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LIBRARY fortke Problems of ZIONISM, r>; WORLD JEWRY and THJE STATE Of ISRAEL 1 . December 1953 Published btj the World Zionist Organisation ׳־ , •׳A ! r/*י r rcmmin@B ,׳••״:ן icrican ׳־. ׳ . ir FORUM FOR THE PROBLEMS OF ZIONISM, 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 JERUSALEM 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 Zion ... 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 Jewish Question 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 Knesset; recently nominated by his party for the post of Minister without Portfolio in the Cabinet of Israel. DAVID 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 Jews 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.

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