Remembering A Lifetime of Advancing Prophetic Judaism - Free of Nationalism And Politicization

Several years ago, my son and daughter-in-law gave me a book designed for grandfathers to tell the story of their life. I put off answering the many questions for some time but, with help of my daughter, have finally turned my attention to it. I hope that in future years my five grandchildren—-who range in age —from almost two to thirteen years—-will find it useful. It has caused me to reflect on what lessons might be learned.

Several months ago, I wrote a column with some reflections on my early years. My memory goes back to World War II when, as a small child I had an army uniform which I wore in pictures with my uncles who were in real uniforms. One of them fought in the Battle of the Bulge. I remember when the war ended. We had a house at the beach, and I marched in a parade with other children. On the day Franklin Roosevelt died, we heard news reports on the radio in our living room. My mother said, “This is important. You will remember this.” And I have.

In that column I recalled that my friends as a child represented many backgrounds and religions. Our local newsstand in New York featured newspapers in many languages, Il Progresso in Italian, The Forward in Yiddish, Aufbau in German, and the Irish Echo in Gaelic. Our neighbors came from many places—-Poland, Germany, Greece and a variety of other European countries. Everyone was white.

Legal Segregation

I did not encounter legal segregation until I went to the College of William and Mary in Virginia. There, I saw “white” and “colored” signs for the first time, but in Virginia, for the first time, I encountered many black people. In New York, I encountered almost none. Segregation then characterized all of America, but it took different forms in different places.

In college, I wrote a weekly column in The Flat Hat, the school’s weekly newspaper. I have been writing columns ever since. My political views were conservative—-but what was considered conservative then is quite different from the philosophy expressed by those who use that term today. As Vice President of a student group, I was involved in inviting the first black speaker to William and Mary. The president of the college called me to his office and said, “Allan, I read your column. You are a conservative. Why are you doing this?” I responded, “Racism is not something I want to conserve.” Conservatives were supposed to believe in freedom and limited government. If Virginia, is a free society, I argued, what right does the state have to tell people whom to marry, or restaurant owners whom they may serve?

I became College Secretary of the Young Republican Federation of Virginia. I was a freshman in college when President Eisenhower sent troops to integrate the schools in Little Rock. Republicans in Virginia opposed segregation. It was the Democrats who closed schools rather than integrate.

Religious Thinking

What I did not discuss in that column was my religious thinking, which has involved a lifelong association with the American Council for Judaism. It deserved a longer discussion. Just as I was seeking an approach to political life that embodied the values in which I believed, so my thinking about religion caused me to become concerned about the nature of the Judaism I encountered.

When I was preparing for my Bar Mitzvah, I became confused about what Judaism really embodied. Religion, I slowly came to understand, attempted to answer questions about what a worthy life was, about the nature of the world, about how one should live. Yet, what I encountered in the synagogue was a narrowness of vision, a division of the world between “us” and “them.” This contradicted the belief that God was the creator of men and women of every race and nation, and that as their Creator, He viewed them as equal. The focus of the Judaism I encountered was not upon God and eternal values but upon the State of Israel. An Israeli flag stood near the altar of the synagogue. Why, I wondered, was this the case? Were we not Americans? Was the synagogue not a place to worship God, rather than a foreign state——or any state? This seemed reminiscent of idolatry, as in the Biblical Story of the Golden Calf. We kept hearing that Jews were the “chosen” people of God. I wondered, for what exactly where they “chosen?”

In High school, learning about different religions, I wanted to discover if there was not a Judaism which existed free of nationalism and politicization. In the days before the internet, I somehow discovered that there was indeed such a Judaism, and it was being kept alive by the American Council for Judaism. I called the Council on the phone and was invited to their offices on East 57th Street in Manhattan. On my first visit, I had a long lunch with Larry Margolis, then Eastern Regional Director. I also met Rabbi Elmer Berger, then executive Director of the Council, and two other rabbis on the Council staff, David Goldberg and Samuel Halevi Baron. Rabbi Goldberg had been the first Jewish chaplain the U.S. Navy during World War 1. Slowly, a group of young people became involved in what became a youth group. These included Ned and Pete Hanauer and Eliot Bernat.

Meeting Council Members.

During several summers, we drove around the country, visiting Council members who gathered young people in their communities together to discuss the nature of Judaism and how it was being corrupted by Zionism. I made many life-long friends as a result of these trips. One of them was Marjorie Arsht of Houston, Texas. Marjorie was an extraordinary person, a graduate of the Sorbonne in Paris who later ran for the Texas State Senate. For one summer when I was in law school, I had a job as a reporter for the Houston Press. Marjorie insisted that I stay in her house, rather than in an apartment as I had planned. Through her I met a variety of interesting people including the labor leader and later congresswoman Barbara Jordan, and future president George H.W. Bush and his wife Barbara, all of whom were friends of Marjorie. When Bush was elected president, Marjorie came to Washington to serve in the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

After college and law school, I worked on Capitol Hill, in both the Senate and the House of Representatives. I remember when the FBI was conducting a review of my application for a top-secret security clearance, required for my position on the staff of the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee. At that time Rabbi Berger was retired and living in Florida. He called me one day to report that two men in dark suits had approached him on the beach to discuss me and review the years he had known me.

I wrote a regular column which appeared in “Roll Call,” the newspaper of Capitol Hill, and later in newspapers around the country. During these years, my involvement with the Council continued. I attended annual conferences, which involved a variety of interesting participants, including the historian Arnold Toynbee and Socialist leader Norman Thomas. I met a variety of interesting and idealistic men and women who were active in the Council. One of these was Klaus Herrmann, a native of Germany, whose family made its way to Shanghai before World War 11. When he visited Washington, I introduced him to a Chinese friend of mine. Klaus immediately started speaking in fluent Chinese.

Editor of “Issues”

I continued writing for “Issues.” In 1989, I became editor of Council publications and served as executive director of the Council. In this capacity, I met and worked with many idealistic and committed men and women. Among these was the Council’s former president, Alan Stone, and its current president, Steve Naman. Thus, my involvement in the Council and helping to advance its philosophy of Judaism has been a lifetime effort.

One of the first books I read advancing the Council’s view of Judaism was Rabbi Berger’s “A Partisan History of Judaism,” published in 1952. He writes that, “Judaism was not a religion revealed in perfection to a limited and well-defined nationalistic group at Mt. Sinai. Judaism has evolved from a very basic, primitive and elementary tribalism that one would expect to find among people who lived some three thousand years ago. From that period to the time of the prophets, Judaism went through a period of refinement until it developed the idea——which I believe to be its really majestic and unique contribution—-of ethical monotheism, of universal values which were applicable to all men.”

The God of the early Israelites was, Berger points out, “associated with a desert way of life. This is not yet monotheism, which means one God for all humanity. These Israelites, or Hebrews, would never have claimed that theirs was the only god in the world; it was just their god. This is called henotheism, which means this god for me and any number of gods for anybody else. We are not yet at the stage of any elevated prophetic concept, either of God or religion. .”

Emergence of the Prophets

Before the emergence of the prophets, in Berger’s view, “There was little about the religion of these Israelites that was either much better or much worse than the religion of their neighbors. For example, such institutions as sacred prostitution existed among these people...in primitive religions, men were concerned with their gods not in a moral sense but only as the gods affected the productivity of the soil and the fertility of the animals which they herded and which were their capital.”

Suddenly, in the midst of this corrupt civilization, there emerged a group of individuals who began to protest. “That protest,” writes Berger, “was phrased with moral indignation and spoken in the name of a God Of justice and righteousness. The result was to provide the chapter of real genius in Judaism. In this protest against social injustices combined with lofty moral values related to a universal God, Judaism took its place as one of the great spiritual forces of mankind.”

The Prophets declared that theirs was a decadent society about to be destroyed. This was a revolutionary concept. To proclaim to people that despite their material blessings and meticulous observance of the formalities of religion, they were doomed to catastrophe and lacked the favor of God. The genius of the Prophets, writes Berger, can be attributed to the fact that “through religion, the moral values which they perceived have become the foundation stones of Western civilization. With these Prophets, Judaism left the level of a religion attached to a cult and formula and became a faith in moral values, demonstrable in the history of man and acceptable as rational truths for society.”

The Prophet Amos

At the National sanctuary of Beth El in the northern kingdom, speaking to a congregation gathered to practice the rites of a materialistic religion, the Prophet Amos addressed the Congregation: “I hate, I despise your feasts and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Yea, though you offer Me (God) burnt offerings md your meal offerings, I will not accept them. Neither will I regard the peace offerings of your fat beasts. Take thou away from Me the noise of thy songs. (meaning the liturgy chanted by the Levites in the temple) and let Me not hear the melody of thy viols. But let judgment run as waters and righteousness as a mighty stream.”

Some years later, Jeremiah spoke similar words to the people of the southern kingdom of Judah. Standing in the courtyard of the Temple in Jerusalem, he said: “Amend your ways and your doings and I will cause you to dwell in this place...If ye thoroughly amend your ways and doings, if ye thoroughly execute justice between a man and his neighbor, if ye oppress not the stranger and the fatherless and the widow, let not a wise man glory in his wisdom; neither let the mighty man glory in his might; let not the rich man glory in his riches. But let him that glorieth glory in this: that I am the Lord which exercises loving kindness, judgment and righteousness in the earth; for in these things I delight, Saith the Lord.”

The words of Amos, Jeremiah and the other Prophets, Berger pointed out, represented “...the first time that men talked of religion in terms of opposition to the oppression of other people and in terms of social values and human relationships. In the earlier period none of these considerations mattered. All that proved the validity of a religion was whether a people were able to harvest its crops and win its wars. If it failed in these things, they cast around for another god...here, however, was a man who began to talk of religion in terms of the relationships of man to man, and of man to society....The Prophets were the first in history to use language and to express ideas of this kind. And in that time in the evolution of man they were iconoclastic, revolutionary ideas.... Religion is now interpreted in terms of ethical values and human relationships.”

Reform Judaism’s Universal Vision

Reform Judaism, as it evolved in America, embraced the universal vision of the Prophets and rejected the nationalistic ethnocentrism which characterized Judaism’s early days, and which re-emerged in the 19th century in the form of Zionism. Rabbi Berger, referring to Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise, an early leader of American Reform Judaism, laments that, “The Reform Judaism which Wise conceived and which turned its back upon the medieval notion of a Jewish “nation” now indulges prayers for Israel Independence Day, teaches Zionism in its religious school textbooks, and advises that such ceremonial Hebrew as is still retained in the prayers follow the Israeli pronunciation.”

This book had an influence on my thinking. I understood that the American Council for Judaism was committed to the early ideas of American Reform Judaism, rejecting nationalism and embracing the universal moral and ethical tradition of the Prophets.

When I was in college, I took an English course titled “The Bible as Literature.” One of the lectures was on the subject: “If the Jews are the ‘chosen people,’ What Were They Chosen For.” Were they chosen for special responsibilities or certain rewards?

This question has been one I have thought about for some time. Over the years, I have come to the conclusion my professor suggested, that Jews were “chosen” for certain responsibilities, not for certain rewards. This goes back to the Prophets and their interpretation of chosenness, which represented a change in the very essence of Judaism. Under the covenant, which was modeled on a typical Middle Eastern treaty between ruler and ruled, God promised to bless and protect his faithful people. With the help of the Prophets, the chosen people came to understand that their obligations might be weightier than their privileges. This change came at the same time as the transformation of the tribal God of the armies to a universal God of compassion. The covenant, they came to understand, represented responsibilities, not privileges.

Responsibilities, Not Privileges

According to the Prophets, Amos, Hosea and Isaiah, being chosen by God no longer meant privilege, but responsibilities. This marks the beginning of a new religious awareness which began with Amos, denying the existence of all gods but Yahweh, yet stressing the importance of the chosen people, the prophet reconciled Jewish exceptionalism with a belief in a universal deity. This is a sharp break with the tribal God of Deuteronomy, who exalts Israel above all other peoples.

Deut, 7: 1-6 declares: “When the Lord your God brings you into the land which you are entering to take possession of it and clear away many nations before you...Then you must utterly destroy them ...For you are a people holy to the Lord your God; the Lord your God has chosen you to be a people of his own possession, out of all the peoples that are on the face of the earth.”

The Prophets insisted that Israel was chosen for a purpose other than destroying its enemies. When the Israelites were in exile in Babylon, this experience led to the sense of a universal God, a God for all nations. The survival of Judaism in exile further validated the sense of holiness. Jeremiah wrote to the exiles in Babylon urging them to adjust to their new circumstances: “Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters. ..Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.” (Jer. 29: 5-7)

Transportable God

The concept of the transportable God, the God who was everywhere, took root. The Babylonian exile distilled the essence of Judaism. The belief in Yahweh had become strong enough to survive the exile. The Israelites discovered that they could live in any land and worship God. The loss of Jerusalem marked the end of the National, tribal God as well as the temple cult. They came to understand that the God who loves all peoples does not desire temple sacrifice, but compassion and social justice, “this was the birth of true religion,” writes Rabbi Allan Tarshish in his book, “Not By Power, The Story of the Growth of Judaism.” He writes that, “By setting down great concepts that changed religion from tribalism and nationalism to universalism, from ritual to moral action they kept Judaism alive and laid down the foundation of all modern religions. The Prophets taught that the one God of the Israelites was God of all the world. ‘For my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.’ {Isaiah 56: 6). And the Jews were to bring this message to all the peoples of the world.”

According to the Prophets, the Jews had a mission. They were to become God’s servants and spread the truth about justice and mercy. This is a divine election that goes beyond any tribal theology of nationalism. It embraces the idea that Jews were to carry God’s message to the world. The idea of confining themselves to one small place was completely alien to their thinking. That would have made the Jews like everyone else and made it impossible to fulfill their mission. This is an extension, writes Tarshish, “of the original charge to Abraham to be a blessing.”

While much of Judaism continued to adhere to a pre-prophetic idea of “chosenness,” it was Reform Judaism which came to view Jews as a “mission people,” whereby morality became the Jewish mission. It rejected the idea of “exile” and the desire to reestablish a Jewish Commonwealth in Palestine. The first Reform prayer book eliminated all references to Jews being in exile and to a Messiah who would miraculously restore Jews throughout the world to the historic Land of Israel and who would rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem. The prayer book eliminated all prayers for a return to Zion.

Progressive Revelation

Perhaps the most prominent of the early Reform leaders in 19th century Germany was Rabbi Abraham Geiger. He argued that Judaism developed through an evolutionary process that had begun with God’s revelation to the Hebrew prophets. The revelation was progressive; new truth became available to every generation. The underlying and unchangeable essence of Judaism was ethical monotheism. The Jewish people were a religious community, destined to carry on the mission to “serve as a light to the nations,”. To bear witness to God and His moral law. The dispersion of the Jews was not punishment for their sins, but part of God’s plan whereby they were To disseminate the universal message of ethical monotheism.

In 1885, Reform rabbis, meeting in Pittsburgh, wrote an eight-point platform that one participant called “the most succinct expression of the theology of the Reform movement that had ever been published in the world.” The platform emphasized that Reform Judaism denied nationalism of any variety. It declared, “We recognize in the era of universal culture of heart and intellect, the approaching realization of Israel’s great messianic hope for the establishment of the kingdom of truth, justice and peace among all men. We consider ourselves no longer a nation, but a religious community, and therefore expect neither a return to Palestine, nor a sacrificial worship under the sons of Aaron, nor the restoration of any of the laws concerning the Jewish state.”

In 1897, the Central Conference of American Rabbi’s adopted a resolution disapproving of any attempt to establish a Jewish state. The resolution declared, “Zion was a precious possession of the past...as such it is a holy memory, but it is not our hope of the future. America is our Zion.”

“What Are The Jews?”

One of the leading Jewish theologians and philosophers of the 20th century, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Herschel, who marched with the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. for civil rights for all people, said that, “Judaism is not a religion of space and does not worship the soil. So, too, the State of Israel is not the climax of Jewish history, but a test of the integrity of the Jewish people and the competence of Israel.”

The man most prominently identified with Reform Judaism in 19th century America was Isaac Mayer Wise, a rabbi who came to the United States from Bohemia. He saw American democracy as the fulfillment, in practice of the Prophetic principles which, to him, were the important elements in Judaism. In 1854 he said, “Moses formed one pole and the American Revolution the other, of an axis around which revolved the political history of 33 centuries.” He considered America the “universal republic.” And Judaism, he held, was the “universal religion.” He believed that, “In its pure and denationalized form,” all religions of men must come to the basic truths of Judaism. In Wise’s view, “Only that portion of Judaism which will and must become the common good of all men, is religion to us, and only in this respect are we Jews. All other laws, ordinances, customs and usages ...have a secondary importance to us...Legalism is not Judaism, nor is mysticism religion.”

Jesus, “The most influential rabbi in history.”

In the view of early Reform Jewish leaders, the major religions of the Western world and the Middle East—-Judaism, Christianity and Islam——had a great deal in common. Rabbi Evan Moffic called Jesus “the most influential rabbi in history. We have almost 3 billion Christians in the world, and thus Jesus has been the most influential rabbi in terms of world historical impact.” Jewish scholars note that the common poetic expression, “Our father in heaven” was used literally by Jesus in the Lord’s Prayer. The early Reform Jewish leader Emil G. Hirsch said of Jesus, “he is one of us.” Hirsch was one of several liberal rabbis, including Kaufman Kohler, who sought to place Jesus in the pantheon of Jewish prophets and teachers. They argued that the Sermon on the Mount should be studied at Jewish religious schools. As an expression of the Jewish religious tradition.

In 1879, Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise wrote of Paul Of Tarsus: “Paul conceived the idea of carrying into effect what all the Prophets and all the pious Israelites of all ages hoped and expected, the denationalization of the Hebrew ideal and its promulgation in the form of universal religion among the Gentiles, so that the whole human family might be united beneath the banner inscribed with the motto: ‘One god and one humanity.’”

In his book “The First Christian,” the Rev. A. Powell Davies, a Unitarian minister, asks what it means when a person calls himself a Christian. Does it mean they are followers of what Jesus preached, which was Judaism, or the religion about Jesus which was later established by Paul. Rabbi John Rayner, for many years a leader of Liberal Judaism in the United Kingdom noted that, “The religious beliefs and values Jesus affirmed and taught were those of Judaism and not any other religion. In short, he was Jewish through and through. And the idea of founding a new and different religion never crossed his mind.”

Prophetic Universalism

Judaism would have continued to move toward the prophetic universalism of the early Reformers, it is widely believed, if it was not for the rising anti-Semitism in Russia and Eastern Europe at the end of the 19th century followed by the rise of Nazism in Germany in the 1930s. In the wake of the Holocaust, many Jews began to look positively upon the idea of creating a Jewish state in Palestine as a refuge for the victims of persecution. Jewish organizations in the U.S. which had always opposed Zionism, a philosophy which held that Jews living outside of Palestine were in “exile” and urged all Jews to emigrate, began to view it more favorably. Slowly, even Reform Judaism embraced it. The American Council for Judaism was created in 1942 to maintain the philosophy of a universal Judaism, free of nationalism and politicization. American Jews, they proclaimed, were American by nationality and Jews by religion, just as other Americans were Protestant, Catholic or Muslim. In his keynote address, Rabbi David Phillipson declared that Zionism and Reform Judaism were incompatible: “Reform Judaism is spiritual, Zionism is political. The outlook of Zionism is a corner of Eastern Asia.” The first pledge of major financial backing was made by Aaron Strauss, a nephew and heir of Levi Strauss of blue jeans fame.

An early leader of the Council, and one I got to know during my early years with the organization, was Rabbi Morris Lazaron, who served from 1915 to 1946 as rabbi of the Baltimore Hebrew Congregation. He was originally a supporter of cultural Zionism, but later altered his views. Slowly, he discovered that Zionist nationalism was not different from other forms of nationalism: “The Jewish nationalist philosophy of separateness as a people who would always and inevitably be rejected because they were Jews boldly asserted itself. The idea seems to have been to break down the self- confidence and opposition to Jewish nationalism...Behind the mask of Jewish settlement, one can see the specter of the foul thing which moves Germany and Italy. Behind the camouflage of its unquestioned appeal to Jewish feeling, one can hear a chorus of ‘Heil.’ This is not for Jews—-Reform, Conservative or Orthodox.” Speaking at the January 1937 annual meeting of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations in New Orleans, Lazaron declared: “Judaism cannot accept as the instrument of salvation the very philosophy of nationalism which is leading the world to destruction. Shall we condemn it as Italian or German, but accept it as Jewish?”

Rabbis who joined the Council led some of the nation’s leading congregations. Among them were Samuel Goldenson of New York, Irving Reichart of San Francisco, David Marx of Atlanta, Edward Calisch of Richmond, Henry Cohen of Galveston, Samuel Koch of Seattle and Julian Feibelman of New Orleans. The Council also recruited many nationally prominent laypersons including Judge Marcus Sloss of the California Supreme Court, Herbert and Stanley Marcus of the Nieman-Marcus company in Dallas, Admiral Lewis L. Strauss, and Alfred M. Cohen, president of B’nai B’rith.

Lessing J. Rosenwald

The first president of the Council, who I got to know, was Lessing J. Rosenwald, who had retired as chairman of Sears Roebuck and Co., which was founded by his father, the respected philanthropist Julian Rosenwald who, among many other things, worked with Booker T. Washington to build schools for black children in the South after the Civil War. Both Julius and Lessing Rosenwald were firm believers in the principles of social justice advocated by early Reform Jewish spokesmen. They found Jewish nationalism to be contrary to the universal Prophetic Judaism to which they adhered.

Rabbi Reichart made his first significant declaration of opposition to Zionism in a January 1936 sermon: “if my reading of Jewish history is correct, Israel took upon itself the yoke of the Law not in Palestine, but in the wilderness at Mt. Sinai and by far the greater part of...its distinguished contribution to world culture was produced not in Palestine but in Babylon and the lands of the Dispersion. Jewish states may rise and fall, as they have risen and fallen in the past, but the people of Israel will continue to minister at the altar of the most high God in all the lands in which they dwell...There is too dangerous a parallel between the insistence of some Zionist spokesmen upon nationality and race and blood, and similar pronouncements by fascist leaders in Europe.”

When the American Council for Judaism was established, Judah Magnes , chancellor of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, wrote a letter endorsing its statement of principles: “It is true that Jewish nationalism tends to confuse people not because it is secular and not religious , but because this nationalism is unhappily chauvinistic and narrow and terroristic in the best style of Eastern European nationalism.”

German Romantic Nationalism

From 1943 to 1948, the Council conducted its public campaign against Zionism. One of the speakers at its 1945 conference was Hans Kohn, a one- time German Zionist associated with the University in Exile in New York. He declared, “The Jewish nationalist philosophy has developed entirely under German influence, the German romantic nationalism with the emphasis on blood, race and descent as the most determining factor in human life, its historicizing attempt to connect with a legendary past 2,000 or so years ago, its emphasis on folk as a mythical body, the source of civilization.”

In his book, “Jews Against Zionism, The American Council for Judaism, 1941- 1948,” professor Thomas Kolsky writes: “The anti-Zionism of the American Council for Judaism represented an American Jewish tradition older than Zionism. Most of the leaders and the rank and file of the ACJ were highly acculturated Reform Jews, who rejected Jewish nationalism and defined themselves as a purely religious group. They opposed Zionism not only as self-segregation tantamount to a return to the ghetto but also fundamentally contrary to democratic principles.”

In the face of the 1947 partition of Palestine, the Council wished the new state well, and declared its determination to resist Zionist efforts to dominate Jewish life in America. The Council was, many have now come to see, prophetic. Jonathan Sarna, a Brandeis University historian and author of the book “American Judaism,”. Says that, “Everything they (the American Council for Judaism) prophesied—-dual loyalty, nationalism being evil—has come to pass.” He states that, “It’s certainly the case that if the Holocaust underscored the problems of Jewish life in the Diaspora, recent years have highlighted the point that Zionism is no panacea.”

Nationality and Religion are Separate and Distinct

In January 1948, the Council adopted a statement of principles which declared in part, “Nationality and religion are separate and distinct. Our nationality is American, Our religion is Judaism. our homeland is the United States of America. We reject any concept that Jews are at home only in Palestine.”

In the book “Reclaiming Judaism From Zionism,” professor Carolyn L. Karcher says the Council was prophetic in its assessment of where Zionism would lead. Rejecting the ethnocentric nationalism Zionism embraced, the Council, she writes, “...promoted democracy, human rights and human solidarity as the continued alternative to Zionism and the ultimate solution to racial, ethnic and religious bigotry of all kinds.”

Trivializing Judaism

The more I studied the history of Judaism and its intimate connection with Christianity and Islam, the more it became clear to me that Zionism, and those who incorporated it into Judaism in the post-World War ll years, had trivialized its meaning and essence, and its essential contribution to mankind, in particular to Western civilization. In his book “the Gifts of the Jews,” Thomas Cahill writes, “Without the Jews, we would see the world with different eyes, hear with different ears, and even feel with different feelings...The people of the Western world, for better or worse, the role of the West in humanity’s history, is singular. There is simply no one else remotely like them. Theirs is a unique vocation. Indeed, the very idea of vocation, of a personal destiny, is a Jewish idea.”

Though the Bible is considered the book of the Western world, its foundation document, Cahill notes that, “...it actually is a collection of books, a various library, written entirely in Hebrew over the course of a thousand years. ...When God reveals his plan of destruction for Sodom and Gomorrah Abraham attempts to reason with him. ‘Will you really sweep away the innocent along with the guilty?’ By questioning God, who has gradually been revealing his awesome grandeur to Abraham, the patriarch exhibits striking courage that will reappear in his descendants throughout the ages to come. A veritable tug-of-war ensues, ending with God’s promise is to stay his hand if as few as ten innocents are found within the walls of those cities.”

Beyond this, Cahill points out, “The Jews gave us a whole new vocabulary of the spirit, an inner landscape of ideas and feelings that had never been known before. Over many centuries of trauma. And suffering they came to believe in one God. Because of their unique belief, monotheism, the Jews were able to give us the Great Whole, a unified universe that makes sense and, because of its evident superiority as a world view, completely overwhelming the warring and contradictory phenomena of polytheism, they gave us the conscience of the West, the belief that this God, who is one, is not the God of outward show, but the “still small voice’ of conscience, the God of compassion, the God who will be there, the Lord who cares about each of his creatures, especially the human beings he created ‘in his own image.’ And he insists that we do the same.”

Ethnocentrism and Universalism.

The ethnocentrism found in the early books of the Bible, and promoted in more recent times by Zionism, was superseded by a universalism and concern for all of humanity which was embraced by Reform Judaism and has been kept alive by the American Council for Judaism. The gradual universalization of Jewish ideas can be seen in the story of Ruth, the Moabite, and was foreseen by Joel, a late prophet: “And it shall come to pass afterward that I shall pour out my spirit on all humanity. your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old people shall dream dreams, and your young people see visions.”

The Jews, Thomas Cahill concludes, “...gave us the outside and the inside—- our outlook and our inner life. we can hardly get up in the morning or cross the street without being Jewish. We dream Jewish dreams and hope Jewish hopes. Most of our best words: war, adventure, purpose, unique, individual, person, history, freedom, progress, hope—-are the gifts of the Jews.”

It was always my view that Judaism’s significant contribution to the world was being trivialized by Zionism. If it had not been for the Holocaust, Zionism would have remained a minority view within the Jewish community. Now, sympathy for Zionism among American Jews is in steady decline and the classical Reform Jewish commitment to Prophetic Judaism and universalism, which the American Council for Judaism has kept alive, increasingly characterizes the views of American Jews, particularly those in the younger generation.

Israel As a Source of Division

In his book “Trouble in The Tribe: The American Jewish Conflict Over Israel,” Professor Dov Waxman of Northeastern University writes: “A historic change has been taking place in the American Jewish relationship with Israel. Israel is fast becoming a source of division rather than unity for American Jewry...This echoes earlier debates about Zionism which occurred before 1948. Then, as now, there were fierce disagreements among American Jews and the American Jewish establishment...It was only after Israel’s founding that the communal consensus came to dominate American Jewish politics. Thus, from a historical perspective, the pro-Israel consensus that once reigned within the American Jewish community is the aberration, rather than the rule. Jewish division on Israel is historically the norm.”

Beyond this, Waxman notes that the overwhelming majority of American Jews, while wishing Israel well, were never really Zionists: “Classical Zionism has never had much relevance or appeal to American Jewry. Indeed, the vast majority of American Jews reject the basic elements of classical Zionism—- that Diaspora Jews live in exile, that Jewish life in Israel is superior to life in the Diaspora, and that Diaspora Jewish life is doomed to eventually disappear. American Jews do not think that they live in exile and they do not regard Israel as their homeland...For many American Jews, America is more than just home, it is itself a kind of Zion, an ‘almost promised land’ Zionism has never succeeded in winning over the majority of American Jews.”

Optimism About The Future

I am optimistic about the future. More and more American Jews are expressing their commitment to social justice, in part, by rejecting Israel’s treatment of Palestinians. They believe that religion should bring us together, not divide us. They may not know it, but the Judaism they are embracing is very much like the Judaism the American Council for Judaism has kept alive. It is likely to grow and thrive in the future. I hope that when my grandchildren are old enough to read the book I have prepared—-and this article—-they will get an idea of their grandfather’s. values and thoughts. I hope they will live in a better world and will help to make it so. *