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Jews Against Zion: Israeli Jewish Anti-Zionism Author(S): Charles Glass Source: Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol

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Jews Against Zion: Israeli Jewish Anti-Zionism Author(S): Charles Glass Source: Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol Jews against Zion: Israeli Jewish Anti-Zionism Author(s): Charles Glass Source: Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 5, No. 1/2 (Autumn, 1975 - Winter, 1976), pp. 56-81 Published by: University of California Press on behalf of the Institute for Palestine Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2535683 Accessed: 20-11-2015 13:17 UTC Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/ info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Institute for Palestine Studies and University of California Press are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Journal of Palestine Studies. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 155.69.24.171 on Fri, 20 Nov 2015 13:17:01 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions JEWS AGAINST ZION: ISRAELI JEWISH ANTI-ZIONISM CHARLESGLASS * In a speech to graduating officers of Israel's Army Staff and Command College in 1968, Moshe Dayan told the story of Dr. Arthur Ruppin. Dr. Ruppin directed Jewish settlement efforts in Palestine from 1920, the year he returned to the country after a dozen years in exile by Ottoman order. During his absence from Palestine, Dr. Ruppin was one of the few Zionists to seriously seek an answer to the "Arab question." Dayan told the young officers, "Dr. Ruppin was a humanist by nature, a man of conscience, and when he encountered the 'Arab question,' he wanted to be persuaded that Zionism could be fulfilled without detriment to the Arabs of Palestine."'1 In May 1911, Ruppin "suggested in a letter to the Zionist executive a limited population transfer" of Palestinian Arabs dispossessed by Jewish land purchases to other lands near Aleppo and Homs. "But this was vetoed because it was bound to increase Arab suspicions about Zionist inten- tions." 2 In 1914 Ruppin proposed that a part of all lands acquired by Jews in Palestine be set aside for Arab tenants. 3 While Ruppin had every intention of colonizing Palestine, his intention was not to do so without considering the feelings of the indigenous population. But, as Dayan revealed to the officers, Ruppin's answer to the "Arab ques- tion" evolved in three stages: in 1923, Ruppin hoped to integrate Jewish im- migrants into the fabric of the Arab East; in 1925, recognizing differences between the European Jewish immigrants and their indigenous Semitic cous- ins, he favoured the creation in Palestine of a single "bi-national state"; by * Charles Glass is a Special Correspondent for Westinghouse Broadcasting Company. 1 Moshe Dayan, "A Soldier Reflects on Peace Hopes," address to graduating class at Army's Staff and Command College, in Irene L. Gendzier, editor, A Middle East Reader (New York: Pegasus, 1969), p. 407. 2 Walter Laqueur, A Historyof Zionismn(London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1972), p. 231. 3 Uri Avnery, Israel WithoutZionists: A Plea for Peace in the Middle East (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1968), p. 86. This content downloaded from 155.69.24.171 on Fri, 20 Nov 2015 13:17:01 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions JEWS AGAINST ZION 5 7 1936, the first of three years of dramatic Arab resistance to Jewish immigration and British occupation, Ruppin concluded that "it is our destiny to be in a state of continual warfare with the Arabs." 4 Dayan reminded Israel's new generation of officers that it has inherited this destiny and that continual warfare is the necessary condition for the existence of the state Ruppin helped to create and Dayan himself fought to expand. Among Jewish humanists in Palestine before 1948, Dr. Ruppin's answer to the "Arab question" was by no means universal. Dr. Judah Magnes, first president of Jerusalem's Hebrew University, rejected Ruppin's conception of the Jewish destiny in Palestine. "If I am not for a Jewish State," Dr. Magnes said shortly before the proclamation of that state, "it is solely for the reason I have stated: I do not want war with the Arab world." 5 Like Ruppin, Magnes realized that the aim of creating a Jewish State could not be achieved without detriment to the Arabs of Palestine. Like Ruppin, Magnes understood that the political Zionist adventure would bring war. Ruppin chose the State and accepted the war; Magnes would not accept war and rejected the Jewish State. As the Zionist Revisionist leader Vladimir Jabotinsky had warned as early as 1922, there could be no possibility of compromise.6 Twenty-seven years and four wars after the creation of the Jewish State, the political alternatives open to the Jews of Palestine remain what they were for Arthur Ruppin and Judah Magnes. And the issues which force Israeli Jews to define their attitude toward Zionism and the Jewish State are not confined to the "Arab question." Among Israeli Jews, there are three primary anti-Zionist critiques: that of religious Jews; that of the political left; and that of humanists like Dr. Magnes. Although the anti-Zionists are estimated to constitute no more than 8 percent of Israel's Jewish population, I they represent 50 percent of the only significant debate in the country. Orthodox Jews opposed Zionism on religious grounds from the time of its 19th century beginnings in the writings of Moses Hess, Leo Pinsker and Theodor 4Dayan, op. cit., p. 417. 5 Norman Bentwich, For Zion's Sake: A Biographyof Judah L. Magnes (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1954), p. 188. 6 Alan R. Taylor, The Zionist Mind (Beirut: The Institute for Palestine Studies, 1974), pp. 84-86. 7 The 8 percent maximum figure is an estimate only, based on the assessment of the Israeli League for Civil and Human Rights, a few of the socialist anti-Zionist groups and Israeli journalists. The majority of this probably 5 to 8 percent are leftists, and only a small number are politically active. This content downloaded from 155.69.24.171 on Fri, 20 Nov 2015 13:17:01 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 58 JOURNAL OF PALESTINE STUDIES Herzl.8 Religious anti-Zionists denied then as they do now the Zionist conten- tion that the Jews constitute a nation. "In the sense ofJewish Law, there is no Jewish nationalism," expresses the view of a leading religious anti-Zionist.9 The spiritual leader of 19th century Germany's Orthodox Jews at Frankfurt on-the-Main, Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, said that to actively promote Jewish emigration to Palestine was a sin.10 In 1898 Orthodox Rabbi Joseph Hayyim Sonnenfeld of Brisk wrote that Zionists have "asserted their view that the whole difference and distinction between Israel and the nations lies in nationalism, blood and race, and that the faith and the religion are super- fluous... Dr. Herzl comes not from the Lord, but from the side of pollution... 11 Rabbi Sonnenfeld usually used the term "evil men and ruffians" to mean Zionists. 12 While Herzl and later Zionists won much of their battle to convert Orthodox Jewry to Zionism, and while the National Religious Party represents an im- portant body of pro-Zionist opinion among Israel's Orthodox Jews, large pockets of resistance remain. The Neturei Karta ("Guardians of the Walls"), with their large enclaves at B'nai Brak near Tel Aviv and in Jerusalem's Mea Sharim Quarter, preserve Orthodox Jewry's initial fierce opposition to Zionism. Neturei Karta Rabbi Moshe Lieb-Hirsch summarized the extent of his sect's opposition to political Zionism: "We will not accept a Zionist State even if the Arabs do." 13 The Neturei Karta, a Hasidic sect whose men wear the traditional long beards and ear ringlets, were the first Jews to move outside the walls of Jeru- salem in the 19th century. Like the Arabs, they viewed the first aliyah (wave) of Jewish immigrants in the 1880's with suspicion. In their opposition to the Zionist settlers, Neturei Karta received some help from the AgudatIsrael, a group of Orthodox Jews from many countries, founded in 1912.14 Members 8 Moses Hess (1812-1875) wrote Romeand Jerusalemin 1862. Leo Pinsker (1821-1891) published his Autoemanzipationin 1882. Both works are landmarks of early Zionist thought of which the acknowledged "father of Zionism," Theodor Herzl (1860-1904), was apparently unaware when he published his Der Judenstadtand Altneulandin 1895 and 1902 respectively. 9 Rabbi Aharon Katzenelbogen, spiritual leader of Jerusalem's Hasidic Neturei Karta sect. Interview, August 1975. 10 Laqueur, op. cit., p. 407. See also Isidore Epstein, Judaism (Harmondsworth, Mid- dlesex: Penguin Books, 1959), p. 295. Rabbi Hirsch founded Neo-Orthodoxy, a Jewish separatist movement opposed to Reform Judaism. 11 Taylor, op. cit., p. 71. 12 Laqueur, op. cit., p. 409. 13 Rabbi Moshe Lieb-Hirsch, YediotAharonot, February 21, 1975, p. 8 (English trans- lation: Israleft Biweekly News Service, no. 57, March 1, 1975, p. 11). 14 Laqueur, op. cit., p. 407 and p. 409. Agudat Israel is still active in Israeli politics, though as a religious Zionist party. This content downloaded from 155.69.24.171 on Fri, 20 Nov 2015 13:17:01 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions JEWS AGAINST ZION 59 of Agudat Israel and Neturei Karta protested to the British Mandatory Power in Palestine against Zionist claims to represent them. In 1924, a member of the Agudat executive committee was assassinated by Haganah underground sol- diers.15 Jerusalem's Orthodox Jews tried in the years following the Balfour Decla- ration to win Arab support against Zionist domination of the Jews of Palestine.
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