 90% of the Jews now live under en- cess of mingling the peoples of the various tirely new conditions, which are very far exiles, of smelting into a single amalgam indeed from promoting any organic con- Jews who have come together not merely tinuation of, or link with, the past. A host from the four corners of the earth, but liter- of national and spiritual values amassed ally from forty languages, cultures and under specific conditions must of necessity centuries, will continue to engage the best founder against the rock of this new reality. spiritual forces of the new State for many In these new conditions it has proved years to come. This gigantic historic func- necessary to begin afresh more than once. tion has no peer or parallel in human his- The Jewish genius has to face elementary tory, for here it is not a matter of fashion- material problems, to say nothing of others ing a new nation by eliminating and finally of a cultural nature, appropriate to a people swallowing cultural characteristics as is the whose history is just beginning. In this case, for example, in the United States; it generalization we also include those Jews is a matter of the revival and restoration of who, geographically speaking, continue to an ancient people, the revelation of deep reside in their old homes in the Ukraine, common cultural roots lying underground, White Russia, Lithuania, Latvia, Poland, and their reactivation so that they may Roumania and Hungary; for the over- serve to unite into a single nation brethren whelming majority of them were uprooted who have been alienated from each other. from all historical continuity, and after the This tremendous task, whose like there close of the Second World War began afresh never has been, will serve to engage the under conditions that were entirely dif- concentrated attention of the Jews in the ferent, amid the ruins of their traditional State of Israel to such a degree that the institutions and organizations and in cir- creative work of the latter will be able to cumstances which will not permit their exert only a slight influence on that part of revival. the Jewish Diaspora which lies within the (b) The eve of the First World War was purlieus of Western culture. an exceedingly critical period for the fate Nevertheless the fact of the resurgence of of the Jewish people, as it was then that the the State of Israel, that objective fact in East European section of World Jewry be- itself, constitutes a factor which will exert gan to break up and crumble. At that time a powerful national influence on the life more than 75% of the Jews dwelt amid of Jews in the Diaspora. peoples who had only slight assmilative capacity. Even in 1939, on the eve of the (a) The End of European Jewry Second World War, about 55% of the Jews During the past thousand years the active still resided in milieus possessing a weak history of the Jewish people has been to all assimilatory potential. Now, however, more intents and purposes coterminous with that than 80% of the Jews live in surroundings of European Jewry. During the past five which favour assimilation to a very marked hundred years, in particular, the share of degree. the Jews of Asia and Africa in Jewish na- (c) The rise of the State of Israel is a tional life has weakened, since the hege- tremendous historical achievement, pro- mony of World Jewry passed from Central

16 Jacob Lestschinsky : The Present State of the Jewish People and Southern, to Eastern, Europe. The his- origin is Polish Jewry and among whom tory of European Jewry has been full of ]Russian Jewry fulfilled a primary function. fluctuations, on which it is impossible for Zionism, Jewish Socialism, Autonomism, the us to pause here. In brief, developments Jewish press in Yiddish and Hebrew, litera- lasting over many centuries brought about ture, the Jewish theatre and Jewish art, a situation in which, at the close of the everything, everything originated there. nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth There they imbibed their vitality, scope and centuries, about 70% of all Jewry resided range until the last years before the Second in Eastern Europe and constituted about World War. Even now, almost a decade 85% of Ashkenazic Jewry, the most fruitful since the destruction of this Jewish centre and fertile branch of the Jewish people. in Eastern Europe, we can count on the That almost solid block of Jews, numbering fingers of one hand the Yiddish and Heb- about eight millions, were to be found in an rew poets and writers, Hebrew and Yiddish area inhabited by more than ten peoples journalists and teachers who are natives of and constituting part of the Russian and the Americas. The entire national and cul- Austro-Hungarian Empires. tural heritage of the roughly six million Thanks to an entire series of auxiliary Jews resident in the American continents, conditions, such as concentration in large and constituting more than half of the Jew- and small towns, involving a high degree of ish people, derives from Eastern Europe social segregation from the surrounding insofar as it expresses itself in Hebrew or non-Jewish population; thanks to the weak Yiddish and in original Jewish national assimilatory potential of the alien environ- forms. ment; thanks to the delayed political eman- The same may be said to much the same cipation of Russian Jewry which constituted degree with regard to the Jewish commu- the main part of East European Jewry; nity within the State of Israel. There it is thanks to the spiritual self-emancipation of undoubtedly possible to observe the first Russian Jewry in the absence of political shoots of original creativity in the Hebrew rights; and, finally, thanks to the wealth of language, covering all the fields of culture, cultural tradition inherited from previous poetry and prose, scholarship and research, ages, it came about that this section of the theatre and art. Yet in spite of this, the Jewish people gave birth to almost all its creative elements deriving from Eastern social and national movements, modern Europe take the lead in all these fields not cultural and national currents and aspira- only quantitatively but also qualitatively. tions. The general revolutionary atmosphere At the time of the Bolshevik Revolution, exerted no small influence on the national Russian Jewry had been the centre and and political awakening of the Jewish principal factor in the development of the masses. Jewish people as a nation and comprehen- All the modern creative achievements of sive collective entity. After that revolution the most recent epoch—the first half of the the task was taken over by Polish Jewry, twentieth century—whether national and supported by the Jews of Lithuania and political or cultural and spiritual, which are Latvia. to be found throughout the countries and Parallel to the national Jewish centre in states of the Jewish Diaspora, derive from Eastern Europe, German Jewry took the thence; from that source whose historic lead in respect of Jewish achievement in a

17 Jacob Lestschinsky : The Present State of the Jewish People foreign language. It may be said with ab- and stronger if it were possible to leave all solute certainty that both French Jewry and' the countries of Europe freely, and if im- English Jewry were vastly less fruitful than migrants were admitted to all immigration the Jews of Germany in the fields of Jewish countries. scholarship, while at present American The figures given above regarding the Jewry does not approach their productivity decline in the number of European Jews in this field, though it has tenfold as many and those who have remained there are Jews. general and, therefore, vague. They do not Let us now consider the numerical decline offer any clear or concrete picture of the of European Jewry. character of the Jewish centres which are still left in Europe, or of what the Jewish TABLE 1 people can expect from these vestiges of JEWS IN EUROPE IN RELATION rich and creative European Jewry. TO THE JEWISH PEOPLE We shall, therefore, present a table show- ing the number of Jews in each European Number of Jews country. This will make it clear that in ac- Year Absolute % of Jewish People tual fact we are left in Europe with a rem- 1900 9,900,000 80.9 nant which, on the one hand, is completely 1939 9,500,000 56.8 barren in a national sense and, on the 1951 2,700,000 23.8 other, is dispersed and broken up across many countries, or else concentrated in From more than 80% of the people in countries with an exceedingly high assimila- 1900, European Jewry had fallen to less tory potential. The table is based on the than 24% in 1951. In 1939 more than 56% political frontiers of 1951. (See page 19.) of our people still lived in Europe. It is This table does not indicate the number clear that the falling-off of European Jewry of victims belonging to the various com- from 1900 until 1939 was far slighter than munities, for it takes only migrations into during the following twelve years from consideration. Thus, for example, the fact 1939 till the end of 1951. During the earlier that there are only 30,000 Jews missing in period the decline was only relative. France does not mean that the victims of Let us now see how 6,800,000 Jews were French Jewry did not exceed 30,000. In lost in Europe between 1939 and 1951, so actual fact the number of victims amounted that only 2,700,000 were left out of to 120,000. Immediately following the close 9,500,000. We were bereft of 6,000,000 by of hostilities a wave of immigration com- the slaughter due to Hitler and the War. menced into France. Nor can it be conclud- About 200,000 fell in battle: all the rest, ed, from the fact that present-day Poland 5,800,000, were destroyed in one way or contains no more than 35,000 Jews, that another by Hitler's henchmen, with the only 1.8% remain of the former 2,000,000 active participation of sections of those na- Jews within that area. In actual fact there tions which had been conquered by Nazi were 192,000 Jews in 1946, but the majority Germany. A total of 800,000 Jews left left the country. Europe between 1939 and 1951, in a pro- Let us now analyse the table. We must cess of migration which has not yet ended. exclude from European Jewry those groups This process, indeed, would be far greater which have been isolated from the general

18 Jacob Lestschinsky : The Present State of the Jewish People

TABLE 11 In Denmark there are up to 60% mixed NUMBER OF JEWS IN EUROPEAN marriages, and up to 40% in Switzerland. COUNTRIES, 1939-1951 Recently 78 cases of conversion were re- gistered in Berlin, while this year the num-

Country 1939 absotute % of 1939 ber of conversions in Vienna was even more, amounting to 168. As long as the 1 1. U.S.S.R. 4,700,000 1,400,000 29.8 Jewish massif of Eastern Europe was in exis- 2. Poland 2,000,000 35,000 1.8 tence nearby, it from time to time intro- 3. Roumania 500,000 190,000 38.0 duced into Central Europe fresh groups of 4. Germany 193,000 20,000 10.4 Jews with their traditions and heritage of 5. Hungary 403,000 100,000 24.8 6. England 400,000 400,000 100.0 Jewish national stiff-neckedness. These 7. Czechoslovakia 255,000 18,000 7.1 served as an auxiliary factor delaying the 8. France 270,000 240,000 88.8 process of assimilation, and preventing it 9. Austria 82,000 12,000 14.6 from becoming complete. Let us at least 10. Holland 150,000 25,000 16.7 hope that in the future, too, assimilation 11. Greece 75,000 8,000 10.6 will not be altogether victorious. But as 12. Yugoslavia 75,000 8,000 10.6 creative groups these small and minute com- 13. Belgium 90,000 35,000 38.8 munities cannot be taken into consideration. 14. Italy 57,000 32,000 56.1 Together they number 300,000 souls, dis- 15. Bulgaria 50,000 4,000 8.0 persed over nineteen countries. 16. Turkey in Europe 50,000 30,000 60.0 Of historic European Jewry there are 17. Others2 150,000 151,000 100.0 only two relatively large groups left. In England there are 400,000 Jews, and in 9,500,000 2,708,000 28.4 France 240,000 — 640,000 in all. The two 1 Including areas annexed from Poland, Rouma- countries together have a combined popula- nia and Czechoslovakia. tion of about 95 million inhabitants. Hence 2 Switzerland, Sweden, Denmark, Spain, Portu- the Jews constitute 0.7% of the total popu- gal, Eire, Luxembourg, Finland, Norway, Gib- lation, which means that the latter has an raltar, Rhodes. exceedingly high assimilatory potential. Reports from England are distinctly body of Israel; these being the Jews of gloomy. There are many mixed marriages, Soviet Russia, Poland, Roumania, Hungary, there is a biological deficiency in the higher Czechoslovakia and Bulgaria. Their total and middle classes. The only Yiddish daily number amounts to about 1,750,000 souls. has been closed, as has one of the oldest Hence we are left with no more than some schools in Whitechapel, a quarter which for 950,000 Jews who are free to maintain con- decades furnished the Jewry of all England tact with Jewry as a whole. However, we with modern and a living have to exclude all the small communities contact with Jewish world movements. from this account of Jewish groups with Barely 40% of all children of school age some prospects of rescuing something of receive a Jewish education. It is true that national spirit from the fire of assimilation. some degree of revival is to be found among A few figures will reflect the state of these part of the Jewish population. They belong small communities whose weakness derives largely, if not entirely, to the Zionist wing, from their minute size : which enjoys a large measure of popular

19 Jacob Lestschinsky : The Present State of the Jewish People support, but is nevertheless distinctly a the faintest indication of the presence of minority. Jews in other countries. Poland is the little The Jews of France are far more vital homeland, but Russia is the big homeland. and fruitful. This Jewry consists more than These two homelands have to be loved, and two-thirds of immigrant Jews from Eastern the heroes of these two countries are the Europe, and thanks to the desertions from only heroes for the children of the Jews. Communist countries possesses a large num- Any particular Jewish present is kept out of ber of intellectuals of every kind. Three daily sight here; but so is the specific Jewish past, Jewish papers appear there, several weeklies to say nothing of any Jewish future what- in Yiddish and many in French. There are soever. Such is the education provided for two monthlies, in Yiddish and Hebrew re- Jewish children in Poland. spectively, as well as several Jewish theatres. In Roumania the situation is doubtless Yet the general opinion is that this revival no better. It is necessary to add that these has no roots. The symptomatic fact is point- two communities are insulated from world ed out that in France no more than 10-12% Jewry, and contact with them is exclusively of Jewish children of school age attend all unilateral. That is, we receive the publica- the various types of Jewish schools. This is tions of Jewish Communists in Poland and explained more or less as follows: The re- Roumania, but Jewish publications from all ligious and national elements are sitting on the countries of the world do not reach their suitcases, and little by little are actual- those two lands. ly proceeding to Israel or else emigrating The picture of the lost Jewry of Europe to other countries. As for those who have would not be complete without at least a already assimilated or are potentially cap- few words on the Jews of Lithuania and able of assimilating, they are not anxious to Latvia. In these two States there lived a to- have any Jewish education for their chil- tal of 250,000 Jews. 85% of all Jewish chil- dren. dren of school age were educated in special We have to devote some words at least to Jewish schools recognized by the Govern- the handful of Jews in Poland and Rouma- ment. The principal language of instruc- nia, where a few Jewish papers still appear tion in these schools was either Hebrew or and schools are to be found with Yiddish Yiddish. The Hebrew educational network of as the language of instruction. It is worth- Lithuanian Jewry was the best in the world. while to pause and consider a schoolbook These schools were maintained or to a cer- entitled "Shul un Heim" (School and Home) tain extent supported by the Governments for children aged from eight to ten, which —in fact, generously supported, when com- was published in Warsaw during 1950. This pared to other countries. In these two coun- is a book of about 300 pages. Not a single tries five Jewish dailies appeared. In both story of Jewish life is to be found in it, not of them there are now no more than 25,000 one Jewish legend, not one name out of Jews, not a single Jewish school and no Jewish history and not a single Jewish fes- Jewish newspaper. It is unnecessary to add tival. In general, apart from the fact that that they are not included in our table the text is written in Hebrew characters, because they are now part of U.S.S.R. there is not the slightest hint of any Jewish We have not dealt at all with Soviet content or context. The State of Israel is Jewry, as even the unilateral type of con- not mentioned or referred to. There is not nection with other Communist countries has

20 Jacob Lestschinsky : The Present State of the Jewish People been broken off here. Furthermore, there (b) Liquidation of Jewish Communities can ho longer be the slightest doubt that in Arab Countries Jewish language and culture have been The Jews of Oriental countries trace their liquidated, and in practice there is no longer period in exile back for more than two any sign of communal Jewish life. At the thousand years. As for the Babylonian exile same time the objective conditions have to which the Jews of Iraq belong, this clear- changed in the direction of an increased ly goes back for more than two thousand assimilatory tempo. At the beginning of the five hundred years. The same may be said twentieth century only 5%-6% of all the regarding the Jews of Yemen. None of the Jews of Russia dwelt in Central Russia, many Jewish communities of Arabic coun- under the powerful influence of the Great tries is less than two thousand years old; of Russian culture and subject to the high that there can be no doubt. It is only potential of its assimilatory forces. Nowa- natural that the purely Jewish cultural and days, about 900,000 of the 1,400,000 Jews spiritual heritage should be overlaid by of European Russia reside in the provinces quite a considerable accumulation of alien of European Great Russia, and more parti- influences, some of them positive while even cularly in the two cities, Moscow and Lenin- more are presumably negative. All students grad. Hence, more than 64% dwell in a of Jewish life in these countries are agreed region of high assimilatory potential. that the basic ground of Jewish spiritual The far reaching distinction in this respect life among them is primitive but healthy, between Central Russia, the Ukraine and traditionally Biblical and conservatively White Russia can be seen by the following Talmudic. Particular importance lies in the interesting figures. In 1926 mixed marriages fact that in these countries education re- were : in Central Russia—25%; in the Uk- mained deep-rootedly Jewish, most of the raine—4.6%; and in White Russia—2%. children spending long years in the heder, (L. Singer, The Jewish Population of Soviet where the main subjects of study are all in Russia, Moscow, 1932, p. 27.) To our Hebrew. regret it is impossible to obtain figures The great majority of persons making up for any later period, yet there can be these Jewish communities are exceedingly no doubt at all that the proportion of impoverished; but they are, nevertheless, mixed marriages has increased considerably, rich in charitable and educational institu- particularly during recent years, when a tions. As an example, we shall refer to educa- very appreciable part of the Jewish popula- tion among the Jews of Iraq, concerning tion has been expelled or has moved of its whom we happen to have exceedingly de- own free will to the distant regions of Asia. tailed and interesting information. In Bagh- The factors which in 1926 were still effec- dad, the capital of Iraq, there used to be tive in the Ukraine and White Russia, about 80,000 Jews before the large immigra- where Jewish traditions had not yet ceased tion to Israel. In the year 1950 Baghdad to exert a measure of influence, have van- contained 29 Jewish schools, with 13,448 ished entirely; particularly in the outlying pupils.1 The pupils constituted almost 17% regions of Central Russia and of Asia. of the Jewish population. What this means That, in brief, is the balance-sheet of European Jewry—of that branch of the na- 1 Yalkut Hamizrah Hatikhon, Av- 5711, tion whose yield was so fruitful. Jerusalem, p. 13.

21 Jacob Lestschinsky : The Present State of the Jewish People

is that all the children of school age receiv- Let us now see the form which the liquida- ed a Jewish education. Of these 29 schools, tion of the most ancient Jewish concentra- 16 belonged to the Community and provid- tions in exile is assuming. Here we shall ed education for 10,458 pupils, thus ensur- compare the number of Jews in Arab coun- ing Jewish education from communal tries in the year 1948 and in the year 1951, sources for almost 78% of all school chil- for the liquidation of entire Jewish con- dren. These schools were of three types: centrations in the Arab States commenced elementary, intermediate and high schools. with the establishment of the State of The Community maintained two secondary Israel. schools and two intermediate schools, while TABLE III the rest were elementary schools. The Baghdad Community also maintain- NUMBER OF JEWS IN ARAB COUNTRIES AT THE BEGINNING OF 1948 ed three vocational schools with 570 pupils. AND AT THE END OF 1951 It is of interest to add that one of the Com- munity's elementary schools had been in 1951 Country 1948 continuous existence ever since 1832, and absolute % of 1948 had 1,100 pupils in 1950. Another com- munal school was established in 1864, and 1. Iraq 130,000 8,000 6.1 2. Yemen & Aden 50,000 0.4 in 1950 had 988 pupils. A third school was 200 3. and opened in 1893, and in 1950 the number of Lebanon 15,000 8,000 53.3 pupils attending it amounted to 1,388. Most 4. Turkey in Asia 30,000 7,000 23.3 of the other schools were also by no means 5. Persia 100,000 75,000 75.0 new; a proof that the Jews of Baghdad 6. Libya 1 30,000 4,000 13.3 possessed the traditional concern for Jewish 7. Morocco 2 240,000 200,000 83.3 education. The situation in Baghdad very 8. Tunis 100,000 90,000 90.0 much resembled that in Poland during the 9. Algiers 140,000 130,000 92.8 seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when Total 835,000 522,200 62.5 the Jewish communities were the principal providers of Jewish education. 1 Including Tripoli and Cyrenaica. The Jews of Baghdad obviously cannot 2 Including Spanish Morocco and Tangiers. be regarded as typical of all other communi- ties in the Orient. It was, after all, one of Taking these nine countries together, the the richest. But the sacred injunction that number of Jews has been reduced by more "the study of outweighs all else" has than a third. If individual countries are been meticulously observed even in the most taken, however, the picture becomes more poverty-stricken Oriental communities. In clear. Three large Jewish concentrations, in the course of so long a period even the Iraq, Yemen and Aden, and Libya, amount- poorest communities acquired many institu- ing to 200,000 souls in all, have been almost tions and societies, in which great communal entirely liquidated. In all three of them to- energy and resources were invested. Even gether some 12,200 persons are left, and the the Alliance schools, in which about 50,000 departure from the two countries with the Jewish children still continue to be educated largest Jewish populations has not yet been in all Moslem countries, could not operate completed. In any case Jewish life is shrivel- without the help of the local communities. ling up in these three countries to such a

22 Jacob Lestschinsky : The Present State of the Jewish People degree (even in Iraq, where there are still persed and spread the Jewish people about 8,000 Jews who are quite wealthy) through scores of countries during the past that it is virtually at an end. The remaining century, making a breach in the walls of Jews in Libya wish to leave because they those East European centres which had pre- fear to remain alone with the Arabs in the viously served as centre both quantitatively now independent country. and qualitatively. On the other hand, migra- Other Jewish concentrations are also on tion created new mass centres of Jewish the waiting list. These are the Jews of life and national culture. This is particular- Persia, and large numbers of those in ly correct as regards aliya to the Land of Morocco, Tunis and Algiers. In all these Israel, whose primary purpose is the In- countries the political temperature has risen gathering of Exiles, in the double sense of so high that the Jews have lost their sense gathering not only the Jews materially, but of security. They know very well from their also the spirit of Israel. long experience that they are the first vie- (2) The great slaughter, which cost us tims in social or national disputes and more than a third of the nation, is what has struggles; and all the more so as in the three mechanically and drastically altered the countries last mentioned the Jewish situa- ratio of strength among the Jews. It almost tion has improved considerably thanks to removed the East European centre from the France, which for many decades past has map, and thus created a situation in which been the sole protector of Jewish life and the overwhelming majority of Jews are to property. be found in new and youthful communities, The balance sheet of European Jewry which are seeking ways and means of adapt- shows a sum total of destructive liquidation. ing Jewish national interest to their new In the Arab countries we are in the midst and widely different environments. The of a process in which liquidation will be slaughter also destroyed the source of spiri- redemptive. It is beyond any doubt that if tual force which had played a great and the economic situation in Israel were slight- decisive part in the struggle for national ly better than it is, this process would be continuity of those selfsame youthful cen- very much accelerated. tres. This destruction is particularly calami- tous with regard to the future of the State (c) Fundamental Factors Underlying of Israel; that old yet new Jewish centre Changes in Jewish Life which has the greatest and most justified Two basic factors have led to all these hopes not only of taking over the place and revolutionary changes in the life of the na- functions of the destroyed centre, but even tion, and hence in its future fate. of going far beyond it, qualitatively at (1) Migrations and most recently aliya to least. Israel. The stream of Jewish wanderers dur- Let us now consider the distribution of ing the past century has been on so large the Jewish people by continents, and we a scale and so widely influential in Jewish shall learn that the wanderer's staff has life, that it must be regarded as the most played the most decisive part in the absolute important and effective phenomenon in transformation of our people. (See page 24.) the development of Jewish life. Migration We shall first explain the general figures has been a two-sided and ambivalent for 1939 and 1951, which must necessarily process. On the one hand it has dis- arouse surprise. We know that in Europe we

23 Jacob Lestschinsky : The Present State of the Jewish People

TABLE IV DISTRIBUTION OF JEWS BY CONTINENTS

1900 1939 1951 Continent absolute % absolute % absolute %

Europe 8,900,000 80.9 9,500,000 57.8 2,700,000 23.8 America 1 1,200,000 10.9 5,250,000 31.9 6,000,000 52.9 Asia: Israel 35,000 0.3 480,000 2.9 1,400,000 12.3 Others 475,000 4.3 550,000 3.4 600,000 5.3 Africa 375,000 3.4 625,000 3.8 600,000 5.3 Australia 15,000 0.2 35,000 0.2 50,000 0.4

Total 11,000,000 100.0 16,440,000 100.0 11,350,000 100.0

1 The number of Jews on the American continent quoted here is far smaller than has usually been given hitherto. The reason is that Jewish statisticians question the usual figures cited, regarding the Jews of the United States, and propose a smaller estimate. If the number of Jews in the United States is less than has hitherto been supposed, it follows that the total number of Jews in the world is less. lost six millions; yet, if we compare the num- 11% of the entire people. There are now ber of Jews for 1951 with that for 1939, no fully six million Jews living there, five times more than 5,090,000 are missing. This can as many as half a century ago, and almost be accounted for by natural increase. Dur- 53% of all Jews. Here can be seen the fa- ing the interval of twelve years between the vourable aspect of the wanderer's staff. On two dates the natural increase among the the American continent we have one con- Jews of the North American continent centration of more than five million Jews, amounted to about 450,000, the average an- whose size is about that of Russian Jewry nual being some 37,500. Among the Jews at the turn of the century. Then comes of Asia and Africa, including Israel, natural Argentine with about 400,000 Jews; Canada increase in the same period amounted to with about 200,000 Jews; and Brazil with 340,000. Finally, the natural increase among about 120,000 Jews. An additional 150,000 the Jews of Europe from 1945 to the end Jews are found dispersed in eighteen other of 1951 amounted to about 120,000. Taken countries. together, these amount to 910,000 souls, We see that the communities of the reflecting the difference between the total American continent are quite young. If we loss of six millions and the actual figure take the year 1850, only fifty years before shown. the earliest date in our Table, we find that We have dealt above with the national the entire American continent had no more value of the remaining Jews of Europe. Let than 50,000 Jews. In the year 1880 only us now consider the new centres. First 275,000 Jews were to be found there. It is, comes the American continent which, at the therefore, clear that virtually the whole of commencement of the twentieth century, American Jewry is the outcome of the past had no more than 1,200,000 Jews in all, or few decades.

24 Jacob Lestschinsky : The Present State of the Jewish People

Even more youthful is the concentration most all the Jewish population on that con- within the State of Israel. During the past tinent consists of migrants. fifty years it has grown forty-fold. Propor- The situation in Africa is as follows : Of tionately speaking, this has been a jump the 600,000 Jews living there, about 110,000 from 0.3% to more than 12% of the entire are to be found in South Africa. These Jews people; and even in comparison to 1939, arrived there chiefly during the first three the increase is astounding. During the decades of the present century. The remain- twelve years in question the absolute num- der, almost 500,000, live in countries from ber of Jews has increased almost threefold, which a considerable proportion will ap- while the proportional increase within the parentiy be compelled to depart. These are : Jewish people is more than fourfold. Morocco, Algiers, Tunis and Egypt. Of the remaining 600,000 Jews on the We, therefore, reach the general conclu- Asian continent, 450,000 are to be found sion that we have scarcely one single large in Soviet territories. Half of these arrived Jewish centre left, which has a tradition there during the past twenty to thirty years, going back for centuries, and which genu- and the other half during the past inely believes that it can continue to dwell decade. tranquilly in its old home. During the past On all the rest of the Asian continent, in fifty years the Jewish people has been com- which there are two million Jews, no more pelled to move in a fashion which has than about 150,000 are left in their old and brought about a complete revolution in its traditional places of domicile. Yet since the fate and has compelled it to begin building Jews of Persia are already proceeeding en new nests throughout the world. masse to Israel, and constitute more than In this state of affairs certain resources half of the Jews of Asia excluding Israel and forces of the nation, material and and the Soviet territories, it is clear that al- spiritual alike, are bound to be lost.

25 Exodus from Russia—Return to Zion

Zalman Aranne

5 BSERVERS of Soviet Russia's cul- and a hundred million heads had fallen '; tural life have noted that there are the call "to Asia", aimed at expanding no complete editions of Dostoyev- Russia's political rule, developing it eco- O 1 sky's works published. Only selected works nomically, and bringing it closer to thai of his appear. It would, I believe, be com- religious Messianism born in Asia. pletely erroneous to consider this an acci- Russia, Dostoyevsky prophesied in 1857, dent. A number of the basic elements of would be mistress of the world within a Soviet Communism derive, to a greater or century. Alongside of that idea and all his less degree, from the legacy of that gloomy ideas, ran his hatred of the Jews. genius of vast Russia. Yet, on the other hand, there is much in that legacy which (b) reflects Dostoyevsky's spiritual struggles and Commenting on the mighty, historic events doubts and contradictions—all of them at- of the epoch described in War and Peace, titudes denied and forbidden by the Com- Tolstoy wrote: "When the apple is ripe munist Church. and falls from the tree, what is it that makes In the light of what we know about it fall? Is it the attraction of the earth? Soviet internal and external policies, it will Or has the apple's tip dried up, or has the not be uninteresting to go into some detail fruit become too heavy, or is it because the on the problems that run through Dosto- boy standing near the tree wants to eat it?" yevsky's work. The goal is the redemption This line of thought may be applied to of man. Does this end justify the means the world-shaking events of our day. The used to obtain it? Is freedom a misfortune Bund left the Russian Social-Democratic for man? Is he happier when he is not Convention in 1903 in protest against its allowed to be free ? Which is to be preferred failure to be recognized as having a special —religion or church? national-organizational character. Had the Then there is another complex of ideas : Bund not walked out then, Lenin and his despair over the West and hatred of it; partisans would not have had a majority; acceptance of "sword and blood" as the the Party would not have been dominated way to purge Europe of impurity; the by the Bolsheviki and the split in its ranks future free, Pan-Slavic union of Europe, all might perhaps have been avoided. The of which would adopt true, Eastern Chris- Party might have remained unified up to tianity "after rivers of blood had flowed the period of the 1917 Revolution and

26 Zalman Aranne : Exodus from Russia—Return to Zion democracy might therefore have prevailed in the unshaken importance of the nationalist revolutionary Russia. Had Russia been de- factor, with all its positive and negative mocratic, Fascism and Nazism might never aspects. have arisen, or at least might never have Let us survey these developments: received the international support given The wars of national liberation which them in order to utilize them as a barrier took place mainly during the period of the against the expansion of the Communist democratization and socialization of na- dictatorship and the Comintern. tionalism; Had the Party remained unified, the in- The First World War during which mil- ternational labour movement would not lions of workers of one group of nations have been split everywhere and might well worked behind the lines and fought at the have had the strength to stave off the front against millions of workers of another forces of Fascism and Nazism. The Second group of nations, all of them devoted to the World War might then never have broken victory of their respective nations; out; a third of the Jewish people would not The Second World War during which have been exterminated; the Cold War of millions of workers who had a short while these years and the preparations for a third before been members of the Social Demo- World War would not have cast their fear- cratic and Communist Parties, worked be- ful shadows upon the nations and, parti- hind the lines and fought at the front un- cularly, upon the Jewish people and above der the banner of Hitler, struggling against all the Jews of Soviet Russia. millions of workers of allied nations, as they had attacked and subjugated small ״c) states and as they later exterminated mil) Edward Hallett Carr in his book National- lions of Jews; ism and After, makes the point that the The liberation movement of the coloured period from the Napoleonic Wars to the races which embraces half of humanity, is last third of the nineteenth century was deeply imbued with militant nationalism characterized by the democratization of na- and encompasses the aspirations of peoples, tionalism. That was the period during workers, individual men; which the middle class emerged on the The Soviet Union's abandonment of stage of society, gained its rights and privi- cosmopolitan education during the Second leges in the State. World War and substitution of patriotic, The last three decades of the nineteenth national education in order to stimulate the century and the first half of the twentieth nation's fighting spirit; constitute the period of socialization of na- The persistence of this policy in post-war tionalism—a process which is still going on Russia where education with a "chosen and the duration of which is unpredictable. people" approach to the history, language, Within this period the working class and culture, science and art of Russia is in- its organizations appeared on the stage of tended to give the Russian people a sense society, emphasizing above all the interests of national superiority, elevating it above of the masses. The emergence of the Soviet the satellite countries and strengthening its Union is an extreme instance of this trend. powers of resistance in case of a Third Analysis of the decisive historic develop- World War; ments of the last 160 years makes manifest The anti-Semitism deeply rooted among

27 Zalman Aranne : Exodus from Russia—Return to Zion

great masses of the Soviet population ever fluences towards separatism among indivi- since the Revolution; duals and groups in every social organism— The attachment Soviet Jews feel to the in accordance, of course, with the special State of Israel, Jewish culture, Jews through- conditions, interests, aspirations and rela- out the world—despite twenty years of tions there prevailing. The same two in- compulsory isolation. stincts—for good or bad—intensify the se- These historic facts, representative of paratism of nations. It is they, in the final others unmentioned here, have destroyed analysis, which determine the relationship the validity of the orthodox Marxist ap- between majority and minority peoples and proach to nationalism and to the Jewish the results of that relationship, primarily question in particular. with regard to the minority people.

(d) (e) The political framework of a State hastens In his preface to Jacob Lestschinsky's book the process of a nation's crystallization: it on The Jews in Soviet Russia, Berl Katz- does not create the nation. The national nelson wrote : "This is one of the difficult development of the European peoples, for chapters in Jewish destiny during the last example, has gone on for close to a thou- generation—a sort of modern version of the sand years. It is only natural that the ten lost tribes. We know less about the sociological analysis of nationalism should Jews of the Soviet Union than about some be less and less dependent upon simple for- remote and obscure Jewish tribe—and not mulas. The national character of a people because we do not wish to know but be- is shaped over generations and centuries by cause we are not permitted to know. Rus- a multiplicity of factors, working jointly sian Jewry, once the source 01 vitality for and separately. These include geographic, all the rest of the Jewish people, has been climatic, geopolitical, economic, political, torn away from the main body. An im- social, biological and anthropological condi- penetrable wall surrounds it; it is sealed and tions, ways of living and concepts, religion shut within; it has been forcibly alienated and language, science and art, literature and from Jewry. He who wishes to learn to historic memories. In addition, there seems know its situation can find neither eye- to be a universal factor at work, deepening witness testimony nor written records." and sharpening the distinctiveness of na- Since these words were written, the num- tions. That is the basic factor of the human ber of Jews in the Soviet Union has de- spirit, with its strong instincts for self-pre- creased by more than a third, as a result of servation and for the assertion of superior- the Nazi extermination policy actively aid- ity- ed by sections of the Soviet population. The instinct for self-preservation is en- Forcible alienation from the rest of Jewry tirely positive; there are innumerable ex- has now been imposed upon the remnants amples of it in physical and material life of the Jews in all the countries of the Soviet- and in society and culture. The instinct for dominated Eastern Bloc. During the last the assertion of superiority repeatedly mani- year the Soviet Empire, with the Soviet fests itself, with both negative and positive Union at its head, began to ignite the flame effects, in the same spheres of human ex- of anti-Jewish and anti-Israel feeling. istence. Both these instincts are potent in- If we are to understand the present situa-

28 Zalman Aranne : Exodus from Russia—Return to Zion tion, it will be useful to survey the course and driving force. Territorial concentration of Soviet Jewish life from the beginning. of the Jews of the USSR proved impossible There is now more material available and and, in consequence, a national Jewish way Solomon Schwartz's important recent book of life could not develop. The Birobidjan on Jews in the Soviet Union supplements experiment was no exception to this rule : Lestschinsky's earlier work. Let us summa- even when Jewish colonization was at its rize the situation. height, Jews were never more than 25 per cent of the total population. In the course (f) of time, Birobidjan increasingly lost the The brief period of military Communism character of the independent Jewish terri- struck a fatal blow at the economic, cultural tory it had been supposed to be. and social-national existence of Soviet Rus- Organized Jewish community life in the sian Jewry. That was the period of anarchy, Soviet Union was liquidated many years civil war, pogroms by both the White Army prior to the Second World War. If the and the partisans. February Revolution had given fresh life The comparatively short period of the and hope to the free Jewish communities, N.E.P. revived Jewish small business and the October Revolution actually wrote their weakened Jewish craftsmen, cooperatives doom by 1919. From then on, even by the and the initial attempts at Jewish penetra- standards of Soviet democracy, there was tion into farming and factories. The termi- no longer any representative Jewish body. nation of the N.E.P. and the shock that Early in 1918 a commissariat for Jewish af- development caused in Russian Jewish life; fairs had been set up; its function was to the flight of Jews from the Soviet adminis- establish Jewish councils alongside of the tration as a result of the policy of "social- general local councils. By the end of 1918, izing nationalism" among the territorial however, the new-born Jewish councils were nations in the Soviet Union; economic re- liquidated. The importance of the commis- vival; the influence of the Zionist under- sariat for Jewish affairs steadily declined ground with its Labour Zionist parties and until it was abolished in 1924. In place of youth groups — all these influenced the Jewish councils, a "Yevsektsia" was set up Soviet authorities to embark upon programs at Communist Party headquarters and also for the agrarization and industrialization of at branch headquarters. The Yevsektsia's Soviet Jewry. purpose was to assist the authorities in put- The attempts to carry out this program ting an end to all pre-Soviet forms of Jewish began in 1924. Nationalist and assimila- community life and to serve as an adjunct tionist approaches were confusingly mingled to the G.P.O. in its struggle against the in the minds of its formulators. It cannot Zionist parties and their influence. Even- be doubted that, generally speaking, the tually, the Yevsektsia was to direct the pro- Soviet authorities at that time were in fa- ductivization of the Jews. vour of productivizing the Jews of the USSR. The Jewish Socialist parties had dissolved But their good intentions were frustrated and been broken up as early as 1921, but by the disintegration of the Jewish com- Zionism continued to live, despite govern- munity. Their activities were carried on mental decrees prohibiting the movement, without a genuinely nationalist basis and, the and immigration to as a result, without concentrated purpose . For almost a dozen years—from

29 Zalman Aranne : Exodus from Russia—Return to Zion

1918 to 1930—Zionist youth continued the Semitism was then growing increasingly struggle : working in underground condi- strong within the Soviet Union. tions, it managed to create the Zionist So- The fact that the Jews of the USSR cialist Party (ZS), the Zionist Socialist Youth were ignorant of the Nazi extermination Organization, the Hitachdut Party, two policy led to the failure of hundreds of groups of the Halutz movement, the "Sho- thousands of them to flee from the German mer Hatzair" in Soviet Russia, "Dror", etc. invaders while they still could. Their doom During the twenties these groups exerted was sealed. While the Nazis spread death great influence on the Jewish population. and destruction among Soviet Jews, anti- Thousands of these young Zionists were Semitism flared up in the Red Army and persecuted and arrested, scores of them died other sections of the population. Hitler's in- or were liquidated in prisons, political isola- vasion wiped out 1,300,000 Jews in the tion, or exile. Some thousands of them Soviet Union and put an end to the vestiges reached Palestine in various ways. In 1930 of Jewish communal life still existing in pre- the Zionist underground was finally van- war USSR. quished by government persecution. During Anti-Semitism among the masses did not the same year the Yevsektsia was dissolved die out with the end of the War. At the by decree. The great purge of the thirties same time, new international circumstances liquidated almost all the Jewish intelligent- brought about a change in the Jewish policy sia active in the legal Jewish communal of the Soviet Government. The establish- institutions—including persons formerly ac- ment of the State of Israel was the cause. tive in the Yevsektsia and the leaders of the True, the Zionist case had been supported Birobidjan colonization. A shattering blow by Russia at the United Nations for reasons was thus dealt to the poor remnants of Yid- connected with Russian foreign policy, quite dish culture, limited in both scope and con- as, for similar reasons, Czechoslovakia aided tents, which persisted in schools, newspapers, Israel by selling it arms during the War of books and the theatre. Liberation. The nationalist hopes of Soviet Accordingly, even before the outbreak of Jewry were roused by these developments, the Second World War, the Jews of the but the official Soviet reaction was not long Soviet Union had been scattered and de- in coming : the Jewish anti-Fascist Commit- nationalized—but not assimilated. The me- tee was liquidated, and so was Yiddish mories of their vital Jewish past were too culture as expressed in schools, periodicals, fresh to make assimilation possible, and the book publishing and the theatre. Jewish influence of the memories was reinforced by writers were arrested and disappeared; no factors in the non-Jewish environment more was heard of Government planning which propelled the Jews into isolation for the economic rehabilitation of Soviet rather than assimilation. Jewry; silence shrouded developments in Birobidjan which seemed no longer to be (g) considered an autonomous Jewish region; In 1933-1941, the years of the Nazi- Jews were increasingly removed from key Soviet Pact, the USSR imposed a blackout Government posts; propaganda against on news about Hitler's anti-Jewish policy. Zionism and the State of Israel became This was done for internal reasons as well as more intense. from considerations of foreign policy. Anti- As the only ethnic group in the

30 Zalman Aranne : Exodus from Russia—Return to Zion

Soviet Union without national status, culty of assimilation for Jews. The estab- the Jews became a sort of living corpse. lishment of the State of Israel simply in- Ilya Ehrenburg provided the funeral tensified Soviet Jewry's resistance to the shroud in his article late in 1948, attacking liquidation of its national existence and its the concept of Jewish national existence, longing for a revived national life. Zionism, immigration to Israel and the State of Israel itself. Ehrenburg proved to (h) be the herald of the official attitude ex- To avoid misunderstanding, it is only pressed in the Prague purge trial, the ac- fair to state here unequivocally that the cusations against the Russian Jewish doc- Jewish people has not forgotten and will tors and the diplomatic break with Israel. never forget the heroic struggle against The socialization of nationalism in the Nazi Germany waged (primarily for their Soviet Union expresses itself in the major- own survival) by the peoples of the Soviet ity people's assertion of its superiority over Union, shoulder to shoulder with Britain the satellite peoples dependent upon it and and the United States, fighting, too, the minority peoples living in their own primarily for themselves. lands within the Soviet Union. The innate, Furthermore, no matter how harsh our persistent anti-Semitism among the Soviet criticism of Soviet Government policy to- masses belongs to that same category. It ward the Jews was in the past, we never expresses the annoyance engendered by considered it to be determined by anti- contact with a minority so different from Semitism. It is to be assumed that the au- the majority in its roots and history, lan- thorities were concerned with improving guage and culture, religion and customs, the position of Soviet Jews, proceeding, of concepts and ties—its very being. At the course, on the basis of their belief in "equal- same time, this national minority conveni- ity and assimilation". However, since this ,belief was so clearly shown to be invalid ״ently provides a scapegoat for the priva tions and sacrifices that have been the lot the leadership of the USSR could not of the people of the Soviet Union for de- have remained unaware of that fact. cades. There has never been a lack of It is hardly credible that orthodox ad- plausible sounding causes for Soviet anti- herence to the original, fifty-year-old Bol- Semitism : whether the "original sin" of shevist concepts regarding nationalism gene- Jewish participation at the beginning of the rally and the Jewish question particularly, October Revolution, or the role of Jewish has been responsible for the USSR's Jew- Communists in opposition to Stalin, or the ish policy, in all its stages, including the last accusation that "Jews know how to take which aims to put an end to Jewish na- care of themselves in peace and war". tional consciousness. Fifty years ago Rus- In addition to these manifestations of sian Bolshevism was devoted implicitly to the majority's superiority, there is the offi- cosmopolitanism and the desire to make it cial ideological decision that no such entity a reality. The idea of national cultures was as a Jewish people exists. As a result, the considered reactionary, though the right of right to national life is systematically denied self-determination was conceded to the ter- Jews by the authorities. ritorial nationalities in the Russian Empire. The socialization of nationalism in the The existence of a Jewish people was USSR demonstrates the essential diffi- denied, and Zionism looked upon as a

31 Zalman Aranne : Exodus from Russia—Return to Zion bourgeois and, at the same time, Utopian This line of development in the Soviet's idea. Jewish policy leads us inevitably to the con- The general conception here outlined has elusion that the Government's constandy gone through a striking evolution within growing opposition to Jewish nationalism the half century. Soviet Communism now is not caused by the belief that the process recognizes nationalist liberation movements of Jewish assimilation will thus be quicken- of the colonial peoples, regardless of the ed, but rather by recognition of the impos- social character of their leadership—they sibility of destroying the unique, deep- are seen as preliminary steps towards so- rooted character of Jewish national feeling. cial revolution. Education in the USSR The Soviet authorities, it would seem, have now asserts the superiority of the Russian come to understand that the Jews of the people over the other nationalities of the USSR long for a national and cultural Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc. Poll- link—as well as the link of immigration— tically, economically and militarily, the with the Jewish communities on the other satellite countries are being subordinated to side of the Iron Curtain, and, in particular, the USSR. Anyone critical of this ap- with the State of Israel, which, as it hap- proach is condemned as either a "national- pens, depends so largely upon the support ist" or a "cosmopolitan"; he is an enemy of the Jews of America and of America it- of the Revolution and the Communist self, the potential foe of Soviet Russia. World. Depriving the territorial national- In the final analysis, the Soviet Union's ities within the USSR of the right to negative approach to its internal Jewish secede from it, amounts to depriving them problem stems from the nature of dictator- of their right to self-determination : to ex- ship, its desire and unlimited power to press such a thought would make one at level and eliminate anything exceptional. once a "nationalist", "chauvinist" or "cos- It stems, too, from the anomalous national mopolitan"—synonyms for the enemy of character of the extra-territorial Jewish the Revolution. National cultures are to be minority, and from the spiritual link—pro- taught within the territorial nationalities, duct of history and destiny—between Soviet along with Russian language and culture. Jewry and other Jews. That link, obviously, On the other hand, Russian Bolshevism's gives rise to governmental fear of Jewish orthodox assumptions regarding the Jewish disloyalty in time of international crisis. question have not changed; they have Our evaluation of this situation became merely been intensified and adapted to new crystallized at the beginning of 1952 : we circumstances. They include authoritative, were even then deeply concerned with what "encyclopedic" refusal to recognize the exis- the future held for the Jews of Soviet tence of the Jewish people; denial of pos- Russia. By the end of 1952 and the begin- sibilities for Jewish cultural development ning of 1953, a sharp and hostile turn in within the Soviet Union and liquidation of the Soviet attitude towards Jews, interna- any communal manifestation of Jewish na- tional Jewish organizations, Zionism and tional life; profound hostility to Zionism the State of Israel became all too clear to and a war of nerves against Israel.1 the entire world. The new turn was re- fleeted in the Prague trials, the Moscow ac- 1 Since the date of writing, Israel-Soviet dip- cusations, the diplomatic break with Israel; lomatic relations have been resumed. all of these were accompanied by a daily,

32 Zalman Aranne : Exodus from Russia—Return to Zion even hourly, anti-Jewish, anti-Zionist, anti- Accordingly, we must conclude that emi- Israel campaign, carried out by all the power- gration from Russia and return to Zion are ful official propaganda media at the com- the historic imperative of this period of mand of the Soviet Union and its satellites. Jewish history. We cannot delude ourselves. It is true that, following upon the death There are no common concepts of human- of Stalin, there has been some alleviation ism or democracy in the name of which of the situation through the dramatic with- we can appeal to the Soviet Union to "let drawal from the Moscow libels and the my people go". Nor have we the bargain- Soviet admission that the physicians' trial ing power or the might to exert pressure— was staged by saboteurs and inciters of in the twentieth century manner—upon the racial hatred. But neither this nor possible USSR. We can merely attempt to prove future steps of a similar nature can relieve to the Soviet Government that it is to its us of the fearful concern for the future of own interest to solve the Jewish question Soviet Jewry which weighs so heavily upon in a positive way, that is, by allowing emi- us. The false accusations levelled against the gration to Israel. physicians demonstrated what we had long With a view to this, we must bring the suspected: that the Jews of the Soviet demand for Jewish emigration from the Union are not the masters of their own fate; USSR to the fore in all the forums of the that they are, in fact, clay in the hands of Jewish people and in international forums rulers who mould them arbitrarily. as well. We must do so under all circum- This is a troubled and stormy time. No stances and in all the complex develop- one knows what may yet come about in the ments of this period, whether the Gold War Soviet regime; to what tests the world may quiets down or grows more intense, what- yet be put. We do know, however, that the ever the international, the Soviet and the factors responsible for the unique Jewish Jewish situation may be. problem in the USSR have not ceased Every generation in Jewish history is ir! to operate and to exert their influence. Nor duty bound to make its contribution to the is there any reason to expect any relaxation survival of the Jewish people. "Emigration within Russia of the stranglehold upon the from Russia—return to Zion"—is the task Jewish community. of our generation.

33 The Great American Experiment

Ira Eisenstein

EWS LIVING in the Diaspora have not of Israel. I say "complicated" because it yet grasped fully the meaning of the had already become complex and confused J revolution which has occurred in the due to the new status granted to Jews as life of the Jewish people during the last two citizens of the nations among whom they generations. During this period, they have dwelled. They had not succeeded in meet- been primarily concerned with the day-to- ing one challenge when another confronted day responsibilities thrust upon them by the them. For the first time in their long period tragedies which overtook their fellow Jews of galut, the Jews found themselves mem- in other lands. Indeed, from the time that bers of a group other than the Jewish. large masses of East European Jews began Wherever they had lived, they had always to pour into America, they have assumed been in the land but not of the land of their the burdens of relief, rescue, and rehabili- residence. As individuals they had had no tation. After the First World War, during status whatever. Only as members of the the rise of the Hitler regime, during the Jewish group had they any legal reality. Second World War, and during the fateful Now for the first time, their status did not years that followed, have depend upon their belonging to the Jewish continuously raised funds for their brothers people; as individual human beings alone and sisters overseas. And in order not to be they were entitled to all the "rights of man". distracted from this vital activity, they have Together with this new status as indi- turned their minds away from considera- viduals, they were exposed to new cultural tions of "ideology". Somehow, they have influences. The civilizations around them assumed that differences of opinion might became part of them; and they became part weaken the united front required of them of these civilizations. To such a degree were by emergencies. In addition, they must also they transformed into Germans, French and have been influenced by the American en- Americans that they identified themselves vironment, which discourages too much with the history, the literature and the tra- concern with issues that seem theoretic be- ditions of these nations, and found their cause they are not urgent. happiness in this identification. If anything, The time has certainly come, however, being a Jew now became a problem, a when they can no longer postpone tackling source of friction and maladjustment. Many the problem of Jewish life, as it has been Jews could not understand why there was complicated by the emergence of the State need any longer to remain Jews at all. To

34 Ira Eisenstein : The Great American Experiment be sure, there were those who clung to the each of these three characteristics of Juda- traditional view that, until the coming of ism as it might develop in a free society. the Messiah, they would be in galut, even Liberalism in religion has two meanings. though that galut might at times be less The first relates to the social structure in oppressive than at others. They continued which religion operates. This aspect of to believe that the Jews were God's chosen liberalism the Jews of the United States ex- people, that redemption would arise from perienced when they came into contact with a supernatural source, and that in the mean- American Protestantism. Jews of those time Jews were obliged to live up to the lands which never developed Christian laws and statutes of the Torah. liberal movements find it hard to under- But for many the emancipation from the stand how it is possible to maintain Jewish physical ghetto and from the spiritual state religion without a chief rabbinate, without characteristic of the ghetto was accompa- central authority. By the same token, many nied by an irresistible urge to be absorbed American Jews cannot understand how their into the nations of the West. When, how- ancestors ever managed to exist under the ever, the reaction occurred, and Jew-hatred, restraints, political and intellectual, of Eu- in its modern form, sought to drive the Jews ropean civilization. For in America, espe- back into their former position, many Jews cially during the first four decades of this lost hope in assimilation and decided that century, the "free church in a free society" the only salvation for the Jews was in the was the norm and the goal of the majority establishment of a modern, national state of Americans. The "free society" in which for the Jewish people. How right they were liberal religionists were to function meant about the prospects for a quick and pain- the society in which there was to be free less assimilation with the gentiles, subse- intercourse among all the citizens, freedom quent events proved with tragic emphasis. from legal restraints, freedom to reside any- But in the meantime, on the other side of where, to participate in any economic or the world, in the United States, a new ex- political activity regardless of race, religion periment was in progress which was not or previous nationality. sufficiently recognized, due to the pressure The second aspect of liberalism in re- of events in the Old World. A new con- ligion relates to the doctrines and the forms ception of democracy was being evolved on which religion takes. It emphasizes the need the soil of the new continent, in a nation, for, and the legitimacy of pluralism. Any "conceived in liberty and dedicated to the segment of a religious group is free, by proposition that all men are created liberal standards, to develop its own rituals equal". The alternatives before the European and teach its own interpretations of the Jew were rejected as false and misleading. tradition. Liberalism encourages individuals American Jews did not have to decide or groups of individuals to express in their among the three broad programs open to own characteristic manner, whatever God the Europeans, namely: orthodoxy, assimi- means to them. It is hospitable to change lation or resettlement. American Jews were and growth. The past functions no longer given the opportunity of choosing liberalism, as authority, but as guide; and from the integration and the democratization of Jew- past, the liberal feels free to choose those ish life. ideas, folkways or customs which meet his It is necessary to say a few words about needs best, and which seem most compatible

35 Ira Eisenstein : The Great American Experiment with his standards of truth, beauty and the land, trial and error led to the reten- goodness. tion of some forms and the rejection of The first aspect of liberalism offered the others. Mutual interaction with the larger opportunity for social and cultural integra- environment suggested fresh ideas, and fresh tion. The separatism so characteristic of approaches to old ideas. Naturally, in a Jewish group life in previous periods did large country, Jews were exposed to a large not give way easily, because so many leaders variety of influences, and it was inevitable feared the effects of social and cultural inter- that a broad diversity arose among Jews course with a non-Jewish, and particular- themselves as to how to express their Juda- ly an attractive non-Jewish civilization. On ism, both in content and in form. the other hand, the chance to participate in In response to this increasing diversity the culture of the non-Jewish world repre- within Jewish ranks arose the concept of sented for some the opportunity to "es- the democratic Jewish community. This cape" their Judaism altogether. But for community would be based upon voluntar- those who were attempting to find a new ism and pluralism. It would seek to serve way in a new world, the free society became those basic and valid needs which Jews ex- the vehicle for an unprecedented experi- perience as a result of being Jews, the need ment in living in two civilizations at the for status, for tradition, for education, same time. America offered the blessings mutual aid, common defence, for cultural of multiple cultures because American cul- enrichment, ethical guidance and religious ture itself was the product of many nations inspiration. It would recognize the right and many ethnic traditions. Its own nature of all to their own interpretations of Juda- compelled it to foster diversity. Unlike the ism; but it would seek to organize all Jews monolithic cultures of other lands, its cul- on the basis of their shared needs. The new ture made spiritual hyphenism possible; the Jewish community would conduct its affairs Irish-American, the German-American, the in the democratic spirit, delegating author- Jewish-American are all Americans in the ity to properly designated leaders, for spe- fullest sense of the term, integrated into the cific periods of time. Such a community political, economic and cultural life of the would have no official status in the political nation. But at the same time, each is him- framework of the United States. It would self an integrated personality, whole and involve no "ghettoization", that is, no terri- undivided, true to himself as a member of torial segregation, no privileges, no diminu- the group from which he came and to which tion of rights. he wishes to continue to belong in a rich One cannot foresee all the basic changes and creative sense. that are likely to emerge from this program The second aspect of liberalism offered of liberalism, integration and community the opportunity for religious growth and in the free society. It may involve, for some, development. The new conditions of life, a reconstruction of the entire conception of social and intellectual, called for new for- Judaism as it was handed down through mulations of religious concepts, and experi- the generations. In the first place, it is ar- ments in types of religious observance. Liv- gued, Jews should no longer consider them- ing in a free society, Jews were challenged selves the "chosen people" in the traditional to adapt their ideas and their mores to a sense of that phrase. Liberalism, some say, new dynamic civilization. In the spirit of renders obsolete the idea that God reveals

36 Ira Eisenstein : The Great American Experiment

Himself completely at any one time to any the hope of achieving it. For Ameri- one people. It implies that God's will must can democracy is by no means per- be progressively discovered through the in- feet, suffering as it does from the inner sights, experiences and reasoned intelligence contradictions of its own culture. Broadly of all peoples who seek the Truth. Even to speaking, it is a Christian culture. It is so suggest that the Jewish people is "chosen" referred to with forethought by those who in the sense that God imposed upon it are unfriendly to the Jews; it is thus re- greater responsibilities than those assumed ferred to unconsciously even by their by other peoples for the disaffections of friends. When a country is 97 per cent Chris- which they are guilty, is to violate the spirit tian, though legally no such denomination of liberalism. is recognized, it is as Christian as Egypt is Integration requires that the tradition of Moslem. separatism must be abandoned. The age- In addition, religion in a Protestant coun- long attitude toward the hukot ha-goy must try is generally conceived in rather narrow be surrendered. To be members of another terms. For the average Christian, religion group besides the Jewish demands that Jews consists of attending church on Sunday and leave behind them the notion that any one perhaps on one other occasion during the civilization is sufficient to endow people week. To belong to a religious group means with the necessary tolerance and breadth to have a particular conception of God, and of vision, especially in an age when na- to worship in accordance with a particular tionalism turns into chauvinism. The demo- form of ritual. In all other aspects of life, cratic community which Jews in America the Protestant Christian considers himself are hoping to establish calls for the recog- an American, and lives in the cultural pat- nition of diversity within Jewish religious tern of American civilization. While that life. The same concept of democracy which civilization has roots in the Christian tradi ׳•makes possible and desirable religious, folk tion, it has by this time developed a charac and ethnic differences within the larger ter of its own, unrelated to the religious community lies at the heart of those free- heritage. Religion is thus considered a "pri- doms which this generation needs for honest vate matter", and concerns itself largely fulfilment: freedom of speech, freedom with the way a man worships God. of religion, freedom of assembly. Never be- Many Protestant leaders have become dis- fore have religious Jews recognized versions satisfied with the way their religious life has of Judaism different from their own as been diluted. They recognize that, unless a legitimate. Only in a democratic Jewish religion functions as a total way of life, it community can multiple interpretations of loses its hold upon the people. They under- Jewish religion be given equal status. stand, too, that when adherence to a church An honest appraisal of the American is based upon a specialized ritual, the church scene would show that we ought not to is likely to fragmentize into many hundreds underestimate the obstacles in the path of of small cults and denominations. They look this experiment in democracy. Whatever with a certain amount of envy upon the may be the difficulties of reconstructing unity of the Catholic Church, and upon its Judaism from within, additional diffi- variegated program of activities. No phase culties will surely be encountered from of the life of the Catholic is untouched by the very environment which gives us the Church. Nevertheless, the Protestant

37 Ira Eisenstein : The Great American Experiment pattern predominates, although the Catho- struggle against totalitarianism abroad, the lies constitute a large segment of the popu- more does regimentation and all its atten- lation. dant evils encroach upon the freedom of Jews are naturally influenced by the pre- Americans to differ. Devoted democrats vailing modes of life, and for a long time, fear what our ancestor Jacob feared, when especially among the Reform Jews, Jewish he found himself confronted with the dan- religion was a matter of attending the ger of Esau, namely, that Jacob would have -Esau in self ׳Temple on . (In some places, the to resort to the tactics of day was changed to Sunday.) Even in mat- defence, and become like him. How long this ters of education, the Protestant model was crisis will continue, no one knows; nor can copied. The Sunday school, a typical pro- anyone say how strong will be the concerted duct of American life, was based essentially effort to preserve the right to be different. upon the Protestant Sunday school. To be But Jews who understand the role of liv- sure, there has been a growing interest in ing in two cultures recognize that insofar mid-week education on the part of many as they insist upon their Jewish identity Preform Temples in recent years, but one and their Jewish way of life, they are con- cannot be sure whether this awakening has tributing to the strength of democracy; they been due to the growing dissatisfaction with are not yielding to the pressures that com- one-day education, to the fact that these pel conformity and regimentation. They Temples have been attracting more and will be working side by side with the true more Jews with East European back- friends of freedom for whom the right to ground, or to the fact that the Protestants be different represents the life-blood of have recently expanded their educational democracy. program to include mid-week instruction If these Jews were the many, the problem and even all-day schools. would be simpler; unfortunately, they are In addition to the predominantly Chris- the few. The many are the indifferent and tian character of the country, there is the the ignorant; they are also, alas, the major obstacle of exaggerated nationalism. lovers of freedom who do not under- In times of international tension, particular- stand the relation between Jewish crea- ly, nationalist sentiment is stimulated, xeno- tive survival and the fate of democracy. phobia grows, and every effort is made to They are even the Zionists who sincerely unify the nation. Unpopular opinions are desire the full growth of Jewish civilization, frowned upon, and all manifestations of dif- but fail to see the connection between their ference in cultural pattern are regarded as shelilat ha-galut and their professed faith inimical to the best interests of the country. in freedom. In recent years, the United States has be- Since the Jews in America, in order to come more nationalistic, in this sense; and maintain a rich and rounded life as Jews, as a result, Jews have had an even stronger must conceive of their Judaism in the broad- impulse to conform to the patterns of the est terms, as a civilization, as the life of a majority than was the case formerly. The people, Israel has a significant contribution natural forces of assimilation have been re- to make toward this end. For Israel is the inforced by the deterioration in interna- living and growing embodiment of the idea tional relations. that the Jews are more than a denomina- Ironically, the more intense becomes the tion. Israel demonstrates that there is a

38 Ira Eisenstein : The Great American Experiment

Jewish people, with a history, a culture, a re- of Rabbinic literature which developed ligious tradition, and a vigorous body which in the . Dipping back into the houses its soul. After the emancipation of past of the Jewish people is bound to fortify the Jews in the various free nations, and the Jews' loyalty to Judaism, while at the before the establishment of the State of Is- same time bringing closer in collaborative rael, Jews were hard put to it to know just efforts the Jews of both Israel and the what they were : a religion, a race, a na- Diaspora. tion. Since the beginning of the new State, What will come, one may ask, of those it is possible to say: the Jews are a people; other great hopes which Zionists had during their core and centre, their focus lies in the the past fifty years? Ahad Ha'am thought Jewish community who reside in Israel; the land would serve as a beacon of civiliza- around this hub lies the Jewish people of tion, as a radiating centre for all the world's the many lands, living as Jews in the sense Jews. We must regretfully come to the con- that they are part of the fabric of the Jew- elusion that this was a naive and romantic ish people, attached to its centre by bonds notion. No single nation in these days can of love and responsibility, of common be the centre of the whole world's edifica- memories and common hopes, of common tion. Even powerful and resourceful America culture, and common destiny. cannot expect to export ideas the way it now This identification with the Jewish people exports machines. This does not mean that which the State makes not only possible but Torah will not come out of Zion; indeed, it dramatically real, can serve as an effective will. But just as Torah for many modern antidote to the influence of the prevailing people no longer means the fully authorita- Protestant conception of religion with which tive text containing all the answers, so any the Jews are so often identified by their Torah that emerges from Israel will be only neighbours and themselves. So long as the a contribution toward what must inevitably Jews have a spiritual homeland in Israel, be the cooperative enterprise of Man in his so long as the ties that bind them to their search for Truth. fellow Jews in Israel remain firm and con- Similarly, the ideas of the early Socialists vey messages of mutuality, they will experi- must now be seen for what they were: ence the sense of belonging to a people, and beautiful, naive, and immensely useful in not merely to a religious communion. their day. But when we look about us and What are the other contributions that Is- observe the real problems of import and rael can make to the life of American Jew- export, of currency, of investment, etc., we ry? In my opinion, for the foreseeable realize that no little country or big one can future, the major contribution will consist hope to usher in the perfect society. Econo- in the enrichment of our knowledge of the mic and social justice in any one land is Jewish past, and our deeper attachment to closely bound up with world markets and it. The return of millions to the land of the economic level of all the peoples of the their origin, to the source whence all sub- world. sequent Judaism flowed, revives the urge to The traditionalists had believed that in know more and more about the origins and Israel the ideal environment would be creat- the early chapters of the story of Israel. It ed for the observance of all the mitzvot. recreates a desire to understand better the Even they now realize that the observant inner meaning of the Bible and those phases Jew must struggle to make the land of

39 Ira Eisenstein : The Great American Experiment

Israel sensitive to tradition, as his brother in liberal religious polity without the struggle galut has to struggle to overcome the cen- that attended its birth elsewhere? trifugal forces of gentile surroundings. Final- From the point of view of content, con- ly, the Herzlian dream of a galuyot cepts and doctrines, interaction with Ameri- which would embrace all the Jews every- can thought will impress upon Israelis the where stands in need of modification, in the fact that religion can be a vital force in the light of what has been written above. lives of people without its being rooted in No one, therefore, can predict what will supernaturalism and authoritarianism. They be the spiritual output of Israel in the will come to understand that those who future. What is clear, and that alone is clear, reject the doctrine of torah min ha-shama- is that the existence of Israel itself will serve yim can still adhere to a profoundly signi- to render Jews everywhere conscious of the ficant faith. And they will learn that, unless fact that they are members of a people, with the traditionalists recognize such a faith as a glorious past which everyone acknow- legitimate, they will cause much internecine ledges, with an assured future, which every- strife, besides condemning thousands of one must soon or late acknowledge. their fellow-Jews to religionlessness. What contribution, aside from helping to This, then, is the American experiment, maintain the State of Israel, can American of living within America, in two cultures, Jewry make to Israel? As contact between and living in the world as peripheral arms Israel and America grows, more and more of a Jewish people whose centre is in Israel. Israelis will come to observe and to value Those who wish to try this experiment must the system of a "free religion in a free so- not be misjudged. They are not necessarily ciety". From the point of view of polity, in the category of those who prefer the they will have to come to understand that a fleshpots and rationalize their preferences in separation must be effected between this elaborate manner. Nor are they hypo- "church" and state. At the present time it crites in affirming their love for the Jewish may be hard for an Israeli to imagine an people while withholding their persons from Israel in which the political, cultural and the task of rebuilding the nation in Israel. educational life of the nation is not per- Undoubtedly, there are many American meated with traditional Jewish practices Jews in those categories. But there are grow- and sanctities. Yet, only two centuries ago, ing numbers whose decision to remain in most western nations were as Christian as America, while giving of their means and Israel is Jewish to-day. In the course of their energies to Israel, grows out of a deep time, religion and the state were separated; conviction that this experiment in multiple education was freed from sectarianism. To cultures, in liberal religion, and in demo- be sure, there were Kulturkampfs. Is it too cratic Jewish community life is, in its way, much to hope that Israel may learn from as important and as pregnant with implica- the experience of other nations and achieve tions as the Zionist movement itself.

40 Commentary on American Jewry

Eliezer Seligman

ANY indications point to the fact thodox, etc. Who could deny that this was that American Jewry is beginning important service to Israel? M to stand on its own feet. It is thus The tragedy in this style of life was that fair to ask on what ground it stands and it was a kind of living on the circumference which way it is going. —tending the periphery while the core be- It would be well to exalmine more closely came empty. The truth is that all this ac- why this "independence" in American Jew- tivity screened Zionists from facing the ish life has come about. The older ties to question as to what real issues of Jewish Israel that existed through the Zionist commitment existed in the United States. Movement have now been largely severed. Zionists were people who worked for some- Many Jews in the United States, including thing outside themselves in the hope of both Zionist functionaries and rank-and- thereby filling an inner void. It was indeed file laymen, were nourished vicariously on a strange though blissful phenomenon— the activities of the Zionist Movement. Being this living for a myth that prevented one a Zionist was a ready answer to questions from confronting reality. of Jewish identification—regarded as ipso Zionists never faced Jewish life in the י'facto evidence of profound identification United States on its own terms. "American and commitment to Jewish life. But the life was met by a number of platitudes. reality was that American Zionists were The following are representative: (a) The living a myth—sharing in an enterprise and State of Israel will give Jews more status a vision that satisfied emotional needs for in the United States; (b) it will bring a re- identification in the United States, while naissance of Jewish culture in America; suggesting a kind of olam haba in an Is- (c) it will serve as a model for Jewish de- raeli future they never fully intended to velopment in the United States; (d) it will experience. In a sense, American Zionists be a spiritual sanatorium for all Jewish did not have to go to Israel; they were maladies. Of such gauzy stuff were Ameri- already "there", in the "sacrifices" of fund- can Zionist dreams made. raising, political agitation and dispute. To-day it is all too apparent that the Zionist obligation was fulfilled in doing umbilical cord of Jewish-Israeli-Zionist battle with the real and imagined opposi- identification has been severed. Ironically, tion to Zionism—England, Stalinists, Assi- Israel is now independent and American milationists, Bundists, Yiddishists, the Or- Zionists are homeless. The first D.P.s of the

41 Eliezer Seligman : Commentary on American Jewry new State, American Zionists have dis- parochialism of Jewish life. The Zionist covered that, bereft of the buzz of activity, Movement, as a Jewish expression of ra- they have nothing to do, nowhere to go, tionalized enlightenment, opened windows and no one to fight. Everyone is now for to the world against which the images of Israel, and fund-raising on a mass basis only Jewish life, rich and meaningful though conceals the hunger of the givers. Zion- they were, appeared arrested by an un- ism was not meant to be a philosophy or yielding tie to the past. style of Jewish living outside of Israel, nor This impulse in Zionism has long since can it be. It is a type of Jewish identifica- become vitiated. It was lost or abandoned tion, never meant to be viable in itself, as Zionists outside Israel lost their charac- shorn of its rootedness to the idea of auto- ter in their obsession with the tasks of nomous place and community in Israel. building organizations, raising money and To be sure, Zionists can continue to temporizing with all elements of Jewry for speak about the importance of speaking their support. Zionist leadership in Israel Hebrew, of becoming more familiar with was in part to blame because, behind its the , about reconstructing stereotypes of galut, it never faced the fun- Jewish life in America. But that is only be- damental question that though Diaspora cause they do not know how to say any- may be testament to unfulfilled Zionist pro- thing else. Tragic lags in insight have many mise, it is still a vital hinterland to Israeli historical precedents, and each instance is achievement. There is little doubt that the no less poignant than the last. Many re- present aridity of Jewish life in America call the orthodox old radical who, when can be in part attributed to failures on the faced with repeated defeats of his radical part of both the domestic Zionist and the dream, explains each defeat as exceptional Israeli leadership. and goes on repeating the old verbiage. There is another reason for change—the What is more tragic, one sometimes really arrival at the mid-passage of American gets to believe one's own words. Zionists Jewish life. For a long time the Jew- have no feeling of galut, no sense of aliena- ish community in America lived spiritually tion—they are, in fact, having a wonder- on old cleavages and frictions. There was ful time in America, and there is no reason a vitality that was generated by the rhe- why they should not. torical wars of circa 1902 between Hebraists Zionism did once have sub-objectives re- and Yiddishists; Zionists and Socialists; Ter- lated to Jewish life outside Palestine. They ritorialists and Zionists; Communists and were not "goals" so much as by-products Social Democrats. My father told me of the of the goals toward Palestine. There was romantic days when a Jewish "Hyde Park" Gegenwartsarbeit. It consisted of the revolt existed on the West Side of Chicago—street and protest of Zionists not only against the corner meetings, endless debates, and heat- objective situation of the Jews, but also ed arguments. The vitriol and intensity of against the nature of the Jewish community the conflicts were in inverse relationship to itself. Zionism protested against clerical their importance. But the issues were "ideo- control, and undemocratic tendencies in logical". That meant people had to take Jewish life. Paradoxically, though a na- them seriously, even if the issues were not tionalist movement, Zionism was in the serious in themselves. Elan and flavour were forefront in breaking down the excessive added to Jewish community life. The

42 Eliezer Seligman : Commentary on American Jewry combatants did not destroy each other. Quite The middle class ethos is not only a the contrary, this was a war where all were powerful factor for Jewish assimilation in victors because the end result was an intensi- America. The standardization of a modern fication of Jewish identification. The dis- technological society, as Simmer pointed putes were nutriment to Jewish homes and out over half a century ago, is a strong as- families. To-day we witness the almost com- similator. The folkishness that was one of plete passage of the old cleavages. Every the rich assets in American life, is yielding day one sees another Bundist who was once to a levelled and levelling popular culture a detractor of Zionism, making his pilgri- which characterizes America in all its re- mage of repentance to Israel. Yiddishists join gions. In the face of such trends, few can hands with Hebraists in saying that neither resist. There was once a time, when the language has a future in the United States. folklore of the West was an indigenous Huddling together for warmth, they lament American expression. To-day, radio, movies the passing of other days. With the end of and television have commercialized folklore their disputes, a good deal of the vitality to the point where it is a manipulated pro- has gone out of Jewish community life. duct that is marketable. A third factor is the fact that the stream A highly socially mobile group such as of European immigration is over, and the the Jews1 will be more sensitive to such Jewish "community" of Europe is erased. powerful forces than other groups. The The ties of communication with the old striving to be like others in American so- country were more vital in the past half ciety only reinforces {he strong predisposi- century than the ties with Israel. The wel- tions of a group with a past history of re- fare of Central, East and West European jection, to work toward social acceptance. Jewry was always of great concern to Ameri- The strength of Jewish defence organiza- can Jews. Those ties are no more. tions symbolizes this fact more than any The most compelling factors, however, other facet of Jewish life in America. are those arising from trends in American Yet at least among some Jewish intellec- life as they are refracted in the Jewish tuals there exists the need to speak, the prism. The middle class ethos has been the need to say what one is. In this connec- most powerful determinant in shaping tion, the most interesting phenomenon 2 ir American Jewish life. That ethos consists the recent effort to define return to Jewish of strong beliefs in competitive material faith as ethics and as religious commitment. achievement, social acceptability at all costs, Why this form and mode of self-orientation, and strong mobility strivings, and these have and not another? eroded the core of the Jewish style of life. This neo-religious orientation is the trend A unique culture shared by a numerical of which Herberg is perhaps the most literate minority can maintain its vitality and in- tegrity only when the surrounding culture 1 See L. Warner, The Social Life of American is a milieu that fosters individuality. When Ethnic Groups. the strivings to achieve social acceptance 2 Another significant trend in this superficial are very powerful, however, cultural indi- treatment is the growth of the self-conscious, viduality must yield. The middle class out- politically orientated Jewish defence organiza- look over-values taking cues from others, tions—a trend that parallels similar phenomena and subordinates inner direction. among other ethnic groups in America.

43 Eliezer Seligman : Commentary on American Jewry spokesman. Apart from the intellectual fore, it is for Jews to become identified as orientation that it reflects, one must be re- religious. The fact that religious orthodoxy ligious to accept it. Herberg insists that, re- and conformity serve such purposes does gardless of the intrinsic merit of the posi- not impugn the validity of religious ortho- tion, its virtue is that it affords the only doxy for those who subscribe to it. Ideo- tenable position for Jews committed to Jew- logies are not accidental. They arise from ish survival. He contends that if Jews com- particular sets of social conditions, and they mit themselves to a kind of survivalism that serve the needs of social situations. expresses only the existence of some kind Another explanation may be found in the of community, there will be nothing left fact that, to define the American Jew, it is when Jewish customs and ceremonies and necessary that the Jew return to his un- folkways go the way of those of all other deniable roots of authenticity in Jewish re- immigrant groups. Unless Judaism means ligious life, and then work toward the pre- commitment to a set of beliefs ultimately sent. As this authenticity becomes subject rooted in a belief in God, it can only be to question, he must stake his claims on the tied to that which is temporal and passing. unchallengeable. But while this may serve That is the instrumental value of such theo- as an answer to the non-Jew, will it serve logical orientation. as an answer for the Jew himself? In another sense it has other instrumental This new religious orientation offers a values. Such orientation is far more con- key to the basic contrast in the pattern of genial to the non-Jewish community. Jews identification between Israel and the United in America have, for a long time, been States. In Israel the ideologies of orienta- passing as a religious community, when the tion are increasingly associated with place truth of the matter is that Jews are (in terms —the land of Israel, whereas in the United of their conduct) not a religious denomina- States suggestions are made toward identi- tion. To speak of Jews, Catholics, and Pro- fication with a non-time and place-bound testants as parallel religious groups is false. "faith".1 Jewish life is like that of other ethnic In sum, Jewish life is thus divided into groups (Irish, Italian), and is only in some a bi-polar world of two communities — aspects a "pure" religious affiliation such as the Israeli and the American. These two Protestantism or Catholicism. If one exa- communities are closed entities—qualita- mines the coverage of Jewish life in the tively different, confronting different types American weekly news magazines, one no- of problems, and answering them in different tices that Jewish events are carried under ways. Superficially, they share a common the heading of religious news. It seems formalistic outlook in their search for solu- clear that when Jewish life is presented in tions. I refer to the belief in the instrumen- religious terms, Jews appear to become more tal and intrinsic value of a pluralistic so- acceptable. ciety, composed of a number of different Finally, it should be stated that there is groups, each maintaining its own style of a general move toward orthodoxy and con- life, within the framework of a larger formity in American life. The image of the Jew has never been associated with the con- 1 This is a fundamental error, in that Jewish servative and conventional in Western so- ethics and values were never a thing apart from cieties. How much more convenient, there- the life of the Jewish community.

44 Eliezer Seligman : Commentary on American Jewry

consensus of nationality. American Jewish differences are understood. Alienation from ideologists have expoused the cause of cul- Jewish life in America is the product of tural pluralism, as a central value in demo- many things, not least, however, an exten- cracy most compatible with the maintenance sion of the breakdown that had already oc- of Jewish group identity and the tenets of curred among Eastern European Jews be- America. In Israel the same view is held fore they came to America. Jewish life in by some to indicate that a highly diversified America will live on its intellectual and community can exist without threatening religious freedom, high living standards, its an underlying social consensus. talented people, its freedom from ethno- The substance of the larger consensus in centrism. Israel will live on its contribu- Israel is a total Jewish community. In tions as a community, though it be diversi- America it is a larger community that is fied, and its paramount sense of autonomy not Jewish and that moves toward greater and security of place. Jews may choose one cultural assimilation of its components. In or the other. America does not lead to the Israel the distinct groups are apparent, in physical annihilation of Jewish life: Jewish America they are becoming less so. life will survive for the foreseeable future. In short, Israel and American Jewry are But those Jews who seek a thriving and two modes of living, and the concept of creative community life, will find in Israel galut loses its analytical value when these the response to their needs.

45 The Problem of the American Chalutz

Ben Halperin

HE problem of the American chalutz chalutziut as a difference of principle serious has become a cardinal question enough to warrant extreme measures, such T in the discussion of American Zion- as insisting that no UJA support be given ism since the establishment of the Jew- to the chalutz program. ish State. It was raised at once by The American Zionists consequently all who consider American Zionism from have had to regard chalutziut as an impor- the outside. Zionists in Israel declared that, tant problem, as a challenge to themselves. as there were no longer any bars to In the face of such unanimous agreement Jewish immigration to Israel, every Zionist by all others on its significance, the Ameri- faced the immediate challenge of coming can Zionists could not belittle its importance and building the Jewish homeland with his theoretically, however little they might be own hand and brain : every Zionist was inclined to do about it practically. For called upon to be a chalutz. They said there is no doubt that, in practice, the American Zionism must now prove itself American chalutz movement has grown more than a movement of philanthropy or and maintained itself largely as a spontane- a body of political sympathizers, by pro- ous, self-generated activity; the American ducing a large-scale migration of chalutzim Zionist organizations have not by far been from America to Israel. the driving force or inspiration behind it. On the other hand, the non-Zionists and But it is not merely the importance others anti-Zionists in America also raised the ascribe to it that has forced American Zion- issue of chalutziut as a major point in the ists to think and talk about chalutziut. Since discussion of American Zionism. For them, the establishment of the Jewish State, and, the notion that American Zionists were even before, since the British tried to freeze duty-bound to foster a movement of Ameri- Jewish development in Palestine by the can chalutzim to Israel was perhaps the White Paper, and in so doing forced the most important question of principle on issue of Zionism's ultimate objective, Ameri- which to debate the Zionists—for some, al- can Zionists, too, have been compelled to most the only clear issue. The rigid anti- define their position more sharply. The Zionists saw in chalutziut a concrete mani- more American Jewry as a whole was unit- festation of the much suspected dual loyal- ed in support of the struggle for the Jewish ties of the American Zionists; more mode- State, and later of the Jewish State itself, rate opponents regarded the issue of the more American Zionism had to make

46 Ben Halperin : The Problem of the American Chalutz clear to itself wherein it was different from is to preach this doctrine with sufficient the mass of non-Zionist sympathizers. It enthusiasm, and back it up with sufficient was not enough to say (as Zionists said funds and organizing personnel. when demanding a special "status5' and The American Zionists dissent vehement- recognition from the State of Israel) that ly from this view. They challenge those enrolled Zionists were a more reliable and who believe in this doctrine to be rigorously trustworthy support for Israel than the non- consistent and to advise American Jews to Zionist organizations and sympathizers. "denaturalize" themselves—refrain from Some differences in credo had to be cited. participating in American political, social, The specific differences available for the and intellectual life. They argue that Ameri- purpose were the Zionist belief that all can chalutziut must come from love of Is- Jewry must be a cultural unit in order to rael, not rejection of America, and further- survive (hence a commitment to teaching more, they argue, the Israelis forget that and learning Hebrew), and that Israel is the European chalutzim in their time were core and centre of all Jewry. From the motivated more by Judenwille than Juden- latter principle logically derives the duty not, and were "positively", not "negatively", of strengthening the core and centre by related to the Jewries they left behind. political and moral support, and, above all, From this point of view, the question, by chalutziut. how American Jewry can produce a large- Thus Israeli and American Zionists agree scale chalutz movement, is a question of the in considering chalutziut an essential prin- future: such a chalutz movement will be ciple which must be upheld in order to justi- the organic outgrowth of a program of fy American Zionism, and both feel that more intensive, basic Jewish education American Zionists must prove themselves which will yield in the next generation a by bringing about a far larger American higher proportion of informed and devoted chalutz movement than has heretofore Jews, and hence a larger number who will existed. But they differ sharply on almost aspire to chalutziut. Other American Zion- everything else about the chalutz movement ists, however, think that by new methods a and how it should be encouraged. Some larger, though by no means overwhelmingly Israelis believe they see the way to a great large, stream of young American volunteers American chalutz movement very clearly. for Israel can be produced at once. First, According to them, it is necessary to shock it is necessary to prevent Israeli emissaries American youth out of its complacency from preaching their "catastrophic" doc- and to inspire it with the example of Israeli trine to American youth, for this can only pioneering. More concretely: one should alienate them. Then one must utilize the preach to American Jewish youth the doc- Zionist sense of duty of American youth, trine that their future in America is one of and by offering suitable conditions in Is- anti-Semitism and of Jewish cultural sterili- rael, enlist their skills in the work of up- ty; while in Israel the future is one of free- building. dom of Jewish self-expression in forms of There is one thing on which virtually all social justice which are already an example Zionists, both American and Israeli, who for the rest of the world. All that is needed have discussed this question, are agreed: in order to build a large chalutz movement, what we have had so far in the way of an worthy of the five million American Jews, American chalutz movement is of no

47 Ben Halperin : The Problem of the American Chalutz consequence. It is not an achievement worth cond Aliya. He knows how few were the measuring against existing possibilities, nor Russian Jews of that time who parted from does it provide any experience worth learn- the general stream of emigration because ing from. It is perhaps natural for this view idealism led them to Palestine. He knows to be taken, in view of the fact that many from experience the psychology of the who are discussing American chalutziut to- volunteer chalutz in America as well, and day have given it very little attention in he is in the position to understand that only the past, the Israeli Zionists being occupied a very small group can be made up of those with far larger chalutz movements in other dominated completely by that psychology. countries, and the Americans never having But for Ben Gurion, the situation is one considered it a significant problem hitherto. of overpowering necessity, a necessity that My own reason for adding a few words to involves many a paradox; he is prepared in the above survey of the discussion is the Israel to use the period of compulsory mili- fact that I approach it precisely from the tary service as an opportunity for introduc- background of the American chalutz move- ing masses of young people to pioneer ment which antedates the current discus- tasks—settling them in frontier outposts as sion. I believe that the discussion cannot be farmers as well as soldiers, imposing on complete without some remarks from that them duties connected with absorbing and point of view. assimilating immigrants in the camps—even Most Israeli Zionists who are concerned though he knows that only spontaneous with the chalutz movement come from the self-dedication (inspired perhaps by the ex- background of the post-World War I Polish ample of older, self-dedicated chalutzim) or German movements where objective con- can really, permanently, make chalutzim of ditions produced sometimes, as if overnight, Israeli youth. He knows that the process of an organization of tens of thousands of becoming a chalutz is a purely individual chalutzim. They never knew, or have since and essentially unpredictable process of con- forgotten, the psychology of the chalutzim version. But he knows also that large num- who arose without the compulsions of a bers of chalutzim are needed in Israel to- Hitler or a Petlura. One who has had to day—and he is determined to use every in- head a large chalutz organization of tens or stitutional means, the pressure of defined hundreds of thousands must have seen how duties and the force of disciplinary mea- errors in organization or in the line of in- sures, to put large numbers of people in doctrination can have enormous ill con- positions where they are expected to act like sequences; thus he is naturally impressed chalutzim. Indeed, the whole population of with the enormous good consequences that Israel to-day is living under a regime which, can be expected from correct procedure in to a very large extent, is one of enforced organization and indoctrination. Such per- chalutziut. He hopes that under his re- sons can come to the delusive conclusion gime of service many will be converted to that organization and "correct" propaganda lives of spontaneous service. by themselves can produce a large-scale The question of the American chalutz is chalutz movement. necessarily viewed, both by American and Ben Gurion has the advantage over some Israeli Zionists, in the light of the magni- other Israelis interested in this discussion tude of Israel's present-day tasks. There that his own background is that of the Se- are in Israel to-day crying lacks of personnel

48 Ben Halperin : The Problem of the American Chalutz and particular skills—and, even more, sight can such mass methods even help for attitudes—which the immigrant mass dispose young people towards the self-dedi- cannot be expected to provide. With each cation of the chalutz, rather than the re- quota of unskilled and impecunious immi- verse. grants, the country requires a new quota, If we wish to avoid an atmosphere of not only of capital to supply and employ frustration and recrimination such as has them, but of technicians, educators and already begun to surround the question of frontiersmen to build the facilities, give the the American chalutz, we should keep a guidance, and establish the expanded area clear distinction in our minds between the of security necessary to absorb the added Zionist objectives which mass organization population in Israel. It is only in the can accomplish in Israel and what it can Western countries that Jews have been free accomplish in America. The institutions to learn the professions and skills that Israel available to Zionism in Israel can impose needs so desperately; and only in those on the population an austerity diet, forced countries are there Jews with more or less loans, military service combined with cha- the Western attitude and ideals which have lutz duties for a specified period; strong built the existing institutions of Israel, and pressures can be exerted upon some parts of which are still so foreign to many of the the population to live on the frontiers, be- immigrants. One can easily understand, come farmers, or establish such industries therefore, why Israeli Zionists speak of as the general economic plan of the country American chalutzim in such an urgent and requires. All this falls short of what is re- demanding tone, why American Zionists quired to convert even one man to the approach the question with a sense of un- calling of the chalutz, to permanent self- easy conscience, and why both alike tend dedication; but it is enough to make all to think of the problem almost exclusively Israelis in many phases of their life act more as a matter of social duty and organiza- or less as though they were chalutzim. And tional responsibility. still the true chalutz and spontaneous But it is important to understand also chalutziut are desperately sought after even that in this whole view there is a basic among Israelis. failure to take into account the psycho- In America, mass organization has sue- logical problem of the American chalutz. ceeded in getting large numbers of Jews to It cannot be stressed strongly enough that contribute substantially in one way or an- genuine chalutziut always arises as a pro- other to Israel's material development. With cess of conversion, out of an individual a more ardent spirit of "evangelism", no sense of calling. This is indispensable, even doubt, the contributions could be raised to where, as in Israel, governmental institu- the level of the short-term sacrifice, at least tions can be relied on—at least for such with some Americans, as was the case with temporary assignments as in army duty— the volunteers who went to fight in Israel's to direct individuals to frontier duties and War of Liberation. But there is no discipli- essential callings. Even there mass organiza- nary or organizational method available tions and duties enforced by disciplinary to cause young American Jews to devote methods cannot create the self-dedication their whole lives to Israel. For this there is of the chalutz; and only where they are only one effective method. The personal applied and tempered with educational in- conversion, the sense of calling of the

49 Ben Halperin : The Problem of the American Chalutz

chalutz, is, in one form or another, to a foundations for Jewish survival in America. greater or smaller degree, the only way in The "attraction" of the Israeli community which American Jews are brought to emi- is measured strictly in the light of the fac- grate to Israel. If that is so, their number tual community as it now exists, with its cannot but be small, and the true standard material deprivation and economic irra- for measuring them should be not the or- tionality, its confusion, inefficiency, unbear- ganized masses engaged in chalutz tasks un- able tension, cultural formlessness. A large der the Israel Ministry of Public Works, and well-financed organization produces only or in the army, or in the , deficits and ill-feeling, and intensified, more but the number of young Israelis for whom extensive Jewish education only helps bring chalutziut to-day is a personal calling. about a better accommodation and com- American Zionists, too, will have to begin, promise with the conditions and restrictions for their part, to conceive of American of Jewish life in America. If, on the other chalutzim not in terms of the needs of Is- hand, one can discover those who feel rael but of the psychology of young Ameri- sharply the inadequacy of American Jewish can Jews. No serious concern with the life, and who have identified Israel with problem of American chalutziut and its psy- their personal dream and ideal, Zionist chology can dispense with the experience duty merges with personal calling, and bet- of the already existing American chalutz ter organizational facilities are directly re- movement. Neither a sense of duty—with- fleeted in a larger and more successful out a sense of calling—nor a great organi- movement of chalutzim to Israel. zational machine, neither the attractions of The sense of inadequacy of American Israel as it exists to-day, nor any quasi- Jewish life need not be artificially synthe- rational doctrine of a dire Jewish fate in sized; it exists in a natural state almost any- America have been the basic forces moti- where one looks in the Jewish community. vating American chalutzim. Nor can we ex- This is not the place to expatiate on the pect more intensive and extensive Jewish compromises and fictional solutions of dif- education by itself to produce chalutzim. ficulties which American Jewish life imposes The essential psychological process which on religious and irreligious Jews, rabbis and produces chalutzim is a two-fold personal Hebrew teachers, children and parents. experience : first of all, a sharp sense of the Suffice it to say that this is a pervasive fea- inadequacy of the American Jewish com- ture of Jewish life in the Diaspora. But munity, and then the focusing of Israel as compromise, the relativizing of absolutes, the place where the individual is called to practicality circumventing principle, are the build an ideal Jewry and an ideal com- way in which all human life grows to munity. maturity, and only the exceptional human Without this central personal experience is unwilling or unable to put up with it. of the chalutz, the call of Zionist duty be- All children have to learn with great diffi- comes one among many calls and is granted culty to accommodate, hedge, and com- time and energy only out of one's surplus. promise; the more conscience-bound and The doctrine of American Jewry's necessary sensitive they are, the harder it is for them decline becomes only an irritating irrele- to learn. But rare indeed is the adult who vance, since even the "negators of the galut" grows to maturity and preserves in himself are earnestly engaged in building firmer the rebellion against this path of least

50 Ben Halperin : The Problem of the American Chalutz resistance. There are, however, cases where There are sufficient grounds in Jewish social institutions offer channels for self- tradition for focusing personal ideals of expression to these devotees of the absolute, Jewish life on the land of Israel, and it is or where the path of least resistance is still among the groups most accessible to the barred from frank and easy access by ideo- chalutz movement that Jewish tradition is logical controversy. The American Jewish most alive. But the great problem of chalutz community still focuses upon the whole education is precisely to merge the ideal process of its adjustment to America the Israel with the contemporary reality. A fading spotlight of debate; and debate, of raw acquaintance with Israel as it is to-day course, nurtures absolutes. This, and the in- will least of all be able to attract those who herent difficulty and paradoxical character fight against the compromises necessitated of the compromises that have to be made, by the ways and degree by which America keeps alive a certain recalcitrance against falls short of an ideal society, or American following the way of accommodation with Jewry of an ideal community. Only if con- completely appeased conscience. temporary Israel is seen through and ac- The chalutz movement offers, particularly cepted as a society in embryo and a com- to young Jews, but also to recalcitrant munity with potentialities for building to- adults, a potential alternative to the path ward the envisioned ideal, can the chalutz of least resistance. But the youngsters who movement hope to bring American Jews to come naturally within the orbit of these Israel and help them strike roots there. movements are the children of parents who Such then is the nuclear motivation of are themselves actively resisting the pres- the chalutz, and such is the central educa- sure of accommodation: orthodox Jews, tional problem of the chalutz movement, as devotees of secular Jewish culture, Hebrew reflected in the experience of the existing or Yiddish. They are necessarily few. chalutz organization.

51 Jewish Slavery and Emancipation

Isaiah Berlin

OME twenty years, or so, ago there ap- the part of those who once believed it, as peared, in a weekly periodical, an essay being treasonable and, moreover, wicked in Sby Sir Lewis Namier. It was concerned so far as it tends to spread false beliefs; and with the problem of the Jews of our time. again, by those who believe in the inner If I recollect it correctly, Professor Namier solidarity of races or communities as such, proceeded in a simile of characteristic pre- and view abandonment of them by their cision and brilliance to compare the effect members, on any ground, as a species of dis- of enlightenment upon the Jewish masses loyalty and desertion. Nevertheless, the in the last century with that of the sun phenomenon does occur: and if, under upon a glacier. The outer crust disappeared present-day conditions, it looked feasible on by evaporation; the heart of the glacier a mass scale, and not merely in the case of remained stiff and frozen; but a great por- a minute percentage of the Jewish people, tion of the mass melted into a turbulent it would perhaps not be as easy to argue flood of water which inundated the valleys against it as in fact it is. below, some of which flowed on in rivers It is as well to say at the outset that there and streams, while the rest collected into is no possible answer to, or argument stagnant pools; in either case the landscape against, those truly religious Jews to whom altered in a unique, and at times revolu- the preservation of Judaism as a faith is an tionary, fashion. The image was not merely absolute obligation to which everything, vivid but accurate, because such evapora- including life itself, must without hesitation tion does, of course, occur despite all be sacrificed, should such a choice ever be- denials; assimilation can sometimes be total. come inescapable. The position of all true In England alone the main branches of believers, since their position is in principle such families as the Ricardos, the Disraelis, not susceptible to any empirical argument the Levy-Lawsons, have entered the general from history or experience, nor to the claims texture of Gentile society and become di- of any form of happiness on earth, can for vorced from their origins in the minds both these reasons be made impregnable. But it of themselves and their neighbours. This is not so clear that those who believe in the phenomenon will be condemned by those preservation and transmission of "Jewish who believe the Jewish religion alone to be values" (which are usually something less the truth and, consequently, regard all than a complete religious faith, but rather forms of departure from it, particularly on an amalgam of attitudes, cultural outlook,

52 Isaiah Berlin : Jewish Slavery and. Emancipation racial memories and feelings, personal and has gone too far. The Jews have undergone social habits), are justified in assuming with- in a somewhat peculiar and abnormal fa- out question that this form of life is obvious- shion, and after a certain time-lag, an his- ly worth saving, even at the unbelievable torical process similar to that of other cost in blood and tears which has made the European nations. The European Jews were history of the Jews for two thousand years the last community to emerge from the a dreadful martyrology. Once the absolute- Middle Ages; the last to be carried into ness of the values of unreasoning faith is statehood by a national and cultural Risor- diluted into loyalty to traditional forms of gimento, which, mutatis mutandis (and life, even though it be sanctified by history there are fewer mutanda than is usually and the suffering and faith of heroes and supposed), resembles those of other late com- martyrs in every generation, alternative pos- ers—particularly the political resurrection sibilities can no longer be dismissed out of of the great historical partners of Israel in hand, if only because so much torment ac- the creation of Western civilization, the companies any choice. However, fortunately peoples of Greece and of Italy. The trans- for those to whom moral problems of this forming process, once it has begun, cannot type tend to be painful, the question in this be evaded: the ancient establishment where- case turns out to be merely academic. in the Jews were enabled, even after the Large-scale assimilation has not in modern Spanish expulsion, to lead a social and re- times—whatever may have occurred in ligious life which was completely sui generis earlier ages—proved to be a practicable —in Germany, in Italy, in Provence, and alternative. The German Jews who believed later in the Russian, Austro-Hungarian, and and practised it with the most sincere con- Turkish Empires—has collapsed. It was, at viction have suffered the most tragic fate of its height, one of the most complete and all. Evaporation, in Professor Namier's sense, powerful civilizations, albeit persecuted, in- occurs, indeed, but on too negligible a scale; sulated, and without influence outside the consequently the question of whether or not ghetto walls, that can be conceived. It total assimilation is permissible or dignified lingered into modern history, mainly within or justifiable, or in any respect desirable, is, the frontiers of the Russian Empire, and, for good or ill, irrelevant to the Jewish owing its strength to the suspicion and ac- problem. As a radical solution—that is, as an tive hostility of the government of that answer to the problems of more than a few Empire, caused the Russian Jews to become individuals in exceptional circumstances— a community within a community. Within it has failed. Nor is there any reason, if his- this framework despite appalling poverty, tory and sociology have any lessons to teach, the most violent political and economic dis- for thinking that it will ever succeed. crimination, and every form of material and But neither is there any "future" in the moral discouragement, the Jews developed life of the still frozen heart of the glacier. a rich and independent inner life of their However powerful the bonds of an ancient own, from which sprang those generously and rigid religion which permeates the endowed imaginative, free, unbroken Jewish whole of the individual's life and organizes personalities who, even to-day, compare so it into a unique discipline, the social disin- favourably with the better educated, but, at tegration of the old world which once made times, less spontaneous and morally and such a life possible for entire communities, aesthetically less attractive, Jews of the West.

53 Isaiah Berlin : Jewish Slavery and. Emancipation

Born and bred, as these latter were, in the with unheard of rapidity and success. And more tolerant, but also more ambivalent, yet it has all proved unavailing. They have atmosphere, where the Jews were half ac- throughout carried within them the uneasy cepted by their neighbours, and lacking the feeling that their stoical ancestors, locked protective influence of a social establishment nightly into their narrow and hideous of their own, they turned out to be, at ghettoes, were not merely more dignified, times, embarrassed, inadequate, and want- but more contented, than they; prouder, ing, a species of spiritual casualties, often better, more hated, perhaps, but less despis- gifted and interesting, subtle, sensitive, and ed by the outer world. And this uneasiness, exceptionally penetrating, but for some un- which rational argument failed to dispel, explained reason a source of disquiet and has troubled the Jews and troubled their malaise to themselves and others. For it is friends, and has infected all discussion of difficult to deny (even though it has been the subject, as if something lay concealed often denied) that the recent history of this which could not be mentioned in the course category of Jews—those who failed equally of it and yet was the centre of the entire to evaporate and to stay frozen—has been, problem. This queer status of the problem save in those peaceful communities in which itself—that its mere mention should tend to they have formed quiet and largely unnotic- cause suspicion and embarrassment—is a ed pools, one of anxiety and discomfort; fact which those interested in the Jewish sometimes, indeed, tempered by periods of destiny, Jews and Gentiles, friends and relative tranquillity in which it has seemed enemies, have, during the last hundred as if some stable condition might be achiev- years or so, tirelessly but not very success- ed at last; but succeeded inevitably by some fully sought to explain. Perhaps another cruel upheaval in which illusions were shat- simile may throw some light, if not upon tered, and the precarious search for security the solution, at any rate upon the nature, and happiness, even when there was little of the ancient Judenfrage itself. hope of stability, began again. In the course of their troubled and frus- (b) trated history during the last two centuries, The position of the Jews, so suddenly the Jews have created works of lasting liberated towards the end of the eighteenth genius in almost every sphere of life; Jews and the beginning of the nineteenth cen- have served the communities in which they turies, might be compared to that of travel- lived faithfully in many diverse capacities, lers who by some accident find themselves often more devotedly than the other natives among a tribe with whose customs they are of the lands in which they lived; they have not familiar. The reaction of the tribe to taken every conceivable step to adapt and the strangers is uncertain. It may or may adjust themselves consciously and uncon- not welcome them. It may kill them or ex- sciously to many societies and institutions; pel them or, alternatively, accept them, or they have with painful anxiety tried to even worship them. The first thing that the avoid causing irritation to their neighbours; strangers must do, if they are to survive at they have often hushed their voices to some- all, is to make themselves familiar with the thing below a whisper; they have imitated habits and modes of behaviour of the tribe. others with astonishing skill, and adopted The members of the tribe themselves do not the colouring of their environment at times need to do this; they live the life they live,

54 Isaiah Berlin : Jewish Slavery and. Emancipation they eat, drink, talk, sing, look for means at one with the native civilization; they feel not unjustifiably—that they are its best— ׳of subsistence, love and hate, without need ing to be aware of how these processes are friends, its champions and its prophets. In carried on, or what each next step will be. the end they are prepared not merely to The strangers, on the other hand, being live but to die for it and, if need be, with it, alien to this mode of life, find little they no less bravely, and perhaps with greater can take for granted; on the contrary, they passion, than the natives themselves. Never- find it necessary to do everything they can theless, the natives often fail to reciprocate to find out how their hosts "function". They these sentiments. They may wonder at, ad- must get this right, otherwise they may mire, sometimes be spellbound by the stran- easily find themselves in trouble. They must gers, grow fond, even very fond, of them; not miscalculate, or their survival is in but their feelings, however benevolent or jeopardy. Their principal purpose is to in- respectful or fascinated, are, at best, those vestigate and form a clear picture of how felt toward strangers—persons the very members of the tribe think and act; and quality of whose excellence goes with their then try to fit themselves into the tribal being in some sense different from, and form of life. Consequently, if the travellers outside, the tribal structure. The strangers are at all gifted, they presently become ex- are at first puzzled by this sense of distance, ceptionally knowledgeable about the life of and then become indignant and protest; the tribe. They come to know far more how can it be that they are treated as be- about its habits than the members of the ing in some sense alien, they who have tribe themselves know or need to know; for given their life and treasure and all their upon accurate knowledge of this kind the intellectual and moral energies to the wel- strangers5 freedom and happiness—their life fare at home and justification abroad of the itself—directly depends, whereas that of the native community—they who have done so tribe does not. So much labour and devo- much more than the natives themselves tion to the life and outlook of other people seem prepared to do? But then this is pre- must in time induce a natural affection for, cisely the reason for which they are felt to and devotion to, it—a sense of personal be outsiders—their understanding is too identification with, and dedication to, a sharp, their devotion too great, they are ex- subject which has absorbed all the time, perts on the tribe, not members of it. They gifts, energy, all the mental and emotional are its servants, perhaps its saviours, but resources of the researcher. The strangers they are not homogeneous with it. They become primary authorities on the natives; are altogether too anxious to please; indeed, they codify their language and their cus- too anxious to be whatever it is that they toms, they compose the tribe's dictionaries protest so much—and to all appearances so and encyclopaedias, they interpret the na- plausibly—that they surely are. One of the tive society to the outside world. With every factors which make them different is pre- year their knowledge and love of it, their cisely this excessive interest in the tribe and fascination with all that it is and does, be- its fortunes; and as an inevitable concomi- come greater. If their enterprise is success- tant of it their unique passion for getting ful, they feel that they understand the na- things right and for arriving at the truth. tives so profoundly, so much better than For without this they cannot function; they they understand themselves, that they feel cannot afford to look on the world with

55 Isaiah Berlin : Jewish Slavery and. Emancipation

uncritical eyes, and merely live and die, one illusion—that they are truly and fully suffer normal pains and enjoy normal plea- members of the tribe; for upon this their sures, like the natives; for not being auto- entire position and capacity for working for matically adjusted to the life of the native the tribe must necessarily rest. This is so, community, they must perpetually, and because their whole existence and all their particularly when some failure to connect values depend upon the assumption that with the natives occurs, examine and re- they can by conscious effort live the life of examine their situation, and in particular the natives, and acquire complete security their relationships with their neighbours; for through pursuing, if need be by means of unless they do this, they may commit blun- artificial techniques, those activities which ders, and fall foul of the tribe, and perish. the natives perform by nature and spon- This puts a premium no less strong, because taneously. This must not be questioned, only half conscious, on obtaining the correct since, unless it is true, the presence of the view of the facts, lack of which may prove strangers among the natives can never be fatal to them. Hence the strangers grow to wholly free from danger, and their enor- be peerless analysts of the social conditions mous sustained effort, culminating in the ac- of the tribe. During periods of boom they qsuisition of a special kind of intellectual describe the tribal successes accurately, and, and moral vision with which they have seen indeed, advertise them with pride and en- into the heart of the native system, might thusiasm and are correspondingly popular. turn out to derive from a gigantic delusion: But their sense of truth never abandons a delusion which has taken in them, per- them : they analyse slumps with equal fide- haps, but not the natives whose instincts lity and sharpness, and make themselves cor- continue to tell them that the strangers, who respondingly disliked. At such moments the by this time look like natives, speak like natives feel not so much that what they are them, even react like them, nevertheless lack being told is in itself unpalatable, although something, want of which prevents them it may well be so, but that those who say from being natives. What that something is it occupy some outside vantage point, and neither the natives nor the strangers can that the diagnosis is a little too objective precisely specify, the strangers being parti- and too cool, that those who pronounce it cularly skilled at refuting crude or malicious are in some sense foreign specialists, identi- native theories about what the impalpable fied with the fate of their client not "organi- something is. Nevertheless it is there—the cally", but by some fortuitous accident. difference—and the strangers' anxiety to Consequently, the tribe turns upon them, deny it merely attracts further attention to and pursues them with particular ferocity their un-native conduct: for the natives the more they speak, however true or valu- would never dedicate themselves to refuting able or important their words may be. The something alleged to be so patently false strangers, who are by this time so thorough- with so much fervour and such a wealth of ly identified in their own minds with the apparently unanswerable, yet, in the end, natives that these attacks seem to them gra- unconvincing argument. The more despe- tuitous as well as cruelly unjust, cannot as rately the strangers argue, the more vividly a rule understand what causes them; for their differences from the natives stand out; shrewd and self-critical as they may be in indeed, the anxiety to deny the difference other respects, they must harbour at least is itself a barrier to its disappearance. Other

56 Isaiah Berlin : Jewish Slavery and. Emancipation strangers—Normans among the Franks, derstand far less clearly than almost anyone Huguenots among the English, Gauls in else what it was that had struck them, and Asia Minor, have been content to recognize how it had come to do so. After all, they themselves for what others took them to pleaded, what poet was more German than be—strangers, believers in strange religions, Heine? What composer more German than followers of unfamiliar customs; and this Mendelssohn ? But then this is precisely the may have involved them in unpopularity or point. Goethe was a poet and wrote about even acute persecution; but there was no- nature or love or the human predicament, thing obscure or problematic about their and because he was a German the quality of identity or status; and they merged with the his genius was German, and he was a great surrounding population only when they lost German poet. Beethoven was a con poser, their special physical, or social, or spiritual and being a German, was a great German characteristics, by intermarriage or other composer, and in specific respects, differed, forms of social fusion. But the strangers we by possessing certain German attributes, speak of are unique in retaining their pecu- from French and Italian composers. But liar attributes, especially their religious Heine wrote for the most part not about views, while stoutly denying that these love and life directly, but principally about peculiarities are of crucial importance, or Germany, about what it was to be a Ger- relevant to their relationship to the society man and also not to be a German. Much of in which they dwell. This attitude rests on what he wrote was derived not from a first, an illusion which is nevertheless, for the but from a second, order of experience—he most part sincerely and honourably, accey t- saw himself as a German, as a Jew, as a ed as a reality by both sides, but which, poet, as an inhabitant of too many worlds, being half felt as delusive, communicates a and wrote with a particular kind of self- sense of desperate embarrassment to those consciousness alien to a normal member of who seek to examine it: as if a mystery a recognized community. There never was were being approached to the belief in the so consciously German a composer as Men- non-existence of which both sides are delssohn : he set himself to revive the na- pledged, yet the reality of which both at tional heritage contained in the Protestant least suspect. liturgy; he rediscovered and reinstated the great J. S. Bach; he wrote the Reformation (c) Symphony to the greater glory of his adopt- This is a parable of the fate of the Jews in ed Church; towards the end of his life he Europe and America. Perhaps the most had become a great neo-Lutheran musician vivid example of it is the fate of the German as neither Schumann, nor even Brahms, was Jews. In a sense no community ever sue- or could have been. Of Mendelssohn it could ceeded in identifying itself more closely with truly be said that he had done a great deal the nation in which it lived. When a Ger- for German music, and German culture; man Jew, shortly after Hitler's rise to power, but no one has ever felt inclined to say this declined to go to France, saying, "I cannot of Mozart or of Schubert: they were merely go to the country of our enemies", the pathos composers of genius and also Germans (or of the situation which this underlined could Austrians)—they did nothing "for" German not, perhaps, be paralleled in any other (or Austrian) music : they only wrote it. country. Some German Jews seemed to un- Traditional German music was an ideal to

57 Isaiah Berlin : Jewish Slavery and. Emancipation

Mendelssohn as the British Empire was to qualification. To say, as some do, that inter- Disraeli; he believed in it more passionately pretation is itself a kind of creation—that than the average German artist. Such pas- journalists or violinists or translators of sion surely often derives from a feeling of genius are fully creative is, of course, true, insufficient kinship and a desire to obliterate but as a comment on the original thesis it the gap; the more obstinate the gap, the is a sophistry. The difference between prop- more violent the desire to close it, or to act erly creative and properly interpretative as if it did not exist. And this strikes an activities is something which is familiar to unnatural note, audible to all but the everyone—although insistence upon draw- stranger himself—whether he be a Jew or ing a precise frontier between the two pro- some other kind of half-assimilated foreigner, vinces would doubtless lead to foolishly whose very devotion to his second home, pedantic and unplausible conclusions. There whose very passion for a second nature, is surely a clear sense in which Tolstoy or causes the false note to sound. But second Bach were primarily creative artists—and nature is different from nature and the for that matter Ibn Gabirol or the authors desperate self-identification of the Jew does of the Psalms, too—and in which such men not ring wholly true. When Walter Rathe- of unique gifts as Paganini or Sainte-Beuve nau wrote somewhere in his diary that the were not. Such descriptive terms as "crea- German Jews were to him but another Ger- tive" or "interpretative" are not judgements man tribe, more remote than the Prussians of value; they are merely categories of classi- and much closer than the Swabians (or fication, although, at times, vague or un- something of this kind), he was doing some- satisfactory ones. If we allow such classi- thing which no sensitive person—particular- fication at all, it becomes fairly clear that ly if he is a German—can read without em- in the province of the humanities the Jews, barrassment. And when he was killed by the for whatever reasons, have made their deep- kind of young German nationalist whom, est mark as interpreters and not as creators. in some moods, he seemed to admire most, This is conspicuously not so in the region of his assassination was doubtless a great crime mathematics and natural sciences. Here the and a tragedy for his country, but it had a Jews have contributed men of genius as dreadful pathos about it, too—since it was great and as numerous as any people (the something which Rathenau himself was all list has in recent times been reiterated with his life too blind, or too self-blinded, to a pathetic frequency and need not be re- allow even to be possible. If he had con- cited again). The reason for this is not far ceived its possibility, his life and attitude to seek. If we may be allowed to revert to would have been very different; possibly he our simile: the Jews, like the strangers might have escaped assassination: or, at seeking to lose themselves in the strange the very worst, he would have fallen as a tribe, find themselves compelled to devote martyr to a clearly pursued cause, and not all their energies and talents to the task of as a sad victim to his own delusions. understanding and adaptation upon which their lives depend at every step. Hence the (d) fantastic over-development of their faculties It has often been remarked that the Jews for detecting trends, and discriminating the are better interpreters than creators; and shades and hues of changing individual and this contains some truth but needs radical social situations, often before they have been

58 Isaiah Berlin : Jewish Slavery and. Emancipation

noticed anywhere else. Hence, too, their thing self-conscious and palpably imitative celebrated critical acumen, their astonish- about direct ventures on the part of Jews ingly sharp eye for the analysis of the past, into art or imaginative literature. There is the present and sometimes the future also— no need to subscribe to racist or other re- in short, their well-known genius for obser- pulsive brands of dangerous nonsense in vation and classification, and explanation— order to hold that art and literature are above all for reportage in its sharpest and inevitably rooted in the traditional experi- finest forms. What one has discovered for ence of the social unit to which the artist oneself one often loves beyond its deserts— belongs; for it is true (even though this one tends to exaggerate its merits or im- truth has been too violently exaggerated portance. So we find Jews prone to a pecu- by nationalists and other extremists in re- liar kind of worship of the heroes or insti- cent years to be as obvious as it should be) tutions of the nations among which they that the language, or musical forms, or the live. We find Stahl and Friedjung among colours and shapes in terms of which he ex- the prophets of German nationalism, Dis- presses himself are the product not merely raeli as the inventor of the mystique of of his own individual, but of a wider social British imperialism, and Messrs. Ludwig, tradition, of which he himself is largely Guedalla, Maurois, as the best-known popu- unconscious, and which alone puts him in lar biographers—and hero-worshippers—of harmony and gives him the possibility of our time—court painters with a capacity for instinctive communication with those to romanticizing their subjects, for seeing them whom he speaks. But here the Jews start, as with bemused eyes, perceiving in them much it were, below scratch. They must spend that natures less hungry for a happier, more much preliminary effort and ability on brightly coloured world, would, perhaps,pro- merely adapting themselves to a medium in nounce non-existent. There is no need to ap- which their neighbours move naturally and peal to abstruse or dubious psychological without effort. It is, therefore, not surprising techniques to realize how much yearning if, after so much expenditure of their emo- for what the world has denied the author tional and intellectual substance on the pro- there is in Ludwig's portrait of Goethe, cess of self-adjustment—on trying, as it or Guedalla's (for all his wit and apparent were, to become "naturalized"—there is sophistication) naively romantic visions of often not enough left for a genuinely strong, Wellington or Palmerston, or Maurois's al- free, original creative effort. The process of most painfully self-revealing study of Dis- learning how to make use of a medium less raeli (and one might add the exquisitely or more alien is necessarily self-critical, full elegant and flattering portrait of Catholic of conscious awareness of one's relationship ideals in the work of Bergson's later years). to this or that standard, this or that artist In a sense this is the modern equivalent of or school of thought. The music of Meyer- the knowledge, devotion and imagination beer or Mahler (as of the non-Jewish, but which Jewish physicians or financiers offer- equally "assimilated" half-German, half- ed to their patrons in the Middle Ages, for Italian Busoni) is, at its best, abnormally full which, when all went well, they were re- of memories of other music, and is adulte- warded with kind treatment and vouch- rated by much that is non-musical, extrane- safed glimpses of a more glorious world. ous, and highly self-conscious; and the same For this reason there is at times some- holds of the novels of such very diverse

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writers as Auerbach and Disraeli, Wasser- cultural conditions similar to those of other mann and Schnitzler—to mention only the nations—and is much the strongest of all genuinely good. In the case of the in- arguments for that "normalization" which ferior novelists and poets and composers this has always been the whole, or nearly the is even more obviously true. whole, case for Zionism. It is not the possession of natural gifts, or of integrity, or of opportunity that is (e) lacking, but of an environment in which Persons, like things, as a rule, are what these capacities and energies need not be those who deal with them take them to be, half used up in the process of establishing and not necessarily what they think them- foundations upon which an artistic edifice selves to be. A table is what most people can be built—foundations which the non- would treat as being a table; we do not Jews find ready made, since they are the know what the table would say if it could basis upon which their normal lives are speak; if it told us that in its own view it lived. And it is interesting that, while this was not a table, we should not, in spite of holds good of the arts and humane activities this, cease to think it to be a table. This generally, where words and symbols which holds no less of persons. After telling them- are the fruit of the unconscious growth of selves for half a century that they were per- traditions are vehicles of expression, it does fectly normal Germans in Germany, French- not apply nearly so much to the sciences. men in France, Peruvians in Peru, the Jews There the vehicle—the symbols—are, in of the Western world, in the end, could not any case, something artificial, made to order altogether ignore the view that they were by experts and intended to be neutral and not altogether as others were, a view only international. In the humane arts the rich too obviously held with remorseless persis- associative quality of a symbol is indispens- tency by some of their neighbours, during, able; almost everything depends upon the at any rate, some of the time. The view was interplay of such non-artificially made sometimes described as anti-Semitism, some- nuances. In the sciences and mathematics times as ignorance, sometimes as an illusion this is merely an obstacle to clarity and pre- spread by wilful obscurantists or chauvinists cision, and is ruthlessly and rightly eliminat- among the Jews themselves. But the problem ed. In a world of abstract symbols, divorced which could be treated by the optimists of from national cultures and times and places, the nineteenth century as unreal, or in pro- the Jewish genius finds full freedom, and, cess of liquidation, became recognized as consequently, is capable of magnificent crea- something genuine in the most assimila- tive achievement. Here Jews start not be- tionist Jewish circles of our own time, and low scratch, but at the same level as others, led to various equally peculiar psychologi- and their intellectual and imaginative quali- cal consequences. If we may be allowed to ties, trained by the centuries of solitary con- employ yet another analogy, the situation finement during which they were turned in grew to be somewhat as follows. Jews in upon themselves, have produced prodigious such circles acted like a species of deformed results. Here Jews are no longer interpreters, human beings, let us say hunchbacks, and explainers, translators, but independent could be distinguished into three types ac- creators in their own right. This is but an cording to the attitudes they adopted to- earnest of what the Jews could create in wards their humps. The first class consisted

60 Isaiah Berlin : Jewish Slavery and. Emancipation of those who maintained that they had no The second attitude was the opposite to hump. If challenged, they were prepared to this. The hunchback did not conceal the produce a document signed and counter- fact that he wore a hump, and declared signed by all the nations, in particular by openly that he was happy to do so, that to their most enlightened leaders, solemnly own a hump was a privilege and an honour, declaring that the bearers were normal, full- that it set him apart as a member of a su- grown persons, with no marks to distinguish perior group, and that those who persecuted them from other healthy human beings, and and threw stones at him did so out of con- that to think otherwise was an offence cealed envy—a conscious or subconscious against international morality. If, neverthe- jealousy of so rare a possession, and one less, someone persisted in staring at their which could not be acquired at will. These backs, the hunchbacks maintained that this persons said in effect, "I am not ashamed was due either to an optical illusion, or to a of being a hunchback; very far from it; violent form of prejudice dating from a pe- certainly I am a hunchback, and proud of riod when they were thought, however mis- it." takenly, to have humps, or perhaps to a re- The third type consisted of those timid mote time when there were in fact hunch- and respectful cripples who found that, by backs in the world, although these were now never mentioning humps at all, and by extinct. At times they were sure that they inducing others to regard the very use of observed furtive glances thrown at that por- the term as virtually implying an unworthy tion of their backs where they maintained discrimination, or, at the very best, lack of no hump was discernible, even when, in taste, they could reduce discussion of the fact, no one was looking at them. When topic to manageable and ever-diminishing they did not actually produce international dimensions, and move among the straight- certificates of humplessness, they quoted en- backed with almost no sense of embarrass- lightened nineteenth-century liberal intel- ment at any rate to themselves. They tend- lectuals, or learned anthropologists, or so- ed to wear voluminous cloaks which con- cialist theorists and the like, who explained cealed their precise contours. Among them- that the very notion of hunchbacks was due selves they did occasionally mention the for- to a confusion, since no such beings existed, bidden topic, and even recommended to one or if they did, had disappeared a long time another various kinds of ointment, which, it ago, or was, even if the creatures existed, was rumoured, if rubbed in nightly, and not relevant to any possible inquiry.1 for many hundreds of years, would very ׳—gradually lessen the size of the hump or 11 This was the attitude of those who, like the who knows?—might even remove it al- well-meaning (Gentile) Social Democrat Karl together. Cases of complete disappearance Kautsky, wrote books to prove that, in terms of were not altogether unknown, particularly current criteria of what constituted a race or na- in remote places or the very distant past. tion, the Jews could not be described as constitut- There was hope for everyone, provided as ing one; or like the Rabbis who declared Judaism little as possible was said, and the ointment to be only a religion; or only a system of ethics, used regularly and assiduously. or an outlook, or a memory. If any of these pro- positions had been true, they would have been These were for a long time the three too obvious to need proof. It is not necessary to principal categories of "assimilated" Jews prove that the Methodists are not a race. enjoying varying degrees of discomfort

61 Isaiah Berlin : Jewish Slavery and. Emancipation

about the abnormality of their status. Each new solutions, and sharp new contro- category regarded the members of the other versies. two with some disfavour as pursuing an ab- (f) surdly mistaken policy and therefore liable Mr. Arthur Koestler has formulated one of to compromise the wise together with the these new issues with great effectiveness. In foolish. But presently there came those who the old days, the Jews prayed thrice daily said that a hump was a hump, an appen- to be restored to Zion. Material obstacles dage which was neither desirable nor capable made it impossible for them to achieve this. of being disguised, nor yet of being slowly Circumstances have now changed, and a diminished by application of mild pallia- great many of those who wish to do so can tives, and, in the meanwhile, a cause of at least initiate steps which will take them grave distress to those afflicted with it. They to Israel in the end, or, at any rate, will recommended—and this was considered convert them in due course into being citi- audacious to the point of lunacy—that it be zens of that country resident abroad. Is it, cut off by means of a surgical operation. therefore, not mere hypocrisy to continue to This, like all operations, admittedly involv- utter such prayers while taking no action ed a grave risk to the life of the patient; it appropriate to the end prayed for? Those might lead to disorders in other parts of the who wish, politically speaking, to be Jews body; it might have unexpected psychical and nothing but Jews can, and therefore results; but if successful, it would remove should, do so by identifying themselves the hump. Perhaps a hump was not the thoroughly with the State of Israel. Those worst of evils; and the operation was cer- who do not wish to emigrate, or apply for tainly both costly and dangerous. But if Israeli citizenship, should face the fact that what was desired above all things was the they do not in fact wish to be Jews in the removal of humps on a mass scale—if, in full sense, and should choose some other short, anything was preferable to a hump— nationality. Having decided, let us say, that then there was nothing for it—only an they would rather be Englishmen or Ameri- operation of this kind would secure adequate cans than Israelis, they must cease to irri- results. This, in fact, is what the Zionist tate their neighbours by a self-imposed ex- solution—in its full political form—advocat- clusiveness, cease to oppose mixed marriages ed. Its triumph consists in the fact—and of their sons and daughters, cease to con- I believe it to be a fact—that the Jews of gregate in spiritual and even topographical Israel, certainly those born there in recent ghettoes round specifically Jewish institu- times, are, whatever their other qualities tions, or cling to the use of Yiddish or other and defects, straight-backed. Whatever the Jewish languages, and generally take vigor- present and future effects of this operation ous steps to immerse themselves completely upon Jews or Gentiles, the three earlier at- (and not, as before, with reservations) in titudes have become historically discredited the general life around them. This policy of by the emergence of the State of Israel. This "the liquidation of the Diaspora" is in effect astonishing event has transformed the situa- an invitation to the voluntary suicide of the tion of the Jews beyond recognition, and galut as a specifically Jewish establishment. made all previous theories and activities From the other shore, the champions of the which flowed from it obsolete : not without absolute primacy of Israel in Jewish life leading in its own turn to new problems, have arrived at conclusions not dissimilar to

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Mr. Koestler's. The future of the Jews lies am told that above all things I must never in the State of Israel, and there alone. The think of one, I find that I can think of little value of the Diaspora, therefore, consists else. Told to lose or forget their distinguish- solely in the amount of support which they ing characteristics, some Jews will try to do can offer to the new State still faced with so desperately, but the more desperate their many perils: so long as the Jewish com- efforts the more unsuccessful they are and munities outside Israel can serve to support the more conspicuous this makes them. As- it, they have a raison d'etre; as soon as they sociations of Jews for the purpose of pro- cease doing so, whether because they are moting assimilation resemble nothing so unwilling or unable to help, or because their much as public meetings of persons assem- help is no longer needed, this raison d'etre bled to protest against the dangerous practice disappears and they are of no further signi- of holding public meetings. Hence, the self- ficance to the destiny of the Jews as such— defeating nature of such policies, and the and might as well vanish peacefully by mass grotesque and pitiful human casualties by emigration to Israel, liquidating the Jewish which they have been attended. The prob- problems of which they are the focus and lem of the Jews was not individual but com- which will automatically disappear with munal: individual Jews might disappear or them. The difference between the two views establish themselves comfortably somewhere; seems to consist in this. Mr. Koestler wishes communities could not do this of their own the Diaspora to set about liquidating itself will. Literal mass suicide was not feasible as at once; the ultra-nationalists wish to pre- mass murder was, for example, where force serve it in being so long as it plays the role was employed, as it was by the Inquisition of a much-needed milch-cow; its "liquida- in Spain, which probably did effect the per- tion" must be postponed until this function manent baptism of many Jews who pre« is no longer crucial, but, sooner or later, ferred it to exile. But even there generations must occur. had to pass before Jewish memories died; Before pointing out the defects of this some Marranos returned to the faith of very clear-cut thesis, it is perhaps as well to their fathers; and no Jewish community concede the large amount of truth which gave in wholly: everywhere there was a toll it embodies. The creation of the State of of martyrs and exiles. Driven from one Israel has genuinely transformed the in- country the expelled wandered to another, dividual problem of the Jews of the Disper- with no real hope of finding a permanent sion. The old problem was national in type. home. This very sense of insecurity—both The Jews were regarded as something of an inability to assimilate at will, and the embarrassment everywhere, and even where shame and humiliation born of trying to do they were not actually persecuted, the so, or of seeing others engaged on this har- temptation either to assimilate or to segre- rowing procedure—caused acute psychologi- gate themselves, was very great; but segrega- cal discomfort within individual Jews, caused tion did not protect them from persecution; them to fidget uncomfortably wherever they and to order individuals voluntarily to "as- were, to attract unwelcome attention to similate", whether this advice was worthy or themselves, excite contempt, dislike, and unworthy, was to make it virtually impos- persecution. This was produced equally by sible for them to do so. I have never thought those over-anxious to assimilate and by those about a pink elephant in my life, but if I engaged in fighting this phenomenon.

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This situation is now at an end. Most of fore the present situation the tragedy of the those who feel the discomfort of their situa- Jews was that no real choice was open to tion to be too great, and those, no less, who, them. Men's beliefs are not in their own whatever their feelings about life among control; assimilation—except by mass con- their neighbours, wish for religious, or na- version to religions in which they could not, tional, or any other reasons, to live the full or did not, believe, and in the intellectual life of the members of a majority and not climate of the last three centuries could not of a minority of a modern nation, have to- even pretend to believe—was impracticable day a reasonable hope of reaching Israel for the majority. And there was no other and living its life. But there are others who, solution which guaranteed their security ex- rightly or wrongly, openly or secretly, are cept the growth of liberal institutions in the not prepared to do this. For one reason or world; and this last was a hope which has another they wish, or, at any rate do, con- been too cruelly betrayed in the last half- tinue to live as Jewish citizens of politically century to seem to-day more than a noble non-Jewish states. One may take up what- but somewhat remote ideal. As for the hopes ever attitude one wishes towards these set up among many despairing souls by people who may well form the majority of Communism, they have led to the bitterest the present (and future) Diaspora; one may of all disenchantments; so far from provid- defend or attack them, or have no particular ing a method of mass assimilation, Commun- attitude towards them, but the point is— ism has left many of its Jewish victims and it is new and cardinal—that their prob- largely incapable of readjustment to any lem of whether to go or stay, to assimilate normal, peaceful, civilized, productive kind or to remain in a betwixt-and-between con- of life. But to-doy this problem is not nearly dition, is now a purely individual problem as difficult to solve as it once used to which each Jew is free to solve as he chooses, be. Each and every individual Jew is in a and for which he bears responsibility not far better position than he has been since as a member of a nation but as an individual the destruction of the Jewish State by the human being. If a man chooses, whether Romans, to choose his own mode of life for actively or passively, the discomforts, the himself, with all its attendant qualities. Mr. insecure status, the social humiliations of Koestler seems to think that the Jews who ; living as a Jew, whether concealed or open, refuse either to emigrate or to assimilate in a country which does not like Jews, that will for ever remain a troubled element in is to a large and increasing degree his own the countries of their settlement, causing or his family's affair. We may despise him distress to themselves and others, inviting for insufficient pride, or denounce him for ill-treatment by the very falsity of their posi- deceiving himself and predict disasters for tion. Perhaps so. There are still to be met him in the future or congratulate him on a among us the pathetic descendants of the far-sighted utilitarianism or on bravely old Bundists and Yiddishists, the modern sacrificing himself to the future of his chil- advocates of "Galut Nationalism", which is dren or on a commendable independence based on the notion of modern nations as a or disdainfulness of prejudice; that is our motley amalgam of highly diverse and right. But it is no less his right to live the quasi-autonomous communities, in which life he chooses, unless thereby he brings too Yiddish-speaking Jewish groups, living lives much pain or injustice into the world. Be- full of picturesque native colour, with folk-

64 Isaiah Berlin : Jewish Slavery and. Emancipation

song and ancient crafts, and quaint tradi- to a certain elasticity, to the right to realize tional customs, would form a rich, if exotic, themselves as they wish within the widest ingredient. These sorry absurdities, which possible limits compatible with the existence recall the neo-medieval day dreams of such of a minimum of justice and liberty and eccentrics as Mr. Belloc and the late Mr. well-being. Fearful thinkers, with minds Chesterton^ would scarcely be worthy of seeking salvation in religious or political mention, if they did not, by offering a total- dogma, souls filled with terror, may wish ly unreal vision of what modern societies to eliminate such ambiguous elements in were or could be, succeed in deluding in- favour of a more clear-cut structure, and nocent persons, even at this late hour, to they are, in this respect, true children of the their personal doom. Against such blind new age which with its totalitarian systems leaders of the blind Mr. Koestler5s most has tried to institute just such an order violent phrases hold good. They, if anyone, among human beings, and sort them out fully deserve the Russian Socialist Plekha- neatly each to his own category, and has nov's bitter gibe at the Bundists as being suppressed civil liberties in varying degrees in reality only "Zionists who are afraid in order to achieve this purpose which is of seasickness". Since all the horrors of sometimes defended on ultra-rationalist, recent history have failed to bring the scientific grounds. To protest about a sec- truth home to them, they must be reckoned tion of the population merely because it is incurable. felt to be an uncosy element in society, to But even if Mr. Koestler's harsh words order it to alter its outlook or get out—• apply to such small, if maddening, minori- while the psychological explanation of this ties, there are too many individuals in the tone may be obvious enough (particularly world who do not choose to see life in the when the accuser is himself prey to doubts form of radical choices between one course and suffering)—is nevertheless a kind of and another, and whom we do not condemn petty tyranny, and derives ultimately from for this reason. "Out of the timber of huma- the conviction that human beings have no nity," said a great philosopher, "no straight right to behave foolishly or inconsistently thing was ever made." No doubt an artist or vulgarly, and that society has the right may sometimes be faced with such a crisis— to try and rid itself by humane means, but with a choice between abandonment of his rid itself nevertheless, of such persons al- home and his family for a form of life more though they are neither criminals nor propitious to his art, and the abandonment lunatics nor in any sense a danger to the of his art in order to set up as, let us say, lives or liberties of their fellows. This at- a business man. But even artists often do titude which is sometimes found to colour neither of these things, and may then be less the views of otherwise civilized and sensitive successful as artists and as husbands and thinkers is a bad attitude because it is clear- fathers than they might have been; but at ly not compatible with the survival of the least they are all these at once. To tell an sort of reasonable, humane, "open", social artist that he must choose—to force on him texture in which human beings can enjoy quite gratuitously a rigid "either-or", just those freedoms and those personal relation- because we like "radical" solutions, is an ships upon which all tolerable life depends. intolerable form of bullying in a society Similarly, those Jewish ultra-nationalists which recognizes the rights of human beings (whether within or outside Israel) who look

65

\ Isaiah Berlin : Jewish Slavery and. Emancipation on the Jews as so many Auslandsjuden (the or otherwise, we are perhaps scarcely yet in concept of Auslandsdeutsche, if not the a position to grasp fully) an attempt may be title, is, after all, many decades older than made to impose new chains upon backs all Hitler, and Jews are nothing if not imita- too used to fetters, although fetters of a dif- tive) who have duties towards Israel but no ferent kind; and the notion may be ham- rights-—since Jews must live in, or at least mered into the heads of the ignorant and for, Israel, or not at all—are guilty of simi- the confused that as Jews they have virtual- lar exaggeration. The creation of the State ly no right to live beyond the borders of of Israel has rendered the greatest service Israel, and that unless they do this because that any human institution can perform for they are specifically required to do it by individuals—has restored to Jews not mere- the State of Israel, they are committing ly their personal dignity and status as hu- some kind of "race treason1'; and this be- man beings, but, what is vastly more impor- cause, so they will be told, their lives are not tant, their right to choose as individuals their own, but belong to their race and na- how they shall live—the basic freedom of tion and State. In this way the vast wave choice, the right to live or perish, go to the of generous sentiment which at present flows good or the bad in one's own way, without so freely towards Israel on the part both of which life is a form of slavery, as it has those who wish to live there and of those been, indeed, for the Jewish community for who rightly see in it the guarantee of their almost two thousand years. own emancipation as human beings, whether ״But we must be careful not to confuse they go to live there or not, may be con this recently won liberty with a new slavery. verted into a narrow and fatal and wholly The old slavery consisted in telling the Jews indefensible chauvinism; and unless check- that their right to the full liberties of men ed, lead in its turn to the inevitable, and and citizens was at best doubtful so long as probably exaggerated, revulsion against they insisted on remaining fully Jewish, and such monstrous claims. No responsible leader the propaganda of the assimilationists duly of opinion in Israel—that last child of the produced an indignant reaction among European Risorgimento, the last State built people who wished neither to hide their on the humane and liberal foundations, characteristics, nor to allow themselves to heralded by the great French Revolution be transformed by some violent process of and the European revolutions of 1848, and plastic surgery, or even a slower method, conceived by the progressive social thought into something totally different from what of Western Europe, traduced by Bolshevism they were and wished to be. And the Jewish and denounced by Goebbels—no responsible religious revival which stemmed from Frank- leader of opinion in Israel, or outside it, fort, as well as the Zionist movement, were would consciously lend himself to such a each in its own fashion worthy answers to policy. Whether the Jewish communities of this earlier attempt to re-enslave the newly the Dispersion still have that great and liberated. To-day assimilation is a sad wraith worthy part to play, of which those who are of its former self. But there is a danger that deeply concerned with their spiritual survi- in the flush of the great new victory (and val seem so confident, may well be doubted. how great a victory it is, and what a thing But that is no longer a matter of crucial it is suddenly to be set free and allowed to importance. The communal Jewish future choose whether to live as other nations do belongs to Israel. The Jewish religion will

66 f Isaiah Berlin : Jewish Slavery and. Emancipation survive in the hearts of those who believe or the enjoyment of any status and privi- in it, wherever they may be. And individual leges in non-Jewish communities. That is Jews will surely claim their rights and per- how the problem has in our time become form their full duties as human beings and transformed. In the Diaspora as much as in citizens in the communities in which, at last, Israel some Jews will make themselves they can freely choose to live—freely, be- agreeable and some disagreeable, some will cause they are physically as well as morally parade their Jewish qualities and some will free to leave them, and their choice whether conceal them, some will be popular or re- to go or stay, being no longer forced upon spected, or disliked and despised, some may them, is a genuine choice. be Communists and some advocate Fascism An American wit once declared that the for their own countries or for the entire hu- Jews were a peculiar people only because man race. But none of this is any longer they "are just like everybody else, only more the matter of tragic and desperate concern so". There is a bitter truth in this remark. to the Jews as a whole which once it was. Doubtless no one likes to be aped, to see For the fate of individuals, and even of in- their characteristics exaggerated to the dividual communities, whether to stay or point, sometimes, of caricature. But to use move, is now, morally at least, in their own force to prevent people from doing so, how- hands, and each can settle it freely, as it ever irritating their behaviour, is neverthe- wishes, as best it can, with as much wisdom less an infringement of minimal human and good fortune as may fall to its lot. In liberties. To be over-sceptical or over-criti- this sense the creation of the State of Israel cal or insensitive or over-sensitive; to lack has liberated all Jews, whatever their rela- dignity, or practise vulgar ostentation; to be tion to it. And this it will have done even obsequious or neurotically aggressive or lack if, in a dark hour, it should be overrun and a sense of moral or aesthetic measure or cer- lose its independence. This is a calamity tain forms of spiritual tact, is doubtless un- not to be contemplated; yet even if it oc- attractive and thoroughly regrettable, but curred, the State would have performed its it is "not a crime, and neither Plato nor M. task of emancipation. This is the answer Maurras, nor any of the followers of either, to those who opposed the creation of a Jew- have a right to place men, for this alone, ish State because it would prove too weak beyond the borders of the city. If the Jews and indefensible to survive, or too small to are to continue to suffer for failing to please contain the entire Dispersion. But then most their neighbours by behaving like apes and of those who used to put questions of this parrots, they will at least do so individually. type did not, as a rule, genuinely them- They are* human beings, and have the rights selves believe in the validity of the ques- to misbehaviour within the limits permitted tions, and used them as an excuse for avert- to human beings in free societies, and ing their thoughts from difficult choices. neither Mr. Koestler, nor the ultra-national- A national problem—indeed a world ists whose claims he tacitly recognizes, nor problem—has been solved in our day. Sure- the "^a^-nationalists", nor the assimila- ly, despite those who invent a hideous tionists, may give them less than that. But dilemma and demand all or nothing (all neither, unless they go to Israel, have they Jews to go to Israel, or in some other way a right to ask for more: e.g., to even an at- to keep out of our sight), this is miraculous tenuated version of a State within a State, enough for one generation of men. Surely

67 Isaiah Berlin : Jewish Slavery and. Emancipation we are entitled to say Dayenu;1 and mav those children of the Dor Hatnidbar1 who well wonder whether later generations of have dwelt too long in darkness to know Jews will begin to comprehend the problems how to live, and let others live freely, in the and frustrations of their ancestors, and ex- light of day. plain to themselves the reasons for those narrow and violent claims which, even in 1 "The desert generation"—i.e., those who, hav- the hour of triumph, were put forward by ing wandered for forty years, were in no condi- tion to enter properly into the inheritance of the 1 "This suffices us." .

68 The Jewish Question against the Background of the Emancipation

Nathan Rotenstreich

N CONSIDERING the Jewish question of the possibility or impossibility of the a distinction must be drawn between achievement of equal rights by Jews, in I that question per se and its causal the given situation in which they live. factors, particularly those to which at- However, it is necessary to look beyond tention was drawn by Zionist ideology this political and purposive manifestation, and the sociological analysis whereby that and proceed to the basic roots. The ques- ideology is sustained and strengthened. tion touches on the possibility or impossi- The Jewish question is that of the rela- bility of Jewish entry into and participa- tionship between the Jews and the sur- tion in the surrounding social situation, and rounding world. It comes to the surface hence their appreciation of the link between when the Jews endeavour to establish themselves and the world wherein they themselves in the environment within exist in virtue of those specific circum- which they live, and that endeavour proves stances which brought them there. In Zion- fruitless. In this respect it should be said ist ideology this particular aspect was raised that the Jewish question, in the precise by Pinsker and Herzl, as a clear result historic sense, is the outcome of the eman- of the growing sobriety in the emancipa- cipation; that is, the outcome of that tion movement and the sense of failure movement in Israel the essence of which induced by emancipation's endeavours to was the winning of a place for the Jews fulfil its aspirations in the fullest sense. within the real social, political and cul- (b) The second aspect of the Jewish tural world in which they live. The Jew- question is that of the possibility or im- ish question is overwhelmingly the result possibility of existing as Jews within the of an emergent Jewish awareness of the social and cultural world in which Jews Jewish fate, against the background of this live in actual fact. effort to live a real life in the real world In other words, this aspect deals with wherein the daily existence of the Jewish the question whether, and in what mea- group and individual goes on. In this re- sure, continued Jewish existence requires gard, two aspects of the Jewish question ethnic, cultural, social or territorial self- became evident in the nineteenth century: segregation, or whether it is possible to (a) The first is the human position of the assure a separate Jewish existence, in re- Jews in the surrounding world. The con- spect of significance and content, against crete manifestation of this aspect is a sense a background of constant and increasing

69 Nathan Rotenstreich : The Jewish Question against the Background of the Emancipation contact between the Jews and the world facing our own generation is that of re- in which they find themselves. considering the question against the back- The first aspect raises the problem of the ground of a study of the present social human status of the Jewish individual, situation of the nation, and in the light whereas the second raises the problem of of a comparison with the classical assump- the Jewish and national status of the Jew- tions previously postulated. If we employ ish group as a historic entity. the classical assumptions alone, without In each of these aspects, the question any re-examination of the situation, we face has emerged against the background of the the danger of devotion to the history of contact established between the Jews and the Jewish question without regard for the the world. As far as spiritual impulses are actual background which is the subject of concerned, there are obvious differences study. Yet the classical assumptions may between the two. The source of the one serve as hypotheses which can aid us to is the rejection of the emancipation Jew observe the actual situation as it manifests by that world which he desires to enter itself at the present time. and which will not receive him. The other derives from the Jewish clinging to the (b) Jewish inner world and the apprehension In our generation a peculiar dialectic has that it may collapse with all its links and come into being with regard to the Jew- bonds and associations; with the resultant ish question. The catastrophe of European possibility that the collective Jewish entity Jewry, the extreme expression of tension will simply cease to exist. The former as- between the Jews and the world, ended pect, as remarked, is represented by Pins- with an act of physical extermination. Now ker and Herzl, whereas the second is de- the physical extermination seems, as it monstrated particularly by Ahad Ha'am. were, to have eliminated the Jewish ques- Historically speaking, these two aspects tion completely. For it always grew out of sustained two differing ideologies at va- the daily experience of tension between riance with each other. However, historical the Jews and the world; out of the sense experience has shown that despite the dif- of discomfort and rejection on the part of ference in approach and basic impulse, the Jew, and the contempt and mocking there is no difference as far as real his- animosity of the non-Jew. The problem toric derivation is concerned. Danger to was one of real Jews living side by side Jewish existence is present, no matter with real Gentiles, and its meaning was whether emancipation is or is not achieved. linked with the physical existence of both In other words, even if emancipation in parties. The generally accepted view pre- the full sense of the word does not prove sents extermination as the opposite pole or feasible, the continuous contact between antithesis of emancipation. Just as the the Jews and the world is enough to bring emancipation movement was an effort on the forces and resources of the Jews them- the part of the Jews to establish a foothold selves to nought. in the world wherein they live, so exter- Formulation of the essence of the Jewish mination was the reaction of that world question was the work of nineteenth cen- determined to remove the Jews from its tury Jewry, or more specifically the Jews borders and, indeed, to remove them from of the final third of that century. The task existence in general.

70 Nathan Rotenstreich : The Jewish Question against the Background of the Emancipation

Attractive though this polar description question proper and the catastrophe also may be, it does not exhaust the issue. The involves something else: namely, the na- extermination falls well beyond the accept- ture of the reaction to the Jewish situation. ed limits of the Jewish question. It is the Those who react to this situation are outcome of an awakening of forces which first and foremost Jews who have achieved even the most pessimistic did not foresee. emancipation. One of the distinctive cha- The error in the accepted opinion is that racteristics of the Jewish question to-day it presents the extermination as the logical is the fact that the majority of Jews have conclusion to be drawn from the Jewish actually reached the level of emancipation. situation, and sees an inevitable process In this respect, which is so decisive from where we have before us an outburst of the Jewish viewpoint, the fate of the Jews catastrophic forces. This blurs the impact of the West and the Jews of Soviet Russia of the Jewish question in its daily mani- is similar, despite the differences in their festations, which lie within bounds differ- actual situation. It is true that United ing entirely from that of mass physical li- States Jewry has achieved emancipation quidation. As a result something has come without any preceding emancipation move- about which is worthy of consideration: ment either on their own part or on the the extermination, which part of the Jews part of the non-Jewish social and political view as an ultimate manifestation and final world. The emancipation achieved by exhaustion of the Jewish question, appears United States Jewry is an inevitable out- to another section of the Jews as a proof come of the institutions and life of that that they themselves are not involved in country. The same applies to the Jews of the Jewish question. For if the Jewish ques- Soviet Russia. The Soviet system did not tion means extermination, they have the directly, specifically or consciously aim at right to regard themselves as not affected the emancipation of the Jews as a political thereby. It follows that no presentation of and social act of specifically and exclu- extermination as the inevitable conclusion sively Jewish definition. The changes in the to be drawn from the conditions of Jewish status of the Jews in the USSR, to be sure, existence will induce the Jews to consider had been preceded by attempts on the part their situation, but serves only to split the of Russian Jewry to achieve emancipation. Jewish world into those affected by the Yet it is doubtful whether, even from the Jewish question, that is by extermination, internal Jewish aspect, it is permissible for and those whose lives are not touched by us to recognize any continuity between the that horror. Any discussion of the Jewish life of the Jews of Soviet Russia and the question at present must, therefore, neces- earlier emancipationist aspirations of two sarily involve an examination of the nor- generations of Russian Jews. mal situation rather than of a state of In any case, inevitable emancipation re- catastrophe. It must of necessity involve suiting from the objective framework of a study of the human relations between life within which Jews find themselves, is and not a decisive sociological fact in contemporary ־,the Jews and their environment of those relations which are liable to place Jewish existence. Accordingly, we must the Jews outside the living world and turn stop dealing with the Jewish question from them into dead matter. the viewpoint of the aspiration for eman- This differentiation between the Jewish cipation, as we were accustomed to do in

71 Nathan Rotenstreich : The Jewish Question against the Background of the Emancipation

the generation preceding Zionism and in ish question, it is not unfair for us to dis- debates about this matter conducted in regard the situation of Jews in Arab coun- Europe at the turn of the century. We must tries, for one decisive reason. Those Jews now consider the Jewish question in the are directly and fully aware of their si- light of the fact that emancipation has tuation. They have never assumed for a been achieved and has had a paramount moment that their problem is to be solved influence on present-day Jewish attitudes. in the countries of their domicile. This, In particular, it must be noted that Jews however, is not the case with Jews of other who have reached emancipation tend to countries, particularly Jews dwelling in think that the Jewish question no longer those countries in which they have achieved exists for them; this is the result of their emancipation without special effort and who emotional, ideological or historical clinging consider their status an integral part of the to the idea that when Jews are rooted in general social and political environment. their environment and enjoy equal status, Hence the limits of discussion of the Jewish the Jewish question will be solved. question in this generation are really polar Clearly, this is the crux of the discussion or antithetical. On the one hand, there are and its most difficult aspect. We must cla- Jews whose emancipated status has been rify to ourselves what the Jewish question catastrophically lost, and on the other, means against the background of emanci- Jews whose emancipated status is regarded pation; and not against the background of by themselves not as their own achievement opposition to it, on the one hand, and of but as a necessary and inevitable condition. its failure, on the other. Can the paradox Between these two groups are the Jews of in the combination of the Jewish question Israel, who have achieved a new status in and emancipation be reconciled? The es- the collective existence of the Jewish peo- sence of the new situation that has come pie; a status which is the result not of about in Jewish life is the existence of the emancipation but of self-emancipation. No Jewish question, in spite of emancipation, small part of the debate now current in or as the result of emancipation. the Jewish world derives from the differ- It would undoubtedly be excessive sim- ing sociological background of the debaters. plification if we were to claim that all Let us first consider the Jewish question sections of the Jewish people in our gene- against the background of emancipation. ration have achieved the level of emanci- pation. If we were to do so, we would ex- (c) elude from the limits of the discussion the Before considering the outcome of this Jews in Arab countries who have not reach- state of affairs, it is proper to devote a ed it and quite possibly will never reach few words to a description of the state of it. On the contrary, the special character- affairs as such. It may be advisable to istic of immigration to Israel on the part define this state of affairs negatively: in- of the Jews of Arab countries is that it has stead of saying that the Jews have achieved come about entirely without the historical a status of equality, it would be better to transformations undergone by European say that the outstanding inequality which Jews; that is, without the intervention of marked the status of the Jews before eman- the emancipation process and its offshoots. cipation has ceased, or that the striking Yet, in considering the essence of the Jew- discrimination which was involved in their

72 Nathan Rotenstreich : The Jewish Question against the Background of the Emancipation status has been abolished. The political and two processes of emancipation and standard social living-space of the Jews has been of living, although there is a connection expanded. Many obstacles but not all have between them. Yet anyone who has en- been removed from the ladder of Jewish joyed both not only considers them as in- social advancement in professions, econo- terwoven, but also as constituting two as- mics and politics. Above all, the state itself pects of a single process. The status of is not an instrument for the struggle or emancipation is not merely something nega- discrimination against Jews. On the con- tive and symbolic. It is a matter of real trary, insofar as there are still social forces significance within the limits of each indi- opposed to the ascent of the Jews and to vidual. This state of affairs (and here we an expansion of their human living-space, speak of United States Jewry) establishes the state itself does not cooperate with the unique attitude towards emancipation them or support them by its legislation, by which has been achieved both politically any discriminatory policy or through its and economically. The attitude is one of staff" and civil service. delight in what has been achieved; a de- In the situation of United States Jewry light which leads to a fostering of the this aspect of emancipation has been sup- achievement and apprehension lest it va- plemented by another which is no less im- nish. portant; namely, the increase in collective In this respect there has been a great Jewish economic strength and, what is change in the character of the Jewish re- even more decisive, the sense of economic sponse towards what takes place within and wellbeing of the individual Jew. Since the around the Jewish pale. Nineteenth century United States has the highest standard of Jews in France, Germany and the Nether- living in the world, it is impossible for this lands never reached any such state of delight fact not to apply to the Jews resident there. in and apprehension regarding their poli- In a given social situation, however, a re- tical status. They could not achieve any lative rise is sometimes more important such attitude, because they were engaged than an absolute level. Relatively speaking, in a process of political struggle. They in comparison with the Jewish standard of passed through a long series of ups and living prior to their migration, and in com- downs in this struggle, and were constantly parison with the standard of living of the exposed to the danger that fluctuations in migratory Jewish people, the group have the regime, which were so numerous in the feeling that they have achieved some- the nineteenth century, might lead to a thing which is not merely a historic but fluctuation in whatever they had achieved also an experiential human status within until then. The situation is different in the limits of the actual life of each indi- American Jewry. On the one hand, the vidual. Whether the individual surveys his latter consider that- whatever has been life on the basis of his own personal ex- gained is quite safe precisely because it is perience, or reviews the experiences of his not the fruit of any special or purposeful family, he has a feeling of rapid progress, struggle on their part. This permits them of a rise in strength, of striking root. All to expand their time horizon, so that they these find very obvious quantitative expres- do not need to be in a state of constant sion in his standard and style of life. It is nervousness regarding their status. Yet possible to distinguish clearly between these precisely because the achievement seems so

73 Nathan Rotenstreich : The Jewish Question against the Background of the Emancipation secure, there is a greater and even more been enhanced in two respects: in compa- acute fear that it may be affected. A com- rison with the fate of those Jews in Europe parison may be drawn with a man whose who never reached a state of emancipation, life is a succession of ups and downs. He and in respect of the function which the knows that he may come down in the Jews of the United States now play in the world for a while but feels sure that he life of the Jewish people and in the foster- will recover in the future. On the other ing and rehabilitation of the Land of Is- hand, if a person has enjoyed steady well- rael. Comparison with the fate of European being and has never experienced poverty, Jews has sharpened American Jewry's but merely knows that poverty exists some- awareness of its unique lot and intensified where or other, such a person is liable to its apprehensions. The place of United be in a state of constant apprehension that States Jewry in the process of building the poverty which exists in the world may Israel increases the feeling that only thanks finally come to affect him, too. to their emancipated status are they able In terms of our subject, anyone who has to fulfil so decisive a function, both poli- achieved emancipation is as apprehensive tically and economically. Translating this about it as though it were his only child. state of affairs into the language of his- Hence there was never before a Jewish torical concepts, it follows that even the community in all our history which was so process of self-emancipation requires, in the aware and conscious of the danger of anti- last resort, the achievement of emancipa- Semitism, or dealt with the matter so much tion. Yet this relation is obscured by the and contributed so much money to fight fact that the Jews of Israel, and the of- against it. ficial ideology to which they are bound, do The Jew who had not achieved eman- not wish to admit this singularity of eman- cipation knew that anti-Semitism, even if cipated Jewry—for various reasons, which it was not called by that name, was an this is not the place to analyse. This fact inseparable part of his life's horizon, im- obscures the sense of security, and even plicit in the tension between him and his the sense of superiority of emancipated environment. But a Jew who regards him- Jewry, which seeks support and confirma- self as at home in his environment is pecu- tion from Jews who are historically and liarly sensitive to anything hinting that this sociologically still to be found on the other may not be an uncontested and incontes- path of Jewish history; namely, that of table fact. In terms of group psychology self-emancipation. Without the acknow- a state of security has come about which ledgment of these Jews, the Jews of the is replete with insecurity; that is the si- emancipation would not be sure even of tuation which is so precisely described by their own achievement; and the absence the English term "self-consciousness". The of this acknowledgment is an additional more emancipation is regarded as obvious, factor leading to the self-consciousness the more Jews become conscious of it and which is referred to above. apprehensive about it. The result is that A literary detail which illustrates the the achievement itself is very precious and sociological rule deserves to be pointed out exceedingly problematical to those who ac- in this connection. The Jew used to appear tually enjoy it. in United States popular literature, in Assurance of this achievement has now various comic publications, etc., as a

74 Nathan Rotenstreich : The Jewish Question against the Background of the Emancipation stereotype stock figure, whose characteristics sion, from both the Jewish and the outside were not always positive. American Jews world. And yet this proportion is not sub- were eager to have this type disappear, and ject to definition or quantitative determina- even waged war against it. In their sensi- tion and, therefore, any determination of tiveness regarding the figure of Shylock, they it is exceedingly complicated, disturbing to even urged that "The Merchant of Venice" Jewish feelings and causing discomfort in should not be taught in schools. This sen- the relations between the Jews and their sitiveness gave rise to a public struggle in environment. which legal measures were made use of. A The problem may be summed up by recently published study shows that the saying that the status of emancipation as former stock figure of the Jew has vanished such creates a complicated background for from popular literature and popular per- public life and spiritual and intellectual formances. It has been replaced by another, responses. The Jew's certainty of his status more neutral, figure which has no parti- involves a feeling of gratitude for that sta- cularly Jewish stigma either in name, tus. This sense of awareness and gratitude appearance, gesture, etc. Popular literature, leads him sometimes to exalt that status or more precisely its publishers, absorbed to a point not justified by the facts. On the opposition, and literature is undergoing the other hand, the Jewish individual clings a process of "desemitization". to his achievement, and concentrates in- Yet here again there is a reaction which tensely upon that achievement as such. indicates the same ambivalent feeling of Hence much spiritual and public energy self-consciousness referred to above. The is channelled into the fostering of the Jews regret that the Jewish figure is vanish- achievement rather than into the creation ing from the field of vision, for this may of life and values against the background be taken to mean that Jews do not exist. of the achievement itself. If we said to On the one hand, they feel that the dis- begin with that the time horizon of the appearance of the Jew from the literary Jew has been expanded, the other aspect field is not a phenomenon testifying to of this expansion is its diminution to the any decline in tension or identity in the bare achievement itself, and to a spiritual social consciousness of others, but merely and intellectual identification therewith. indicates an adaptation to the demands of Emancipation itself is an opportunity, yet the public and the taste of the customers; it is also a restraining influence. It may be that is, it expresses a commercial situation said that emancipation creates the type of and not a social state of affairs. It follows Jew who faces outwards, who measures that the Jews who do not wish to stand on himself according to what has been achiev- conspicuity, particularly when such con- ed in terms of his place in general society. spicuity is other than positive, do not find Perhaps not emancipation itself, but the it particularly convenient when their dis- Jewish reaction to it, is a centrifugal fac- appearance from sight can be interpreted tor; that is, a factor involving the Jews in as a disappearance from existence. Natu- the life of their environment beyond what rally, this involves a question of proportion, is necessary and inevitable in terms of the because the whole force of the contact be- cold, objective logic of facts. Emancipation tween the Jews and the surrounding world itself has liberated the Jews from many remains a matter of proportion and dimen- pressures, yet it has imposed on them this

75 Nathan Rotenstreich : The Jewish Question against the Background of the Emancipation new pressure of fostering emancipation it- What is the situation when emancipation self, of sanctifying the achievement, of see- comes by itself and has not been achieved ing themselves through the eyes of their as a result of concentrated and purposive neighbours. It has created the human type group effort? Once again it might be said which Kurt Lewin so well called the man theoretically that such a state of emancipa- who lives on the margin of society. tion does not create the background for, So much for the actual relation between or the consequent acquiescence with, assi- the Jews and emancipation, once it is re- milation. Emancipation in such a case has cognized that emancipation has been come to the Jew of itself; he has not gone achieved and that there is no sense in towards it by dint of his own efforts and denying the fact. ideology. Yet a process of resemblance or approximation to the general environment (d) goes on, which has roots in the situation The relation between the process of of emancipated Jewry, and is a further emancipation and that of assimilation is aspect of the Jewish question against this a fundamental aspect of the emancipa- new background. The roots of this process tion movement. As far as principles are lie in the state of insecurity vis-a-vis the concerned, a distinction may be drawn be- new status which has been referred to tween these two processes. While the pur- above. To confirm internal security by pose of emancipation is to enable the Jew proof of an emancipation which exists by to establish himself in his political environ- itself, and to induce the environment to ment, the purpose of assimilation is to ab- maintain the emancipation of the Jews, the sorb the Jew with his cultural and social latter once again pay the price for this surroundings. While the purpose of the status by the duty of resemblance which former is a human status for the Jew, the they impose on themselves. purpose of the latter is to change the style Another cause of this process lies in the of life of the Jew by abolishing his unique vaguely defined boundaries between the life and folkways. Yet in practice these political and human social domains. In two processes have aided one another. contradistinction to what was thought by It may justly be said that the process nineteenth century emancipation Jewry, of emancipation itself originates in a desire and what is held by Jews experiencing the to approximate to and resemble the sur- actual emancipation of the twentieth cen- roundings. Yet, the relation between these tury, the Jews themselves are interested, two processes is even more striking when in spite of the present differentiation be- considered from a further point of view: tween society and state, in a radiation of assimilation is a background which aids the political world into the social and hu- emancipation, it is a kind of price which man world. Jewish achievement of eman- the Jew pays or is willing to pay for his cipation is found largely within the bounds new status. If we were to use Marxian of the state with its legislative and judicial terminology, we could say that emancipa- apparatus, with its abolition of discrimina- tion in the narrow sense is the political tion, etc. Yet the dialectic of emancipation emancipation of the Jew, while assimila- compels the Jew to demand that these as- tion is the human emancipation of the pects, which are connected with the state, Jew who sinks into his environment. should cease to be exclusively affairs of

76 Nathan Rotenstreich : The Jewish Question against the Background of the Emancipation state, but should penetrate the fields of vate relations have their own logic of exis- daily human relations, society and commu- tence, even when the barriers in the public nity, neighbourliness and acquaintanceship, domain are abolished. sports, club, etc., all of them the means Yet the difficulty in the way of the pro- making for human relationships. In other cess of resemblance is also internal and Jew- words, the Jew himself is concerned that ish and serves to stress the paradoxical ele- the state should shape society, and that ment in the present situation. The Jew the abolition of political discrimination himself is not interested in the abolition of should also involve the abolition of social all barriers, whether he admits this or re- and human barriers. It follows that the fuses to admit it; for he does not desire Jew wishes to expand the framework of the abolition of Jewish identity which is emancipation into the field of society; that a give-and-take process between the Jew- is, he arouses his own power of resemblance ish and the non-Jewish spheres, and a re- as an inevitable reaction to the abolition flex of the non-Jewish world within Jewish of barriers in society. The Jew regards the limits. There is a very interesting sociolo- achievement of political status as only a gical expression for this complicated pro- preface to that of daily social standing. He cess. Not only does anti-Semitism streng- fights for the broader achievement under then Jewish survival, as is often said, but, the impulse of the logic of emancipation, and this is the essential point, self defence which does not rest content with its gains against anti-Semitism is a factor which but desires to safeguard itself by expan- produces Jewish forms of life, gives them sion. We may, therefore, say that the pure a reason for existence, energizes them, and driving force of emancipation, without an at the same time energizes the Jews to additional impulse towards assimilation, is some kind of independent existence. The sufficient to induce a process of resem- Jew protects himself against the barrier blance. It is true that the process of re- between himself and the world by turning semblance has both internal and external his own barrier into an institution. In so limits. The external difficulties derive from doing he crystallizes himself in sociological the attitude of the outer world. One is re- forms which are, to be sure, an expression minded of people who advocate the idea of the outer world but which, in the course of equality, but do not realize it in their of time, assert their own inner right of own life when they choose their friends existence and self-perpetuation. One is and associates. There is contradiction be- tempted at times to recall Shalom Alei- tween the abstract demand for equality and chem's character, Mottel ben Pessi, who the weaving of intimate human relations insisted : "How lucky I am to be an or- within the framework of the inclusive so- phan." ciety. This structure of relations also ap- The externally imposed barrier becomes plies to the Jew. Even if the idea of Jewish welcome and desirable and is transformed equality is accepted in all its gravity, it into a protective factor, a kind of security does not mean that within the framework zone, for Jewish existence. In a situation of daily human relations a man has to making for emancipation and resemblance do away with those barriers behind which the Jew seeks for ways and means of non- are the habits, reactions, sentiments and resemblance. The Jew lives not only on resentments of generations. Barriers in pri- the margin of the larger society but also

77 Nathan Rotenstreich : The Jewish Question against the Background of the Emancipation on the margin of his own inner tension, voltage. Yet the problem is whether any of the conflict among the various aims that Jewish separateness can be maintained if inspire his actions. it has its roots in the anonymous barrier As regards the Jewish question in the of all Israel on the one hand and the in- precise meaning of the term, there emerges timately personal barrier on the other. The here the clear problem as to whether such problem of Jewish existence is that of the a give-and-take existence between the Jew intervening realms between the anonymous and the world is possible. Can there be a community and the individual's intimate Jewish existence of recurrent reflexes, of self; that is, it is the problem of what can ambivalent attitudes towards dividing and serve to fill the vacuum in this interven- estranging barriers, of a withdrawal into ing space. The emancipatory status, with the inner Jewish world not by virtue of all the internal complexity which so marks conscious Jewish considerations operating it, cannot suggest a solution of this problem on their own, but because of the distance which is one side of the Jewish question. at which the non-Jewish world keeps the Jew? In other words, the Jew is interested (e) in keeping a certain distance between him- So far this discussion has dealt with self and the world, yet the whole of this the problem of emancipation in respect of distance is filled with the refracted light, its results within the Jewish life; in the the shadow, of the relations between the relationship between the Jew and eman- Jew and the world. cipation. Yet the world in which eman- In one area, it is true, the Jew sets a cipation places the Jew has undergone de- conscious limit to this process; or in other cisive changes since the emancipation words, endeavours to maintain the distance movement began. We find a most striking by means of his own efforts. This is the historical guiding line in the fact that area of biological conciliation with the emancipation is realized in a world dif- outside world. As far as can be judged, a fering fundamentally from the one at similar process also operates in the other which the Jews aimed when they first en- flank of emancipation Jewry, namely visaged and struggled for emancipation. among the Jews of Soviet Russia. In gene- From the Jewish viewpoint, the first ral, the Jews regard mixed marriage as an major difference marking the change that absolute abolition of the barrier; it involves has come about in the social situation of not merely resemblance but being swal- mankind as a whole is the triumph of lowed up by the non-Jewish world. The technological civilization. This, on the one emphasis on the biological background of hand, makes it easier for the Jews to es- life testifies to the disturbance of all the tablish themselves in their environment, other constant factors. It is true that the while on the other it renders the results biological force is not that alone. It es- of this establishment on Jewish life far tablishes associations, family loyalty and a more grave as far as they are concerned. sentiment towards parents, and has great The establishment of the Jew in the symbolic validity. The biological barrier is world surrounding him was, in the nine- not merely that of Jewry at large. It is an teenth century, a matter of finding his intimate barrier for the individual and is, place in a world that was largely historical therefore, charged with a high emotional in character. It was a world of peoples

78 Nathan Rotenstreich : The Jewish Question against the Background of the Emancipation and cultures with a style of life and social One may go even further. Insofar as the variegation which had crystallized during technological ideology becomes a human long generations. For the Jew it meant credo replacing traditional faiths and that he established himself in a world of beliefs, the Jew may regard himself as a historical symbols and styles. The sur- partner in that universal human credo roundings appeared to Jewish eyes as without, as it were, in any way affecting something strange and distant, the very his own historic credo. In other words, entry to which was difficult, involving a when the general process is one of driving leap on the part of the Jew, and a readi- out historical styles and replacing them by ness to accept the Jew on the part of the a universal technical style, all historical non-Jew. For the Jewish consciousness this styles are in an identical situation. If the always involved a sense of change. But the Jew observes the loss of his own historical technological situation has altered matters. style, he can easily comfort himself by the The Jew who enters the world based on fact that this is likewise the fate of all technical habits, based on the principle of other historical styles, and that there is comfort and higher standards of living nothing peculiarly Jewish about the state which nourish the development of techno- of affairs. This process has an additional logy, may possibly have the feeling that characteristic in the case of an immigrant he does not really enter a world whose his- population. The historical style is that of toric style is strange to him. He enters a the old homeland, and it is, therefore, in universal world which is built entirely on any case bound to be obliterated in the rational human inventions, a world which new homeland, for the historical style of basically has a general human objective a people and its culture is identical with and whose roots are also generally human. the style of the country from which its The technical world appears neutral as far members emigrated. as ethnic and cultural differences are con- It follows that the real strength of the cerned, and this makes it easier for the strange environment increases with the in- Jew, liberating him from any feelings of creasingly technological character of that guilt which may have accompanied his environment, which is regarded not as steps towards establishing contact with the something alien but as something belonging non-Jewish world when the latter lay within to every man because he is a man, in- the bounds of historical cultures. A civi- eluding the Jew. The individual cannot lization with a historical structure as re- withstand the seduction of technical civi- gards style of life and social variegation lization which aims only to satisfy his de- is in itself an obstacle to the intermingling mands, to make things easier for him and of Jews; as we see in the case of the eman- to turn his life into an effortless journey. cipation of English Jewry compared with The Jew cannot withstand this seduction, that of American Jewry. Yet the penetra- even though it affects his Jewish being and tion of the technical world within the essence. various phases of life makes it easier for the It affects the Jewish essence because it Jew to mix with his environment; for the obliterates distinctions. To be a Jew means Jew is a full partner in the technical si- to be different, to preserve a separateness, tuation, objectively speaking and as far as no matter what the reasons for it may be. his conscience is concerned. The problem facing the Jew in technical

79 Nathan Rotenstreich : The Jewish Question against the Background of the Emancipation civilization is how to preserve this separate- mains of the past. The time horizon of ness within the equalizing uniformity of technological civilization is the present, general existence. The manifestation of the which serves as the dimension of human individual Jew and the Jewish community enjoyment of convenience, and the future as a whole are not likely to differ from which serves as the dimension of the fresh the manifestation of any other individual achievement that will take the place of or community within the technical civili- achievement which has already grown rus- zation. The manifestation itself is the com- ty. Is it possible to maintain the life of a mon matter, the matter in which the inter- historic people against this background? mingling is concentrated and stressed. Yet Here it is necessary to say something it is the character of technical civilization about the religious position of emancipa- to penetrate likewise into the world of the tion Jewry, more particularly with refe- individual, into a man's home, shaping the rence to the Jews of America. It may be way he lives in his leisure hours. It is cer- claimed that an independent Jewish reli- tain, for instance, that the television which gious revival might serve as a factor con- makes its way into the home of the Jew firming isolation and preserving the Jews must turn his attention to things that have from sinking into this universe of a com- no Jewish significance whatever, and will mon civilization with technical objectives. concentrate his attention on general ques- This does not mean that such a revival tions and general issues. Technological civi- should be peculiarly "ascetic", despising lization objectively attacks all those ele- civilization and the technical principles, a ments in life which are capable of preserv- kind of neo-Essenism of the twentieth cen- ing an individual coloration: meditation, tury. Yet the very fact of a religious re- domestic life, festivals, leisure, recreation, vival might be an element in the present etc. situation, turning men's eyes to a direction We are still at the beginning of this different from that of the universal ob- process, which has no direct relation to the jective. Jewish question yet is liable to exert a Up to the present, however, we have not decisive influence on it. For it is liable seen any such revival, although much is to break up Jewish life by a process which now being said about an increase in the cannot be regarded as one of assimilation number of Jews who are connected with —if we employ the traditional meaning synagogues. It seems that we shall hardly of the term — yet which is far graver than be in error if we say that Jewish religion that process. We may formulate the prob- is the outstanding pragmatic factor in the lem before us by saying: Jewish exis- life of United States Jewry—the factor tence as it became crystallized over gene- whose entire purpose is the preservation of rations was primarily one of the Jewish Jewish identity, as far as possible, within the style of life and atmosphere. Every style all-inclusive sea of group-intermingling. of life is an island in a larger world, if it The religious and theological significance is viewed geographically in space, and a of the Jewish religious organization is li- vestige of the past in the present, if it is mited, yet its pragmatic and sociological viewed historically in time. Yet the exis- significance is very great; particularly as tence of technological civilization makes an American society in general views religious end of these islands and obliterates the re- organization as such, and forms of religious

80 Nathan Rotenstreich : The Jewish Question against the Background of the Emancipation worship in general, as areas of life where tude, a sinking into the world as it is. It there is a legitimate right to isolation. It might be proper to formulate matters at follows that religious life is very largely this point in the following blunt terms: sustained by the Jewish desire for identity. the technological civilization which is open The question is whether this desire for to emancipation Jewry involves the danger identity is capable of sustaining itself at a of euthanasia for the Jewish group. Eutha- time when the factors in which it expresses nasia is now the Jewish question. itself have no foothold in the realities of the Jewish present, or at least have no deep (f) or firm hold; and at a time when the The Jewish foothold in the world has general tendency is towards the abolition now undergone an additional change of such identity against the background of as a result of recent political developments. the universal culture, the culture of the There has been a crystallization of global technological man. It follows that the tech- blocks which have various marks of iden- nological situation brings out even more tity. From our particular point of view, clearly this aspect of Jewish life in eman- however, what is of importance is the ideo- cipation: namely, the abolition of Jewish logical mark of recognition. The global .״identity. blocks possess ideologies, press their de It may doubtless be argued that the mands in the name of those ideologies, technological situation endangers every and claim to be fighting for them. In es- separate identity, including that of the In- sence, our contemporary world has returned dians in their own country, the Chinese in an interesting fashion to the policy cha- in theirs and the Jews in theirs. It is per- racteristic of the end of the Middle Ages, haps possible to see a positive historic deve- which functioned according to the prin- lopment in the disappearance of these ciple cuius regio eius religio (he who rules identities and the victory of universal civi- the region determines the religion). Life in lization. But we proceed on an assumption one of the global blocks ceases to be a common to both emancipated and self- straight-forward affair and is required to emancipated Jews, that to be a Jew is to be based on a recognition of the ideolo- be different because of a desire to be a gical justice and dogmatic supremacy of Jew, that is, because of a desire to be dif- that specific block. The origin of this state ferent. On the basis of this assumption it of affairs is not our concern here. It is suf- can be said, according to historical ex- ficient merely to draw attention to it. perience, that the problem is how to com- In respect of Jewish emancipation a new bine the identity of a group with the gene- problem arises in this connection. The Jew- ral civilizatory objectives which constitute ish emancipation of the nineteenth century the "climate of opinion" of the epoch. For was based on the assumption that the state such fusion it is absolutely necessary that is a neutral area of life lying beyond reli- there should be elements that intermingle gious limits; and, being a neutral area of or are capable of intermingling. In the ab- life, it was capable of accepting the Jews sence of the inner historical element, if in its midst as long as they came from this element is subject in all respects to a religious world differing from that of the influence of the other element, we do the population in general. The neutrality not have any fusion but rather a simili- of the state found theoretical and legal

81 Nathan Rotenstreich : The Jewish Question against the Background of the Emancipation expression in the idea of the juridical state, viet Russia have not reacted in this way and the assumption that law itself is a because of the different climate of Opinion rational field and hence lies beyond the in which they live. Yet it is possible that dividing boundaries of faith; that is, law the last word has not been said in this is a neutral area on account of its univer- connection. We may still be privileged to sality. In other words, the ideology of a hear, from this quarter as well, that So- state absorbing Jews who have achieved viet Russia is nothing but the quintessence emancipation is not ideological. That is the and fulfilment of the original postulates, unique nature of this kind of state, and of Judaism. It is clear that by identifying from this it derives its capacity to bestow Jewish consciousness with the dominant the new political and human status on the ideology of the environment, the Jew Jews. again endeavours to escape from the dif- The state bestowing emancipation on ficulty involved in emancipation when he the Jews in the twentieth century (i.e. the still wishes to preserve his identity. His state in which emancipation has been ac- fusion with the environment can then no tually realized), is an expressly ideological longer be interpreted as abandonment of state, whether it is such ab initio like the his own or entry into strange fields; it can USSR, or whether it is so in actual fact be considered as a direct continuation of like the United States of America. In either his nexus with the inner Jewish world. case the entry of the Jew into his environ- The inner Jewish world is one of the roots ment is conditional not only upon a change of the all-inclusive world, and even, in- in his manner of life, not only upon adapta- deed, its essential component. The Jew re- tion to the social and civic situation, but mains faithful to himself, while at the also upon sharing the correct state of same time he is free to move about in the mind. It follows that emancipation pierces great world. through the last vestige of the Jew's iden- There is a serious problem for eman- tity, his innermost world, namely his spirit, cipation Jews in another well: be- soul and consciousness. Not only is the or- longing to the Jewish community means ganized inner world of a Jew, namely his a Jewish loyalty which is inter-territorial by home, subject to the influence of the gene- its very character, and also applies to Jews ral authority over life, but his actual spi- beyond the Iron Curtain. For the Jews of ritual world must necessarily bear the Soviet Russia the fact that emotional Jew- stamp of the official ideology. The reaction ish loyalty may some day assume super- of emancipation Jews to this state of af- emotional forms, must constitute a grave fairs—and this is said regarding the United problem. A similar problem may also have States—is that fundamentally American of- to be faced by the Jews of the West. This ficial ideology is nothing but the original does not refer to the political and legal Jewish ideology; that, epigrammatically loyalty which has been so often spoken speaking, the world of Jeremiah and the of during recent years in the wake of the es- world of Jefferson are identical. This is tablishment of the State of Israel. It refers a typical response of emancipation Jews to the simple loyalty of belonging to Jewry who, even in the nineteenth century, re- which characterized Jews and gave direc- garded the juridical state as the moral ful- tion to their lives. filment of Jewish ideas. The Jews of So- Yet the ideological state, or more pre-

82 Nathan Rotenstreich : The Jewish Question against the Background of the Emancipation

cisely the ideological states, raise the new neutral and calm as the classic ideology of form of the Jewish question in another re- emancipation had supposed. The world is spect as well. They demand more than the an active and intervening factor. It shakes ordinary emancipation state of the nine- the Jew and obliterates his spiritual face. teenth century did. They do not rest sa- tisfied with resemblance and equality. They (g) demand consciousness; and since they are The Jewish question against the back- states that are based on a secularist faith, ground of emancipation also involves the it again seems to the Jew that he may relations between the various parts of the possibly maintain his identity in the re- Jewish people. This question has become ligious field while fusing with the secular particularly acute against the sociological belief. Once again, if this process were ac- background of American Jewry, which is companied by real religious revival, reli- that of migration. A migrant always faces gious identity might have power to in- the need to make himself forget his former fluence the situation. Yet in the absence of homeland on the one hand, while experienc- such a revival, religious identity remains ing a nostalgia for it on the other. In a vestige of the past and a conscious or the Jewish situation the factor of forget- unconscious obstacle in the decisive pro- fulness was liable to lead to a break in cess of fusion with all its effects in the the links with the whole Jewish people and realm of consciousness. The great ease with all its present affairs and problems. In this which Jews accept the current formulation connection, Zionism has played a decisive of a "Judeo-Christian civilization" is evi- part. It was a factor that strengthened and dence that, even more than they are in- maintained the links between the various terested in seeing their own identity, they parts of the Jewish people. It was a kind see their historic world sunk in the world of organized expression of Jewish nostalgia, at large; and in the light of this historic in which the longings for the old home in and actual continuity between them and the individual sense were diverted into the the surrounding world they put into opera- channel of aspirations for the old home- tion deterrents which they necessarily direct land in the national sense. Hence, Zion- towards matters of second-rate or third- ism was not interpreted as a revolutionary rate importance. movement removing the Jewish individual In this field we can sum up and say : from the place where he actually was. On the circle of emancipation has been closed. the contrary, Zionism was interpreted as a Insofar as emancipation can be differen- movement enabling the Jewish individual tiated from assimilation, it should enable to strike root wherever he might actually the Jews to establish themselves in the real be, while at the same time maintaining his world, while preserving the world of their link with the entire Jewish people and not consciousness for themselves. Yet the de- giving up his Jewish loyalty. Furthermore, velopment of emancipation has disproved Zionism was a cementing force for those the possibility of this assumption. The na- brought by the waves of Jewish migration. ture of the world in which the Jews estab- Within Zionism, its affairs and activities, lish themselves involves its increasing Jews of the East and the West were able penetration into the field of Jewish con- to meet. There the migrants of the eighteen sciousness. The world does not remain so forties could meet those of the eighties and

83 Nathan Rotenstreich : The Jewish Question against the Background of the Emancipation those of the twentieth century. Zionism of the State of Israel. On the contrary, the gave the Jews of the East the possibility of establishment of the State of Israel merely proving victorious over the Jews of the stressed this function of Zionism even more; West, who had come to the new land be- and much of the confusion of ideas now fore them and had achieved a higher eco- characterizing the Zionist movement, par- nomic and social status and prestige. ticularly in the United States of America, Through Zionism changes came about in is a direct outcome of this basic situation. Jewry, first and foremost in Reform Jewry The Zionist ideal and movement have been which, from being an extreme opponent to replaced by the State of Israel as the fac- Zionism, became its supporter and assistant tor strengthening Jewish loyalty, and giv- and finally absorbed Zionist sentiment al- ing concrete form to the feeling of loyalty most completely. in the Jewish breast. The existence of the Zionism served as a unifying factor with State as a human and territorial reality the entire Jewish people, and also as a fosters this emotion. There is now no need unifying factor within United States Jewry to talk in terms of national ideals, but itself. It solved what the Jews of America rather the real situation of a part of the sensed as their own Jewish question, name- Jewish people, which is worthy of being ly their connection with the Jewish people. fostered as having achieved so striking a Yet precisely this function exercised by position, internationally speaking. Further- Zionism helped to implement the process more, the existence of the State of Israel of emancipation more fully. The connec- establishes the sense of their own norma- tion with the Jewish people having been lity in the heart of emancipation Jews, secured, it was possible to proceed to eman- after a special fashion never seen before cipation, since a factor had been found and which the Zionist ideology of nor- which regularized the process of emancipa- mality had never even postulated as pos- tion so that it did not flood its banks or sible. bring resemblance and fusion to a com- A population composed of migrants na- plete state of collapse of the Jewish in- turally has links with their countries of tegrity. Even more than the religious ex- origin. The migrant, together with the off- pressions of Jewish unity, Zionism fulfilled spring and descendants of migrants, is the function of establishing a distance be- aware of his distant country of origin, and tween the Jews and the environment that so is his environment. The migrant must was absorbing them. It gave authority to overcome all the real meaning and impli- that kind of Jewish isolation which the Jew cations of this nexus, while safeguarding desires and the non-Jewish world is pre- it as part of his family tradition, part of pared to accept. Thus Zionism fulfilled a his pedigree. In this respect the position dual function: it liberated the Jew from of the Jew was different. He could not the apprehension that his emancipation present any pedigree of country of origin, might lead to a destruction of Jewish iden- but was compelled to offer one that was tity and it put a brake on emancipation ethnic in character. Following the estab- by setting a limit to that process and its lishment of the State of Israel he may now results. substitute for that ethnic pedigree a ter- In this connection there has been no ritorial one, and regard himself and be decisive change following the establishment regarded by his environment as normal;

84 Nathan Rotenstreich : The Jewish Question against the Background of the Emancipation that is, as belonging to the same level as tory on the one hand and Jewish sociology the people around him. The country of on the other. From the viewpoint of his- origin, to be sure, does not have quite the tory, both that of ideas and that of com- same connotation for him as for other munal trends, Zionism may be viewed as migrants. It is not the country of imme- the heir of emancipation. As regards the diate physical origin of the migrant or his sociology of the Jewish people, however, forefathers, but the country of national we face the phenomenon that the Jewry origin of his people. Yet despite this dif- living within emancipation exists side by ference, and even admitting this difference, side with the Jewry living within self- there is nevertheless a certain analogy emancipation. The Jews of the United which gives the Jew a feeling of normality. States themselves have not yet found any This in turn gives him the security which proper expression for this state of affairs. he requires if he is to engage in the process They have changed the actual description of emancipation. of this situation in their debate with them- Side by side with this normality, how- selves and the Jews of Israel. They ask ever, there has emerged another problem whether they live in Exile or not. In actual which has not yet been placed in its prop- fact the question is a different one. Has the er light and is ignored in the heat of state of emancipation in which they live polemics. The establishment of the State solved their Jewish question or not? In of Israel has presented the Jewish people their opinion, the question has been solved, with the question of the relation between and they do not realize the complications emancipation and self-emancipation Jewry. into which the emancipation has led them. This terminology is congruent with the The Jews of Israel do not help them to differentiation, geographical and territorial, realize these complications or perplexities, between the Jews of the Land of Israel because we all still cling piously to the ana- and those of the Diaspora; meaning pri- lysis of the Jewish question against the pre- marily the Jews of the United States of emancipation background or against the America. What this really refers to is the background of a bankrupt emancipation. relation between the two sections of Jewry We do not wish to admit the existence of which co-exist at precisely the same period emancipation as an objective factor of Jew- yet, in spite of this, represent differing ish life. Yet the problem before us is to see stages of Jewish history. the results of emancipation in terms of the From the viewpoint of principle, Zionism Jewish question. These results can be pic- has been placed in the position of a move- torially expressed as a triangle. One side ment which set out to solve the problems of this triangle is the Jewish integration which emancipation did not solve. It is a into their environment. The second side is movement which established itself on the the rejection of the Jews by the environ- ruins of emancipation and of the disap- ment; while the third side is the conscious pointment therewith. Modern Zionism was and unconscious Jewish desire to preserve brought into being by men who had them- a distance around themselves, a desire selves passed through the process of eman- which also involves the fact that they are cipation and reached a crisis. repulsed and rejected by the environment. Yet in this respect there rises before us As against the form assumed by the Jew- -ish question before emancipation, the dif •׳a fateful contradiction between Jewish his

85 Nathan Rotenstreich : The Jewish Question against the Background of the Emancipation

ference is striking. At that time Jews aspired A few years ago there was talk in the to establish themselves in their environ- Zionist world of post-emancipation Zionism. ment, while in fact they were rejected by This phrase is not in the least accurate. that environment. The present emancipa- Zionism in general followed upon emanci- tion has created a different state of affairs. pation, in the order of sequence and deve- It is a situation in which the desire for tak- lopment of Jewish history. The problem is ing root has largely become reality, yet the Zionism within emancipation rather than rejection by the environment has not ceased Zionism deriving from a crisis in emanci- to exist. Furthermore, those who wish to pation. No such Zionism has yet come into establish themselves in the environment existence, nor are there any signs that it seem to flinch at the full implications of is emerging. The Zionism of emancipation this process, and seek for brakes on them- Jews is in no way an ideological one. It is selves and on that environment, which will nourished by sentiment and not by any serve to slow down the process. intellectual analysis. The Jewish question in its classical for- Insofar as they make use of Zionist mulation was given antithetical formula- ideas, those ideas were brought into being tion : either integration or rejection. Eman- against an earlier background; and they cipation Jews accepted this formula, and transfer them, not without a considerable therefore reached the conclusion that the measure of hesitation, it is true, to the back- question was solved as far as they were ground in which they find themselves. What concerned. They do not see that the two is needed is a Zionism nourished from the processes of integration and rejection may situation of emancipation and leading to a well co-exist, and that they are more com- state of self-emancipation. The question is fortable where there is a certain measure one of raising the group status of the Jewish of rejection; because they wish to maintain people to a common level of self-emanci- themselves, Jewishly speaking, in spite of pation. their establishment in the surrounding so- The development of such a movement ciety. must of necessity be preceded by an exami- It may be said that the characteristics of nation and analysis of the Jewish question, the Jewish question against the background just as the development of the Zionism of contemporary emancipation are not as that functioned hitherto was preceded by sharply delineated as they were against the an analysis of the Jewish question. preceding background. Yet though they are Yet it is characteristic of the Jewish ques- not so sharp, they are far more complicated tion in its new form that those who are and intricate. This complication and intri- experiencing it have not yet realized the cacy are the distinguishing marks of the need for any such examination and ana- question. lysis.

86 PART TWO

Zionism and the State of Israel The People and the State

David Ben Gurion

HE STATE sees itself as the creation of to accomplish its aim had only to break the the Jewish people and as designed for foreign yoke. That done, the national as- Tits redemption. It sees Jews through- piration was achieved in full. Not so with out the world as one nation, not only in the Israel. With us the vision was sustained only past but in the present and future as well. within and of itself, out of the people's soul; The roots of the unity and continuity of the and all the hard facts were arrayed against Jewish people, despite its dispersion among it. The people was scattered and splintered the nations, are set not only in the all- far and wide; the land was ruled by stran- embracing inheritance of its past, but in an gers—Rome, Byzantium, Persia, the Arabs, historical partnership of destiny. This unity the Seleucids, the Franks, the Mamelukes, and continuity make no discord with the the Turks, the British. And not only that. It civic allegiance of Israel's people overseas was inhabited by strangers, and it was ruin- to the countries of their residence while that ed and made desolate. Nothing other than residence lasts. the spiritual strength of the people could

* have kept the vision of redemption alive. The establishment of the State did not Israel is the outcome of the immemorial mean the vision fulfilled. For by far the vision of redemption of the Jewish people. It greater part of the Jewish people is still is not the only State to arise as a national divided among the nations, and so the State dream come true, after the struggles is not yet the consummation of redemption, of a national freedom movement. In but only its instrument and principal means. the nineteenth and in the twentieth But by its establishment the State gave the centuries many countries were restored vision its corporeal and realistic basis of to independence in Europe and Asia materialization and so became, more than by the momentum of a vision of re- any other single factor ever was, a force to surrection which re-made and emancipated weld and unify the Diaspora. subject peoples. Yet the resurrection of the Theodore Herzl, creator of the Zionist State of Israel is unique. For behind every Organisation, found the perfect, complete vision of national resurgence elsewhere was definition of Zionism, as he understood it, the fact of a people living in its own land, though it has been forgotten or neglected by although under alien rule. The freedom most of the workers in the Movement. He movement was nourished on this fact and said : "Zionism is the Jewish nation on the

89 David Ben Gurion : The People and the State way", and he meant the Jewish people on gary, Stampfer, Raab and theirs, who built its way back to its Land. This profound the first Jewish village of Petah Tikva; the truth was distorted afterwards and turned members of Bilu from Russia, and the into something meaningless, namely, that original pioneers of Roumania, who built the Zionist Organisation was a State on the Rishon le Zion, Gedera, Zichron Yaacob, way. There is no such thing as a State on Rosh Pina, Hadera and Metulla eighty the way. A State either is or it is not. When years ago—these were the founders of the Napoleon said of his Army that it was new and so the founding fathers of France on the march, there was a meaning, the State. The 700,000 and more immi- for everywhere that the Army went, there grants who have come since the State was France was. But the Jewish State could only established—it is they, hand in hand with come from within "the Jewish nation on the the , that have built up the State way". The State of Israel could not be creat- during these last four years, and transfigur- ed out of zero. Its embryo and its evolution ed the face of the Land. over the years came not out of the Zionist But this first and basic truth is not the Organisation but out of the flowering of the whole truth. By themselves, without the as- yishuv, its growth and its consolidation. It sistance of the whole people, the immigrants has been built by the immigrants of all could not have come, or built up the generations, and it will be built hereafter yishuv, or established the State; they could and made strong and firm by immigrant not have maintained it in the past nor will hands. Only aliya, "the Jewish nation on they be able to maintain it in the future. the way", as Herzl described it, is the con- Aliya to Israel is not like migration to structive and embodying force of the Zionist America or any other immigrant country. dream. This is the truth, and the highest Wanting the people,s help, economic, poli- truth, of Zionism, that without aliya the tical and moral, Jewish immigration to this yishuv would not have been, without it the Land would have been impossible and, State would not have been, and without it wanting that help, it will be impossible for the State will not endure. a long time to come. For this was no empty The Zionist Organisation never was and land, though its soil was neglected and in can never be an organization of immigrants; decay. It had a population too, not one of it did not oblige its members to take part in yesterday, but of hundreds of years. Those aliya, and does not oblige them now. Of who were not Jews did not welcome Jewish course, a Zionist may settle in the Land, immigrants and often resisted them by and not a few exercised the privilege. But force. Nor was the land a political void; it not because they belonged to the Organisa- was under foreign rule, of Turkey, and had tion did they come, and it was not only been for four hundred years, and after that members of it that came. Immigration is it was under British rule for thirty. Neither older than the Organisation, and indeed Turks nor British hated the Jewish people, gave birth to it. It was the immigrants of but the Administration did not always smile many generations and the sons of the Land upon Jewish immigration, and each at times who laid the real foundations of the State. forbade it. The men who came out of Walled Jerusa- But not only the alien population and lem over seventy years ago, Salomon and Government stood in the way. The country his comrades; the early pioneers from Hun- itself, in its ruins, its destitution and desola-

90 David Ben Gurion : The People and the State tion was unfitted to absorb immigration. No nomic successes and its fitness to stand up to Jewish immigrant, whether in past genera- interference and onslaught, to all the dif- tions or in this, could by his own strength ficulties inherent in the beggary of the Land overcome the external obstacles and hin- and in the ways of Jews coming from the drances, not those set by the Administration galut, townfolk, speaking a Babel of nor those mirroring the country's indigence. tongues, and without sovereign, national Constant aid was required, economic, poli- tradition. tical and moral as well, in the first phase The Zionist Movement cherished an am- from the Lovers of Zion and the great phil- bition which had no seeming basis in fact anthropist; and from the Zionist Movement of Land or people. And so it was strenuous- and the Jewish people as a whole in the last ly opposed by influential Jews: the ultra- fifty years. pious who did believe in redemption but # not by human agency; the organized work- ers who saw no improvement in the lot of ״The help extended to Jewish immigration Jewry save through world revolution; as before the Zionist Organisation was formed similationists who denied the very existence was only sporadic and casual; it lacked any of a Jewish nation; and, above all, the mul- solid basis of ideology or policy until that titudes of the indifferent, lacking faith that Organisation was created by Herzl, the pro- the vision of redemption was real and could phet of State Zionism. His aim and object be fact. The greatest victory won by the were to organize and marshal all Jewry to Zionist idea over the Jewish people was make the Zionist dream come true. But it the establishment of the State, and in that was not within the power of the abstract the Movement had no small share. Without Zionist idea, even with the great personality its work in education, organization, politics of Herzl, to marshal and array the whole and finance, the yishuv could not have ex- people. Instead of "the Jewish nation on the isted nor the immigrants who joined the way", there appeared the Zionist Organisa- yishuv have reached their goal. Precisely tion. It was, I repeat, not an organization because the Organisation was not one of im- of immigrants or of acolytes for immigra- migrants or would-be immigrants, it could tion, and that was at once its moral weak- attract large sections of the people, and at ness and its material strength. It was an times most of it; and in many countries organization designed to spur the people their entire Jewry. With complete moral throughout the Diaspora on to the fulfil- right, it could count the State's establish- ment of Zionism, to mobilize it for the edu- ment as fair recompense for all it had toiled cational, political and economic work with- and striven and struggled to do, as undying out which immigration would have failed, testimony that its conception was utterly as failed all attempts in earlier generations true. But it will make a fatal error, it will to return to the Land and build it up again. fly in the face of the idea's truth, if it looks Only the fusion and partnership attained upon the State as the exclusive property of in the last fifty years, between the pioneers the Zionist Movement and not as belonging of aliya and fulfilment and the Zionist to the whole nation. Because the State's Movement, have made the yishuv possible establishment was a victory not only for and encouraged its steady progress, its crys- Zionism. It is a tremendous turning-point tallization, cultural and political, its eco- in Jewish history, one of the four main

91 David Ben Gurion : The People and the State events in it since the days of the Patriarchs: The immigrants yet to come will be the from the moment the State was born, ex- forthright builders of the State, and con- cept for a wretched few to the Left and to summate that highest purpose. But then, too, the Right who damn the Covenant, the even though the State now exists, the in- entire Jewish people has rallied round the gathering and the upbuilding of the Home- State and prays for its peace, security and land are not to be accomplished unless the grandeur, and holds out a faithful, helping whole Jewish people takes part. hand for its reconstruction and develop- The lets and hindrances which baulked ment. A Zionist Organisation that becomes immigrants in the years before the State, a screen between itself and the Jewish still stand in the way, although they have people is denying its own source and soul. assumed a different guise; indeed some of Immigration is not only from the ranks them are much more serious and dangerous of the Organisation, nor does our political than formerly we knew. There is no strange and financial aid come only thence. The lord now, we are sovereign in our Land. But State has succeeded in unifying the Jewish there are world forces which do not like us people compactly as no other agency did in and have yet to accept Israel and its inde- its past. The people's love and succour to pendence. The struggle we have yet to make the State can be given to the State only, on the world's stage calls for mobilization of and that succour and love are a precious all the political forces of the Jewish people. and irreplaceable asset which we must The non-Jewish population of Israel is no guard jealously. But the Zionist Movement longer check or brake upon our coloniza- must treasure them first, for, as the Organi- tion and growth. The Declaration of Inde- sation may not consider the State the chat- pendence and the War that came after tel of Party or Movement but must see it as changed demography in a fashion radical belonging to the nation alone, so the State and revolutionary. Within our own confines cannot yet deem itself the end of the vision we are independent, confident and free, and of redemption. no element will be our enemy. But in the The freedom movements of other nations, stead of a non-Jewish community, we have which dwelt in their own lands under across our borders many strong neighbours strange lords, in achieving independence who still hold themselves at war with us, achieved in full their national aims. Not so and make no secret of their intent to fall Israel. Attainment of independence in the upon us again and wipe us off the earth. Homeland carried us not to the end of the For many a long day we shall need the highway to redemption, but only to its com- moral and material help of the Jewish mencement. Even after the gigantic tally of people to maintain our security and welfare. immigration and settlement in the first four There is no comparing our capacity to- years of the State, outdoing all done in the day with the yishuv's before we won auto- previous seventy years, we have only rebuilt nomy. Now the whole tract of the State is one fifth of the Land and brought together in our hands; its budget in a single year ex- less than fifteen per cent of the Jewish ceeds the sum-total of all budgets of the people. The road ahead is still long and Zionist Organisation in a jubilee, but still, painful, and the Ingathering of the Exiles is with its own resources, the State cannot still in the forefront of our foremost missions. gather strength to swallow mass immigra- * tion at the pace and on the scale which have

92 David Ben Gurion : The People and the State now become not only possible but impera- were concerned, that all conditions and cir- tive. cumstances of the Old World would be re- No one to-day can tell whether the In- produced in the New. gathering of the Exiles, highest mission of Zionist ideology—I do not mean the the State, is to mean the bringing together Zionist vision which is as old as Jewry itself, of the whole Jewish people in this Land, or but the political ideology of Zionism— most of it, or only some parts of it. There crystallized among the Jews of Europe in the are only a few nations which are wholly nineteenth century, and was fed not a little concentrated in their own countries or al- by demonstrations of anti-Semitism, and by most so, but they are the fortunate ones the nationalist movements and politics of which at no time were parted from them. the European peoples. Every attempt auto- The dispersion of Jewry has no replica in matically to transplant European inter- any history exept its own; there was a dis- relations to America by a formal ukase of persion before the galut of to-day, and not mutatis mutandis is likely to stultify itself. only one before this second galut but even The New World has been built up, in the one before that again. last few hundred years, by immigrants from Earlier than the Babylonian Exile there many countries who have merged with one was a Jewish dispersion in Egypt, and in the another to a large extent. The position of sixth century B.C., 2500 years ago, before the Jews in America is unlike that of Eng- the days of , and , lish or French Jewry, although these, too, there was a Jewish garrison in the south of enjoy equality of rights. All political relations Egypt. Not all the exiles wished repatriation and conditions in America diverge from with the first Return to Zion and only a those of European countries and you cannot part of the Babylonian Exile came back graft a political ideology born in the cir- with Zerubbabel, Ezra and Nehemiah; and cumstances of nineteenth-century Europe before the lay in ruins, a on to the circumstances of twentieth-century large dispersion dwelt in the Roman empire, America. What happened in Europe can numbering from three to five million Jews. happen in America, but it need not, and In Alexandria alone, there were about a mil- Zionism must not rest upon so doubtful lion, more than were then in Jerusalem. and unpleasant a conjecture. But dispersion was never as widespread and As before the State, so now, too, the mo- as split up as in recent centuries. tors of aliya are anguish and vision, but The extirpation of two-thirds of European the coming of the State has created a third, Jewry by the Nazis transferred the centre of which in the course of time may replace the numerical gravity from the Old World to first, and that is the magnetism of the State. the New, from Europe and Asia to America. If only the State is made strong and dur- In spite of the New World's cultural and able, if only it creates a full and noble way political legacy from the Old, in science, of life equal to that of any other country, literature and art and in Christian tradition, materially, morally or spiritually—and that it was a new society of nations that came is within our power—then perhaps the Jews to life on the American continent and in in lands of no distress or pressure will also Australia, one differing in many basic attri- find in Israel all the comfort and freedom butes from that in Europe and Asia, and it they now enjoy. They will find here, be- did not necessarily follow, so far as Jews sides, rare values and assets which Jews

93 David Ben Gurion : The People and the State

have nowhere else: Jewish independence pendence. That is why he brought the Zion- with all its rich expressions in economy, ist Organisation into being, founding it politics, culture, science, art and interna- upon free-will association and voluntary tional status. But for that, for the Ingather- effort, with no hint of coercion or imperial ing of the Exiles, for the advancement of duty. It voices the collective, historic will the material, political and cultural auto- of the Jewish people in its longing to be nomy of the State, we need, as always, the redeemed, and for fifty years it led the creative pact between State and people. people back to its Homeland and bore the * main responsibility for the establishment of the State, at times alone, at times with the Israel has become an organic part of the help of other Jewish agencies. being and experience of Jewry throughout Now that there is a State, the Zionist the Diaspora. It has enriched the life of the Movement is inevitably changed in cardinal nation and of every Jew as such. A Diaspora respects : the content of its activity is not without the State, and moreover a State rid the same, internally or without. of the poverty and internal quarrels of the What was this former content? In the Jews, is conceivable no longer. first place it was a struggle of ideas inside Equally we cannot conceive of the exis- the Jewish people. It proclaimed an end tence, growth or missionary fulfilment of the which was not to the liking of most Jews, State without the whole of Israel's people even though the beginnings lay deep in in partnership, for between the two is an their past, their literature and faith. Many interaction, obligatory, organic, historical saw it as harmful, blemished, imperilling and vital, without like or precedent in the Jewish existence, profaning the religion of relations between nations and States; for Israel, an ineffectual and impracticable the two differ from one another intrinsically. fancy, over-sanguine and reactionary. To The Jewish people is not an abstract pietists, it was a grievous blow to religion notion, or just a collective name for myriads and a repudiation of a belief in the Messiah; of isolated and scattered individuals in vari- perversely, they believed in redemption, but ous countries. It is a conglomerate whose in a heavenly and not a prosaic one as the actuality, will and common destiny are not Zionists preached it. The assimilationists felt open to question. But in the nature of things that it was a danger to Jewish rights, to the it has no fixed or rigid framework of uni- recognition of their civic equality and the form, planned effect; in each point of dis- status they had won, or aspired to win, in persion the conditions differ and conflict. their countries of adoption : for them, to No one territorial group is fitted into a aspire to a Jewish Homeland is proof that single pattern, for every Jew, like every non- Jews are not loyal citizens of their own Jew, is subject to the laws and policy of his countries. Socialists considered it a reac- country, although his ties with his brethren tionary movement which diverted the minds depend upon his free will and personal in- of the masses from the political or class war clinations. It was this difficulty that the which was to improve their lot and give prophet of political Zionism encountered them equal rights. Jewish Socialists, too, be- when he sought to marshal the Jewish lieved in the redemption, but by their creed people and gather it together anew in its it must come through a world Socialist revo- own Homeland, and there set up its inde- lution, and when the world was mended

94 David Ben Gurion : The People and the State by the kingdom of Socialism, so would the circumstances, political, demographic, eco- Jewish weal be mended without further ado. nomic and cultural. The Movement worked The enlightened, the men of affairs, took to undo those circumstances and so trans- issue with it as a vain dream and a bleak form them that it might accomplish its de- Utopia: would the Jews return to an sires. It embarked upon colonization, and archaic land, wild and in ruins, inhabited had to skirmish on the political front as by Arabs, under Turkish rule ? Would well, for the Land was no vacuum in which townsfolk turn into tillers of the soil and a man could do what he wished, as he Europeans settle in an Asiatic country? would under his own roof. It was under a The traders will not allow it, the Arabs will Mandatory administration, uniquely de- not agree, they said, and so forth. vised, like all Mandates after the First Our generation finds it hard to visualize World War, but wrapped in conditions that the Jewish reality of forty or fifty years were not duplicated in any other Mandate. ago, to measure the spiritual inertia, the The Mandatory did not govern here, as inertia of ideas, with which Zionism had to Great Britain governed in Rhodesia or Cey- contend, and how diametrically it was op- Ion, without responsibility towards an inter- posed to the outlook of the Judengasse of national body and with no obligations to- those times, in the East as in the West. It ward the inhabitants. The Mandate re- fought against cultural forces and habits of cognized the status of the Zionist Organisa- thought which swayed the Jewish people, tion, and included specific undertakings in right and left, orthodox and dissenter, rich respect of a National Home and Jewish and poor. It had its own internal differen- immigration and settlement, as well as in ces of view, serious and trivial, profound respect of the Arabs. Within this quadri- and superficial, but, on the outside, the lateral—Jews, Arabs, Great Britain and the Movement in all its divisions, factions and League of Nations—the Zionist Organisation trends has had to thrust against an Iron had its clearly defined place. Its task was Curtain of prejudices and of spiritual and to wage unending war, both when Great intellectual resistance. This struggle of ideas, Britain was reasonably inclined to fulfil her fruitful and fertilizing at least within the promises to the Jews as the Jews understood Jewish people, engaged the Movement all them, and also, and particularly, when she its days. strayed from them, wittingly or not. This There was a second struggle, the political contest, under changing conditions and in one, outward-turning. We need not go back varying forms, kept the Zionist Movement to Turkish times, when congressional Zion- at stretch for thirty years, and to a great ism first saw the light. For my present pur- extent the internal differences and argu- pose, it will be enough to deal with Manda- ments, the Party strife within the Move- tory times. Zionism was not only a Welt- ment, turned on how the contest was fought, anschauung, a philosophical or religious its substance and its form. Congresses, meet- conception, independent of time and place ings of the Executive Committee, the Zionist and circumstance; indeed, for many Zionists, press, all found their principal topic in de- it was in essence a Jewish philosophy com- bating relations with the Mandatory, co- bating assimilation. It had also a territorial, operation with it or opposition to much that a practical object, the Land of Israel. That it did, how to manifest opposition, and so Land was in turn conditioned by certain on. All the time, the Movement was sharing

95 David Ben Gurion : The People and the State vigorously in the tasks of colonization and tion and apostasy to Right and to Left, education in the Land, yet that did not greeted the State with pride and enthusiasm. bother Zionist thinking so much as did poli- Other than the Judaic faith, there has not tical disputation and argument. The struggle been these thousands of years a uniting and of ideas within the people, the political solidifying force of all strata of the people struggle with the Mandatory and the League throughout the Diaspora like that of the of Nations, were the core of Zionism until State. I cannot too often declare that the the State was established. Then everything State is the greatest conquest of the idea was revolutionized, although by force of of Zionism over the Jewish people. Every habit and from inertia there are still not a Zionist has right and cause to pride him- few Zionists who prolong a mentality that self upon it and rejoice in it, and with deep 1s altogether purposeless^ and willing satisfaction to accept the con- The State is. This revolutionary and fate- sequence that Zionists are no longer a mili- ful fact has perhaps not yet entered deeply tant missionary sect within the nation, but enough into Zionist consciousness, and it that the whole nation is solidly united may be that the Movement has not drawn around that central and historic under- all the inferences from it that it should taking of the Movement which the State is. with respect to Zionist acts and ideas. Vete- That which Herzl could not do half a cen- ran public workers, so long used to tilting tury ago with his amazing personality, the in the Movement's twin lists—inner and State has done: the people of Israel entire outer—keep on at their tourney even now, is at one and bound together in love and all unaware that the Government now un- care for the State. That which the idea der attack is not the Government they once could not do, action has done. And now it fought; that the Jewish people which so is clear that Jewish opposition was mistaken many would-be conquerors harried in vain, from the start, and that only impatience is no longer the same; that the ways of the and littleness of vision, and want of faith, Movement before the State do not go with made it seem as though the Jewish people the new reality. did not desire a Jewish State. Worse than

* opposition was the people's lack of strength to believe in the coming of the State. We What has changed? have had false messiahs, though the name Jews opposed the Jewish State for many is not apt to all who at different times dared various reasons, of religion, progress, Social- to proclaim redemption. But we have had ism, feasibility, comfort, concern for rights hopes and yearnings whose frustration in the Diaspora and the like. There were brought us sore disappointment, and so the even Zionists, as in Hashomer Hdtzair, and people dreaded new failures and new dis- other personages, to whom the idea was appointments, yet always, in the depths of anathema, because of belief in the "forces its soul, longed and pined and burned for of the morrow", or on grounds of political restoration, independence and sovereignty realism, or owing to pacifist principles. But in its ancient Homeland. The fearful of as soon as the State became a fact, this disappointment and failure were not only opposition melted and vanished, and not those called anti-Zionists or non-Zionists, only in the Zionist ranks; the people far and but also unquestioned and veteran Zionists, wide, save for negligible splinters of rejec- whether they shrank from advocating a

96 The People and the State ׳: David Ben Gurion

State of their whole Zionism was that advo- driblets. The gates were closed, the cacy. The moment the State was born, all land belonged to strangers, and a foreign doubts, fears, objections and hesitations dis- power, whether Turkish or British, reined appeared; the inner flame, sealed for thou- back our progress in settlement. sand of years in the bosom of the nation, Then came the upheaval. Every inch of blazed forth, and the State became at once the State is now in our gift. At the gates the focus, centre and cincture of the life of stand Jewish officers. Hundreds of thousands the Jewish people. of men and women, out of all the sick and It is essential for the Zionist Movement subject exiles, are returning to their Land, to take in these changes and comprehend with heads high. Hundreds of new settle- that it, the Jewish people and the State now ments are being founded in a fever of form together a close-knit and indivisible making. The ways of the Land are chang- unity. Each of them, State, nation and Or- ing, its needs growing with a tempo and in ganisation, is still a separate organism. The dimensions unheard of, all our previous State is a State. The people is still scattered concepts and manners outdated and chal- and lives on in dispersion, and is not iden- lenged. If we do not cultivate new manners tical with the State, any more than the State to suit the demands, the needs, the diffi- is in practice identical with it. The Organi- culties and the prospects of our new life, sation is neither State nor people, and can we shall miss the mark. never take the place of either, but between For decades we collected pennies to buy the three there exists a mutual bond, neces- a scrap of earth. Now we have millions of sary and welcome, an historic partnership. dunams to dispose of, but bare and waste. That one should exist without the others is Something totally unforeseen happened fantastic, and there is no setting one over when the State emerged: we had to fight against the other or the twain. What we for our independence, for our very existence, can and must do is strengthen the partner- and, with the outbreak of war, the Arabs ship and the bond by love, by trust and re- fled the country and it was virtually emptied warding labours. of its former owners. Pre-State Zionism * coud not even have conceived of such a For long the builders of the yishuv were thing, and certainly would not have been alone, few in number, almost forlorn. Years able to tackle its consequences. were to pass before a new yishuv would When the State was established, we af- arise. We had not then even the Balfour firmed: this is not the State of the 600,000 Declaration, we lived and laboured under or so Jews who live in it, but a State destined a corrupt and unruly Turkish government, for the whole people, and its gates are open the Land was given up to internal disorder, wide to every Jew who seeks to come. The we were a tiny island of Jews in a sea of number of inhabitants who have been added strangers. Even in our own villages foreign since that day, only four years ago, is labour outnumbered Jewish. Every little greater than of those who were before the acquisition of land involved endless trouble State or at the moment of its establishment. and took years. Every attempt to expand The Zionist Movement has a rich and collided with internal difficulties, inter- glorious record in its struggle of ideas with- ference from our neighbours, hostility from in the people, in its political campaigns on the government. Immigration came in the international scene against the Manda-

97 David Ben Gurion : The People and the State tory Government, the League of Nations, ments of redemption. But in this very supe- even the United Nations, in its beneficent riority of the State is also the source of its activity caring for the yishuv and deve- limitations and contraction. Its sovereign loping it. For fifty years the Movement has authority is confined to its own borders and been working in these three dimensions, and its writ runs only among its own citizens. has had its reward. Now comes the whirl- More than four-fifths of the Jewish people wind of history, and sweeps the State of are still—and who knows till when?— Israel into existence. The whole "order of beyond those borders. The State cannot creation" in the Movement and in the Jew- interfere in the domestic affairs of the Jew- ish people was upset. No longer the internal, ish communities in the Diaspora, cannot national struggle, no longer the battle of give them instructions or make demands of politics with the Mandatory, no longer them. For all the dedication that marks aliya by certificate and the buying of the State on its path to resurrection, and in land by dunams, but an Ingathering of the the tasks laid upon it, it still must behave Exiles such as Jewish chronicles never before as does every State, and its power outside recounted even in the days of its frontiers is limited. It is just there that from Egypt or the Return from , the Zionist Organisation, founded upon but liberation of all the territory of the free-will association and voluntary effort, State, but upbuilding of the Land faster has the occasion and ability to do what the and further than any other land has ever State is neither able nor authorized to do. ventured, but a problem of security to daunt That is the advantage the Organisation has the most lion-hearted. over the State, and that is why the estab- Habits of mind, methods of work, man- lishment of the State did not bring the era ners and measures of yesterday's Zionism of the Organisation to a close, but rather are no more. You cannot cover the naked- has enhanced its responsibility and mission ness of grown men with swaddling-clothes. beyond measure. The State and the Move- Great and difficult days are upon us. We ment complement each other, need each have done great things, tomorrow we must other, and it is by their joint endeavours do greater. We have triumphed over horrific that they can and must rouse the Jewish dangers, we must yet face worse. But our people to realize its dream of redemption. strength is waxing and our Movement now The Movement draws its strength and rests on the pillars of State and people. The authority not from the State but from the State has itself become the chief and most great historical truth whereon it stands, and potent instrument to fulfil the vision of in which it believes, the truth of the age- Zionism and forge the Jewish people into long mission and dedication of the Jewish one. No father is jealous of his son, no people and its Prophets' vision of national teacher of his pupil; so, too, there is no cause and universal salvation. The duty of the for the Zionist Movement to envy the State. Movement now is to take its rightful place Nay, the worth, the strength and potential within the scattered remnants of Israel with of the State are, I say it again, the mightiest all the strength of its vision, is fealty and victory of Zionist thought and perception. its performance. The Movement must bring itself freely and * in affection to recognize the primacy and The State's link with the Diaspora does supremacy of the State among the instru- not signify that the Jewish people there

98 David Ben Gurion : The People and the State will shape the State's face and form in its labour, economy and society, autonomy, of own galut likeness. The State would not culture, morals, power and the spirit, which have been, had not the builders and pioneers are foreign or failing in the galut. And of the yishuv taken heed to change from this far-reaching change is yoked to a se- top to bottom the structure of life and the cond revolution, a revolution in nature, economic, social and cultural foundations which the people of Israel has been charged of the Jews in the Land. The people in the to carry out in its Land, altering its land- galut had been weaned from nature, from scape, uncovering its hidden secrets and the soil and labour in most walks of life. treasures, restoring its ruins, augmenting its Perforce, almost all had become towns- yield and fruitfulness, making its desert people, earning their living from those poor bloom and making manifest its magnificence callings which for some reason were un- and glory. popular among the ruling caste, or from The destruction of our independence, the the typical sources of livelihood of the expulsion of our nation from its Homeland middle class. An independent nation can- and the wars that endlessly visited it since not but take root in the soil of its Home- we went into exile, wasted the Land, im- land, cultivate it with its own hands, and poverished its inhabitants and spoiled every engage in every vocation that its free exis- good part of it. The rich and fertile coastal tence requires. Amid the 155 millions who plains were buried under mountains of sand inhabit America, the majority of them tillers that drifted from the sea over the land. of the soil or workers in industry, there is Rain and wind tore away the soil of the space for five million Jews as well to make hills and bared the bleak rocks, when once their living, principally in commerce, as the woodlands and vineyards were uprooted office-workers and in the free professions, and destroyed by wild beasts and wilder or in certain branches of tailoring. men. Bounteous valleys, renowned for their An independent nation, back in its own plentiful harvests in bygone days, declined country, cannot exist on such an economico- into malignant swamps, and the steppes of social basis. When the new yishuv was the Negev, barren for the most part ever created, a social revolution was in ferment since Creation, lost even the last little bless- from the outset: the Jews were returning to ing which their industrious folk had con- be, in their great majority, a people of ferred upon them in days of old. workers as is every autonomous people, to For hundreds of years this process of ruin work in field, in factory, and workshop, in and neglect went on, until in recent genera- mines, on railways, in harbour, shipping tions there came the sons and builders of and air-lines. It is for the State to widen the Land. and deepen this economico-social transfor- Then, still, a strange government and mation. The nation must get its food from alien landlords tied the hands of those who its own acres, develop basic industry and sought to reprieve the Land and rebuild its establish a network of communications on wreck. Only when the State was established, land, at sea and in the air, that will make were these foreign chains snapped and there it economically independent of other coun- opened up to the generation of aliya and tries. pioneering such vistas of creativeness as This revolution in Israel is a revolution in appear only seldom in history. man, enhancing the values and dignity of But the profound changes which Israel

99 David Ben Gurion : The People and the State

witnessed before the State, and has more sustained still out of the nation's fountain- vividly witnessed since then, are not re- head of being, and suffused with all the stricted to economy, society or nature. They light of the past's legacy. The past belongs to leap to the eye everywhere and extend day us, but not we to the past; the past dwells after day. The State has also made a spiri- within us, we do not dwell in it. By and tual and cultural change of tremendous large, the past lights up the present, and consequence, although one still partly hid- history explains to-day's event by yester- den from view, whose story will be un- day's. But it may also happen that the pre- folded in its fullness only in the course of sent lights up the past, and the establish- time; but in its wake the self-discernment ment of the State is a shining example of of Israel is already changing completely, its that illumination. discernment of the world and the world's No man of sense can doubt further that discernment of Israel. we were a nation all through the long years

* of the galut, but a nation sui generis, un- like other nations. Nor are we like them Wandering and dispersion over thousands now, nor will be hereafter. Because of this of years could not destroy the existence of individual character we were, we shall be the Jewish people and blot out its peculiar again, granted to prevail. But perhaps only likeness. But they could and did deface and the Jews believed that all the rest of the distort it. Dependence on others took away nations were like one unto the other, and our freedom of thought and spirit, stamped so with naive simplicity divided the world upon us an inner vassalage, whether we into two : Jews and Gentiles. I doubt there knew it or not, and narrowed the horizon is a single nation in the world which does of our perceiving. A nation given over to not regard itself as different from all others, alien charity finds it hard to see itself, and and rightly so. This difference is a universal others, as it should. and everlasting fact; the only variation is The revival of our sovereignty is forming in the quality of the differential, its impor- anew our inner character and our outward tance and its strength. show. We are drawing near and nearer to The difference and individuality of the the historic root and source of our nation, Jewish people, the peculiar virtues of its that legacy of the spirit which Bible times goodly spirit and cultural, religious and bequeathed us. And at one and the same ethical creativeness in the period between time we are becoming more and more free the Exodus from Egypt and the Return citizens of the great world, and we fall heirs from Babylon, from Moses to Ezra, made to the universal human inheritance of all the people of Israel into an eternal folk, generations and nations. and so established one of the great, the The hand of time has dealt with us, as decisive, facts in the history of man's spirit, with other nations. No people to-day can or a fact imprinted clearly yet upon a large should be what it was a thousand, or two segment of the human race. or even three thousand, years ago. Israel's Springing from a unique spiritual and restoration to independence is not purposed moral quality, this otherness persisted even to bring back our glorious past. No, the when independence was lost. But in the State turns its face resolutely towards the Land it was not as it was when the people future, a future that must, however, be went into Exile. Galut changed the charac-

100 David Ben Gurion : The People and the State

ter and standing of the people from the land and in an especial periphery of na- aspect not only of politics and territory, but tions. It could no longer perceive the Bible, of spirit and culture, too. Exile contracted or comprehend it, as first it was handed the horizon of the nation, and shackled its down. spirit. The fount of creativeness did not The fate of the Book was as the fate of cease to flow, nor did it flow less, but its the people. This great, everlasting scripture, waters were dammed within ghetto walls. telling with wondrous art the story of a Even when we trod our own soil of old, young nation, a nation extraordinary in the Jewish genius, that left mankind so rich evolution, in inner conflict and spiritual and fertile a legacy, was one-sided and wrestling, in painful collision with external limited. We did not engage in science or forces and alien influence; this Book that metaphysics. We did not develop the art reflects the longings, thoughts and vision of of painting or sculpture, and our prowess this people in a mirror of its great Prophets in technology, administration and the art and poets; that brings to mankind an evan- of war was not great, though we were never gel of religious and ethical truths whereof counted with those who deny the life that the light will never dim; that has in it is and contemn the world as it is, as did words of wisdom and logic, outpourings of the wise men of India and the first Chris- the soul, with which little in universal litera- tians. Galut made our spiritual and cul- ture can compare for profundity of expres- tural world even smaller, and the under- sion, forcefulness of phrase, echoes of the standing of our past was warped. deepest vibrations of the heart — even it Rabbi Yochanan Ben-Zakkai, who plead- was uprooted from the soil where it first Was ed with the Roman conqueror for Yavneh planted and thrived, and, with its people, and its scholars, may well have saved the consigned to the material and spiritual dun- life of Israel by his plea and made strong geon of the Ghetto. its spirit to withstand the troubles and mis- The Song of Songs, a bold yet nobly fortunes which were to dog its steps in its eloquent hymn to nature and to love, was long and weary vagabondage. But the diminished to an allegorical disputation be- greatest of his disciples, Akiva Ben-Yoseph, tween Knesset Israel and the Almighty. the most remarkable figure in Jewry after King David, unrivalled knight and victor the destruction of the Second Temple, was among the kings of Judah, was portrayed not content with Yavneh and its scholars; by the homilists as a magistrate busy day he stood by the uprising of Bar Kochba for and night adjudicating secondary questions the restoration of Israel's independence and of ritual. And not only the homilists and its freedom as a State. It was only when scriptural commentators, but even Philo of that last despairing effort failed that the Alexandria, pupil of Greek philosophy and Jewish people became the People of the culture, composed a midrashic homily in Book. The great void which the forfeit of exquisite Greek, giving to the Torah allego- independence left, the ruin of the Home- rical meanings of which the ancients never land and of the rounded life of an inde- dreamt.

pendent nation, it tried to fill with inter- * pretations upon interpretations of inter- pretations of the Bible, that Bible born in When it lost its sovereign freedom, the Jew- an historic cradle of sovereignty and Home- ish people found itself under two conflicting

101 David Ben Gurion : The People and the State authorities : one, its own Jewish legacy; the together cease, albeit widely divorced from other, the rule of an alien people, with all fact and fluttering in a void without solid the administration, economy, culture and grasp of the demands and needs of a life laws peculiar to it, and its special power to that ever renews itself. At other times, the repel and attract. Jew flies from his lonely and outcast habita- This dual subjection, and the mental, tion and beats upon the portals of the alien spiritual and material agitation it caused— people, beseeching to be taken into its cul- there you have, in a sentence, the whole of ture and therein re-made. In the first case, Jewish history in exile. Not always, not he renounces the world and all that is in it, everywhere and not at all times must there and finds solace in the feeling of superiority necessarily be antagonism between the two of a Chosen People; in the present, and in authorities. There were periods in the this world, things are bitter and bad for his Middle Ages, and there are countries to- People, but it is destined in recompense to day, where neither the State nor the nation enjoy all good things in the world to come. of Jewish domicile sought or seeks to pre- In the second case, he is undone in the sight vent or hinder the Jews from living as they of others, corrupts his special character, wish, from cultivating their own special elbows his way into a realm which is not his, values. But there is one aspect that has accustoms himself to it and finally becomes changed at no time or place, the immutable someone else. At best, if he succeeds, he is basis of galut existence, namely that the absorbed and assimilated. If he fails, he is Jew, so long as somehow he stays one, is disgorged and humiliated, and has lost all under this dyarchy, and his life and soul his world. will surely be rent asunder in his distrac- This tug-of-war of authorities has never tion between the two parts of it. ended in Israel's exilic history, nor will it The Jewish part is pent in a little corner end, so long as Jews live in foreign lands of the spirit, and mostly lives on the past. and cannot or will not be wholly assimilated The other, illimitable almost, lives on the within them, or cannot or will not return to present and gazes forward; knowingly or their independent Homeland. Moreover, it not, it completely encircles the life of the has confounded Jewish discernment of the Jew and determines his status and educa- world, and the world's judgement of Jews. tion, his culture, livelihood and every-day * conduct. This contrast gives the galut Jews their character in their own eyes and The charge brought against the Jews the Gentile's. The Jew who wanders be- throughout the generations purported to tween ghetto and assimilation, between ex- show that they were different, for ill and tinction and self-extinction, between escape not for good, from all the nations, and that from the world and escape from himself, at "it profiteth not... to suffer them"; if there is times retreats altogether into himself and aught good in them, it was taken from sustains his soul on the crumbs of his Jew- others. It was levelled first not in the nine- ish legacy, banished though it is from its tenth century or in the Middle Ages, but living origin. We must marvel at the astound- before the Second Temple was destroyed. ing vitality and creative power dormant in It is found in the writings of Egypt, Greece this eternal people, when even in such cir- and Rome of two thousand years ago and cumstances its creativeness does not al- more. Nor did Jewish apologetics begin

102 David Ben Gurion ; The People and the State to-day or a generation ago: it is already to outmost in the basic universal values cherish- be found in the days of the Second Temple ed by the great thinkers and teachers of in the letter of Aristeas, in the Jewish Sibyls, our age, values to whose creation and in the works of Philo of Alexandria, Jose- growth we have contributed much. phus Flavius and the other Jewish authors Two parallel concepts of civilization, pre- of the Hellenistic period. And all who came valent in the world at large and in our after them tried to prove that all that was special world, exemplify and make clear the good sprang from Judaism, and that the anomaly in our cultural thought during the wisdom of Greece was not the fruit but the days of exile. I mean the concepts of "the flower. wisdom of Greece" and "the wisdom of Is- In our Exile we saw the world with eyes rael5'. But I do not speak of the pronounced of fear, strangeness or envy, disparagement and serious differences of character and or self-decrial, for we had no equal share talent between the two small peoples which, or parity in it. Perhaps we could not under- in their day, played so large a part in the stand other peoples, enveloped as we were civilization of the world. I speak of diffe- either in gloomy feelings of inferiority or an rences in connotation, deep and essential unblushing sense of superiority. At best differences. again, we used to copy others out of de- When we talk of the "wisdom of Greece" ference, or sneered at their behaviour we think of the philosophy of the great and their ways, just because we had Greek sages, which embraced the whole not come as far. Little, however, as we world. We think of the theories of Thales understood them, they understood us less, and his disciples on the principles of nature; for their experience of nations had no satis- of the philosophy of Heracleitus, Pythagoras factory yardstick with which to measure us; and Parmenides on cosmic being and its for them we were not different only but evolution; of the laws of Hippocrates on the deformed. effect of natural climatic factors on man's Now that we are again an independent health and ailments; of the Dialogues of people in our Land, with equal rights in the Plato on justice, sanctity, courage, love, family of free peoples, we need no longer education, the state, the laws, the govern- be sensitive to the charge, we are under no ment, and those highest axioms we call compulsion to indulge in apologetics. As ideas; of the treatises of Aristotle on logic, free men, we can and must see ourselves, in science, metaphysics, poetry and ethics; of the past and in the present, as we really are, the works of Theophrastos on plants and with all our blemishes, our faults and short- the natural sciences; of the mathematical comings, and mend what there is to mend. essays of Euclid, Archimedes, Aristarchus of Let us not show off to others the wealth and Samos and others. beauty we have, or have not. Let us strive When, however, we speak in the galut to care for our rich inheritance and take as of the "wisdom of Israel", we think of the well to ourselves all the positive values and literature and research that treat of Israel's assets of humanity, for we are part of hu- past, its faith and writings. So far, writers manity and nothing human is alien to us. Let on Jewish philosophy bethought themselves us fashion our lives, our culture and our only of the theological metaphysics of Is- character ourselves, loyal to the great en- rael's scholars in its relation to the Jewish Iightenment of our past and sharing to the faith, and to this very day have found no

\Q3 David Ben Gurion : The People and the State room for Baruch Spinoza, our greatest philo- Egypt and Babylon, China and India, Per- sopher in the seventeenth century and sia and Arabia, Greece and Rome; the lite- among the deepest thinkers of mankind, al- rary legacy of the Middle Ages and the new though he, too, treated of the past and era in every field of scientific, artistic, philo- problems of Judaism and, three hundred sophical, religious and poetical invention; years ago, foresaw the coming of the State all ever written first in Hebrew or written of Israel. by Jews, and about Jewry, in a foreign * language. The State has been born again, and again There is no call to stress that within our we are under one authority, our own. This cultural pursuits in Israel the study of "our own" is no fence confining us anddivid- Homeland and nation will occupy a special ing us from the rest of the world. Rather and prominent place. The antiquities of the it is that behind it, in freedom and equality, Land and its features, its geology and topo- we are become citizens of the world in the graphy, its natural resources, its waters and political and economic sense, and in the climates, its seas and shores, its plant and spiritual and cultural no less. In galut we animal-life, its prehistory: the shifts and were step-citizens, refugees without a home- changes in all these in the aftermath of the land, and needing a "Nansen" passport movement of peoples, of conquerors and which makes no distinction between one na- wars all through the ages—with these sub- tion or State and the next. In our own State jects, students from all civilized peoples have we are become citizens of the world of full busied themselves for generations. The and equal status, as children of an indepen- abundant and polyglot literature of the dent Homeland. Our autonomy restores to us Land of Israel is second almost to none in the crown of inner identity and unity, and richness among countries of no greater size. our link with the world and its culture is Let us give full credit to students, of other the link of equal partners. nations and our own, who have done much Research and education in Israel are lost to throw light upon the past and nature of if they do not take in the world entire—re- our Land. But it was not until the War of search into atom and the stars, the realm of Independence and the coming of sovereign- plant and animal, the secrets of earth and ty that opportunity to study the Land, seas, the winds and weather and all that na- which belongs to us, and to us only, has been ture keeps hidden in the heavens above and amply given. on the earth below; man's exploits from his Only a people living in its own land, in- first appearance on life's scene his struggles, dependent, armed with the cultural and his ups and his downs, his wrestlings scientific means of to-day, and under chal- with himself and his fellow-men, as indivi- lenge to unveil all the secrets of the Home- dual and as member of society, through all land for its present and its future's sake, will eras and in all parts of the globe; every- avail to decipher the hieroglyphs of the past thing that can be the goal of intellectual and of the nature of the Land, that are en- effort and research in Israel. The Homeland tombed yet in the depths of its soil, its many literature is lost no less if it does not com- tels, the crevices of its rocks and its desert pass all the treasures of human thought caves, and lay bare the treasures hidden in from the remotest antiquity to the present the bosom of Mother Earth, and in our day: the ancient creations of the peoples of rivers, our lakes and seas. For thousands of

104 David Ben Gurion : The People and the State

years we have read in the Bible of "a land eternal people was formed, and there came whose stones are iron, and out of whose about all but a few of the immortal crea- hills thou mayest dig brass". But not before tions told of in the Book of Books, that pe- the Negev was liberated by the Israel De- riod from Exodus to the Return from Baby- fence Forces in our War of Independence, Ion, from Moses to Ezra, demands of us a did we indeed discover the mines of copper spiritual nearness and historical intuition, and iron, and approach the rich deposits of and freedom of thought besides, and intel- phosphates and other minerals, whereof we lectual independence and the spurning of have not yet traced mention in that Book prejudices and motives for or against. It is of Books which, saving the Land itself, is not easy to find qualities such as these in the most trustworthy source of knowledge scholars of other races, or even in Jewish of the Land. And we are only on the scholars who serve two masters and have threshold of these discoveries. not felt what it is to be a Jew free in his Study of the Homeland is bound up in- free Land. extricably with the pioneer aliya for the For two thousand years, commentary peopling and progress of the Land. It both upon commentary has been written on the helps to expand colonization and is helped Book of Joshua. No one will belittle their by it. A nation's every scientific endeavour value; they made clear and identified many is an integral part of the economic, political obscure things and dark places. But the and social course of its life. commentary provided by the battles of the It is not otherwise with study of nations, War of Independence, and the great light especially of a nation, and of its cultural that renewal of independence flashed upon and spiritual creativeness, in the land of its our past, will outshine all commentators, be birth. For centuries scholars, Jewish and they sons of the Covenant or not. non-Jewish, have engaged in it. With the Only a nation in its own Land, and non-Jewish, it was often twisted because of autonomous, can with clear vision and in- Christian and anti-Jewish motives which, tuitive understanding read the Book of overt or concealed, influenced most of their Books born in that Land and of that nation. conclusions. But even the Jewish have not Only a generation upright again in its old been altogether free from motives, influ- Homeland will understand the spirit and ences and impediments which have no con- soul of its predecessors, who toiled and cern with enquiry into the truth. Under- fought and conquered, created and worked standing of the basic and determining phase and suffered, sang and loved and prophesied in Jewish history, when the character of an within that Homeland's bounds.

105 Zionism, Exile and Homeland

Joseph A. Heller

T is DOUBTLESS not by pure chance at a time when Jews were being deprived that this period of basic crisis in human of that basis of life which had been allocat- Ihistory has coincided with a decisive ed them within the social framework of the change in the state of Exile Jewry. At a Middle Ages; and when it became clear that time when Western culture is being shaken under the conditions of the new epoch and and overthrown before our eyes, and a with the emergence of new social and na- strange new world, terrifying in its hidden tional mass movements there is no possibility potentialities, is coming into being, bringing of national and social separatism without a with it all the perils of a gigantic convulsion territorial and economic basis. Hence the and the wars of Gog and Magog, there has fundamental assumption of Zionism is that been a twofold transformation in the life of Exile Jewry cannot continue to exist as a our people. The European Exile, which was separate social entity in any form satisfying the corner-stone of Jewry in our own epoch, our basic human and national requirements. has been destroyed almost entirely; and This principle of "negation of the Exile" in the Land of Israel there has come into may, it is true, be interpreted in several dif- being a politically independent Jewish com- fering fashions: either in a "cruel", extrem- munity which bears within itself the pos- ist and absolute manner or else in a more sibility of negating and liquidating the en- "convenient", conciliatory and relative tire Exile as such. fashion. A review of the recent past will serve to In either case, however, the assumption show that the Zionist Movement is one of that organized Jewish existence in the Dis- the fruits of the tremendous transformative persion can never be full or satisfactory in a process now under way in the whole of Jewish national or even general human human society. The process commenced sense is a prime postulate of the Zionist out- with the establishment of the United States of look. Whether Zionists completely deny the America and the French Revolution, and its historic and creative value of Exile epochs, final stage began with the liberal-democratic or recognize and value the vital aspects of era in Europe and a series of destructive our national creation during our long cen- world wars leading to the overthrow of the turies of wandering, they all agree in seeing old world. Zionism came to offer a solution no future possibility of creative, full and to the Jewish problem, i.e. the question of independent national development on the the physical existence of the Jewish people, part of Exile Jewry. The school of Ahad

106 Joseph A. Heller : Zionism, Exile and Homeland

Ha'am, who do not believe in any complete refragable fact, deeply rooted in objective Ingathering of the Exiles "in the course of conditions which could not be done away nature", nevertheless do not view the con- with so long as humanity had not reached tinued existence of the Diaspora as a desir- the level of ideal and "Messianic5' perfec- able form of life, but accept it perforce as tion. As a logical result of this fact, Zionism an inevitable evil and historic necessity. At demanded "immediate work" in the Exile that, they believe that it must be spiritually for the benefit of the Jews of the Diaspora, linked with and culturally subject to the even though it viewed that work as a mere Spiritual Centre to be created in the Land auxiliary activity in the human and nation- of Israel. We are, therefore, entitled to con- al war which could not be evaded, and in elude that the attitude towards the Exile is which no complete victory was to be ex- a decisive test of membership in the Zionist pected. camp without reservations. With the establishment of the State of Israel and the fulfilment of the Basle Program, Zionism found itself caught in a As long as the Zionist Movement was in a dialectical maze. The surprising victory of state of aspiration towards a distant objec- the Zionist idea, at first sight, might have tive which many regarded as Utopian, the been expected to expedite the solution of question of accepting or rejecting the Exile the Jewish question and the liquidation of was also a mere matter for theoretical de- the Exile. Actually, it has given rise to bate lacking all vital or practical impor- ideological difficulties and has produced tance. For in actual fact Zionism could not emotional complications among Diaspora simply or casually abolish the reality of Exile Jewry. The State of Israel has become a in which it was born itself and from which kind of touchstone for all the forces and it drew its influence. Furthermore, as a truly currents to be found within World Jewry. national movement, Zionism could not per- The fact that the State exists compels every mit itself to renounce any part of Jewry— Jew in the world to consider his position, not so much as a single soul in Israel. As a and to choose between certain very real democratic and humanist movement, it alternatives. This has caused the differences could under no circumstance renounce Jew- to become more acute, and has deepened ish, human, civic and national rights, in the antitheses between the camps. On the any place whatsoever. For Zionism did not one hand the victory of Zionism has streng- set out to derogate in any fashion from the thened the position of the extreme assimila- status of Jewry the world over, but to streng- tionists of the type of Arthur Koestler and then it; and it called for a return to the his group, who regard the State of Israel as Homeland and the establishment of the a refuge to "other'' Jews but not for them. National Home not in recognition of the The fact that the State is in existence has justice of anti-Semitism or as a moral ad- entirely liberated them, they seem to think, mission of the second-class legal and social from the duty of faith and belonging to the status of Jews in the Diaspora, but specifi- persecuted people from whom they derive. cally as a protest against the injustice of that The difference between national Jews status. It saw that the abnormal situation and "ordinary" Jews has begun to be stress- of Exile Jewry, unjustified as it was both ed, and a kind of barrier of a spiritual morally and legally, was nevertheless an ir- character has apparently risen between Joseph A. Heller : Zionism, Exile and Homeland

-the outcome of a com ׳persons from Israel and Jews elsewhere. the State of Israel is Anybody who does not come from Israel, plicated process of unrecognized spiritual no matter whether he cannot or does not forces, rooted partly in a national cultural wish to settle in the Land of Israel, would tradition and religious faith; and that this not appear to have any reason for isolating process is not a matter of simple calculation. himself, in a national sense, from the other After it has continued in action for close on nation in whose midst he was born and two thousand years, it cannot suddenly lives. Hence one of the chief factors making cease to be with the proclamation of Israel's for the existence of a specially conscious independence but, on the contrary, is likely Exile Jewry appears to have been eliminat- to continue yielding fruit for generations as ed. part of the historic process of realizing the On the other hand, the problem of the hopes of an ancient people. Jewish national future of Exile Jewry has come to the fore emotion does not lend itself to definition in in a more acute fashion than ever. Should any exclusively political and legal terms; it the Jews of the Exile continue to regard is a spiritual and psychological bond, simul- themselves, as their forefathers did in all taneously involving a biological and meta- the lands of the Dispersion during the biological heritage. Middle Ages, as Jews "on the road", that As against this, we must consider first and is, on the way to the Land of Israel? Is foremost the character and future of Exile Jewish existence in the Diaspora of necessity existence, that being the central problem of an Exile existence, or that of a Diaspora? Is our national movement. This question can the Land of Israel in future to be the Jew- be sub-divided into two: Is there any basis ish centre of the entire Jewish people, to for the belief that Exile Jewry will continue which the Diaspora will prove spiritually to exist for some unspecified period as a and culturally tributary? Or does the Dis- living and productive religious-cum-na- persion have its own right to exist, as well tional entity? And what in essence is going as the possibility and right of maintaining to be the link between that Exile Jewry and independent spiritual centres which may the State of Israel ? Will that Jewry in any make their own original contributions to internal spiritual sense be dependent on the the general culture of Jewry? centre in the Land of Israel? Or will it be able to function on its own resources, con- * sciously aware of its independent right of We see no need to consider the views of existence as an inseparable part, different in those protagonists of assimilation whom the cultural coloration, of the non-Jewish com- existence of the State of Israel has provided munity in the countries where it exists? with a good excuse to be done with the * bother and trouble of being Jews. We shall merely remark that the chief argument of Firm belief in the everlasting existence of such "friends of Israel" is based on a doubt- the Jewish people has deep religious roots ful premise; namely, on the assumption that and itself serves as a very powerful pre- national Jewish feeling is a matter of me- servative factor and force. "The Eternal chanical choice, made for personal reasons One of Israel will not prove false" and "The and "logical" considerations. They do not, Guardian of Israel neither slumbers nor or do not wish to, see that the emergence of sleeps"—those two sayings give clear ex-

108 Joseph A. Heller : Zionism, Exile and Homeland

pression to the basic attitude of Judaism, there seems to be little hope as yet that the which attributes a metaphysical and the- Jews living beyond the Iron Curtain will ological foundation to the continued exis- leave the area of Communist rule. Hence, tence of the nation. However, when this the Jewish people will largely continue to faith is emptied of its living religious con- remain in Exile for an indefinite period tent, it is nothing more than a purely sub- until, in due course, conditions come about jective state of mind, which may prove that are convenient, politically, economical- wrong and lead to error. In itself, in any ly and spiritually, for the complete Ingath- case, it is unable to provide an objective ering of the Exiles. In this respect Ahad basis for belief in the future of the Jewish Ha'am saw the situation clearly, although Exile. he went too far when he wrote that "the There are two illusions which are liable Ingathering of the Exiles is something that to become widespread at the present junc- lies beyond the power of nature". (See his ture. One is the assumption that the estab- essays on "The State of Israel and Jewish lishment of the State of Israel will, of and in Distress" in the Collected Writings of Ahad itself, afford a solution for the problem of Ha'am in one volume—Hebrew—Dvir, the continued existence of the Exile; p. 136.) whether by means of a complete In- If Exile Jewry does not rapidly liquidate gathering of Exiles speedily and in the itself through the Ingathering of the Exiles, near future, or by the direct influence of is it not likely to maintain its existence from the State's existence on the mental its own resources as it has hitherto done? attitude of Diaspora Jews. The second il- Has it not undergone countless troubles and lusion is the belief that, as the Jews have catastrophes? Has it not suffered terrible already lived in Exile for countless genera- persecution and endless anguish, withstand- tions, they may rest assured of continuing ing all this and being delivered from de- to exist in Exile in the future as well, under struction? Yet Ahad Ha'am remarked on all conditions and in all circumstances. this, too, that the Exile Jewry of our own We may indeed be entitled to believe day is not like that of the past. During the with absolute and perfect faith that the Middle Ages and until the end of the time will come when the great majority of eighteenth century, Exile Jewry was united Jews will be gathered in the Homeland of and firm, within and without. It was united the nation; yet we have to realize that the within through a powerful religious faith fulfilment of this hope still lies exceedingly and a common religious and popular way far from us. It is absolutely inevitable that of life which held all parts of the Jewish the majority of the Jewish people will re- people together in a cultural, spiritual, na- main in the lands of the Exile for many tional and social entity. It was united from years to come. The State of Israel is en- without by the peculiar social and legal tirely incapable of rapidly absorbing about status of the Jewish Community vis-a-vis ten million immigrants; nor can it even be the Christian Community, a status based imagined that the majority of the Jews re- on a feudal cooperative regime wherein the siding in North and South America and the Jewish Community was a separate social various sections of the British Common- unit. wealth would of their own free will leave Yet these two powerful factors, the na- their present places of domicile. Likewise tional religion and the cultural and legal

109 Joseph A. Heller : Zionism, Exile and Homeland isolation, have weakened greatly of late, lost, but that part of the people which has particularly in the English-speaking coun- remained alive is smitten, wounded and tries and Soviet Russia, where the great bleeding. "From the sole of the foot to the majority of Jews now live. Emancipation head there is no whole place in him", and did away with those bars which had isola- wherever we turn, our feet stand on the ted the Jews socially. Jewish communities verge of a decline. have adapted themselves to the forms of life We witness a process of biological de- of the Christian society within whose range cline, a gradual loss of the population of of influence they live, or from whose cul- Exile because of an increase in mixed mar- tural resources they are sustained. The re- riage and the falling-off in the birth-rate ligious emotion is weakening and losing its which works in geometrical progression. At influence on the masses; while religion it- the beginning of the twentieth century a self, as far as it is preserved, is becoming clear trend towards the natural disappear- an external and traditional form of life ance of Western Jewry had been observed, from which the psychological content has and Dr. Felix Theilhaber had already largely evaporated, leaving only the husk proved by a statistical study of fertility and of social habit and custom. At the same mortality figures that German Jewry was time there is a growing tendency to "break on the verge of disappearance. (See Dr. Fe- up into as many varieties of Judaism as lix Theilhaber, Der Untergang des deut- there are countries in which Jews are dis- schen Judentums.) persed". (See Ahad Ha'am, loc cit.) During the first half of the present cen- It must be admitted that during our time tury the annual percentage of natural in- in particular the dangers facing the phy- crease was declining steadily among all the sical and spiritual existence of Exile Jewry Jewish communities of Europe, including have increased very greatly. Exile Jewry has Eastern Europe, while in Germany and been shaken to its very foundations and re- Hungary during the thirties the percentage quires a gigantic rescue effort; one that is of births became negative; which means no smaller in scale and value than the that there were more deaths than births. efforts made for the redemption of the The surveys and research of the Jewish Land. We are still stupefied by the dread- sociologist Professor Liebman Hersch de- ful blow we have been struck. We are still monstrated that the Jewish population of incapable of gauging the dimensions of the Carpathian Ruthenia was the only one that psychological and spiritual damage done us continued to show an appreciable increase by the Nazi catastrophe, or its unforeseeable during the thirties of the present century, effects. More than a third of the Jews of whereas the Jewish population of Poland the world have been destroyed, the firmest was beginning to approach the point of elements of national life have been up- decline; while in other countries outside rooted and our richest creative fountains Soviet Russia the Jewish population was have grown dry. Not only have we lost falling off rapidly. This means that even six million souls, which cannot be replaced, before the Nazi holocaust the Jews of Eu- and not only have a large part of our youth rope were facing a demographic crisis. In and the bearers of our hopes been swept America and Great Britain the Jewish birth- away, while Jewish communities closest to rate is less than that of the general popula- the living sources of Judaism have been tion, which is also on the decline, and there

110 Joseph A. Heller : Zionism, Exile and Homeland can be no doubt that during the period of drawn from the hands of the Jewish com- the Second World War this situation has munity, which is compelled to concentrate not only not improved but has grown far increasingly on commerce and middle-man worse, so that a very considerable diminu- occupations in the national and inter- tion in the Jewish population of the Exile national field and which, for this reason, during the coming years may be taken as requires a certain measure of personal free- certain. (See the essays of Nathan Goldberg dom, competition and exchange. The prob- and the literature cited in other essays and lem of adaptation to a comprehensively na- studies by Professor Hersch.) tionalized economy may be solved ultimate- The general falling-off in births during ly, but the solution will not easily be found the past fifty years is, to be sure, an in- and will involve sacrifice and suffering. evitable result of a conglomeration of varied However, truth to tell, the existence of factors bringing about the cultural crisis Diaspora Jewry is not so much fundament- of Western nations. Yet there are additional ally biological or economic as it is spiri- causes which operate more strongly among tual and cultural. Not by its powerful race the Jews of the Diaspora because their exis- nor even by its practical capacities has Jew- tence there is less secure and complete. ry hitherto survived all its foes throughout These are the lack of security or firm basis the ages; but by its spirit. The most alarm- of life; the concentration of the Jewish ing sign is the spiritual decline which is be- population almost exclusively in large towns coming manifest in various forms in every and cities; an unstable and unbalanced aspect of our life. This decline has two social structure; and, above all, the loss of aspects. It is moral and religious, and also that great faith in the absolute value of life educational and cultural. There is a slacken- which was found in the hearts of our fore- ing in that religious sense which has al- fathers and gave them the strength to pre- ways been at the root of the spiritual serve family life and raise up their children strength of our nation, and an alarming di- despite all the hardships which they met minution in the knowledge of Judaism and on their wanderings. The downward bio- Torah, which is the source of the everlasting logical tendency is itself a sign of national life of our people. The degeneration in re- degeneration and suffices to put our nation ligious feeling, to be sure, is also a general in peril of physical disappearance. phenomenon in our times, and the result Exile Jewry also faces a significant eco- of spiritual perplexity and moral malaise in nomic crisis. The entire world is now visibly the entire human world. Yet this obvious passing through an economic-cum-social danger is sevenfold greater for our people crisis leading to the national planning of than for any other. Other nations have national industries. This revolution is liable their heritage of cultural treasures, which to limit exceedingly the fields of activity maintains itself in every form of political, and conditions of livelihood of Diaspora economic and cultural life and in all their Jewry. As the State authority takes over works of literature and art. Our culture, increasingly extensive fields of production, however, is largely bound up with the na- places them under its own supervision and tional religious way of life and a literature includes them within the framework of a in our ancient "Holy Tongue", wherein comprehensive central plan, corresponding- almost all our spiritual values have been ly large sections of the economy are with- fashioned, made manifest and preserved.

111 Joseph A. Heller : Zionism, Exile and Homeland

Not only our religious faith but also the productively in the fields of Jewish scholar- knowledge of Judaism and its sources has ship and education, and to some limited decreased remarkably. Not alone has our degree even in the field of Hebrew litera- generation come to dislike the traditional ture. But can these counter-balance the way of life, and forsaken the active require- tremendous forces operating in the deeps of ments of the Torah which preserved our social reality and dragging Jewry down to unity and the continuity of our spiritual the abyss? After all, even in Western Europe heritage; but even among those who them- "Jewish scholarship" and the struggle of selves observe all religious requirements, the religious and national currents reached there are very few who know and recognize their apogee at the very time when the the urgent need, or are prepared to instruct roots of group Jewish life had already been the people as to the way they should go. poisoned by assimilation, and the opposi- In the Diaspora religious and national edu- tion to the latter was growing steadily cation have become pointless and ancillary weaker. Admittedly our people still possess to the general education of the State school hidden spiritual forces which, under favour- systems, and as a result Jewish youth is gra- able conditions, are capable of slowing down dually growing estranged from all the values and, perhaps, even withstanding the process of Judaism. If the nation is gradually losing of degeneration. Yet this will be possible only its way of life, and our cultural and literary if there is a clear knowledge of the unhappy wealth is gradually being forgotten, whence situation, and an almost miraculous revival will Diaspora Jewry draw the spiritual of the national will to live. strength, the rousing devotion, the faith # and esteem for life, the assured hope in the future, without which there can be no re- Let us leave the question of Jewish exis- surgence or even existence for the nation? tence in the Diaspora in the future, and To be sure, all these facts cannot be re- turn to another problem: that of the bond garded as "scientific'' proof of the inevita- between the Exile and the Land of Israel. bility of degeneration or the impossibility We know that certain of the leaders of the of a change for the better. But they can most important Jewish community of the serve to disturb us and arouse an apprehen- Exile, that of the United States of America sion that will impel us to take energetic (Zionists among them), believe with all action. In any case, we cannot afford to their hearts that American Jewry has a follow routine practices or maintain the singular character, that it is entirely diffe- usual facile optimism. Nor are these facts rent from all other Dispersions, and that it to be countered by pointing to a few more not only has the right of hegemony over all cheerful indications, like a slight increase in other Diaspora sections of Jewry but also the number of persons acquainted with occupies an important place itself and in Hebrew among limited circles of Jewish its own right, a place no less important than youth, or signs of improvement in Hebrew that of the Jewish population of Israel in education in America and other countries; our times. In other words, the Jews of the which by no means serve to rectify the situa- American Diaspora are not prepared to tion fundamentally or to check the destruc- serve as a periphery of the Eretz Israel tive currents. There are certainly cultural centre. They do not consider that they are institutions and associations which function fated to be a secondary body to that lumi-

112 Joseph A. Heller : Zionism, Exile and Homeland nary which sends its light forth from Zion; even though he is regarded as a free citizen they are not destined to prepare the ground of the country of his residence and enjoys for a future Ingathering of the Exiles. In- complete legal and social rights, and even stead they constitute a centre in their own though he may acquire the culture of the right, a suitable soil for raising an original foreign people and grow fond of it, and model American-Jewish culture. will nevertheless continue to put the Land The question before us may be briefly of Israel in the centre of his spiritual life, formulated in this form: Is contemporary while the country in which he lives seems World Jewry, particularly American Jewry, to him exile. For, as Ahad Ha'am re- still an Exile Jewry or a Diaspora Jewry? marked in his essay, The Time Has Come, To decide this we must first clarify the the real effect of exile is "that it deprives difference between the two concepts. It is the people of the possibility of safeguarding clear that whatever difference there may be and developing their national being in ac- does not derive from objective conditions, cordance with their own spirit, in complete but from a subjective state of mind. A Jew freedom like other nations"; and therefore outside Israel is in exile if he feels that he life in exile, even under the best of con- lives in an environment that is largely or ditions, will always remain the opposite of even to a minor degree alien, and that this a life of national freedom. (See his essay environment does not fully satisfy his spi- The Way of the Spirit.) Hence, if a Jew ritual and psychological needs. On the other does not accept the concept of Exile and hand, if this sense of being alien has entire- replaces it by that of "Diaspora", he there- ly vanished and he regards his country of by recognizes and admits that he finds all domicile as his homeland in all respects— his psychological and spiritual desires and then, even though he may feel affection and satisfactions in life, even as a Jew, in the esteem for the Land of Israel, he lives in country where he lives. The Jewishness of the Diaspora. It might even be assumed this Jew, whether religious or purely cul- as an extreme case that an assimilationist tural and secular, is not an independent Jew who has absorbed and adapted himself Judaism, but is a psychological vestige of to the culture of the nation in whose midst the past which has become a particular he lives, and who is entirely devoted to that nuance of the non-Jewish culture, a kind culture and feels himself to be a true son of of variation which passes unheard in the that nation, will regard the country around general song, a note which has the effect him as his Diaspora homeland, although he merely of an accord. may suffer distress and persecution, and Such an attitude is natural and justified most of the inhabitants are anti-Jewish and on the part of an assimilationist Jew who regard him as a complete alien. For in- does not admit that the Jewish people have stance, mention may be made of the Ger- any right of national existence. Is it really man-Jewish thinker, Konstantin Brunner, possible for a national Jew as well? Is it who in a book published in 1920 wrote that possible to be a Zionist and to view the even if his German brethren were to hate United States, for example, as a Diaspora him and wish to murder him, he would pure and simple, with absolutely nothing o£ regard himself as a German and would tell Exile about it? his murderer : "I am your brother." Simi- A Jew who regards himself as a full Jew larly, a nationalist Jew living outside Israel, spiritually, and at the same time as a pure

113 Joseph A. Heller : Zionism, Exile and Homeland

American, and does not sense any defect kind as the Irish nationalism which still in his personal situation from the national, derives from a spiritual nostalgia based on spiritual viewpoint—what kind of Judaism childhood memories of a kind of small- is his ? Clearly, it must be either exclusively town or village life that has long vanished— religious or exclusively national and racial. an emotion which does not call for any Yet it is easy to prove that in either case action and which grows weaker with the such a Judaism is deficient and liable to passage of time. It follows from all this evaporate and vanish. A religious Judaism that Jewry in the dispersion of exile cannot which is not basically connected with the base itself exclusively on abstract religious fate of the Jewish people in the past and faith, nor on purely national and racial the future is artificial, unhistorical, a Juda- feelings, but only on a concrete cultural ism that has lost its pith and freshness and Jewish nationalism which combines the has become empty phraseology, lacking all memories of the past and the spiritual heri- social influence. In actual truth such a tage of the ages with the national hopes of Judaism differs very little from up-to-date, the future. Such a concrete cultural and in- reformed liberal Christianity that has been dependent Judaism as this cannot constitute given a scientific interpretation and has an integral part of "Americanism", but re- been pruned of mythological and meta- quires its completion through living Israel physical elements. So bare a Judaism can- Jewry, which will in future realize the ideal not be a creative force determining a form of a full and comprehensive Jewish culture. of culture and life. In the light of this analysis, the principal Yet national, racial Judaism which is characteristic differentiating the Zionist subject to American culture, external to it from the ordinary Jew becomes clear. This yet immersed within it, cannot be perma- characteristic has become obscured of late nent either. There cannot be a national because of the pervasive influence of the Judaism which has no specific cultural and State of Israel on the Jewish world at large. religious content and is not linked with Indeed, even the Prime Minister of Israel independent Jewish life, but is based ex- has expressed the opinion that the great clusively on sentimental emotions, depend- majority of the nation constitute "the Zion- ing on vestigial reminiscences of the past ists of to-day", as almost all the Jews of the which are quickly obliterated. There is no world esteem and value the State of Israel difference between this national emotion and desire its well-being. This wrong and and the casual, incidental national feelings dangerous view is based on a confusion of of the masses of immigrants from Italy, concepts. It derives from the identification Ireland and elsewhere—no difference at all. of Exile and Diaspora, affection and en- And just as the spiritual link between those thusiasm for the Jewish State, with an "in- emigrants and the countries of their origin ternal bond with the Land of Israel". A quickly evaporates, by the second or third true Zionist is a Jew who, though he lives generation at the most, so will it in all abroad and is a faithful citizen of his coun- probability be with the national and racial try of domicile, whose culture he has ac- feelings of American Jews who lack religious quired, yet knows and recognizes that he faith and concrete religious practice and dwells in exile and that "his heart is in the who are far from living Hebrew culture. East though he is at the ends of the West", Their sentimental nationalism is of the same as Yehuda Halevi had it. A Zionist is a Jew

114 Joseph A. Heller : Zionism, Exile and Homeland who not only esteems the State of Israel The restoration of the Jewish State does and takes pride in it, but for whom that not in any way free us from concern for, State is part of his life, and who feels an and action on behalf of, the majority of inner bond with Hebrew culture which the people who have remained abroad. The sustains him. On the other hand, a Jew question of the existence of Exile Jewry has who lives in the United States, who fully indeed become a burning and fateful one. believes that there is no difference between For the Exile and the Land of Israel need his life and that of an American Christian, one another, and enjoy a bond of mutual as far as psychological and spiritual satis- aid and spiritual activity. Just as we re- factions are concerned, and who regards quired national and political halutziut in himself as a complete American with no order to revive and build up the Land of special national and cultural needs—such Israel, so we now require a national, spiri- a one cannot be a Zionist. tual and moral religious halutziut to rescue the Exile and raise it from its ruin. The * Exile contains treasures of human, psycho- logical and spiritual strength from which From this analysis of the state of our people and through which Zion can be built up following the restoration of the State of for evermore and achieve ultimate redemp- Israel, we reach the paradoxical conclusion tion. The State of Israel is the repository that the continued existence of the Exile is of spiritual energy and the main support of decisive value, especially at present, for for the forces hidden within the soul of the the fulfilment of the Zionist idea. For from nation; from it the impoverished limbs and the Zionist, which is really an integral Jew- members in the Exile can draw nourishment ish, point of view there is no place for a and sustenance. spiritual barrier between the nation and the Thus every Zionist faces a double duty: country, neither in the Exile nor in the State to help provide firm foundations for the of Israel. A Diaspora Jewry is liable to ex- existence of both the State of Israel and the plode and crumble and vanish, but an Exile Exile. Though this task has two aspects, Jewry, imbued with the national spirit and it is essentially one, and its final objective spiritually bound to the Land of Israel, may is one and the same: preparation for the find within itself the energy needed for re- future redemption of our one and only, newal and rejuvenation. ancient yet self-renewing nation.

115 The Doctrine of Moderation

Dr. J. Melkman

HERE is certainly no shortage of lite- to arrive at a formula which, no matter how rature or discussion on the proper defective its wording, adequately covers the Tcontent of the Zionist idea following basic consensus ? the establishment of the State of Israel, and The answer to this question is psychologi- the relations between the latter and the cal. Zionists do not desire—or rather, do Zionist Movement. This is rather astonishing, not dare—to give the reply that follows for the Zionist Organisation certainly does logically from an analysis of the situation. not suffer from any shortage of duties, either This lack of courage is due to the fact that in Israel or in the Exile. Nor is there any the Zionist Movement is no longer free in difference of opinion as to the tasks on ideology and action as it was half a cen- which Zionists should now engage. In ge- tury ago. Material considerations of various neral they are agreed as to the need for col- kinds tend to hinder the drawing of con- lecting funds on behalf of Israel and con- sistent conclusions. Such restrictive factors ducting Zionist propaganda, for providing include not only the actual framework of their children with a Jewish education and the organization but also the relation be- learning Hebrew. No more than a minority tween the parties and, probably even more, venture to doubt the necessity for fostering the need of refraining from anything liable halutz propaganda in their own country of to alienate certain Jewish groups, in order residence, and even they in no way deny that fund-raising should not be unfavour- that this propaganda is necessary for the ably affected. The legal restrictions deriving Movement as a whole. In addition, it is ad- from statehood, which apply to nationals of mitted even by fanatical opponents of the other states in their dealings with Israel, may present regime in Israel that the activities also be partly responsible for our turning a of the Zionist Movement as such must al- deaf ear to the still, small voice of truth in ways be co-ordinated with those of the Go- our hearts. vernment of Israel, and that opposition, if What the chosen leaders cannot or dare any, to Government policy must be left to not do, however, can be done by those who the political parties within the country. do not bear direct responsibility for the It may be assumed that so large a mea- conduct of the Zionist Movement and the sure of agreement in respect of practical State of Israel, and who are therefore at activities has a certain ideological founda- greater liberty to exchange opinions which tion. Why, then, does it prove so difficult may determine the course of the movement. /. Melkman : The Doctrine of Moderation

Is "Kibbutz Galuyot" a New Idea? Israel. Yet it is clear that, given proper de- One of the first issues discussed after the velopment and the industrialization of the establishment of the State was the finding country, almost all Jews who are no longer of a new ideal for the Movement. It was willing or able to remain in the galut, ac- generally felt that the original purpose had cording to the old Zionist formula, can be been fulfilled. At least, the aim set by the absorbed by Israel. Basle Program had been fully realized and The time will, therefore, soon come when more. Herzl might have been satisfied with the Zionist Movement will have to face a less territory and independence than the problem in reverse. In the past there was State of Israel now possesses. Hence it was a Jewish distress without a solution; in the felt necessary to set up another objective. future, we may have a solution without any This, it was believed, was found in the aim tangible Jewish distress. This should not be of the ingathering of the entire Jewish interpreted by any means as implying that people in their own country. the Jewish problem will have been solved. This is unquestionably an ancient ideal In the course of this essay I propose to dis- which has never been absent from Zionist cuss in detail the Jewish position in the history. Many Jews envisaged the ingather- countries where most of the Jewish galut ing of all the exiles as the ultimate realization communities are now concentrated. of Zionism. The final objective of Zionism Yet there is no denying that Zionism will is the solution of the Jewish problem. It face a strange situation when Israel finds follows that a Jewish state with far too itself still capable of absorbing immigrants restricted a territory, like the one proposed and the slogan kibbutz galuyot remains the by the Royal Commission in 1937, would final objective of Zionism, while many presumably have given quite a different Zionists in their respective countries of re- meaning to the slogan of kibbutz galuyot. sidence in the Diaspora refuse to live up to The emblems and apparatus of such a this ideal. At any rate, the idea of kibbutz miniature state would certainly have been galuyot cannot be a substitute for the ori- considered a ridiculous imitation of other ginal Zionist ideal. "If you will it, it will nations and nothing more; certainly not a not be a legend", is at the moment a pro- solution of the Jewish problem, which in paganda slogan of the Israel Government, those days was assuming an ever-increasing and no longer an expression of blind faith urgency. in the realization of a vision for the distant Now, however, the situation is different future. in three respects. The territory at our dis- Kibbutz galuyot, therefore, cannot serve posal is larger, the number of Arab inhabi- as a new ideal. It is not an aim for which tants in it smaller; and finally, the number the Jew in galut can make personal exer- of Jews threatened with disaster is, to our tions, or on which he can concentrate his sorrow, smaller than in 1937. thoughts and life as he formerly did on the During the first years of our existence establishment of a National Home. Political the Jewish State succeeded in liquidating a activity, the writing and distribution of substantial number of Jewish communities. Zionist pamphlets, the contacting of influ- The rate of immigration has now slowed ential non-Jews, the conducting of protest down considerably, in some measure owing meetings, campaigns and demonstrations to the unfavourable economic situation in are no longer the tasks of Zionists in the

117 /. Melkman : The Doctrine of Moderation gola; and the Zionist education of Jewish The developments of the past few years youth no longer prepares them for the have clearly shown the disastrous results of struggle to achieve a strange but fascinating the diversionary tactics employed by Zionist end that makes personal demands on the leaders. The fact that conflicts have emerged members of the Zionist Movement. In Pitts- between the Government of the State of burgh or Los Angeles the slogan of kibbutz Israel and the leadership of the largest galuyot means nothing but philanthropy, Zionist Organisation in the world—the giving money for needy Jews in North Afri- Zionist Organisation of America—is not in ca or Roumania. itself remarkable. Co-operation usually en- These critical observations on the slogan genders conflict. The differences between kibbutz galuyot likewise apply to all other the Zionists in the United States and the slogans that have been put forward. The local non-Zionists may serve a useful pur- expansion of the territory of the State of pose. However, the fact that these were Israel may become necessary in a more or conflicts about matters on which there less distant future. At present it is not an ought to have been agreement, and that urgent need and cannot be a political slo- there was agreement on issues where the gan, let alone an ideological issue. All other various protagonists ought to have clashed, ideals, religious, socialist and otherwise, no should cause alarm. The subject at issue matter how important they may be, are not was the respective competence of Zionists in actual fact the legitimate heirs of the and non-Zionists as regards fund-raising, in fundamental idea of the Zionist Movement. which they may be expected to co-operate. The Zionist leaders have tried to fill the Views coincided as regards galut towards vacuum which has come about, not by ideas which American Zionist leaders did not but by deeds: they have tried to acquire a take a basically different stand from that of greater share in colonization, in industry, in the American Jewish Committee. This fol- the absorption of immigrants, in the distri- lows from the absence of any searching bution of funds, in education, both within analysis of the situation, and the fact that and without Israel, and even in internal not one of the above mentioned substitutes politics. This has led to various conflicts can claim to replace the Basle Program. and complaints, which are almost inevitable There is a certain inherent logic and even when two different bodies are active in the justice in this development. How can it be same field. possible to rejoice at the great miracle This, however, is only the lesser evil. It which we have lived to see, to exalt over is far more dangerous that all this activity the most significant historic event of our is actually the precise opposite of Zionism's age, comparable to the Maccabean revolt if real objective in the past, just as the activi- it does not surpass it—and still maintain ty of Baron de Rothschild was not identical that in essence the Zionist Movement has with Zionism. In actual fact we ought to not yet reached its aim ? rejoice when any part of our work can now be left to the governing organs of the State What Does Zionism Mean? of Israel. Our aim must be not the expan- As far as non-Zionists are concerned, the sion of our practical work in Israel but its developments of recent years have simply rigid limitation, as against its expansion in solved the problem of the future of Zionism the gola. by making the Zionist Organisation and the

118 /. Melkman : The Doctrine of Moderation

Zionist Movement superfluous. Their ob- in the West about their position that we jectives, according to the non-Zionist view, shall not consider them here. have either been achieved or are no longer At any rate, in countries allowing free- taken seriously by Zionists themselves in dom of expression, the fact that there are countries with large Zionist organizations, now Ambassadors and Ministers of the State such as the United States, Great Britain, of Israel has not radically changed the spe- etc. The continued functioning of these or- cial position of the Jews. American Jews, ganizations can be explained, they claim, American Zionists, and even the most pro- by the law of inertia, according to which minent Zionist leaders in the United States organs that have become redundant con- have in recent years, and with growing tinue to live for some time longer, though emphasis, developed the thesis that the ne- they are actually useless. gative impulse towards Jews that existed in However, the problem is not so simple as other countries is absent from the United that. The Zionist Movement is the child of States. "America is different", and what two factors: the distress of the Jews whom applies to Europe does not apply to a com- their non-Jewish neighbours regard as an pletely new world of immigrants. inferior group to be tolerated at best, and In the Knesset debate on the status of the who are very often persecuted; and the Jewish Agency, the Premier, Mr. David Jewish sense of belonging to a people pos- Ben-Gurion, supported this view; let us sessed of a homeland. The combination of hope he did so for political, rather than these two factors led to the Zionist solution Zionist, considerations. No conclusive proof of the Jewish problem, which was given can, of course, be brought that the same political formulation by Herzl. The object conditions must of necessity develop in the of Zionism has been achieved in half a cen- United States as in twentieth century tury. This, however, has not eliminated the Europe; yet the Zionist analysis teaches us factors that gave birth to Zionism, though that such conditions are liable to develop the belief that it would do so was some- everywhere and that the ultimate security times expressed in the past. Herzl, indeed, of every Jewish settlement in galut is at tried to win over the rich Jews of the West best highly questionable, though there are by assuring them that a radical improve- bound to be very important local diffe- ment in the status of other Jews would safe- rences. guard their own position. In our day, too, Each galut has its own pattern of extinc- Utopian assimilationists sometimes cherish tion: Egypt, Babylon, Spain, Russia and this hope; and a Koestler has already urged Germany, all differed from each other, yet his ideological friends, following the estab- each had an existence of limited duration. lishment of the State of Israel, to draw the After some centuries they were terminated, logical conclusion of denationalization. usually by way of catastrophe. The annihi- Yet neither in the Arab countries nor in lation of the Jews in several European coun- Europe, nor even in the United States, has tries in our own day may be the most the possibility of complete absorption of the characteristic example of all. The over- Jews by the local non-Jewish majorities in- whelming majority of the Jews in Holland, creased; and the dangers for Jews in all Belgium, France and Czechoslovakia have those countries have remained unaltered. perished, not because the local population As for the Jews in Russia, so little is known was anti-Jewish, but because anti-Semitism /. Melkman : The Doctrine of Moderation had become the doctrine of a powerful rence that we have now achieved a solution neighbouring state. Spanish Jewry may in which in those days was thought impose some degree be regarded as having been sible. exterminated in a similar way. Hereafter Zionists will be those who are The slogan "America is different" thus so much drawn towards Zion, and are so constitutes a complete disregard of the conscious of living in galut, that they make Zionist warning. Coming from the lips of every effort to strengthen their links with prominent Zionist leaders, it is not only Israel. confusing but may prove dangerous. The most natural way to achieve this is -however, if these Zionists prefer ma ,׳This denial of danger menacing the Jews aliya is combined with the view that America is terial comfort or an ambivalent connection no galut, though this totally undermines with their country of residence to the steps the second Zionist pillar of positive Judaism. that will heal the cleavage in their soul, Hence it is necessary to ask what the con- then the company of other Zionists, life in tent of the Zionism of these American a Zionist atmosphere, the education of their leaders can be, if they reject both the children, and the collecting of funds for Herzlian analysis of the Jewish problem and Israel will serve them in trying to silence Ahad Ha'am's thesis of the singular posi- the voice of their heart. tion of the Jews in galut. In actual fact they have ceased to be conscious Zionists, The State and the Movement if ever they were; and nothing but the fact The above analysis also applies to the that they conducted political Zionist activi- mutual relations between the State of Israel ties during a certain period could have de- and the Zionist Organisation, which are not ceived us as to the nature of their Zionism. determined by the circumstance that the Now that there is no longer room for Movement is the mother of the State. That political activity, disillusionment is all the sentimental argument, which is frequently deeper. Hence re-education and a re- advanced in discussions on the status pro- examination of our ideology are urgently blem, lacks conclusive force. It might even necessary. be argued that it is quite in the natural We must start from the premise that once order of things for parents to make way for the fundamental solution of the problem their children. But this argument does not has been achieved, the objectives of the even need to be adduced, for the compari- Movement can no longer be subjected to son is irrelevant. Though the State admit- question. tedly owes its origin to the Zionist Move- Hence the supreme problem now con- ment, and even to-day exercises functions fronting us is no longer the aims of Zionism, which it has taken over and derived from but the nature of the Zionist. it, yet the field of activity of Zionism has A Zionist is a person who is conscious of always been the galut, not Israel. It has the fact that he lives in galut and that this always been the task of the Movement to involves danger, both external (persecution bring the Jews to Eretz Israel; but not to and oppression) and internal (loss of Jewish determine the manner of life of the inhabi- content). We have, therefore, returned in tants of that country. A mother must take some degree to the pre-Herzl period of the care not to interfere in her daughter's Hovevei Zion, with the important diffe- household; brought up in a different place

120 /. Melkman : The Doctrine of Moderation and at a different time, she does not really otherwise? In the galut the distinction be- know what is right for her daughter. tween a Zionist and a non-Zionist may be The relation of the State to the Move- considered important. For the outer world ment is actually far more complicated than it usually amounts, in actual fact, to a dif- that of the Movement to the State. Should ference between two groups of people who the State, for example, intervene in the ac- have both decided not to go to Israel. The tivities of Jewish communities outside its one group says so more clearly than the territory ? Constitutionally, it may lack that other. But if the non-Zionists are also pre- right. However, the living force of circum- pared to give money for the upbuilding of stances often breaks established rules which, the State and for kibbutz galuyot (pro- in their turn, were based on specific social vided, at least, that this does not include conditions. At any rate, we Jews have al- their own galut), then for all practical pur- ways met with difficulties due to laws made poses the difference between the two groups by and for other peoples. Never have the is not very great. And these are the prac- general laws been completely applicable to tical conditions which the State has to con- us Jews, a people with a way of life that sider in its fund-raising campaigns. differs from all other nations. In the Middle We believe that in the course of time the Ages we were able to maintain ourselves State will benefit most by the support of only because the religious society of the Zionists, and that the largest flow of aliya period regarded us as a national community can be expected from their circles, despite entitled to our own religion. In modern, the existence of a counteracting factor with national society religion has granted us the which we shall deal below. But in any case, possibility of maintaining a separate exis- Zionists in the gola must realize that, no tence, and of preserving symbols that were matter how strongly they may oppose non- actually national because they were con- Zionists for reasons of principle, they can- sidered to be of a religious character. We not claim preferential treatment as re- must try to find a way out in present-day gards practical support for Israel. They will society, which demands at least national and have to admit that those who contribute often religious identification; a way out financially to the upbuilding of Israel, either by aliya or otherwise, enabling the though they are not Zionists, also possess Jew to preserve his inner loyalty to his that bond with the Jewish people which is people. This of necessity makes the relation the essential basis of Zionism; while on the to the State a somewhat delicate one. It is other hand those who are officially called made even more delicate by the fact that Zionists often show a remarkable lack of Jews living in Israel have an approach to Zionist insight, as in the case of some Ameri- the Jews in galut differing entirely from can Zionist leaders. It must be realized that that of the latter themselves. A person com- the importance of the Zionist Organisation ing from Israel finds it extremely difficult and of the Zionists individually lies not in to perceive any distinction between a Zionist their permanent readiness to make greater and a non-Zionist. Insofar as the Zionist sacrifices for Israel than non-Zionists, not has created a Hebrew atmosphere in his in their pride in Israel and not in their ex- home, the language may be a connecting pert knowledge, but in their reaction to factor. For religious Jews religion, inde- galut and the nature of their bonds with it. pendent of Zionism, will play this role. But In this respect the doctrine of Ahad Ha'am

121 /. Melkman : The Doctrine of Moderation regarding the Spiritual Centre may serve as (Hi) In order to strengthen the Jewish a directive for the daily life of the Zionist consciousness of being in galut, the Zionist in the gola, although he proved to be Movement should conduct propaganda mistaken as regards Jewish distress and has along two lines: been refuted by the facts. According to (a) Pointing out to Jews the defective and Ahad Ha'am, the Zionist will consider Zion insecure foundation of their galutExistence; and its culture as the centre of his life, so (b) Strengthening their sense of national that his whole being will bear the stamp unity by spreading the knowledge of Heb- of the homeland of our people. rew and Hebrew culture, organizing Jewish A strange and dualistic existence, some national demonstrations and taking all other may think. Indeed, it reminds us somewhat suitable measures to forge closer links be- of the demand for a "heroic existence" tween the members of the Jewish people which Klatzkin made of the Zionists. But and their ancient homeland; -The Zionist Movement plays a lead (ע) there is no other choice. Whoever does not draw the monistic and consistent conclusion ing part in fund-raising campaigns for Is- of aliya cannot expect to lead a full Jewish rael, but it is not entitled to a voice regard- life. On the other hand, a dualistic type of ing the manner in which the collected funds existence is by no means exceptional in the are to be spent; history of our people. From the most an- (iv) The Zionist Movement plays a lead- cient times to our own days Jews in the members, the Movement must maintain a galut have been in that position. Even in department to promote the settlement of the period of the highest efflorescence of the new immigrants in Israel, by material sup- Kabbala, many Jews who were convinced port as well as otherwise; that supreme perfection could be achieved (vi) The Zionist Movement does not in- only in Eretz Israel nevertheless remained terfere in the internal affairs of the State in galut, materially supporting those pious of Israel. men who did go to the Holy Land and thus believing that they came a step nearer The Zionist Future to the perfection they so fervently desired. Thus formulated, the field of activity of For a long time to come we shall, therefore, the Zionist Movement may seem narrow have to reckon with the presence of a dual- to many persons. Yet, in my opinion, it istic galut, which may continue for very would be unwise to annex fields of activity many years, unless it is broken up by ex- for the Zionist Movement without ideolo- ternal circumstances. gical justification. It is quite possible that the membership of the Zionist Organisation Summary might decline seriously owing to the fact (t) The Zionist Movement comprises those that what it would then have to offer would Jews who are of the opinion that all Jews not be particularly attractive. To prognos- living outside Israel are in galut and that ticate the future is of course very difficult. this galut must be terminated; Yet it seems to me that we may continue to (it) Zionists should try to achieve this end have faith in the two angels which have by themselves immigrating to Israel and by hovered over the Jewish people in galut for promoting, as much as possible, the aliya the past two thousand years: the angel of of other Jews (kibbutz galuyot); evil, inspiring that hatred of other nations

122 /. Melkman : The Doctrine of Moderation for us which we have never been able to use of slogans, we must consider whether escape, and the angel of good, inspiring the there is sufficient foundation for confidence Jews' love for their own people, which has in the persistence of our national vitality in never yet failed. the abnormal circumstances of galut which We must not shut our eyes to the danger have not been changed by the establishment that, deprived of the possibility of political of the State. Ahad Ha'am long ago express- activity, the Zionist Movement may enter ed his concern as to whether the Jewish upon the road of galut nationalism. What people could continue to exist when the we have in mind here is not galut nation- vast majority of Jews would no longer be alism as a clearly defined program of action religious, and when the "I believe" had been such as Dubnow propagated, and the replaced by an "I feel". Thinkers coming "Bund" at one time tried to implement— after him elaborated this idea, and pre- a program proclaiming the need for national dieted the early disappearance of a large Jewish autonomy in galut. This idea is so part of our people. Yet their gloomy pro- unrealistic in our days that it may be com- phecies with regard to the vital forces pletely ruled out. But what is possible is within the Jewish people have not come that the Zionist Movement will create such true. At present, for instance, the links be- an atmosphere that its members, though tween the Jews throughout the world are living on foreign soil, nevertheless enjoy stronger than they were a century ago. Fur- some measure of illusion of living in a "na- thermore, the interest of the Jews in their tional home": Jewish meetings, radio own affairs, in their history and literature, broadcasts from Israel, Zionist literature, all art and science, is infinitely greater than these instruments may delude Zionists into was the case for a long time. This in itself the belief that they are not actually in ga- does not in any way run counter to the lut. This belief is not shared by their non- fact that the modern Jew is more ready to Zionist Jewish neighbours, who remain with- abandon certain external and possibly cer- out defence or shield against the hatred of tain internal Jewish characteristics than non-Jews. Apart from mass immigration were his ancestors, since those character- from countries where the Jews are in actual istics no longer enjoy the sanctity which danger, statistics show that even in countries formerly made them inviolable. where the Jewish position is at present Two other circumstances, however, coun- secure, most applications for aliya come terbalance this. In earlier centuries, too, from non-Zionists. For them, the realization many individuals and groups were lost to of their Jewishness has been a very sudden the Jewish people; a fact which is never experience, and has therefore led them to sufficiently realized, as we are accustomed make far more radical decisions than the to concern ourselves only with the small Zionists, who "always told you so". Yet elite who did preserve their Jewish charac- this risk cannot be avoided. The danger that ter, overlooking the masses who lost their in the absence of a Zionist education pre- identity as Jews even in the Middle Ages. cious elements may be lost to the Jewish Of far greater comfort in our present people is such that it must be taken into difficulties is another factor. That self-same account, although we put our confidence in era which in many respects threatens to the vital forces of our people. undermine our national existence has also If we are not to deceive ourselves by the given us the instruments with which to re-

123 /. Melkman : The Doctrine of Moderation pair the damage. In former centuries, when children dwelling safely in their own land? a Jew was driven from one place to an- Did not our great Zionist thinkers in the other, or settled in another country of his past always dream of a higher aim which own free will in order to create better con- Zionism would serve? Without doubt. Both ditions for himself, then nothing but a stub- social and religious ideals, which we used born effort could prevent his complete as- to epitomize in the term Messianism, have similation. The Jew who did not say his found expression in Zionism and have prayers and put on tefillin every day, who given a tremendous stimulus to our Move- did not study the and teach his ment. The ideals in question have not yet children from the books which he carried been fulfilled, and we continue to long for with him on his wanderings, was soon lost their realization as of yore. But it has always for ever. An apt illustration is the story of been a Zionist axiom that the realization the four scholars who bore the study of the of these ideals is possible only by means of Talmud to Spain. What would have hap- the concentration of the Jews in their own pened if they had perished on their jour- country, as an independent people. And ney? How much time would have elapsed though the same forces are active in the in that case before the study of the Talmud, Zionist Movement of to-day as in the past, which flourished in Babylon, penetrated to those forces can find their expression only the Iberian Peninsula? Compare this, on through, from and by means of, the State the other hand, with the possibilities offered of Israel. It is our hope that Israel will con- in our own time. One single centre can tinue to strive for the attainment of the maintain contact with the entire globe. The ideals of Zionism. The Zionist Movement Jewish press is read by Jews in the smallest must supply to Israel, in as large a number village, while Hebrew broadcasts and re- as possible, elements that are able to fructify cords are heard in Jewish homes in every and direct the State in this spirit. But that corner of the world. Emissaries of the will be the common aim of State and Move- central institutions visit the most distant ment, in which the State will undisputably communities and help to maintain the link play the leading part. The Movement must between all Jews, so that the love of the be modest and moderate, and we can only Jewish people is kept alive in every Jewish hope that as many Jews in the gola as heart, and the desire for return to their possible will find the road to it for the sake ancient homeland does not die. of Israel, for the sake of our people, and Has our people no other ideal, it may be most of all for the sake of the Jews them- asked in conclusion, than to have all its selves.

124 What Can Israel Offer the Exile?

J. D. Wilhelm

HE following modest contribution, body or group of the type of the "American aiming to consider the influence of Council for Judaism". No attempt to inter- T Israel on the life of Jews in the fere with activities on behalf of Israel for Exile, both as individuals and as groups, is assimilatory reasons, or to diminish the sent from a corner of the Diaspora where manifestations of good will towards Israel, there are only a few Jews. The calamity by is regarded as serious. It is interesting to which European Jewry has been over- observe the percentage of mixed marriages whelmed during the past decades has had among the large contributors to the Appeal. no recognizable influence on the Jews of In the light of these facts it is possible that Sweden, although the latter country obtain- the concept of assimilation, as employed ed an access of Jewish population as a re- hitherto, calls for a measure of correction. suit. This Jewish entity is relatively young, At first sight it seems possible to talk about and its communities are not particularly out- enthusiasm for Israel. There is a recogniz- standing in their sense of tradition. Never- able tourist movement. About eight hundred theless we shall see that Swedish Jewry can Swedish Jews, meaning one in ten of the also enlighten us as to the general problem. community, have already visited the country The birth of the State of Israel changed since the establishment of the State. The the world of Swedish Jewry. Before the es- Independence Day Festivities gained the tablishment of the State, the Zionist move- largest number of visitors. In the Stockholm ment did not play an important part here. synagogue the congregation has recently Among the well-established families who begun to sing "Alenu Leshabeah", of all have been residing in this country for more prayers, to the tune of Hatikva. than two generations, there were very few Jewish identification with Israel is sup- with a truly Zionist outlook. The emergence ported from without. The Swede approves of the State transformed matters overnight. of Israel, as is shown by the General Swed- The income of the Israel Appeal is increas- ish Appeal for Israel, the popular collection ing year by year. Contributions for other of money, particularly in religious Christian Israel requirements, such as the Jewish Na- circles and among the Trade Unions. The tional Fund, WIZO, the University, etc., religious groups participate because of their are also on the increase. Only a minority feeling for the Holy Land, and the workers refuse to contribute as a matter of prin- because of their sympathy with the young ciple. There is absolutely no anti-Zionist Socialist State.

125 J. D. Wilhelm : What Can Israel Offer the Exile?

Yet in spite of all that has been said for real Zionist education. We missed a rare above, there is no correct information or opportunity which will not recur, and we knowledge about Israel. Very few, whether continue to appeal to the heart and emo- Zionist or non-Zionist, endeavour fully to tions instead of winning over the intellect. understand the political, economic and cul- Despite his good will, the Jew in the Exile tural situation and developments. The con- has remained apart from the Zionist re- ditions for clarifying fundamental problems volution. He does not change as a Jew, and are lacking, as is genuine contact. The Zion- he is not prepared to alter the habits of his ist press, to be sure, publishes information Exile congregation or community. Just as about what is happening in Israel. But the the destruction of the Exile has not left its reader does not know its real meaning, and impress on Jewish religious behaviour, so cannot adopt any attitude. The political the establishment of the State has not basic- parties in the Exile live in a vacuum. ally altered the Jewish pattern of thinking. And truth to tell, nobody who does not Everything has remained as it was, and the live in Israel can fully comprehend what Jew has remained where he was. He is pre- is happening there. Israel appears in the eyes pared to identify himself personally and in- of the Exile like a sort of beautiful fairy dividually with Israel and to make a maxi- princess. Yonder in Israel everything ought mum contribution for it; but he does not to be ideal. There must not be any ugly show any readiness to renounce the life of aspects whatsoever in this picture painted the Exile as such and as it is lived in these by imagination. The tourists who visit Israel days of the Jewish emancipation. Emanci- likewise do not see the realities; as though pation, and not the establishment of the they arrive there wearing a suit of armour State, is the really decisive factor in his life. which fences them off from what is really Hence the Jew in the Exile lives under a going on. They see nothing at all save what high dialectic tension. He lives in the Exile, they desire to see. This waking dream is which, in general, he does not propose to also one of the factors which shapes the leave. Yet he sees his Jewish ideal in Israel, activities of the shlihim (emissaries) from in a world of legend. Is it possible to live Israel. People wish to hear only the positive any real length of time in a world of side. The Exile does not wish to recognize legend? Is there no reason to apprehend a the fact that the process of birth also has development which may lead to a breach its ugly and negative sides. between the world of the Exile and the Is- At no period was the Exile so united as rael reality? There is no great danger of immediately after the establishment of the this. Since the non-Jew regards the identifi- State. The enthusiasm for Israel was abso- cation of the Exile Jew with Israel as some- lutely spontaneous, and contributions were thing natural, the Jew says amen to the made not because the shlihim were clever latter, even if he does so against his will. enough to do good propaganda, but because Yet such a link is not stable. Consider the the times required it. Did Israel and Zion- Jewish youth in the Exile. They usually re- ism show any comprehension of that hour? gard Zionism as a sign of growing old. In It has passed without having been exploited. our youth people used to say about Zionism The contributions were accepted and people that it was not absolutely necessary to be were left in an exalted mood, but no at- crazy in order to be a Zionist, but that a tempt was made to exploit the opportunitv little craziness certainly helped. This "little J. D. Wilhelm : What Can Israel Offer the Exile? craziness" is now missing among the youth. The Exile Jew, particularly the young Jew, The sense of instability and insecurity in will admit his ethnical identity with Jewry, life, from which Zionism as an outlook on even if that is weaker than any other the world derived, seems to be missing. The identification. If Israel can enrich him with youth appear to feel themselves secure; and cultural values, he will accept these as a the proof of this lies in the mixed marriages, welcome gift, and will respond with high even on the part of that younger genera- esteem. But it is a question whether Israel tion which has only just emerged from the possesses the suitable kind of export goods. historic events of our age. Israel's best literary works have to be How can Israel influence the life of the translated into the languages of the Exile. Exile ? It cannot issue orders. It cannot order The Exile has to be helped to appreciate halutziut, nor can it impose a world outlook good Israel music. Israel art has to be by sheer force. If Israel has any prospects at brought to it in the form of travelling ex- all of influencing what is happening in the hibitions, etc. But it is only high quality Exile, then it is by way of a cultural mission. which can exert a real, long-term influence.

127 The Functions of Zionism To-day

Isaiah Wolfsberg

HE FACT that ideological discussion consideration, and participants therein has been renewed is in itself of vast should not behave as though some point of T importance, and although haste is fresh equilibrium has been attained. To be very inadvisable in matters of this kind, the sure, a kind of calm has now come about fact remains that the subject calling for in our lives thanks to the establishment of consideration permits of no delay. I fear, in the State. This boundlessly important fact fact, that we have already lost much valu- provides an anchor for all developments able time. The duty of engaging on this among our people. Yet those who are con- venture into theory is incumbent upon all cerned for the national future must ex- authorized and responsible groups and insti- pound the new historical situation to all the tutions; namely the State of Israel and its perplexed who hesitate between two courses, Government on the one hand, and the Zion- not knowing whether to approve or dis- ist Organisation and its Executive on the approve of the State's primacy in our other. Individuals who feel the necessary Jewish lives. It is the duty of those who are sense of responsibility are surely also called concerned, also, to make clear to the citi- upon to participate. And it is the particular zens of the State our national situation and duty of independent individuals who are the position of the people as a whole. not "party" men in the narrow sense, to The psychical instability of the public at do their share. large derives from the tremendous impact What follows is only the outline of a dis- of the events of the recent past. I do not cussion, neither so comprehensive nor so include in my considerations the hyper- deep as it should be. aesthesia resulting from prolonged exile, I wish to stress at the start that the prob- which has led to our uneasiness, our tenden- lem should be viewed in all its range, ur- cy to exaggerated reactions, unjustified fears gency and complexity. Any narrowing or and, on the other hand, a self-induced restriction would merely serve to divert us. blindness and disregard of impending dan- ger. After all, it was one of the curses of (a) exile that our responses should not be ap- The tremendous change that has come propriate ones; that we exaggerated our about in our national life has not yet fear and dread while over-indulging our- reached its end. The shock is not yet over. selves in calmness and ostensible tranquil- Ideological debate should take this into lity. Here we shall restrict ourselves to the

128 Isaiah Wolfsberg : The Functions of Zionism To-day shock caused by Nazism and all its abomin- bined effort of the whole people. We are able and diabolical works. We have been not ashamed to turn to our brethren every- dealt a murderous blow, and the extermina- where and ask their participation in the tion of a third of Jewry still leaves its mark daily worries and troubles of the State. in many respects, particularly as a biological Traditional Jewish solidarity is not enough fact. For those six million are lacking to the in this respect. The ideological foundation national entity. That entity is no mere sum is clear but must be stressed and amplified. of many separate individuals, which may be The future of the nation underlies this de- increased or reduced by the whim of Fate. mand. Up to the present we have with jus- It would be a grievous error to regard the tice insisted that we are building up and loss as a purely arithmetical or statistical establishing the State not for ourselves alone consideration. The entity is a unit, with but also for the many immigrants who have limbs and members of its own. When some come to join us. But henceforward we claim of these, particularly the vital ones, are cut that we are completing, expanding and off, the whole entity feels the operation and improving our work for the lofty and ex- its strength is reduced. alted purpose of fulfilling prophetic missions. The injury to the nation continues to And that is indeed the affair of the entire have its effect. This is no less the case with nation, both in this and in coming genera- the psychical reactions of the Jewish people: tions. anguish, mourning, shame, shock, all that The State is our chief concern and joy. a single unit like the Jewish people must feel Now that it has come into being, no nation- when such an attempt is made on its very al object can ever take priority over it. life. All faithful Zionists awaited its realization, This sense of tragedy is shared by the whether they proclaimed the fact or pre- State and its residents together with the ferred to remain silent. All those who be- members of the Diaspora, and is a unifying lieved in the Eternal One of Israel con- experience of the whole Jewish entity. Na- sciously or unconsciously waited for this turally there are certain positive factors epoch. Since the destruction of Jerusalem which also serve to unite the whole of the and the Temple we have never been privi- nation. The common background includes leged to enjoy such national and moral the joint past. Yet this particular tragedy restoration and honour, in our own eyes and is not merely a historic one. It is also part those of non-Jews, as in these times. Jews of our national present inasmuch as its ef- felt this at the end of 1947 and in May fects can still be felt, and the ruins of those 1948, and the sense of satisfaction remains days of horor are still around us on every a potent factor. If the State continues to side. develop and create real values, all Jews will (b) benefit from it and will enjoy an unceasing . . and blessed influence from that source. Any thinking person sees the State as the Nevertheless, it must be remarked here that basis and foundation of our lives from now we do not always follow the path of his- on, and its consolidation and firm estab- tory. A great event sets its mark on its own lishment as a primary objective. We sum- and later ages. Yet there are many week- mon the Diaspora every day to help the days in the life of the individual and, no State of Israel in its great tasks, the im- less, of the community ; and the original his- plementation of which calls for the com-

129 Isaiah Wolfsberg : The Functions of Zionism To-day toric radiance is quickly forgotten in greater toric demands on all Jews and the entire or less measure. If the State is to remain world. the decisive and normative factor in Dias- (c) pora life, it will have to continue to grow The problem of the Jewish people and of fruitfully. The Exile will respond to the Judaism is one and the same, although it is State's demand for contributions and will many-sided and multi-coloured. It may be recognize its spiritual hegemony, as long as supposed that in due course the State will the State disseminates influences drawn achieve a stability which will enable it to from its own independent life which will be exist without any link with, or consideration capable of enhancing the existence of the of, the Diaspora. This is by no means an people in the Diaspora. ideal but is conceivable and indeed fea- Hence, with all due recognition of the sible. On the other hand, there is no shadow primacy of the claim made by the State of of possibility, even hypothetical, that the Israel, we are not entitled to neglect the life of the Exile will continue or achieve affairs of the Diaspora. There is no duality realization without reference to the centre or multiplication of tasks in this; on the in Israel. The spiritual, emotional, psycho- contrary, the obligation toward the Dias- logical and national sources here in our pora derives from the basic assumption country, particularly since the establishment of the unity of the nation. If we stress of the State, are like an ever-increasing the importance of the State, the fact re- fountain, watering the national existence in mains that it is the latter's duty to pay heed exile. The hopes of every one among us to the fate of the Diaspora. The State is in for the future of the nation are consciously duty bound to share responsibility for Jewry or unconsciously rooted in a sovereign State as a whole. This historic objective derives of Israel. The situation in the State, no from the interests of the State itself; for it matter how simple and colourless, puts life will not succeed in obtaining an attentive into all the limbs and members of the na- ear very long in the Diaspora unless it can tion wherever they may dwell. Even the contribute to the needs of the latter. If this economic crises and restrictions in many approach is pragmatical and opportunist— fields of life, even the want and poverty, and no blame need be attached to us for the failures and shocks of our State, are not that—we do not disregard the loftier con- capable of weakening its influence on the sideration based on the fact that the State entire nation. constitutes a decisive stage, an early stage, For what the local Jewish population and in the history of the nation, affording its the Zionist Movement have done in bring- resident citizens the privilege of developing ing about the establishment of the State is all the potentialities of the Jewish people evidence of the stirring of an ancient na- and of Jewry, and preparing the final stages tion and promises continuity and growth. of our redemption. Some few of us have In days to come there will be a miracle arrived at the threshold of redemption. If even greater than this first one of the found- we merit it, we shall live long on our soil ing of the State. The use of the term "mi- and rise to heights which will be held to racle" by so many people, when they speak justify all efforts made in the past, and all of what has happened, permits us to intro- the postulates in whose name we Zionists duce a legitimate idea: the State is not the appeared on the scene and made our his- exclusive outcome of the efforts of the

130 Isaiah Wolfsberg : The Functions of Zionism To-day

Revival Movement; there is clearly some- of their perplexity to the requisite under- thing providential about its emergence. Jew- standing and cooperation. The State is en- ish history led up to this by many stages. gaged in the many urgent and onerous It is justly felt by many that this new duties deriving from its own development. historic chapter which we have commenced While dealing with matters which cannot is not a matter of chance. Yet the secret of bear the least delay, it must also gaze afar; this great new development is still hidden, it must initiate and prepare activities not and its meaning remains to be seen. Its only to meet emergencies and to emerge benefit for the entire nation, and particular- from grave distress, but also to achieve the ly for those who reside in the Exile, will be- heights of which it is capable. Yet the hands come fully and magnificently manifest only of the State are tied in many respects, and in days to come. it cannot impose duties on Jews every- At the moment there are many conflicts where as the Zionist Movement may and between the State and the Jews of the Dias- can do. pora. The event which introduced so much Naturally, Zionism will have to rise to a joy into the lives of countless Jews has con- level which, to my regret, does not at pre- fused them and led to differences. The very sent characterize it. Here we are not con- fact of the existence of the State serves to sidering the reasons for its decline and ex- weaken the position of the Jews dispersed haustion. It is sufficient if we see things as in Exile. Whereas Jews were formerly dis- they are and are concerned to correct tinguished from all other nations by the fact them. of being Jews, members of a wandering More than ever before in its history, people, differing from those around them Zionism is required to be an effective in- in respect of their faith and Torah, a fresh strument, the true herald of the process of line of demarcation has now been added. redemption. It must concern itself at all Jews abroad, unlike their fellow-citizens, do times, and under all conditions, with the not reside in the land of their forefathers State's needs and requirements. This con- which is the restored State of Israel, but cern includes far-reaching measures for the continue to live outside it. In setting out firm economic establishment of the State— to assess their present position, one must of something which is obvious and does not necessity note that this constitutes a two- need to be stressed ideologically. Yet it does fold disadvantage. deserve to be considered briefly; for prac- This point is not made in order to tical steps in general, and practical steps on exacerbate the situation of our brethren behalf of the State in particular, benefit abroad or the relations between them and from theoretical clarification. Zionism is no ourselves. But it is necessary to define mat- abstract subject for exclusively theoretical ters very carefully, and not to evade issues. consideration, and does not rest satisfied We wish to understand the existent tensions. with any purely theoretical disputation with They will not last very long. Indeed, I draw its opponents and rivals. Not all practical attention here to this regrettable pheno- measures interest it, but it is basically con- menon only in order to indicate thera- cerned with all steps affecting the Land of peutic measures. And at this point it is only Israel and the State of Israel. proper to stress that the Zionist Movement Yet after mentioning this—and the objec- alone is capable of bringing the people out tive in question is hardly a subject for debate

131 Isaiah Wolfsberg : The Functions of Zionism To-day or differences of opinion—it is only proper the whole Jewish world. Yet it is possible to to stress that nothing but a revival of the reduce them to one, if we can appreciate Zionist Movement will be capable of uni- their fundamental unity. Of late years we fying all Jews, whether they reside in Zion have forgotten both the situation of the or are citizens of other countries, and of Jewish people and the special mission of rallying them to the central point of the Zionism in the light of that situation. In nation, namely, the State and its inhabi- order to realize the full Zionist objective, it tants. The Jews of Israel would justly refuse is the duty of the Movement to concern to accept a proposal of union involving dis- itself fully with all the manifold problems regard of the existence of the State and its which are the fruits of the present epoch. peculiar values, and all Zionists and the Many Zionists do not do their duty to the many supporters of the State and the Move- full in this respect. Many Jews do not realize ment in every country would not agree to what is required of them. They do not any partial programme. Even Jews whose give themselves any account of the dangers attitude towards the State is at best luke- and prospects of Jewish life. They do not warm and indifferent, know vaguely what see the light radiated by Judaism and by it is contributing towards the fate of the life within the independent State. They are Jews. The existence of the State of Israel far from the Torah and all the treasures of as central pivot for all sections of the people Jewish and Hebrew thought. Those leaders constitutes a positive factor of inestimable and spokesmen who desire the rapid pro- value. gress of the ingathering of the dispersed can It is true that there are differences of least renounce the preparation of brethren opinion between a number of Zionists, par- who dwell elsewhere and reject the idea of ticularly those of the Exile, and central returning to Zion. The doctrine of Ahad figures of the State. Yet the conclusion to Ha'am is not out of date, but, on the con- be drawn by Zionism is very simple. The trary, is of immediate import to-day. His- Movement must remain the pioneer force tory has long decided in favour of synthesis in all respects, as far as the State and all and true reconciliation of all currents with- that it involves are concerned. The Move- in the movement of revival. Political, Prac- ment must demand of its members not only tical and Spiritual Zionism have all proved outstanding action in connection with the that they are equally necessary. Now that Appeal, the Bond Drive and investments, Political Zionism has achieved a measure but also personal fulfilment, a close bond of fulfilment, the value of the spiritual trend with our life in Israel, including immigra- has increased. We look to it, in fact, to aid tion and pioneering. and support Zionist action. If the Movement promises its share to The Jews of the Exile require guidance, the State in this fashion, and reserves an education, Jewish, Hebrew and Zionist honourable place for itself in the network of clarification on a large scale. As long as faithful builders, planners and executors who they are in Exile they require spiritual and themselves contribute and induce others to cultural support, which must be given from do the same, it will succeed in combining the sources and resources of Israel. For this central Zionist duty with the other obli- otherwise there is reason to apprehend in- gations which it is not at liberty to reject. creased assimilation and the emptying of The latter are numerous, for they embrace all specific content from their lives, which

132 Isaiah Wolfsberg : The Functions of Zionism To-day would wreak havoc in our camp. Zionism heritage and ways of living in their original can enable our brethren to hold out for a patterns? limited period only; yet it is of the utmost This analysis of the Jewish situation must importance to work towards a transition necessarily bring us to a consideration of without spiritual or social calamities. religious tradition. The latter is so impor- Talented and select olim should be mo- tant that it must be considered in any case. bilized in the near future from groups edu- If Zionism is a way of life for the Jewish cated in accordance with an integral Jew- masses in the Diaspora—and I am con- ish viewpoint. They will come from this vinced that it is—then we cannot permit quarter if we know how to teach real Zion- ourselves to treat our duty lightly. Those ism. Such a Zionism will not shout at the who do not come up to Israel, and for that top of its voice. It will not be noisy. If you matter those who do, have to draw from so desire, this Zionism will not be chauvinist the well of the Torah and the well of the in expression or presentation. In its roots, State. Those who rest satisfied with the however, it will be obstinate and persistent. Torah and disregard the State, will find It will do well to act in accordance with themselves estranged from reality—above the Latin saying : suaviter in modo, fortiter all from the reality of Jewish history. Re- in rem (mild in expression, strong in ac- moved from the national soil, their soul tion). Our epoch is notably deficient in will dry up and grow sterile. On the other individual courage and the desire to live in hand, those Jews who suppose that the na- accordance with definite principles. A few tional framework and support of the State individuals fix and decide matters to-day; are sufficient, are likewise in error and far and the majority follow them weakly with- from the true path of life. With all our out paying attention to personal conscience. respect for the Hebrew language and litera- Because Zionism requires readiness for non- ture, the study of which must be encouraged conformity, it has become a great moral in every way possible, we must realize that issue and has been transformed into a gene- the tremendous spiritual struggles of many ral human asset. centuries—the pure and sacred thirst of the The demand which now has to be made soul for God—were not casual phenomena, by Zionism of Jews, and particularly of nor has the time for them passed. younger Jews, is not irrational and fanatic The Exile, in its desire to maintain a but is the logical conclusion to be drawn Jewish life, will find no more effective and from a knowledge of the Jewish situation. tested means than the values of tradition. If it is our desire to save many Jews for the Study of the Torah, meditation thereon and future of the nation and Judaism, for life the fulfilment of its commandments have in the State to-day or tomorrow, in order up to the present proved their effectiveness that the remnant of Jacob may not be lost, and power. There is no substitute for them. then we have no choice. This does not mean And since the fate of the Diaspora is bound hypernationalism or separatism. Yet how to turn very largely on Zionist effort, we will the Diaspora succeed in withstanding would do well to rest satisfied with his- the stormy currents of cross-purposes domi- torical experience, both positively and nega- nating each separate community ? How can tively. we implement Zionism if we are not re- It will be said, of course, that the wall of solved to preserve our essence, our special religion and tradition has been broken down

133 Isaiah Wolfsberg : The Functions of Zionism To-day and no longer holds many people within In my opinion, Zionism and the State it. As against this argument, however, we must give due consideration to the weight may stress that traditional Judaism has 0f tradition and religious values as they maintained its strength in most countries, have been handed down to us. I can mere- and has not been defeated. No small num- ly indicate here what seems important to ber of those faithful to tradition have re- me in this respect, for there will doubtless mained. In many places tradition has be opportunity to speak at greater length gathered new strength. In the countries and depth on some other occasion. where it maintained its stand, the weight To begin with: Jewish tradition ensures and value of Judaism and Jewry could be a religious coloration to our life. The secu- felt. Where it declined and broke down, our larization of individual and general living people grew weak. is a matter for much concern. I do not wish No one whose whole life in Zionism is to consider moral defects within the frame- imbued with belief in the God of Israel and work of Society and State, although they are the Torah of Moses needs proof of the way far too obvious. I know that matters are not in which the revival has been linked at every all in order within religious Jewry. And yet stage with the classical religious point of the grandeur of a higher sphere envelopes view: it is clear to him that the value of the lives of believers. And the great idea faith and the Halachic way of life have be- of "Thou shalt fear Thy God" is capable come even greater in the present stage of of educating and purifying no small number expectancy and fulfilment. It was in pre- of persons, and perhaps even the public as paration for this specific epoch that much such. was thought and said by our prophets and If Zionism came into being as a reaction thinkers, our visionaries and poets. The against assimilation and found defects in Halacha, with its provisions for Jewish be- religious, chiefly traditional Judaism, the haviour at all points, was especially intended fact remains that the time of that first for the period of the return to Zion and the struggle has long gone by. To-day it is to State. Judaism based on the Torah and the the advantage of Zionism to reconsider its commandments also feels or will feel that attitude towards the values of tradition, as only henceforward will the whole vitality the true representative of the faith and re- and necessity of the Halacha become mani- ligiosity of Israel. This demand does not in- fest. This historic change brings with it volve compulsion or the requirement that a new awareness. Henceforward the func- our Movement must be clericalized. It as- tion of the Halacha is not merely to pre- pires to a restoration of the religious idea. serve individuals and large or small groups Secondly, our Movement, and our State from assimilation and disappearance. The as well, should not forget that almost all intimate sphere of experience that lies be- their guiding ideals are derived from the tween Man and God will remain, but the treasures of classical Judaism. The return general objective will henceforward be the to Zion, the renewal of the State, the In- organization and ordering of State and gathering of the Exiles, Redemption, are public life. The mission of the Halacha is all part of the yearnings of Jews who lived to serve as the law of the State, or, more according to the Torah. Furthermore, in precisely, to serve also as the law of the addition to the ideas which the initiators State. of Zionism took over from the religious

134 Isaiah Wolfsberg : The Functions of Zionism To-day

legacy of the ages, they transferred emotion constantly less. Here I do not refer to the and longing from the field of faith to that decline in the economic position of the Jews of the national and political restoration. It resulting from the tremendous changes is not critically, but with satisfaction, that which have taken place in the economic we point out that tremendous values and structure, and I also pass in silence over the spiritual forces in Zionism were regarded degree of Jewish influence on society in in previous ages as the unquestionable most countries. Serious examination would possession of the world of Jewish faith. It teach us that the hopes of the protagonists is well to remember where the Fathers of of emancipation have been increasingly dis- the Movement and we ourselves took our appointed. ideas and our initial urge. This fount of It should also be stressed that the na- faith has not yet ceased to flow: it may tions of the world to-day suffer from grave well be capable of nourishing us even now. spiritual crises, break-downs and a collapse Thirdly, our national uniqueness derives of the foundations of their own life. It is from our past and our past productivity. specifically this state of affairs, replete as it Statement of this fact does not in any way is with danger for the Jews of the Diaspora, shackle new creativity. But it does mean which largely justifies us in clinging firmly that more consideration should be given to those values we have inherited. For in to that culture which has already crystal- addition to their subservience to values that lized in forms of life, customs, national as- are not ours, the Jews of the Diaspora are pects and a brimming-and-running-over caught in the cultural calamity of the world treasury of thought, a special culture and at large. In our culture they will find a a rich literature. Those who choose the stronghold to defend them against a spiri- new paths must see to it that this vast and tual slavery leading to complete servitude incomparable wealth should not run to and against involvement in trends and waste or be lost. In history it is important aspirations that are bound to decline or to preserve spiritual acquisitions which have vanish. accrued in the course of many generations. Liberalism, with all its beneficial effects, The preservation of these sources will caused the crumbling of our national life serve us as a shield against the dangers of and culture. The decline of Liberalism once estrangement and impoverishment. Faith more endangers the foundations of our life and Halacha are capable of consolidating in the Diaspora. It has rarely been so the position of the State under the present vitally important for us to consider our very difficult conditions. The aggressiveness situation thoroughly. and influence of general culture are more It seems to me that Zionism is the proper powerful than they are supposed to be. path, but Zionism must necessarily be rich, Those who wish to maintain life in the integral and daring. Let us investigate this Exile are the very ones who have to prepare matter more deeply and draw all the neces- for a harsh and bitter battle. The founda- sary conclusions. And let us not rest satis- tions of spiritual existence within the Dias- fied with that. Let us swiftly proceed to pora have already weakened; and with the comprehensive action. Although thought spiritual shock and surrender to alien ways must precede deed, let us not hesitate. We of thought and forms of culture, the im- face something like the situation of those munity resulting from national life grows children of Israel at Sinai who said: "We

135 Isaiah Wolfsberg : The Functions of Zionism To-day will do and we will listen !" For the serious ment we have in our hands—the Zionist and devoted, deed also contains within it- Movement and its institutions. We must self a vast measure of Torah. Let us not learn how to adapt it to the requirements delay its doing. of the new reality, which has come about Above all, let us believe in ourselves, in as a result of the establishment of the State the future of the nation and the State! Let of Israel. That is the new requirement we us understand how valuable is the instru- must meet.

136 The New Situation

Jacob Amit

HEN THE State of Israel came every additional immigrant. This opposi- into being, and possibilities such tional struggle called for the mobilization Was we have never known opened of material resources and spiritual forces. before us, Zionism might have been ex- The process of redemption was slow. Every pected to see its future direction more clear- step forward was achieved by tense efforts ly than ever. What actually happened was of popular and pioneer volunteering. The a historic paradox. When the movement quality of the achievement was always reached a lofty, if not the loftiest, point of greater than its quantity. The opposition fulfilment, it found itself at a crossroad, mood, accompanied by a surge of construc- confused and uncertain as to its future tive activity and achievement, gave wings course. to our National Liberation Movement. For Although the Zionist Movement was con- thirty years Zionism placed brick on brick sistently engaged in constructive work, it until the magnificent edifice of a nation's never ceased to be an opposition movement beginnings rose amid a hostile environment. during the period before the establishment This edifice was the gift of the Zionist of the State. It was opposed, first and fore- Movement to the State of Israel when the most, to the anomalous, Jewish situation in latter was established. exile. From the rejection of that situation The Zionist Movement was called upon it gathered strength for its positive achieve- to demonstrate further resolute and cou- ments. It grew weary of awaiting a charter rageous action during the War of Libera- and found its own methods of fulfilment tion. Headed by the yishuv—the six hun- under a foreign regime, which sometimes dred thousand Jews who were then in the viewed it with favour but was generally Land of Israel—it did not fail. Then came hostile and restrictive. When it did receive the six days of work, for the Ingathering of a charter from the British Government, thp Exiles. These days were not grey or with the approval of the League of Nations, sombre to begin with. They caught the na- the regime in Palestine showed no desire to tional imagination with their "Magic Car- foster it. Zionist history during the period pet" and "Wings of Eagles". Yet it very between the Balfour Declaration and the soon became clear that an exiled people, Declaration of Independence was one of dispersed among the nations, finds no short incessant political struggle against the Brit- cut when it achieves the beginnings of its ish Mandatory, for every inch of land and political independence. From the "Magic

137 Jacob Amit : The New Situation

Carpet" and the "Wings of Eagles" we self, so to say, but not as a song calling for found ourselves compelled to land, and to the struggle of personal fulfilment. But the descend to the sorrowful valley of the contradiction between the oppositional at- camps, the ma'barot and immigrant settle- titude and the positive aspects of fulfilment ments. had been solved by pioneers during the past Something which we have always known two generations. They did not wish to wait has become more clear than ever. Politics "until the right conditions appeared''. They is not an aim in itself. When it succeeds, it rose and went up,- and fulfilled the Zionist creates the conditions, but only the condi- mission. tions, for fulfilment. Fulfilment must be Once the State had been established, concerned with the human mass from which every Zionist found that he faced the ques- a nation is shaped. It is concerned with "re- tion of what •was required of him, of his sistant material" from which an economy is own self, as a result of the great national created and an economic structure built change which had come about. He knew up. It is we ourselves who must shape an deep within his soul and consciousness that independent nation and its state; this will the time had come to bring about the ne- not be done by any angel or messenger. cessary change in his own personal life as Since the birth of the State we may credit well. He knew that he was called to personal every success to ourselves and we may no fulfilment; and for that very reason he trem- longer put the blame for failure on others. bled and flinched, save where he was com- For the first time after an interval of two pelled by his cicumstances to make the thousand years, our national movement was change. As long as the gates of Eretz Israel enabled to be its own master, and to try its had been locked by order of the foreign strength on vast deeds of upbuilding and power, the Zionist had been spared all pricks achievement upon a native soil that was en- of conscience. He could continue his life, tirely its own. The Zionist Movement no if he was permitted to continue it, with longer stood in opposition to a foreign or the mollifying excuse that the redemptive hostile power. Henceforward the negative way was open only to a few, and that, there- attitude towards the anomalous Jewish fore, there was no urgency for him. Once existence in exile could also adopt a dif- the road to the redemption of masses had ferent form. We had rejected the exile for been forced open, however, he suddenly many generations. More than once we had found himself morally enjoined—he himself, wished to revolt against it, but we had not no angel nor messenger nor halutz!—to been free to liberate ourselves from it. The rise and go up to Israel and join those who rejection of the exile, in the absence of any were rehabilitating the homeland; and he positive way out of it, served to nourish the drew back, startled. The crisis of Zionism Jewish feeling of revolt, and the yearning in the "tranquil" exile countries was largely for what was still distant and beyond the a crisis of fulfilment. More than it was a immediate reach of the individual Jew or crisis of Zionism it was a crisis of the Zion- collective Jewish group. Every Jew might ists who were not prepared to carry out be a Zionist without being required to pass the requirements of their own belief in their any test as to genuine desire and readiness own persons. for personal fulfilment. Every Jew could An amateur Zionism, so to speak, was sing "Hatikva" as the song of the higher possible as long as Zionism was a bare,

138 Jacob Amit : The New Situation abstract idea which, to be sure, a few tried souls from servitude, to redeem the shechina to fulfil by themselves, but with regard to from exile. Jewish communities enjoying which the great majority did their share tranquillity and relative security in the coun- by showing enthusiasm, making contribu- tries where they live are in no hurry to pack tions and indulging in various political their belongings and set out on the road to niceties. redemption. Rootless and suffering masses Now, however, that our independence of Jews, the soil of whose countries of do- has been reestablished, neither the indivi- micile had been swept from under their dual Jew nor the Jewish community stands feet, rose in their myriads and came to Is- powerless before its alien exile environment. rael. They came to seek a place where they Every Jew now has the choice of rising and could rest their weary heads and find a ba- liberating himself from that environment sis and a minimal existence. They entered and going up to his own natural surround- the circle of national redemption because ings, his own land, Israel. Our Zionism can of the force and urge of their social and no longer be nourished by feelings of revolt economic distress in the countries of exile. and frustrated longings. "Hatikva" has be- For the greater part this was no immigra- come the hymn of the real State of Israel, tion of halutzim, of pioneers going ahead which is struggling with difficulties of of the camp and welcoming the sufferings growth and pangs of absorption. Each Jew, of Jewish and human redemption thanks to and each Jewish group, has been brought the force of their vision and sense of what face to face with the free choice of exile was to come. It was the beginnings of the or homeland. And this choice in all its se- vast immigration of the host itself, impelled verity stands before every Jew since the by the thrust of the Jewish catastrophe in establishment of the State of Israel. Yet a European countries and the long-abiding most remarkable thing has happened. and traditional Jewish distress in Moslem Among the "tranquil5' Jewish communities, countries. which do not find themselves compelled to To be sure, during the first years of its take the wanderer's staff in hand on account existence the State of Israel implemented of distress or persecution, halutziut, the the Basle Program by the very fact that creative pioneer spirit, appears even under it was there. It served as a secure (and the new historical conditions as a driving open) refuge, recognized by public law, force towards the decision against the exile for every Jew who wished (or was com- and towards the homeland, against assimi- pelled) to come thither. We were witnesses lation and towards aliya, the ascent to an of the awe-inspiring winding-up of entire independent national life in Israel. exiles. They came one after the other; the From the beginning of its modern avatar, exile of Bulgaria, the vestiges of the exile there has been a major ideological debate of Poland, the exile of Yemen and the exile within the Zionist Movement. Whom and of Babylon. what has Zionism come to redeem? The Yet these did not resemble one another. Jews or Judaism, the body of the nation or The Jews of Bulgaria and Poland were not its higher soul ? During the first years of the being persecuted neck and crop. It was not existence of the State of Israel, the debate permitted and open Jew-hatred which was decided clearly and definitely. The Jews moved them from their domiciles. They set did not rise in their masses to deliver their out of their own accord, because they were

139 Jacob Amit : The New Situation unable to rebuild their lives in the shadow Zionism has never been a mere instru- of the graves of their brethren who had ment. It was an idea. It was an approach been exterminated during the Nazi regime to life, a Jewish attitude of life. It rejected in Europe. Furthermore, the Socialist re- the exile because it saw no prospects there; construction and national revival in Eastern not only for Judaism but also for Jews in Europe only served to increase the wish exile. Its prognosis on the future of the Dis- for self-determination and a free national persion was pessimistic; and reality con- life, among the surviving Jews who had es- firmed that prognosis beyond any forecast, caped the Nazis. And so, when they were beyond all imaginings. permitted (and not always then!) they We do not wish to engage in gloomy came to Israel in their myriads. They were forebodings about any Jewish community set in motion by the strong instinct for na- in the world. Jews do not like to listen to tional survival, the instinct towards con- warnings. They do not wish to consider tinuity, and revulsion from a life which portents. Nevertheless, something should be would involve the loss of Jewish identity. said about the Jews of Germany during the On the other hand, the immigrants from Weimar period after the First World War. Yemen and Iraq who had preserved the Surely they lived quietly and securely in Jewish flame in gloomy exiles and who fled their German homeland. They played their for their lives, were borne on the waves of part to the full in all fields of public, cul- Messianic faith by reason of the hostility of tural and literary life in which, indeed, they the Arab peoples, who wished to void their achieved great prominence. They certainly fury upon them because of the failure of had no forebodings. They believed in eman- Arab armed intervention in the Eretz Israel cipation, they desired to be assimilated; un- War of Liberation. til the Nazi storm burst and the terrible ca- In either case, the centres of Zionist lamity fell on all Jewish groups in Eastern thought and action are now moving west- and Central Europe. ward and overseas. Oriental Jews were al- It would be hard to find anyone as wise ways candidates for Zionist redemption, yet and shrewd as Heine, or who knew the Ger- have never been material for Jewish self- man soul as well as he did. Yet in spite of emancipation. Their national awakening is this, when in July, 1840, he wrote with a not such as can bring about a self-sustain- penetrating eye and much moved heart ing Zionist Movement in their countries of about the "Damascus Affair", his sharp pen origin, for the overwhelming majority wrote as follows: "And their (i.e. the among them are themselves candidates for French) facile views about the events in immediate aliya. Damascus come not from anti-Jewish feel- As for the countries of Eastern Europe, ing but from a hatred of religious jealousy which were the centres of the mass Zionist itself. The fact that such narrow-minded Movement before the Second World War, views of these events could not emerge in they have been completely erased from the Germany only shows how much better map of World Zionism. This means that informed and more understanding the Ger- the fate of Zionism, as a movement of self- mans are. Knowledge of history is so wide- liberation of the Jewish nation in its dis- spread among the German people that even persion, now lies in the hands of the Jews the most lowering animosity is not allowed of the West. to rely on the old blood libels."

140 Jacob Amit : The New Situation

That German learning and scholarship! Democracies, which are undergoing their We saw it engaged in other things besides Socialist consolidation as nations, the Jewish the "old blood libels". We saw it engaged, groups now face a choice. They must either with incomparable thoroughness and dili- go up to Israel or else they must be assimi- gence, in a modern blood activity which lated. The Jews in their myriads wish to go has cost us the lives of millions of our up. We at our end are struggling for this brethren. and for their right to join their nation in It is possible that Jews are now in a po- the homeland and be integrated in the ef- sition to believe and have more confidence forts of its national resurgence and social in the peoples among whom they dwell regeneration. than they had in the Germans until twenty There is no anti-Semitism in the coun- years ago or a hundred and ten years ago. tries where Socialism is being realized, yet Maybe "historic scholarship and cultural during the worst days of the Second World level" will be of more aid to us in the future War we witnessed a terrifying phenomenon. than in the dark ages of the past. A quarter of a century of Socialist upbuild- Yet, in spite of this, it is our duty to ask ing and education did not suffice to eradi- ourselves whether now, after the horrors of cate Jew-hatred; and during the interim the exiles of Europe and in the face of the ex- period of Nazi rule the dregs of the en- istenceof the State of Israel, the Zionist pro- slaved population took part in the extermi- gnosis about the insecurity and lack of fu- nation of the Jews. ture of Jewish life in the exile ceases to We pray for peace. We must toil for have any further validity. After all, what peace as far as lies in our power. We be- has really changed? A very great deal. lieve that the titanic competition between There have been historic changes in the the systems does not inevitably have to be Jewish people. The world is split into two decided by the sword. Yet at the same time camps standing facing one another, and we are apprehensive regarding the fate of Jews are to be found in the countries of the remaining Jews during a period of in- both camps alike. ternational disturbances. While there is still In the countries of the Socialist group time, it is our duty to think of more con- anti-Semitism is prohibited, yet at the same centration, of greater strength in the home- time the Jewish National Movement is also land. The capitalist world, led by the prohibited. In the other camp, however, United States of America, is feverishly pre- anti-Semitism is permitted in the name of paring for war. It is restoring Western Ger- a supposed freedom of the press and of con- many and fitting it into its own alliances science. Anti-Semitic propaganda and ra- and agreements. This partnership with Ger- cism are not forbidden, and a Jewish Na- many, which has not ceased to be Nazi— tional Movement is permitted to function. because the Germans have not taken ge- What, then, are the prospects of the Jewish nuine and forceful steps to eradicate Na- groups in the two camps alike? zism—must of necessity fill our hearts with In the countries of Socialism in action deep apprehension. Nor is it apprehension there is no cultural and national existence as to the fate of the few Jews who have for non-territorial nationalities. In Soviet chosen to remain in that country. We feel Russia Jewish life has come to a standstill. apprehensive about the fate of the Jews However, in the countries of the Peoples' living in the countries which are prepared

141 Jacob Amit : The New Situation to accept Germany in the "family of civi- actual earthquake begins, before the people lized nations'To-day an indulgence has see the danger clearly and begin to seek a been granted to those who murdered the refuge for themselves? Or will they possibly Jews yesterday. What of tomorrow? No-one begin to consider the portents before the wishes to as much as whisper the extent of evil commences? For there are many Jews the danger. One does not wish to talk of it who are already recording in their own aloud. For this is the danger: It will be souls the tremors that foretell the approach- impossible to lead masses of people to the ing shocks. Some of them speak casually slaughter again without awakening in their and raise up historical associations from hearts a hatred for everything progressive forgotten deeps. Yet they do not have the and humane, without stirring them up strength to give rise to any active Jewish against every stranger in their midst. We and Zionist conclusion. would do well to remember the innumer- The Zionist Movement in the "tranquil" able Jewish victims sacrificed during the countries was given the opportunity to rise two world wars not only on the battle field, and go, to come up and fulfil its purpose. but, and indeed chiefly, behind the lines of It did nothing of the sort, and now it is in a savage nations that have lost their huma- state of crisis. It no longer has the authority nity. for political action, for the State has taken However, the Jews of the West in Eng- over all political authority. Likewise, almost land, in the United States and various La- all the implements for fulfilling the aims tin American countries, consider that they of Zionism have passed to the State. The are "liberated". They do not feel that they latter has the legislative apparatus, the are in exile. More exactly, they do not wish authority and planning powers. It holds the to confess that they are in exile, even though natural and mineral resources, it controls exile is beginning to leave its mark on their State sources of income for financing de- lives. velopment and absorption enterprises. Os- It is, therefore, now the duty of Zionism tensibly the Zionist Movement continues to to make the position clear to those Jewish supervise the organization of immigration communities which are so calm and tran- and the initial stages of absorption in the quil. No panic should be spread. But it is country. Yet basically, once it has been our duty to open the eyes of Jews to see emptied of its previous content, it faces their position clearly. For exile is exile and the danger of being transformed into a its laws are the same, in every country and philanthropic movement, into a society of on every continent. Friends of Israel. If the miracle happens and Jews in capi- If the Zionist Movement in the "tran- talist countries are permitted to dwell quil" countries had understood its real func- quietly, to enjoy their prosperity, then tion; if it had remained faithful to its his- finally they will be swept away by the pro- toric mission as marked out at its very cesses of assimilation, and every vital link beginnings, it would not have reached the with their people, their culture and their present state of crisis. And what is the language will be broken. Yet will the Jews historic mission of the Zionist Movement, be permitted to dwell quietly with none to the Liberation Movement of the Jewish disturb them? people ? As ever, it is the self-liberation, the Is it really necessary to wait until the self-emancipation, of the Jewish people.

142 Jacob Amit : The New Situation

The function of the Zionist partnership ganization and mutual relations between is not exhausted by generous, constant the various classes of the people. The social and increasing aid to the State of Is- and class processes operating in Israel to- rael and its upbuilding. The Zionist wards a reduction in the partnership be- partnership has a function of its own tween the different parts of the people do vis-a-vis the masses in the Diaspora, not inevitably have to operate with an upon whose knees it was born and upon equal measure of urgency in the life of whose shoulders it is borne. The Jews in Jews in exile. י'exile, including the "tranquil" and "se- Jewish communities that are "tranquil cure'' exile, cannot regard themselves as to-day may, as remarked, prove to be poten- mere "philanthropic Zionists" towards tial subjects of self-redemption tomorrow, those of their brethren who are going up to, potential candidates for aliya to Israel. or who dwell in, Israel. They must regard Hence, as far as they are concerned, the themselves as potential candidates for re- Zionist partnership is no artificial organi- demption. ization imposed from above. For them it is Zionism most assuredly does not wish to a need, an inevitable necessity, which prosper through the ruin and destruction touches their innermost being. Quite as be- of Jewish communities in exile. It prays fore, the Zionist Movement is by its very for their peace, well-being and security nature and being the Jewish self-emancipa- wherever they may be. Yet at the same tion movement. That is its strength and time it must view the trends of develop- therein lie its prospects. And that is also ment in all their clarity, no matter how the justification for its continued existence, cruel they may be. For we have learnt from even under the new conditions and in the our history that Jewish concentrations light of the existence of the State of Israel. which were exceedingly generous to Zion- The State cannot do all the work of re- ism and sought its well-being from afar, demption. The redemption of the Jews met their own bitter and urgent fate (alas! lies in the hands of the Jews themselves. always urgent and unexpected, despite all It is possible that the State of Israel, the gloomy prophecies). They themselves precisely because it is a state, cannot direct- became candidates for rescue and redemp- ly undertake any functions of Zionist tion. And what happened yesterday and the education among the Jews of the exile. It day before can certainly not be excluded must preserve established practice in its re- from the possibilities of what may happen la tions with other states. It is unable to tomorrow. "intervene" too much in the lives of citizens The development of relations and dif- (even though they are Jews) in foreign ferences within the Zionist Movement is countries. Naturally it does not have to, nor undoubtedly affected by the social and is it entitled to, perform actions and make political processes that are going forward statements, through its leaders, which run in Israel. Yet in spite of this, they are not a counter to all the logic and all the purpose direct function or simple outcome of those of Zionist education. Zionism cannot be a processes. The Jewish anomaly in the Dias- simple function of the State. First it has to pora continues as before. Immanent forces be a function of the will to self-liberation, and laws are operative there, which inevit- of the absolute necessity of self-liberation ably find embodiment in the forms of or- of the Jewish people.

143 Jacob Amit : The New Situation

Assuredly, there is an absolute historical whole of the Zionist Movement, including identity between the purposes of the State all its trends and parties, take steps to en- and those of Zionism; and their instruments sure that these struggles and differences are interwoven in achieving the historic ob- should not be transferred from the confines jective of the ingathering of the exiles. Yet of the State of Israel to those of the Zionist Zionism is not to be identified with the Organisation. regime or system of the State and its rulers The Zionist Movement's activities on be- at any particular period. Zionism does not half of Israel in Israel and the Diaspora operate solely at the behest of the State spread across new and untouched areas when it sets out to redeem Jews from which make a maximum degree of coopera- servitude in the exile for freedom in the tion necessary between all parts of the Homeland. It also operates for its own pur- people. It is necessary to help redeem all pose and on behalf of its own mission. strata and classes of the nation from exile. And if Zionism does not have to identify The Zionist Movement must therefore be a itself with the regime of Israel or its rulers, covenant of redeemers and redeemed. it most assuredly does not have to, and is Yet Zionist cooperation does not mean not entitled to, identify itself with the re- vagueness or abstract generalizations. Unity gimes and rulers of the states within which of presentation and action as regards funda- it operates. Jewish influence in the coun- mentals does not mean uniformity of tries of dispersion can be of use and benefit thought or of all organizational moulds. to the State of Israel. Yet under what con- The Zionist idea has different interpreta- ditions? If it is not purchased at the price tions and interpretators, each with its or his of servitude, whether ideological or political, own ideological and social trend. Ideolo- to the regimes of other states, and does gical differentiation in Zionism has never not involve doing what they demand as far weakened the Movement's strength and as Israel is concerned. power of progress. On the contrary, it pro- Shaping the inner likeness of the State vided the Movement with the capacity of and laying down the lines of its foreign speaking to every current and class of the policy •are in essence the fruit of social and people in its own terms, and permitted it to ideological struggles within it. Zionism be an all-comprehensive synthesis, like the cannot seek to exercise any decisive influ- nation itself. And if this was formerly the ence on these processes. For since it is a case, now that the State of Israel actually movement which operates in the exile and exists it is far more so. which is influenced by the political and Vagueness or generalities are not likely social conditions surrounding it, it lacks a to educate or win hearts in an age when "strategic basis" of its own for a class war. ideological and social differentiations have Naturally, the Zionist Movement does not gone very deep indeed. The strength of operate in a vacuum. The more acute the Zionism lies in its capacity for containing ideological and class war grows in Israel the entire spectrum of Jewish life, without (and the more the self-supporting economic wishing to obliterate even a single one of basis of the country grows, the more acute the vital hues by way of spiritual compul- will its class differences become), the more sion and organizational domination. That will its influence increase within the Zionist indeed is the test of Zionism, now as be- Movement abroad. Yet in spite of this, the fore.

144 Jacob Amit : The New Situation

Do the Jews wish to be redeemed? Do portion is by no means considerable, in the they take the sufferings of redemption upon very midst of the large-scale immigration, themselves with love and willingness? No. is evidence of a national malady which will They are in no hurry to be redeemed. "He not find its cure in mere contact with the will not awake save by the whip roused, he soil of the Homeland. will not arise save by pillage raised"—that The air of the Land of Israel does not rebuke of the poet Bialik expresses the state in itself seem to make wise or heal. A na- of the people in the Diaspora and Eretz tion does not willingly undergo the suffer- Israel, even in the epoch of the ingathering ings of redemption for any long period of of the exiles. The immigration of Jews who years without second thoughts and erring, still enjoy power and wealth continues in without giving way to illusions, without tiny dribbles, as described in the Biblical longing for the fleshpots while forgetting phrase of "one in a city and two from a the years of poverty, distress, starvation, tribe5'. Even among the Jews who live in Is- death and loss. Only a regime which aims rael, including those who have not arrived at a great final goal can impose upon a recently, the vagabond instinct has not nation the sufferings that are inevitable ceased. The atavism of the exile presses during the transition towards the realiza- down on us with the weight of scores of tion of a social and national revolution. In generations. There are still Jews even in our situation this can only be a halutz, a these very days who forsake the secure pioneer, regime. haven in the Homeland and take the wan- The inevitability of redemption has not derer's staff in their hands afresh. ceased in Jewry, nor have believers in re- It may be that some will argue: That is demption passed away. And though they a perfectly natural phenomenon which oc- may be denied and rejected sevenfold by curs in every country where there is large- some, they will nevertheless force their way scale migration. Yet our country is not a into the life of the people, who will all turn normal immigration country, nor is our to face the historic path of redemption. people a normal migrating group.. It seems That path is Zionism, which liberates the that we have not learnt from the evil which people and gathers together the dispersed, came upon us so abundantly during the returning them to the land of their fore- years of the Nazi horror in Europe. This fathers, concentrating them at the focal phenomenon of emigration, even if the pro- point of Jewish history, in the Land of Israel.

145 American Zionism and the State of Israel

S. Halkin

HAT AMERICAN Zionism has been Israel, which is to be found among the re- passing through a crisis ever since latively few who have come here. These in- Tthe establishment of the State of Is- elude tourists who propose to return to rael goes without saying. Israelis feel in- USA, and potential settlers who declare creasingly perplexed at this fact as their their intention of settling in the country. own political needs increase while the forces Once they arrive, both groups alike feel dis- of the Diaspora diminish. The American appointed for various reasons, and frequent- Zionist Movement is also aware of the situ- ly return feeling that Israel does not afford ation, and is in a resultant though inade- opportunities of living a Jewish life or ful- quate state of confusion. Both Israel and filling their cultural and spiritual aspira- American Jewry alike are conscious that tions. the real or supposed enthusiasm which the Those who aim to understand why Zion- latter felt for the former only two or three ist intensity has fallen off in USA during years ago is now ebbing away. And in any the relatively brief period since the War of case it is no longer possible to ignore the Liberation, usually seek for and rest satisfied unequivocal signs that Zionist fervour in with rather superficial reasons. Thus they the USA is now on the wane. There is no point to the damage done by differences of longer so universal a readiness to contribute opinion deriving largely from the absence to appeals for aid in building up the State, of harmonious relations between outstand- and individuals are far less willing to invest ing personalities. They stress American money in economic enterprises within Is- Jewish fears of "dual allegiance" since the rael. establishment of the State of Israel, imply- Closer examination of this crisis would ing that Jewish loyalty to and citizenship undoubtedly reveal its effects in some less in USA have grown uncertain in the eyes obtrusive fashions, which are not openly of the general non-Jewish public, now that discussed even in Israel. One such sign is the Jews are liable to nurse special affec- the negligible immigration from America tion for a foreign country, even if that since 1948, not only of capitalists but also country happens to be Israel. of halutzim, technicians and followers and Some who delve deeper find that the dis- exponents of the arts and humanities. Even satisfaction derives not so much from the more serious, although less outspoken, is a attitude of the American Jew towards the ־,state of mind leading to bitter criticism of America as his attitude towards Israel

146 S. Halkin : Zionism and. the State of Israel implication being that he can no longer methods of amelioration or therapy be identify himself with its economic objec- sought. One may even go further and de- tives and cultural climate. Thus they re- clare that quite possibly a correct diagnosis iterate the fears ostensibly felt by American of the situation in American Zionism will Jewish capitalists about the Socialist aims no longer avail in itself as a guide to effec- of the Israel Government, which are felt to tive measures. It is doubtful whether any menace the ownership of capital that would transvaluation of American Jewish values is otherwise have been available for invest- to be expected in the near future without ment. Occasionally they insist that the the intervention of external factors; and so American Jew who comes to Israel may the likelihood of such a change in Ameri- feel that his ideals have been hurt when he can Zionism must also be regarded as finds it a completely "secular" country, as doubtful. Yet, Zionist history seems to in- it were; when he discovers traditional Jew- dicate that the Zionist outlook can establish ish standards and practices, or even the itself in the heart of any Jew, no matter simple human morality on which his Zion- who, what or where he may be; and not ist idealism had fed from afar, being ap- only for external political, social or econo- parently subjected to a cavalier disregard mic reasons affecting his Jewish community, in the State of Israel before his very eyes. but equally from an inner readiness on his If he happens to be Zionist without being part to explore his own heart, his links with particularly pious, he may miss that "Jew- Judaism and his desire to make it a heri- ishness" of thought and deed which had tage of his offspring. Insofar as this is the always attracted him from a distance. If case, an examination of American Zionism his fancy turns to lofty social aims and as- prior to the establishment of Israel is indeed pirations, he cannot discover that prophetic advisory. Such £1n examination may serve and moral force which even the General to show that the apparently recent decline Zionists of America had regarded as the in American Zionism is by no means sud- peculiar possession of Labour Zionism in den. Furthermore, it may even lead certain Eretz Israel. American Zionists to reconsider their Zion- All these explanations of failing Zionism ist past and resolve to accept a more vital in the United States share not so much Zionism, not only for themselves but for their overt or covert admission of diminish- American Jewry as well. ed intensity as a sense that this falling-off in Zionism is sudden and unexpected, and (b) has come about only since the establish- Did American Zionism really begin to de- ment of the State. It is not viewed as some- cline only after the rise of Israel? Is this thing natural, as an inevitable concomitant not rather one manifestation of the course of the general course of American Zionism. taken by the Movement during the past Before the State emerged, according to generation? Before proceeding to consider these arguments, American Zionism was these questions, the writer would like to re- truly Zionist. Only since the emergence of late a little anecdote which is nevertheless the State has there been a weakening and exceedingly characteristic. degeneration. The first week of December 1947, just This basic approach is what calls for after the historic November 29th, was a study. Only if its truth is confirmed can time of mass intoxication for all the Jews of

147, S. Halkin : Zionism and. the State of Israel

America. Even more than Jews elsewhere, logical to suppose that the entire Zionist they were partners in the historic victory Organisation of America must tend to face which had been achieved; for their influ- the identical problem and would presumably ence on American politics had greatly help- share the same point of view. It would ed in bringing it about. During that week doubtless change its name before long, and the writer was visited by a young man who become the "Friends of Jewish Palestine" was serving as Reform rabbi in a Middle or something similar, in order that there West city. His full participation in that should be no chance of the American public general American-Jewish joy was plain to at large erring with regard to the genuine see from the start of the conversation. No patriotism of all American Zionists. sooner did he enter than he began to relate "In that case," said the young rabbi, with the utmost satisfaction how he had greatly relieved, "I'll tell you about an idea toiled to persuade the influential non-Jews that has occurred to me. You know, I have of this city to exert pressure on Washington the Zionist flag hanging in my synagogue circles in favour of the Partition proposal. next to the Stars and Stripes. But it Nor was that all. The members of his Re- wouldn't be proper to have the flag of what form congregation, many of whom were is now a foreign country next to our own. far from Zionism, had lent their support, Still, I've thought of a way out. I'm going each using all his influence on the politicos to remove the Magen David from the centre of the town, the country and the state. of the flag, and then it will just be a kind The young man's fervid words sounded of tallit with its two blue stripes across the like absolute truth. Such incidents were white field. And since the tallit is an object common throughout the United States at of a religious character, it will be quite in the time. But when he had finished with place in my synagogue." his tale of the deeds done by his congrega- This anecdote, it must be stressed, is not tion and himself in order to help restore in any way intended to mock at the patriot- Israel as of old, he went on to talk about ism and apprehensions of the American a private apprehension of his own, which Jew. The kind of Jewish patriotism which seemed rather out of key with the rest of views Zionism as an inherently antithetical his words. With a sudden leap the youth- menace is familiar everywhere, and is not ful rabbi said that now the purpose of Zion- exclusively characteristic of American Jew- ism had been fulfilled, he intended to write ry. Maybe this fear is more understandable, and request the Zionist Organisation to humanly speaking, in the USA than else- remove his name from the list of its where. There are few countries to compare members. For, he said, the Zionist Organi- with the United States for Jews who have sation of America had become the repre- achieved emancipation and regard them- sentative of a foreign power; and since his selves as entirely at home amid the ma- congregation were all loyal Americans, it jority of the population. American demo- was hardly fitting that their minister and cracy, until the last few years at least, per- spiritual guide should belong to that fo- mitted so natural a participation on the reign representation in the USA. part of the Jews that they have come to The writer remarked, rather jocularly regard this participation as something al- than otherwise, that there was no point in most instinctive. cancelling membership, as it seemed only Nor is the tale told above intended to

148, S. Halkin : Zionism and. the State of Israel

show that even on the eve of the establish- and even when his Zionism is not strong ment of Israel, and in the midst of the enough to lead him to depart for the Land struggle which was involved, American of Israel. Nor has American Zionism been Jewry already felt that it must settle its able to approach its Jewish cultural prob- Zionist accounts, and drew the conclusion lems in such a fashion as to indicate any that the emergence of the new State must recognizable distinction between it and make the Zionism of American Jews appear other American Jews. suspect to non-Jews. That is undoubtedly This is also implicit in the summary con- the case, and it means that American Jew- fession made to his congregation by a de- ry's rejoicing at the historic moment was voted American Zionist leader when Israel not that of a full partner but rather of a was established. That confession is true not highly-placed family connection; even at only of the rabbi in question but equally of what was the wedding-feast of all Jews. Yet all American Zionism; and not only of its the tale told above refers not to the ordi- future but of its past as well. Insofar as nary American Jew but to the American American Zionism has considered the ex- Zionist. It describes him and his Zionist istence of historic Jewish culture since the standards and position before and during days of the Emancipation, and insofar as what has been the greatest Zionist experi- it has touched in any way on cultural and ence until now. spiritual affairs (this is not the place to treat The anecdote also indicates two addi- of its meagre interest in all such matters), tional aspects of American Zionism, which it always postulated that it was as ex- serve to explain not only the developments empt as the rest of American Jewry from since 1948 but also the entire state of affairs, any deep investigation of the problem or for at least the past thirty years, within a its solution in terms of, say, Ahad Ha'am. movement which is identified with the Zion- Like all other American Jews, the Zion- ist approach by little save the name it bears. ists of that country considered that it would The antithesis between American and Zion- be enough to preserve Jewish religious and ist patriotism is not at all new in American traditional values more or less effectively Zionism. The establishment of the State on American soil; that the tallit hanging in only confirmed what the American Zionist the synagogue would adequately preserve had unconsciously apprehended during the historic Jewish values. And hence American entire period : That America is his home- Zionism thought it unnecessary to devote land, and that his Zionism in no way de- any serious attention to "historic Jewish pends on any ineluctable passage through culture" in relation to its immediate situa- a via dolorosa, in the form of departing tion, and saw no danger of a Jewish de- from the good and spacious land in which cline in the future. It considered that Jewry he dwells and settling in a country which is in America was fated to live and function desirable only for those never privileged to as a Jewish body in America and nowhere live in the United States. A full generation else; and so it did not need to have any ago American Zionism did not share in the recourse to the sombre forecasts that might Pinsker-like or Herzlian point of view which have resulted from an application of Zionist leads the Zionist to realize the anomaly of teachings. his existence and his abnormal situation What this Zionism has sown for a gene- even where he has equal rights to the full, ration it has now reaped a hundredfold.

149, S. Halkin : Zionism and. the State of Israel

Zionist doctrine was first ignored and then to diverge very widely from what was cur- gradually forgotten; and the obvious fall- rent in Europe, including the Western and ing-off in Zionist driving force, which no certainly the central part of that continent. person can now deny or ignore, is the ex- Like other American Jews, including those elusive fruit of that Zionist spiritual sterility indifferent or opposed to Zionism, the Ame- which preceded the establishment of the rican Zionists felt that they did not need State of Israel. to pay any regard to their own historic fate or that of their children after them in the (<0 light of their views and beliefs. On the con- The negligible American Jewish immigra- trary, they also postulated that their own tion to Israel is not the unique element in position and that of their children differed American Zionist history. That characteriz- and would continue to differ from the state ed the Zionists of almost all European of Jews in other parts of the world; and countries before the catastrophe which that the laws of Zionist thought did not transformed the potential aliya (purposeful apply to them in any personal or group immigration) of Zionist masses into the sense. migration of suffering and persecuted refu- It was also their considered opinion that gees and survivors. No. The difference lies anti-Semitism in the United States would elsewhere. Unlike the supporters of the not only never succeed in undermining their Movement in Europe, those of the United material security and their legal status as States created no Zionist climate. For there citizens enjoying full rights, but would is a specific Zionist climate which divides equally never affect their pride and self- even those who do not themselves imple- respect as fully-fledged partners within ment their Zionism by proceeding to Eretz American democracy. Hence it obviously Israel, from those of their fellow-Jews in followed that the political analysis charac- their countries of domicile who are not terizing Zionism and deriving from Pinsker Zionists and may be opposed to Zionism. and Herzl could not possibly be applicable The Zionist outlook alone was not enough to them and their civic and psychological to lead masses of Jews to Eretz Israel from position. American Zionists never seem to Europe; yet it did produce the singular have experienced that sense of insult and climate which from the very first led certain revulsion at anti-Semitism which found ex•* individuals to proceed there, and caused pression in Pinsker's Auto-Emancipation, the large-scale halutz movements of Euro- HerzPs Jewish State and the Congress pean lands. America, however, made no addresses of Nordau. The feeling of dis- such individual aliya possible, and no ha- satisfaction and bitterness which envisages lutz movement worthy of the name has ever "Jewish distress" as not merely physical and developed there; for American Zionism economic but equally, and possibly even violently, consciously and of set intent re- more, as psychological and spiritual, never jected the generally accepted Zionist point seems to have been operative within them. of view, and did not consider that it applied They were quite unconscious of the revolt to those living within the boundaries of the against the absence of standing of Jews in United States. the eyes of other citizens, even when legisla- Hence, in the course of thirty years, the tion protects them from active and militant character of American Zionism has come anti-Semitism. Like other American Jews,

150, S. Halkin : Zionism and. the State of Israel the American Zionists were blissfully un- not for himself or his own children. The aware of the emotions felt by those regarded thought of aliya to Eretz Israel on his own as aliens by the surrounding group, and at behalf never entered his mind; while the the very best as citizens tolerated and barely very idea of any kind of aliya on the part accepted on sufferance by others. of his children struck him as fundamentally American Zionists never felt their en- absurd—absurd in theory and entirely to be vironment to be hostile, even spiritually rejected in actual practice. and emotionally, to such a degree as to The same applies to the attitude adopted cause them to act in the light of their Poli- by American Zionism during the past thirty tical Zionism and themselves, their children years towards Spiritual and Cultural Zion- and their children's children withdraw from ism. This, to be sure, was far more attrac- America and seek a refuge secure emotion- tive to the American Jewish intellectual ally and spiritually. The result was that in than Political Zionism, with its origin in an the USA Political Zionism inevitably be- awareness of circumambient anti-Semitism. came philanthropic, a Zionism for and on Any formulation of Zionist aims and ob- behalf of others. Indeed, it assumed this jects adumbrated in the USA tended to be character almost from its very beginnings. inspired by the doctrines of Ahad Ha'am. When the American Zionist envisaged Most rabbis, Hebrew educators, thinkers first the National Home and afterwards the and writers in English, Hebrew and to a State, he assumed that his dream would be considerable degree Yiddish as well, felt fulfilled by those who were or would be that their own Zionist purpose was really compelled to become "idealists" and halu- the restoration and renewal of Jewish cul- tzim by virtue of conditions in their coun- ture in the ancient Homeland; and this tries of origin or hostile environments. He purpose sustained their own public Zionist was very proud of halutziut, that singu- enunciations as far as the latter were not lar Eretz Israel pioneer spirit which enabled severely practical and philanthropic. the obstinate idealists who built up the Na- Yet here as well there has been no funda- tional Home, and afterwards the State, to mental difference between such Zionists suffer with a devotion that was truly moving and the ordinary American Jew, including for those who watched from afar. But he even the non-Zionist on occasion. The never faced the searching question of whe- American Cultural Zionist assumed, con- ther he himself might be called upon to sciously or unconsciously, that the Spiritual play a personal part in all this. He held Centre would come about without any per- that his own share was fully and satisfac- sonal action or participation on his own torily finished when he provided adequate part. Nor did such American Zionists ever economic support and effective political venture to apply Ahad Ha'am's basic prin- aid, even when the latter was largely inter- ciples to their own cultural situation and cessive in character. to those factors therein which, here as else- For the American Zionist, America could where, make it objectively impossible to not be classified as Exile within the conno^ —restore a full and normal Jewish life once tation of that term which was characteristic the Ghet to has been forsaken. of Political Zionism; and so/his own Poli- For some reason American Zionists seem tical Zionism inevitably/became one that to have felt that they were exempt from was exercised on behalf of Jews elsewhere, the conclusions of Ahad Ha'am which

151, S. Halkin : Zionism and. the State of Israel appear so cruel to Jews of the Emancipation in very tangible fashion. Yet whatever their era; with their insistence that outside the differences, all these schools of thought Spiritual Centre nothing can be salvaged share one element in common. They look of Jewish life save an almost lifeless religious for a restoration of that cultural entity simulacrum. Almost all Jewish thinkers in which was broken down and broken up the USA who viewed the idea of the Spi- when the Ghetto was forsaken. ritual Centre with favour went on to enun- They all comprehend with absolute clarity ciate a remarkable doctrine as far as their that nothing save the return of the Jews own community was concerned, and one at to their own land offers any hope of a res- absolute variance with all that Ahad Ha'am toration of the historic spirit of Jewry and has ever said. the resurgence of a specific and truly Jew- This doctrine may be expressed in a single ish national culture; which indeed is the sentence. Not only is the United States not postulate of Spiritual Zionism. an Exile, but here in America, Jewry will And yet, American Spiritual Zionism once more produce a flourishing minority faces the same dilemma as other aspects of culture as it did of old in Babylon and the Movement on the American scene. At Spain. The Jews will remain a fruitful and first sight this school of thought seems to creative minority in the Jewish sense. Hence recognize Ahad Ha'am's teaching with its there is no reason for the American Zionist insistence on a "Jewish cultural distress5' as even to think about proceeding to Eretz a basic Zionist urge. Yet for some reason Israel, for he does not need to save his soul this perfectly correct assessment does not or engage in cultural and spiritual redemp- cause the American Zionist to accept the tion. And it follows that it would be both corollaries as far as these might apply to out of place and in the worst possible taste American Jewish culture and its prospects. to preach a migration of American Jews to Yes, say the Spiritual Zionists, Ahad Ha'am Eretz Israel, even for the purpose of help- was right about the Jewish situation in the ing to build up the Spiritual Centre. whole world; except America, where things This prime postulate may one day prove are different. Since the Emancipation and to be the strangest paradox in the history of the falling of the Ghetto walls, to be sure, Zionism. During the past generation there the only hope for Jewish culture lies in the have been many differing currents of Cultu- erection of a new wall that can preserve ral and Spiritual Zionism in the USA. The Jewish identity by concentrating masses of Orthodox dream of a Spiritual Centre that Jews in the Land of Israel, where they can will be religious and point the way for those continue to shape their own natural and abiding by the Torah according to Rabbi- unhampered Jewish life. Yet in spite of this, nical tradition. The somewhat more secu- American Jewry needs no wall; although it larly minded adopt a comprehensive his- has not only left the Ghetto itself but ac- torical attitude which would include all tually finds it unthinkable that it can ever those manifestations of the spirit to be found engage in a spiritual return to the Ghetto. in literature, art, music and, quite possibly, Despite their recognition of Ahad Ha'- the moral fabric of Israel's social structure. am's teachings, the Spiritual Zionists of The Socialist-minded dream of a Spiritual America behave like all other American Centre wherein specifically Jewish and Is- Jews, including non-Zionists and one-time rael forms of social justice come to fruition anti-Zionists. American Jewry, they claim, is a

152, S. Halkin : Zionism and. the State of Israel full and assured continuation of historic ing a measure of discomfort or the disrup- Jewry and will be maintained by them and tion of their present American domiciles. their children. The Spiritual Centre in Is- This is not the place to examine the illu- rael will serve the whole of Jewry except sory nature of this approach, nor the perils themselves and their children. It is possible it involves for American Jewry as such, inso- and even probable that the culture deve- far as the continued existence of the latter loping in restored Israel will influence may be concerned. (Those aspects have American Jewry in various ways; yet the been dealt with at length in my Hebrew historic continuity of Jewish existence in study of "American Jews and Jewry" pub- America will be maintained on and from lished by Messrs. Schocken at Tel Aviv in American soil. That this is within the 1947.) The main purpose here is to show bounds of possibility can be demonstrated how widely the attitude of American Zion- by the whole of the Talmudic and Gaonic ism was at variance with any consistent periods in Babylon, as well as the efflores- and clear Zionist outlook even prior to the cence of Jewry in Islamic Spain. Similarly, establishment of Israel. For this is the factor the Hassidic resurgence of East European which has caused American Zionism to Jewry after the Chmelnitzky massacres of diverge so widely from the course of the 1648 and the collapse of Sabbatianism some Movement in all other countries, not ex- two decades later; and, for that matter, the eluding those of Western Europe prior to new Hebrew and Yiddish literature in Is- the Hitler holocaust. And it is in this mis- rael proves the same point. These pseudo- taken approach that a correct diagnosis of historical analogies are now part of the the situation must be sought. stock-in-trade of Spiritual and Cultural In all countries the Zionist tragedy un- Zionists no less than they are of other doubtedly lay in the fact that Zionists American Jewish thinkers and publicists, themselves were not prepared to implement who formerly "rejected Zion" even more their Zionist convictions in the simplest and than they "accepted Exile". All Zionist most concrete fashion by aliya and integra- groups in the United States share this feel- tion in the life of Eretz Israel. There is ing that Jewry will continue to exist and nothing exceptional about American Zion- function in America without needing to ap- ism in this respect at least, which merely ply the Zionist solution to their own selves. underlines the historic tragedy of the Move- It is blazoned abroad not only by General ment from its very beginnings. At first there Zionists but equally by those who identify was no State in Eretz Israel to draw the themselves with Labour Zionism or the Jews from their dispersion. Now that the Mizrahi. Yiddishists make this claim, and State has at last been established, it finds the leaders of the Hebrew Movement in it hard to attract those who are capable America do no less. and competent to reconstitute the nation The implication of all this is that Zionism, in the fullest sense of that term. Here, how- even in its spiritual-cultural form, is accept- ever, we refer not to the actual fulfilment ed on one condition only: That it cannot of Zionist teaching but to the acceptance be expected to apply to the Jewish situa- of that teaching with its personal implica- even when that acceptance does not ׳,tion in America, and that neither American tions Zionists nor those who will follow in their lead to relevant steps being taken. footsteps will ever need to take steps involv- And it is in this that the basic difference

153, S. Halkin : Zionism and. the State of Israel can be found between Zionism in the Unit- demand for thorough-going Jewish and ed States and elsewhere. Together with the Hebrew education in the Diaspora. What Zionist Movement, Zionist thought always marked European Zionist thought was its matured in the direction of one definite readiness to recognize that "Exile" means principle : Both the physical and economic self-rejection and denial of self, despite all Jewish distress recognized by Herzl, and efforts to maintain Jewish life and thought the Jewish spiritual unease identified by in a world where all barriers had broken Ahad Ha'am, were to be found among all down before the onslaught of a non-Jewish the Jews of the world, and led to an un- culture which was actually washing away stable situation which produced a com- the sense of Jewish historic continuity. munity of interest between the Jews of all European Zionists thought that Eretz Israel countries, not excluding those in which they might check this, and hence all demands had secured or been granted full legal for specifically Jewish education in Europe equality, and even where they were full proved to be eo ipso Zionist. For they in- participators in the local culture or had volved a sense of the futility of efforts to ־achieved full cultural assimilation, as in secure Jewish continuity in Exile as a self pre-Hitler Germany. Indeed, German Jews justifiable goal. regarded their country as their own No Zionist mass departure from Europe in every sense possible; and not only to Eretz Israel was produced by this state because they participated in German cul- of mind, but it did prepare the way for ture at least as fully as ever the Ameri- something of the kind; and it established can Jews participate in that of their land. a definite line of demarcation between Nevertheless Zionism found adherents Zionism and various other Jewish schools there among no small number of Jews, of thought whose outstanding characteristic who decided that their self-respect required was that they preached Jewish autonomy them not to be satisfied with these equal in various forms. All of these shared a be- rights and that they must limit the benefits lief that there could be a genuine Jewish accruing to them from this alien cultural way of life and future in the midst of world, since those benefits were gained at other nations in modern times; and in this the cost of whatever they felt to be Jewish respect it makes no difference whether their about themselves. Thanks to this state of belief was primarily religious in origin or mind a large number of cultural and acade- enjoyed a basically cultural and, on oc- mic personalities left Europe, including casion, social and political character. Germany, for Eretz Israel many years be- This national but non-Zionist outlook fore the Nazis came to power; and it helped may be described as autonomist; indeed, it to produce that Zionist climate of which must be admitted that the thinking Ameri- halutziut, pioneer thought and deed, prov- can Zionist is to be regarded as primarily ed to be the outcome. an autonomist as far as American Jewry In Europe, Zionist thought was not mark- is concerned; for he seems to believe abso- ed merely by a "rejection of Exile", as is lutely that the edifice of Judaism will be claimed by many Jewish leaders in An^ firmly established for his own and sub- rica. European Zionists devoted ample sequent generations within the United thought to the nature of Judaism and its States and that there will be no need for historic values; which led them to an urgent that succour which Eretz Israel is expected

154, S. Halkin : Zionism and. the State of Israel to offer according to the tenets of Ahad while the vitality of their ideas and "philo- Ha'amism. American Zionists, like all others, sophy" steadily diminished. have done a very great deal to promote The determination and energy required Jewish life and thought in their own coun- by leaders and led alike in order to main- try. Yet this in itself only goes to show how tain this "philanthropic" effort should not convinced they are at bottom that what be forgotten, nor the endeavours to aid the they are establishing promises Jewish his- National Home in fighting for its life torical immortality on American soil not against its many enemies; to say nothing of only in the specific religious sense but in the constant financial difficulties and ob- that of a lasting, productive and fruitful stacles. These functions fell for thirty years culture. So it is not surprising that Ameri- on the Zionist Organisation and other can Zionist publicists should oppose an bodies in America, and were fulfilled with aliya from the United States, and were that success which was so evident in the against the establishment of a large-scale yishuv under the Mandate, and which can halutz movement there after Israel came be neither denied, ignored or belittled. Dur- into being. ing the period of the political struggle prior Yet this kind of thinking has character- to the establishment of the State, and dur- ized United States Zionism for the past ing Israel's War of Liberation, those activi- thirty years at least. Possibly the establish- ties expanded and encompassed virtually ment of the State did lead them to admit the whole of American Jewry. The con- consciously what they had never before felt tribution of American Zionism to the ful- obliged to concede; namely, that they filling of the Zionist objective was a very shared in the general Jewish joy at the great one, and indeed it would be hard to establishment of the State, but must hence- imagine the achievement of that objective forward engage more actively in develop- without the unstinting aid of American ing Jewish life and thought within the Zionist "philanthropy", both financial and United States itself. Yet it must be admitted political, for the whole of the last thirty that American Zionism had never actually years. clarified the difference between Zionism And yet the other side of the medal must and the autonomist desire for the continua- not be ignored. These activities have helped tion of Jewish life and Judaism beyond the to weaken, dilute and obliterate Zionist confines of the Ghetto. thinking proper within the United States. The unremittent Zionist activity led to the (d) inevitable result that Zionist thought as The tremendous practical tasks imposed on such became increasingly "altruistic" in American Zionism for a whole generation, America. The efflorescence of practical while the Jewish National Home was being Zionist action within the State has, as it established under the British Mandate, un- were, fostered the feeling that an American doubtedly helped to sterilize Zionist can consider himself a complete Zionist thought in America. The Zionists evinced only if he contributes materially to promot- the utmost possible faith and an astounding ing the work in hand, and entirely irrespec- spiritual vigour in handling these duties, tive of his attitude towards his own personal but inevitably their way of thinking be- future and that of his children. As Ameri- came that of the day-to-day philanthropists, can Jewry was drawn increasingly into the

155, S. Halkin : Zionism and. the State of Israel

external, political struggle, it became steadily now Zionist circles cannot realize what an more difficult for American Zionism to amount of potential Zionist spirit and ac- achieve a truly Zionist outlook when exa- tion was to be found, among Jewish youth mining American Jewish life. The urgency at least, during those years within the Unit- of the immediate objectives made it easy ed States. Nor do we comprehend as yet for American Zionists to close their eyes how much was lost to the State of Israel to social, cultural and possibly economic itself in the absence of any organized group anomalies to be observed among the Jews or apparatus capable of turning that poten- of America, just as they were and are tial Zionism into a real force. This is an among Jews everywhere nowadays; and the example which should not be ignored, even realization of which has led to the proposal if it serves only to mark the vital necessity of the way of Zionism, including aliya to of teaching Zionism pure and simple, if a Eretz Israel and the halutz way of life for mature American Zionism, capable of serv- the younger generation. ing United States Jewry and Israel alike, Objective circumstances, to be sure, have is to emerge. also promoted the spread of Voluntarist Let us be perfectly frank. At the end of Zionism in America, with the result that it the Second World War, Jewish soldiers by is hard to distinguish the vision of the the tens of thousands returned to the Unit- Zionists about the future of American Jew- ed States with an instinctive awareness that ry from that of the "non-Zionists" and even their being Jewish was making them grope the "anti-Zionists". Yet if this state of af- towards the Zionist outlook. This was the fairs is ever to be changed, it will come outcome of several facts which should be about only if the easy-going fashion in mentioned here, although this is not the which Voluntarist Zionism persuades itself place to analyse them. Of these facts the that it is completely satisfactory, is subjected first and most important was that the young to careful examination. No matter how Jew discovered at the barracks that he was much is debited to "objective circumstan- indeed a Jew. During the War years there ces" and thirty years of Zionist history, the were many people who stressed the exist- fact remains that this branch of the Zionist ence of "anti-Semitism" in the American Movement can expand only if it comes to Army. But whether it existed or not, the identify its basic Zionist approach with fact remains that in the army the young that of Zionists the world over. Jews for the first time in their life felt that for their Christian fellow-Americans knew ,יThanks to "objective circumstances5 example, the various Zionist Organizations they were Jews; and viewed them accord- and Associations of America have done ingly as something that was, if not con- nothing to spread Zionist thought among temptible and hateful, then different at the the American Jewish masses. They even least. While those young Jews had lived neglected the great opportunity offered a within the large Jewish communities to be few years ago, when American Jewish sol- found in New York, Chicago and other diers returned from the various battle metropolises, they might have heard of anti- fronts, and Jewish national feeling grew so Semitism, but could very rarely have experi- strong among the Jews of America between enced it personally. In the army, however^ the end of the Second World War and the they came into contact with the non-Jewish outcome of Israel's War of Liberation. Even majority in the barracks, and suddenly dis-

156, S. Halkin : Zionism and. the State of Israel

covered in very many cases that they be- implied. The instinctive national feeling of longed, even in Democratic America, to an American Jewry at that time needed only ethnic and religious minority which was Zionist illumination and guidance. not regarded as particularly desirable and Yet once again "objective circumstances'' welcome. Jewish soldiers returning to led the Zionist Movement in America to USA at that period showed very clearly miss this historic opportunity, which was so how well they had been conditioned for much greater than anything it had ever Pinsker's and Herzl's Zionist approach, experienced. Zionist thought was not pre- without ever having heard the names of pared for the possibilities, and it continued either. And this was all the more the case to be guided by the mentality of altruistic because their personal experience had com- philanthropy. Greater efforts than ever bined with a sense of the Jewish position were made to raise funds and organize in the world at large. political pressure. The results were what For the first time in their lives young we all now know and what is the subject of American Jews, particularly those who had this essay. been in the African and European theatres No halutz movement was developed in of war, saw with their own eyes what the the United States. American volunteers to status of the Jewish people was. This was the Israel Defence Forces returned home. more than obvious in the parts of Europe Tourists visiting the country go back dis- which were liberated by American troops, appointed, sometimes bringing unfavour- where the young men and women were able reports with them. Appeals on behalf overwhelmed at the visible results of Naz- of Israel, even for the purpose of helping ism. In Africa, Europe and the Middle the refugees and newcomers to find their East, American Jewish soldiers also met feet in the country, meet with a lack of newer types of Jews with their vital sense enthusiasm on the part of the public. This of Jewishness; usually Eretz Israel soldiers being the case, it is not surprising that the .off in American Zionism is talked of־belonging to the Jewish Brigade or else falling members of groups working among the Yet, if there never has been an "increase" ma'pilim. There is no exaggeration in in American Zionist consciousness, how can saying that the close of hostilities found it fall off? American Zionism is now reap- many American Jewish soldiers possessed ing what is has sown for thirty years. It of an instinctive and all but conscious Zion- has demanded the aid of American Jewry ist approach, which called only for ex- for establishing this State, which American ternal formulation and an indication that Jews as such do not require and which will there was something concrete which they not satisfy their own specific needs. Now themselves could do. Their mood found that the State has been established, the encouragement when they returned to their American Jew, including the American homes and learnt how American Jewry at Zionist, has no more need for Zionism as a large had also been shaken when they real- personal programme of life than he ever ized the situation of the Jewish survivors had before. in Europe, for whom nothing could be done This may appear paradoxical in terms of save to transport them to Eretz Israel; and consistent Zionist thinking, yet it is natural upon learning of the national revolt in for those Zionists who always envisaged the Eretz Israel with all that it involved and Jewish State as being established for the

157, S. Halkin : Zionism and. the State of Israel needs of persons other than themselves. Zionists cease to be mere official members Now that Israel is there, and part of the in an official organization and develop an Zionist vision has been realized, the Ameri- approach that is both personal and austere. can Zionist feels that he is entitled to take Nothing else can make the ordinary Zion- things easy and at the most continue to ist realize that the State is still on the support the youthful State financially, while march, and that the need for their own helping to bring about an ever more com- spiritual redemption as individuals makes plete integration of Jewry on American it necessary for them in person to share in soil. The fact that those capable of increas- the State's advance towards the ultimate ing the population of the State or promot- "fulfilment of the vision"; even if that vi- ing its technical and cultural development sion's fulfilment lies as far in the future as have been almost entirely annihilated in the fulfilment of any other major world- Europe does not appear to strike the Ameri- vision and goal. For that is what is involv- can Zionists as sufficient reason for them ed, no matter what the definition of the to help to make the loss good by their word Zionist may be according to the re- actual personal presence and direct efforts solutions of any Zionist Congress; and no in Israel. matter what new organizational forms may Besides, the vision has been fulfilled, a be adopted by the World Zionist Organi- natural human reaction has set in, and so sation, and thereafter by the Zionist Or- the Jew who comes to visit Israel feels en- ganisation of America or its sister bodies. titled to be disappointed. Conveniences in No matter what decisions may determine Israel are not what they are in the United the future cooperation and coordination States, or civil servants are not as efficient between Israel and the World Zionist Or- or courteous as they well might be; or else ganisation, and hence the Zionist Organi- the spiritual Zionist vision is still far, alas sation of America, too, Zionists who them- how far, from fulfilment. The American selves resolve to fulfil their Zionism by Zionist feels himself entitled to view the de- personal action will appear in the USA feets and deficiencies of Israel with sober only when the idea of acting as Zionist eyes. Now that his altruistic and sentimental thought and feeling requires has penetrated Zionism has served its purpose and achiev- to the heart and soul; not only as a pro- ed its mission, he is entitled to inspect what paganda device, but as a basis for personal has been done quite objectively, without action. feeling the need to answer the simple ques- This Zionism, which calls for a change tion : If these defects do exist, can it possib- of heart, means a new kind of Zionist edu- ly be the duty of persons like himself to cation for the Jewish masses of America, come to the country, now of all times, and and needs new instruments, methods, mea- lend a hand in improving the situation? sures and institutions of which American Jewry has no experience as yet. A new (e) kind of Zionist press, new schools, new It is clear that for American Zionism the methods of study and instruction, new only hope is a realization that Zionism is publishing firms, new kinds of meetings, something that involves personal change. Its summer camps and quite possibly synago- spokesmen and protagonists have to bring gues should, among them, be capable of im- about a reassessment as a result of which proving the situation in American Zionism,

158, S. Halkin : Zionism and. the State of Israel if only the latter decides that there (completely disregarding the present con- is both room and need for improvement. scious or unconscious hostility which is And that improvement means a realization widely felt towards any halutz approach), that Jewish life can be lived to the full only the utmost that can be expected of any by proceeding to Eretz Israel and, at the halutz movement or movements in the least, educating one's children to the neces- United States is an exceedingly minimal sity of proceeding there and striking root success. in due course. Let us go further. The halutz movement Any plan of action resulting from this has proved so unsuccessful in America be- approach and aiming to foster and pro- cause of its methods of Zionist education. mote it will call for a special apparatus, The established halutz ideology employed the details of which do not lie within the in dealing with American Jewish youth province of the present writer. Yet one rarely derives from sources capable of fact must be stressed: No such apparatus awakening young American Jews to the as yet exists in the USA, if only because spiritual anomaly, the Jewish spiritual and there is no Zionist institution or organiza- material unease which is troubling them, tion which aims at the above objectives. consciously or not. Those organizations which at present con- The most the shaliah usually does is to duct propaganda for immediate and almost tell his youngsters about the "unstable" exclusively financial results within the economic position of Jews in America. This United States can certainly not find the usually involves an analysis of the insecurity time or inclination for any such new activi- of Jewish sources of livelihood in that coun- ty. Yet educational and cultural organiza- try, and offers an alternative of pioneer tions, as well as the shlihim or emissaries aliya to Israel in the name of the great hu- of the various halutz movements, would be man ideals underlying life in the kibbutz. equally incompetent. For a youth pioneer That these two elements in halutz indoc- movement seems to aim at a quantitative trination, and the second in particular, are restriction of the response to its appeal, of considerable value in America is beyond and seems to wish whatever success it all doubt. And yet the two factors alone are achieves to be kept exclusively to very select unable to make large sections of American circles of adolescents; as is proved by the Jewish youth particularly enthusiastic. The state of affairs in all halutz movements young American Jew is usually too practical now operating in America. in his approach to pay much attention to There has indeed been talk recently of what he regards as abstract analysis. And mobilizing hundreds of shlihim in order to the same applies to the roseate aspects of a "halutzize", so to say, American Jewish collective Socialist life, which is likely to youth. Yet even if this should actually be attract only a relative handful. For insofar done, one basic fact will have to be re- as young Jews and Jewesses within the membered. There will be no recognizable United States may still be drawn towards success in this work in the absence of a Socialist perfectionism, they are likely to general atmosphere in America which fa- be more attracted to American Socialism vours the realization that Zionism involves itself, usually in its Communist garb; both personal fulfilment in the form of aliya. As because they know that they are Americans, long as this situation remains unchanged, whatever others may think, and also be-

159, S. Halkin : Zionism and. the State of Israel cause America itself is so much vaster and thing in America, then it must draw on offers horizons that are incomparably more sources which were formerly regarded as broad. So whether one relishes the fact or taboo; including Hebrew, modern Hebrew not, the fact remains that halutz Socialism, literature, Eretz Israel and Zionism. too, is likely to win far more youngsters if it Yet during the same period Nationalist stresses the general Jewish aspect. For only and Zionist circles have moved a long way insofar as halutz indoctrination shows that towards meeting them. They, too, now feel economic and social betterment the world that Jewish life in America itself is their over will not in themselves help to make be-all and end-all. It must be stressed that the Jew less of an "alien" wherever he may this is not intended to belittle the constant be (a fact which is not usually brought and considerable educational efforts now home), can there be any hope that it will marking American Jewry, its higher schools prove truly effective. and institutions of study. (These, it is to be Such a Zionist education, it should also hoped, will grow ever more influential and be noted, cannot remain satisfied with the productive.) Yet their basic postulate, that various kinds of Jewish education at present American Jewry on its own is perfectly found in the USA. During the past genera- capable of living and functioning without tion a vast amount of energy has been in- Zionist fulfilment, means that they cannot vested in this field, which is of great value provide the style of education desiderated for all that can be preserved in American here. The latter calls for new instruments Jewish life. Yet it must be repeated that it openly stressing their Zionism, and dedicat- offers no certain or fruitful field for the ed to the proposition that a Jew who wishes Zionist "change of heart" desiderated here. to live a full Jewish life has no alternative It has become plain that the wish to know before him save to proceed to Eretz Israel. about Judaism, or even to study Hebrew It will not be easy to establish such a and modern Hebrew literature, in no way school of thought. Few will accept it, and ensures that Zionism will be accepted as the even fewer will accept it as the only pos- only method of securing a full and produc- sibility. Who would be prepared to take the tive Jewish life. On the contrary, there is first steps? Yet they must be taken. If a now a general and widespread tendency to beginning had been made with this rehabilitate the Jewish past, even in circles "austere" Zionism in America twenty or which formerly regarded it as irrelevant thirty years ago, the immediate results and even undesirable with reference to the would have been negligible, but by American scene. Yet equally it is found now there would have been something to that Jewish nationalist circles, including show. If a beginning is not made now, it Zionists and Hebrew-speakers, tend to re- will have to be made a few years hence, gard their "national and cultural" Judaism even though the difficulties may have in- as closely or even exclusively bound up creased by then. So the sooner the better. with an assured Jewish future in the USA. The change of heart called for here is Thus Reform Jewish circles, which Zionists highly necessary for the youthful State of and "national" Jews regarded as isolationist Israel. As for the Zionist Jews of America, and assimilationist only thirty years ago, it involves their very life and soul. It is the have clearly tended in recent years to re- only way that they can go, if they really cognize that if Jewish life is to mean any- possess the will to live.

160, PART THREE

The Individual in the State Israel and the Dispersion

S. H. Bergmann

"And the essential evil is that we do not see the source of the evil. For we see all our troubles save the trouble of our basic selves; for our spirits are growing ever more estranged towards us. For our ego is growing blurred; it is becoming soft." (A. D. Gordon)

HE course of our history, from the stand not only that this absolute faith in commencement of the Second World the cooperation between Eretz Israel and T War till the establishment of the the Exile applies merely to external and State of Israel, has entirely transformed the superficial areas, but that even within the face of our nation. We must now re-examine limits of the spiritual-cum-psychological life and reformulate all the problems of our of the nation, faith was sustained through existence, both as a religious entity and as a the existence of a strong Jewish spiritual people. Among these problems is that of the centre in Central and Eastern Europe. Yon- relation between Eretz Israel and the Exile, der, in Russia, Poland, Germany and the as well as re-examination of the functions of other countries of that great Jewish block, our country vis-a-vis the Exile, and the func- was the homeland of all the spiritual move- tions of the Exile vis-a-vis our country. ments which had come to the fore in Jewry Formerly we held this relationship to be that during the past few generations. Hassidism of a centre to its periphery, and treated it and Haskala, recent Hebrew literature and from that aspect alone. In our eyes Eretz Yiddish literature, Zionism and national Israel was the centre of strength not only Jewish movements of every shade and hue, for the nation but also for the spirit of the the Bund, —-all of them nation, for Judaism. Here, it was said, "hun- arose in those countries. These spiritual cur- dred per cent Jews" will be educated. From rents wrestled together, yet they had a here, from the land of the fathers and the common language, and where there is no sons, the emissaries will go forth in due common language there is no debate or course to the lands of the Exile, in order struggle. There was a range of spiritual to revive the Jewish spirit and bring the postulates which they shared. tidings of full, original Judaism. The spiritual influence of Eretz Israel on Now, following the destruction of Euro- the countries of the Dispersion also came in- pean Jewry, we are beginning to under- to being overseas, in, for instance, America

163 S. H. Bergmann : Israel and the Dispersion and South Africa. Furthermore, this was and for our sons and daughters we do our possible only because members of the yi- best to find some unusual names—and all shuv in Eretz Israel, as well as the emigrants this in order not to be what we suppose is to those countries, came from the common Exile-like. Yet perhaps this is done uncon- centre in that homeland of their souls. Even sciously, in order not to be called by a name when a new generation grew up in this from which it is possible to tell at once that country and in the Diaspora, it was sustain- the bearer is a Jew. Sometimes it seems to ed from the spiritual treasures which their me that for sub-conscious reasons of that fathers had brought with them from Eu- kind we so easily gave up the Ashkenazic rope. pronounciation and exchanged it for the The destruction of this common home Sephardic pronounciation; because the later has brought about the horrifying danger of ... erects a barrier between the free Jew of estrangement between Israel and the Dias- Petah Tikva and the Exile Jew of Eishishok. pora. We tend to believe that the relation- The flight from our own selves has not yet ship which has been and will be established ended." (Moznayim, 5706, p. 5.) between Israel and the Diaspora is similar For a certain period during the war, to that which existed between European when news reached the country of the Jewry and its "colonies" in Israel and else- heroic deeds of the Jews of the ghettoes, where. We completely disregard the fact and soldiers from our country achieved that all the circumstances have changed wonders in their efforts to re-establish con- completely. In both Israel and the Diaspora tact between ourselves and the Exile, it there are very powerful forces at work in seemed as thoug the desire to be in close the direction of estrangement and with- touch with the Exile had grown stronger drawal. It is incumbent upon us to know once again. But the forces making for what they are. estrangement still continue to be very powerful. (Even our very popular practice (b) of changing an alien for a Hebrew name The new yishuv, which has shaped the spi- leaves one uncertain, in all truth, as to ritual countenance of Eretz Israel and will which is the decisive motive—flight from doubtless continue to do so for many years, the Exile or full identification with historic came about because of a rejection of the Judaism.) The fact that, at the very moment Exile, and has continued to develop with a when the Zionist Movement is about to conscious estrangement from the Exile and achieve its historic objective, the word 5 its standards and values. At a Conference "Zionism ' in Israel has become a synonym of Writers, held at Ma'aleh Hahamisha on for "empty phraseology" on the part of the the 25th of Elul, 5705 (Autumn 1945), Da- youth, and that "Don't talk Zionism to me" vid Shimoni said : "We frequently deceive really means "Don't use fine-sounding but ourselves and endeavour to persuade others empty words to me", shows that our young- and ourselves that we are fleeing not from er generation is weary of stereotyped official ourselves but from the characteristics of Zionism, and desires realism, something con- Exile. It seems that we find something Exilic crete. This mockery of "Zionism" contains in the names Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, much of the desire for truth, yet it involves Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, Leah, which we the danger of withdrawal, like the tortoise have almost ceased to use in our generation; withdrawing into its shell; the danger of

164 S. H. Bergmann : Israel and the Dispersion

estrangement from the Zionist Movement the influence of its spiritual climate. The and its bearers abroad. word mabsud (satisfied in the sense of The term "" which has established pleased) was known before, but did not itself of late years as a term for the youth enjoy such widespread use as at present. of Eretz Israel may well serve to symbolize The word chizbat (tall story) is still heard the spiritual process which is possibly quite in popular songs. The term "Chizbatron", naturally coming about in Israel. The which was the name of an army theatrical sabra, the cactus, is a plant which grows in troupe, has established itself permanently. this country. It is a fruit of our soil, a plant Now every popular dialect has its own which we did not know at all in the Exile. particular gentleness and intimate warmth. The nature of our country, the earth, the Anyone who listens these days to Kol Israel's landscape, the heavens, the climate, to- radio broadcasts during popular programs gether with the historic experiences through that are accompanied by greetings to friends, which our country has passed during the will hear from time to time that A. sends last half-generation, have served to shape his regards to B. and the whole hamuleh this present Eretz Israel generation; all its (clan) or the whole jam'a (gang). Appa- intuitions and aspirations find their origins rently the Hebrew term mishpaha for fa- here. And there is no better evidence of the mily does not offer the sabra that emotional natural process of taking root in the soil value, that shade of close association which than the language. Hundreds of new words the Arabic word in use does. This is true were coined during this period of the war not only of greetings but also of curses, as against the British and the Arabs, during though Arabic slang had taken over that the period of the Palmach and the estab- vital function which the East European lishment of the State. Words such as mishlat Jewish ear in the first, second and even for strong-point, mivtza for operation, mis- third generation found in its mame-loshen, tanen for infiltrator, ma'pilim for those Jews in Yiddish. who immigrated without British immigra- Such transformations are natural for any tion certificates, ma'bara for transitional language. Furthermore, in a certain measure settlement point, dafak for the slang ex- our language has grown warmer through pression "knocked off" in the sense of killed, these Palmach elements, and also younger. are merely examples given here to demon- Yet in respect of the problem with which strate to the reader's eye and ear a whole we are dealing here, namely that of the stratum of Hebrew words which have been link between the Exile and Israel, this lin- coined during this period, or which have guistic development involves a measure of changed their meanings or have been given danger in that it does not derive from the some fresh nuance. The Hebrew reader common store of the past language, but who is not familiar with this development from present sources in which the Exile and opens the first page of, say, the writer S. does not share. Yizhar, will find himself at a loss. This increasing estrangement from the Add to this the many foreign words which past can also be seen in the attitude of the have penetrated into our language of late Yiddish language and its development of from Arabic, and specifically during the late years. Maurice Samuel, the well-known war against the Arabs, and which serve to translator from Yiddish into English, re- prove the influence of the country upon us; marks (in The Jewish Frontier for December

165 S. H. Bergmann : Israel and the Dispersion

1950) that recent Yiddish literature re- change their external appearance and cha- frains from quoting passages from the Bible, racter, and in a definitely non-Jewish direc- the Talmud and the Jewish Prayer-Book. tion". Koestler's entire attitude towards "In it you find no yearnings for the syna- Judaism leads him to approve of this deve- gogue, the heder, or the festivals. There are lopment; for, in his opinion, once the Jews no longings in this language for the Home- have reached the haven of their desire, it land." From which it follows that the iden- is their duty to dispose of their Jewish bur- tical estrangement from the synagogue den; if not for themselves, then for the sake which is found in Israel is also to be found of their children and grandchildren. In the in the Exile, where it is far more dange- future they will have to go hand-in-hand, rous than in this country, as far as the con- and "without any reservations, with the na- tinued existence of the nation is concerned. tions in whose cultures and lives they take Jacob B. Agus writes in an essay on "Ju- part". Here the estrangement between Is- daism in America" (in The Congress Week- rael and the Exile has become part of an ly, February, 1951) about the cold and even actual plan of action. hostile attitude of the young Jewish intellec- This—the attitude of the sabras—is to be tuals of America to the faith of Israel, which found among other observers. Philip Toyn- differs vastly from the attitude of Christian bee writes after visiting Israel: "Any visitor intellectuals to their religion. The identical to the country will note the striking diffe- process is at work both here and in the rence in the appearance, manner of thinking Exile, and it results in a considerable in- and views of the youngsters who are born crease of the spiritual distance between there. They have simply ceased to be Jews." Israel and the Exile. "In a hundred years there will be no Bezalel Sherman, who wrote about this Jews in existence anywhere. There will be from the point of view of Labour Zionism a State of Israel which will make its own in America (The Jewish Frontier, June 1951) peculiar contribution, apparently not Jew- makes the following statement: "We ish, and there will be citizens of other coun- are approaching a time when there will no tries in whose veins Jewish blood will flow; longer be any language common to the but in their heads there will no longer be Jews of the world. The cultural barriers Jewish thoughts and Jewish emotions. May- dividing the Jews of one country from be there will be someone who will regret the those of another are increasing from day disappearance of this unique mentality, to day. The more Jewish citizens are con- which had a value of its own. Yet he will cerned with the affairs of the lands in which feel infinitely more at ease when he realizes they are born, and the greater the part that this long expiry of the Jews, and this they play, in common with the remainder prolonged shame of the Christians, have of the population, in fundamental values reached their close.'5 (See Joseph Leftwich's which do not derive from their Jewish heri- essay "Save us from the Non-Jewish Jews!" tage, the stronger grow the factors leading in the South African Jewish Times, Oc- to the breaking-up of the Jewish people." tober 27, 1950.) Many observers have noted the estrange- The friend of the State of Israel and of ment from Jewish sources which has grown the Jews evidently feels that things have widespread in Israel here. Arthur Koestler been made easier for him. Judaism has finds that "those born in Israel rapidly come to an end with the establishment of

166 S. H. Bergmann : Israel and the Dispersion the State of Israel... A Jew, however, can- thousands of years; yet nowadays the slogan not think in this way. In his ears echo the of 'every man to his tent, O Israel' is steadi- words of the Prophet Ezekiel (Cap. XX, v. ly fragmentizing the nation, and there are 32): "And that which rises in your thought many who take the name of unity in vain. will not come to pass; that which you say: As recently as the last generation we still Let us be as the nations, as the families of had one language, one culture and one tra- the earth, serving wood and stone. As I dition. Now we remain a people without a live, saith the Lord, indeed with a strong language, without a national culture and hand and an outstretched arm and with without a tradition. How shall we preserve voided wrath shall I rule over you." The our existence if the soul of the nation has processes of that "unique and singularly departed ?" up and estrangement־valuable mentality" are not so simple as What the breaking they seem to those writers; and they will of the different tribes has not achieved is attract to themselves the opposition of ele- being achieved by assimilation in every mental forces which it will be hard for men country. The facts are well known, and to withstand. Yet in spite of this, it is neces- there is no need for documentation. I shall sary that these words and thoughts should quote only one witness. "Not long ago a serve us as a grave warning. special conference was held in New York to deal with the education of Jewish chil- (c) dren and youth. One single figure summed The division of the world into East and up the whole grave problem faced by those West enhances the danger of this split. In Jewish organizations in the Exile which are this connection Aryeh Tartakower wrote concerned for our culture. It turns out that (in Davar, Tevet 10, 5711): "We were one two-thirds of the younger Jewish generation nation, and we continued to be one nation in America, children and youth alike, do in the darkness of Exile until the beginning not attend any Jewish or Hebrew schools of the present century; but since then we at all. And out of every hundred pupils have been gradually breaking up into ever who come to a Jewish school, not more than smaller fragments, and the bridge between fifty children remain at the end of the first one tribe and another is steadily being de- year of tuition, while at the end of the six- stroyed, and who can judge the future? year course there are no more than two The love of Israel glowed in the hearts of per cent." (I. Klinov, Davar, Iyar 20, the masses in earlier generations, and one 5711.)1 Jew did not stand against another even if Some time ago the Institute of Jewish the frontiers of the Gentiles kept them Affairs of the pub- separate. Yet now one host mobilizes against another, Eastern Jew against Western Jew 1 I quote the above passage as written, but should and Western Jew against Eastern Jew. Nor add that the results of this census are not un- disputed. That two-thirds of the younger genera- is it under Gentile pressure that they do tion do not attend Jewish schools at all is claimed this, but of their own free will and as the to be incorrect; but two-thirds of the children of result of the general lunatic animosity and school-age do not attend the lessons because most will to destruction which is gaining strength of them participate in the religious courses only for a relatively brief period. This state of affairs all over the world. We succeeded in pre- finds expression in the statistical data quoted by serving the unity of Israel for hundreds and Mr. Klinov.

167 S. H. Bergmann : Israel and the Dispersion published a report with the purpose of draw- fluence of that establishment on the entire ing public attention to the alarming rate of Jewish Dispersion. "We now walk about increase in the percentage of mixed marriages erect, as though our backs have been between Jews and non-Jews. The situation straightened," said one of the leaders of in England has become so grave that the American Jewry to me when speaking of Rabbinical Council was compelled to pro- the impression which the War of Liberation hibit such weddings in synagogues under made on the Jews of the United States. It its supervision. Yet the power of such pro- was precisely then that the youth of Israel hibitions is doubtful. In Switzerland the displayed those qualities the supposed ab- number of Christian women who adopted sence of which among Jews has been pointed Judaism in order to marry Jews was so out time and again by our opponents and great that the Rabbis decided not to ap- enemies: courage, self-sacrifice, contempt prove of such conversions in future. Yet for death, national pride, discipline and complaints were immediately heard from organization. After hundreds of years the the Jewish Community itself to the effect Jewish people saw a youth who were pre- that such a step would be ill-considered and pared to perish and hallow the Name by dangerous. If the Rabbinate was not pre- doing so. pared to Judaize the women, the men would The effects of this process on the national accept Christianity. The South African psyche were tremendous in the Diaspora. Jewish Times, which reports these facts and An intense upsurge of love of Israel and warns against a similar danger in South love of Judaism came about, and the youth- Africa, justly comments that we must seek ful State of Israel has been and is reaping the true reason for this situation in the eva- the harvest of this new love; although it poration of the Jewish atmosphere in the must be admitted that for the present this communities. The journal continues in has found expression more through financial words that deserve our special attention: support, an impersonal and external method, "And no matter how strange it may seem than by any genuinely personal identifica- to us, the fact remains that the establish- tion with the State of Israel. Yet no small ment of the State of Israel has introduced number have come to demonstrate, with a mood of slackness and weariness among their bodies and their lives, the unity of the large groups. There is a growing feeling that people in the Exile and in Israel. the work is finished, and we can now rest I am, however, in no way certain whether at ease and satisfied." this love of the Diaspora for Israel has been matched by a corresponding love of Israel (d) for the Exile as Exile. Israel is prepared to It is not the purpose of these lines to in- receive the Jews of the Exile with open duce a state of melancholy and pessimism. arms if they forsake the Exile; yet we are The picture would not be complete if we not spiritually equipped properly to appre- were not to show, in addition to the de- ciate or actively support the heroic struggle structive and estranging centrifugal forces, waged by the Exile for its continued exis- those centripetal forces which bring us to- tence, and the strengthening of the founda- gether constructively, naturally including tions of its spritual edifice in the Exile it- the most powerful force of all: the estab- self. Most of the inhabitants of Israel find lishment of the State of Israel and the in- something contradictory in the fact that the

168 S. H. Bergmann : Israel and the Dispersion

Jews of the Exile wish to establish ever- Diaspora. In June, 1951, Bezalel Sherman closer relations with Israel on the one hand, warned against such propaganda in The and at the same time desire to hold more Jewish Frontier, the English organ of the firmly than ever to their Jewish positions Poalei Zion in America : "In the American yonder in the Diaspora. Above we quoted Labour Zionist Movement there is no place the words of I. Klinov on the difficult posi- in either theory or practice for the concept tion of Jewish education in the United of 'rejection of the Exile'. It is possible to States. In the course of his essay the au- engage in a philosophical debate as to how thor describes the efforts now being made long the Jews will continue to live in the by United States Zionists to establish schools Exile. But political considerations compel aiming to strengthen American Jewish life, Labour Zionism to face the fact that the while at the same time linking it with the Jews have resolved to live and go on living Jewish people in the Homeland. He views wherever they may be. If Labour Zionism this attempt negatively, remarking: "The does not wish to be the protagonist of a active Zionists, including the cultural plan directed to expediting the self-annihi- workers among them, are also going the lation of the Jews, it must take upon itself wrong way. For how is the creation of a the duty of intensifying Jewish life in this school to be achieved which will serve as country. The Jews of America, who are security for the continuation of the Dias- making every joint effort to continue their pora as such, and at the same time as a lives as a community, will contemptuously living bridge with Israel?" (Davar, Iyar 5, turn their backs on any movement which 5711.) 'promises them' their gradual disappear- I do not doubt that Klinov expresses the ance. The theory of 'rejection of the Exile' view of most Jews in Israel. Public opinion undermines the will-to-live of American among us has reached the conclusion that Jewry, and serves as grist in the mills of the time for reciprocal activity between asimilation." Israel and the Exile has gone for good, and that the Exile is doomed—perhaps to the (e) slow and easy death of assimilation, but, The "philosophical" debate on the future ultimately, to the same end as in Central of the Exile which the author of the above and Eastern Europe. The days of the Exile essay is prepared to permit would be a very are numbered. The outcome of the history barren one. What is going to happen to of the Exile is the State of Israel, in which the nation in another hundred or two the history of the people of Israel will hundred years in Israel and the Diaspora henceforth be enacted. Such is the opinion may serve as a subject of speculation for the of the overwhelming majority of the local idle, fanciful or visionary mind. It is not population; and it is the source of that in- and cannot be the subject matter on which difference towards the Diaspora, of that to base decisions that determine our actions. lack of appreciation for and attention to the Practically speaking, we must recognize the struggle for existence there, which is so fact, welcome to some and unwelcome to widespread in this country. Apparently others, that the Exile exists and that its exis- many of the emissaries of Israel to the Exile tence and strengthening is now, and for share in the pessimism, and as a result have at least the near future, a most important helped to widen the gulf between us and the concern of the State of Israel itself. For

169 S. H. Bergmann : Israel and the Dispersion during the immediate future the fate of the velop Jewish life there. Perhaps the Zionist State of Israel, both economically and poli- Organisation can serve as the instrument tically, will be dependent upon the Exile. to carry out the function and duty of re- The State of Israel would never have reach- Judaizing the Exile, provided that it is it- ed its present position, if it were not for the self filled with a new spirit and will not existence of the Exile, on which it could make the error of pessimistic prophecies lean and depend. All slogans of negation about the future of the Exile, but will do or destruction of the Exile mean cutting its duty of reviving Jewish life everywhere. off the branch upon which all of us are Zionist history tells us about the crisis seated. And, on the other hand, the Exile which the Movement faced round the year is naturally most vitally interested in a 1900, when the centre of gravity of Zionist flourishing and progressing State of Israel, work shifted to the diplomatic activities of characterized by factors common to Israel Herzl and an exceedingly restricted circle and the Diaspora. Hence, no matter what of assistants. The Zionist Movement seem- our hopes or demands or expectations for ed to be absolutely emptied of its content, the distant future may be, our present slo- as has happened to-day with the shift of gan can certainly be none other than: Is- the centre of gravity to the State; and the rael together with the Exile, the Exile toge- Zionists suddenly found themselves "unem- ther with Israel! Those are the two foci ployed". At that time the Russian and for the ellipse of our lives. Austrian Zionists proclaimed the plan of Accordingly, the hope of all those who "Gegenwartsarbeit" (present-day work), expect that in another generation or two meaning work in the Exile and work for the Israel will be the only centre for the Dias- Exile. Although this plan was received he- pora is quite unjustified. During the com- sitantly and with no small opposition by ing decades all Israel's constructive and or- those who were apprehensive that it would ganizing forces will have to be devoted to be injurious for Eretz Israel, it breathed solving the problems of building up the new life into Zionist ranks and delivered country itself; to problems that are econo- the Movement from the peril of decline. mic, political, religious and linguistic. Our To-day, although the circumstances are en- work will be directed and concentrated ex- tirely different, we face a similar need for clusively inwards. Let us offer one example "Gegenwartsarbeit", in the sense of reviving to clarify this : Can we imagine that in the the spirit of Israel everywhere, in the Dias- near future we shall be in a position to put pora and the State. And here the real prob- a considerable number of teachers at the lem begins. disposal of the Exile, when we ourselves are so dreadfully short of teachers ? Clearly, (f) the Exile will have to utilize and create its The problem which we face is common own resources in this respect. We can help to the Diaspora and our own selves. It is it indirectly by the fact of the existence of the problem of new content for Jewish life, the State of Israel and the latter's internal new content for spiritual policy, if it can be educational effort, and by coordination and called that, of an old Jewish character. And measures to correlate efforts; but nothing since the flight from Judaism, which is the further. Vital necessity requires that the process of assimilation, is as strong in Israel Exile should of itself find the forces to de- as in the Exile (save that it is engaged in

170 S. H. Bergmann : Israel and the Dispersion here without remorse because it hides be- gymnastics of a maskil (secularist Hebrew hind the external facade of the Hebrew writer of the nineteenth century), has be- language), this danger is one that threatens come a reality in the State of Israel. Thus, the whole of Jewry throughout the world. the monthly Aleph wrote in January, 1951 : Though we may as yet have no solution "In the Land of Israel there is already a for the problem, we must at least see and large and growing youthful public of atheis- face it, sense the danger, and realize how tic Hebrews, who have already freed them- menacing it is. selves of Zionist complexes and every bond A few months ago the Philosophical So- with Judaism. There are even the first shoots ciety of Jerusalem held a Symposium on of a Hebrew Christian public. When this Jewish philosophy in the State of Israel; group grows strong, and they will undoubt- and here, in a debate on a specifically philo- edly be supplemented by others, the Hebrew sophical theme, all the apprehensions which nation may possibly contain, theoretically, many feel regarding our present spiritual some "protestant" Judaism which will re- condition found their expression. In parti- nounce its domination and will tolerate the cular, Professor G. Scholem mercilessly belief or non-belief of other Hebrews." stressed the spiritual crisis which has been This demand for toleration is at first sight rendered more acute by the establishment very fine, and we shall certainly demand of the State of Israel on secular foundations. toleration in Israel for whoever may desire Concepts have been effectually clarified, to change his faith. Yet, how would such a painful though that clarification has been. State of Israel maintain its relations with For since the foundation of the State there the Diaspora, and how would it maintain is room for the possibility of an Israeli its inner unity without any common spiri- thought which would deliberately snap its tual basis and after breaking the link with links with the Jewish past, and even the the Jewish past? To this we have received State and Society would be used as terms no reply. Nor should people say that there belonging to that past, should any necessity is no point in bringing evidence from the for doing so be seen. In this equivocation "Canaanites" who are represented by with regard to words and symbols, there lies Aleph. I am of the opinion that we must a very grave danger. The symbols of our treat this group seriously, in spite of their past were religious. These have now been limited numbers. For they permit them- emptied of their content by a process of selves to express, in their youthful impru- secularization. It is quite possible, there- dence, what a large part of the Jews of the fore, that in Israel the soul, thirsting for re- country think and do when they regard ligious content, will turn to other religions; secular nationalism as the only basis for our because the Jewish religious symbols have lives. been deprived of their original content and (g) have been transformed into purely secular There are some among us, to be sure, symbols or concepts. There is now a danger who hope that the loss of the common re- of a nation of Israel with various religions. ligious foundation will be compensated for The late Dr. Haim Zhitlovsky used to by a common secular basis for Israel and play with the idea that a man could be the Exile. Some have spoken of a Jewish Christian by religion and Jewish by na- "civilization''; yet what can the meaning of tionality. But what was then the intellectual this civilization be after it has disposed of

171 S. H. Bergmann : Israel and the Dispersion the religious foundations? What will be left preserved their existence during the whole over? A little folklore, a little sentimentali- of the Exile. There is only one possibility ty, a little common pride and a little com- of solving our question: Restoring the re- mon responsibility for the persecuted, ailing ligious basis of our existence both in Israel and needy. and the Exile. There is no other solution Will these be enough to serve as a power- to our question, and on the answer to it ful barrier against the destructive forces of depends the response to that other fateful which we have spoken? There are some question: To be or not to be. who refer to the sentimental bonds linking I recognize all the difficulties of such a the Irish Americans with Ireland, and the plan, and know that many readers will be Swedish Americans with Sweden. Are we quick to say: If that is the only solution, to suppose that we shall ever wish to rest then there is no solution. Indeed, it is our satisfied with such sentimental links? Is this duty to see clearly the two difficulties that to be the end of the magnificent history of stand in the way of the restoration of the the Exile? Can these links continue from religious basis of our existence. These are age to age? Can they stand the difficult the crisis in Jewish faith on the one hand, test of changes in historical conditions? and the petrified rationalism of a large part Merely to ask this question is to obtain a of the Jewish people, particularly in the negative reply to it. State of Israel, on the other. Bezalel Sherman, Who in his essay quoted above, endeavoured to reply from the point (h) of view of the Labour Zionist Movement to The Jewish faith has been in the throes this question of the relations between the of a crisis for many years. We cannot close State and the Diaspora, reached the follow- our eyes to the fact that there is a flight ing conclusion : The Jewish National Home from our religion, particularly on the part will be, as it were, independent in all its of thinkers who, with all their heart and political affairs; yet, in all spiritual matters soul, have sought the way to God. I may the citizens of Israel are required to share mention Otto Weininger and Bergson. The their authority with the Jews in other latter, in particular, prepared and justified countries. It follows that every Jew is pos- by his teachings the great change that has sessed of a quasi-dual nationality. He has come about in world opinion regarding re- the State citizenship of his country, and his ligion; and although he remained a Jew in spiritual citizenship within this Jewish world order not to forsake the hosts of the per- partnership. secuted, he nevertheless requested a Catho- The origin of this plan is obvious. It de- lie priest to accompany his coffin on its last rives from the Roman Catholic Church. Yet journey. what will this "spiritual citizenship" be like Edith Stein received a letter from her among Jews? What is the content of the teacher of philosophy, A. Husserl, himself organizational framework proposed here? originally a Jew, congratulating her when There is only one content which can serve she entered the monastery. Then there was as a basis for a "Jewish civilization" or Simone Weil. We could continue this pain- "spiritual citizenship". It is the faith of the ful list of religious individuals who have Children of Israel. That is the content forsaken us during the past generation. Yet through which and for which our people the most painful evidence of all regarding

172 S. H. Bergmann : Israel and the Dispersion our religious crisis is the fact that the young regards itself as the pioneer of a tremendous people of Israel, who shed their blood for host following in its footsteps towards the the establishment of the State of Israel and days of Messiah. who are the finest youth that the Jewish For the present it appears that the gene- nation has possessed for centuries—these ral human responsibility resting upon us young people, in very large part, have con- as a chosen people has been forgotten; and sciously turned their backs on the Jewish here as well we have preserved only the faith, not listening to the blast of the Shofar empty husk of a sense of distinction. at the New Year, not aware of the splendour or majesty of the Kol Nidrei or Ne'ila pray- (i) ers on the Day of Atonement. Admittedly, In order to complete the picture I must this is evidence of the great sin committed mention yet another factor, which is of by earlier generations, and evidence like- great importance in assessing our relations wise of the state of our religious life. I re- with the Diaspora: the Oriental origin of member what Franz Rosenzweig once wrote most of the immigrants to Israel since the to his parents when he was on the verge of establishment of the State. For the gap be- conversion to Christianity, and compared tween Oriental and Occidental cultures is the two religions : "When I have the choice now added to the many differences between between an empty purse and a handful of Israel and the Diaspora. A large part of the silver, ought I to choose the purse?" immigrants from Eastern countries do not It seems to me that there are two prin- live in the twentieth century. I do not say cipal causes which have led to this spiritual this deprecatingly, nor do I wish to decry petrification in our religion. First comes the their values and those of their culture, for departure of the spirit which once throbbed I am certainly no enthusiast about the mo- within it. With the cessation of the creative dern spirit. But the complications and prob- religious spirit, only that dead husk re- lems involved cannot be overlooked. mained which chokes all religious life. Se- The religious life of the Oriental sections condly, we have been unable to overcome of our citizens is very far indeed from the the fundamental difficulty involved in religious life of Western Jews. It may be clinging to the Jewish faith, which is simul- incorrect to say that their religious practice taneously the religion of a nation and of all is "fossilized". On the contrary, it is full humanity, both universal and particularist. of a primal fervour and glow. The powerful The great idea of being the chosen people, influence of Islam can be recognized here. but chosen for humanity as "first fruits",— Their ecstatic religious fervour at Meron on that idea has lost its lustre. We do not need Lag Be'omer has something savage, start- to give the theoretical explanation that these ling, frightening about it. And we see the two poles are not opposed. In general, this same thing on Mount Zion. is not a matter for theoretical debate. The How much their forms of worship can question is that of our manner of life. The help to create a barrier between the Dias- idea of the chosen people can lead to self- pora and ourselves has been attested by exaltation and chauvinism, or it can bring Professor L. Rabinowitz, the Chief Rabbi about the finest possible sense of respon- of South Africa, in an article, "Is a Miracle which he wrote י,? sibility on the part of a nation towards the Sect Developing in Israel whole of humanity, in which that nation after visiting Mount Zion, and published in

173 S. H. Bergmann : Israel and the Dispersion

the African Jewish Times on March 17, the "leader" for whom these young men 1950. Rabbi Rabinowitz brings clear proof will pour forth all die torrents of their anti- of the questionable historic basis for the religious religious emotion. Just as their legend now being consciously woven round fathers prostrate themselves at the tomb of Mount Zion, and says: "Everything is be- King David, so the sons will prostrate them- ing done here to foster the new worship selves before some picture that is equally on Mount Zion, in order to provide a sub- falsified. And we, instead of modifying the stitute for the Wailing Wall and afford a religious emotion of the new immigrants, release for the religious feelings of the sustain their superstitions, and the flag of the masses. It seemed to me that in all this State of Israel flies over the place of their there is something un-Jewish, something worship. We are bringing the Middle Ages which contains more superstition than true of Islam here and fostering them in our religious belief." Rabbi Rabinowitz des- midst; and in this way we strengthen the cribes the coming of Yemenite Jews to the accursed secularism to be found among us. spot: "Their fervour made an ineffaceable I do not propose to engage in theoretical impression on me, though I thought that in polemics regarding the secularism of "the it there was something unhealthy." From modern man". It is enough to point to the the afternoon paper, Yediot Ahronot, he fruits of the view that Man can live with- quotes stories of miracles that are supposed out God. "The outlook of this modernism," to have taken place on Mount Zion, won- writes the distinguished American Jewish derful acts of healing, etc., and ends his writer, Ludwig Lewinson, "which still de- article: "I fear to think what the effect of faces our intellectual and moral climate, has these untrustworthy stories will be on the proved absolutely false, both in respect of simple Godfearing and superstitious Jews philosophical proof and practical demon- of Yemen. Do we wish to turn Mount Zion stration. What this modernism offers, in the into a Jewish Lourdes, resembling the Ca- way of changes and improvements and so- tholic Lourdes? I hope not, but the signs called 'progress' leads direct to the abyss. presage evil." Whatever derives from this source is moral- Above the terrifying phenomena of Lag ly tainted, and the smell of the gas chambers Be'omer at Meron flies the , as and concentration camps rises from it. It I have seen with my own eyes. The cere- is not the Torah of Israel that has failed* monies on Mount Zion are the work of the nor the ethic of Jesus, which derives from Ministry of Religion. But if this is the offi- the ethic of the Pharisees. These have not cial faith of Israel, is it not certain that the failed. They have been rejected and sneered education of these Oriental communities at, trodden underfoot. The idols have failed. will lead eventually to a revolt against prac- Moloch has consumed humankind with his tices whose roots lie deep in the Middle polluting flames. How can a Jew capable Ages of Islam? What will be the results of of thinking be so deceived, so corrupt and such a revolt? Who will fill the vacuum confused, as not to return to his people, to that will be created in the souls of the Ye- the centre of his people, to the eternal sour- menite youth when they forsake the forms ces of his being, to his goal, to the know- of worship hallowed by their fathers and ledge of his God, merely because opinions seek some new outlet for their religious which have turned the face of the earth to emotions? I can already see the picture of desolation, and human beings into demons*

174 S. H. Bergmann : Israel and the Dispersion

stand in the way of his return? Do not we, carnation"; but the Christians find the es- the Jews, have a better knowledge and a sence of their faith to be that God once better path? Nay, if we wish to be redeem- became flesh and blood, while we find the ed and enjoy length of days, we must re- essence of our faith to be that our Torah turn and face inwards, going back deep, assumes flesh and blood in our lives. deep into our innermost selves, there to re- The restoration of the , which discover ourselves and once again unite many regard as a remedy for our religious with the great tradition, that tradition situation, will avail nothing unless it is pre- which has redemptive force for us and the ceded by a great change in the heart of the whole world." nation; by a vital longing for the mitzva, I quote this passage from the writer's which will fill the life of the individual with work, The American Jew, published in 1950, prophetic Jewish content and turn the State not only because it is important in itself into the State of a Messianic people. when we come to deal with the rationalism When this change comes in Israel and of the "modern Jew", but also because Le- the Exile, the people of Israel and the State wisohn actually demands this return from of Israel will again know their world pur- the Jews of America. The purpose of this pose and mission. Yet, if the change does return, of going back to the source of our not come, we may stand, God forbid, be- essential being, is identical both here and fore our final end. in the Diaspora. And both here and there The reply to the problem of Israel and the obstacle in the way of our return is the the Diaspora was given by the Prophet same: the "empty box" of petrified religion, Isaiah when he wrote: "And they shall see and rationalism. If we overcome this ob- the name of the Lord from the Westering, stacle, if we once more find our way to the and His glory from the rising of the sun. God of Israel and the basic idea of our When the adversary cometh as a river, the essence as a people, to the idea that we are spirit of the Lord shall make him flee. And chosen, then the question of "Command- a Redeemer shall come to Zion, and to ments" will find its own solution. The Jew those who return from transgression in Ja- who has rediscovered himself, his Jewish cob, saith the Lord. But as for me, this is authenticity, will aspire of himself and by my Covenant with them, saith the Lord; his own resources to transform theory into the spirit which is upon thee, my words practice, to fulfil his Torah in his private which I have set in thy mouth, I shall not life—and, for the first time in two thousand remove from thy mouth and the mouth of years, in the life of his State. Jews and Chris- thy children and of thy children's children, tians both believe in "embodiment", in "in- saith the Lord, now and evermore."

175 Fusing the Aliyot in Israel

S. N. Eisenstadt

ow far are the State of Israel and namely, of the capacity of the State and the the yishuv capable of absorbing the yishuv to serve as social and educational H new aliya in a full social sense ?And instruments in absorbing the new aliya and what is the social and economic weight of achieving its integration. this aliya in terms of the structure of the Something has changed in the social new society in the country? These two structure and cultural visage of the yishuv, inter-related problems are of decisive im- but we have not yet given ourselves a full portance to the yishuv and Zionism. account of this change in the absorptive Zionist ideology always assumed that in capacity of the yishuv. A large part of our addition to Eretz Israel's serving the dis- discussion will, therefore, be devoted to an persed of Jewry as a physical refuge, a good investigation of this problem. However, we and just society with unique social values shall first consider several general aspects and a high cultural level would be built of our present approach to integrating the here and make a special contribution to exiles, as well as various social qualities of contemporary social problems. Both these the new aliya. aims were served by the various sections of the halutz aliya, very largely on account of (b) the selective character of that aliya. It is, The methods used in integrating aliyot dur- however, in this period of the ingathering ing the period of the State differ in several of the exiles, when immigration has com- basic respects from those employed during pletely lost its selective character, that the the preceding epoch. The basis of the dif- possibility of combining the two goals is ferences is the fact that the newcomers and being severely tested. the long-established residents function with- When the uprooting of entire exiles be- in separate ecological, social and economic gan and they were transferred en bloc to frameworks. The essence of absorption to- the State of Israel, it immediately became day is the inclusion of the social organiza- clear that this aliya would inevitably dif- tions of the newcomers within the formal fer from its predecessors both socially and and bureaucratic apparatus of the State, culturally. However, emphasis on the dif- and only to an exceedingly minor degree ference in the new aliya involves a certain within the social framework of the yishuv ideological disregard (which is often not at (in the sense of the older established por- all deliberate) of the other side of the coin; tion of the Jewish community of the

176 S. N. Eisenstadt : Fusing the Aliyot in Israel

country). The newcomers and the old-estab- new aliya, which differs from its predeces- lished yishuv still fit into separate social sors. This is no longer an aliya of selected frameworks, with relatively restricted contact, groups who revolted against the quiet and limited to economic and organizational secure life of the Exile, united into halutz ׳matters. This is particularly striking in the units and came to the Land of Israel pre ecological and geographical distribution of pared for a transformation in cultural the newcomers among and within towns values and the creation of a new Society. and villages, and is equally striking in their Nowadays the aliya is one of entire ex- economic activity. The overwhelming ma- iles, complete with their existent social and jority either make their living within the cultural frameworks. For them aliya has sectors which have become specifically not involved any preparation for change in their own (such as various kinds of public social form, but is a means of obtaining works), or else make their living from one immediate social and economic security. another within the virtually autarchic sec- Even their most active members do not tors which they have established. Doubtless consider that the creation of a new Jewish this autarchy is gradually diminishing as society is an objective which they have to time goes on, but it is still quite strong, achieve. It is merely one of the factors in and is certainly the main starting-point for the situation to which they must adapt the economic absorption of the aliya. That themselves. This helps to explain why they process is characterized not only by separa- remain self-enclosed and separate even tism but also by differences in economic after the initial periods; it also explains positions, vocational opportunities and the character and nature of the channels standard of living, as compared with the of transition which are gradually being older yishuv. Most of the newcomers are established between the newcomers and old to be found on the lower rungs of the lad- residents. Complete separation is obviously der of economic position and social impossible for any length of time, and it is standing. inevitable that areas of contact must come The same general picture applies to the about. We shall consider the principal ones social and cultural structure. Most of the in the next section, even though the pre- newcomers still live within their own social sent state of our information does not make and cultural frameworks, maintaining their it possible to provide a fully rounded pic- time-old customs and social relations, and ture. having very little contact with the great (c) majority of the established yishuv. During The points of contact are of three kinds. the period prior to the establishment of the One consists of the various formal organiza- State, we witnessed a rapid neutralization tional frameworks, offshoots and arms of of the social and cultural heritages of the the State, which embrace the life of the countries of origin. Now, however, this newcomers at various points. The second heritage cannot be eliminated with similar is the various channels of transition between rapidity. Mutual separatism is, therefore, the newcomers and the older yishuv. The the starting-point of the integration of the third is the association in similar or joint newcomers with the older-established po- social groups. Let us consider each of these, pulation. This separatism originates to a assaying its power to change social and large extent in the social character of the cultural forms among the newcomers, and

177 S. N. Eisenstadt : Fusing the Aliyot in Israel describing the particular nature of this these activities. Clearly, they are capable change. of changing and breaking down old frame- The first has several aspects. There are works, awaking aspirations and impulses the special instruments of absorption: the towards new kinds of behaviour. Yet how various departments of absorption and far can they help to crystallize new social guidance, the welfare offices, labour ex- and cultural forms? changes, etc., which operate in all the im- The reply to this is not simple, yet in migrant communities. It is obvious that general it may be said that the activity of these institutions cannot bring about the the army and the educational system does crystallization of new social groups or not ensure any such crystallization. That new cultural forms. They are capable of calls for organic penetration into the social dealing only with the minimal requirements groupings of the newcomers, which is ex- of the newcomers. The social contact thus ceedingly difficult, both on account of the established is restricted and formal, leaving general atmosphere of separatism, the grave the newcomers in a passive state. These cultural differences, and the alien charac- institutions do perhaps bring about a mea- ter of such formal frameworks as the mo- sure of change in the customs and habits dern school and army vis-a-vis the cultural of the newcomers, breaking down in some tradition of the majority of the newcomers. degree a tradition of life which is in any It would, in fact, seem that the army and case breaking down under the pressure of school can alter far more than they can new conditions. Yet they can hardly offer crystallize. Undoubtedly they teach new any foundation for a new social crystalli- styles of behaviour, and in some degree also zation or cultural change. And it must be provide new aspirations and values; yet stressed that the principal, real, and steady there is always the risk that these will not external contacts of a large part of the coalesce in new patterns of life, but will newcomers still lie within this institutional lead to unorganized and unstable social framework. activity. As far as youth is concerned, the In addition, there are other general development of age-groups with various frameworks which theoretically embrace aberrant tendencies and a merely verbal the great majority of the younger olim, and external identification with the social namely the educational system and the ar- and cultural values of the yishuv is an ever- my. These impose more far-reaching and present danger. As far as the army is con- permanent social and cultural changes than cerned, the same danger exists, together the purely administrative frameworks, with an additional one: the stressing of though it is of course impossible to gauge militarism as the principal means of iden- the changes precisely. The power of the tification. Clearly, this peril does not always army is undoubtedly greater than that of become a reality, and sometimes we wit- the schools. It is doubtful whether the edu- ness the crystallization of organic social cational system can reach all the immigrant groups. Yet these trends are not particu- settlements, and even if it does reach them, larly strong. Those of fission, on the one it is sometimes only in the purely formal hand, and of phraseology, on the other, are fashion of registration of children. Yet be- more powerful, and the struggle between yond the quantitative aspect lies the ques- the two is an unequal one. tion of the social and cultural effect of The second group of meeting-points are

178 S. N. Eisenstadt : Fusing the Aliyot in Israel the channels between the newcomers and And even though, ecologically speaking, in the old-established yishuv. The number and respect of their circle of acquaintances, types of such channels are very consider- etc., they remain with their previous groups, able, from the directing channels such as they now often feel estranged from them ulpanim (concentrated Hebrew courses for ideologically and in their social aspirations, adults), various vocational schools, seminars and are no longer interested in serving as for active members of various parties, to an encouraging and awakening factor com- the automatic apparatuses of economic and munally and culturally. The same applies professional selection. Here, as well, we do to many of the petty officials. In a sense, not have enough precise data to give a then, the channels of transition may even full picture, but various general trends serve to increase the distance. Admittedly can be observed. The channels of con- there are also cases that point in the op- tact may be examined with reference posite direction, yet, apart from one single to two basic aspects: the sectors to which type of settlement, that of the they lead, and the degree in which they olim, they are both few in number and serve not only as bridges for individuals exceedingly weak. It seems that most of but also as levers for changing the social these channels of transition do not pro- groups from which the individuals come. mote social change and activity, and serve As regards the first aspect, the picture is chiefly to withdraw lively and active forces of necessity both variegated and vague. from among the newcomers. Part of the newcomers are absorbed within As for the third type, namely, joint or productive economic frameworks such as similar associations of newcomers and old- agriculture and, in some measure, in vari- timers, their number is relatively few. We ous industrial enterprises. Others, parti- do not observe the emergence of such com- cularly those who have completed mon frameworks save in a very few cases; courses, proceed to the liberal professions. even within political, cultural and similar And another part, which is the most notice- organizations we observe the development able, even though it is impossible to know of special sections and units. In informal its relative weight precisely, is absorbed in social relations the direct and immediate the lower levels of Israel's office-workers contact between newcomers and old-timers or in that broad classification of easy liveli- is exceedingly limited. The intimate rela- hoods and inflated businesses which has de- tions of family, friendship, etc., still re- veloped so very rapidly in the State. In main closed as between the two groups. In any case, it seems that most of the real this regard much importance should be at- social and economic contact is now taking tributed to the changes that may be ob- place precisely within these latter frame- served within the new settler groups them- works. selves; that is, the degree to which they As for the second aspect, the answer acquire the values and nature of groups seems to be slightly more clear. Most chan- resembling them within the yishuv. The nels of selection and transition (excluding fullest expression of this tendency is to be courses, brief seminars, etc.) lead indivi- found within the moshavei olim, even duals away from their activities within the though there, too, it differs from one mo- social groupings whence they have come, shav to the other. The moshavim inhabited but do not always bring them into others. by newcomers actually constitute groups

179 S. N. Eisenstadt : Fusing the Aliyot in Israel which are gradually transforming them- The starting-point for this discussion of selves according to the standards of simi- ours will be the two fundamental facts lar groups within the established yishuv. which we have ascertained with regard to Examples of the same process, albeit more the present absorption of the aliya: first, widely dispersed and less definite, can also that most absorption is carried out within be found in various urban centres. (Many bureaucratic frameworks and with a mini- of them may be observed, for example, mum of initial social contact; and second, among newcomers from Bulgaria and Yu- that, as an outcome of this contact, nume- goslavia.) Here, however, we not infre- rous fields of social activity lacking stable quently witness the paradoxical effect that, norms are created. The explanation of when these groups come into close contact these facts seems to us to lie in the prin- with the older-established yishuv, competi- cipal processes of the development of the tion develops and a state of tension emerges yishuv, and in the social character of the capable of undermining their identification State. with the values of the yishuv. The most decisive factor is the slacken- ing of the halutz spirit and the pursuit of (d) rapid material achievement as the guiding Thus, within the present process of ab- line in the social life of the principal strata sorption and integration, two opposing within the yishuv. We are as yet unable trends are struggling with each other, even properly to assess the nature of this spi- though they are very closely inter-connected. ritual crisis which, in many respects, save On the one hand, there is a gradual for its outspokenly secularist character, cor- and organic change in the social groupings responds to the nihilist crises that followed and cultural patterns of the newcomers— the collapse of various Messianic move- a change accompanied by social contact ments in the Jewish past. It is strange, yet and cultural union between them and the true, that for many sections of the yishuv old-timers. On the other hand, there is a the establishment of the State provided a social breakdown, the development of un- kind of outlet for the discharge of that stable fields of activity, a cultural crisis, high halutz potential which had existed which turns the aforesaid union into purely previously, and led to a diversion of energy verbal identification. For the present, the to immediate self-seeking and a sharing of second trend is stronger than the first, even the ample spoils which seemed to be re- though it is not fully victorious. vealed by the establishment of the State. We must ascertain the reasons for this This crisis was not an ordinary moral cri- state of affairs. It is no longer enough to sis, not a single breakdown, but set its point to the separatism which, it is claim- stamp on the social structure of the yishuv ed, is so deep-rooted in the social qualities and the moral character of the State. There of the newcomers. It is by now possible to are a number of indications of this. speak, as we have above in this paper, of To begin with, we witness a clear dif- inter-action between the social tendencies ferentiation between the State and its ci- of the newcomers and the absorptive con- tizens. There is no longer that identification ditions. We must, therefore, briefly examine of general values and of the daily life of the social and cultural visage of the yishuv the citizen which existed before the State. and its absorptive capacity. The social life of the yishuv does not follow

180 S. N. Eisenstadt : Fusing the Aliyot in Israel a natural course within the general set-up. them, and their power and social status has In daily life, the State and the citizens face been increased as against other social each other, like two opposed forces pre- circles and strata. Things have come to pared to exploit each other. The tradition such a pass that access to authority and of full acceptance of general objectives by those bearing authority has become one of various social groups has ceased. And even the principal elements not only in winning though the source of this phenomenon lies, respect and social esteem but also in ob- as remarked, in the general moral crisis, taining various rights and privileges. Exe- there is no doubt that those responsible for cutive functions have ceased to be merely the State have helped to bring it about by service and have increasingly become a their methods of action, particularly in source of personal benefit and a cause of two respects. self-satisfaction. In the first place, they were only too These processes have various results, as ready to believe that social and economic regards the relation between the public and life could be prescribed by laws and orders, the State and the inner structure of the that the formal authority and discipline of State itself. The State tends to be regarded the State were capable of leading to the as an instrument of various "vested in- achievement of those objectives which had terests", which struggle with each other for formerly been attained through the per- benefits that the State can provide. This sonal voluntary effort of large groups. As view derives, on the one hand, from the soon as the State was established, we wit- party structure of our political life and au- nessed the breakdown of organizations thorities, while, on the other, it is streng- which, during the preceding period, had thened by the tendencies described above, been major centres of activity and of civic has itself increased the breakdown in civic halutz morale. And even though from time morale and has facilitated the lining-up of to time fresh signs of spontaneous devotion citizen and State against one another, in- have been evinced, the State has not known stead of as true partners in a single enter- how to exploit or crystallize them, but al- prise. ways showed a strong tendency to divert This is also the source of the intense them into regular and formal channels. The politicization of all public life which has decline of youth movements, the decline transformed almost everything into a bar- in the social weight of labour settlement, gaining counter between interested parties. etc., are only two examples of this. This This applies in every field of life—in edu- decline, to be sure, is also due to inner cation, economics, the press, etc. factors within these groups and organiza- As a result of all these processes we have tions, but not to them alone. The tendency reached a verbal identification of public towards the regimentation of public life and State, an identification which does not has played no small part here. call for any daily action, but rests satisfied Another process, which is the outcome with declarations and proclamations that of the former one, can be seen in the deve- have no relation with reality and are often lopment of a general bureaucratization of only instruments in the struggle for posi- the social structure. Not only have the tions of power. various apparatuses been expanded, but These objectives in the social life of the greater authority has been entrusted to yishuv may serve to explain the character

181 •f

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of those processes in the integration of the cess of integration are found in the social aliyot to which we referred at the begin- qualities of the newcomers and certain ning of this essay. The ingathering of the economic and demographic conditions, the exiles is in theory the main social objective nature of the process is determined over- of both the yishuv and the State, save that, whelmingly by the social character of the like all our social objectives, it, too, is se- old-established yishuv and the State, and parated from direct contact with the daily the social atmosphere through which it af- social life of the Israel public and is vested fects the newcomers. If the nature of Israeli chiefly in administrative apparatuses. The society becomes entirely different from that decisive place of the bureaucratic appara- of the former yishuv, the blame should not tus in the absorption of the aliya derives be put on the newcomers but chiefly on the not only from the quantitative burden, but inner change which has come about in the also from the inherent tendencies of bu- old-established yishuv and its ruling and reaucratization towards a kind of inner guiding classes. impoverishment of crystallized social groups. This change involves the loss of a true The reasons for the absence of absorption relationship to those social and national within informal social frameworks—prima- values which have always marked the ry groups of all kinds—lie in the impove- course of the Zionist Movement. These rishment of those groups, the weakening values have become an ideological and apo- of the bonds and values which help to logetical set of formulas, which impose no- shape them, and their replacement by the thing and do not guide either individual or exceedingly noticeable trends towards regi- society. Improvement in this state of af- mentation in this field as well. fairs is impossible without new social car- These tendencies and the breakdown of riers for the restored group of values. It is independent social values affect the in- absolutely necessary to examine, carefully tegration of the new immigration. That and afresh, the meaning and validity of strong tendency towards "public affairs" all values and assumptions within the dyna- (askanut), towards withdrawal from the mic realities of the State and the absorp- groups of origin and to bureaucratic self- tion of aliya. exaltation which, to a by no means negli- Yet this examination will be valueless as gible degree, characterizes many active ele- long as it is conducted in the inner sane- ments of the immigrant groups, is sustained turns of the intellectuals. The renewal of largely by the existent tendency within the values will be impossible without the as- yishuv. Hence, also, comes the urge for the sociation of social groups which set out to development of fields of activity lacking restore their vital link with these values. definite norms, and the tendencies towards What this means is the overcoming of fro- verbal identification with the processes of zen and rigid frameworks, the overcoming integration. These, as well, are sustained of the mere phrase-making of Zionist ideo- from parallel processes within the estab- logy in its relation to social life. lished yishuv, from that tendency towards This is exceedingly difficult, yet it pro- a constant struggle for advantage, from the vides the only possibility of changing the separatism and indifference as between the character of our society, and fulfilling the public and the State. primary demands of the Zionist idea in If, then, the starting-points of the pro- its social implications.

182 Seven Principles

Hayim Greenberg

HE individual is no mere cog in a hilation of his personality". Such changes machine, nor simply a cell of the may serve to render him more or less free, Tsocial organism. Within his own per- but they do not alter his essential existence sonal limits the individual is a complete as a microcosm. They do not deprive him entity, a creature of his own; or, as our of past memories and readiness and pre- forefathers put it, an independent world— paredness for the future, nor of awareness a microcosm. The participation of the in- of his unknown but very real fate. dividual in certain associative organisms or The individual (a word whose full mean- public bodies, no matter how numerous ing is plainly demonstrated by its linguistic these may be and no matter how deeply origin) cannot be divided; whereas society, rooted in his innermost self, does not ex- both in theory and in accordance with his- haust his essential character (what was de- torical realities, is capable of division. A fined in the Middle Ages as his quiddity), people, a State, a religious association, or nor his spiritual and emotional life. The even a tribe is capable of splitting up, under individual may withdraw from his religious certain conditions, into large or small sec- community or association. He may abandon tions which may break down into ever citizenship in his own State, and his volun- smaller units; it may even vanish as an tary association within his own nation. He entity with a form, will or objective of its may "become naturalized" as the citizen of own. In this respect there is more reality a new country and alien State. Further- in biography than in history. The individual more, he may even forsake his tribe, his bears within himself more essential existence relation to which is more intimate than his than the generality, and naturally far more relation to all other social bodies, provided, than its legal and governmental embodi- of course, that some other tribe is prepared ment, the State. The largest and strongest to adopt him. In spite of all this, he con- group organism cannot "fashion" or "manu- tinues to retain his individuality, whatever facture" even a single individual or new its virtues or defects; and no matter what living soul; fcy^increase is a property of else may befall him, he remains fully con- function of thfe individual alone. And yet, scious of this identity or ego of his. His any number of individuals may, can, and, withdrawal from one organization, or his in certain respects, mu&t,- fashion a society. independence of another, will not of ne- The essential character, the quiddity, of cessity bring about his death or the "anni- the State lis naturally casual, accidental, so

183 Hayim Greenberg : Seven Principles

to speak, and secular, even at those times dividual anarchists, or even the majority when, whether consciously or unconsciously, among them, may declare about their abso- it assumes some religious or metaphysical lute unbelief or philosophical materialism, diadem. The essence, the quiddity, of the the fact remains that Anarchism as a con- individual is naturally super-temporal and cept, as an idea, is essentially idealist when transcendental. The consciousness or, if one it fully realizes and comprehends its own so prefers, the illusion of eternity, the aspi- self. It may even, and quite permissibly, be ration towards immortality and the belief claimed as fundamentally religious. Nor is in a non-physical existence, no matter how it particularly difficult to prove that true much of truth or falsehood these may in- Anarchism is a logical abstraction, which volve, have their main source, or possibly quite possibly will never achieve fulfilment their sole and exclusive source, in the fact within the real categories of history. Never- of individuality. Accordingly, the believer theless, the positive basis of Anarchism is its tends to assume that in the next world there insistence on the incomparable value of the are only individuals and no group bodies, individual as such, his cosmic reality; and or, in the words of the Evangelist, that there likewise the purely relative value of all pos- are only individuals to be found there, who sible forms of political arrangement or social are "neither Greeks nor Jews". order. * *

From this we reach the second principle The authority or domination of the State, that the State, even if it possesses an abso- which is the third principle that we assume, lutely perfect or harmonious structure, is derives largely from delegation by choice. by its very nature incapable of compre- Both directly and indirectly, the State hending all the creatures and persons of achieves the possibility of organizing the which it is composed. The State is not a individuals in its charge; compelling them sum total of individuals but, in a certain to perform certain actions; bending or even sense, the sum total of the essences of their breaking their will; strengthening their will lives, their affairs, their concerns, their aspi- by common public or group decisions; per- rations, desires and wills. The deepest and mitting them to do certain things and pro- most disturbed strata of individual life, those hibiting them from doing others; imposing which are least open to intellectual under- discipline on the insubordinate and, if they standing, do not participate as sections of refuse to accept discipline, imposing sane- the State or group soul. They remain free tions upon them. It secures all these possi- or independent strata, potentially at least, bilities from the individual citizens them- even if the State does incidentally and casu- selves. As far as its basic principle or ulti- ally succeed in gaining superficial control mate essence is concerned, the State is the of them, imposing its authority on them or fruit of a "social contract" or act of dele- setting restraints about theNo. gation—a "mandate" which it receives from From this point of view We are entitled its individual citizens. The State derives its to say that Anarchism, which is in reality strength and entire possibility of existence a Utopian proliferation of Liberalism, is the from the authorizations which are both ex- most metaphysical or religious c>f all social pressed and understood, and even from the theories and systems. No matte^ what in- general assumptions underlying them, which Hayim Greenberg : Seven Principles are adopted or manifested by individuals posed, according to the Gospels. ("Render and groups at any given historical period. unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, The foundation on which the State builds and render unto God the things that are is the will of its citizens or subjects, some of God's.") Such solutions would be possible whom are conscious of, or devoted to, the only if "God" and "Caesar" were to divide idea or form of the given State, while others the dominion over human beings between merely manifest a half, third or quarter them; God ruling over a certain specific and agreement in word and heart, as though quite clearly defined section of human life, they are subjected to pressure until they while Caesar rules over the remainder, accept the situation. For some of them which is equally specific and definite. Quite agreement is the fruit of an indifference frequently, however, Caesar comes and which in itself, no matter how strange this claims certain things which in their essen- may appear, is likewise a kind of will, even tial character belong to God. Hence the though perhaps negative, and a partial dispute between faith and State finds its assent. clearest and most truthful expression in * great drama rather than in the words of Deriving from the three principles de- the Evangelists. tailed above, a fourth principle may be The Antigone of Sophocles knows that by formulated very briefly. In listing values, burying her brother according to the ac- it is inevitable that for the believer religion cepted burial customs, although he had be- should rank in advance of the State. Faith trayed the State, instead of obeying the exists and is manifest on an absolute basis, ruler's decree to cast the dead body aside while the State rises, grows and comes to like some worthless object, she has trans- an end on a relative basis. gressed against sanctity. Yet this trans-

* gression against sanctity is no longer trans- gression. By this remarkable utterance So- A logical corollary of this fourth prin- phocles' heroine asserts that what is trans- ciple is the fifth one: If the laws or com- gression against the restricted and funda- mandments of the State run counter to the mentally false view of the ruler of the State basic principles or commands of faith, then appears in the eyes of the Gods as the ful- the believing citizen must naturally remain filment of their holy desire. It was the will true to the requirements of his faith in the of the gods that even this most wicked of absolute or transcendental, and disregard men be brought to honourable burial. the voice of the State. If the citizen has Hence the principle that "State law is al- decided in his heart to remain faithful to ways to be obeyed" can apply only to cer- the State and not to pay heed to the voice tain restricted duties and is subject to of faith within him, he transfers his religion definite limitations. to the realm of relative values, thus falsi- It is significant that in Hebrew the Al- fying its very essence. At the same time he mighty is described as "King of the Kings ascribes an absolute value to, the State, of Kings"; to demonstrate that there is no transforming it into a divinity, an object authority or sovereign power which is strong of idolatry. The question of "God or the enough, or has been authorized, to with- King" cannot always be solved in the easy stand the sovereignty of the Holy One Blessed and almost ideal fashion which Jesus pro- Be He. In the words of Milton: "When I

185 Hayim Greenberg : Seven Principles need to choose between the requirements certain kinds of work. However, it is rele- of that queen known as truth and the de- vant and proper to remark that increasing mands of King Charles, I must needs follow caution is being shown, in the Anglo-Saxon truth." world at least, in the employment of con- * scientious objectors in the manufacture of munitions. There is a growing tendency to Hence the State has no right to impose employ them in various kinds of work which upon its citizens such statutes and com- are necessary and important in peace time mandments as run counter to the religious as well, and which would be equally vital conscience. It is admittedly true that one for a world without war. They are directed of the most characteristic and complex qua- to agriculture, public health and medicine, lities of the State is its power of compulsion. charitable activities and the like.

Without compulsion, without the authority * to utilize acts of compulsion, it is impossible even to imagine the essence of the State. Religion which, in the present context, Yet, as has been indicated in the preceding means organized religion (and this brings principles, the essence and values of the us to our seventh and last principle) must State are relative, its authority for action not, if it wishes to remain faithful to its is casual and practical, and its authority nature, source and purpose, employ or en- must restrict itself to fields of life which can- deavour to employ the State and its instru- not arouse dispute or cause a conflict in ments for its own purposes. Precisely as the religious consciousness or conscience. power and the opportunity to use power Those fields, in general, deal with security for purposes of coercion is the outstanding and police measures, justice in civil and characteristic of the State, so the character- criminal affairs, public health and hygiene, istic concern of religion is the liberty of the social insurance, elementary and higher individual. It is impossible to require that education as far as these do not involve any man shall believe in a given faith if he religious problems or anti-religious ap- does not "tend to believe" by virtue of his proaches, the vocational training of youth very personality. The position of persons for economic betterment, etc. subject to compulsion, quite apart from the The democratic State of modern times symbolic aspect of all worship, cannot be re- evinces a tendency to refrain as far as pos- garded as having any religious value and sible from actions liable to exert an un- is, indeed, fundamentally anti-religious. The favourable effect on the religious conscience kind of State which, in our political jargon, of certain classes of citizens. Thus, for ex- is called a theocratic State is anti-religious ample, in England and the United States of and, in the last resort, a State without God. America, Quakers are usually exempted Army and police as auxiliaries diminish the from military service, as the latter runs Divine Authority and do not extend it. counter to their religious faith. Naturally Indeed, this aid serves to violate the very the State arrogates to itself the right to con- concept of Divine Authority over Universe script Quakers, too, for the carrying out of and Man.

186 On Hayim Greenberg

Dr. Zvi Woyslawski

MUST confess that I am not an autho- world and to the creatures in it—and the rity on the life of Hayim Greenberg hearts of public figures and writers, for I in either its internal or external aspect, whom public affairs are faith and vocation, although I was in close touch with him must always be open—is capable more than during a decisive period of his life and ac- all others of concealing and diminishing tivities; namely, the time when he forsook the real essence of his own being. One the editorial staff of Haolam intending ne- might suppose that the whole purpose of ver to return, and left Europe with every engaging in public affairs is in order to con- intention of coming back but never did so. ceal what lies deepest in the heart, along This is the reason for the major inadequacy the lines of "revealing a hand's breadth and to be found, in spite of myself, in my at- concealing two", as the Hebrew has it, in tempt to evaluate his nature and character, which the very concealment points to the though it be no more than the barest sketch root, essence and quiddity of the man. From and outline. It is true that Greenberg this point of view there is certainly justifi- played a part in public affairs all his life cation for those who claim that the exterior as a scintillating writer and brilliant orator self displayed by Greenberg was not nearly and was, therefore, the subject of wide- so valuable as his innermost self. The con- spread esteem for very many years, parti- cealed part was far more than what was cularly during his early period in Russia revealed. and his final days in America. The inter- That is why the story of his external life vening period was consumed, as it were, offers me no aid, while his inner history was in the sacred and profane activities of the closed even before those who stood closest Zionist Movement. He enjoyed the affec- to him. They would observe his withdrawal tion and esteem even of those whose ways, and flight—which took place regularly dur- practices and influence were not his ways; ing the two epochs referred to above—and whose thoughts on Universe and Man, Na- would regret it very much indeed. Seeing tion and National Mission, were not his him return to his task and search, they thoughts; whose religious, moral, human, would rejoice exceedingly. Yet they could public, national, Zionist aspirations were never have known either the courage or the not shared by him. weakness involved in both of those attitudes. Many have observed this already and His withdrawal was as graceful and proper said: Whosoever has a heart open to the as his seeking and exposition, with all their

187 Zvi Woyslawski : On Hayim Greenberg grace and enchantment. He never struck whether their innovations derived from the table, he never shook the lintels of the themselves or whether they adapted accept- portal, he did not indulge in proclamations ed historic categories and filled them with before or to the multitude, neither when he new contents and new forms. These latter withdrew nor when he returned. This ele- also deserve to be called innovators, for ment of grace and propriety was part of; their innovation is in their achievement. him, of his essence; and though my phrase In this respect there were few great in- is both generalized and abstract, there is novators or fashioners of fundamental cate- nothing of exaggeration in it. It seems to gories in Zionism. Hayim Greenberg did me that if somebody were to come and not establish any Zionist categories of his say: Hayim Greenberg was the embodi- own, nor did he reformulate old-established ment and fulfilment of the principles of classifications and slogans, neither for Zion- beauty and radiance within the Zionist na- ism as such nor in that Labour Movement tional movement, in respect of both its po- of which he served as overseas High Priest litical and its historic Hebrew cultural aspi- for several decades. Nor was there even one ration, he would astonish nobody, no matter new theoretical postulate or assumption whether exterior facts confirm the state- which deserves to be called by his name. ment considerably or scarcely sustain it at The religion of labour, the basis for the all. So my essay must of necessity draw on class war, the singular fusion of nation- a different source; from a process of gene- alism and socialism—all these were estab- ralization supported by details. lished by others. As far as the Labour Move- Distinctions are sometimes drawn between ment was concerned, Greenberg was no philosophers of primary and secondary im- Gordon, no Borochov nor Syrkin; taking portance, the former discovering and estab- each one by his own stature and in his own lishing some fundamental category in the period. Nor was he one of the leading understanding of the universe, whereas the shapers of the Movement or directors of its achievement of the latter is nothing save a actions, whether large or small, like Berl permutation or combination of questions Katznelson or Ben Gurion. The directing of asked and answers given in the course of communal energy, the pointing of the heart ages of philosophic thought and meditations and brain towards a specific objective and upon universals. Now all that applies to its achievement—these activities were not philosophy applies equally to other fields of characteristic of him. Not that he was in matter and spirit, of human achievement in any way lacking in the gifts of a leader, of the universe, including those of social and one who can impress his spiritual and in- national movements and their participants. tellectual stamp on the community and the A distinction should be drawn between the age. He had multiple talents and many high creators of a movement, between those who qualities, which could have opened his way lay down its theoretical foundations, direct to great, exceedingly influential and pro- its course and define its gradations and va- ductive leadership. He has not left any lues, and those others who engage in its Zionist doctrine, although all his life long permutations, serve its tactics and draft its his heart was open to the whole range of formulations. The Jewish national move- thought of the Jewish national movement. ment has produced a number of persons Indeed, there were few to compare with him who established basic categories, no matter in this respect. He established no settlement

188 Zvi Woyslawski : On Hayim Greenberg in the country, no constructive or guiding we do not find much aid in external events, institution; nor did he set up any division as remarked, such events none the less either or fraction in the national movement, an help or hamper; albeit they also applied to activity which offers a substitute for original other people without producing what they leadership and creativeness, and one which produced in the case of Greenberg. We, has enticed average and on occasion even therefore, have no right to refrain from great leaders at times of internal or external taking them into consideration in connec- failure. As for gifts, he had any number, tion with external situations which helped but as for will—and there can be no great or hindered after their fashion; which achievement, even of a purely spiritual straightened or twisted, turned or diverted character, without a very firm will — this his manifest life towards or away from one seemed to be absent, perhaps deliberately direction or another, even if only slightly. and not only as a result of personal bent. And once again, we do not credit to them Nor is the purpose of the above remarks all that happened in his life, happy and to diminish the stature of Greenberg in any tragic as it was after its own fashion, ap- way. A personality such as his own, elevated pearing to harvest with song what it sowed and deepened constantly throughout his in tears, seeming to flee from authority and life, will not lose its basic character even greatness oniy to be pursued by greatness; if it does not manifest any great urge to for there is more within than without, the leadership. On the contrary, enumeration aspiration is greater than the achievement, of his multifarious qualities in describing his and both aspiration and achievement are theoretical, moral and social greatness, is internal. liable to make him appear smaller. We wish For the exterior aspirations of that life lay to treat of his personality as an organic in the great and well-trodden public domain unity, in which the characteristic remarked of the Jewish national movement, with its on above does not play any leading part. successes, its failures, its advances and with- However, that personality was not the drawals; whereas its inner aspirations mark- genuine one as it lived and manifested itself ed him out from all his comrades in the in action day by day, hour by hour, in the world of Israel who were engaged like him Jewish national movement with its dual in clarifying its social and spiritual prob- political and cultural aspects, but was an lems; in spite of the fact that he vested him- ideal creation sustained only by its own ac- self in forms (often standing alone with tual achievement or proposed achievement; great success here as well) which were ac- an expression or symbol, as it were, of some ceptable to the masses. It is proper to inner nexus between its parts, so that what consider three periods of his life and ac- is manifestation is in itself nothing more tivities, particularly his inner growth, the than a support and indication of the inner development of those forces which he had entity. at his disposal, and there were fluctuations, The reason for stressing this ideal crea- such as easy or difficult means of livelihood, tion is that it brings out certain aspects of satisfaction or dissatisfaction, periods of the personality more clearly, whether the brilliance and of eclipse. And it seems as purpose is to display its essence and quid- though in all these different periods of his dity or to differentiate between the essential life and activities he was one of the hap- and non-essential within it. And although piest personalities associated with the Jewish

1-89 Zvi Woyslawski : On Hayim Greenberg national movement, even though he 1905 which wrought havoc in the national seemed to be one of the most unhappy. In- movement and carried away most of its deed, misfortune often serves as a means, sons. The deep wounds which the move- leading to great achievement, satisfaction ment had suffered were, however, gradually and happiness. healing. Many of those who had withdrawn were returning, and in the Land of Israel (b) there were now gathering together the first First came the Russian period. Russian participants in the potential and actual new Zionism with its internal and external great- building effort. ness and its weakness (and its tragic end Greenberg left Odessa at a time when a robes it with a radiance and glory even in new or renewed Zionist doctrine was begin- fields where there was nothing whatsoever ning to crystallize. In his heart were the of greatness) educated him, brought him basic elements of that doctrine together up, fostered him as a dear and precious son with amendments and additions of his own, of the movement, as one gifted with bril- of his own essence. He went to St. Peters- liant powers of expression both verbally and burg as a guest of the "Rasviet" group with- in writing. It assisted him, a youngster out being absorbed by them. To him there from Bessarabia who never became an "ex- was something alien in the positivist ap- terne"—that autodidactic state which was proach adopted in Petrograd by both the the blessing and curse of most of the gifted Zionists and the Jews as a whole; although youngsters who were not privileged to ac- they differed from one another about essen- quire a full and regular education at its tials, and about the character and nature proper time—to mount the Zionist plat- of this positivism. A. Idelsohn, the head of form at a time when the latter was by no the group, was a complete positivist and, means as attractive a force in Jewry as it in his approach to the historical process and had been to begin with. Zionist and Hebrew its purposes, was close to Historical Mate- Odessa was probably closer to him than rialism, save that he did not follow all the other centres. It may have directed his devices used to make this system account likings and thought towards the cultural for the Jewish historical process in the basis of the national movement and its ac- world. Greenberg brought with him to this tivities in the Land of Israel. In this it was group a certain measure of romanticism; for unlike the St. Petersburg centre, for in- no Zionist fraction could maintain itself stance, which was attracted more to the without some faint measure of romanticism, political aspects of the movement and to no matter how thickly it robed itself in the polemics against all the currents hostile to trappings of realism. He did not follow the Zionism, which were both numerous and others, and succeeded in establishing a cor- powerful in those days. ner of his own in the expanding Zionist His entry on the Zionist scene and his arena, from which he made his voice, his ascent on the stage took place, to be sure, own voice, heard; a voice which not only in the days when the severe shock suffered took its aspirations and fervour from the by the national movement after the Ugan- national movement but also brought the da split was somewhat mitigated. The death latter something of its own; something not of Dr. Herzl had been followed by the taken from Zionist public property, so to tempestuous first Russian Revolution in speak, but hewed from out of his own heart.

190 Zvi Woyslawski : On Hayim Greenberg

What was it? That would become clear and The great Russians of the period, who identifiable to himself in due course; as well also contributed largely to the dominant as to many others who followed his words trends of Socialism and Marxism, had be- and found that their own spiritual flame gun to reconsider themselves and the fun- was like his, their own approach like his, damentals of their world. The certainties of and their own formulation of the problem the previous generation had become the of the Jews, their future, past and present, doubts of the new generation. The faith corresponded to his own brilliant and some- (and Socialism as a whole is nothing but times exceedingly penetrating formulation. one of the great beliefs which has visited Yet we have not yet considered the basic historic humanity) that something—some influence of Russia as such on this young mysterious Elijah—would come and settle product of the Zionist Movement. Anybody all the problems of human life, had weaken- who during the first decades of this century ed among thinkers and persons of deeper began to think seriously about men and the feeling, although ordinary little men con- world, the individuals and the group, the tinued their fixed dogmatic disputations. past and future of humanity; anybody who Tentative, modest individualism, which in during those years experienced this enticing various literary groups might even become and attractive, repulsive and rejective state noisy and exceedingly unfruitful, began to of existence whose name was Russia, found replace the singular collective spirit to himself in a singular atmosphere, even when which that social entity called Russia and he consciously and of set purpose remained the Russian world had been particularly apart from its political and intellectual af- addicted. fairs. Even those who kept away were all This individualism was incapable of imbued with the spirit which filled the striking root, of making a way to brains whole of that gigantic country and tre- and hearts. The First World War came mendous population, with its many aspects upon it and, after the fashion of any war, and sources of culture and behaviour. The particularly such a violent one, enhanced theoretical fervour about social and public and fortified Russian "collectivism", albeit questions, problems of State and culture, in an entirely unforeseen fashion. And once which produced so many fruits and demon- again, nobody can judge which came first: strated the powerful dialectical and dis- whether the weakness of Russian indivi- cursive force of this great people, for God dualism preceded liberalism or the reverse. and Satan, had almost been extinguished For these two came together. We shall not with the temporary victory of political reac- endeavour to decide this. It is enough if we tion. Whatever innovations Russia had say that this final stage of fervour for the- been capable of producing in the theory oretical Marxism was supported by a mod- of State and Society, it had produced dur- est and hesitant development of individual- ing the nineties of the previous century and ism and liberalism, which attracted all that the early days of the twentieth century. The was best in the Russian world. It was the great theoretical movement had come to an weak and fumbling response given by Rus- end, and currents running counter to all the sia's outstanding figures to the political and theoretical social objectives dominant in social wars and struggles which led to no- thought and public aspiration were begin- thing but disappointment and bitterness. ning to burst forth. Greenberg clung to that individualism too.

191 Zvi Woyslawski : On Hayim Greenberg

As remarked, individualism was a tender ly after the basic needs had faded. It seems plant in the soil of Russia, which has al- as though even the theoretical needs of any ways shown a particular affection for the given group and the study of its essence, unconscious spirit of the people (although point of view and purpose vis-a-vis the past the literary, theoretical formulation of this and the future, are also subject to a law of exuberant affection is taken from Germany, tension and slackening, of rise and fall. and from the historical school of that coun- The emergence of Hayim Greenberg, a try); for the collective creature, the people, man with a spiritual affinity for theory, for in its reality, its scope, its sufferings, con- thought and meditation regarding the self, flicts, grave sins and vast yearnings for pu- its own essence and thought, began in what rity of soul and redemption from seductive was a lean period for abstract, aspiring instincts. thought; either because thought itself in the That was why Slavophils rejected Euro- course of its development had reached the pean individualism and liberalism, which point of contradicting and eliminating it- flourished so luxuriantly in the nineteenth self, or else because its carriers had grown century. Hence, when the time of trial came, weary of an unceasing flight in the em- at the hour of the great revolution, liberal- pyrean and thirsted for reality, for activity ism was not supported by any obstinate the fruits of which ripen not in the course fighters battling for their souls, their posi- of decades but here and now. Hence, one tions and their property, whether spiritual can comprehend the internal and external or material, religious or cultural. Among development of the Zionist Movement, and those who made an accounting that was of settlement activity in the Land of Israel both Jewish and Russian, there were few which proposed to forsake the former paths so liberal as were Greenberg and Jabo- of Zionist theory and to engage in Zionist tinsky. Incidentally, it should be remarked fulfilment and implementation proper. that a common element can be found be- Even those who took this step, however, tween these two, who were attracted to and found themselves caught in theoretical coils, repelled by one another all their life long; the outcome of states of being and life un- of whom one turned to excessive activism der other skies, and they do not call for and the other to equally excessive passi- consideration here. Greenberg, consciously vity, and who found part of their world and unconsciously, was affected by this new destroyed in the destruction of this aspira- attitude towards Zionist theory, towards the tion and objective of theirs. sociological and philosophical basis of the Just as the general social and theoretical national movement, intended to provide a achievement of Russia then stood before its theoretical and moral justification for Is- termination, so the theoretical task of estab- rael's national aspiration; and he never lishing a basis for Zionism from various found time again for this work save casu- sociological and philosophic aspects was ally and irregularly, in passing and not as coming to an end after the great efflo- a basic interest. rescence of the turn of the century; and the final stages did not produce any edifices of (c) thought, either large or small. The old doc- The Russian Revolution also infused vitali- trines were quite adequate for the satisfac- ty and activity amid personalities and social tion of theoretical requirements, particular- strata whose whole nature and essence

192 Zvi Woyslawski : On Hayim Greenberg normally lay in self-examination and contem- one, and not all participants are capable of plation of God's world—approaches which it, no matter how deep their affinities with it are not characterized by great activity eli- may be. In those days, when the Hebrew minating or establishing any specific order Movement raised Greenberg aloft, he did of values or standards. The Revolution not evince that minimum measure of hard- strengthened wills that were weak by nature ness, of a firm stand, which is needed even or had weakened; it fed faint and dying by a thinker, by one who defines a concept longings, from the deeps of the soul it raised or idea. He was capable of serving as a suppressed and rejected desires that knew representative of the movement—and a rare neither name nor description. It led to and honoured representative with whom feverish intellectual agitation and emotional few could compare, being a man of fine excitement even among calm, well-balanced and delicate culture, gifted and, as it were, and thoughtful individuals and groups. In fitted for the part from birth—but not as its particular the breakers of revolution swept leader, director and guide, imposing duties away all those whose social, mental or ar- and commandments upon it. The Hebrew tistic life had been consciously and purpose- Movement made use of him, as far as it fully restricted and held in check from could, but he did not use it sufficiently to above, by order of the authorities who were erect an edifice large enough to conquer against every innovation in life or deed. the Jewish masses which seemed to be Those who had hitherto been weak because standing and entreating with all their heart of insufficient inner strength or external to be conquered, to be bent to some action, obstacles, now claimed to be heroes; and to the erection of a Hebrew house of culture sometimes this claim, which usually leads for Israel, in that period of gathering to a tragic close, was the precursor of con- strength and new political and cultural sta- crete action, of alterations in life, feeling ture. As for the greater Zionism of those and thought. days, even more than it directed, guided Hayim Greenberg, that basically intro- and led, it was directed, guided and led spective spirit concernedonly with the plea- by the waves of fervour rising from the sures and pains of observation and contem- Jewish masses in whom flashed and gleam- plation, whose meditations on itself and its ed a strong, creative popular intuition rais- place in the universe constituted its essence ing the Jewish national movement in Rus- and vitality, was also led to vigorous action sia to a level higher even than that of the within the terms of his approach and be- early days of the Herzl epoch. haviour. His particular field of activity was Anybody who engages in war, whether that closest to his inner self the field of that of conquering and enslaving forces or Hebrew culture and the revival of the Heb- the inevitable war of existence or even the rew language. Yet even cultural action re- war of culture and ideal, will be either de- mains action and is subject to all the edicts feated or victorious. The wheels of that and laws, changes and transformations of gigantic press which the Russian Revolu- action. Given the universe where substances tion put into motion, crushed and shaped and elements clash bitterly with one an- the eternal forests of a nation that was great other, even cultural activity cannot remain in life, achievement, culture, and profound aloof in the pure mansions of thought and understanding of the world and the deeps artistic form. Here, too, the struggle is a real of the human soul. The wheels in their

193 Zvi Woyslawski : On Hayim Greenberg course crushed and mangled the tender of the Jewish people increase, their desire shoot planted by dreamers and fighters, for creation. They no longer rest satisfied dreamers rather than fighters—the move- with the crumbs of independence or auto- ment for the creation of an original yet re- nomy which fall from the broad tables of vived Hebrew culture. If the great and other peoples and cultures, but try to estab- mighty were gravely injured to the very lish a culture of their own, in their own heart, how much more so was the fragile language and spirit. This is an incidental and delicate Hebrew Movement! remark, which cannot be expanded in pro- Incidentally, this should be added: The per detail here. writer of these lines is not of the opinion Greenberg, as it seems to me, saw matters that the silencing and prohibition of Heb- in this light, and when the thunder crashed rew by the Communist Revolution is a in great Russia and its many millions of matter of pure chance, a matter which Jews were forced by life to give up active might have had or still has any chance of work for and in Hebrew culture, his world improvement. Those who believe this were was shaken through and through. First by in error and remain in error. The present, the Revolution with its contributory factors however, is not the place to deal with the and results, and second through the ruin subject at length. and destruction of the great Hebrew Move- The Hebrew Movement was crushed, its ment which, he felt, could not be adequate- young sons vanished amid the ruins left by ly and gloriously reconstructed elsewhere; the Revolution or the gigantic walls which for in those countries where reconstruction the latter erected when the time came for was possible, the Jews were in a state of dis- construction; while its major figures with- tress, and distress and need are no grooms- drew by sheer compulsion and departed. men of culture. Among those who left was Hayim Green- Greenberg with others went to Germany berg. He did not go to Poland or any other which, at the beginning of the twenties, of the countries which had broken off from served as a temporary refuge for those who Russia, and in which the Hebrew Move- had been defeated in the War and the ment paused long and fruitfully, but pro- Revolution. Apparently he was a Russian ceeded to Germany, as though withdrawing intellectual, bitterly disappointed by the from a lost battle. For, if one may venture Revolution which had destroyed the magni- to interpret his mood in those days, he felt ficent dream edifices that he had built with that no cultural movement, and, for that all his might and all his soul, and now he matter, no cultural achievement, can flour- found no ease among those who were so ish or blossom save in conditions of ease, disappointed with life and action. The when it enjoys an amplitude of forces and melancholy with which his blood was steep- means; not in poverty or hardship. ed from the endless plains of Russia and This is a novel aspect of his interpreta- its tremendous literature, its meditations tion of the Zionist Movement in general and and spiritual grief as it struggled with the the Hebrew Movement in particular. The world—to all this was added a Jewish Jewish national movement came into being melancholy and sorrow fed by the first great only in the conditions of greater ease which failures of the Zionist Movement after the the nineteenth century provided for Israel. Balfour Declaration; and also a grief for With increased ease, the national desires Hebrew, quivering between life and death,

194 Zvi Woyslawski : On Hayim Greenberg in a life that was no life and a faith that stranglehold of dogmas and immutable seemed to have grown weak and flaccid, principles is only temporary, an intoxicant amid the harsh realities following a World effective for a while only, which will da- War that had transformed ways of life and mage the whole system for a very long time; standards of cultures. Even those rare people for this multiplicity of opportunities, this who may be supposed to shape world multiplication of viewpoints is tantamount culture had lost their faith in values, and to intoxication. People did not sense that the foundations on which the edifice of the it was capable only of establishing an ob- human spirit had been standing were shaken stinate primitive dogmatism in place of the to the core. The relativity which, until original dogmatism with its large-hearted- the First World War, had been the portion ness and expansive horizons. of philosophy and literature alone, and From the snare of the Russian Revolu- which had been the creed of only the higher tion, Greenberg moved to the trap of the echelons, had swept down in a mighty tor- dislocated world of Central Europe, with rent on all classes and sections. The doc- its economic inflation and its inflation of trine of Einstein, the difficulties of which thoughts and opinions, aspirations towards fitted it for a handful of scholars and scien- the future and visions set in the past, scien- tists, was interpreted by intellectuals and tific doctrines and philosophical excursions semi-intellectuals as a relativity of life, of on Man and his purpose in the world, and faith, of values, in safeguarding the culture nations and their missions in the world of and traditions of ages. The height of na- history. Both types of inflation shattered tural sciences and the peak of historical and whatever had been left over after the First social sciences, the theory of Einstein and World War, that source of all subsequent that of Spengler, spread and undermined revolutions and wars. Greenberg made everything fixed, firm and certain in reli- several attempts—and it ought to be said gion, morality, consciousness—everything that others tried to build and be built up actually shaping man's likeness in the by him—to establish a temporary tabernacle world. It seemed as though we had reached for himself and the public to which he was the fulfilment of the dream of Schopen- bound. In Berlin he joined the editorial hauer, who had aspired to being read by staff of Haolam, the official Hebrew or- vast masses of intellectuals. It is obvious gan of the World Zionist Organisation. To- that the way thoughts are seen by their gether with Ezekiel Kauffmann and the creators, directors and initial thinkers when present writer he edited Atidenu. These they are first envisaged does not correspond attempts failed and led him to failure. It to the way they are received in the brains was his opinion that a responsible editor and hearts of the recipients. was responsible only to his own spiritual The pellucid atmosphere which the ini- conscience and should deal with the prob- tiators breathed gradually came to be re- lems and issues of the Zionist world and placed by the contaminated air of instincts, Hebrew culture in virtue of his own power wishes, appetites, desires and activities, both of thought and his cultural will as such; pure and otherwise, of profaned command- disregarding the laws of a public and popu- ments and sanctified transgressions. People lar movement, which functions in the real did not understand that the ease which world with all its contradictions, adjust- relativity brings to those caught in the ments, struggles and disputes. The fate of

195 Zvi Woyslawski : On Hayim Greenberg

Idelsohn, editor of the Rasviet in the past departed to seek a new life, which would and of Haolam in London—absolute li- give him the main desideratum: the pos- berty on the one hand and absolute restric- sibility of fostering himself, of achieving an tion to temporary disputes on the other— internal ascent involving an external one. frightened him and made him feel exceed- He went to America. ingly dubious. He went to America on two missions. A man who sows doubts, reaps and is fed One was express and official, the other un- by doubts. The doubts of Greenberg, which spoken and kept to himself. The first was derived from a dreamy, sceptical soul (for to serve the needs of the Hebrew Movement such are also to be found) and from a clash in Eastern Europe, which had been blessed with the harsh national realities at the be- with large and comprehensive plans for ginnings of the rebuilding of the National changing the cultural and educational as- Home, began to overwhelm him; and the pect of the Hebrew community in those institutions which he established or which countries into a form bearing some connec- he was called upon to direct could not with- tion with the establishment of the Jewish stand the savage winds then blowing in National Home in the Land of Israel—that Central Europe. He felt that the ground cultural orientation of the whole of con- was giving way under his feet, that his scious Jewry—plans it could not achieve doubts were consuming him within. He for lack of even the scantiest funds; and had come to implant faith, and found him- which, therefore, caused it to turn to the self consumed with doubt. He had come to Jewish community in America who, from strengthen the weak and faltering, and he the start of the First World War, had begun himself was but one among the many fal- to sustain the dispersed nation in its mate- terers. rial and cultural distress. Once more he needed a fresh, firm an- This specific mission of Greenberg's was chorage, an Archimedean point for a crea- not fulfilled in any way; and his fellow- tive soul in God's universe. The original members did whatever they did, and achiev- anchorages were unsuitable, so he proposed ed as much as they may have achieved, and to find them strengthened overseas, and failed insofar as they may have failed. But specifically faraway America, which was so in this connection Greenberg failed com- distant in culture and aspirations, beckoned pletely, both personally and vis-a-vis the him and seemed to be saying: here he movement for which he worked. On the would find firm hold, here he would be other hand, he grew increasingly aware of delivered from absolute destruction and that mission which he had imposed from from seductive relativity which gnawed within himself upon himself; whether of set within. purpose or unconsciously. In America, albeit He withdrew from Haolam. He could not in a single day but over a period of no longer supply the needs of an official years, he found the possibility of fostering organ in which the problems and emer- himself, of devoting himself to those talents gencies of the day and the moment must and tendencies which lived and thronged always determine style and content, and the in his heart and essential self. He brought choice of what to write and what to nothing with him saving his very own self; ignore. He withdrew from Atidenu, neither visible assets nor, and that is the whose fate was exceedingly doubtful, and important thing, a strong will to achieve,

196 Zvi Woyslawski : On Hayim Greenberg a will to achieve vis-a-vis others, vis-a-vis a sense of realities, a practicality even about systems and developments renewing them- matters which are not real and concrete. selves daily in and for a man whose chief They enjoy a sobriety, clarity, and power purpose in the world is to transform that of correct assessment based either on a pre- world into a vehicle for his own ascent. cise calculation or happy intuition of fac- That ascending self, however, was of an tors and a correct gauging of possibilities. importance in its own right which exceeded Such people pay little attention to the fun- any actual or prospective assets, or any damental problems of the world, which al- wealth to be achieved by consistent dili- ways remain fundamental at any day or gence. His "assets" were: a few years of hour. They do not worry to-day about to- journalistic and literary activities, fine work morrow's trouble, since sufficient unto the which, however, was not decisive in the fate day is the evil thereof in its inevitability and of a man or a public figure; an exceptional urgency. For them everything depends on oratorical gift which was rather more im- incessant motion, on large-scale sweeping portant than his literary and journalistic movement that has no rest. The infinite work; a pleasant appearance and a person- current of real events brings about a new ality which won the heart just by being situation each moment, which requires to what it was, just by being there. be explored, mastered, sustained and main- As we remarked, he was always passive tained. They miss no moment, no require- rather than active. Whatever burdens of ment or need of world development either place and time were imposed upon him— for themselves or for their community. and they were far more numerous than The active approach towards the world, what he took upon himself, for he was well its development, its bearers and emissaries, aware of what was at once his weakness and continues to respond to this demand which his strength—whatever responsible^ public resounds forever throughout the expanses duties and burdens were required by the of their universe. You find a contrast to situation, always found him more of a fai- them in the contemplative approach and lure than a success, although nobody ever those who give expression to it. Their chief blamed him for this. (It is very rare indeed characteristic is contemplation, not domina- in the human world for the failures of gifted tion. They see in order to see and not for men to be viewed more affectionately than the sake of adaptation; they aim at obser- their open and admitted achievements.) He vation and not formation or action; not was a contemplative spirit, and that was even that formation which does not come one of the most outstanding aspects of his to life as it is in its own being, but which character. is action in the form of unceasing growth It is claimed that the naturally active are and gifts from on high. at ease in the fully sensed and factual; that The active say: after things comes the when they devote themselves, to their own devotion of heart and brain; whereas the and general advantage, to contemplation, contemplative claim: after devotion and it is not of any and every object that pre- intent come the things which have neither sents itself to their eyes and hands, but to being nor vitality of their own. the examination and contemplation of a Greenberg was not one of the former. He very specific situation characteristic of a fled—for every withdrawal is a flight from given time and hour. They are gifted with the reality, difficulties and conflicts of

197 Zvi Woyslawski : On Hayim Greenberg existence — from real action, because this elevation and self-attention; if you like, might spoil his heart's desire; what was self-ornamentation. Of him and his like envisioned in hours of grace and what was Kierkegaard said: His whole life was de- observed in the course of deep contempla- voted to selecting himself. And what is the tion. purpose of this self-selection? Free adapta- He never pursued things in order to over- tion of the chance element, the examina- power them and impose upon them some tion of life as a sensed reality which exists form of his own and of his own power. He for us only as something transitional and removed things from himself in order to temporary, as history, in contradiction to be able to appreciate them more closely. the existence of the heroes of the ancient Of him it may be said that he came, he saw Greeks and also the ancient Hebrews who and he did not conquer; for he had no are isolated and become abstract and internal intention of conquering. When timeless creatures. The selection of the liv- things came to him, they came. He accept- ing self continues to remain in a nexus to ed them in the way that an obvious duty is existence. Kierkegaard analyses it thus: accepted, but did not devote his heart or The individual gives himself as a specific his basic self to them. And although this individual with his specific gifts, his specific passivity of his served him well, by warn- tendencies, his instincts, his appetites, which ing him not to make any excessive demand are influenced by a specific environment, for action and confusion in revolutionary the particular fruit of the specific circum- times, because these would undoubtedly stance. Anybody who knows himself after have caused him much trouble and hard- this fashion takes all these upon himself ship, as so many fine spirits and great and is responsible for them. He does not thinkers and men of feeling were ground hesitate at heart whether to accept any one down by the vast millstones of the revolu- of these things or not, for he knows that tion—this attitude of his befitted an emer- something loftier than this will be lost if gency, but was not particularly suitable to he does not accept it. At the moment of the ordinary weekdays or even Sabbaths of choice he is in a state of absolute isolation, the world. for he separates that moment from all that is round about it, yet in spite of this he is (d) at the same time in a state of complete If it were permissible to try to sum up continuity, since he selects himself like a the essence of Greenberg in one phrase, fruit, and this selection is made in freedom. I would say: He had nothing save It may be said of him: If he selects him- himself, yet that self was entirely Zionist, self like a fruit, like a fashioned object, entirely Hebrew, entirely representative of then he fashions himself. He shapes him- the blessed Movement which Higher Pro- self, for his foundation lies in the fact that vidence has vouchsaved to Israel during Man chooses himself, is fully sensual and recent generations in order to repair, revive real; in the act of choice between yes and and serve as a blessing for the nation. All no, he decides absolutely and entirely. But the expressions of Greenberg's personality since man steadily withdraws from these in literature, in leadership, in parties, in sources, descending from the heights of the Israel Labour Movement, in the unique completeness to the real living existence of Hebraic Socialism, are only sparks of self- every day, he once again needs aid. And

198 Zvi Woyslawski : On Hayim Greenberg this aid comes on the one hand from the ed a form for every impression he gained, unceasing development of individual and gained very many impressions even thought and self-examination, and on the though nobody glimpsed in him this pursuit other from the moral law with all its for- of impressions which characterizes the ac- mulated rules and imperatives, which assist tively aesthetic type. He was no glutton for man as a single entity whose weaknesses impressions, but did not reject any impres- will not lead him astray from his selfhood sion whatsoever which might be absorbed (Jaspers). In this typology a man can find a in his being and help to give shape to his pleasant schema, but one which is not fully soul. He did not engage in producing works exhaustive; after the fashion of every of beauty, nor did he engage in criticism generalization which cuts down that indi- and analysis which is likewise a basic form vidual uniqueness of a personality which of aesthetic being; although he had a cer- we are trying to illuminate and stress. tain tendency towards it which never found expression or utterance. It could be said (e) that he engaged less in this field than in We have already said that he had nothing any other aspect of culture, whether hu- save himself. If it is argued that this is man or Hebrew. Like so many of that egoism, outspoken and absolute individual- generation who were smitten and driven ism, it must be said that it all depends on away from their own, their inner fields by what is implied in this statement. Certainly, the great confusion, he never produced the expression is not to be understood in its any creative works of his own; but he ele- simple and conventional sense. Of Green- vated himself. berg it is possible to say what Sprenger said He did so in his numerous essays, in all of the aesthetic man: His inner develop- the languages which he used; in his excel- ment is at the same time the assembling lent speeches on the festivals and weekdays and absorption of the impressions of life, of the Zionist and Hebrew Movement. In meaning his shaping of himself. The essence all his appearances as representative of a of this is formation and giving shape in great social and moral movement, one of the precise aesthetic sense; which differs the finest movements which History has from science that is nothing more than placed on the human stage, he was one of science and from diligence, manual dexteri- the outstanding actors. Hence it is possible ty and technique. He turns his life into a to comprehend his exterior character, work of art. He himself is form, beauty, which was entirely that of a magnificent harmony and measure. actor who spent his life on the stage utter- It was said of Raphael that he would ing beautiful words, lofty words, tragic have been a great painter at heart even if words, words establishing good will between he had been born without hands. The man and his Maker, man and God's world, meaning of this paradox is that he grasped man and himself. He did not expound life like a painter, that he looked at the aesthetic systems, but all his life long en- world with a painter's eye; and that is what deavoured to ensure that every appearance is decisive in the view of the world and of on his part should be true to its own pure one's self. form. Greenberg also saw the world, and Zionism has come into being to adjust particularly himself, aesthetically. He shap- one of the grave defects from which the

199 Zvi Woyslawski : On Hayim Greenberg historical and social cosmos suffers. As long Assuredly the power of economic produc- as this defect has not been adjusted, there tion and distribution is great, and shaping will be no completeness in the concept of of the lines of the new Society; yet all of humanity, with all its existent peoples and these merely serve the ultimate purpose, nations and states that enjoy their own fates world harmony. and responsibilities; nor will the historic It could be said paradoxically that rostrum on which peoples ascend and from Greenberg,s morality was aesthetic, his re- which they descend be complete. As long as ligion was aesthetic, and so with everything an end is not put to the cultural deficiency else. Sometimes a paradox may be more of a nation needing its language, yet not true than a simple straight-forward state- being able to satisfy even a minimum of its ment of a truth. There is a gentleness in requirements, the world's language system this viewpoint and also cruelty, for the will not be complete. As long as there is no quality of judgement is stronger here than correction of the world's social defects, of the quality of mercy, as in every great the lack of justice between oppressors spiritual experience which has not under- and oppressed, enslavers and enslaved, the gone the vast and decisive correction be- sated and the starving (including the cul- yond which there is no adjustment, cor- turally sated and culturally starving among rection or decision. In it are expansion and the rest), there can be no improvement for contraction, binding and liberation from humanity, no matter how it flourishes and bonds, spaciousness and straitness. It presses progresses in other fields. down and sometimes cuts off the shoots of It seems as though from one point of the trunk, cutting down the plants that view this is the outlook on the world in grow in the world's garden, being severe general and the world of Israel in parti- towards itself and never achieving all it cular, to which Greenberg devoted all his should and demanding much of others. talents, his potential capacities and actual This point of view is extremist, like every deeds. All other activities were no more view which does not disregard any of the than a carrier for this single purpose. Un- fields of existence whatsoever, but requires doubtedly there is much power in morality, them all and makes its harsh and grave which leads a man and guides peoples; demands on all of them. Hence comes the the world cannot exist without it for excessive severity to be found wherever a single moment. Assuredly, religion is there is only one single way of looking at powerful, with the faith in God who creates the world. and guides the world, and wherever and I have been able to give only a few hints whenever man hides his face from God, or of the aesthetic vision which I think com- whenever the All-and-Ever-Present turns pletely characterized Hayim Greenberg his face from man, there comes upon the and helped him to achieve two things so world a confusion and chaos which must well and gracefully. The first was his activi- end with disaster and boundless suffering. ties in America, which provided him with Without this open and intimate faith on a firm ground after the shattering of the the part of the public and the individual, two worlds that had first sustained him, particularly the individual, the human namely the world of Russia and the world world cannot subsist for a single moment; of Europe in the form of Germany. The which is why it so deeply requires faith. second was the Zionist Labour Movement

200 Zvi Woyslawski : On Hayim Greenberg which gave him the practical opportunity ment, in Zionism and in Socialism, yet in of expressing its Zionism and Socialism spite of this he was one of the finest of our after his own fashion and according to his public representatives, for every ascent and own inner essence. And his own inner es- penetration of his soul elevated and deepen- sence was fully aesthetic. In its nature there ed the movement which he served with was individualism as a one-sided aspect of all his heart, with all his essence, with all humanity, universalism as a wealth and his might. plenitude of experience and shaping power, Any speech, any lecture, any debate of and a completeness involving the union of his, whether internal or external—and he these two into one living form. Thus, his was one of the most gifted Zionist Hebrew Socialism, which he expressed in almost all publicists of the past generation—served, the essays he wrote in America, was entirely one might say, only himself, but, as we have aesthetic like the Socialism of Landauer seen, that self was entirely possessed by and Wilde, that Socialism which has been Zionism and the Hebrew Movement, by forgotten and swept away in the storms of aesthetic Socialism, by a great and com- the past generation. "We are poets, and we prehensive humanism; by the wholeness to ״are helping to drive away those swindlers which he aspired all his life long, that aim of science, the cold, hollow, spiritless Marx- ed at the magnification of man and people, ists, in order to make place for the poetic at the liberty of man which outweighs any vision, for concentrated artistic form, en- other gift, at the proper self-fulfilment of a thusiasm and prophecy on which to build nation amid all its hardships and conflicts henceforward, to achieve and to fashion within the historic world. in life, in the bodies of human beings, for Did he achieve his goal even in part ? No the sake of the work and creation of groups man dies having achieved even half of his of human beings, their communities and desire, his aspiration, his struggle. Assured- their peoples." ly he, like every man, suffered the tragedy Almost every expression of opinion by of aspiration and fulfilment, of beauty that Greenberg on matters of importance, and was not fully realized, of bitter struggle the high matters of Israel in particular, was which was not always rewarded. But that a kind of "votum separatum" in the move- is a separate chapter.

201 ^FoTUffl for the Problems of Zionism, World Jewry and the State of Israel

EDITED BY N. ROTENSTREICH AND Z. SHAZAR I

DECEMBER 1953

CONTENTS:

Z. SHAZAR In Re-examination

Part One: THE JEWISH PEOPLE AND THE WORLD Part Two: ZIONISM AND THE STATE OF ISRAEL

J. LESTSCHINSKY The Present State of the Jewish People D. BEN GURION The People and the State Z. ARANNE Exodus from Russia—Return to Zion J. A. HELLER Zionism, Exile and Homeland I. EISENSTEIN The Great American Experiment J. MELKMAN The Doctrine of Moderation E. SELIGMAN Commentary on American Jewry J. D. W1LHELM What Can Israel Offer the Exile B. HALPERN The Problem of the American Chalutz I. WOLFSBERG The Functions of Zionism To-day I. BERLIN Jewish Slavery and Emancipation J. AMIT The New Situation N. ROTENSTREICH The Jewish Question against the S. HALKIN American Zionism and the Background of the Emancipation State of Israel

Part Three: THE INDIVIDUAL IN THE STATE

S. H. BERGMANN Israel and the Dispersion S. N. EISENSTADT Fusing the Aliyot in Israel H. GREENBERG Seven Principles

Z. WOYSLAWSKY On Hayim Greenberg (Essay)

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