A Controversy of Zion – VI
“Rabbi Schachtel claims that he does not know what Zionists mean
when they speak of the “historic homelessness of the Jews.”
Jewish tradition records that there were also some Israelites,
close to the ruling powers in Egypt,
who could not understand why Moses wanted to take them out of that land.
They were quite at home even in Egypt.”
***
“There is also in both articles the expressed or implied fear
that the existence of a Jewish homeland will encourage anti-Semites to persecute us
and force our expulsion from the countries in which we now live.
In that regard there is this simple historic fact to remember.
The absence of a Jewish homeland these 1800 years
never restricted the hands of our persecutors.”
***
“Why some Jews should be ready to join the enemies of their people
in open combat against the hope that has sustained their fathers through 1800 years of persecution
no one will ever be able to fully explain.
The phenomenon belong to those dark mysteries of the human soul
which under the cover of idealism and resounding phraseology
can turn a man to hate against himself, or the nearest of his kind.“
The sixth and final of the Jewish Exponent’s series of articles about Zionism, and, Anti-Zionism, among American Rabbis in the early 1940s brings us to an essay by Rabbi Simon Greenberg, the President of the “Philadelphia Zionist Organization” (a local chapter of the Zionist Organization of America?), in response to Rabbi Hyman J. Schachtel’s essay in the Exponent’s prior issue.
Rabbi Greenberg performs a thorough job of refuting Rabbi Schachtel’s arguments, touching upon issues such as the status of the remaining Jews of Europe subsequent to German’s surrender, and – I think this is important – the way Rabbi Schachtel in his denial of Jewish homelessness in the United States, England, Russia, and Poland (did the Jews of Poland genuinely feel so at home?; were they perceived as such by non-Jewish Poles?) completely and I think calculatedly glosses over the actual pre-WW II status of the Jews of Germany, the countries of Eastern Europe, and, Yemen.
Then, Rabbi Greenberg discusses the concern, expressed or implied, that the reestablishment of a Jewish nation-state will engender antisemitism and cause the expulsion of Jews from countries in which they live. His rejoinder is very astute: “The absence of a Jewish homeland these 1800 years never restricted the hands of our persecutors. … The treatment we receive at the hands of our fellow citizens will and does depend exclusively upon the degree of humanity and democracy prevailing amongst them and not upon whether there is or is not a place to which they can send us.”
But, the central thrust of his essay addresses an issue touched upon by neither Rabbi Schachtel nor Exponent columnist Al Segal, an issue refreshingly unrelated to the idea the purpose for the re-establishment of a Jewish state would simply to be to provide a refuge for Jews suffering persecution.
Rabbi Greenberg sees far beyond this, realizing that beyond political security lie aspects of human nature, whether individual or collective, that speak to facets of human experience that cannot be understood in a purely material sense. Namely: “Hence, even though democracy were to be fully implemented all over the world, they [the Jewish people] would still want one spot where their own cultural and religious traditions would have an opportunity for normal development equal to that which all other spiritual and cultural traditions have in areas where they can claim the majority of the population.”
THE “BOGEY” OF ZIONISM
By RABBI SIMON GREENBERG
The Jewish Exponent
January 15, 1943
EDITOR’S NOTE: – The following article by the President of the Philadelphia Zionist Organization is in reply to an article by Rabbi Hyman J. Schachtel of New York, which appeared in last week’s issue of The Jewish Exponent. Rabbi Schachtel is a member of the newly formed Council for American Judaism, who stated the position of his group in an article titled, “We Reject Zionism.” Rabbi Greenberg’s article also contains an answer to last week’s “Plain Talk” column by Al Segal.
The recent activities of the handful of anti-Zionist rabbis and laymen have stirred the deepest passions and profoundest emotions. It is not easy, therefore, to analyze their arguments of motives with a calm, intellectual objectivity. But since they insist in pressing their views upon public attention, discussion with them, unfortunate as it may be in this tragic hour of Jewish history, cannot be avoided.
The Jewish Exponent and I presume many other Anglo-Jewish weeklies throughout the country, recently published two statements which attempted further to clarify the position of the anti-Zionist group. One was written by Rabbi Hyman J. Schachtel, the other by a layman, Al Segal.
The original contribution to the discussion made by Rabbi Schachtel is summarized in the following paragraph: “If Europe is emancipated, if Europe after the war has a new birth of freedom, there will be no need for artificial lands of refuge for forced migrants. If Europe and the world are not so emancipated, then there is no refuge anywhere.” Rabbi Schachtel thus apparently bases his opposition to a Jewish commonwealth on the proposition that no matter what happens the Jews of Europe will or should remain in Europe after the war. If the Nazis win, Jews have “no refuge anywhere”. If the Nazis lose “Europe will be emancipated” and there will be no need for Jews to leave it. Since I cannot imagine a Nazi victory there is no point in discussing the first alternative. But what will be the situation when the inevitable Nazi defeat occurs? Zionists, like all democrats, of course, expect the Jews of Europe to have their full citizenship rights restored. Moreover, Zionists have no desire to see Europe of any other part of the world become “Judenrein”; free of Jews. If after the war there will be no Jews who will want to leave Europe, and no Jews anywhere else who will want or need to go to Palestine, then the whole problem will of itself be solved. Certainly no Jewish commonwealth can be established in Palestine, if there are no Jews who want to go to live there. And surely no Zionist will tolerate the thought that Jews should in any way be forced to migrate to any place. Zionists were the first to denounce publicly the position taken by the Polish government in the pre-war days that Poland had a “surplus” of one million Jews. But just as vigorously as we reject a policy of “forced migration”, would we also reject a policy of “forced fixation”. Is Rabbi Schachtel’s thought that with Europe emancipated no Jew and no European should be permitted to migrate anywhere outside of Europe? Or is his opinion that with political liberty restored to Europe no European will need or want to leave his native land? Obviously neither of the two positions can be maintained. The defeat of the Nazis should mean a world more widely open that ever before for the free flow of men and goods. And obviously there will be a great outpouring of Europeans who will need and desire the opportunity to find physical and spiritual renewal in other parts of the globe.
In these matters the Zionists, the so-called “romantic dreamers”, attempt to be realists. They heed the warnings of the best authoritative observers. There seems to be practical unanimity of opinion that after the war a large percentage of the Jews remaining in Europe will for sociological, psychological, or economic reasons want to and have to find new homes for themselves. As a matter of fact, many non-Zionist Jewish bodies are engaged even now in looking about for possible countries of immigration for the Jews of post-war Europe.
Rabbi Schachtel claims that he does not know what Zionists mean when they speak of the “historic homelessness of the Jews.” Jewish tradition records that there were also some Israelites, close to the ruling powers in Egypt, who could not understand why Moses wanted to take them out of that land. They were quite at home even in Egypt. “American Jews,” the rabbi says, “are not homeless”. Every American Zionist will heartily agree with him. The same is true of the British Jews. But I wonder whether Dr. Schachtel is on equally safe ground when he speaks of Polish Jews? Even with minority rights granted them at the end of the last war, and with further constitutional guarantees provided for the Jews of other central and eastern European countries, there was never a year in which there were not four and five times as many Jews from these countries asking for admission to Palestine as were granted the much-sought-for vise! Homelessness, the rabbi writes, is not “a mystical concept”… derived from an abstract philosophy but from the realty of persecution. Quite right. Ask the Jews of Yemen today, or of Poland and Roumania and Germany of yesterday.
We were quite aware in 1918 that a new era of human brotherhood has dawned. We were sadly disappointed. I pray fervently and daily that we may not be disappointed this time. But while my religion teaches me to expect miracles it warns me against depending upon them, or even against expecting them when other avenues of help are available. Hence through the restoration of equal political rights to the Jews of post-war Europe is the least we expect from the defeat of the Nazis. I do not feel that we have the right to depend entirely upon that, and to neglect any other possibility which may be available for further securing the future of all or many of these, our grief-stricken brethren.
There is also in both articles the expressed or implied fear that the existence of a Jewish homeland will encourage anti-Semites to persecute us and force our expulsion from the countries in which we now live. In that regard there is this simple historic fact to remember. The absence of a Jewish homeland these 1800 years never restricted the hands of our persecutors. It did not restrain Torquemada in 1492, nor the Czaristic government in the 19th century. Nor the Nazis in the 20th. Certainly then the argument that the existence of a Jewish commonwealth will increase Jewish persecution gets no corroboration from Jewish history. Nor would my self-respect permit me to remain at ease even in America if for a moment I felt that the only reason I am permitted to live here is because my fellow citizens have no place to which to eject me. Such a thought, I feel, is not merely a deep wound in my own dignity, but a grievous insult to my fellow citizens. The treatment we receive at the hands of our fellow citizens will and does depend exclusively upon the degree of humanity and democracy prevailing amongst them and not upon whether there is or is not a place to which they can send us.
But there is a kind of “homelessness” which a rabbi in particular should be able to understand, even though he is not physically molested. Physical and political and even economic security are not the whole sum and substance of life, important as these are. Henry James and a goodly number of other 19th century American intellectuals did not feel at home in America in the 19th century. Now, strange as it may appear to Rabbi Schachtel and others, there are some Jews, particularly among the much-harassed Jews of central and eastern Europe, who do not find in political and physical security all that they want in life. They would, for example, like to speak Hebrew, and to have Hebrew as one of the world’s modern languages. They want it to be a medium for the expression of a full cultural and spiritual life in every possible way. There are Jews who would like to have one spot in the world where the Sabbath would have the same status that Sunday has in America, and where Passover, and Rosh Hashanna, and Hanukah fit as normally into the pattern of their lives as Christmas and Easter and Thanksgiving day fit into the normal pattern of our lives here. There are many Jews who are as deeply concerned for the preservation and the further development of the Hebrew culture and the pattern of life developed in the Torah and in later Rabbinic literature, as they are for the preservation of the physical existence of the Jewish people as such. Hence, even though democracy were to be fully implemented all over the world, they would still want one spot where their own cultural and religious traditions would have an opportunity for normal development equal to that which all other spiritual and cultural traditions have in areas where they can claim the majority of the population. Nor does that in any way reflect upon the appreciation of the peoples among whom they live as equal citizens of the state, nor upon their while-hearted loyalty to the democratic government under which they live. A normal human being’s desire to build his own home after he marries, even though his parents may offer him a part of their spacious home, is not considered a reflection upon his love for or his loyalty to his parents.
From Mr. Segal’s article we gather that the one thing which stirs the darkest forebodings in the minds of the anti-Zionists is the concept “Jewish Commonwealth” or “Jewish State”. They dread the possibility of being accused of a double allegiance, of being “lumped together” with another political entity in the minds of their fellow citizens. Let us examine this bogey, “Jewish State” or “Jewish Commonwealth” for a moment. Do the anti-Zionists have a clear notion of what the concepts imply in the light of the actual situation in Palestine, or the new world conditions which will come after the war? If they do, I would like to know their opinions. They would, I am sure, be very helpful. Mr. Segal and others may be interested in knowing that among Zionists themselves there has never been any unanimity of opinion on the definition of “Jewish State” or “Jewish Commonwealth”. They only things on which there is unanimity of opinion among Zionists are: (1) Political conditions with Palestine and within the framework of international relations should be established which would make it possible for as many Jews to enter Palestine as freely desire to do so, and as the economic possibilities of the country could maintain. (2) No artificial obstacles should prevent the Jews from ever becoming the majority population in Palestine. (3) The Jewish majority in Palestine should have the right to govern itself, it being clearly understood that nothing would ever be done in any way to impair the political, the economic, and the cultural rights of any of the other inhabitants of Palestine.
There are all kinds of plans being worked on for the future political relationship between the Jews and the Arabs of Palestine. There are schemes for a bi-national State, and plans for an International Commission that might act as the impartial arbitrator to all matters of dispute between the two populations. No one at present can envision all of the details of the practical implementation either of the Zionist Basle Program, or of the Balfour Declaration. Much, of course, will depend upon the nature of the international organization which will emerge after the war. But does it seem fair for Jews in America because of a fear which has no basis in the experiences either of our people or of any other people now to insist that until the end of time the Jews of Palestine, no matter what their number, may never exercise those political powers and rights which any other group in the world, religious or non-religious, has always considered a normal, and inalienable right and privilege? Is this a dignified and courageous attitude?
Mr. Segal is very explicit in expressing his fear that if there will be a “Jewish State,” the Jews of America will “be counted in, or counted out, as a people who are somehow of another nation and another country”. Strange that no Irishman in the United States seems to worry because Eire has now practically become independent. No American Pole fighting for Polish independence, or Czech, or Frenchman has that fear. Mr. Segal has the same fear that the German Jew once had about being “lumped together” with “Ost Juden,” East European Jews. What logical basis does Mr. Segal have for his fear that if there will be a self-governing Jewish group in Palestine, American – Jewish loyalty to America will then be under greater suspicion than the loyalty of the Englishman, or Frenchman, or Pole to America?
Moreover, Mr. Segal does not object to Jews building colonies or planting forests in Palestine. He dreads only the thought that the Jews in Palestine may have the political power necessary to enlarge and develop and protect these forests and colonies. Mr. Segal seems to imply that if the Jews of Palestine as a community do not have any of the rights and powers usually associated with a state or a commonwealth, they will have the good will and friendship of their neighbors. Otherwise they will be ever beset by “hostile and resentful elements”. Does Jewish or general human history bear out the assumption that the friendship of one’s neighbors increases in proportion to one’s weakness and defenseless?
Finally, may I say that what Zionists resent most deeply, and consider nothing less than a vicious traitorous libel, is the implication, as well as the explicit statement made by anti-Zionists, which question the sincerity and the wholeheartedness of a Zionist’s American patriotism. Such a statement as the following, made by Mr. Segal, is what we have in mind. He (Mr. Segal) “simply cannot think of any other national allegiance but American. He is not of Palestine at all.” With men like the late Justice Louis D. Brandeis, and the present Justice Felix Frankfurter, and Judge Julian W. Mack, and a vast host of other outstanding leaders in American civic and political life, having been so intimately and definitely identified with the Zionist movement, can Mr. Segal and his like still continue to talk even in the vaguest terms of the American Zionist as one who has “other national allegiance but American?” It might be of interest to know that of all of the charges brought against Mr. Brandeis by his many enemies, when his career was so punctiliously scrutinized before his appointment to the Supreme Court was ratified by the Senate, no one thought of accusing him of a double allegiance because of his Zionism That form of attack on Zionism, we repeat again, belongs to the meanest and lowest type of libel.
Zionists can very well agree with Rabbi Schachtel, when he says that, “what we want for the Jews after this war is what we want for all the people. We want a world in which Jews, wherever they may be, are free citizens entitled to the same privileges and subject to the same responsibilities of all other free citizens. Now one of the rights and privileges enjoyed by free citizens everywhere is to establish their own governments and to govern their own cultural, social and political life. We want that right for the Jewish community of Palestine, just as surely as the American Czechs want it for the Czechs in Czecho-Slovakia, and the Poles want it for the Poles in Poland.
The governments of the world through the Balfour Declaration and the Palestine Mandate have recognized that by virtue of historic associations and present needs, the Jews have an inherent right to enjoy the privileges of self-government in Palestine. Why some Jews should be ready to join the enemies of their people in open combat against the hope that has sustained their fathers through 1800 years of persecution no one will ever be able to fully explain. The phenomenon belong to those dark mysteries of the human soul which under the cover of idealism and resounding phraseology can turn a man to hate against himself, or the nearest of his kind. Where else are we to look for an explanation of the action of spiritual and lay leaders of a people who in the hour of its direst need seek to crush its fondest hope, and help to close the gates to the one spot on earth which can and does offer immediate refuge to their bruised and beaten bodies.
