Religious Zionism: History and Ideology 9781618110978

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Religious-Zionism History and Ideology

Emunot: Jewish Philosophy and Kabbalah

Dov Schwartz (Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan), Series Editor Editorial board Ada Rapoport-Albert (University College, London) Gad Freudenthal (C.N.R.S, Paris) Gideon Freudenthal (Tel Aviv University) Moshe Idel (Hebrew University, Jerusalem) Raphael Jospe (Bar-Ilan University) Ephraim Kanarfogel (Yeshiva University) Menachem Kellner (Haifa University) Daniel Lasker (Ben-Gurion University, Beer Sheva)

Religious-Zionism History and Ideology

Dov Schwartz Translated by Batya Stein

Boston 2009

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Schwartz, Dov. Religious-Zionism : history and ideology / Dov Schwartz ; translated by Batya Stein. p. cm. — (Emunot: Jewish philosophy and Kabbalah) ISBN 978-1-934843-25-3 1. Religious-Zionism. 2. Religious-Zionism—History. I. Title. DS150.R32S3694 2009 320.54095694—dc22 2008050465

Copyright © 2009 Academic Studies Press All rights reserved ISBN 978-1-934843-25-3 Book design by Yuri Alexandrov

Published by Academic Studies Press in 2009 28 Montfern Avenue Brighton, MA 02135, USA [email protected] www.academicstudiespress.com

iv

Contents

Preface

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii

Chapter One. A Revolutionary Consciousness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Chapter Two. Rabbi Reines and the Foundation of the Mizrachi . . . . . . . . . 10 Chapter Three. Religious-Zionist Education: Beginnings . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Chapter Four. Rav Kook: An Orthodox-National Alternative to Religious-Zionism 27 Chapter Five. The Foundation of the Chief Rabbinate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 Chapter Six. Ha-Po‘el ha-Mizrachi: Against the Exile and the Bourgeoisie . . . 42 Chapter Seven. Criticizing Zionist Policy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 Chapter Eight. The Settlement Drive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 Chapter Nine. Religious-Zionism and the Holocaust . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71 Chapter Ten. Israel’s First Years: Hopes and Disappointments . . . . . . . . . . 81 Chapter Eleven. From Rearguard to Vanguard: The Struggle for Greater Israel . . 95 Chapter Twelve. Religious-Zionism in the United States . . . . . . . . . . . . 105 Chapter Thirteen. Religious-Zionism: Present and Future . . . . . . . . . . . 115 Bibliography

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124

Index of Names . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138 Index of Subjects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143

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Contents

vi

Preface

PREFACE

In this book, I review the history of religious-Zionism from a historical and ideological-theological perspective. My basic assumption is that religiousZionism cannot be fully understood solely through a historical description, or even from social, political, and philosophical vantage points. A periodization assumption is warranted here: religious-Zionism was established in 1902 with the creation of the Mizrachi, and traces its roots to the Hibbat Zion movement. To some extent, religious-Zionist thought represents a continuation of the work of Mordechai Eliasberg, Shmuel Mohilewer, and Naphtali Zvi Berlin (Ha-Natziv), central Hibbat Zion leaders in their spiritual influence and in their action who understood, for instance, that the ideal of national renaissance requires them to be open to general culture. Some scholars have dated the beginning of religious-Zionism to the end of the nineteenth century and even earlier. Religious-Zionist historiography has indeed attempted to emphasize the movement’s continuity and, in this view, Abraham was the first Zionist and Nahmanides’ emigration to Eretz Israel was another landmark in the realization of the Zionist-religious ideal. My approach, however, views the creation of the Mizrachi as the true revolution. At this point, the religious and rabbinic world entered institutionalized politics and, to some extent, assumed the demands of modernity. At this point, religious Jews acknowledged that the promotion of their cause depended upon their recognition of the secular political establishment (the World Zionist Organization) and actual involvement in its activity. Through this act, the followers of Yitzhak Ya‘akov Reines and Ze’ev Jawitz recognize that the redemption of the people and of the land is led by a secular institution that strives to establish a secular regime and a secular culture. Hibbat Zion members did not take such a step and did not commit themselves to the identity crisis that accompanied it. Religious-Zionism, then, begins when the Mizrachi becomes a faction of the World Zionist Organization. vii

Preface

I am grateful to Brill for permission to include in this book an adapted version of entries I wrote for the Encyclopaedia of Judaism, edited by Jacob Neusner, Alan J. Avery-Peck, and William Scott Green. I would like to thank Dr. Raphael Jospe for his comments and David Louvish for the translation of a previous version of Chapter One. This work was translated and edited by Batya Stein, who skilfully turned it into a clear, fluid, and unified text, and I thank her for it.

Religious-Zionism History and Ideology

Contents

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A Revolutionary Consciousness

Chapter One

A REVOLUTIONARY CONSCIOUSNESS

Religious-Zionist thinkers were inspired by a revolutionary spirit from the movement’s very inception (1902). Yet, whereas the revolutionary motivation of secular Zionism is well known and has been documented and researched,1 religious-Zionism has not fared so well. The religious-Zionist community, however, was a partner to the Zionist revolution, and the extent and complexity of its revolutionary drive is even more impressive against the conservative, traditionalist background that has accompanied it throughout its existence. As far as the messianic and political idea in Judaism is concerned, the very appearance of a religious-Zionist ideology was revolutionary. For the first time, human initiative took direct and surprisingly forceful action, explicitly rebelling against the passivity of the exiled Jewish people, refusing to await redemption by divine means. Another aspect of the revolutionary element was the desire to create a new religious type, a ”redeemed person” who would respond to the demands posed by the need to construct a modern political entity, reshaping his or her religious faith in accordance with these demands. The entry into organized politics signaled by the founding of the Mizrachi movement, the political expression of religious-Zionism, was a major landmark in the emergent revolutionism and its institutionalization. My aim in this chapter is to set out the fundamentals of religious-Zionist revolutionism.

DEFINITION

Concerning their self-definition as a group, religious-Zionists rejected the community cell as the exclusive expression of a religious (or rather, religiously observant) minority. These cells, though at times well-organized, lacked national and sovereign features and were subject to the authority of the gentile 1

Chapter One

majority. Instead, religious-Zionists aimed for a national status, where “nation” stands for a politically and religiously independent entity with its own land, language, and other national characteristics. Religious-Zionism, then, spurned the existing exilic status and sought another: ”We are determined to create something new.”2 One consequence of the desire to shift from community cell to nation was the negation of galut, the existence of the Jewish people in exile uprooted from its homeland. Religious-Zionism defined itself as ”a movement built on the pure recognition of the concepts of Judaism and on our historical spiritual values, free from galut (exile) influence.”3 One of the movement’s foremost spiritual mentors likened galut to ”the burial place of our national body.”4 R. Eliezer Berkovitz, a significant religious-Zionist thinker who also officiated as a rabbi in Sidney and Boston, pointed out that galut is considered an abnormal condition even though the Jewish people have lived longer in exile than in Eretz Israel.5 For the religious-Zionist thinker, galut was an anomalous episode, tantamount to denial of the nation’s real identity, while the return to the national homeland and language was a ”return to ourselves, to the roots of our individuality.”6 Galut was landlessness, while the national renaissance meant ”life in the bosom of nature.”7 Galut erected a barrier between the sacred and the profane, between Torah and wisdom, while the national renaissance meant a return to unity and full sanctity.8 Some Zionist thinkers, and religious ones in particular, have emphasized the revival of the Jewish nation as a united people, by contrast with the plethora of movements characterizing Jewish society in the Emancipation period.9 Attaining national status was turned into a dogma, a basic principle underpinning Judaism: “Whoever does not believe in the future of the Jewish people in its historical land divests the Torah of its meaning.”10 The rejection of ”galut negativity”11 became an unequivocal goal. The very founding of the Mizrachi as an independent faction in the Zionist Organization marked a profound change, from partnership and membership of observant individuals in organizations and movements (such as Hibbat Zion) to institutionalized political involvement. This is a momentous event in the political thought of traditionalist Judaism. Many in the religious-Zionist camp adhered to Marxist theory, which holds that the very fact of organization is expressive of revolutionary consciousness. Many young Jews, including Rav Kook’s colleague and disciple R. David Cohen (known as ha-Nazir), were involved in revolutionary activity in Russia at the turn of the century. Suffering, exploited Jews were viewed as parallel to proletarians, redeemed through an act of organization that highlighted their special status. Another aspect 2

A Revolutionary Consciousness

of the political changes that religious-Zionism brought to the traditionalist world at a relatively early stage of the Mizrachi was the very use of modern political terminology, indicative of future forms of government. In sum, religious-Zionism’s total negation of galut and its desire to modify the nation’s self-definition were unmistakable expressions of revolt and revolutionism. The revolutionism implicit in the very fact of political organization is particularly evident in light of a well-known quip of Nahum Goldmann, to the effect that the only Jewish statesman in thousands of years of exile was the Messiah. The fascination implicit in the idea of political organization before the advent of the Messiah may also be discerned in discussions about the messianic status of the modern State of Israel.12

MESSIANIC-THEOLOGICAL SIGNIFICANCE

Religious-Zionism lent legitimacy to human efforts aiming to shape divine and cosmic events, such as redemption and the revival of Jewish nationality. Indeed, cosmic events owed at least their inception to a human agent. Exclusively divine action was no longer the sole factor shaping the fate of humankind and the world. What was revolutionary here was that a mortal, as it were, would take God’s place in paving the road to redemption. Even the most apocalyptically minded thinkers, such as Rav Kook, his students, and his ”grand-students,” who defined ultimate redemption as an eminently miraculous situation — particularly in regard to the imminent resurrection of the dead — had to admit that the process was initiated by human beings and entrusted to human hands. Religious-Zionism was quite aware of the theological revolution implicit in the very fact that it saw itself as an active partner in redemption, an awareness already evident in the writings of its founding father, R. Yitzhak Ya‘akov Reines. Reines explicitly associated the Hibbat Zion movement with imminent redemption, frequently resorting to typically apocalyptic terms.13 God, as it were, was waiting for mortals to initiate the redemptive process, and would intervene only then: “[T]he unexpected fruits of human endeavor reveal themselves as the mysterious manifestation of divine guidance.”14 The implications of this approach for the ideas of the divine and of divine providence are fundamental and need not be discussed here. At the same time, Eretz Israel was brought down, as it were, from heaven to earth, no longer a divine, spiritual realm, but a temporal, concrete land. Although its divine dimension as the Holy Land was preserved, and even 3

Chapter One

enhanced and expanded, the once-hidden temporal dimension now came to light. The nation’s link with its homeland, once an abstract, disembodied yearning, could now focus on a real land: “This primeval right of the Jewish people to its land is not abstract, and its validity is not confined to the realm of its special spiritual qualities.”15 Two approaches developed with regard to this ”descent” of the land from metaphysical heights to the practical world. Some saw it as a shift from the divine interior to the divine exterior, whereas others believed that the land would, so to speak, drag God down with it, implying the divine presence in the very clods of its earth.16 In any event, the abstract deity was now tied to the terrestrial soil — a revolutionary theological step in the context of traditional thought.

ANTHROPOLOGICAL SIGNIFICANCE

Religious-Zionism wished to create what was almost a new anthropological model: the religious type of the messianic world.17 The earliest supporters of religious-Zionism clearly distinguished between the galut person — egotistical, self-concerned — and the new person, whose actions were conditioned by the needs of the community;18 between the religiosity of instinct and the religiosity of purposeful awareness;19 between a depression-like psychological state of fear and trembling and a state of mental health;20 and between alienation from general culture and involvement in it. Religious-Zionists could point to the practical, external achievements of Zionism: the metamorphosis of an entire nation, the waves of immigration to Eretz Israel, the rebuilding and replanting of the land, the pioneering spirit, the revival of Hebrew as a spoken language, and the establishment of modern Hebrew education — all achievements that, although firmly rooted in the soil of history, constitute an ongoing process. As Avia‘d observed, however, one phenomenon was entirely internal: the creation of a new person, the liberated Jew — the resurrection of the individual within a liberated nation.21 R. Joseph B. Soloveitchik declared: Providence demands of us now, perhaps for the first time in Jewish history, to meet the outside world with pride and courage, with the kippah on the head and Tractate Yebamoth in the hand, and to sanctify it by conquest . . . Wherever we place our feet — be it in the laboratory or in the business office, in the university campus or in the factory — must be sanctified by us: that the young man who enters there subdues them and does not allow the secular to swallow up the the holy.22 4

A Revolutionary Consciousness

The new type of person could not be created unless the very state of galut was shattered so as to expose the new reality. To this day, the national renaissance in Eretz Israel is understood as a recovery from ”the malady of galut.”23 Formally speaking, indeed, the goal was to retrieve the ancient past, a time when Israel was living an autonomous life upon its own land. But religious-Zionist thinkers were well aware that the rebuilding of the nation demanded new cultural orientations, hence also suitable educational preparation, in order to mold and stabilize the new type.24

REVOLT AGAINST RABBINICAL AUTHORITY

In adopting the messianic initiative, proponents of religious-Zionism necessarily brought the movement into conflict with the rabbinical leadership. With few individual exceptions, it seems clear that religious-Zionism did not rebel against rabbinical authority willingly or deliberately. Revolt grew out of a given situation, in which most leaders of the Torah world were opposed to the Zionist movement and rejected it outright. Mizrachi leaders have admitted they were well aware that their efforts for the homeland would require them to abandon their religious mentors.25 They knew that Zionist action involved activism of a pioneering and political variety foreign to the existing Torah world, a type of activity for which the traditional yeshiva student was not well suited.26 This was a notable expression of the revolutionary element in religious-Zionism. Through various conflicts and arguments, such as the controversy over women’s right to vote that erupted toward the end of the 1910s, representatives of the Mizrachi in Palestine and in the Diaspora gradually arrived at a position that limited rabbinic authority. Such questions, they argued, were cultural rather than religious;27 or, as one Mizrachi leader put it in particularly blunt terms: ”In matters of issur ve-hetter [“purely” religious matters] . . . we consult the rabbis, but in matters of life in the marketplace, they must ask us.”28 Another case was the controversy over ”partition” (1937), when certain rabbis insisted that political questions such as the partition of Palestine were not halakhic issues.29 This view contrasts sharply with the idea of Da‘at Torah [Torah opinion] current today in the ultra-Orthodox community. The rebellion went so far as to challenge Hasidic leadership, rejecting the authority of the admorim [Hasidic leaders]. In areas formerly under the exclusive sway of Hasidism, religious-Zionists arose and issued a call: 5

Chapter One

Release the followers and students of Torah from the chains and yoke of admorut; this admorut, now empty both of its original content and of its original nature, which has been so bold as to prohibit the Land of Israel and the Hebrew tongue; this admorut, so remote from worldly life and the life and desires of the nation, that is nothing but an instrument of wrath wielded by a few unknown and irresponsible persons.30

Judah Leib Avid‘a (Zlotnick), bewailed the fact that “the ritual of admorut” still existed in Mizrachi circles, and was concerned lest certain people transfer this ritual to Eretz Israel as well . . . Surely no-one would dare suspect these admorim of hardening their hearts, of cruelty, but we see here people who are remote from life, for whom the matters of the people are foreign and strange, and who are unaware of the nation’s sorrow. The time has come, then, to explain to all ranks of haredim that these people, for all their greatness in Torah and observance, cannot direct the nation in its way of life and lead it to its renaissance.31

Even the opponents of this view, who believed they could continue to follow Hasidic leaders devoutly while relying in political matters on Sokolow, Weizmann, and others, admitted quite freely that the admorim were ignorant of politics.32 Many prominent religious-Zionist thinkers worked hard to conceal the revolt against rabbinical authority. Against them, however, many leaders of the Mizrachi, particularly of various factions in the Torah va-Avodah movement, emphatically rejected total rabbinical authority and refused to accept the idea that rabbis should be blindly obeyed.33 For long periods, indifference to rabbinical leadership was indeed a fact. Menachem Zvi Kadari, a leader of Hungarian Bnei Akiva in 1943–1946 and later rector of Bar-Ilan University, writes on contemporary attitudes: “No one thought that rabbis were needed at the head of a political movement. Nothing wrong with a member who had reached a high level in his rabbinic studies: he could go on being active in the leadership. But bringing in rabbis in from outside to serve in key positions in the movement would not have been proper.”34 Many had indeed renounced hope that the Chief Rabbinate would be a harbinger of the Sanhedrin’s reinstitution. Despite this spectrum of reactions in different groups and places, the revolutionary dimension appears to be the practical result of the three others. In recent years, the position of religious-Zionism vis-à-vis rabbinical authority has weakened, and many of its leaders have come to accept rabbinical discipline 6

A Revolutionary Consciousness

and advocate obedience to rabbinical opinion. Nevertheless, witness the 1998 decision of the Central Committee of the National Religious Party not to leave the government over the decision to implement the Wye Plantation agreement, although called to do so by several rabbis who were viewed as the party’s spiritual leaders. Note, however, that rabbis have also assumed political leadership roles. This process, resulting from a variety of factors, calls for interdisciplinary research.

CONCLUSION

The four aspects detailed above reveal the fundamental characteristics of a revolution. One basic feature of revolutionism is the comprehensiveness of social change.35 This element, traceable in the major revolutions of both East and West, is also valid for national revolutions, such as Zionism in general and religious-Zionism in particular. The most cautious formulations of religiousZionism’s founders at the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth reveal an uncompromising readiness to adopt the deep social and religious changes implied by Zionist action. The desire for change and rebellion became manifest, as noted, in various areas. Religious-Zionism, therefore, had obviously developed a strongly revolutionary consciousness, a fact that runs counter to its exclusion from the power centers of the Yishuv and the young State of Israel. This situation changed after the Six-Day War, and the newly emerging circumstances.36

NOTES 1 Thus, the translators of David Vital’s classical trilogy on the history of Zionism entitled it The Zionist Revolution (in Hebrew), 3 vols. (Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 1978– 1991). 2 Yeshayahu Avi‘ad (Wolfsberg), Judaism and Present (in Hebrew) (Jerusalem: WZO, 1962), p. 117. Avi‘ad was a leader of religious-Zionism in Germany. 3 Shmuel Hayyim Landau (known as Shahal), Writings (in Hebrew) (Warsaw: HaShomer Ha-Dati in Poland, 1935), p. 27. On various aspects of the negation of galut in religious-Zionist thought, see, at length, Eliezer Don-Yehiya, “The Negation of Galut in Religious-Zionism,” Modern Judaism 12 (1992), pp. 129–155. 4 Zvi Yehuda Kook, From Within the Redeeming Torah (in Hebrew) (Jerusalem: Zemah Zvi, 1983), p. 80. 7

Chapter One

5 Eliezer Berkovitz, Faith after the Holocaust (New York: Ktav, 1973), p. 120. 6 Yeshayahu Bernstein, Mission and Pathway (in Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Moreshet, 1956), p. 87. 7 Nehemiah Aminoah, “Our Goals in the Moshavei Ovdim” (in Hebrew), in Yalkut: An Anthology on the Torah va-Avodah Idea, ed. Nehemiah Aminoah and Yeshayahu Bernstein (Jerusalem: Torah va-Avodah, 1931), p. 105. 8 Moshe Zvi Neriah, in the name of Rav Kook, published in The Seventh Convention of Ha-Po‘el ha-Mizrachi Movement in Eretz Israel (1935), ed. Yossi Avneri (Ramat-Gan: Bar-Ilan University, 1988), p. 64. 9 See Judah Leib Maimon (Fishman), For the Hour and for the Generation (in Hebrew) (Jerusalem: Mosad Ha-Rav Kook, 1965), p. 96. 10 Moshe Shmuel Glasner, “Zionism in the Light of Faith” (in Hebrew), in Torah and Kingdom: The State in Judaism, ed. Shimon Federbusch (Jerusalem: Mosad HaRav Kook, 1961), p. 67. Glasner was one of the first Hungarian rabbis to espouse Zionism. See also Dov Schwartz, Faith at the Crossroads, trans. Batya Stein (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 1996), p. 8; idem, The Land of Israel in Religious-Zionist Thought (in Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 1997), pp. 31–33 and passim. 11 The term was coined by Moshe Unna, In the Paths of Thought and Deed (in Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Ha-Kibbutz Ha-Dati, 1955), p. 63. 12 See Shlomo Goren, former Chief Rabbi of Israel, The Theory of the State (in Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Yedi‘ot Aharonot, 1996), pp. 18–27. 13 See discussion and quotations in Yosef Shapira, Thought and Halakhah in the Philosophy of Rabbi Yitzhak Ya‘akov Reines (in Hebrew) (Ph. D. Dissertation: Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1997), pp. 133–135. Cf. Michael Zvi Nehorai, “Rav Reines and Rav Kook: Two Views of Zionism,” in The World of Rav Kook’s Thought, ed. Benjamin Ish-Shalom and Shalom Rosenberg, trans. Shalom Carmy and Bernard Casper (New York: Avi Chai, 1991), pp. 255–267. 14 Berkovits, Faith after the Holocaust, p. 156. 15 Shlomo Goren, The Theory of the Festivals (in Hebrew) (Jerusalem: Ha-Idra and Masorah La-Am, 1996), p. 642. 16 For an account of these two approaches, see Schwartz, The Land of Israel in ReligiousZionist Thought. 17 There is a certain parallel here to the secular-Zionist myth of the “new Jew.” See Anita Shapira, New Jews, Old Jews (in Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 1997), pp. 155–174. 18 See Glasner, “Zionism in the Light of Faith,” p. 72. 19 See Abraham Yitzhak Kook, Ma’amrei ha-Ra’ayah [Collected Essays], vol. 1 (Jerusalem: n. p., 1980), p. 30. 20 See Zvi Yehuda Kook, On the Paths of Israel (in Hebrew), vol. 1 (Jerusalem: Machon Zvi Yehuda Hacohen Kook, 1989), pp. 136–137. Shlomo Aviner, a contemporary religious-Zionist rabbi, wrote: “Just as fear belongs to exile and courage is revealed in the era of redemption, so self-humbling before the Gentiles was fitting for exile . . . as opposed the straightening of our public stature now being revealed in our midst.” Am ke-Lavi, vol. 2 (Jerusalem, n. p., 1983), pp. 184–185. 21 Avi‘ad, Judaism and Present, p. 30. 8

A Revolutionary Consciousness

22 Joseph Dov Soloveitchik, The Rav Speaks: Five Addresses on Israel, History, and the Jewish People, trans. S. M. Lehrman and A. H. Rabinowitz (New York: Toras HoRav Foundation, 2002), p. 154. 23 Jacob Duschinsky, In the Paths of the Festivals (in Hebrew) (New York: Hermon, 1982), p. 152. Duschinsky was a religious-Zionist preacher who spent his last years in South Africa. 24 See Schwartz, Faith at the Crossroads, pp. 140–151. 25 As stated, for instance, by Meir Bar-Ilan (Berlin) at the Seventh Conference of HaPo‘el ha-Mizrachi in the Land of Israel (1935); see The Seventh Convention of Hapo‘el ha-Mizrachi, p. 32. 26 David Zvi Katzburg, cited in I. Zvi Zehavi, A History of Zionism in Hungary: From the Hatam Sofer to Herzl (in Hebrew) (Jerusalem: WZO, 1966), p. 336. 27 Gideon Kressel, ed., On the Lookout: Selected Writings of Simon Menahem Laser (in Hebrew) (Jerusalem: Mosad Ha-Rav Kook, 1969), p. 174. See ch. 4 below. 28 Maimon on women’s right to vote. See Menachem Friedman, Society and Religion: The Non-Zionist Orthodox in Eretz-Israel — 1918–1936 (in Hebrew) (Jerusalem: Yad Izhak Ben Zvi, 1977), p. 166. 29 This was the view of Reuben Margaliot. See Itamar Warhaftig, “Rabbinic Positions in the Controversy on the Partition of Palestine (1937)“ (in Hebrew), Tehumin 9 (1988), p. 276. See also Shmuel Dotan, The Partition of Eretz Israel in the Mandatory Period: The Jewish Controversy (in Hebrew) (Jerusalem: Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi, 1979), p. 182. 30 Judah Leib Avid‘a (Zlotnick), cited in Abraham Rubinstein, A Movement in a Period of Transition: A Chapter in the History of the Mizrachi in Poland (in Hebrew) (RamatGan: Bar-Ilan, 1981), p. 158. Avid‘a was a Mizrachi rabbi in Poland. 31 Ibid, p. 164. 32 Ibid, p. 167, quoting Katriel Fishel Tchursh, a member of the Council of the Chief Rabbinate. 33 Zuriel Admanit, Downstream, Upstream (in Hebrew), ed. Yitzhak Asher (Tel Aviv: Ha-Kibbutz Ha-Dati, 1977), p. 352. Admanit was a prominent ideologue in the Religious Kibbutz movement. 34 Menachem Zvi Kadari, “The Ideology of the Bnei Akiva Youth Movement in Hungary against the Background of the Main Events of its History” (in Hebrew), in A Hundred Years of Religious-Zionism, vol. 2, ed. Avi Sagi and Dov Schwartz (Ramat-Gan: BarIlan, 2003), p. 351. 35 See S. N. Eisenstadt, Revolution and the Transformation of Societies (New York: Free Press, 1978). 36 See ch. 11 below.

9

Chapter Two

Chapter Two

RABBI REINES AND THE FOUNDATION OF THE MIZRACHI

When R. Yitzhak Ya‘akov Reines and other co-founders of the Mizrachi joined the World Zionist Organization (WZO) in 1902, they set a landmark.1 For the first time, an Orthodox religious faction was represented at a secular political Jewish organization. Whereas in the Hibbat Zion movement religious and secularists had been engaged in mutual struggle but without adopting a political identity, religious Jews in the Mizrachi defined themselves as a political body within a secular framework. Reines was conscious of having taken an innovative, fateful step whose consequences he was unable to predict clearly. An analysis of his political and ideological endeavor, however, reveals that he acted only when left no choice, endorsing a political identity only when sensing he had exhausted all other options. Until then, he definitely tried to remain within the familiar, conservative approach that had consistently guided his decisions, without breaking new ground. The religious-Zionist revolution appears to have forced itself upon Reines and, in a historical perspective, what emerges as his greatest merit is that he did not struggle against the circumstances that made him a revolutionary.

A CONSERVATIVE LEADERSHIP

One instance of Reines’ conservatism is his call to preserve the halukah arrangement even during his limited involvement with Hibbat Zion. The halukah monies, intended for the support of Jews living in Eretz Israel, were the focus of a bitter controversy between the old and the new Yishuv. Halukah funds, channeled to the old Yishuv, were used mainly to support Torah students. The new Yishuv was critical not only of the partly corrupt mechanism used for distributing the money but of the halukah arrangement 10

Rabbi Reines and the Foundation of the Mizrachi

per se. Yet, as noted, Reines stated: “touching the halukah money would be a grievous wrong.”2 This conservatism was also reflected in the hesitations that accompanied the creation of the Mizrachi. In fact, the religious-Zionist faction emerged out of necessity. Most religious Jews opposed the expansion of the Zionist movement to educational and cultural aims determined according to distinctively secular criteria (the “culture” controversy).3 A decision to include educational-cultural activities would also foreclose any option of bringing in ultra-Orthodox Eastern European Jews into the Zionist movement. Supporters of cultural activities within the Zionist movement set up a party known as the Democratic Fraction, which included Leo Motzkin, Chaim Weizmann, Martin Buber, and Joseph Klausner.4 The Democratic Fraction was a noisy and provocative presence at the Fifth Zionist Congress (1901), and the Mizrachi was formed in order to halt this trend. In these difficult circumstances, Reines needed outside support. Yitzhak Nissenbaum attested that a group of political Zionists had approached Reines asking him to establish a faction that would support their outlook — refrain from cultural activity and concentrate on political efforts. Reines agreed because, despite his conservative leanings, leadership had always appealed to him.

AN APOLOGETIC THEOLOGY

Reines’ propaganda activity accorded with his hesitant, conservative personality. He wrote several apologetic tractates (of which the most prominent is Or Hadash al Zion [A New Light on Zion]) defending his decision to join the Zionist movement and establish a faction within it. The non-Zionist ultraOrthodox focused their attack on religious-Zionism mainly on two issues: ■ Ha ste n i n g redemption. This attack targeted both Zionism in general and religious-Zionism in particular. Messianic faith is traditionally apocalyptic, assumes that redemption will be miraculous, and will begin with a divine decision and through divine initiative. A well known talmudic tradition recounts how God swore the people of Israel to refrain from “scaling the wall,” namely, from hastening the end rather than awaiting celestial redemption. Zionism, therefore, is a blasphemous act. ■ C o o p e ra ti n g w ith tr ans gres s ors. This charge addressed religiousZionism directly: a stable building cannot be built on shaky foundations. The exalted goal of settling Eretz Israel cannot be attained through cooperation with transgressors who have thrown off the yoke of Torah. 11

Chapter Two

Reines’ response to the first charge of hastening redemption can be divided into an explanatory-apologetic response and a theological response. In his apologetic response, Reines argued that Zionism has no connection with redemption. The goal of Zionism is simply to save Jews from the horrors of anti-Semitism. Since anti-Semitism is blind and illogical, the only solution is to separate Jews from their environment, namely, from exile. In sum: Zionism seeks “a safe haven.” As for his profound theological response, Reines relied on his view of divine immanence. According to this approach, the view that God directs history from afar, from his lofty abode, is only partial. God drives the historical process from inside, and is present within it.5 Reines’ special style is evident, for instance, in this passage: Nature is only the external receptacle of the divine light, the purse where Divine Providence lies hidden and folded . . . The knowledge that divine light lies within the purse of nature, that nature is inherently full of spirituality and divinity, is the knowledge underlying all faith and religion, inherent in the meaning and contents of all concepts.6

This outlook, which recurs in Reines’ writings, refutes the charge that Zionism involves action against the divine will. Since the Holy One, blessed be He, impels the process, Zionism is not blasphemy. Reines, then, did not confine himself to the theological argumentation usual among Hibbat Zion rabbis, who viewed the earthly, national renaissance as merely temporary and were sure that the process of natural action would ultimately culminate in miraculous, apocalyptic redemption. He went further and, in his apologetic writings, argued that natural action is unrelated to miraculous redemption, not even as a means to an end. Instead, he developed an immanent theological outlook that justifies the Zionist process as an inner divine endeavor. Concerning the second charge of cooperation with transgressors, Reines clarified that joint activities did not deal with essential issues and involved activities conducted only at a practical rather than cultural-spiritual level. He did, however, develop exaggerated expectations from his cooperation with non-observant Jews. Immediately after the Minsk conference convened in 1902, Reines clarified that the Mizrachi’s true aim was to bring the ultraOrthodox Eastern European masses to join the WZO and, in his terms, launch a takeover “from within.” For Reines, then, secularization was a temporary development, not only theologically. Waiting for the entire Jewish people to “return to the fold” was not sufficient. The intention in establishing the Mizrachi (an acronym for merkaz ruhani — spiritual center) was to turn the 12

Rabbi Reines and the Foundation of the Mizrachi

WZO into a religious institution by persuading large numbers of Eastern European Jews to join. Reines’ expectation that religious-Zionism would take control of Zionist institutions was vital in his steering clear from some of the crucial problems involved in the association of religious communities with the Zionist movement. Some rabbis warned about serious potential pitfalls as soon as the Mizrachi was established, such as the balance between religious and secular Jews in a sovereign state, but Reines avoided these questions. Not only his conservative personality but also his beliefs and hopes prevented him from taking a broader view of future dilemmas.

DID REINES WAVER?

A conservative figure joining the modern world almost against his better judgment might be expected to waver, and Reines’ course can indeed be interpreted as fraught with inner contradictions. He established the Mizrachi, as noted, largely as a countermeasure to the inclusion of cultural elements in the WZO’s agenda. Like many religious Jews, he feared the secularization of the Zionist movement. This view, however, is incompatible with the decision to approach Ze’ev Jawitz (Ya‘avetz) to write a manifesto as the new movement’s first declaration. Jawitz was an activist, and had stated a need for involvement in religious cultural activities as an alternative to the secular cultural pursuits of the Zionist movement. Mizrachi leaders, then, did support cultural activity. Reines added a letter to this manifesto calling for cultural involvement although, after critical reactions, he retreated and called for the movement to confine itself to political activity. At the Minsk Conference, however, Reines reverted to his original pronouncement and called for the establishment of a religious cultural (“traditional”) committee to act beside the secular (“progressive”) one that counted Bialik and Ahad Ha-Am among its members. In principle, then, Reines was interested in the Zionist movement pursuing cultural endeavors, although by founding the Mizrachi he had actually raised the banner of opposition to such involvement. Ostensibly, then, this was self-contradictory. Reines also stated conflicting claims on the link between Zionism and redemption. In his apologetic writings, as noted, Reines had considered them to be separate. In other writings, however, he claimed that Zionism is deeply tied to redemption. Reines, then, did view the national renaissance as one of redemption’s stages, be it as a corridor or a threshold to the ultimate end. 13

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These contradictions may simply reflect differences between his conscious political outlook and his inner, authentic views. This explanation finds support in Reines’ political approach as it emerges in his letters and in his attitude to Herzl who, also due to political reasons, concealed the cultural facets of the Zionist message. Herzl too harbored hopes that the ultra-Orthodox would join the Zionist movement. Reines spoke of the need for an esoteric writing style, which hides the writer’s true intentions and can only be deciphered by the elitist circle close to the author. Let us consider a passage from an encyclopedic work by Reines, which was published posthumously: The further human progress and the more perfect human action, the greater the concealment of the aim and the goal of the action . . . since as long as something remains a thought, it is not revealed and cannot be known. Regarding speech, some say things that all understand because they cannot conceal their intention, while some know how to contain a significant issue in few words — little but good. This is the concealment of intention. When action is based on thought, the individual can conceal the thought, which is the aim, since without seeing a goal and a purpose in his acts, he would never embark into action. The vital issue in thought at the start of action was the aim, although he was wise enough to hide it.7

Reines made esotericism synonymous with “wisdom,” applying it directly to the messianic idea in particular and to the creation of the new religious type in general. The esoteric philosophical tradition of the Middle Ages seems to have stamped his activity.8 Reines was surely familiar, for instance, with Maimonides’ claim in the preface to Guide of the Perplexed, stating that the author must sometimes create contradictions deliberately in order to conceal his true view, and that only one in ten thousand readers will correctly understand the author’s intention. In the introduction to his Commentary on the Mishnah, Maimonides had already characterized the wise man as one who hides his intentions and speaks in riddles. Reines was equally acquainted with the medieval political tradition that often discussed the esoteric dimension of religious laws, and applied it to the religious-Zionist idea. Indeed, only in the 1940s would Leo Strauss turn esotericism into a relevant political approach that would become widely accepted mainly in the United States. Yet, a learned scholar such as Reines attested to the relevance of this method to his own endeavor decades before Strauss, as the passage above shows. With the ultra-Orthodox, Reines spoke only of the open, exoteric dimension, namely, of survival and of his hopes of taking over the WZO. To the audiences of his preaching and the readers of his writings, however, Reines traced the profile of the new religious type, “the redeemed man” active in 14

Rabbi Reines and the Foundation of the Mizrachi

a generation of redemption. This is the esoteric face. Reines’ behavior can indeed be interpreted as marked by reversals and upheavals, as Ehud Luz did to some extent. What led him to conceal his hidden intentions and keep away from provocative statements, however, was probably his conservative style. Reines was definitely a visionary, always harboring big plans and expectations of leading their implementation. At the same time, he was a conservative personality and flinched from the more hyperbolic implications of the Zionist idea, such as the creation of a new Jew. He strove for renewal, but feared innovation. He wanted to lead, but feared the consequences of his actions. Nevertheless, Reines was the founder of the Mizrachi and, as such, kindled the most important revolution in the history of Orthodox Jewry in the early twentieth century. Many others in this camp lacked courage to spark such a move. Rav Abraham Yitzhak Kook, for instance, dared to strive for the establishment of an alternative federation only fifteen years after the Mizrachi’s founding. Reines preceded him. Because of his non-charismatic personality and his moderate, apologetic ways, however, he has vanished from the hearts of religious-Zionists many years after the founding of the movement. His merits as the prime mover of this revolution have been forgotten, and he has been placed in the shadow of daring ideologues and philosophers as well as charismatic leaders, although their actual endeavors pale before his. A leader with literary-historical discernment such as Judah Leib Maimon lamented this historical injustice. But the collective memory of religiousZionism has laws of its own, at times unresponsive to rational order.

THE UGANDA SCHEME

Reines’ mark on religious-Zionism is particularly evident in the Uganda scheme. The proposal calling for the establishment of an autonomous Jewish settlement in Eastern Africa occupied the Zionist movement in 1903–1905. Despite his hesitations, Reines clearly favored the Uganda option. A majority in the Mizrachi, which was the largest faction in the Sixth Zionist Congress, voted for the proposal and tilted the balance in its favor. The reasons for this decision have been discussed at length, and Ehud Luz has cited these views and added insights of his own.9 The key factor was the perception of the Zionist movement as concerned with rescue and survival, a perception that motivated the Mizrachi’s actual behavior in its early days. Reines and his colleagues related very seriously to the Mizrachi’s overt and apologetic motivations, namely, the “safe haven” outlook. Below is a brief discussion of 15

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several additional motives for the Mizrachi support for the Uganda scheme, which will shed light on the course and characteristics of religious-Zionism during its first decades. One important factor in the Mizrachi’s decision is the close relationship between Reines and Herzl and the enormous admiration of Mizrachi members for Herzl. Although this was well known to the scheme’s supporters and opponents, who accused Reines of following Herzl blindly, a broader perspective is required. Close relationships between the leaders of political Zionism and religious-Zionist leaders, such as Ben-Gurion and Maimon, were also common in later periods and were not confined to the aspirations of religious-Zionism for cooperation with secular society. The original intention had indeed been to create a genuine alliance between secular and religious Jews. This intention plays a role in another factor involved in the Mizrachi’s decision to endorse the Uganda scheme. Religious-Zionists fervently hoped that the future state would heal all rifts within the Jewish people. Yet, they also knew that immediate settlement in Eretz Israel might expose the deep differences between the secular and religious camps, since the Promised Land is the place where all Torah commandments can be fully observed. Eretz Israel might split the nation and create unbridgeable gaps. A temporary delay in the settlement of Eretz Israel while settling in East Africa would not only serve the vision of a “haven” from anti-Semitism, but also offer a convenient training ground for national unity. In this temporary outpost, both religious and secularists could learn to coexist in harmony. The close relationship between Reines and Herzl is thus a symptom of the hopes and beliefs typical of the movement’s early stages, when religious-Zionists thought, as noted, that secularism was a temporary phenomenon that was not intrinsically viable. Maimon would recount about Meir Simha of Devinsk, the author of Or Sameah who was accused of sympathizing with Hibbat Zion: “First the yitgadal [magnified] will be fulfilled, and ultimately also the yitkadash [sanctified, referring to the two words opening the kaddish prayer],” suggesting the virtues of a gradual process. A new type of religious argumentation developed in the course of this dispute, when a paradoxical situation unfolded: secular “Russian” Zionists, for the most part, lamented the “loss” of Eretz Israel in the Uganda scheme, whereas religious Mizrachi members appeared to be indifferent. Some claimed that this situation was logical: secularists are detached from traditional values, and Eretz Israel is for them the only link to their heritage. Their struggle, then, is for them their last connection. By contrast, religious Jews 16

Rabbi Reines and the Foundation of the Mizrachi

do not fear forgetting the land, since they pray three times a day to see it. This argument would later appear in the writings of Moshe Avigdor Amiel, who objected to the Zionist perception of Eretz Israel as an alternative to observance.10 The religious camp began to understand that secular Zionism does not only seek a “haven” but strives to develop a new culture to replace the traditional heritage. Support for the Uganda scheme was thus one reason for the dramatic decrease in the Mizrachi representation from the Seventh Zionist Congress onward.11 Another was the lack of charismatic leadership. The Mizrachi response to the Uganda proposal exposed its future character and its fickle course. The core of the Mizrachi was the bourgeoisie, which sought the center and kept away from militant activism. Reines, then, reflected the Mizrachi outlook from the outset, and given the bourgeoisie’s significant presence and power, it became a big faction. But the public tends to be unwilling to accept moderation and restraint for long periods and conveys its protest through its vote. This process, which has accompanied the Mizrachi throughout its existence, would eventually help opposition groups within the party to take over the leadership.

NOTES 1 See Eliezer Don-Yehiya, “Ideology and Policy in Religious-Zionism: The Zionist Philosophy of R. Reines and the Policy of the Mizrachi under his Leadership” (in Hebrew), Zionism 8 (1984), pp. 103–146; Geula Bat-Yehuda, Man of Lights: R. Yitzhak Ya‘akov Reines (in Hebrew) (Jerusalem: Mosad Ha-Rav Kook, 1985); Eliezer Schweid, “The Beginnings of a Zionist-National Theology (The Philosophy of R. Yitzhak Ya‘akov Reines)” (in Hebrew), in Studies in Jewish Mysticism, Philosophy, and Ethical Literature Presented to Isaiah Tishby, ed. Joseph Dan and Joseph Hacker (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1986), pp. 689–720. 2 See Yehoshua Kaniel, Continuity and Change: Old Yishuv and New Yishuv during the First and Second Aliyah (in Hebrew) (Jerusalem: Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi, 1981). 3 See Shmuel Almog, Zionism and History: The Rise of a New Jewish Consciousness, trans. Ina Friedman (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1987), ch. 2; Geula Bat-Yehuda, “The Issue of ’Culture’ and the Mizrachi” (in Hebrew), in Sefer Shragai, ed. Mordechai Eliav and Yitzhak Raphael (Jerusalem: Mosad Ha-Rav Kook, 1982), pp. 66–86; Ehud Luz, Parallels Meet: Religion and Nationalism in the Early Zionist Movement, trans. Lenn J. Schramm (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1988). 4 See Israel Klausner, Opposition to Herzl (in Hebrew) (Jerusalem: Ahiever, 1960). 5 See Dov Schwartz, Faith at the Crossroads, trans. Batya Stein (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 1996), pp. 46–89. 17

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6 Yitzhak Ya‘akov Reines, The Light of the Seven Days (in Hebrew) (Vilna: Widow and Brothers Romm Press, 1896), pp. 21a-b. 7 Idem, The Book of Values (in Hebrew) (New York: R. Yitzhak Ya‘akov Reines Publication Society, 1926), p. 205. 8 See, for instance, Dov Schwartz, Contradiction and Concealment in Medieval Jewish Thought (in Hebrew) (Ramat-Gan: Bar-Ilan, 2002); Moshe Halbertal, Concealment and Revelation: Esotericism in Jewish Thought and its Philosophical Implications (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007). 9 Luz, Parallels Meet, ch. 10. 10 See Dov Schwartz, The Land of Israel in Religious-Zionist Thought (in Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 1997), pp. 161–164. 11 Luz, Parallels Meet, 286.

18

Religious-Zionist Education: Beginnings

Chapter Three

RELIGIOUS-ZIONIST EDUCATION: BEGINNINGS

Several features characterize the first decade of the Mizrachi movement: the heated disputes focusing on two main issues (the culture problem and the Uganda proposal), the change in its political status from a faction (si‘ah) to a federation (histadrut), and the intensive promotion of a religious-Zionist educational system. The Mizrachi’s conduct in the cultural controversy and in the Uganda crisis, discussed in the previous chapter, was still significantly influenced by Reines’ figure. The growth of religious-Zionist education, however, would expose new activist and charismatic leaders.

THE FIRST STEPS OF RELIGIOUS-ZIONIST EDUCATION

Two events might be viewed as signalling the beginning of religious-Zionist education, both denoting cautious openness within a fundamentally conservative approach. This caution was the hallmark of religious-Zionist education, which for many years displayed a tendency to waver. One event is the establishment of the Lida yeshiva, which set the pattern for the current high-school yeshivot. Reines established a yeshiva devoted mostly to religious studies but including also a partial secular curriculum (mathematics, languages, and so forth), a pattern he chose to describe as “making room for some of Yefet’s beauty within the tents of Shem.”1 Unlike the high school yeshivot that flourished after the establishment of the Kfar Haro‘eh yeshiva, Reines’ yeshiva stayed away from politics. A well-known story about Reines tells how, during a period of political unrest in 1880s Russia, Jewish socialist groups called a midnight propaganda meeting at the yeshiva. Suddenly, Reines appeared and opened up a discussion about the religious-Zionist ideal that lasted until dawn, thus preventing the use of the yeshiva for propaganda purposes. Reines also took steps to separate the 19

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Mizrachi center in Lida from the yeshiva and its students. Reines’ personality thus comes across in his educational activities as well. On one hand, he promoted a revolutionary endeavor by authorizing secular studies in a yeshiva, not a negligible step for Russian Jews. On the other, he was a conservative who held that yeshiva students should not deviate from Torah study and digressions, if any, should be limited, meaning that secular studies and ideological activities should be confined to an unavoidable minimum. The second event involved the educational pursuits of Ze’ev Jawitz (Ya‘avetz).2 Jawitz was more abrasive and hot tempered than Reines, but also supported conservative views. He began his career in Eretz Israel as a school principal in Zikhron Ya‘akov, but left after three years following a dispute with Baron Rotschild’s officials. Although the dispute had focused on issues of authority, it also had an ideological dimension. Jawitz was furious at the introduction of French culture among his students, and one of his reasons for leaving was that a female student who had been sent to France was assigned to a quasi-managerial position upon her return. Jawitz later became one of the Mizrachi founders, and was viewed as the movement’s ideologue during the first two years. While Reines’ cautious and conservative approach was part of his character and leadership style, Jawitz’s conservatism was an ideology. He believed that Judaism was totally different from “foreign culture,” as epitomized by Greek civilization. Judaism rests upon the wisdom of God and Greek culture upon the wisdom of nature. Whereas Greek culture is sensuous, materialistic, and deterministic, Jewish culture involves free will and a quest for morality. An education system should therefore be established in Eretz Israel aiming to entrench Jewish culture, since the Torah and Jewish sources represent the most fitting response to the educational needs. Jawitz therefore held that the Mizrachi should deal with cultural activities and establish an independent educational system in its own spirit. His approach ultimately prevailed, as noted, and the Mizrachi made educational-cultural work part of its endeavor.

SELECTIVE EDUCATIONAL OPENNESS

Notwithstanding their conservatism, Reines and Jawitz created a revolution in education. Even Jawitz’s variety of ideological conservatism, suspicious of other cultures, was open by comparison to traditional Judaism. When asked how he expected the Mizrachi to establish a modern state based on the Torah, 20

Religious-Zionist Education: Beginnings

given that the Torah in effect rejects scientific concepts such as evolution, he replied: You may, my friend, rest quietly and heed the tidings of our return without, God forbid, troubling yourself lest we should shut our door to scholars of other nations who think differently from us. To learn the wisdom of foreign scholars — and not only their wisdom but also their foolish deeds, which are absolutely forbidden to us — is almost an explicit obligation that the sages have imposed on scholars for all time.3

Jawitz relied on medieval philosophy (Sa‘adia Gaon, Bahya Ibn Paquda, Judah Halevi, Maimonides, Gersonides, and Yosef Albo) to support his claim that openness to other cultures is found even in the realm of beliefs and opinions. He pointed out the tolerant attitude in the writings of Judah Halevi and Maimonides toward the notion of the world’s eternity, as opposed to the Church persecution of scientists through the ages. His explanation, however, reveals two features of this openness: ■ It does not affect “inner” Jewish culture, although it does serve its needs as, for instance, when relating to agronomic knowledge helping to implement observance of the commandments related to the land. ■ It affects mostly the natural sciences, as attested by the many examples he presented (all from astronomy, medicine, and so forth). No culturalspiritual influence is involved. Still, the very suggestion of a curriculum that includes distinctly secular subjects is evidence of the radical revolution entailed by religious-Zionism.4 Jawitz’s claim that the Torah includes all the sciences, and that Torah study is the essential core and all else merely tools in this pursuit, became the dominant trend in Mizrachi education. Henceforth, religious-Zionist teachers presented Spain’s ”Golden Age” as the ultimate educational goal, viewing philosophers from Sa‘adia Gaon to Maimonides as intellectuals who used science to validate the Torah. In their view, rather than looking for a cultural synthesis of science and Torah, Maimonides had claimed that science was included in the Torah: ”Search carefully and you will find everything in it.” Eliezer Meir Lipschuetz, director of the Mizrachi Teachers’ Seminar since its foundation in 1921, turned this approach into a philosophical-educational world view. He wrote: “The Torah is the map of the world, and the world is the concrete realization of the Torah . . . All branches of science can be Torah. If taught in the spirit of divine knowledge, they can express the Torah’s ideas.”5 Other leading figures in the shaping of religious-Zionist education, such as 21

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Yitzhak Raphael Etzion (Holzberg), who officiated for many years as chief supervisor of Mizrachi educational institutions in Eretz Israel, had a similar view of the sciences and of secular studies.6 Openness in religious-Zionist education, then, was tendentious. Science and culture had no standing, except insofar as they were compatible with religion. Jawitz stated a rule for the future: openness is a crucial educational feature, only as long as it does not contradict the sources. This is not openness for its own sake, but selective openness.

POPULAR RELIGIOUS EDUCATION

Another revolutionary element in Jawitz’s approach bearing significant implications for the future was the establishment of a popular religious education system that could serve the general public. Jawitz demanded that the curriculum be built mainly around the study of the Bible and of aggadic selections translated into idiomatic Hebrew. The popular approach, which was reflected in an anti-elitist curriculum, was opposed to the study patterns then common in early religious education. Asher Ginzburg (Ahad Ha-Am) had already identified the potential for the spread and success of this type of education, and had targeted it in his ideological critique. Jawitz’s History of the Jewish People fitted well into this program, both as background material for teachers and, in abridged form, as a textbook for pupils in the system. This work was meant to counterbalance the works of Haskalah historians, particularly Heinrich Graetz and Simon Dubnow. The writing of a “comprehensive history” is also a significant aspect of modern nationalism, playing a defining role in national unity. My concern here, however, is with the educational aspects of this work. Jawitz’s fourteen-volume historical study was the butt of highly derogatory critiques, and scholars have never related to it as a reliable or authoritative source. Unlike other historians, Jawitz neither exposed new historical sources nor resorted to unpublished manuscripts. His sole interest was educational — providing a different interpretation of Jewish history in a religious-Zionist spirit.7 Eventually, with the establishment of the religious-Zionist stream of education in 1954, the seeds that Jawitz had planted began to flourish. A popular religious education evolved, which did not strive toward a special Torah education but focused on the popular minimalistic aspects that Jawitz had stressed. The original teachers in the religious-Zionist education system, 22

Religious-Zionist Education: Beginnings

most of them academics, were eventually replaced by others, better suited to its unpretentious style. Jawitz’s approach, then, turned into a distinguishing mark of religious-Zionist education.

RELIGIOUS-ZIONIST EDUCATION: CONSOLIDATION

Reines and Jawitz laid the conceptual foundation of religious-Zionist education that, as noted, began to take shape in the Mizrachi’s first decade. A central figure in this process was R. Judah Leib Maimon (Fishman).8 In the initial years, Maimon envisaged a comprehensive plan that included separate high schools for boys and girls. In the spirit of Reines and Jawitz, Maimon stressed that Talmud study would be the wheat and secular subjects — the chaff. In 1907, Maimon launched an intensive fundraising campaign to establish religiousZionist institutions. A year later, he traveled to Eretz Israel and there decided to strengthen the “Takhkemoni” heder (a traditional religious school for young children) that was then operating in Jaffa in a religious-Zionist spirit under the direction of Dr. Yosef Zeliger. Maimon granted this institution Mizrachi sponsorship. In the struggle waged between ultra-Orthodox groups and the Mizrahi for control of the school, the Mizrachi ultimately won, continuing to support the institution and channeling funds to it. As religious-Zionist education began to develop, the Mizrachi adopted other institutions and modeled them according to the guidelines that Reines and Jawitz had formulated. Significant appreciation for this endeavor is evident in the reaction of R. Yitzhak Nissenbaum. Nissenbaum had drawn away from the Mizrachi since the Uganda controversy, disappointed with the movement’s backing of the Uganda proposal, but returned to support it after these educational steps.9 Approximately ten years later (1918), in his article ”The Work of the Mizrachi in Eretz Israel,” Maimon formulated the goals that religious-Zionist education still needed to meet: imposing Hebrew as the teaching language, concern with the land-related commandments, and finally, counterbalancing the plan for establishing a Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Maimon called for the establishment of “a high academy for the study of the Torah and Jewish wisdom to keep at bay the influence of other institutions of higher education about to be founded in our Holy Land.”10 These words resonate with the sharp controversy within the Yishuv over the use of Hebrew as a teaching language (1913–1914). The school network of the German Jews Aid Society,11 which was planning to establish the Technion in Haifa, wanted to impose German as 23

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the teaching language, since Hebrew was considered unsuitable for academic study. Maimon and many Mizrachi members resolutely demanded recognition of Hebrew as the teaching language, and their position prevailed.12 Another critique in Maimon’s article touched on the limited scope of Talmud study. Although this critique was relegated to the margins during the struggle of the Mizrachi educational system to survive under the secular Zionist leadership, it entails vast implications. Jawitz’s plan to establish a popular religious-Zionist education system that avoids yeshiva type talmudic studies ended up as Frankenstein’s monster. Reines’ fears that talmudic studies would suffer turned out to be justified, as evident in the many educational institutions that focused on secular subjects and neglected serious talmudic studies. This problem would also be part of religious-Zionist education in the future. The price for the new emphasis on integrative institutions was a paucity of Torah leadership. Torah scholars and halakhists came from non-Zionist, ultra-Orthodox communities, and religious-Zionism raised few Torah leaders of stature. Years later, it was found that teachers of Torah subjects in many religious-Zionist institutions held non-Zionist views because no suitable candidates for these positions could be found within the religious-Zionist public. These teachers also influenced many students to pursue their studies at non-Zionist yeshivot, a situation that remained essentially unchanged until the 1980s. The 1919 London Zionist Conference decided to establish two separate education committees — one general and one religious. This decision was not implemented, however, and, a year later, a new decision opted for the creation of only one education committee, allowing religious education a measure of autonomy. The Mizrachi objected, and its opposition resulted in tension between the movement and the education department of the Zionist executive. The trend for the future, however, was set here: religious education, and eventually religious-Zionist education in Israel, would be perceived as a branch of the general education system. The system of “educational tracks” based on sectarian and ideological loyalties, had struck root.13

THE MIZRACHI SPLIT IN GERMANY

Educational problems, from another perspective, also played a central role among the factors that led to a split in the Mizrachi movement, and ultimately contributed to the strengthening of Agudat Israel.14 Following a decision in 1904, the executive office of the Mizrachi moved to Frankfurt, Germany, but the centre at Lida, where Reines lived, continued to participate in the 24

Religious-Zionist Education: Beginnings

management of the faction. The move was a response to the difficulties posed by the Russian and Polish authorities and, to some extent, also reflected appreciation for Jewish-German culture. A group of Jewish-German activists in the Mizrachi leadership, headed by Jacob Feuchtwanger, harshly criticized the secular Zionist movement. Several years after the executive’s move to Frankfurt, rumors began spreading about this group’s split from the Mizrachi, despite the denials of its members. The main reason for this split was the unequivocal decision of the Eleventh Zionist Congress concerning involvement in cultural activities. This decision clarified that the Zionist movement viewed itself as a movement of cultural renaissance, and many religious-Zionists refused to grant any legitimation to a secular-national culture. In 1911, however, a symbolic event with clear educational implications was among the reasons for the split: the Zionist movement organized a lecture tour in Germany for Benzion Mossinson, principal of the Hebrew High School in Jaffa and a champion of national-secular education. The Hebrew High School was a symbol of rising secularism in Eretz Israel in the wake of Zionist activity. The Mizrachi had indeed chosen to foster “Tahkemoni” as a response to the Hebrew High School. Mossinson related derisively to the Mizrachi’s activities in Jaffa, and the success of his lecture tour in Germany evoked great turmoil in religious-Zionist circles. Mizrachi members accused the Zionist movement of deliberate provocation, following the decision of the Tenth Zionist Congress from the same year to include cultural activities in the ongoing endeavor of the Zionist movement. As a result, many left the Mizrachi, and one of them finished his speech saying: “The Christian state allows Jewish pupils to cover their head during religious lessons. The Jewish teacher at the Jewish High School does not. We are Zionists, but we also want to remain Jews.” The secessionists joined the faction of Jacob Rosenheim and Isaac Halevy, author of Dorot ha-Rishonim, and in 1912 established Agudat Israel. Their secession was a traumatic event for the Mizrachi, resulting in the dwindling of its world center in Germany. On one hand, the Mizrachi took a courageous decision and showed restraint when faced with the defiance of the Zionist movement and its increasingly provocative secularization. On the other, the moderation that would characterize the Mizrachi line for many years to come led its leaders to profound self-scrutiny. The cautious conservatism exposed in religious-Zionist education was thus an indication of the general pragmatic approach of the Mizrachi in its early as well as its later years.

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NOTES 1 See Yosef Salmon, “The Yeshiva of Lida: A Unique Institution of Higher Learning,” YIVO 15 (1974), pp. 106–112. 2 See Yaffa Berlowitz, “Ze’ev Jawitz’s Literary Oeuvre in Light of his Historical Perspective” (in Hebrew), Cathedra 20 (1981), pp. 165–182; Mordechai Bar-Lev, “R. Ze’ev Jawitz as the Harbinger of Religious-National Education in the Land of Israel” (in Hebrew), Bi-Shvilei ha-Tehiyah 2 (1987), pp. 91–110; Dov Schwartz, “Remarks on the Discovery of the Material Land in Zionist Thought” (in Hebrew), in The Land of Israel in Twentieth-Century Jewish Thought, ed. Aviezer Ravitzky (Jerusalem: Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi, 2004), pp. 267–269. 3 Judah Leib Maimon (Fishman),”The History of the Mizrachi and its Development” (in Hebrew), in Sefer Ha-Mizrachi: R. Yitzhak Ya‘akov Reines (Jerusalem: Mosad HaRav Kook, 1946), p. 113. 4 See ch. 1 above. 5 Eliezer Meir Lipschuetz, Writings (in Hebrew), vol. 3 (Jerusalem: Mosad Ha-Rav Kook, 1957), p. 122. 6 See Raphael H. Holzberg, “Is There a Contradiction between Religion and the Natural Sciences” (in Hebrew), Ha-Hed 13:5 (1938), pp. 17–19. 7 Ze’ev Jawitz, A History of the Jewish People (in Hebrew), 14 vols. (Warsaw–Tel Aviv: Ahiezer, 1895–1940). See Reuven Michael, Jewish Historiography from the Renaissance to Modern Times (in Hebrew) (Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 1993), ch. 10. 8 See Geula Bat-Yehuda, Rabbi Maimon and His Times (in Hebrew( (Jerusalem: Mosad Ha-Rav Kook, 1979); Eliezer Don-Yehiya, “Political Leadership in Religious-Zionism: Rabbi Judah Leib Maimon, Leader of the Mizrachi” (in Hebrew), in Studies in ReligiousZionism and Jewish Law in Honor of Dr. Zerah Warhaftig, ed. Eliezer Don-Yehiya, Ella Belfer, and Moshe Hallamish (Ramat-Gan: Bar-Ilan, 2001), pp. 123–160. 9 Yitzhak Nissenbaum, Alei Heldi (Memoirs) (Jerusalem: Rubin Mass, 1969), p. 312. 10 Judah Leib Maimon, For the Hour and the Generation (in Hebrew) (Jerusalem: Mosad Ha-Rav Kook, 1965), p. 93. 11 Heb. Hevrat ha-Ezrah shel Yehudei Germania. 12 See Nethaniel Katzburg, “Two Documents on the History of the Mizrachi” (in Hebrew), Areshet: An Annual of Hebrew Booklore 6 (1981), pp. 201–205. 13 See Eliezer Don-Yehiya, “Religion, Education, and Politics” (in Hebrew), in Sefer Shragai, ed. Mordechai Eliav and Yitzhak Raphael (Jerusalem: Mosad Ha-Rav Kook, 1982), pp. 140–155. 14 See Yehudah Eloni, Zionism in Germany (in Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Mif ‘alim Universita’iyim le-Hotza’ah la-Or, 1991), pp. 295–313; Yossef Fund, Separation or Participation: Agudat Israel Confronting Zionism and the State of Israel (in Hebrew) (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1999).

26

Rav Kook: An Orthodox-National Alternative to Religious-Zionism

Chapter Four

RAV KOOK: AN ORTHODOX-NATIONAL ALTERNATIVE TO RELIGIOUS-ZIONISM

A strong opposition began to develop as the Mizrachi consolidated, holding that it misrepresented the religious-Zionist idea. Dissent intensified to the point of attempting to erode the Mizrachi’s foundations and establish an alternative religious-Zionist federation that would engulf it. Championing this opposition was a prodigious thinker, a Renaissance man, and a genuine modern mystic: Rav Abraham Yitzhak Hacohen Kook.1 A circle of disciplesadmirers gathered round him and helped him spread his thoughts and ideas.2 This chapter will focus on two seemingly conflicting trends in Rav Kook’s relationship with the Mizrachi: on one hand, his ideas percolated into the movement to the point of turning him into its quasi-official ideologue; on the other, his actual political conduct was characterized by almost unswerving opposition to the Mizrachi’s way.

FIRST STEPS

Rav Kook was deeply affected by the European national awakening, but this influence was inspirational rather than practical. He never joined the Zionist movement or religious-Zionism. About three years before the foundation of the Mizrachi, he wrote to his father saying he intended to establish associations of “observant Zionists.” The establishment of the Mizrachi may have thwarted his initiative. During the first years after the Mizrachi’s foundation, Rav Kook published a series of articles dealing with nationalism (1902–1903).3 These articles present an ideal assumption and its reversal in the real world, as clarified below. Rav Kook argued that the Torah postulates a superb and wide-ranging national-political theory. In brief, the Torah is the “genuine” nationalism. 27

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He also offered an encompassing rationale for the commandments in light of the national principle and explained, for instance, the reasons for forbidden types of food as a “balance of qualities and temperaments.” Food influences a person’s temperament and his spiritual qualities. A profusion of food options within a nation leads to inequality, and the excessive variation of qualities leads to quarrel and controversy. By contrast, strict observance of kashrut laws leads to national peace and harmony. Likewise, the proscription of shaving is meant to develop similar aesthetic feelings among the nation’s members. Beauty is relative and, in order to establish unified aesthetic criteria, the Torah created a visual conception of bearded male faces. The Torah, then, fosters the “national spirit,” and Jewish nationality is therefore one of peace and love. The impact of ethnic views of nationality is evident in this national rationale and, in this regard, Rav Kook supported the late nineteenth-century national awakening. Together with this view of the Torah as the source of ideal nationalism, Rav Kook was also extremely critical of Zionism’s practical implementation: ideal nationalism cannot be fostered by transgressors. This view was summed up in his famous remark: “The inner difference between the guardians of Torah and those who have forsaken religion is greater than the difference between Israel and the nations of the world.”4 In these articles, he denied secular nationalism the right to exist and proclaimed that the only nationalism is that of the Torah. The editor of Ha-Peles, the journal that published this series, was Eliyahu Akiva Rabinowich from Poltava. Although a supporter of Zionism at first, Rabinowich became a strong opponent after the surfacing of the culture controversy. This journal, which began publication toward the end of 1900, attacked Zionism repeatedly and predicted its decline and demise. When the Mizrachi was founded, it became the butt of the journal’s tirades. The monthly Ha-Mizrach founded by the Mizrachi and edited by Ze’ev Jawitz was, in a way, a reaction to Ha-Peles. Rav Kook’s articles, which attacked the Zionist movement and any partial or moderate form of nationalism, suited the aims of Ha-Peles well. In his articles, Rav Kook was critical of the Mizrachi for favoring an exclusively political course. He felt that the Mizrachi should adopt a forceful and militant line so as to assume leadership of the Zionist movement’s cultural-educational endeavor and adapt it to the spirit of the Torah. Rav Kook’s reservations about the Mizrachi were eminently suited to the policy of Ha-Peles. No wonder that, years later, when Rav Kook’s essays were collected in a special anthology [Ma’amrei ha-Ra’ayah], his son R. Zvi Yehuda Kook refused to include the three articles published in Ha-Peles. 28

Rav Kook: An Orthodox-National Alternative to Religious-Zionism

RELIGIOUS-ZIONIST THEOLOGY

In 1906, Rav Kook published a small book entitled Ikvei ha-Tson where he articulated for the first time, in a clear, exhaustive, and powerful exposition, his interpretation of the Zionist awakening. In the opening article, “Ha-Dor” [The Generation], Rav Kook describes the pioneers of the second aliyah as troubled characters, torn between the old and the new. He views them as people of great stature, who do not connect with the previous generation because they lack appropriate guidance. In this article, he coined the definition “a generation that potentially has much and in fact has nothing,” laying the foundation for the messianic-paternalistic approach that would take shape later. He wrote of the “generation heralding the Messiah” (the period immediately preceding redemption): Knesset Israel [the community of Israel] has shaken loose, impelled by the will of the younger generation. Forces have stirred in a wondrous, stunning awakening. They cannot and should not be subdued by oppression, and should instead be glorified and exalted, shown the way of the sublime and awesome light.5

Rav Kook, then, demanded recognition of the “divine” drive latent in the souls of the youngsters who are settling the land while rebelling against the ancestral tradition. These idealistic youngsters, in the quest for justice evident in their adherence to socialist ideals, reflect “the supreme, most innermost Jewish attribute.”6 In the second article, “Ha-Pahad” [Fear], Rav Kook went one conceptual step further and interpreted the pioneers’ action as part of a divine-messianic plan. Rav Kook and his disciples saw in the return of prophecy to the people of Israel a crucial element of actual redemption and sought the visions, the celestial signs, and revelation. On this question, Rav Kook adopted the Maimonidean principle whereby prophecy cannot unfold in circumstances of persecution and fear for personal safety. In their revolt and bold defiance of parental values, the pioneers had brazenly dispensed with fear and apprehension and, unwittingly, had made room for the return of prophecy. Growing audacity is a distinctive sign of imminent redemption, and the pioneers were the ones who realized it. In the article “Da‘at Elohim,” Rav Kook offered a profound insight, stating that the generation was driven by a “childish” and hasty philosophical conception. Divinity, he argued, can be approached either as such or through its actions. Religious thought knew that relating to the divine as such is 29

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impossible, and only God’s ways in the world are a fit subject for study. The revolt against religion, however, led to a “childish” idea that insisted on relating only to the thing in itself. Since knowledge of the divine entity as such is unthinkable, heresy appeared and ideals were only realized in the material world. This is the proper explanation of the national awakening. In the articles in this anthology, Rav Kook established a theological rationale for the national uniqueness of the Jewish people and, implicitly, interpreted contemporary events as proof of this uniqueness. This collection, then, provides the first concentrated formulation of the paternalistic-messianic approach by: ■ Explaining exhaustively and comprehensively the inner spiritual world of the secularist. ■ Stating that the pioneers’ actions serve to further the divine moves. Henceforth, Rav Kook would extensively elaborate this view in a long series of writings.

AN ALTERNATIVE FEDERATION TO THE MIZRACHI

Rav Kook came to Eretz Israel in 1904 to become the rabbi of Jaffa and gradually established himself. He gathered round him a group of disciples and supporters and embarked in a series of complex moves seeking to attain success in an extremely hard task: gaining acceptance in all the local circles. Due to his backing for the Zionist idea, the old Yishuv was highly critical of him. His halakhic ruling allowing the land to be sold to Gentiles to allow planting on the sabbatical year of 5670 (1909–1910) evoked particular anger. Rav Kook held that abstention from tilling the land on the sabbatical year would be a death blow to the Yishuv, which was fighting for its survival, and allowed the sale. He thereby gained the support of secular Zionists and of the new Yishuv. At the same time, however, he also drew closer to the ultraOrthodox, either deliberately or due to the circumstances, when he issued several stringent rulings that represented his halakhic views,7 obviously in opposition to the Mizrachi. Rav Kook worked hard to define his political identity. He pinned great hopes on Agudat Israel, although this movement also included Mizrachi secessionists. He even left in 1914 to participate in an Agudat Israel conference in Germany, and remained stranded in Europe for the duration of the war. Only in 1918, when planning to establish his own movement, did Rav Kook object 30

Rav Kook: An Orthodox-National Alternative to Religious-Zionism

to Agudat Israel’s anti-Zionist stance though even then did not cut off ties with it completely. People in Rav Kook’s circle also drew closer to Agudat Israel and even participated in its political bodies, as did David Cohen (ha-Nazir) who was an Agudat Israel representative. At the end of World War I, Rav Kook felt that his fifteen years of activity in Eretz Israel and abroad had prepared the ground for a genuine alternative to the Mizrachi. Rav Kook held the Mizrachi’s moderate course to be entirely wrong, and the Balfour Declaration reinforced his sense of the impending redemption. His persistent and longstanding critique of the Mizrachi flared up into an open political conflict. “Degel Yerushalayim” (Flag of Jerusalem) was the name of the federation established by Rav Kook, which aimed to bring together all observant Jews who supported the building of the land.8 The movement was meant to operate in all the areas that had so far concerned the Mizrachi: political and cultural activities and the settlement of Eretz Israel. As opposed to the minor and moderate role the Mizrachi had played, Rav Kook expected “Degel Yerushalayim” to launch a militant struggle to impose religion on the Jewish national movement. He must have known of the Mizrachi’s hard struggle at the time to collect a sufficient number of signatures to enable it to change its status from faction to federation, but did not hesitate to establish a competing body. For propaganda purposes, he insisted on clarifying he had no wish to hinder the Zionist movement, and especially not the Mizrachi, but did not hide his hope that “the Mizrachi will also join the federation [meaning ’Degel Yerushalayim’].” Despite the open objections of his admirers from the Mizrachi — Maimon, Bar-Ilan, and others — Rav Kook proceeded along his new political course. His close disciples — Jacob Moses Harlap, David Cohen, and his son Zvi Yehuda Kook — joined him in this endeavor, and branches were established in various countries (Eretz Israel, Switzerland, England, and others). The new movement quickly declined and vanished. According to Rav Kook, the reasons for the decline lied in his own unique personality. Rav Kook had brilliant political insight, but leading an international movement required efforts beyond what he was willing to invest and exacted a spiritual price he was unwilling to pay. The movement’s success depended on Rav Kook’s magnetic, charismatic personality, and to achieve results he would have had to remain in Europe (at least in Western Europe), as he was indeed explicitly asked to do more than once. Rav Kook, however, longed for Eretz Israel and was unwilling to remain abroad. He also wrote less during his stay in London. His stormy personality sought spiritual heights, but an international movement demands engagement in routine, mundane tasks, far removed from the intellectual 31

Chapter Four

world. The movement, therefore, dwindled and died on its own. But Rav Kook sustained his political and leadership propensities and shifted in the 1920s to a new course, the Chief Rabbinate.

AN IDEOLOGUE “AGAINST HIS WILL”

A superficial picture may emerge from the preceding discussion of Rav Kook’s engagement in political concerns, portraying him as an opportunist. We should not forget, however, that Rav Kook was persecuted throughout his life for supporting the national idea and for his view of the Zionism endeavor as a direct offshoot of the divine messianic plan, meaning as stages in the redemption process. His messianic view of current events was grounded in deep belief and genuine inner conviction. Despite his conservatism, Rav Kook was willing to accept the implications of his zealous messianic interpretation, such as the need for a new type of Torah scholar who would also be versed in secular disciplines.9 Theology sometimes dictated practical decisions such as, for instance, his support for the new vision of “Tahkemoni,” the first school sponsored by the Mizrachi, and his stance on granting a sale license in the controversy on the sabbatical year in 1909–1910. And yet, Rav Kook remained a harsh and persistent opponent of the Mizrachi. His political endeavor was the creation of a different religious-Zionism, theologically all-encompassing, pragmatically militant, and halakhically uncompromising. The features that emerge in these early years are also evident among his disciples and supporters. Rav Kook articulated a broad and profound interpretation of the national revival, which led the Mizrachi to endorse it and adopt its author as its unofficial ideologue. In later years, a “revised” version of historical events developed. Maimon, for instance, claimed that Rav Kook’s intention to establish associations of “observant Zionists” in his early years had been a significant factor in the creation of the Mizrachi. The need for an impressive ideologue, then, ultimately blurred concrete historical facts. Although Rav Kook was an unwavering opponent of the Mizrachi, he still supported religious-Zionism. Indeed, it was precisely in the name of this idea that Rav Kook had reservations about the interpretation of the “religious” part of the “religious-Zionist” compound. Rav Kook’s doctrine is a different religious-Zionism, which cannot be incorporated into the existing movement but is still an offshoot of the religious-Zionist idea.

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Rav Kook: An Orthodox-National Alternative to Religious-Zionism

NOTES 1 On Rav Kook see, e.g., Yitzhak Raphael, ed., Hara’ayah (in Hebrew), (Jerusalem: Mosad Ha-Rav Kook, 1966); Hayyim Hamiel, ed., In His Light: Studies on the Doctrine of Rav Abraham Hacohen Kook (in Hebrew) (Jerusalem: WZO, 1986); Yitzhak Raphael, ed., Sefer Zikhron Hara’ayah (Jerusalem: Mosad Ha-Rav Kook, 1986); Zvi Yaron, The Philosophy of Rabbi Kook, trans. Avner Tomaschoff (Jerusalem: WZO, 1991); Benjamin Ish-Shalom, Rav Avraham Yitzhak Ha-Cohen Kook: Between Rationalism and Mysticism, trans. Ora Wiskind-Elper (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1993); Lawrence J. Kaplan and David Shatz, eds., Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook and Jewish Spirituality (New York: New York University Press, 1995); Avinoam Rosenak, Rabbi A. I. Kook (in Hebrew) (Jerusalem: The Zalman Shazar Center for Jewish History, 2006). 2 See Dov Schwartz, Challenge and Crisis in Rabbi Kook’s Circle (in Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Am Oved 2001). 3 These articles are ”The Calling and Nationality of Israel” (in Hebrew), Ha-Peles 1 (1901); “Advice from Afar,” Ha-Peles 2 (1902); “Streams in Dry Land” (in Hebrew), Ha-Peles 3 (1903). Cf. Eliezer Goldman, ”Secular Zionism: The Vocation of Israel and the Telos of the Torah” (in Hebrew), Daat 11 (1983), pp. 103–106; Hagi Ben-Artzi, “ ’The Old Will be Renewed and the New Will be Sanctified’: A Critique of Religion and Ways for Its Renewal in the Early Writings of Rabbi A. I. Ha-Cohen Kook” (in Hebrew), Akdamot 3 (1997), pp. 9–28. 4 Abraham Yitzhak Kook, “Advice from Afar,” p. 530. 5 Abraham Yitzhak Kook, Eder ha-Yakar ve-Ikvei ha-Tson (Jerusalem: Mosad Ha-Rav Kook, 1967), p. 114. 6 Ibid, p. 115. 7 See Michael Zvi Nehorai, ”Remarks on the Rabbinic Rulings of Rabbi Kook” (in Hebrew), Tarbiz 59 (1990), 481–505; Avinoam Rosenak, The Prophetic Halakhah: Rabbi A. I. H. Kook’s Philosophy of the Halakhah (in Hebrew) (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 2007). 8 See Yossi Avneri, ”Degel Yerushalayim” (in Hebrew), Bi-Shvilei ha-Tehyiah 3 (1989), pp. 39–58. 9 Rav Kook explicitly formulated this need in Ikvei ha-Tson, p. 129.

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Chapter Five

Chapter Five

THE FOUNDATION OF THE CHIEF RABBINATE

Events in the late 1910s and early 1920s changed religious-Zionism. Some of these events, although mainly of symbolic importance, were also politically and pragmatically significant, such as the founding of the Chief Rabbinate and the rise and fall of the “Degel Yerushalayim” movement. Others, such as the founding of Ha-Po‘el ha-Mizrachi, would prove crucial to the character and the future of the Mizrachi to the point of changing its ideological course.

WORLD WAR: THE DAWN OF A NEW ERA?

World War I resulted in a new situation concerning the links between religiousZionism and the Zionist movement.1 The reason is obvious: a traumatic event involving pain and danger to entire communities drew them close. Mutual help prevailed, and differences were temporarily blurred. At the same time, grievances were voiced in the religious-Zionist camp against many leaders who had run away from the belligerent countries, abandoning Zionist activity and leaving chaos behind. The war also created a complex political situation. Jews were on both sides, ideologically or as combatants, and their loyalties conflicted. Warring parties sometimes perceived the Jews, even when distinctly neutral, as the enemy. Officially, the Zionist movement decided not to take a stand on the war, but the situation of the Jews was discussed in various religiousZionist conferences. Prominent leaders of the Mizrachi, including Meir Bar-Ilan (Berlin) and Judah Leib Maimon (Fishman), ran away and reached the United States. At the start of the war, the United States had favored Germany because it was opposed to Russia, which had joined Great Britain. Turkey, however, joined Germany, and fears arose concerning the Jews in Eretz Israel, who were under Turkish rule. Although hardly any Jews genuinely supported Russia, a land permeated with hatred for Jews, they still feared a German victory. 34

The Foundation of the Chief Rabbinate

The terrible events of the war known today as World War I led religiousZionists to develop messianic hopes. The use of modern technological means (airplanes, tanks, gas) created apocalyptic forebodings, fanned even further by the Russian Revolution at the end of 1917 and the rise to power of heretic Communism, given the persistent tradition that the messiah will be revealed in a world war. Rav Kook wrote a special article stating that, after the war, “the messiah’s imminent coming is clearly evident.”2 The more intense the war, and particularly “the current world war,” the greater the expectation of the “revealed end.” In his view, the years of exile had pushed the Jewish people away from international politics, which is pervaded by evil and wickedness and unsuited to the chosen people’s unique qualities. War purifies the world and prepares it for the return of the Jewish people to politics. For Rav Kook, then, war is a deliberate, cathartic event, where nations go through the refiner’s fire and reveal the “pure” facets of their special national character. In turn, the war also brings to the fore the uniqueness of the Jewish people, namely, it helps the people understand its “true” divine motivations. The Jewish nation finally recognizes that “God is within it.”3 World War I fitted in well with Rav Kook’s comprehensive, messianic interpretation of historical events. The war intensified the perception that the intricate course of natural events is the implementation of a rigorous divine plan, whose final purpose is apocalyptic redemption. The war, as we know, led to the British conquest of Eretz Israel, culminating in the Balfour Declaration (1917). This declaration granted religious-Zionist ideology one of its finest hours. As Menachem Friedman indicates, religiousZionist ideology had always been on the defensive against the accusation of “scaling the wall.”4 This defensive posture had indeed largely defined the Mizrachi’s style and ideas. But here, lo and behold, the nations of the world proclaim the right of the people of Israel to their land. The attacked movement — Zionism — is recognized by the nations. This propitious time, however, proved brief, and the internal and external struggles that had persistently accompanied religious-Zionism continued unabated.

WOMEN’S SUFFRAGE AND THE CREATION OF THE MAGISTRATE’S COURT

When Rav Kook returned to Eretz Israel at the end of World War I, he launched a vigorous campaign to institutionalize the rabbinate.5 Justifiably, he considered himself a worthy candidate for the task of leading the rabbis into the “new world” of post-war in Eretz Israel. Rabbis had come together before in 35

Chapter Five

various bodies set up by Ashkenazi Jews and under the Hakham Bashi, who was recognized by Ottoman law and was an authority mainly to Sephardic Jews. The Rabbinate of the Jewish Community was established in Jerusalem in 1918, which united Jerusalem rabbis and served as an appeals court. Rav Kook’s magnetic and influential personality represented a veiled threat to the Mizrachi, which feared he would slide into politics. Many members of the Mizrachi, however, supported Rav Kook in deference to his personality and his achievements. Rav Kook was also well-liked in the secular Yishuv, whose sympathy he had gained for supporting the “sale license” in the 1909–1910 sabbatical year controversy and for conferring theological legitimacy on Zionism. He also fostered links with the secular Yishuv in his famous trip to Galilee settlements in 1914.6 Rav Kook pinned great hopes on bringing the pioneers closer to Judaism through direct contacts with them. The one bastion of resistance to him was non-Zionist orthodoxy, namely, the old Yishuv. A golden opportunity then presented itself to Rav Kook: his authority within the ultra-Orthodox public gained strength after his resolute opposition to the Mizrachi’s stance on the question of women’s suffrage. The Yishuv wanted to give women the right to vote and be elected to the Asefat Nivharim [Elected Assembly]. Many Mizrachi leaders chose the option of compartmentalization, claiming this was not a halakhic issue and rabbinic pronouncements on this matter were irrelevant. Rav Kook did not discuss the halakhic question. From his point of view, everything was clear: Halakhah allows “public concerns” only to men, since “it is the nature of a man to subdue but it is not the nature of a woman to subdue.”7 Rav Kook, however, took pains to add a rational argument. He discussed two aspects: ■ The utilitarian aspect: The British government had recognized the right of the Jewish people to their land because of the holiness of Scripture. Behavior according to the Torah, and particularly modesty and sexual abstinence, strengthens this recognition. Alternatively, opponents of this recognition will argue that the people of Israel do not deserve their land because they defile the holiness of the Bible. ■ The teleological (ideal) aspect: The Jewish people must build a culture that will influence the Gentiles, and not vice-versa. Modesty, unlike its status in European culture, is a foundation of Jewish culture. The Mizrachi raised several claims against those advanced by Rav Kook, besides the one of compartmentalization. Some argued that Jews, who had suffered bigotry and discrimination during centuries of exile, should vigorously support the rights of women who had been victimized for so long.8 Rav Kook’s 36

The Foundation of the Chief Rabbinate

answer to this claim was that women had never suffered discrimination. Their views on current events had been heard in the past and should be heard in the future, but within the home. The man is the one who conveys the woman’s message to the outside, out of respect for family harmony. The woman is actually oppressed in other nations, because the contempt for her in the modern world led to the struggle for her rights, as opposed to Jewish society where her rights are respected while preserving her modesty. The Mizrachi perceived Rav Kook’s approach as a challenge. Another issue served to highlight Rav Kook’s role as an opponent to the Mizrachi. At the end of 1919, the Mizrachi engaged in a struggle against the establishment of a magistrate’s court in Jerusalem, which symbolized the final defeat of Jewish law in the new Yishuv and dealt the vision of a halakhic state a harsh blow. Rabbis in the Mizrachi federation, including Ben Zion Meir Hai Uziel and Moshe Hameiri, gathered together to decide on a response. Conspicuously, Rav Kook brought together several ultra-Orthodox rabbis for long protest meetings against the establishment of the court, including several bitter opponents of the Mizrachi. Neither group succeeded in annulling the decision, but Rav Kook again drew away from the Mizrachi and joined the rabbis of the old Yishuv. From his perspective, this further helped to prepare the ground for his cherished appointment as Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi in Eretz Israel. The position ensured him control of the lifeline of ultra-Orthodox Judaism — the large yeshivot, including Meah She‘arim and Ets ha-Hayyim. The leaders of the Mizrachi tried to contend in various ways with Rav Kook’s influence and with bodies who answered to him. The Mizrachi secretary Rabbi Binyamin (pseudonym of Joshua Redler-Feldman) even attacked Rav Kook in several publication venues, but the struggle failed.9 Rav Kook’s leadership recovered and established itself, and he was appointed rabbi of Jerusalem.

ESTABLISHING THE CHIEF RABBINATE

The many quasi-establishment rabbinic bodies in Eretz Israel, the precarious financial situation of many rabbis, and contempt for the institution of the Hakham Bashi as representative of non-Moslem religion under Ottoman rule, are among the factors that led to the establishment of the Chief Rabbinate. For their part, opponents feared that appointees to this position would be puppet figures rather than outstanding scholars, and were further supported by the intense resistance of old Yishuv zealots. The new government in Eretz Israel had created an excellent opportunity for changing the status quo. 37

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Rav Kook, however, was not content with the authority and the centralistic features of the Chief Rabbinate in the making. In his speech before the Chief Rabbinate’s inaugural assembly, he claimed that “the revival of the rabbinate, namely, returning the rabbinate its honor, resonates with the promise of the prophecy ’And I will restore thy judges as at the first, and thy counselors as at the beginning’ [Isaiah 1:26].”10 Rav Kook, then, tied the creation of the Rabbinate to his overall messianic interpretation of current events. He more than hinted to the revival of the Sanhedrin and, indeed, he proposed that the Rabbinic Council should number seventy-one members, as the number in the Great Sanhedrin. Rav Kook also suggested forming a smaller committee from within the Rabbinic Council to meet once every three months, numbering twenty-three members as the number in the small Sanhedrin. Years later, when Maimon was engaged in his pathetic struggle to establish a Sanhedrin after the establishment of the State of Israel, he wrote: “I am sure that, had Rav Kook lived to see the renewed State of Israel and Jerusalem as its capital, he would have continued to realize the prophecy by renewing the Sanhedrin.”11 But Rav Kook withdrew from the hopes of renewing the Sanhedrin because of ultra-Orthodox opposition that, as noted, profoundly influenced his considerations. The Chief Rabbinate was established in 1921. The Rabbinic Council was composed of eight rabbis and three “advisors” who were not rabbis. The Council was indeed established, but did not really function. Rav Kook occupied the position of Ashkenazi rabbi, and the Sephardic rabbi was Ya‘akov Meir. In a sense, a “Chief Rabbinate” is a phenomenon typical of a modern, centralistic state that subordinates religion to the state, and this was the perception of the British Mandate. The election of Rav Kook, who had legitimized the religious-Zionist idea, gave religious-Zionism a certain advantage over the ultra-Orthodox. Certain aspects in the creation of the Rabbinate that would also leave a mark upon religious-Zionism at a later stage are worth clarifying at this point. First, religious-Zionism, like the Zionist movement in general, made unity its motto. This is the meaning of the ingathering of exiles within one framework bringing together the Torah, the people, and the land. Many topical articles by religious-Zionist thinkers make the hope of unity a goal of the movement. The leading spiritual institution, however, perpetuated the division between an Ashkenazi and a Sephardi Chief Rabbi, and this split has been preserved for many years despite repeated calls for a change. Second, the involvement of jurists who are not rabbis and are in fact a “secular” element within the Rabbinic Council has important implications 38

The Foundation of the Chief Rabbinate

for the attitude of religious-Zionism toward the secular-religious rift. It is well known that rabbis opposed this cooperation and indeed said so at the committee set up for this purpose, which was headed by Norman Bentwich. Less well known is that, before Rav Kook categorically objected to any secular participation in the Rabbinic Council, some rabbis had supported it. In their view, secular participation could bring the parties closer and evoke sympathy for the emerging religious institution, on which many hopes were pinned. Rav Kook, however, was willing to compromise even on the scope of the Chief Rabbinate’s authority if he could thereby ensure its independence from any secular elements. He gave up exclusive jurisdiction on matters of civil law, but still failed to prevent secular involvement in the Rabbinic Council. Third, the motives of representatives from various communities in the country for demanding secular participation should also be understood. These representatives expected the Chief Rabbinate to adapt itself to the zeitgeist, namely, to “reform” Halakhah in light of the new needs of the Yishuv. On these grounds, they requested that the secular representatives at the Chief Rabbinate be jurists. At discussions in the Bentwich committee, the communities’ representatives submitted an explicit demand to amend rulings of rabbinic courts that, as expected, both Rav Kook and the rabbis adamantly resisted. This event reflects the gap between the expectations from, and the actual capabilities of, a chief rabbinic institution, and the conservative reality that thwarts their implementation. The Chief Rabbinate, therefore, was doomed to waver between them without taking the lead. Rav Kook exploited his position as Chief Rabbi to ensure rabbinic positions for his ideological supporters. For instance, although R. Baruch Marcus was already officiating as Haifa’s city rabbi, he supported the appointment of R. Yehoshua Kaniel to this position, probably because of Marcus’ associations with Agudat Israel circles. Rav Kook was occasionally involved in contests with the Mizrachi, and tried to place candidates from his own circle against those of the Mizrachi.12 This tradition continued after his death, when Rav Kook’s circle tried to elect R. Jacob Harlap as Chief Rabbi against the Mizrachi nominee, Rabbi Doctor Isaac Herzog. A poster supporting R. Harlap reads: “Rabbi [Joseph Hayyim] Sonnenfeld [leader of the old Yishuv’s zealots] said he fears that after Rav Kook, of blessed memory, a rabbi doctor will succeed him. He therefore prayed that the chair may be whole.” Herzog was later elected Chief Rabbi. Historians agree that the Chief Rabbinate was hardly a success story from the start. Were it not for the charismatic figure of Rav Kook, it may have collapsed on its own. The Chief Rabbinate was marginalized and perceived as 39

Chapter Five

a minor body during the Mandate, plagued by internal and external divisions. Its official status precluded its taking a forceful stand on issues critical to the Yishuv.13 R. Isaac Herzog, formerly Chief Rabbi of Ireland and Chief Rabbi of Eretz Israel from 1936, defined the scope of the Chief Rabbinate’s powers and activities. Whereas Rav Kook had viewed the Chief Rabbinate as an outside entity and largely in confrontation with the institutions of the Yishuv, R. Herzog applied himself to its institutionalization within the Yishuv and acquired the legitimation of its leaders. In later years, R. Herzog led the Chief Rabbinate’s opposition to the Mandate’s White Paper and supported, albeit not actively, the Haganah’s policy of restraint [havlagah] and illegal immigration. Although the Chief Rabbinate’s image was for many years one of passivity, it did contribute to the unity of the Yishuv during the Mandate’s early years, at least at the symbolic-representative level.

NOTES 1 See, for instance, Abraham Rubinstein, A Movement in a Period of Transition: A Chapter in the History of the Mizrachi in Poland (in Hebrew) (Ramat-Gan: Bar-Ilan, 1981). 2 Abraham Yitzhak Kook, Lights (in Hebrew) (Jerusalem: Mosad Ha-Rav Kook, 1963), p. 13. This book was first published in 1920. 3 Ibid, p. 16. 4 Menachem Friedman, Society and Religion: The Non-Zionist Orthodox in EretzIsrael — 1918–1936 (in Hebrew) (Jerusalem: Yad Itzhak Ben Zvi, 1977). 5 See Yossi Avneri, Rabbi Abraham Yitzhak Hacohen Kook as Chief Rabbi of Palestine: The Man and His Work (in Hebrew) (Ph. D. dissertation: Bar-llan University, 1989). 6 See Mordechai Eliav, ”The Mission of the Rabbis to the Galilean Colonies in 1914” (in Hebrew), in Studies in the History of Jewish Society in the Middle Ages and in the Modern Period Presented to Professor Jacob Katz, ed. Imannuel Etkes and Yosef Salmon (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1980), pp. 379–396. 7 Yevamoth 65b; Abraham Yitzhak Kook, Ma’amrei ha-Ra’ayah [Collected Essays], vol. 1 (Jerusalem: n. p., 1980), p. 189. See Zvi Zohar, ”Traditional Flexibility and Modern Strictness: Two Halakhic Positions on Women’s Suffrage,” in Sephardi and Middle Eastern Jewries: History and Culture in the Modern Era, ed. Harvey Goldberg (Bloomington, ID: Indiana University Press, 1996), pp. 119–133; Hagai Boaz, “The Story of the Struggle for Women’s Suffrage” in the Yishuv: The Status Quo and the Creation of Social Categories (in Hebrew), Teoria U-Vikoret 21 (2002), pp. 107–131. 8 Gideon Kressel, ed. On the Lookout: Selected Writings of Simon Menahem Laser (in Hebrew) (Jerusalem: Mosad Ha-Rav Kook, 1969), pp. 174–176. See Dov Schwartz, Religious-Zionism between Logic and Messianism (in Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 1999), pp. 325–326. See also Baruch Ben-Avram and Henry Near, Studies in the 40

The Foundation of the Chief Rabbinate

9

10 11 12

13

Third Aliyah (1919–1924): Image and Reality (in Hebrew) (Jerusalem: Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi, 1995), p. 183. See Aryeh Morgenstern, The Chief Rabbinate of Eretz Israel (in Hebrew) (Jerusalem: Shorashim, 1973); Itamar Warhaftig and Shmuel Katz, eds., The Chief Rabbinate of Eretz Israel after Seventy Years (in Hebrew), 3 vols., (Jerusalem: Heikhal Shlomo, 2002). Abraham Yitzhak Kook, Ma’amrei ha-Ra’ayah, vol. 1, p. 52. Judah Leib Maimon, Renewing the Sanhedrin in Our Renewed State (in Hebrew) (Jerusalem: Mosad Ha-Rav Kook, 1951), p. 57. See Yaakov Vilian, ”The Chief Rabbinate and the Municipal Rabbinates: Early Development” (in Hebrew), in A Hundred Years of Religious-Zionism, vol. 2, ed. Avi Sagi and Dov Schwartz (Ramat-Gan: Bar-Ilan, 2003), pp. 71–82. See Menachem Friedman, ”The Chief Rabbinate: An Unsolvable Dilemma” (in Hebrew), Medina U-Mimshal 3 (1972), pp. 118–122.

41

Chapter Six

Chapter Six

HA-PO‘EL HA-MIZRACHI: AGAINST THE EXILE AND THE BOURGEOISIE

The Mizrachi constituency was mainly middle class, which explains why it found political Zionism so appealing in its first two decades. The movement’s leaders did not view the establishment of a religious workers’ movement as an urgent necessity. The Mizrachi’s indifference to the ideal of “kibbush ha-avodah [the conquest of labor]” was not the only difficulty. Observant Jews were not attracted to the lifestyle of laborers in Eretz Israel, whose pioneering work often required them to live in cooperative frameworks. A way of life imbued with socialist ideals did not include kosher kitchens or other basic religious services allowing for the inclusion of observant Jews. Establishing a religious labor movement required an iron will and a readiness to experience difficult situations. And yet, a specific group of religious-Zionist laborers wanted to be involved in the actual building of the land and founded Ha-Po‘el ha-Mizrachi. This religious labor movement, born out of necessity, was later strengthened through the development of a broad and inclusive theological world view.

THE FOUNDING OF HA-PO‘EL HA-MIZRACHI IN ERETZ ISRAEL

Immediately after World War I, a group of young Jerusalemites came together for the purpose of taking part in the building of the country. They founded the Federation of Eretz Israel Youth Affiliated with the Mizrachi [Histadrut ha-Tsa‘ir ha-Eretz Israeli she-al-yad ha-Mizrachi], and its members went to work in agriculture in Rehovoth. The organization later changed its name to Young Mizrachi [Ha-Mizrachi ha-Tsa‘ir] and, unlike the rebellious spirit of Ha-Po‘el haMizrachi and the socialist ideals it supported (as we will see below), it remained close to the original movement. This organization was mainly concerned 42

Ha-Po‘el ha-Mizrachi: Against the Exile and the Bourgeoisie

with urban settlement (for instance, the Sanhedriah and Neveh Ya‘akov neighborhoods in Jerusalem), and fell apart in 1928, after about ten years. In Mizrachi branches around the world, a call went out to prepare an educational and practical infrastructure for training religious pioneers. Toward the end of the war, the Mizrachi Pioneer [He-Halutz ha-Mizrachi] movement began to take shape in Poland, and activists such as Shmuel Hayyim Landau strove to formulate a broad organizational platform for the movement. Another event that influenced the emergence of a movement of religious laborers was the arrival of observant youths in the third aliyah, who pressured the Mizrachi to involve them in the pioneering effort. It was to provide work for these youths that the Mizrachi undertook to build the Rosh PinahTabha road in 1920. About 120 workers began working in this scheme, but their inexperience together with adaptation problems doomed the project. The work was given over to the Histadrut [General Federation of Labor], but an institutionalized framework organizing religious laborers was by then unstoppable. Ha-Po‘el ha-Mizrachi held its founding meeting in Tel Aviv in 1921, and in 1922 launched an initiative for a countrywide organization. Its members wanted to separate from the Mizrachi in Eretz Israel and become an international organization affiliated with the World Mizrachi. Officially, the movement was founded in 1922.1 This initial event attests to identity problems in Ha-Po‘el ha-Mizrachi. On one hand, they felt an ideological affinity with the Mizrachi. Support for the national religious idea created an obvious association with the original movement of religious-Zionism. On the other, Ha-Po‘el ha-Mizrachi felt that Mizrachi members were indifferent to ideals of labor and productivity or, at least, did not devote appropriate efforts to their fulfillment. Ha-Po‘el haMizrachi also felt a kinship with the Histadrut. The movement’s ideologues did work hard to differentiate themselves from the socialist idea of international workers’ movements, involving workers’ solidarity and the realization of Marxist ideals. But the difficulties and challenges facing local workers building the land were the same for observant and non-observant laborers. The struggle for the rights of laborers was another important factor drawing observant and non-observant workers close together. Identity problem worsened because, unlike the Mizrachi, which had been founded by admired and respected rabbis such as Yitzhak Ya‘akov Reines and Meir Bar-Ilan (Berlin), Ha-Po‘el ha-Mizrachi members came from undistinguished backgrounds, mostly from Hasidic families. They were later joined by members of Bahad [Brith Halutzim Datiyyim — League of Religious Pioneers], who came to Eretz Israel in the early 1930s. The absence of rabbinic authority figures contributed to the sense of 43

Chapter Six

detachment, but also to an enormous sense of freshness and innovation. Identity problems in the religious laborers’ organization led to a flare-up a few years after its foundation, as noted below.

A NEW CONSCIOUSNESS

Ha-Po‘el ha-Mizrachi members were involved in routine, everyday activities. The organization began by setting up kosher kitchens and labor exchanges for religious workers. A heated contest for jobs was then under way. Workers affiliated with the Histadrut prevented religious workers in Tel Aviv from gaining access to jobs in bakeries and in construction, and the confrontation came up for arbitration at the WZO. In this harsh reality, religious laborers sought recognition of their right to live from their labor. Beside their active involvement, Ha-Po‘el ha-Mizrachi members developed a new consciousness, which they formulated as Torah va-Avodah. Even before Landau had coined the term ha-mered ha-kadosh [the holy rebellion], the founders of Ha-Po‘el ha-Mizrachi had developed a consciousness of rebellion. At the general level, they rebelled against the exilic mentality. In their view, manual labor heals the disease of exile because it brings to the creation of a new religious individual, healthy in body and soul. As opposed to “exilic” passivity, Ha-Po‘el ha-Mizrachi members strove for initiative, productivity, and self-redemption. At the movement level, their rebellion was against the Mizrachi. Members of Ha-Po‘el ha-Mizrachi saw the Mizrachi as expressing an exilic mentality. They felt that Mizrachi members in Eretz Israel and abroad confined their concern to ensuring that “Zionism should do nothing against religion.”2 In this sense, they were no different from exilic Jews; in fact, they had actually brought exile to Eretz Israel. The alternative consciousness developed by Ha-Po‘el ha-Mizrachi members came to the fore in two realms: ■ In the theological realm it created a new outlook, stating that God is present in nature, and is revealed through manual labor. ■ In the social realm, they claimed that labor makes human life healthy by making individuals masters of their fate.3 To the messianic, religious-Zionist outlook, Ha-Po‘el ha-Mizrachi added personal redemption. Productivity and manual labor are necessary elements in the realization and redemption of the individual. Consider the following text, written by Shlomo Zalman Shragai about ten years after the founding of Ha-Po‘el ha-Mizrachi: 44

Ha-Po‘el ha-Mizrachi: Against the Exile and the Bourgeoisie

The special quality of Eretz Israel is not available to those who keep away from it [lit., fail to walk four parasangs within it], nor to those who merely breathe its air, but only to its workers, to the farmers blessed by the Lord. That is why we were commanded: “And when you shall come into the land” — where your spirit will be revealed by keeping the Torah and its commandments — “and shall have planted” (Leviticus 19:23), and this is a positive commandment. This is the power of working the land in Eretz Israel. It awakens the divine in us and brings us to spiritual yearning and longing for the living God, to contemplation, thought, and faith. When being and working in nature, the individual develops the awareness that “no place is empty of Him.” He sees the Creation praising God and hears the song of the earth: “The Lord by wisdom founded the earth” (Proverbs 3:19); “The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof” (Psalms 24:1). Everywhere he sees God’s hand and Divine Providence. For the laborer, a life of labor precludes the option of living from the toil of others, minimizes reward from the plunder and exploitation of the other’s effort, and enables an honest, fair life from the fruit of one’s hands. Such a life is one of the prophets’ missions. In order for individuals in this nation to understand this and lead lives based on labor, a fundamental and radical change is required in the soul. The lives we became used to over two thousand years must be eradicated to implant love for labor, from which we have been torn and detached throughout.4

In the consciousness of Ha-Po‘el ha-Mizrachi, then, a constitutive principle that had been repressed during the twenty years that had preceded its creation burst into the open: the creation of a new religious type, a redeemed creature working in a redeemed world. Religious-Zionist thinkers had indeed held that, ultimately, the aim of national renaissance was to create a new religious type, but had been afraid to say so explicitly and face scathing ultra-Orthodox censure. Ha-Po‘el ha-Mizrachi was no longer afraid, since it located its activity in the Zionist society of Eretz Israel rather than in the European community. Solid theological foundations emerge from the ideology of Ha-Po‘el ha-Mizrachi in its early years: labor releases the divinity that, as it were, is imprisoned in the exilic soul. Returning to a life of work is, to some extent, a renewed revelation of the living God. The idea of God’s presence in nature and in humanity is largely rooted in the Hasidic background of Ha-Po‘el ha-Mizrachi’s founders — Yeshayahu Shapira,5 Shlomo Zalman Shragai, Yeshayahu Bernstein, and others. Although, as noted, this view appears also in the writings of Reines, the Mizrachi founder, the idea of labor and productivity as revealing divine immanence is an Ha-Po‘el ha-Mizrachi innovation. The heavy theological layer could be a response to the enormous obstacles placed on the movement’s path. The authenticity of 45

Chapter Six

the movement’s leaders, however, cannot be ignored. In their view, religious renewal includes a comprehensive theological outlook, which is shaped in light of the national renaissance. Another element that emerged in the ideological discussions of Ha-Po‘el ha-Mizrachi should also be interpreted in this perspective. The leaders and ideologues of the movement broadened the concept of Torah to include all ways of life. The Torah includes everything and, therefore, the “true” socialist idea also stems directly from the Torah. Explicitly and without hesitation, they admitted that they were striving to impose a Torah regime in Eretz Israel, since the Torah has an answer for every problem or every social, political, or national contingence. As noted, Ze’ev Jawitz saw this as an important educational principle, and Ha-Po‘el ha-Mizrachi members applied it in all their ways of life. Although this approach derives from the comprehensive theological outlook of Ha-Po‘el ha-Mizrachi, an additional factor seems to be behind this expansion of the Torah to every sphere of life: the movement’s dangerous proximity to the socialist idea and the need to differentiate from it, since the workers’ movement in Eretz Israel had adopted distinctive socialist foundations. Yeshayahu Bernstein, for instance, held that the capitalists’ oppression of the worker was undeniable and support for the class struggle was therefore imperative.6 At the same time, he claimed that the way of Marx and Landauer is not that of Ha-Po‘el ha-Mizrachi, since the Torah advocates a developmental, “positive” class struggle rather than a distorted and spiteful war. Although Ha-Po‘el haMizrachi adopted socialist-Marxist elements, particularly from the mid–1930s, it rejected the boldness and violence of socialism. The idea of the Torah as all-encompassing helped the movement’s ideologues to differentiate its values from those of international, revolutionary socialism. These principles shaped the unique consciousness of Ha-Po‘el ha-Mizrachi during the movement’s early years, when its ideologues came primarily from Hasidic families. Another conception, discussed below, evolved in later years, with the arrival of Bahad members to Eretz Israel.7

ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF HA-PO‘EL HA-MIZRACHI: SHMUEL HAYYIM LANDAU

Shmuel Hayyim Landau (Shahal) was a crucial figure in the foundation of the Torah va-Avodah movement in Poland and a decisive influence within the Ha-Po‘el ha-Mizrachi movement in Eretz Israel after his immigration in 1926.8 Several months after his arrival, he wrote an important ideological 46

Ha-Po‘el ha-Mizrachi: Against the Exile and the Bourgeoisie

article: “Le-Verur Shitatenu” [Explaining our Way]. Landau argued that only the national dimension (“the spirit of the nation”) concretizes the commandments concerning the settlement of Eretz Israel. Without the national dimension, the religious act of settling the land becomes “abstract-mystical.” And viceversa: the building of the land has no stable national meaning without the Torah. But this is not “Torah” in its restricted meaning, namely, as a set of commandments incumbent on individuals. Rather, the reference is to “the Torah in general, as the spirit of the nation, the source of its culture and its breath of life, the public-national foundation of the Torah.”9 Torah in its full ideological meaning is thus the expression of Jewish nationalism. Just as he expanded the term “Torah” to include the national domain, Landau expanded the concept of “avodah [labor].” For the Jewish people, “avodah” means national renaissance. The value of labor is concerned with the renewed building of the nation on healthy foundations. Unproductive occupations and the detachment from the land during life in exile, therefore, detracted from the very definition of “Israel” as a “people.” Landau fully acknowledged that the meaning of Zionist ideology (“the aspiration to return to Zion”) is to reconstitute the people.10 The value of labor, therefore, has a bearing not only on a new socio-economic order but on the shaping of Jewish nationality per se. Both elements of Jewish nationalism, then, are two sides of one coin: a full realization of the Torah through a productive life resting on manual labor. In broadening the concept of “avodah” and presenting it as religion’s ultimate expression, Landau could cautiously be described as having created a religious-Zionist version of A. D. Gordon’s “religion of labor.”11

SPLIT AND UNIFICATION

The identity problems of Ha-Po‘el ha-Mizrachi led, as noted, to a serious inner conflict that ended in a split in 1924. The background of the conflict was the reaction to the Mizrachi’s insensitivity toward the religious workers’ movement on one hand, and the question of how far to radicalize the class struggle on the other. The “left” wing of Ha-Po‘el ha-Mizrachi (among its members were Nehemia Aminoah, Yeshayahu Bernstein, and Abraham Kastenboim) decided to join the Histadrut, whereas the “right” wing (Shlomo Zalman Shragai, Meir Shimon Geshuri, Ya‘akov Silman) insisted on establishing a federation of religious laborers as an integral part of the Mizrachi, which would bring together Ha-Po‘el ha-Mizrachi and the Young Mizrachi. 47

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Disappointment with the Mizrachi reached new heights. Members of HaPo‘el ha-Mizrachi accused the Mizrachi of lack of faith in the torah va-avodah notion at the ideological level, and of striving to take control of the workers at the practical level. The “right-wingers” did lament and publicly protest against the Mizrachi’s indifference to the workers’ problems, but they hoped to amend the situation from the inside. By contrast, the “left-wingers” despaired from salvation through the Mizrachi. In their view, leaders of the workers’ movement must emerge from among the workers rather than from among politicians. They thought that the struggle for the workers’ rights justifies joining forces, since the exploitation of the workers’ class is the lot of both secular and religious laborers. They must therefore join the Histadrut, founded in 1919, about two years before Ha-Po‘el ha-Mizrachi. The “left wingers” published their views in the newspaper Ha-Ohelah. The “right wingers” accused the left of supporting a Marxist version of the class struggle. In Netivah, the movement’s organ, they claimed that the left-wingers seek to turn workers from exploited into exploiters rather than liberate them from enslavement. Tempers ran high. Some, like Landau, tried to bridge the gap between the rival camps but ended up joining one or the other. Soon, however, both parties realized the drawbacks of division. Unification was finally achieved in 1927, through a compromise: Ha-Po‘el ha-Mizrachi returned to the Mizrachi but also joined the Histadrut in employment agreements and in its health plan. The activism of Ha-Po‘el ha-Mizrachi, as opposed to the political ideology of the Mizrachi, fostered constant ferment among the rank and file in open and covert ways. In the early 1930s, Ha-Po‘el ha-Mizrachi again made attempts to break away from the Mizrachi, but did not go ahead.12 Despite membership in the Mizrachi, the religious workers’ movement sustained its own organization and financial basis. In 1925, the international Torah va-Avodah organization was born, called “The World League of Young Mizrachi, Ha-Po‘el ha-Mizrachi, and the Pioneer Mizrachi” [Ha-Brith ha-Olamit shel Tse‘irei ha-Mizrachi, Ha-Po‘el ha-Mizrachi ve-he-Halutz ha-Mizrachi]. The identity concerns of Ha-Po‘el ha-Mizrachi were epitomized in the question of the relationship with the Histadrut, and continued to occupy the organization during the 1930s as well, as evident from the minutes of its various conferences.13 Three factions existed at the time in the movement, and the ideological distinctions between them overlapped identity concerns. The ’El ha-Makor faction, headed by Katriel Fishel Tchursh, Reuven Gafni (Weinschenker), and Eliyahu Moshe Genichovsky, leaned to the right, toward the Mizrachi. The Torah va-Avodah faction, headed by Moshe Shapira, Shlomo Zalman Shragai, and Yeshayahu Bernstein, endorsed moderate, compromise 48

Ha-Po‘el ha-Mizrachi: Against the Exile and the Bourgeoisie

views. Finally, the Yetsirah u-Biniyan faction, of left-wing leanings, supported abandoning the Mizrachi. Its leaders were Moshe Unna, David Beth-Arieh (Intriligator) and others, who would later make up the La-Mifneh faction, of lasting impact on Ha-Po‘el ha-Mizrachi and on the future National Religious Party. This deployment of forces determined the outline of the future party as a federation of factions. A significant attainment in the struggle for the right to work was the 1940 agreement between Ha-Po‘el ha-Mizrachi and the Histadrut concerning the establishment of labor exchanges that would not be run according to distinctive party criteria. At the time, Ha-Po‘el ha-Mizrachi adopted a new strategy in Eretz Israel: it sought to take over the Mizrachi. The two movements eventually joined forces (1956) and, to some extent, the Ha-Po‘el ha-Mizrachi ideology did take control of the entire movement. In sum, Ha-Po‘el ha-Mizrachi members reflect an interesting phenomenon in social, anthropological, and philosophical terms: a collective-public philosophy with distinctive theological features. The movement’s ideologues were not serious theologians, and the discussions they conducted never pretended to be “philosophy.” Nevertheless, the movement did create an overarching and comprehensive theological world view, no less profound than systematic theological doctrines. Those coming from various Hasidic movements emphasized the deep theological-metaphysical aspect of God’s presence in nature and its liberation through manual labor. Ex-Bahad members stressed the role of the law in the renewed shaping of creation. Ha-Po‘el ha-Mizrachi is evidence of the very existence of a public philosophy and, consequently, of the need for interdisciplinary methods to uncover it. The importance of the movement is not determined by its size, since it numbered no more than a few hundred members in its early years. The movement’s significance rests upon its clear and sharp formulation of religiousZionist principles. “The holy rebellion” was not directed solely against exilic passivity as opposed to manual and productive labor, but against the suppression of the hopes and longings for a new Jew, for a redeemed religious type living in a redeemed world. Ha-Po‘el ha-Mizrachi was neither bound by rabbinical constraints nor intimidated by the ultra-Orthodox. Contrary to Agudat Israel’s “Council of Sages,” it generated a new type of non-rabbinic leadership, emphasizing individual decision and responsibility. These developments were particularly evident in the Religious Kibbutz (the collective settlement branch of the religious labor movement) movement that, until recently, did not appoint rabbis in its settlements.14 This is the key to the unique significance of Ha-Po‘el ha-Mizrachi in blazing the trail of the religious-Zionist idea. 49

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NOTES 1 On Ha-Po‘el Ha-Mizrachi, see Nehemia Aminoah, Religious Labor Movement (in Hebrew) (Jerusalem: Torah va-Avodah, 1931); Moshe Hameiri (Ostrovsky), The History of the Mizrachi in the Land of Israel (in Hebrew) (Jerusalem: Rubin Mass, 1944); Aryei Fishman, Ha-Po‘el ha-Mizrachi 1921–1935: Documents (in Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University Press, 1979); Yitzhak Alfasi, ed., Torah va-Avodah-Vision and Action: The History of Ha-Po‘el ha-Mizrachi Movement and the Story of Its Founders, 1922–1932 (in Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Histadrut Ha-Po‘el ha-Mizrachi, 1985); Yosef Salmon, Religion and Zionism: First Encounters (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 2001), pp. 368–381. 2 Shlomo Zalman Shragai, Vision and Fulfillment (in Hebrew) (Jerusalem: Mosad HaRav Kook, 1957), p. 36. 3 See Aryei Fishman, ”Two Religious Ethos in the Development of the Torah va-Avodah Idea” (in Hebrew), Bi-Shvilei ha-Tehyiah 2 (1987), pp. 133–140. 4 Shlomo Zalman Shragai, ”Our Way” (in Hebrew), in Yalkut: Anthology on the Idea of Torah va-Avodah, ed. Nehemia Aminoah and Yeshayahu Bernstein (Jerusalem: Torah va-Avodah, 1931), pp. 32–33. 5 See Shabtai Don-Yehiya, Admor Halutz: Yeshayahu Shapira (in Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Moreshet, 1961). 6 Yeshayahu Bernstein, Mission and Pathway (in Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Moreshet, 1957), pp. 292–295. 7 Pinhas Rosenblueth, however, wrote that Bahad members ”felt an affinity to Rabbi Shapira and his ideology.” See Yitzhak Raphael and Shlomo Zalman Shragai, eds., The Book of Religious-Zionism (in Hebrew), vol. 2 (Jerusalem: Mosad Ha-Rav Kook, 1977), p. 335. 8 See Shabtai Don-Yehiya, The Holy Rebellion: Shmuel Hayyim Landau (in Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Moreshet, 1960). 9 Shmuel Hayyim Landau, Writings (in Hebrew) (Warsaw: Ha-Shomer Ha-Dati in Poland, 1935), p. 38. 10 Ibid, p. 42. 11 See, for instance, Eliezer Schweid, The World of A. D. Gordon (in Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 1970); Abraham Shapira, The Kabbalistic and Hasidic Sources of A. D. Gordon’s Thought (in Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 1996). 12 See Abraham Bik, ”Religion and Labor: A Left Wing in Religious-Zionism” (in Hebrew), in Sefer Shragai, ed. Mordechai Eliav and Yitzhak Raphael (Jerusalem: Mosad Ha-Rav Kook, 1982), pp. 127–131. See also Nathan Gardi, Memoirs of a Religious Pioneer (in Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: NRP, 1973). 13 See Yossi Avneri, ed., The Seventh Convention of Hapoel ha-Mizrachi Movement in Eretz Israel (1935) (Ramat-Gan: Bar-Ilan, 1985). 14 See chapter 8 below.

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Chapter Seven

CRITICIZING ZIONIST POLICY

Until the end of World War I, the Mizrachi followed the policy outlined by R. Reines, its founder: it saw itself as an integral part of the WZO and generally supported the policy of the Zionist leadership. Reines’ loyalty to Herzl would go on shaping the relationship between the Mizrachi and the Zionist movement, and the activist line of Ze’ev Jawitz and Judah Leib Maimon (Fishman) was not yet dominant. Religious-Zionism struggled within the WZO to preserve the religious character of education, of the Sabbath, and so forth. After World War I, however, the Mizrachi changed course and became an independent, activist political movement, to the chagrin of WZO leaders. At times, its independence came to the fore in noisy and belligerent exits from the Zionist executive. The Mizrachi leadership had changed, and those setting the tone in Eretz Israel were now Meir Bar-Ilan (Berlin), who settled in Eretz Israel in 1926 after leading the movement in the United States, Maimon, and Moshe Hameiri (Ostrovsky); in Germany, Eliezer Bart, and in Poland, Joshua Heschel Farbstein and Shmuel Hayyim Landau.

CRITIQUES AND HESITATIONS

For years, religious-Zionism had been concerned with the question of the appropriate balance between the two tasks it had assumed: should it focus on spreading Zionism among religious non-Zionists, or on spreading religious values among non-religious Zionists? At the time of the British Mandate, it reached a decision: attention was to focus on to the struggle against secularization and against the political line adopted by the Zionist movement. The Mizrachi was extremely critical of the stand taken by the WZO executive in several areas:1 51

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T h e Po l i t i c a l R e a l m. Contrary to the Zionist executive, the Mizrachi opposed the British White Paper of 1922 that had considerably reduced the borders of the “National Home” by detaching Transjordan from Eretz Israel. Henceforth, the Mizrachi opposed the policy of compromise pursued by Weizmann, and about ten years later (1931) even resigned from the executive on these grounds. Although it eventually returned, criticism did not cease. Two years later, the Mizrachi was not included in the executive and even cooperated with right-wing factions that had left the Haganah (1931). T h e I d e o l o g i c a l R e a l m. In 1933, the Mizrachi World Conference in Cracow decided that the movement explicitly strives to establish a Jewish state in Eretz Israel. Henceforth the Mizrachi, often vexing the Yishuv leadership, formulated a total and explicit demand for the establishment of a Jewish state. S e t t l e m e n t. The Mizrachi confronted the executive for preferring cooperative forms of settlement and discriminating against religious settlements. Religious-Zionist settlements were established only after a long struggle against the bureaucratic institutions of Zionism (the Department of Land Settlement, the Zionist executive, the Jewish National Fund, and others). For their part, these institutions tried to hinder religiousZionist settlement in various ways. Shmuel Hayyim Landau, Shlomo Zalman Shragai, Moshe Shapira, and other Ha-Po‘el ha-Mizrachi leaders published articles and mobilized political support in the struggle for the right to establish settlements. They were supported by Mizrachi leaders such as Hayyim Pick, Hermann Struck, Bar-Ilan, Maimon, and Rabbi Binyamin.2 S o c i a l a n d C l a s s C o n s i d e r a t i o n s. The Mizrachi also considered itself responsible for the rights of religious workers, and joined Ha-Po‘el ha-Mizrachi in the struggle to improve their lot. Despite the claims of the religious labor movement against the Mizrachi for its lack of involvement in this matter, evidence shows that the Mizrachi did join this struggle. These confrontations naturally intensified as the secular labor movement became increasingly stronger. T h e R e l i g i o u s R e a l m. Particularly in the early 1930s, the critique touched on the collapse of religion in the public arena. In this area as well, the Mizrachi was again in conflict with the labor movement, whose members did not observe kashrut in the workers’ public kitchens and tilled JNF lands on the Sabbath. The problem was particularly annoying in Haifa, a laborers’ city where secularism was rampant. Bar-Ilan (Berlin), who had 52

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been the leading figure in the American Mizrachi, clarified the difference between “there” and “here” when speaking to a meeting of the Zionist executive in 1934: “In exile the Sabbath is desecrated out of need, here the Sabbath is desecrated out of plenty.” In his view, a spirit of hedonism was pervading the secularization of the Jewish nationality restored in the Yishuv. On these grounds, the Mizrachi left the Eighteenth Zionist Congress and a compromise was reached only in 1935, making the Sabbath and Jewish holidays compulsory days of rest. This was the beginning of the “status quo.”3 Some Mizrachi members disagreed with the movement’s bold activism, and refused to grasp the turnaround that had occurred in religious-Zionism. Leading figures, such as Yeshayahu Avia‘d (Wolfsberg) in Germany, and Hameiri in Eretz Israel, opposed the forceful explicit stand endorsed by the Mizrachi. In 1934, these opponents established the “Ha-Mizrachi ha-Vatik” (”The Old Mizrachi”) faction calling for a return to the movement’s original course, which had focused on gentle persuasion while supporting settlement. Only four years later, this new faction dispersed. The Mizrachi remained in the opposition for two years (1933–1935). These stormy events point to a stance that would prevail in religious-Zionism for many years, claiming that to be in the opposition is to keep away from action. Maimon and others discovered that to be removed from the centers of activity and decision-making impairs the dynamism of the movement and the attainment of its aims. Indeed, it was at this time that the future cooperation with the Labor movement, which would continue for many years, began to take shape.

MEIR BAR-ILAN: HIS OUTLOOK

The change in the path of the Mizrachi reflects, inter alia, the opinions and personality of Meir Bar-Ilan, who led the movement during the 1920s.4 His writing attests to the end of the apologetic course that had characterized the movement’s early years. As noted, the Mizrachi had tried to blur the dimension of religious-cultural renewal in order to attract the ultra-Orthodox to Zionism. Bar-Ilan, however, claimed in 1922 that the Mizrachi categorically rejects any separation between religion and the future state. He rejected religion’s bargaining position vis-à-vis modernity (in the terms of sociologist Peter Berger).5 Religious-Zionism strives for a state whose constitution will be based on the commandments of the Torah, and not even one commandment should be conceded. Bar-Ilan was aware of the future ingathering of 53

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exiles, with every ethnic community bringing different practices. Prima facie, this situation dims the prospects of a halakhic state with a homogeneous constitution, but Bar-Ilan did not fear this. He held that the future state would promote uniform legislation, even if its laws were found to contradict specific practices. This had been the case, for instance, in the United States during Prohibition, when the constitution underwent an “ascetic” change. Socialism is also known to strive for uniformity. Changing the law in order to create homogeneity is thus possible and desirable. The vision of a halakhic state would not be achieved through coercion, but through persuasion and by bringing those who are currently distant from it closer to tradition: “The only way to unite the whole of the Jewish people, in all their sects and parties, under one government, is to renew our lives through the laws of the Written and Oral Torah.”6 From a religious-Zionist perspective, the turnabout meant that the ideas of renewal and of a halakhic state were no longer suppressed. This is not an essential change of the messianic hope, but rather its explicit display. From the perspective of the political leadership, however, a change did take place. At the Mizrachi’s twenty-fifth anniversary in 1927, Bar-Ilan noted the inclusion of religious matters in the agenda of the WZO as an enormous achievement. The fact that the WZO must budget funds for religious-Zionist education, for the rabbinate and other religious concerns was no longer debatable and had become part of the consensus: “The very acceptance of a religious budget by the Zionist Congresses and the executive . . . is only positive. The Mizrachi has thereby achieved all it had aimed for.”7 No more discussions about “culture,” but its transformation into the official ideology! The formulation of the aims of Zionism as a “safe haven,” a shelter from anti-Semitism and a movement of rescue, in the style of Reines and his colleagues, had collapsed and disappeared altogether. From now on, religious-Zionism would seek to attain its maximalist aim: the settlement of Eretz Israel according to the Torah, and the exploitation of the various Zionist bodies for the attainment of this aim. Bar-Ilan took credit for this achievement: the view that Zionist practice has nothing in common with religion or religious education had collapsed. Bar-Ilan’s leadership and policy require a separate analysis. Besides setting the Mizrachi on an activist course, Bar-Ilan strove for cooperation with Agudat Israel, and even met with Jacob Rosenheim before World War II.8 His attempts, however, were doomed to fail.9

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OPPOSITION WITHIN THE MIZRACHI: R. MOSHE AVIGDOR AMIEL

In the early 1930s, as noted, the Mizrachi was intensely exposed to the radical secularization of the Yishuv in Eretz Israel. No wonder, then, that this period sees the appearance of a trend seeking to draw closer to Agudat Israel, driven by harsh criticism of secular Zionism in general and of the Mizrachi’s halfhearted approach in particular. Ideological and pragmatic objections were voiced by R. Moshe Avigdor Amiel, rabbi of Antwerp in Belgium and later rabbi of Tel Aviv. R. Amiel was a brilliant and eloquent preacher, a deep thinker, and a methodologist of Halakhah.10 He argued that secular Zionism is an assimilationist movement of national scope, originating in German nationalism. Zionism, then, lacks any original Jewish content and simply imitates non-Jewish nationalism. Indeed, Zionism for Amiel is the first movement seeking to create a Judaism detached from the Torah and, in this sense, it is even worse than, for instance, the Reform movement. In the 1933 Mizrachi’s international conference in Cracow, Amiel discussed “The Ideological Foundations of the Mizrachi” in a speech that was later published as a separate tractate. He began by pointing out the Mizrachi’s historical mistake. The movement had been ready to accept secular-Zionist goals, both ideologically and pragmatically, and had confined itself to ensuring they would be realized according to religious requirements. But this is impossible, since secular Zionism is a radical assimilationist ideology. In other words, secular Zionism and the Torah are mutually contradictory. The Mizrachi, therefore, must fight secularism by broadening its goals concerning the spread of the Torah. Amiel proposed the following formulation as the Mizrachi program: The Mizrachi is a federation resting on an all-inclusive Torah Judaism [the previous program had read: “based on the Basle program”] working for the building of Eretz Israel within our national home, and in favor of a national existence for the Jewish people and their development everywhere, in the spirit of the Written and Oral Law.11

Amiel argued that the Mizrachi must shift from a defensive position seeking to prevent religious transgressions in public, to an offensive one, “strengthening Judaism.” The movement must be concerned not only with the founding of new settlements but must also establish “Torah points,” namely, it must set up yeshivot and encourage writing and creativity “in all Torah disciplines.” 55

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In For the Perplexed of Our Time [Li-Nvokhei ha-Tekufah] R. Amiel formulated a systematic philosophy of Judaism.12 He discussed theology, and argued that God must be ascribed the attribute of infinity. Space and time, the Kantian forms of sensibility, are actually expressions of divine infinity. Kant claimed that consciousness creates its object out of the given. Divine infinity, therefore, is definitely present in human consciousness. Amiel claimed that God is present in the individual soul, and thus proceeded to endorse the notion of divine immanence. Amiel was also concerned with Jewish ethics. He drew a distinction between Jewish ethics and Kant’s categorical imperative, which he perceived as utilitarian and limited. Jewish morality is individual morality, since the collective was created for the individual rather than vice-versa. The amendment [tikkun] of the individual is at the center of the Jewish world view. Amiel was strongly critical of socialism, which he replaced with Jewish altruism. He also bestowed new meanings on various issues within Judaism, and concluded with his sharp critique of secular Zionism. The ideas featuring in For the Perplexed of Our Time are also scattered throughout Amiel’s preaching.13 Although his image was that of a reactionary, in a paradoxical way he actually reflects the characteristics of religious-Zionist culture. First, his views derive from his attempt to contend with modern philosophy, and particularly with Kant, who is Amiel’s explicit and most frequent interlocutor. Second, the concern with talmudic methodology (in his book Ha-Midot le-Heker haHalakhah [Rules of Halakhic Research]) attests to a new and fresh perception of the sources, which the ultra-Orthodox would find unacceptable. Finally, the attempt to instill a spiritual dimension into the Zionist endeavor reflects a maximalist religious-Zionist outlook, which conflicted with the extant ideology. Amiel’s approach characterizes, to some extent, the change that the Mizrachi underwent in the early 1930s in its struggle to preserve religion.

THE MIZRACHI’S EXPANSION IN EUROPE

The Mizrachi was expanding at this time in Europe, both in numbers and in influence. The movement also spread to new areas, such as Romania, where an inaugural convention was held in 1922.14 The movement’s development in Europe is traced briefly below.15 The 1920s did not prove too successful in England, despite the Balfour Declaration and the Mandate,16 but in the 1930s the movement strode forward and expanded its activity. The usual clashes with the local Zionist movement, 56

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however, continued. The Mizrachi’s success in Czechoslovakia and elsewhere can be gauged by the strong opposition of Agudat Israel.17 In Germany, the Mizrachi grew after World War I with the arrival of a wave of immigrants from Poland and Lithuania. Mizrachi members in Germany adhered to Bar-Ilan’s militant line and were among those who left the Zionist executive in 1931. At the time, members of Bahad (Brith Halutzim Datiyyim, founded in 1924) began to emigrate from Germany to Eretz Israel. This group joined Ha-Po‘el ha-Mizrachi, whose members had so far come mainly from Eastern European Hasidic movements. Conceptually, Bahad members supported an ideology different from the immanent outlook that seeks God in nature and manual labor. In their view, human distinctiveness is not blurred when placed against the background of natural forces. Rather, the human mission is to create wondrous order in the world’s chaos through recourse to divine law, namely, Halakhah. Bahad members adopted the classic biblical model of the human being conquering creation aided by the divine commandments. In Holland, religious youth movements grew stronger, unlike the case in other countries where the growth of youth organizations was usually prompted by the leadership’s encouragement. Worth noting is the controversy that erupted between the Zikhron Ya‘akov youth movement (named after Reines) and the rabbinic leadership, due to the youngsters’ adoption of the Sephardi intonation in their prayers as was the practice in Eretz Israel. The dissenting, religious-Zionist outlook ultimately won.18 Finally, Mizrachi activity was particularly vibrant in Poland. The Mizrachi wavered between a struggle against the Hasidic movements vigorously opposed to Zionism and the extremely hard circumstances then affecting the Jewish communities in Poland on one hand, and involvement in Polish politics seeking to influence the Polish government on the other. Results were fruitful: many religious-Zionist publication ventures (the Ha-Mizrachi weekly, Ha-Kedem, HaShomer ha-Dati, and others), youth movements (Ha-Shomer ha-Dati and Bnei Akiva), a young girls’ organization (Beruriah), and extensive educational and academic undertakings, including a rabbinic seminary. The Torah va-Avodah idea also struck roots in the Polish movement, led by Shmuel Hayyim Landau.

R. YITZHAK NISSENBAUM: PREACHING AND POLITICS

The last Mizrachi president in Poland was R. Yitzhak Nissenbaum, a fascinating and enterprising man. Nissenbaum was one of the preachers for Zion, who travelled from city to city preaching the national idea. Despite his support for 57

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the founding of the Mizrachi and its activity, he did not join the movement until after World War I. He held that he would exert greater influence within the Zionist movement if he remained unidentified with a specific political faction. Nissenbaum was an outstanding preacher, and introduced many fresh ideas. He was particularly successful in presenting midrashic sources in relevant contemporary terms. To some extent, his topical articles could also be characterized as a homiletic interweaving of ideas.19 During the Mizrachi’s struggle against secularization in the Yishuv, Nissenbaum wrote an article drawing a distinction between behavior at times of crisis and in peacetime. In this article, published in early 1933, Nissenbaum begins by discussing Jewish-Gentile relationships during the biblical conquest of Canaan: Joshua was commanded to destroy the seven nations and his war against them was indeed fierce. At the end of the war, however, the people of Israel ignored the commandment to destroy them, and Scripture speaks of the settlements and enclaves of the seven nations. “Scripture, as it were, agrees with this behavior and even praises it.”20 A similar distinction between a time for struggle and a time for peace was also prevalent during the Second Temple. During peacetime, no limitations banned Gentiles from purchasing land in Eretz Israel. During the Roman conquest, however, a prohibition was issued against selling land or even leasing houses for fear that people would abandon the land. The period of the national home is also one of crisis, and the needs of the Yishuv must therefore be considered. But even during the Second Temple, regardless of the circumstances, the rabbis insisted on the observance of certain commandments. For instance, they did not abolish the obligation of donations and tithes despite the fear that Jews would leave the country due to the precarious economic situation. And so now: the Sabbath cannot be profaned despite the crisis situation that requires Jews to work. This programmatic article reflects Nissenbaum’s style, bridging epochs far removed and turning the remote past into a relevant current event. This article is also an example of his vital and innovative ideas. He died in the Warsaw ghetto, ardently believing in his messianic interpretation of current events. His interesting view of partition is discussed below.

THE PARTITION CONTROVERSY

A significant event that exposed the messianic conception of religious-Zionism was the partition controversy. In the wake of Arab riots that broke out in 1936, a British Royal Commission chaired by Earl Peel was set up, which submitted 58

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a partition proposal for Palestine. The Commission’s report, published in 1937, proposed that the north of the country (Galilee), the coastal plain, and the Sharon area be assigned for Jewish settlement; a long enclave between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem be placed under British control, and the rest of the country be reserved for the Arabs.21 Most religious-Zionist leaders and rabbis vigorously opposed the partition scheme. They interpreted the adoption of this proposal as an open, official renunciation of parts of the land, which they found religiously unacceptable. Bar-Ilan, Maimon, Shlomo Zalman Shragai, R. Amiel (then Chief Rabbi of Tel Aviv), R. Uziel (the Sephardi Chief Rabbi), and others were unwilling to draw a line distinguishing the present from an eschatological future. They could not separate the concrete return of the people to the land from the final process of redemption. The messianic interpretation of present events precluded temporary solutions. Furthermore, they viewed acceptance of the proposal as a sign of weariness and eroded powers of endurance: the supporters of partition had tired of the struggle and now falsely believed that the creation of a (limited) state would solve their problems. Bar-Ilan accused Weizmann and his faction of endorsing the terminology of Brith Shalom, an association founded, among others, by Arthur Ruppin and Martin Buber that held Jews and Arabs had equal title to Eretz Israel. Maimon later regretted his stance and admitted that, had he foreseen the destruction of European Jewry, he would have fervently supported the partition proposal. Rav Kook’s disciples and his ideological circle now exploited the implications of his doctrine. According to Rav Kook, Eretz Israel is a cover for tempestuous divine forces. According to his kabbalistic interpretation, the chosen land reflects the divine sefiroth (spheres). His disciple, R. Jacob Harlap, also held that the earth clods symbolize the various facets of the divinity (keter [crown], hokhmah [wisdom], binah [understanding], din [judgment], and the others). Eretz Israel is, as it were, an independent entity, and its sanctity is unique and irrational. Mortals cannot decide the fate of this divine entity, since it is not dependent on human will. Renouncing areas of the land, claimed Harlap, is tantamount to “heresy” and “great sin.” Among the intellectual, elitist circles of religious-Zionism, some supported the compartmentalization approach. Pinhas Rosenblueth, Shraga Kadari, and others held that partition is solely a political question, without halakhic significance. They thereby rejected the rabbis’ view that they were issuing a halakhic ruling. Nissenbaum’s view was also distinctively compartmentalized. He claimed: 59

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I have repeatedly claimed that my “no” does not follow from my religious outlook. Indeed, we are forbidden to give up even a small part of Eretz Israel according to the borders indicated in our Torah, but who is asking us for a waiver? If we are asked to give one, we will refuse. But we are entitled to accept the part of the land that is given to us, and perhaps must accept it, and precisely because of the religious view.22

Several aspects of the partition controversy are worth placing in a wider ideological context. The discussion exposed the process that religious-Zionism underwent in its thirty years of institutionalized existence, shifting from the center toward the right-wing nationalist pole, and from moderation to activism. The Mizrachi, however, did not become overly close to the Revisionist movement led by Ze’ev Jabotinsky. Despite many similarities in their rightwing outlook, the Mizrachi took exception to the Revisionist conceptions of religion, which were dictated by the latter’s liberal version of nationalism. Jabotinsky and his party viewed religion as a private matter, in stark contrast with religious-Zionism. Moreover, significant streams within Ha-Po‘el ha-Mizrachi leaned left, precluding long term cooperation with Revisionism except for isolated contacts. Finally, the principle of unity, whereby fighting from inside is always preferable to retreat, had guided religious-Zionism throughout its historical and ideological course. This very principle motivated the Mizrachi’s unsuccessful demands to return the Revisionists to the WZO.23 Besides the ideological implications of the reactions to the partition proposal within religious-Zionism, another important characteristic of the movement is the rebellion against rabbinic authority evident in the compartmentalization reaction. This characteristic emerges prominently in the very creation of the movement, which defied ultra-Orthodox rabbis and the bans of halakhic authorities and Hasidic rabbis. The halakhic dimension was not dominant in the partition controversy, and arguments were of a general religious character rather than hinging on specific rulings. Eventually, the rebellion against the rabbis remained confined to an elite group, and the majority of religious-Zionists voluntarily submitted to rabbinic authority. This process, which began with the Mizrachi’s foundation, persists until today. Religious-Zionism between the two world wars tended to adopt a distinctive “right wing” orientation. Many among the rank and file did not acknowledge that Arabs had national rights in Eretz Israel, negating their attachment to the land. Yet, important leaders such as Bar-Ilan and Moshe Shapira strove to lay the foundations for co-existence with the Arabs and refused, for instance, to see them as collectively responsible for the hostilities. Religious-Zionists did not view Arabs in Eretz Israel as a problem, however, 60

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because of their support for the idea of Greater Israel and their messianic interpretation of present events.24 The Mizrachi’s political orientation would be toned down in the wake of the longstanding “historical pact” with the Labor movement after the creation of the State of Israel.

NOTES 1 See Nethaniel Katzburg, “Chapters in the History of Zionism and the Mizrachi under the Leadership of Rabbi Bar-Ilan” (in Hebrew), in From Volozhin to Jerusalem, ed. Meir Bar-Ilan, vol. 1 (Tel Aviv: Ha-Va‘adah le-Hotza’at Kitvei Ha-Rav Bar-Ilan, 1971), pp. 18–55; idem, ed., Letters: Rabbi Meir Bar-Ilan (Berlin), vol. 1, 1903–1928 (in Hebrew) (Ramat-Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 1976), pp. 11–42. 2 See the discussion in chapter 8 below. 3 See Eliezer Don-Yehiya, “The Status-Quo Solution in the Area of Religion and State” (in Hebrew), Medinah, Mimshal ve-Yehasim Bein-Leumiyim 1 (1971), pp. 100–112; Menachem Friedman, “The Chronicle of the Status-Quo: Religion and State in Israel” (in Hebrew), in Transition from “Yishuv” to State, 1947–1949: Continuity and Change, ed. Varda Pilowsky (Haifa: University of Haifa, 1990), pp. 47–80; Israel Kolatt, “Religion, Society, and State during the Period of National Home,” in Zionism and Religion, ed. Shmuel Almog, Judah Reinharz, and Anita Shapira (Hanover, Brandeis University Press in association with Zalman Shazar Center for Jewish History, 1998), pp. 273–301. 4 On Bar-Ilan, see Yitzhak Arigur, Ilan Ve-Nofo: The Biography of Rabbi Meir BarIlan (in Hebrew) (Jerusalem: Mosad Ha-Rav Kook, 1962). 5 See Peter L. Berger, A Far Glory: The Quest for Faith in an Age of Credulity (New York and London: Anchor Books, 1992). 6 Meir Bar-Ilan, The Writings of R. Meir Bar-Ilan (in Hebrew), vol. 1 (Jerusalem: Mosad Ha-Rav Kook, 1950), p. 11. 7 Ibid, p. 28. 8 See Monty Noam Penkower, “A Lost Opportunity: Pre-World War II Efforts towards Mizrachi-Agudas Israel Cooperation,” The Journal of Israeli History 17 (1996), pp. 221–246. 9 On Bar-Ilan’s activity, see also ch. 11 below. 10 On R. Amiel, see Katriel Fischel Tchursh, Rav Amiel’s Doctrine in Philosophy and in Judaism (in Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Shraga Weinfeld, 1945); Eliezer Don-Yehiya, “Conceptions on Zionism in Orthodox Jewish Philosophy” (in Hebrew), Zionism 9 (1985), pp. 55–93; Dov Schwartz, The Land of Israel in Religious-Zionist Thought (in Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 1997), ch. 8; idem, Challenge and Crisis in Rabbi Kook’s Circle, (in Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 2001), pp. 272–280; Geula BatYehuda, Man of Reflections: Rabbi Moshe Avigdor Amiel (in Hebrew) (Jerusalem: Mosad Ha-Rav Kook, 2001). See also the articles by Moshe Hellinger, “The Individual and Society, Nation, and Humanity: A Comparative Study of the Socio-Political Philosophies of Rabbi M. Avigdor Amiel and Rabbi Ben Zion Meir Hai Uziel” 61

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11 12 13 14

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22 23

24

(in Hebrew), and Avinoam Rosenak “Zionism as an Apolitical, Spiritual Revolution in Rabbi Moshe Avigdor Amiel’s Thought” (in Hebrew), in A Hundred Years of ReligiousZionism, vol. 1, ed. Avi Sagi and Dov Schwartz (Ramat-Gan: Bar-Ilan, 2003). Yitzhak Raphael and Shlomo Zalman Shragai, eds., The Book of Religious-Zionism (in Hebrew), vol. 1 (Jerusalem: Mosad Ha-Rav Kook, 1977), p. 8. Moshe Avigdor Amiel, For the Perplexed of Our Time (in Hebrew) (New York: Moriah, 1943). Idem, Sermons to My People (in Hebrew) (Warsaw: Feniks, 1926–1928); Reflections to My People (in Hebrew) (Jerusalem, 1936). See Israel Levanon, Chapters in the History of Religious-Zionism in Romania (in Hebrew) (Haifa, 1982); Yaakov Geller, “The Beginnings of the Mizrachi in Old Romania” (in Hebrew), Sinai 121 (1998), pp. 118–122. See Aharon Patashnik, “The [Mizrachi] Movement between Two World Wars” (in Hebrew), in The Vision of Torah and Zion, ed. Shimon Federbusch (Jerusalem: Mosad Ha-Rav Kook, 1960), pp. 201–246. See N. Yerushalmi, “The Beginnings of the Mizrachi in England” (in Hebrew), Mizpeh (Hazofeh Yearbook for 1953), pp. 491–496. See Shalom Antman, “The [Mizrachi] Movement in Czechoslovakia” (in Hebrew), in The Book of Religious-Zionism, ed. Yitzhak Raphael and Shlomo Zalman Shragai, vol. 2 (Jerusalem: Mosad Ha-Rav Kook, 1977), pp. 391–398. See Dan Michman, “The Zionist Youth Movements in The Netherlands and Belgium,” in Zionist Youth Movements During the Holocaust, ed. Asher Cohen and Yehoyakim Cochavi (New York: Peter Lang, 1995), pp. 145–171; Idem, “The Spirit of the Mizrachi and the Amsterdam Rabbinic and Religious Teachers’ Seminary” (in Hebrew), in Studies in Religious-Zionism and Jewish Law in Honour of Dr. Zerah Warhaftig, ed. Eliezer Don-Yehiya, Ella Belfer, and Moshe Hallamish (Ramat-Gan: Bar-Ilan, 2001), pp. 41–58. On Nissenbaum, see Israel Shapira, R. Nissenbaum: His Life and Works (in Hebrew) (Jerusalem: Keren Kayemet le-Israel, 1970); Abraham Rubinstein, “Messianic Portents and Messianic Pangs in R. Yitzhak Nissenbaum’s Teachings” (in Hebrew), Shragai 1 (1982), pp. 118–126; idem, “A Profile of R. Yitzhak Nissenbaum” (in Hebrew), Bi-Shvilei ha-Tehyiah 1 (1983), pp. 33–57. Yitzhak Nissenbaum, Selected Writings (in Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Levin Epstein, 1948), p. 244. See Shmuel Dotan, Partition of Eretz-Israel in the Mandatory Period: The Jewish Controversy (in Hebrew) (Jerusalem: Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi, 1979); Itzhak Galnoor, The Partition of Palestine: Decision Crossroads in the Zionist Movement (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1995). Nissenbaum, Selected Writings, pp. 293–294. See Haim Genizi, “The Relationship between the ’Mizrachi’ and the Revisionist Movement, 1925–1939” (in Hebrew), in A Hundred Years of Religious-Zionism, ed. Avi Sagi and Dov Schwartz, vol. 2 (Ramat-Gan: Bar-Ilan, 2003), pp. 41–54. See Yosef Elihai, “The Religious-Zionist Movement and the Arab Problem in Eretz Israel until the Foundation of the State of Israel” (in Hebrew), Ha-Umah 124 (1996), pp. 406–417. 62

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Chapter Eight

THE SETTLEMENT DRIVE

Concrete attempts to establish religious-Zionist settlements came in the wake of the third aliyah (1919–1923), which brought idealistic religious youths, mostly from Hasidic families, seeking to settle on the land to build it through manual labor and hoping to lead a full religious life. They did not foresee the problems they would encounter on the way, but their ideological and political steadfastness finally resulted in the establishment of settlements.1

THE STRUGGLE FOR SETTLEMENT

Religious-Zionist settlements became a reality, as noted, only after a long struggle with the Zionist bureaucracy, which consistently obstructed religiousZionist settlement.2 The struggle went through several stages.3 Toward the end of 1921, the Mizrachi leadership signed a contract with the head of the Department of Agricultural Settlement at the WZO for the founding of a religious-Zionist settlement on the lands of Neta‘im, but this contract was not implemented, due to the Department’s postponements and evasions. Various agricultural groups organized about a year later with the encouragement of Ha-Po‘el HaMizrachi to settle on the ”Salvendy lands” near Petah Tikvah, named after the Hibbat Zion member who had purchased them. Lack of support on the part of the WZO, however, led to their dispersal. In 1925, the Ha-Po‘el Ha-Mizrachi executive approached the Jewish National Fund with a request of land for settlement. The Zionist executive and the Settlement Department adopted various ploys to prevent this settlement: they promised Ha-Po‘el Ha-Mizrachi lands that had already been allotted to other groups; they claimed that the split within Ha-Po‘el Ha-Mizrachi4 63

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precludes special allocations for religious settlement, and so forth. A decision at the Fourteenth Zionist Congress that convened that year supported settlement by Ha-Po‘el Ha-Mizrachi, but was never implemented. Years of postponement and evasion created tensions that flared up in 1927, when a group of Ha-Po‘el Ha-Mizrachi members settled on the Warkany lands without the knowledge of various WZO bodies. The conflict was harsh, with the JNF speaking of ”violence” and “anarchy,” even though secular groups had also established settlements in the past before obtaining official approval. JNF chairman Menahem Ussishkin demanded that the settlers evacuate the land and Ha-Po‘el ha-Mizrachi members described themselves in their conflict with the settling bodies as victims of “abuse” and “numerus clausus.” After three months, the religious-Zionist settlers were forced to evacuate the land that had been promised to another group, leading to growing unrest within Ha-Po‘el Ha-Mizrachi. Even after the JNF board headed by Ussishkin decided to purchase land for Ha-Po‘el Ha-Mizrachi settlement (1927), the Eretz Israel chairman Frederick Hermann Kisch vetoed the decision, fearing that the JNF would be unable to finance it. For the first time, Ha-Po‘el Ha-Mizrachi turned to branches abroad for help. Outside pressure was among the factors leading to the decision of the Zionist executive to establish a moshav ovdim on Sheikh Abrek lands. Zionist settlement bodies led by Shlomo Kaplanski (Head of the Settlement Department) again hindered this endeavor, and persisted in doing so even after a settlement had been established at the end of 1927. Only after the Zionist executive met in Berlin at the end of 1928 was this settlement approved in principle, thwarting the attempts of the Settlement Department to oppose it. No budget was approved, however. After the Sixteenth Zionist Congress (1929) also approved the settlement officially, Ha-Po‘el ha-Mizrachi threatened Arthur Ruppin, who was then head of the Settlement Department, that they would turn to public opinion if the settlement at Sheikh Abrek was not included in the ongoing budget. World-wide protests indeed led to the allocation of funds to hire the Sheikh Abrek settlers for one year (1931) from the budget of the Settlement Department. Among the protests were also letters sent by Rav Kook and R. Ben Zion Meir Hai Uziel. Protests continued, and Ha-Po‘el Ha-Mizrachi also issued a public call to refrain from contributions to Keren Hayesod [United Palestine Appeal] and transfer funds directly to Ha-Po‘el Ha-Mizrachi instead. Finally, only in 1932, the Jewish Agency board granted full recognition and rights to the Sheikh Abrek settlement, which was named Sdeh Ya‘akov after R. Yitzhak Ya‘akov Reines. Only then were permanent houses and farms built. 64

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Henceforth, religious-Zionist settlement steadily progressed, one step at a time. Until the end of the 1930s, the following Ha-Po‘el Ha-Mizrachi moshavim were established: Kfar Hasidim, Kfar Pines, Kfar Avraham, Kfar Haro’eh, Eliyashiv and Kfar Ya‘avetz. At the beginning of 1934, the Agricultural Center5 was established as a department of the Ha-Po‘el ha-Mizrachi executive in charge of the various moshavim. In 1940, the Association of Moshavim and Organizations6 was established as a separate institution.

THE RELIGIOUS KIBBUTZ

The beginning of the religious-Zionist kibbutz movement in Germany and Poland dates back to the 1920s. Groups of young people sought to create an ideal kibbutz framework that would allow them to lead the complete, perfect life. Combining Zionism, socialism, and religion they hoped to create a utopian religious society, a quasi-reflection on earth of a ”transcendent center,” in Aryei Fishman’s terms.7 In Germany, the youths were influenced by socialist ideas that flourished there after World War I, and in Poland, by the Torah va-Avodah idea and by the settlement struggle of Ha-Po‘el Ha-Mizrachi. An agricultural training farm was established at Rodges, Germany, and the first organized group of young immigrants arrived in 1929 and settled on the Salvendy lands. Jews from Poland and Galicia, some from Hasidic families, established Kevutzat Shahal in Rehovot at the same time. In 1935, Ha-Po‘el Ha-Mizrachi established its Confederation of Kevutzot8 as an organizational framework for the various settlements, which it renamed three years later as Ha-Kibbutz ha-Dati [The Religious Kibbutz]. The first kibbutz, Tirat Zvi in the Beit She’an Valley (named after R. Zvi Hirsch Kalischer, a ”harbinger of Zionism”) was established in 1937 as part of the homah u-migdal [tower and stockade] endeavor. Kibbutz members fought against Arab attacks. In 1939, Kibbutz Sdeh Eliahu was established in the same area. In 1941, the Rodges group established kibbutz Yavneh, Kfar Etzion was founded in 1943 and Masu’ot Yitzhak in 1945.9 The Religious Kibbutz developed a policy of settlement blocs. Besides the strategic and political advantages of this policy, the movement’s ideologues pinned hopes on its contribution to social and religious cooperation between their kibbutzim and between them and the secular surroundings. The policy of settlement blocs was eventually endorsed by the moshavim of Ha-Po‘el HaMizrachi as well. 65

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The Religious Kibbutz sensed an affinity with socialist Zionism and, in the 1930s, many religious kibbutzim celebrated May Day as a holiday. Although they gradually drew apart, mutual appreciation and a sense of solidarity between the religious and secular kibbutz movements persists until today. The pioneering spirit and the fullness of religious life in kibbutz society eventually resulted in friction between the Rabbinate and religious kibbutzim. For instance, the Religious Kibbutz opposed the Rabbinate’s stance prohibiting women’s conscription both because of the existential threat to the State of Israel and because of the ideal of women’s equality. Intellectuals in the Religious Kibbutz movement strove to formulate a theoretical foundation for their view of halakhic autonomy.10 This image of the Religious Kibbutz clarifies the moderate political views of many of its members.

THE IDEOLOGY OF THE RELIGIOUS KIBBUTZ: MOSHE UNNA

A prominent ideologue of the Religious Kibbutz movement was Moshe Unna, who led the Rodges group in Germany, was among the founders of Kibbutz Tirat Zvi, and settled in Kibbutz Sdeh Eliahu. To some extent, Moshe Unna represents a group of ideologues that grew within the movement and included Zuriel Admanit, Eliezer Goldman, and Yosef Ahituv.11 Unna claimed in 1942 that the religious kibbutz was the best possible implementation of the Ha-Po‘el Ha-Mizrachi ideology. Four ideals can be realized in the kibbutz framework: ■ I n d i v i d u a l t i k k u n. The religious kibbutz provides the optimal conditions for living a full religious life, and every individual is therefore given an opportunity for spiritual self-realization. ■ S o c i a l i s t r e a l i z a t i o n. Attempts to realize the socialist ideal in largescale frameworks have failed, leading to the conclusion that socialism is feasible in small groups. ■ N a t i o n a l p i o n e e r i n g. The cohesive structure of the kibbutz is suited to the difficult endeavor of settling the land of Israel. ■ C r e a t i n g a r e l i g i o u s c o m m u n i t y. Religious observance necessitates collective educational and social frameworks, which can be implemented in the kibbutz framework. The Chief Rabbinate too, which is forced to waver between opposites, might elude its predicament within the religious kibbutz, whose members are in principle willing to heed its dictates: “this is the only way of restoring past glory.”12 66

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Unna emphasized that kibbutz life realizes the harmony and the merging of humanity and nature: ”Human beings are part of the world and the world is part of them.”13 Unna’s approach reflects the attempt to distinguish socialist ideology from that of the religious kibbutz. This approach, which is typical of the socialist-religious philosophy of Ha-Po‘el Ha-Mizrachi, emphasizes the importance of the individual. The ideal of equality does not weaken the individual; on the contrary, equality is attainable when individuals invest all their strength. Individual abilities are also the criterion for the distribution of power, and Unna did not hesitate to make religious standards rather than vague equality principles into a yardstick for allocating authority. The same applies in the field of religion: “The community fulfills its role vis-à-vis religion by providing a framework for the individual. Thereby its role ends. The subject of religious values is the individual, who must fill with contents the framework supplied by the community.”14 Unna, therefore, pointed to the dialectics of the group and the individual in the religious kibbutz, which defined equality by negation — equality means avoiding exploitation and granting rights according to needs. In this spirit, he opposed denying the right to individual inheritance, taking a stance in a recurring argument within the Religious Kibbutz. Unna warned already in1945 of the dangers entailed in the pioneering idea. This notion can foster a militant spirit, and young people might come to see war as ”a normal situation,”15 particularly since pioneering in Eretz Israel is characterized by an existential-belligerent struggle, imposed on the settlers in a hostile environment such as that of Kibbutz Tirat Zvi. Teachers must therefore apply themselves to extirpate the spirit of militancy. Unna’s views represent a moderate and humanistic political line, which would also characterize the path of many members of the Religious Kibbutz in the future.

BNEI AKIVA

Religious-Zionist youth movements emerged a few years after the establishment of the Mizrachi. These movements, which flourished both in Eastern and Western Europe, had different names. The religious-Zionist youth movement established in Israel, Bnei Akiva, played a central role in religious settlement.16 The first branch of the movement was established in Jerusalem in 1929, and several months later an additional branch was founded in Tel Aviv. The name chosen was Bnei Akiva, since Rabbi Akiva represents one who earned a living through hard work (he was a shepherd) and grew up to become a religious 67

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scholar. Shlomo Zalman Shragai proposed the Bnei Akiva motto: “Purify your life through work and sanctify it through Torah.” The first members of the board were R. Yeshayahu Shapira, Pinhas Meltzer, and Ernst Akiva Simon. A national board, established a year later, included Nehemia Aminoah, David Beth-Arieh (Intriligator), and others. Some of the Torah va-Avodah youth organizations abroad merged immediately after with the new movement and became branches of Bnei Akiva. The new movement faced problems. Mizrachi schools adopted sanctions against students who joined the movement because it included boys and girls. The head of the Mizrachi Teachers’ Seminar, Eliezer Meir Liepschuetz, was opposed to it from the start, claiming he foresaw difficult educational problems related to the youth movement. Judah Leib Maimon also expressed reservations about it. The Ha-Po‘el Ha-Mizrachi Conference of November 1930 stated that ”the conference notes the indifference, and at times even the objection, of Mizrachi educational institutions to the Bnei Akiva movement.” Only about twenty years after the establishment of the movement did teachers in religious-Zionist schools begin to cooperate with it. The Bnei Akiva movement became an additional source of friction between the Mizrachi and Ha-Po‘el Ha-Mizrachi. The image of the youth movement would change fundamentally when R. Moshe Zvi Neriah (Manekin) joined its ranks as a counselor in 1931.17 R. Neriah applied himself to the religious-spiritual character of Bnei Akiva (through Torah lessons, personal conversations, and so forth) and the movement shifted from a compromising to a proud religiosity. R. Neriah participated in the national leadership, edited the movement’s journal Zera‘im [Seeds] that began to appear in 1935, and was involved in the constitution and administration of the movement. Aryei Fishman claimed that, contrary to the reservations that pioneering youth movements in Germany and Eastern Europe expressed about the values of the surrounding society, both Jewish and non-Jewish, the Bnei Akiva youth movement established in Eretz Israel was marked by its identification with the general society.18 The religious youth movement internalized the revolutionary and rebellious spirit of Ha-Po‘el Ha-Mizrachi, and the settlement struggles became part of its foundational myth. Both counselors and members were deeply influenced by the struggle for the right to settle noted above. Pioneering, therefore, was viewed as the realization of the movement’s path ever since its foundation. In 1931, a Bnei Akiva group led by Jehiel A. Eliash settled on the Salvendy lands. The harsh conditions strengthened the young settlers. Settling in a kibbutz (“hagshamah” or self-realization) became the central mission of Bnei 68

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Akiva, as was indeed stated in the movement’s constitution first published in 1934 and edited by Neriah. The first Bnei Akiva yeshiva was established in 1940 at Kfar Haro’eh, as preparatory training for settlement. Neriah, who headed the yeshiva from the outset, distinctly avoided the study of secular subjects in the first years. The boys studied Talmud and Jewish thought, including the writings of Rav Kook. The model of Bnei Akiva yeshivot known to us today was set only ten years later.19 Since the 1930s, as noted, Bnei Akiva viewed settlement as its aim, and kibbutz settlement played a central role within it. The first group of the movement was Alumim, in Herzliya (1938), which later became Kibbutz Sa‘ad in the Negev. The first national conference of Bnei Akiva in 1940 decided that the movement would educate towards kibbutz settlement. Later, the movement endorsed military service in the Nahal (Hebrew acronym of Pioneer Fighting Youth) unit of the IDF. Another goal was added to the realization aims only in the 1970s — the “hesder” yeshiva, combining yeshiva studies with military service. After the Holocaust, Bnei Akiva became the international religious-Zionist movement, joining together most religious-Zionist youth groups from abroad.

NOTES 1 See Nethaniel Katzburg, Nahalat Emunim: Religious Settlement in Eretz Israel (in Hebrew) (Jerusalem: WZO, 1957). 2 See Yossi Katz, The Battle for the Land (in Hebrew) (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 2005). 3 See Hayyim Peles, “The Struggle of Ha-Po‘el Ha-Mizrachi for the Right of Settlement” (in Hebrew), in The Book of Religious-Zionism, vol. 2, ed. Yitzhak Raphael and Shlomo Zalman Shragai (Jerusalem: Mosad Ha-Rav Kook, 1977), pp. 58–149; idem, “The Struggles of Ha-Po‘el Ha-Mizrachi for Settlement in the Land of Israel between the Two World Wars” (in Hebrew), Shragai 4 (1993), pp. 73–81. 4 On the split, see ch. 5 above. 5 Heb. Ha-Merkaz ha-Hakla’i. 6 Heb. Iggud ha-Moshavim ve-ha-Irgunim. 7 Aryei Fishman, Judaism and Modernization on the Religious Kibbutz (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. 9–10, 25. 8 Heb. Hever ha-Kevutzot. 9 See Yossi Katz, The Religious Kibbutz Movement in the Land of Israel, trans. Joseph Shadur (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1999). 10 See ch. 1 above. See also Daniel H. Frank, ed., Autonomy and Judaism (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1992); Avi Sagi and Zeev Safrai, eds., Between Authority and Autonomy (in Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Ha-Kibbutz Ha-Meuhad, 1997). 69

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11 See Eliezer Goldman, Expositions and Inquiries: Jewish Thought in Past and Present (in Hebrew), ed. Avi Sagi and Daniel Statman (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1996); Yosef Ahituv, On the Verge of Change: A Study on Contemporary Jewish Meanings (in Hebrew) (Jerusalem: Ministry of Education, 1995). 12 Moshe Unna, The New Community (in Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Ha-Kibbutz Ha-Meuhad, 1985), p. 37. See Joseph Gorni, ”Moshe Unna: A Compromising Idealist” (in Hebrew), in Studies in Religious-Zionism and Jewish Law in Honor of Dr. Zerah Warhaftig, ed. Eliezer Don-Yehiya, Ella Belfer, and Moshe Hallamish (Ramat-Gan: Bar-Ilan, 2001), pp. 233–250; Moshe Hellinger, “The Tension Between Universal and Particular Orientations within Religious-Zionism and its Consequences: The ’Torah and Labor’ ” Movement as a Test Case,” Review of Rabbinic Judaism 11 (2008), pp. 139–166. 13 Unna, The New Community, p. 259. 14 Ibid, p. 95. 15 Ibid, p. 258. Cf. Dov Schwartz, Challenge and Crisis in Rabbi Kook’s Circle (in Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Am Oved 2001), pp. 295–296. 16 See Isaac Lev, ed., The Bnei-Akiva Book (in Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Israel Bnei Akiva Executive, 1959); Mordechai Bar-Lev, Yedidia Cohen, and Shlomo Rosner, eds., A Jubilee — Fifty Years of an Israeli Religious Youth Movement: Bnei Akiva, 1929–1979 (in Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Israel Bnei Akiva Publications, 1987). 17 See Zila Bar-Eli, The Dawn of His Light-R. Moshe Zvi Neriah: Early Days (in Hebrew) (Jerusalem, n. p., 2002). 18 Fishman, Judaism and Modernization, pp. 78–79. 19 This subject is discussed at length in ch. 10 below.

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Chapter Nine

RELIGIOUS-ZIONISM AND THE HOLOCAUST

Religious-Zionism, like the Zionist movement in general, reacted to the Holocaust in two ways. On the one hand, it participated in rescue attempts and resistance efforts against the Nazis. On the other, ideological statements by the movement’s leadership and its thinkers reveal that Jews in Eretz Israel and in the Diaspora were to some extent impervious to the carefully planned genocide of their brethren.1 Most religious-Zionist ideologues continued to rely on traditional theological explanations, assuming a divine plan ultimately concerned with the settlement of Eretz Israel and the realization of the Zionist ideal. Religious-Zionism joined the general endeavor, since closing ranks seemed the required response to the Holocaust: its leaders actively opposed the Nazi regime before and during the war; its envoys tried to influence the ultra-Orthodox to support Zionist activity until the last minute, and its youths were involved in rescue and underground activities. Religious-Zionist responses to the Holocaust did assume several unique dimensions, however, and the brief discussion below will attempt to shed light on them.

UNDERGROUND, HELP, AND RESCUE

The religious-Zionist movement was a partner in the struggle for survival and resistance in Europe, and its youth organizations played an important role in assistance and rescue activities. In Germany during the 1930s, and in occupied Europe during the 1940s, religious-Zionist organizations played a significant role in the social and cultural life of Jewish communities, forced to reorganize due to Nazi policies of exclusion.2 Religious youths joined the underground in many places. Various hakhsharot [camps set up by the youth movements to train their members before their aliyah] in The Netherlands, Belgium, Hungary, and other countries 71

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became havens for refugees arriving from countries the Nazis had already seized. Underground life was not easy for religious-Zionists: they had to behave as Christians and often renounce observance of religious commandments, including kashrut and the Sabbath. In Poland, where religious-Zionism comprised mainly youngsters who had grown up in Hasidic families, most of the movement’s members did not speak the local language fluently and were not fully integrated in their surroundings. These circumstances made assimilation almost impossible for them, perhaps explaining their limited involvement in underground activities, unlike secular youths. Another reason is that resistance efforts were generally the initiative of youths concentrated in the various hakhsharot, according to ideological-political lines. Most religious young Jews in Poland, however, returned to their homes when the war broke out, whereas secular youths in Warsaw and other Polish cities stayed together in the hakhsharot. To some extent, this situation also recurred in Romania. Scholars point to a sense of unfairness then prevalent among religiousZionists concerning the rescue efforts undertaken by the Zionist movement. The rescue endeavor was contingent on monies budgeted through the Jewish Agency delegation in Istanbul, in which religious-Zionism had no voice because (so its members claimed) the Zionist movement had thwarted attempts to include in it a representative of Ha-Po‘el ha-Mizrachi. R. Isaac Herzog did go to Istanbul in February 1944, but returned soon after due to the uncoordinated and limited scope of the efforts. The distribution of the rescue money reflected the political balance of power in the Yishuv at the time, and religious-Zionism was in a weak position. For Hungarian Jews, the result was that the funds allocated to religious-Zionist pioneer movements amounted to about half of their relative share in the Jewish population, hindering their chances of smuggling borders, maintaining contacts with the besieged, and other activities. Discrimination was also evident in their share in Rudolf Kasztner’s transports.3 Religious-Zionists in Nazi-occupied areas often complained that the leadership of religious-Zionist institutions ignored them, and did not even bother to write to them to update them on the current developments. Similar accusations were also leveled at the Yishuv. Contact became impossible and even dangerous around 1943, since Jews feared receiving letters criticizing the Germans and their puppet regimes. Religious-Zionism recorded some success in the aliyah promoting activities of the International Federation of Torah va-Avodah.4 This organization, which was based on the national Torah va-Avodah federations (Ha-Po‘el ha-Mizrachi, Bnei Akiva, and others), saw to it that its members were included in the then 72

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limited aliyah from Romania, Hungary, and Lithuania. Leading these political and practical activities were Dr. Zerah Warhaftig, Moshe Krone, and others.5 Warhaftig succeeded in saving thousands of refugees through visas issued by foreign consulates accredited in occupied countries. Jews, including many yeshiva students, escaped through his help to Japan via Lithuania and Russia. Torah va-Avodah members resorted to this route that, to some extent, was unique to religious-Zionism, since secular Zionist organizations often voiced reservations about it. One rescue effort that led to a serious controversy pitting religiousZionism and the Zionist movement against Agudat Israel is worth noting. A group of orphaned children arrived in Teheran toward the end of 1942, and the children objected to the blatantly secular educational program that Jewish Agency envoys had forced upon them. The affair caused a storm in the Jewish world and the leadership of the Jewish Agency set up a commission of inquiry, which tended to confirm the religious-Zionist version alleging antireligious coercion. Many confrontations resulted, among them one involving Mizrachi members led by Judah Leib Maimon against Chief Rabbi Herzog, who they felt had tended to support Agudat Israel. Religious-Zionism was again required to endorse a compromise position, formulated by Moshe Shapira, which involved sending the younger children to families and allowing choice to those over fourteen, reflecting the responsibility of religious-Zionism toward both religion and Zionism.6

RELIGIOUS-ZIONISM IN THE YISHUV

Until the end of 1942, when the Yishuv leadership officially published information about the ongoing extermination, people in Eretz Israel had been unaware of European Jewry’s plight or, more precisely, had been unable to absorb its meaning despite the reports of systematic killings that had been published in the international press since the beginning of the year. People in the Yishuv had tended to view these events as typical instances of the anti-Jewish attacks in past wars.7 The prevailing view manifest, for instance, in the editorials of “Ha-Zofeh,” the official daily newspaper of the Mizrachi that had begun publication on 13 December 1936, was to avoid exaggerations in reporting fatalities. The editor was then Mordechai Lipson. The leaders of religious-Zionism probably held that spreading panic in the local population would be ill-advised, particularly given the fear of Germany’s invasion of Eretz Israel via Egypt. One should not forget that, even after the Holocaust, and 73

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even after the establishment of Israel, survivors keenly felt that the public in Israel doubted the extent of the catastrophe. Facing rumors of extermination, Lipson recurrently expressed amazement at the passivity of the Jews: “Is it possible that all these thousands did not defend themselves, did not fight for their lives?”8 Lipson drew encouragement from the revolt at the Warsaw ghetto that, as it were, saved Jewish honor, but religious-Zionist reactions to these desperate acts of rebellion were mixed. Not all rushed to see them as a continuation of the Masada myth. Hava Eshkoli-Wagman showed that Moshe Zvi Neriah, for instance, despite his youth movement formation and his “national-rightist” orientation, thought these hopeless revolts violated the sanctity of life: “Their restraint when facing death far surpasses the heroism of ’let me die with the Philistines.’ ”9 Whereas secular Zionism demanded armed resistance, Neriah’s reaction stands out as an attempt to sanctify life. The reaction of the Chief Rabbinate focused on religious-spiritual issues.10 After the reports of extermination began spreading, the Rabbinate joined the Rabbinical Alliance of America [Iggud ha-Rabbanim] and proclaimed an international fast day on 12 August 1942. Henceforth, the Chief Rabbinate would launch a series of prayer and fasting days in memory of the victims and attempting to rescue survivors. The impression, however, is that they were not exceptionally active, and their involvement may have lagged behind that of rabbinates in London and North America. The Yishuv proclaimed three days of mourning (30 November—2 December 1942), but the Labor movement objected to an “exilic” demonstration of fasting and mourning led by the Chief Rabbis marching on the streets and holding Torah scrolls as “a sign of weakness.” Other secular leaders, however, saw this as a desirable display of unity at times of distress. 11 Religious-Zionists in Eretz Israel participated in attempts to raise funds for the beleaguered Jews of Europe. Bar-Ilan went to the United States at the beginning of 1943 to stir up public opinion and support rescue efforts. Like secular Zionists, Mizrachi leaders also faced a dilemma between investment in rescue efforts or in the building of Eretz Israel. Religious-Zionists also attended, to some extent, to the religious needs of the ghettos and of Jews in Russia (sending phylacteries, prayer shawls, prayer books, and so forth). Jonah Katz has shown that an interesting reaction of the Religious Kibbutz movement was the decision to encourage higher birth rates in response to the destruction of European Jewry. Kibbutz Be’erot Yitzhak was established at the end of 1942 in memory of Yitzhak Nissenbaum, who was murdered in the Holocaust. 74

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Attempts to smuggle out refugees began with the establishment of the Mosad le-Aliyah Beth, a branch of the Jewish Agency organizing illegal immigration to Eretz Israel. Centers of pioneering youth movements, which had been located abroad until the outbreak of the war, moved to Eretz Israel. Ha-Po‘el ha-Mizrachi supported these endeavors by sending youths from its religious kibbutzim. For instance, five youths from Kibbutz Tirat Zvi joined Mosad members who were seeking routes to smuggle refugees through the Balkans. One of these youths, Ephraim Shiloh (Schultz), reports that he included lectures on the Bible when organizing defense and resistance activities against the violent disorders the Germans had orchestrated in south Teheran. Religious-Zionists joined other Yishuv movements in these activities without displaying any distinctive or unique features — the fear of annihilation and the rescue needs drew everyone together. Religious-Zionism was intensively involved in the rehabilitation of survivors in DP camps, whose suffering was not yet over. Many tried to reach Eretz Israel and were apprehended by the British authorities, who incarcerated them in the Atlit camp and, from August 1946 onward, sent them to Cyprus. Testimonies from the Cyprus detention camps point to the struggle of religiousZionists, after food and work quotas in the camps were allocated according to the relative power of political parties within the Yishuv.12

IDEOLOGICAL REACTIONS IN ERETZ ISRAEL: SHLOMO ZALMAN SHRAGAI

Shlomo Zalman Shragai’s writings on current affairs in 1940–1945 enable us to trace the religious-Zionist reaction to the Holocaust as it was evolving. At the start, he presents the plight of the Jewish people in classic terms, claiming that wars invariably place Jews between Scylla and Charybdis (accusations of “double loyalties,” of physical weakness, and so forth). The enormity of the tragedy had not yet emerged. Shragai presented World War II as an expression of modern idolatry, since he viewed it as a war between leaders. Hitler and Stalin are the idols receiving “dead offerings,” the sacrifices of war.13 The Jew is persecuted because his faith exposes the falseness of idolatry. On these grounds, Shragai concluded already at the outbreak: this is not the war of the end of days, since it is bringing suffering and persecution to Jews. He disregarded the many sources that tie the idea of redemption to the suffering of the Jewish people and their defeat before final victory, which these sources describe as the stage of the Messiah son of Joseph. Shragai, however, sought 75

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to harness the analysis of the situation to the religious-Zionist idea: the only positive aspect of the terrible war is to spur the Jewish people to selfredemption (”Aliyah, Conquest, and Development”),14 since they cannot hope the nations of the world to do it for them: Our deeds will bring us closer to God. This is our one and only answer to humanity’s sins against us. This is the one and only answer that will disappoint humanity, in return for the many disappointments it has caused those among us who had placed their trust in it. This will also be our revenge on capricious humanity.15

Shragai thus explained the war in quintessentially religious terms (faith, heresy, messianism), an explanation that allowed him to draw an analogy: idolatry prevails among Jews as well, and is manifest in a sweeping secularism. This is an additional stage in the teleological explanation of the war: a divine action intended to crush idolatry and redeem Israel. Indeed, Shragai wrote in May 1942 that Hitlerism should be viewed through the perspective of a persistent anti-Semitism. Hitler was the villain “on duty,” appointed by God to prevent assimilation and encourage the Jewish people to return to their land: he reminds the chosen people “where we came from, and where we must go.”16 In February 1943, after the Yishuv had begun to grasp the scope of the Holocaust, Shragai became aware, for a brief period, that all the classic explanations Jewish thought could offer had collapsed. Given the world’s passivity vis-à-vis the Holocaust, Shragai admitted that the claim of Judah Halevi, Rav Kook and others, stating that the Jewish people are the heart of the world, is no longer valid. “They have no heart, and we are not the heart of the world. Their heart is stone.”17 The classic conception of harmony between Israel and the nations of the world according to Judah Halevi (shell and core, heart and organs, and so forth), fell apart. Nevertheless, in May 1943 Shragai still lamented the “spiritual crisis” affecting the world. He now added another motivation for the war: the development of science had led the human creature to believe itself God, a creator of worlds. Evolution, as part of scientific progress, had given legitimation to bestial behavior. The nations’ actions, then, are the product of a “spiritual crisis,” a flawed ideology, leading to the following consequences: (1) “Hitler’s destruction of the Jewish people, which he publicly embarked upon before the outbreak of the war, is evidence of a spiritual crisis.” (2) “The loss of hundreds of thousands of Jews in Russia.” (3) The British “policy of appeasement [toward the Arabs] in this land [Eretz Israel] at the expense of the Jewish nation.”18 Shragai added that the Jewish people are 76

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also responsible for the crisis to some extent, since they acquiesced in their dispersion and did not come to Eretz Israel. In typical fashion, then, Shragai continued to speak in messianic-universal terms and pinned hopes on the “divine spark” found in every human being, Jew or Gentile. Even after the horrific rumors began to spread, he continued to adhere to a universal line of thought on the one hand, and a teleological perspective (aliyah to Eretz Israel) on the other. The sharp accusations against the British Mandate were thus reinforced in light of theological-teleological perceptions of the Holocaust.

THE HOLOCAUST AND MESSIANISM: R. ZVI YEHUDA KOOK

The international scope of the war led some circles within religious-Zionism to a temporary repression of its deeply rooted messianic drive. The “safe haven” motivation resurfaced: spilt Jewish blood requires separation from a gentile world. According to Shragai, “there is no Messiah and no redemption . . . as long as the Jewish nation has not found full and complete redemption in its homeland.”19 Rather, ways must be found to bring back the lost Messiah. Shragai was quick to retreat from his despair from Gentiles, and went back to the ideological conventions of religious-Zionism: redemption has never ceased. And yet, the dissonance remained: “Pangs of redemption yes. But the blood cries from the ground.”20 In the doctrines of Rav Kook’s disciples, such as R. Jacob Harlap and R. Zvi Yehuda Kook (his son), messianic fervor never ebbed. Harlap saw the destruction of European Jewry as a preliminary stage of final redemption. Zvi Yehuda Kook’s explanation of the Holocaust is a sharp and radical display of the religious-Zionist direction prevalent in many writings: a divine plan is evident in the concentration camps and in the gas chambers. Already in 1945, toward the end of the war, R. Zvi Yehuda Kook stated that the Holocaust had been a divine move to eliminate exile: The terrible and appalling destruction of our synagogues and our houses of study in our places of dispersion, during these horrid years, as opposed to the ingathering of our exiles and the settlement of our land, exposes the naked truth: God’s mighty hand is upon us in our exit from the desert of the nations. The Amalekite destruction of thousands upon thousands of Jews, leaders and masses with their living Torah scrolls, began its abysmal course in the vast fire of destruction that engulfed homes and possessions, creative havens and wealth, the 77

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holy communities in their locations. The full enactment of the declaration “and among these nations shalt thou find no ease” (Deuteronomy 28:65) was actually materialized in the removal of the land from under our feet, in the termination of the continued holy presence and its attachment to the places, the land and all it holds, in defiled gentile lands. The final elimination of exile emerges in the destruction of the holy places within it.21

According to R. Zvi Yehuda Kook, God had despaired from waiting for the Jewish people to return to their ancestral land of their own free will and, therefore, forced them to do so. In the cited passage, he particularly emphasized the uprooting of creative Torah centers in Eastern Europe, since this provided final confirmation that the Jews have no place in exile. The crushing of these study centers during the Holocaust removed the final justification for a Jewish presence abroad: the study of Torah. R. Zvi Yehuda Kook further argued that the Holocaust has an additional, educational-national dimension. God knew that the return to the Land of Israel would involve a war, for which the Jewish people lacked the required physical heroism and, for this purpose, armed resistance awoke in the ghettos even if generally hopeless. This was a planned process, through which the Jewish people were to rediscover their national features, including the power to fight and the ability to survive in times of crisis. For Zvi Yehuda Kook, therefore, the Holocaust is a planned cathartic event, an essential component in a series of redemptive moves. Zvi Yehuda Kook’s outlook conveys a mood prevalent in Rav Kook’s circles, of which Harlap’s ideological attitude to the Holocaust as a messianic event is a further instance.22

SUMMARY

Research on religious-Zionism during the Holocaust is now only beginning. A distinction must be drawn between religious-Zionism in Eretz Israel and in the free world as opposed to its endeavor under Nazi domination, as well as between reactions before and after the confirmation of the reports about systematic murder. The history of religious-Zionism in Europe after the Holocaust, and sometimes in other periods as well, is to some extent unknown, since religiousZionism lacked historical awareness. Movement members kept no records of their actions, and the result is that many studies rely on personal testimonies. Religious-Zionist archives are only partial, and some are also neglected. The research of religious-Zionism during the Holocaust, therefore, faces a hard task, 78

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and particularly when trying to trace the unique features that differentiate it from secular Zionism. This lack of awareness concerning history might rest on the apocalyptic-messianic feelings of religious-Zionists, who felt they were at the beginning of an era of eternal redemption, where the temporary and the ephemeral are irrelevant. Understanding the reasons for the current plight, however, does nothing to change it. The influence of the Holocaust became evident in the rising status of religious-Zionism and in the decline of non-Zionist ultra-Orthodoxy. Most ultra-Orthodox Jews were murdered in Europe and, according to Dan Michman, the lack of a substantial constituency is what led them to join the “Religious Front” when the State of Israel was established.23 Ideologically, religiousZionism proved justified in its initial fears of the potential implications of anti-Semitism. Reines had insistently argued that anti-Semitism is irrational, making a national homeland imperative. Not long after his death, the irrational outburst of hatred turned into genocide.

NOTES 1 See, for instance, Dan Michman, Holocaust Historiography — A Jewish Perspective: Conceptualizations, Terminology, Approaches and Fundamental Issues, trans. Naphtali Greenwood (London: Vallentine Mitchell, 2003), pp. 389–416. 2 See Nethaniel Katzburg, ed., Pedut: Rescue in the Holocaust (in Hebrew) (Ramat-Gan: Bar-Ilan University, 1984); Rivka Knoller, The Activities of Religious-Zionist Youth Groups in Europe during the Holocaust, 1939–1945: A Summarized Review of Limited Archive Sources (Ramat-Gan: Bar-Ilan University, 1993). 3 See Haim Genizi and Naomi Blank, ”The Rescue Efforts of Bnei-Akiva in Hungary during the Holocaust,” Yad-Vashem Studies 23 (1993), pp. 123–150; Naomi Blank, Rescue in the Underground: Bnei Akiva in Hungary during the Holocaust (in Hebrew) (Ramat-Gan: Bar-Ilan University, 1993); Menachem Zvi Kadari, ed., Zekher Mordekhai: Chapters in the History of Religious-Zionism in Central Europe (in Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Moreshet, 1995). 4 See Hava Eshkoli-Wagman, “Religious-Zionism Faces the Holocaust: The Activities of Ha-Brit Ha-Olamit Torah va-Avodah” (in Hebrew), Cathedra 76 (1995), pp. 147–172. 5 See Ephraim Zuroff, ”Rescue via the Far East: The Attempts to Save Polish Rabbis and Yeshiva Students, 1939–1941,” Simon Wiesenthal Center Annual 1 (1984), pp. 153–184. 6 See Eliezer Don-Yehiya, “Religious-Zionism and Issues of Immigration and Immigrant Absorption in the Yishuv Period” (in Hebrew), in Ingathering of Exiles: Aliyah to the Land of Israel — Myth and Reality, ed. Dvorah Hacohen, (Jerusalem: Zalman Shazar Center, 1998), pp. 96–101. 79

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7 See Dina Porat, The Blue and the Yellow Stars of David: The Zionist Leadership and the Holocaust, 1939–1945 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1990). 8 “Ha-Zofeh,” 7 December 1942. 9 Hava Eshkoli-Wagman, “Religious-Zionist Responses in Mandatory Palestine to the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising,” Holocaust and Genocide Studies 11:2 (1997), pp. 213–238. 10 See Shulamit Eliash, “The ’Rescue’ Policy of the Chief Rabbinate of Palestine Before and During World War II,” Modern Judaism 3 (1983), pp. 291–308. 11 See Hava Eshkoli-Wagman, “ ’Destruction Becomes Creation’: The Theological Reaction of National Religious-Zionism in Palestine to the Holocaust,” Holocaust and Genocide Studies 17:3 (2003) 430–458; idem, Between Rescue and Redemption: Religious-Zionism in Eretz-Israel Confronts the Holocaust (in Hebrew) (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 2004). 12 See Menachem Weinstein, Religious-Zionism on the Margins of Eretz Israel: The Torah va-Avodah Movement in the Cyprus Detention Camps (in Hebrew) (Nir Galim: Beth Ha-Edut, 2001). 13 Shlomo Zalman Shragai, Processes of Change and Redemption (in Hebrew) (Jerusalem: Mosad Ha-Rav Kook, 1959), p. 156. 14 Heb. “Aliyah, Kibbush u-Biniyan.” 15 Shragai, Processes of Change and Redemption, p. 165. 16 Ibid, p. 201. 17 Ibid, p. 233. 18 Ibid, pp. 185–186. 19 Ibid, p. 174. 20 Ibid, January 1948, p. 234. 21 Zvi Yehuda Kook, On the Paths of Israel (in Hebrew), vol. 3 (Jerusalem: Amutat Hoshen Lev, 1997), p. 70. See Dov Schwartz, Challenge and Crisis in Rabbi Kook’s Circle (in Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Am Oved 2001), ch. 1. 22 See Gershon Greenberg, “Ha-GRA’s Apocalyptic Expectations and 1947 Religious Responses to the Holocaust: Harlap and Tsimerman,” in The Gaon of Vilnius and the Annals of Jewish Culture: Materials of the International Scientific Conference, Vilnius, September 10–12, 1997, compiled by Izraelis Lempertas (Vilnius: Vilnius University Pub. House, 1998), pp. 231–238. 23 See Dan Michman, “The Impact of the Holocaust on Religious Jewry,” in Major Changes Within the Jewish People in the Wake of the Holocaust, ed. Israel Gutman (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 1996), pp. 659–707.

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Chapter Ten

ISRAEL’S FIRST YEARS: HOPES AND DISAPPOINTMENTS

An evaluation of religious-Zionism during the early years of the State of Israel reveals the complex and intricate status of the movement in the process of national revival. On the one hand, this is a heroic chapter: religious-Zionism participated in the birth of the State of Israel, fulfilling the movement’s hopes and leading its messianic interpretation of events to soar to new heights. On the other, religious-Zionism now confronted the institutionalization of secularism at state level. Secularism became the policy of official institutions in the “divine” state. The vision of a Torah state faded, the hopes of establishing a Sanhedrin rose and were immediately abandoned, and a prosaic, everyday struggle was at the door. The surge and decline of the movement, from the establishment of Israel in 1948 until the Six-Day War in 1967, are the subject of this discussion.

RELIGIOUS-ZIONISM AND THE UNDERGROUND

Like other political streams, religious-Zionism viewed the power and legitimacy of the British Mandate as contingent on its ability to create suitable conditions for the establishment of a Jewish national home in Eretz Israel. When the mandatory authorities failed to meet this goal, therefore, religiousZionists joined the anti-British underground movements. The Mizrachi was a partner in the body monitoring the Haganah, and Meir Bar-Ilan and Judah Leib Maimon were members of various supervisory committees. Mizrachi leaders presented the British authorities as “illegal” and as negating the Torah. Halakhic rulings issued by religious-Zionist rabbis allowed diverse underground activities and declared they were halakhically legitimate or “in the spirit of Halakhah.” As was the case in the Zionist movement in general, 81

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however, religious-Zionism was engaged in a debate over the appropriate response to the British Mandate and to the Arabs.1 The religious sports organization Eli-Tsur established units of religious youths, who enrolled in the Haganah. Jehiel A. Eliash, who set up these units (Eli-Tsur Battalions),2 reported fears at Haganah headquarters that they would eventually secede and strive to establish an independent religious military organization.3 Eliash and his group argued their case, explaining that the principle of unity was a beacon for religious-Zionism, and they had no intention of undermining the foundations of the Haganah. According to this principle, young Eli-Tsur members obeyed all orders and even participated in the “saison” (a period of cooperation between the Haganah and the mandatory police in the apprehension of members of the dissident underground organizations IZL [Irgun Zeva’i Le’umi] and Lehi [Lohamei Herut Israel] that did not acknowledge the authority of the Yishuv leadership). The “Brith haHashmona’im” [Hasmonean Covenant] youth movement, which had started activities in 1937, recruited religious youngsters to the IZL and the Lehi. Several years before the creation of Israel, however, the movement changed course and channeled its members to the Haganah.4 The Mizrachi was close to the Haganah in its views and its political network, sharing the view of most Yishuv institutions that the Haganah was not an “underground” movement in the full sense of the term. By contrast, its attitude to the IZL and the Lehi was characterized by inner conflict. Some Mizrachi members rejected the activities of the secessionist movements both for moral reasons (injuring non-combatants) and for their detrimental effect on the united Jewish stand represented by the Yishuv. Moshe Shapira was one of the opponents. The Chief Rabbinate, led by Rabbis Isaac Herzog and Ben Zion Meir Hai Uziel, issued several proclamations against the secessionist movements. Others, particularly Judah Leib Maimon, showed understanding and even sympathy toward some IZL and Lehi actions.5 Involvement in the underground was hard for religious youths. Despite the mixed views on this issue, we see attempts to create religious underground units already at an early stage. Some supported full involvement in secular units in order to influence them, but also to avoid granting secularization full recognition. Service for religious recruits was difficult, however, particularly due to Sabbath transgressions such as writing or smoking, whether due to military requirements or to the behavior of the secular commanders. These youngsters tried to sustain a religious agenda, including Torah study, in the course of their heavy training duties. The first course for religious officers opened in May 1939, and one of the religious squadrons participated in the 82

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Biriyah action, leading to the British later arresting its twenty-four members. This event became a myth in the Mizrachi and in Bnei Akiva, which later instituted the 11 Adar as an annual pilgrimage day to Biriyah.

ON THE EVE OF THE STATE

When the Yishuv understood that the British had no intention of changing their policy even after the end of WWII, it set up the Hebrew Resistance Movement,6 which institutionalized the violent struggle against the Mandate. “Ha-Zofeh” proclaimed: “Everything will be done to break these laws [the White Paper].”7 In the shadow of growingly intransigent British attitudes in the government of Foreign Minister Ernest Bevin, the Mizrachi became an unswerving opponent of Chaim Weizmann’s moderate policies. Most Mizrachi leaders also persevered in their solid opposition to partition proposals.8 The undivided Land of Israel was an essential principle for them. At the end of 1946, however, as the violent and official underground struggle against the British authorities came to an end after extensive arrests of the Yishuv leadership on the “Black Sabbath,” this adamant stance changed due to the DPs problem in Europe. “A state, even if small, is a saving tool,” argued Maimon. He revealed that he would have agreed to the 1937 partition proposal if Jerusalem had been included in the area of the Jewish state. Maimon was joined by R. Zeev Gold, Hayyim Pick, and others. Ultimately, however, BarIlan and his faction won in their opposition to partition, and the movement persisted in its activist line. With the creation of UNSCOP [United Nations Special Committee on Palestine] in May 1947, the partition discussion reawakened in the Zionist movement. The question was whether to submit a partition initiative or adopt a maximalist line and accept partition only as an inevitable compromise. Religious-Zionism stood up then to most of the Jewish Agency executive in its support for the demand to establish a Jewish state on the Greater Land of Israel. This time, the Mizrachi was asked to present its position to the Committee (as opposed to previous times, when the Mizrachi had expressed its wish to appear before it), and Ben-Gurion insisted on Maimon presenting. Maimon addressed the committee although the World Center of the Mizrachi, led by Bar-Ilan, informed Ben-Gurion that Maimon did not represent the movement, and stated: “This entire land is ours and, with the help of the God of Israel, will also be ours as the future Jewish state.” He then claimed that Eretz Israel had been deserted throughout the years of Jewish exile, since only the Jews 83

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can redeem it from its desolation. The decision of the UN Committee favoring partition and the problematic status of Jerusalem in particular, caused a crisis in religious-Zionism, which it sought to overcome by claiming redemption is gradual. The messianic idea was among the elements dictating its response. Again, according to the unity principle that guided religious-Zionism, its leaders acted to bring about a union between the Haganah and the secessionist underground groups. Maimon, Moshe Shapira,9 David Zvi Pinkas10 and other leaders of the Mizrachi and Ha-Po‘el ha-Mizrachi were determined to reach an agreement uniting all forces. Religious-Zionism participated in the efforts to bring all fighting forces under one overall authority, in what eventually became the Israel Defense Forces. Abiding by the same principle, Mizrachi and Ha-Po‘el ha-Mizrachi members left the Provisional Government after the “Altalena” affair — the shelling of the IZL weapons boat from the Tel Aviv shore — and returned only after it became clear that a civil war had been avoided. During the War of Liberation, religious settlements of the Mizrachi and HaPo‘el ha-Mizrachi were on the front line. Battles were fought on the Etzion bloc, in the Beth-She’an valley, and in the Negev, and these settlements suffered heavy casualties. Whereas the enemy had cannons, armor, and plenty of ammunition, the defenders often had insufficient weapons and inadequate fortifications. Members of Kfar Darom and Be’erot Yitzhak confronted Egyptian forces. The Etzion bloc settlements, whose members fought against the Jordanians for control of the Hebron-Jerusalem road, were attacked and abandoned; the Kfar Etzion combatants were killed (only four survived), and members of Masu’ot Yitzhak and Ein-Tsurim were taken prisoner and released only after eleven months, in April 1949.11 The contribution of religious-Zionism during the War of Independence seems to have been inadequately emphasized and, like other issues discussed in this book, requires further research. A detailed historicalmilitary study of the events in religious-Zionist settlements would help to attain a more balanced evaluation, though it would not necessarily dispel resentments about their purportedly unfair treatment. These resentments, however, might serve to explain many of the movement’s later choices.

TOWARD A CONSTITUTION

Many hold that religious-Zionism had not readied itself for a state, in the sense of making Jewish law an essential element of state legislation. This claim argues that religious-Zionism should have prepared a comprehensive body of legislation for the future state, abiding by Jewish law but also adapted to 84

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the needs and characteristics of a modern state. Expectations were addressed mainly to the Chief Rabbinate and its office holders at the time, Rabbis Herzog and Uziel.12 They, however, did not assume this task because they considered themselves representatives of the public as a whole — secular and religious, religious-Zionists and ultra-Orthodox — and felt they had to refrain from daring rulings. Religious-Zionists, then, were explicitly and implicitly critical of the Chief Rabbinate’s passivity. In 1948, about forty rabbis close to Ha-Po‘el ha-Mizrachi gathered at Kfar ha-Ro‘eh for the purpose of establishing a rabbinic body to shape public religious life in the country. A semi-official body was set up, the Rabbinical Committee of Ha-Po‘el ha-Mizrachi,13 which published the periodical Shevilin [Paths] and a series of books bearing the name Ha-Torah ve-ha-Medinah (The Torah and the State) edited by Shaul Israeli. They had no plan either, however, for a modern constitution integrating Halakhah and current law. Some hold that religious-Zionism missed a historical opportunity to implement the unity it had sought all along, namely, to formulate a constitution linked to Jewish law that could have provided an acceptable legal framework for the “state in the making.” Others, however, point to the limited opportunities then available to religious-Zionism to influence secular society. Asher Cohen showed that Warhaftig had predicted the failure of the Torah state idea even before the proclamation of the state, and he therefore proposed a “status quo” concerning religion.14 This proposal has also characterized the course of religious-Zionism in later years. A comprehensive constitution was not drawn up, but discussions were nevertheless held about the character of the future state and its very connection with Jewish law. There was no shortage of naïve individuals who held that the “divine miracle” of the state’s birth had united all hearts, and thus enabled the establishment of a halakhic state. The critical and provocative formulations of Yeshayahu Leibowitz focused on Halakhah’s actual potential to function in a modern state.15 In the 1940s and 1950s, Leibowitz was an important figure for members of Torah va-Avodah and the Religious Kibbutz. He headed the Oved ha-Dati [Religious Worker] faction, which had remained in the Histadrut after the secession of Ha-Po‘el ha-Mizrachi. Leibowitz demanded from the spiritual leadership of religious-Zionism to show courage and offer clear solutions to the new problems arising from the political reality of a new Jewish state. Definitions were often formulated in negative terms, stating that the fitting regime is democracy and the constitution should be determined in a representative assembly, on condition that state legislation does not harm Torah law. At other times, the explicit demand was that state law should be 85

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based on the laws of the Torah. Some, such as R. Moshe Zvi Neriah, dared to grant state law the halakhic validity of “king’s law.” These declarations, however, never crystallized into an actual “program.” R. Herzog attested in his writings that he feared that any program, however daring in religious terms, would still be unacceptable to the secular public. The strife that had accompanied the creation of the Chief Rabbinate clarified that secularists expected a reform of Halakhah suited to modern reality and not only an adaptation. The idea of turning the State of Israel into a Torah state, therefore, collapsed in its cradle.

COPING WITH “NORMALCY”

Religious-Zionism was not restrained in its feelings over the creation of Israel. The event, after all, revealed the justice of its ways. Above all, however, was the theological consideration: for most religious-Zionist thinking, the creation of Israel represented a divine miracle. In this light, a crisis could be expected when confronting the “normal” problems of the young state (secularization, bureaucracy, crime, and so forth). To cope with the new situation, as noted, the rabbinical body of Ha-Po‘el ha-Mizrachi published several volumes in “The Torah and the State” series. These books include halakhic discussions from an overall national-modern perspective, such as the army enlistment of women and yeshiva students, the connection between state law and Halakhah, and halakhic problems in modern medicine. The following passage illustrates these discussions: A spiritual crisis now sweeps the Yishuv, besides difficult economic circumstances. Fraud, robbery, murder, and suicide have become everyday matters. Idealistic fervor has slackened, and people of caliber are vanishing . . . This could have been another sore question easily overcome had religious Jewry in this country been united and aware of what awaits it. In truth, the dual crisis [Arab attacks on the outside and the crisis described above on the inside] affecting the Yishuv did not come as a surprise to religious Jewry. We always knew that the people of Israel would fail if they tried to build their way of life as other nations do. This crisis, which came so swiftly, should have paved the way for extensive spiritual activity seeking to return the people to their wellspring. It provided a unique opportunity for religious Jewry, Torah Jewry, to state its case. Unfortunately, however, this has not been the case. Instead of unity, increasing divisiveness is evident. No attention has been paid to the true danger points, and thought has instead been devoted to minor issues and to inciting dissension and polemics.16 86

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The crisis, however, did not lead to discouragement, since the messianic interpretation of religious-Zionism concerning twentieth century events still prevailed, never questioning that “the state that has become a reality before our eyes is the cornerstone and the linchpin of full redemption.” Since actual events are translated as the realization of the unfolding redemption process, all that remained was to explain and clarify to those who failed to see: “insofar as we, holding the Torah, draw closer to the state, the state will draw closer to the Torah, to its way of life and the path of its commandments.”17 In any event, the “normal” existence of the State of Israel shaped the course of religious-Zionism as a persistent struggle for the character of the public space and for personal status issues through religious legislation. The struggle unfolded during the first three decades of the state “from the inside,” namely, through participation in the government and through the “historical alliance” between religious-Zionism and the Labor movement. This alliance was also due to the new status of Ha-Po‘el ha-Mizrachi as the driving force in religious-Zionist politics, and of such leaders as Moshe Shapira and Moshe Unna, whose support for political moderation and socialist principles paved the way for the partnership.

THE STRUGGLE FOR THE SABBATH

Two landmarks in the struggle for the religious character of Israel will illustrate the course of religious-Zionism in the early years of the state. The first is the struggle for the Sabbath. In the first Knesset, the religious parties (Mizrachi, Ha-Po‘el ha-Mizrachi, and Agudat Israel) were united in a Religious Front. They were not in full accord concerning the religious character of the state, however, as revealed by the debate surrounding the Law on Hours of Work and Rest, which set a compelling norm incumbent on all citizens. The law stated that the Sabbath is the weekly day of rest but allowed the minister of labor to issue licenses to “vital” enterprises and institutions, beyond those set within the law. Moshe Unna defined the difference between religious-Zionism and Agudat Israel on this question. In his view, whereas religious-Zionism had tried to minimize the differences between the law and Halakhah through state-halakhic solutions, Agudat Israel had sought to highlight the conflict so that state law and Halakhah would not mix.18 According to the religious-Zionist members of the Front (Warhaftig, Unna, and others), religious-Zionism had tried to create a comprehensive halakhic 87

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basis following the principle of pikuah nefesh [lives at stake] for granting work permits on the Sabbath, but Labor party members showed neither readiness nor tolerance for such a move. Once more, the Chief Rabbinate refused to enter this religious-secular debate and articulate a balanced and determined stance. The law was enacted in 1951, despite the opposition of the Religious Front. Religious-Zionist leaders held that permits had been issued far too generously.

THE “WHO IS A JEW” STRUGGLE

The second landmark is the “who is a Jew” issue, referring to personal status.19 The “Jew” registration in identity documents began in 1958, according to personal declarations. Warhaftig and Shapira demanded at a cabinet meeting that the registration guidelines, which in their view contradicted the “status quo,” be changed to reflect the fact that religion and nationality overlap in Judaism by definition. Registrations contradicting Halakhah, so they claimed, would lead to mixed marriages and divide the people. Ben-Gurion refused to bow to the demands of the religious ministers, claiming that Israel’s Declaration of Independence promises freedom of religion and conscience and he could not agree to turn Israel into a halakhic state. Warhaftig and Shapira resigned from the government. Ben-Gurion turned to fifty scholars in Israel and the Diaspora asking for their views on this question. In his letter to them in October 1958, he pointed out that a halakhically based registration could be harmful to the ingathering of exiles, and that the concentration of Jews in Israel precludes the risk of assimilation. Nevertheless, most of them favored registration according to Halakhah. A year and a half later, when the Fourth Knesset convened, Shapira became Minister of the Interior and the dispute subsided for ten years. During this period, registration again became synonymous with halakhic identity, meaning that a Jew was defined as someone whose mother was Jewish or had converted according to Halakhah. Ever since, registration according to halakhic criteria has been progressively eroded following various judicial rulings, and this issue requires separate discussion. The issues of the Sabbath and registration are only examples of the systematic and “dreary” battle of religious-Zionism against the secularization of the young state. Other issues could be added, such as the struggles against the import of non-kosher meat, the enlistment of women in the army, autopsies, and many others. Beside them were what the movement considered achievements, such as the agreement concerning the split of the educational 88

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system into two streams, secular and religious, and a certain level of autonomy granted to religious education (1953). The movement’s frustration increased, however, and was not healed by the “miracle” of Israel’s creation. Religious-Zionists felt they had been forcibly distanced from power centers concerned with the building and settlement of the new state, and that their secular colleagues, or at least most of them, did not understand them. Furthermore, they felt that their views were not sufficiently taken into account in the shaping of the state’s character: secularization was on the rise and, as was made clear in the case of the aliyah from Yemen, was being forcibly imposed by the very state that had awakened so many hopes.20 Religious-Zionism, therefore, was coerced to embark in a struggle for religious legislation, which Israeli society viewed as unheroic.

“THE HISTORICAL ALLIANCE”

In this period, religious-Zionism followed mainly the political course of “inside” influence. Many viewed the long association with Labor (the “historical alliance” that had prevailed since the mid–1930s) as a deliberate and firm commitment, despite the sharp conflicts. Looking back decades later, NRP chairman Raphael Ben-Nathan, viewed as the movement’s “strong man,” wrote: The Zionist movement has two parts: the political [and the educational-social]. It has become obvious that, for the Likud,21 a product of the merger between the Revisionists and the General Zionists, what is important is territory and political independence, regardless of the character and inner quality of the society. For Labor, by contrast, these values are important, meaning that the quality of the society is more important than the society’s ground, and by ground I mean the actual land, its measurable perimeter and scope. Hence, the Revisionists and the General Zionists championed a uniform educational system all along the new history of the Yishuv in the Land of Israel. The uniqueness of the world view evolving here played no role for them. Conversely, Labor and the left in the workers’ movement sought uniqueness and singularity, and imparting values to their children. We too, in the religious educational stream, seek to educate toward a value, an idea, a special and specific spiritual message. Hence, we resemble them in the aims and the ways. So also in the social issues in which we see religious value: settlement, protection of the weak and the oppressed. Hence the ideological, and thereby, “historical” alliance.22

Although the alliance with Labor knew ups and downs, it attested to a shared language and to communication channels and understandings between “centrist” secular-political entities and religious-Zionist entities. 89

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This alliance suited the political orientation of many members of the National Religious Party and brought achievements in the realm of religious legislation, but also followed from the unity principle that the movement had endorsed for many years. The unity of Israel as an ideological-metaphysical principle had always been an essential element for religious-Zionism and its leaders. It was the driving force behind their diligent parliamentary activities in support of national unity governments, as the one established before the Six-Day War. But their common language with Labor, which some members viewed as the sign of a deeply entrenched ideological alliance, was perceived by the broad religiousZionist public as a sign of compromise, decay, and, even worse, as a chase for power at any cost.

INTENSIFIED TORAH EDUCATION

The first yeshiva high schools were founded in 1937–1938 (“Alumah” in Jerusalem and “Ha-Yishuv ha-Hadash” in Tel Aviv), and “Midrashiat No‘am” (an acronym for No‘ar Mizrachi [Mizrachi Youth]) was established in 1945. Yet, the large network of yeshiva high schools that left its imprint on the history of the movement was set up by Bnei Akiva, of which the first was the Kfar ha-Ro‘eh yeshiva founded in 1940. Until 1950, R. Moshe Zvi Neriah succeeded in banning all secular studies from this yeshiva, which was unique in its use of Hebrew and in the preservation of a social experience unique to religiousZionist youths. Under heavy pressure of the students’ parents and the Bnei Akiva leadership, secular studies were gradually introduced. Four students passed external matriculation exams for the first time only in 1955. A year later, these exams were already integrated into the curriculum, which was recognized by the Ministry of Education in 1959. Yeshiva high schools were then established in Ra‘anana (1960), in Merkaz Shapira (1961), in Kiriyat Shmu’el (1961), and elsewhere. Students devoted the mornings to religious studies and the rest of the day to secular studies.23 By the end of this period, Bnei Akiva had established thirteen yeshivot, four ulpanot for girls, two vocational yeshivot, and one agricultural one. The Bnei Akiva ulpana was an institution to some extent parallel to the yeshiva high school, intended to intensify Torah studies among girls. The first one, in Kfar Pines, was established in 1961. Many members of the teaching staff at yeshiva high schools during the 1960s and 1970s were non-Zionists, since religious-Zionism had only begun to produce a cadre capable of teaching Talmud at the proper level of depth, drawing mainly on graduates from the Merkaz ha-Rav yeshiva. 90

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During the early 1970s, inspired by Merkaz ha-Rav students, an alternative educational system emerged in the shape of No‘am schools that stressed Torah studies, from the primary school level and up to ulpanot for girls. Eventually, yeshiva high schools developed within this network as well. Gradually, this became the dominant system, and some elites in religious-Zionism sent their children to these institutions. This alternative Torah education reflected a social-religious change in certain trends within religious-Zionism, grouped under the category of Hardali (acronym for a combination of haredi [ultraOrthodox] and le’umi [national]). Another important religious-Zionist enterprise from this period, which reached the peak of its influence from the 1970s onward, was the establishment of military yeshivot known as yeshivot hesder (meaning a special hesder [arrangement] concerning military service agreed with the Israeli Defense Forces). The first yeshivat hesder joining Torah study and military service was established in the early 1950s at Kerem be-Yavneh, under the leadership of R. Hayyim Yaakov Goldwicht. This led to the “hesder” pattern: students undertake a five-year commitment whereby they study at the yeshiva for part of the time, leave for their military service, and return for a final round of study at the yeshiva. The number of these institutions has risen dramatically over the years, and presently includes more than thirty. R. Aharon Lichtenstein, head of the Har Etzion yeshiva in Alon Shvut, wrote a programmatic article during the early 1980s stating the ideological justification of the hesder agreement. He argued that the integration of Torah study and military service involves a moral advantage, because security forces are at risk during peacetime as well and, therefore, everyone must share the burden. A personal advantage accruing from this arrangement is that it releases Torah students from a sense of parasitism. Finally, R. Lichtenstein supported a halakhic justification as well that, beside the life-saving element, is also based on the value of charity. A shorter military spell for hesder soldiers is justified, however, since national spiritual needs are more important than mere security needs. The hesder fosters a “full and integrated Jewish existence.”24 The uniqueness of these yeshivot lies not only in the integration of Torah study and military service, but also in their social mission. Contrary to the traditional yeshivot, based on the ideal of “Torah for its own sake,” yeshivot hesder train their students toward integration in society. They maintain close contacts with teacher training institutions, and many of their students go into education. From the 1980s onward, many ultra-Orthodox teachers retired from yeshiva high schools and were replaced by graduates of yeshivot 91

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hesder. The norm in the ultra-Orthodox world, whereby a yeshiva student spends several years studying Torah and only then leaves to become a teacher, was not appropriate to religious-Zionist education. Young yeshiva heads, mostly graduates of yeshivot hesder, shaped a new generation of yeshiva high school students. This trend was largely responsible for molding religiousZionist youths during the 1990s, and lies behind the changes in the political orientation of religious-Zionism. In time, another integration pattern developed in the shape of the premilitary training course.25 Students study there for a year or more and then begin their standard, three-year military service. The course is meant to train youths to preserve their religious identity during their service in the army that, by its very definition as a non-religious institution, is inherently dangerous. Study topics are adapted for this purpose, stressing issues of faith and involvement in current events. The first of these courses was established at Eli in 1984, and today there are twelve. An important landmark in religious-Zionist education was the establishment of Bar-Ilan University.26 The driving force behind this project was the university’s first rector, Pinhas Churgin, who had been president of the Mizrachi Organization of America. Religious-Zionism in the United States viewed itself as an important element in the advance and enlightenment of the movement in Israel. The university opened in September 1955, and in 2001 numbered about 20,000 students.

SUMMARY

Religious-Zionism and its political representative, the National Religious Party (NRP) established in 1956 through the union of the Mizrachi and HaPo‘el ha-Mizrachi, consistently avoided ideological conflicts until the early 1960s, when the “Youngsters Revolution” broke up.27 Relationships between the various factions within the NRP had been more or less balanced, with efforts devoted to ensure the religious character of the public space and to various matters of personal status. An issue still requiring further study is the place of religious-Zionism in the absorption of Oriental Jews, which involved a struggle to provide them a religious education together with the imposition of some “Ashkenazi” halakhic criteria in judicial rulings and in the leadership. All along, the political norm of struggling from “inside” framed the NRP’s parliamentary activity. From the perspective of religious-Zionism, the creation of Israel and the first years of the state were indeed a complex period. 92

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NOTES 1 See Eliezer Don-Yehiya, “Religion and Political Terrorism: The Attitudes of Palestinian Religious Jews towards Jewish Counter-Terrorist Activities in the Years 1936–1939” (in Hebrew), Zionism 17 (1993), pp. 155–190. 2 Heb. Mishmarot Eli-Tsur. 3 See Jehiel Eliash, Action Out of Vision (in Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Merkaz Eli-Tzur, 1983). 4 See Mordechai Bar-Lev, “The Ideological Foundations of the Hasmonean Covenant” (in Hebrew), in Religion and Resistance in Mandatory Palestine, ed. Haim Genizi (Tel Aviv: Moreshet, n. d.), pp. 155–183. 5 See Hilda Shatzberger, Resistance and Tradition in Mandatory Palestine (in Hebrew) (Ramat-Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 1985). See also Ehud Luz, Wrestling with an Angel: Power, Morality, and Jewish Identity, trans. Michael Swirsky (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003). 6 Heb. Tenu‘at ha-Meri ha-Ivri. 7 “Ha-Zofeh,” 4 November 1945. 8 See ch. 7 above. 9 See Shabtai Daniel, Minister Moshe Hayyim Shapira: Profile of a Religious Politician (in Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Yad Shapira, 1980); Eliezer Don-Yehiya, “Leadership and Policy in Religious-Zionism: Hayyim Moshe Shapira, the NRP, and the Six-Day War” (in Hebrew), in Religious-Zionism — An Era of Changes: Studies in Memory of Zevulun Hammer, ed. Asher Cohen and Israel Harel (Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 2004), pp. 170–135. 10 See Isser Judah Unterman et al., eds., Ha-Sar Rabbi David Zvi Pinkas z”l (Tel Aviv: National Mizrachi Center in Israel, 1954). 11 Dov Knohl, Siege in the Hills of Hebron; The Battle of the Etzion Bloc, trans. Isaac Halevy-Levin (Jerusalem: Kfar Etzion Educational Center, 1975); Yohanan BenYa‘akov, Gush Etzion: Fifty Years of Struggle and Creativity (in Hebrew) (Jerusalem: Kfar Etzion Field School-The Religious Kibbutz, 1978). 12 See Shalom Ratzabi, “The Rishon le-Zion, Rabbi Ben Zion Meir Hai Uziel: Zionism and Law” (in Hebrew), Zionism 21 (1980), pp. 77–98; Marc D. Angel, Loving Truth and Peace: The Grand Religious Worldview of Rabbi Ben Zion Uziel, (Northvale, NJ and Jerusalem: Jason Aronson, 1999); Zvi Zohar, The Luminous Face of the East: Studies in the Legal and Religious Thought of Sephardi Rabbis of the Middle East (in Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuhad, 2001). 13 Heb. Hever ha-Rabanim shel Ha-Po‘el ha-Mizrachi. See Asher Cohen and Aaron Kampinsky, ”Religious Leadership in Israel’s Religious-Zionism: The Case of the Board of Rabbis,” Jewish Political Studies Review 18 (2006), pp. 119–140. 14 Asher Cohen, The Prayer Shawl and the Flag (in Hebrew) (Jerusalem: Yad Izhak BenZvi, 1998), p. 50. 15 See Yeshayahu Leibowitz, Judaism, Human Values, and the Jewish State, trans. Eliezer Goldman et. al. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992). 16 Shaul Israeli, ed., The Torah and the State (in Hebrew), preface to vols. 5–6 (Tel Aviv: Ha-Po‘el ha-Mizrachi, 1953–54), p. 5. 17 Ibid, p. 6. 93

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18 Moshe Unna, In Separate Ways: Religious Parties in Israel on the Eve of Israel’s Creation and in the First and Second Knesset (in Hebrew) (Alon Shvut: Yad Shapira, 1983), p. 235. 19 See Dvorah Hacohen, “The ’Law of Return’ as an Embodiment of the Link between Israel and the Jews of the Diaspora,” The Journal of Israeli History 19 (1988), pp. 61–89; Yigal Elam, Judaism as a Status Quo: The Who is a Jew Controversy in 1958 (in Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 2000); the articles by Michael Corinaldi, “The Law of Return: The Confrontation between Religion and Nationality” (in Hebrew), pp. 56–87, and Eliezer Don-Yehiya, “Religion, National Identity, and Politics: The Crisis over ’Who Is a Jew,’ 1958” (in Hebrew), pp. 88–143, in Both Sides of the Bridge: Religion and State in the Early Years of Israel, ed. Mordechai Bar-On and Zvi Zameret (Jerusalem: Yad Izhak Ben Zvi, 2002). 20 See, for instance, Eliyahu Moshe Genichovsky, Judaism, State, Government (in Hebrew) (Ramat-Gan: Masada, 1970), pp. 34, 92–93. 21 The major right-wing political party, founded in 1973. 22 Raphael Ben-Nathan, In One Movement (in Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Moreshet, 1991), pp. 212–213. 23 See Mordechai Bar-Lev, “Yeshiva High School Graduates in Israel: Between Tradition and Innovation” (in Hebrew) (Ph. D. dissertation: Bar-Ilan University, 1979). 24 Aharon Lichtenstein, “The Ideology of Hesder,” Tradition 19 (1981), pp. 199–217. Cf. Eliezer Don-Yehiya, “The Book and the Sword: The Nationalist Yeshivot and Political Radicalism in Israel,” in Accounting for Fundamentalisms: The Dynamic Character of Movements, ed. Martin E. Marty and R. Scott Appleby (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994), pp. 262–300. 25 Heb. mekhinah kdam tsva’it. 26 See Menachem Klein, Bar-Ilan: University between Religion and Politics (in Hebrew) (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1997); Dov Schwartz, ed., Bar-Ilan University: From Concept to Enterprise (in Hebrew), 2 vols. (Ramat-Gan: Bar-Ilan University, 2006). 27 See ch. 11 below.

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Chapter Eleven

FROM REARGUARD TO VANGUARD: THE STRUGGLE FOR GREATER ISRAEL

The ferment within religious-Zionism, following the passivity “forced” upon it during the first fifteen years of the State of Israel, raised to the surface. In the Six-Day War, history afforded a fateful event allowing release to its pentup energies: Israel conquered the biblical areas of Judea, Samaria, Gaza, and the Golan Heights, and unified Jerusalem. Besides the renewed meeting with these biblical domains, religious-Zionism also experienced ideological elation, since Greater Israel had been a constitutive element of its existence since the 1920s. NRP Knesset representatives supported establishing a settlement in Kiryat Arb‘a in April 1968. A year later, a decision at the NRP convention called on the government “to support quick and extensive agricultural and urban settlement in the liberated territories.” But the significant transition from passivity to activism and from periphery to center became evident toward the end of the Yom Kippur War in 1973. Only then was a powerful movement established, which championed massive settlement in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza: Gush Emunim [The Bloc of the Faithful]. Religious-Zionism was the driving impulse behind the new movement.

AWAKENING BEGINS: THE YOUNGSTERS’ REVOLUTION

The early 1960s witnessed the first signs of an opposition movement within the NRP, made up of the party’s young members who objected to the leadership’s oligarchic structure. The first sign was the “Young Guard,”1 set up by Zevulun Hammer and Danny Vermus with the support of Moshe Krone, an NRP leader. The “Guard” struck roots, to the leadership’s dismay, since it soon became obvious that the youngsters were determined to establish an opposition faction within the party. They called themselves “Young Circles: Young Members of Ha-Po‘el ha-Mizrachi Striving to Change the Movement,”2 95

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and enjoyed massive support within a broad public who saw them as “the only chance of healing the movement.”3 They made headway, and obtained twenty percent of the vote in the October 1972 party primaries. In the elections for the Ninth Knesset, they joined forces with Ha-Si‘ah ha-Merkazit led by Dr. Warhaftig and with the Lamifneh faction headed by Dr. Joseph Burg. They succeeded in deposing Dr. Yitzhak Raphael, leader of the Likud u-Temurah faction. Raphael, who held moderate political views, symbolized in their eyes the party’s passivity and decay.4 A prominent characteristic of the “young circles” faction was their revolt against the minor, limited goals of the NRP. In their view, religious-Zionism should become involved in all areas of life. In a statement published in June 1961, they called for the creation of a high-ranking forum composed of rabbis, scientists, and intellectuals to prepare a program for a “Torah regime for the State,” as if seeking to rectify the party’s failure to seize the historical opportunity missed at the time of Israel’s creation. The statement also asserted: Together with the creation of a high-ranking halakhic forum to clarify the problems attending on a Torah regime, the party must formulate a plan and take a stand concerning the range of problems now affecting the State of Israel, and train the appropriate people to lead the various government bodies.5

The “youngsters” indeed expressed determined opinions on issues that were not distinctively religious, such as opposition to Ben-Gurion in the Lavon affair. The Six-Day War and its consequences channeled their rejection of passivity into a new cause: Greater Israel and the settlement of the liberated lands. Most of the NRP’s veteran leadership also supported the new ideal, but many “youngsters” were also fervent and zealous supporters of Gush Emunim.

THE STRUGGLE OF GUSH EMUNIM

To what extent was religious-Zionism the dominant force in the rise of Gush Emunim?6 The ferment that ultimately created the Gush can be traced to three foci: (1) A large segment of the religious-Zionists bourgeoisie, such as the “young miniyan [prayer quorum]” in the Ramat-Gan Hillel neighborhood, whose members discovered the charms of activism. These groups had internalized the frustration of religious-Zionism, which had been forcibly removed from action 96

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during the period of the Yishuv and in the first two decades of Israel’s life. Now they were the pioneers, appropriating the pioneering myths for themselves. Their methods evoked, as it were, memories of the Haganah, the Palmah, and the secessionist underground movements: conquering the land by creating facts and confronting a timid establishment, devotion to ideas, and the creation of a new type of proud religious Jew became important motivations. (2) An elitist, underground group of idealistic youngsters who had studied at the Kfar ha-Ro‘eh yeshiva in the early 1950s, and then moved to the Merkaz ha-Rav yeshiva. Collectively known within Bnei Akiva as Gahelet (Hebrew acronym for Gar‘in Halutzim Lomdei Torah [Torah studying pioneers]), they first tried to establish a kibbutz of high-level yeshiva graduates, but the group eventually broke up. Active members of this group moved to the Merkaz ha-Rav yeshiva and gathered round R. Zvi Yehuda Kook, viewing him as no less than a prophet and a seer. The group was driven by a theologicalmessianic impulse and viewed the settlement of the land as the realization of the promised redemption. (3) A group of secular activists (such as Yitzhak Shamir, who would eventually become Prime Minister representing the Likud) who supported the Greater Israel ideal and were willing to cooperate with religious-Zionists in order to implement it. This group was generally not dominant in the leadership of the Gush but was highly influential in its emergence, as noted below. Some scholars, led by Gideon Aran,7 claim that the elitist graduates of Gahelet became the driving power within the Gush. Others, however, claim that this group harnessed the Gush to its needs and provided it with theological justification, while taking over its activists and its resources. Whatever the case, the cooperation between them yielded productive results for the ideology of Greater Israel, and religious-Zionism shifted from the periphery to the center of Israeli consciousness. Why was the Gush formed after the Yom Kippur War? Although Jewish settlement in the Etzion bloc, for instance, was renewed immediately after the Six-Day War, no organized movement materialized in its wake. But the transition from passive to active consciousness need not be sudden. The 1973 Yom Kippur War kindled the struggle because, when it ended, it created a precedent by returning territories. Moreover, the shock of the war cracked the hegemony of the Labor party and its political agenda. In later years, Zevulun Hammer pointed out that the settlement of Judea, Samaria, and Gaza began to blossom when Henry Kissinger negotiated peace agreements. Hammer was thereby trying to make a final peace agreement contingent on widespread settlement throughout Greater Israel. 97

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Massive settlement began in 1975: Ofrah and the strife surrounding Elon Moreh defied Yitzhak Rabin’s government. These conflicts ended with the highly publicized eviction of Sebastia and the compromise that followed (the Kadum encampment). Over the next two years, the settlement movement became a fact and expanded further. The Gush adopted a technique involving quick settlement operations during the night, followed mostly by evictions, and then endlessly repeated. At the same time, the Gush initiated protest activities against the agreements concluded with Egypt and Syria with American mediation. The 1977 elections, which brought the Likud headed by Menachem Begin to power, raised many hopes that were soon dashed. Serious concern surrounded the peace agreements with Egypt at Camp David a year later, and their implementation in the eviction of the Yamit area in April 1982. Relationships with the Begin government were ambivalent: although the government officially supported the settlement policy, it also required that the settlers abide by the law and honor the peace agreement. The Gush became established during this period, losing much of its original vitality and wider public support. Members of the Gush were also actively involved in the creation of a new political party, “Ha-Tehiyah” [The Renaissance], which included religious and secular supporters of Greater Israel joined under the motto “we go together.” The later collapse of “Ha-Tehiyah” was detrimental to the Gush since, together with “Tami” (another political party of Jews of Middle Eastern and North African extraction), it eroded the power of the NRP. The failure of the “Movement to Halt the Withdrawal from Sinai” to stop the evacuation of Yamit, and the exposure of the “Jewish underground” two years later, which Aran views as a response to the evacuation, signal a process of decay and collapse. The “underground” retaliated against Arabs to avenge the killing of Jews on one hand and, on the other, sought to bring about an event leading to apocalyptic consequences by blowing up the mosques on Temple Mount. Members of the underground (Judah Etzion, Joshua Ben-Shoshan, and others) believed that this act would restore national honor and uplift the nation’s spirit, and apparently hoped that the international religious war that would follow the removal of the mosques would lead to the apocalyptic fulfillment of redemption. The crisis of the withdrawal from the territories and the exposure of the underground isolated Gush Emunim from wider public support, since the struggle at Yamit had also involved clashes with IDF soldiers. The Lebanon war that broke out a few months after the evacuation marginalized this issue in the public consciousness. The Intifada began in December 1987 and returned the Gush to the headlines, but the peace process had by then become inevitable.8 98

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THE TEST OF THE BOURGEOISIE

Let us consider now the two main groups that shaped Gush Emunim. Middle class members (such as Gershon Shafat, Eliyakim Rubinstein, Nisan Slomiansky, and others) saw Gush Emunim as an activist Zionist movement. In this movement, however, they created the myths and they were the pioneers blazing the trail. A “compensation” mechanism is evident in Meir Har-Noi’s telling reports. Har-Noi describes the excitement experienced by people arriving from big cities to take part in settlement operations at the very mention of their presence in news bulletins. The religious-Zionist bourgeoisie sensed the magic of the media to shape public opinion and place events at the center of the public agenda, reeling at its new-found ability to set the agenda for the country and the world: “this is a problem of international scope.”9 The description of the renewed encounter with the liberated lands is almost erotic, and melding with the natural surroundings became its prominent characteristic. The primeval features of life in Arab villages and cities added to the ancestral atmosphere and to the feeling of communion with the biblical lands. The descriptions of these urban religious-Zionists are closer to the Palmah traditions than to those of Merkaz ha-Rav: the meeting with nature was a kind of picnic, and preparing for a settlement operation made for a “fun evening.” When security problems arose in the northern border, Gush members volunteered to serve as guards in Kibbutz Sdeh Nehemia, intensifying the pioneering feeling. Dancing during the evacuation from Sebastia to move to the Kadum encampment is described as “the joy of the dancers who poured onto the streets on 29 November 1947,”10 namely, a feeling of “making” history and creating a new entity, this time founded by religious-Zionists. Middle class religious-Zionists internalized the model of Herut members, who had participated in underground activities before the birth of the state and ultimately rose to power in 1977. This perception was actively assisted by ex-members of the underground and war heroes from the past, such as Yitzhak Shamir and Meir Har-Zion. Former members of the IZL and the Lehi were bitterly disappointed by Menachem Begin’s policy, and taught Gush members a variety of tactical moves. Participants in the struggle learned how to hide their targets and how to slip away from police tails by pretending they were medical personnel and other disguises. The settlement in Sebastia was described as a planned “military” operation. The description of how food was provided to the settlers uses terms resembling the break of a siege. A hunger strike is, in some way, an army “call up.” Labor members, including Shimon Peres, Yigal Alon, and their colleagues, did not spare shows of sympathy for these youngsters replaying their own youth. 99

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Finally, the religious-Zionist bourgeoisie developed respect and admiration for the theological group, R. Zvi Yehuda Kook’s disciples. Hanan Porat, R. Moshe Levinger, and their friends infused an ideological spirit into urban religiousZionist circles. It was obvious to all that the noble and supreme motivation driving the activity of the Gush was messianic. No less important, however, was the deep affront inflicted by the 1975 UN decision equating Zionism with racism, thereby comparing Zionism to Nazism. The Gush, then, brought together repressed aspirations from several directions, which require theological, psychological, and sociological theories to explain their intensity.

R. ZVI YEHUDA KOOK AND THE GAHELET GROUP

Unlike the urban group, the followers of R. Zvi Yehuda Kook viewed Gush Emunim as a movement of religious renaissance and approached its deeds as the implementation of a messianic process. This group, as noted, emerged in the Kfar ha-Ro‘eh yeshiva led by R. Moshe Zvi Neriah. The coordinator of the Gahelet group, appointed by the national executive of Bnei Akiva, was Haim Druckman. Among the group members that moved to the Merkaz ha-Rav yeshiva and made R. Zvi Yehuda Kook their spiritual leader were Zephanyah Drori, Baruch Zalman Melamed, and Yaakov Philber, who are still dominant rabbinical figures for religious-Zionist youths. They were joined by other students at the Merkaz ha-Rav yeshiva, R. Zvi Israel Tau among them. R. Zvi Yehuda Kook laid the foundations for a radical messianic interpretation of current historical events. Both Rav Kook and his son R. Zvi Yehuda Kook held that our age is a corridor to miraculous-apocalyptic redemption. According to messianic sources, the wars characteristic of messianic times will be followed by miraculous periods, including the resurrection of the dead and the world to come. At those times, the people of Israel will move to another, imaginary world, all eternity and infinite righteousness. The only difference between the traditional approaches and that of R. Zvi Yehuda Kook is that, in the traditional versions, God sets the time for the start of redemption by sending the messiah (the son of Joseph and the son of David) and the people do not affect the divine decision (except for a collective return to faith), whereas according to R. Zvi Yehuda Kook, the initiative is also human. Moreover, traditional approaches view redemption as following a deterministic course, whereas R. Zvi Yehuda Kook held that a redemptive process leaves room for a struggle that will hasten its end. These distinctions are important, since human initiative and devotion play a central role in R. Zvi Yehuda Kook’s messianic doctrine, as shown below. 100

From Rearguard to Vanguard: The Struggle for Greater Israel

According to the messianic order, R. Zvi Yehuda Kook presented the period as an orderly unfolding of events moving toward full and final redemption. The expansion of Israel’s borders after the Six-Day War is an important and essential stage in accomplishing redemption. The struggle for Greater Israel during the peace agreements thus became a struggle for redemption, which actually pointed to a paradox: on one hand, R. Zvi Yehuda Kook viewed the State of Israel and its government as a sign of divine will. ”Statehood” (mamlakhtiut) is a key word in his homilies and short articles. On the other, R. Zvi Yehuda Kook attacked and furiously reviled Israeli peace governments.11 R. Zvi Yehuda Kook’s disciples-admirers adopted the notion of a messianic order as an interpretation of current events, and proceeded to apply it by themselves. The Lebanon war was, in their view, a further stage in the process of redemption, in which the Jewish people “fix” the world. Rav Kook’s view of the First World War as a messianic purifying stage returned, now featuring the Jewish people as a combatant. But this resolute view of a messianic order would eventually reach a crisis, as the struggle for Greater Israel subsided and the image of the Gush in Israel changed, as shown below.

CONTINUING THE STRUGGLE FOR GREATER ISRAEL

In the wake of the Lebanon war that broke out in May 1982, and particularly after the massacre in Sabra and Shatila, NRP Minister of Education and Culture Zevulun Hammer declared that the peace alternative should be considered, and the sanctity of life is a value no less important than the sanctity of the land. The NRP under the leadership of Dr. Joseph Burg was perceived as a “retreat” from the struggle for Greater Israel: on May 1983, R. Druckman abandoned the NRP and declared himself a one-man faction in the Knesset, named “Matsad.” A few months later, R. Neriah and Yosef Shapira joined him in a public call to support the new faction, whose ideology was basically an uncompromising struggle against withdrawal from Judea, Samaria, and Gaza, that was also supported by rabbis Drori, Philber, and Yitzhak Levi. Although the party enlisted supporters from the yeshivot hesder and their surroundings, it was doomed to disappear after it elected only one representative to the Eleventh Knesset in 1984. But the seeds of the shift to the right had been sown: the NRP now finally broke off its “historical alliance” with Labor, and in order to win back the high-quality group that had seceded from it, endorsed the right-wing line and stated so unequivocally. The greater the loss of public support for this struggle, the more extreme it became. An ideological and halakhic debate erupted as soon as Israel con101

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quered the territories in the Six-Day War: should military personnel comply with an order to evict settlements in the territories? After the Yom Kippur War, R. Zvi Yehuda Kook issued a ruling forbidding compliance with this order, and his ban remained valid for many years, even after the Yamit precedent. During the early 1990s, and as the Rabin government accelerated the peace process, the struggle escalated to the point of de-legitimizing government and state institutions. R. Abraham Shapira (head of the Merkaz ha-Rav yeshiva and former Chief Ashkenazi Rabbi), R. Shaul Israeli, and R. Neriah ruled: “as is true of any Torah proscription, Jews are forbidden to take part in any act supporting evacuation.” Concerning R. Ovadia Yosef’s moderate stance, R. Shapira stated: The very fact that Rabbi Ovadia Yosef is not only a rabbi but the sole leader of a political party [Shas] that benefits from the government raises questions about a conflict of interests, which usually prevents rabbis and judges from ruling on an issue.12

Most religious-Zionist rabbis opposed any cooperation with the uprooting of settlements. Nevertheless, the more plausible assumption is that no erosion was recorded in the loyalty of religious soldiers during their army service, nor was there evidence of a rising trend of objection to army service for fear of involvement in the evacuation of settlements. Throughout the period described here, R. Zvi Yehuda Kook’s disciples called for the political struggle to be accompanied by a “spiritual” struggle, to inform the secular public and draw it closer to the value of Greater Israel. All trends of religious-Zionism, then, seemed engaged in the struggle for Greater Israel. A group of moderate religious-Zionists, including some academics, sought to belie this image and established “Meimad,” a party that emphasizes the value of peace even at the cost of painful territorial compromise. Among their supporters was a small current within religious-Zionism (Oz ve-Shalom, Netivot Shalom) that had opposed the settlements already in the 1970s and included among its leaders Professor Aviezer Ravitzky, from the Hebrew University. Meimad chose R. Judah Amital, head of the Har Etzion yeshiva and a former supporter of Gush Emunim, as party leader. The party failed to gain enough votes to pass the legal threshold in the 1988 Knesset elections. Since then, it has not stood for election independently, stressing even more prominently the commitment of religious-Zionism to the struggle for Greater Israel. On 4 November 1995, Prime Minister Rabin was murdered by an assassin identified in the Israeli public as a religious-Zionist, since he had pursued some 102

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of his studies at religious-Zionist institutions. Religious-Zionism found itself on the defensive. Many of its members rejected the association between the assassin and the movement, but others did call for self-scrutiny. Among R. Zvi Yehuda Kook’s students, for instance, R. Zvi Israel Tau ceased giving lectures with distinctive messianic messages after the murder. On the night of the murder, he wore sackcloth and ashes. The movement had reached a crossroads. Protest activities were greatly reduced, but reawakened against Ehud Barak’s government after it showed willingness to agree to extensive territorial concessions. These protests were one of the factors behind Barak’s dramatic fall and his loss to Ariel Sharon in the elections for prime minister.

SUMMARY

Gush Emunim fulfilled two strong needs of religious-Zionism: (1) It supplied religious-Zionists with the myths they were lacking. Yonah Cohen, a “Ha-Zofeh” reporter, writes: “On the 11 Adar, Tel Hai day, Biriyah became the Tel Hai of religious youth.”13 Gush Emunim gave these people, for the first time, a “true” sense of “making” history. (2) It saved messianic interpretation. For years, the interpretation of current events as advanced stages in the redemption process had been pushed to the sidelines in the wake of a “dreary” present and a growing secularization process. But this interpretation is the very heart of religious-Zionist theology, and the activities of the Gush returned redemption to the center. The Gush became the face of religious-Zionist society. It allowed expression to yeshiva students, to the religious-Zionist bourgeoisie, and also to women who stood out as leaders, from Daniela Weiss to Nadia Matar. Religious-Zionism moved to the vanguard, but during the 1980s and the 1990s it retreated to the periphery. Ongoing developments in the political map, and particularly the rise of Shas, marginalized the NRP’s influence.

NOTES 1 Heb. Ha-Mishmeret ha-Tse‘irah. 2 Heb. Hugei ha-Tse‘irim: Tse‘irei Ha-Po‘el ha-Mizrachi le-Shinui Penei ha-Tenuah. 3 See Eliezer Don-Yehiya, “Stability and Change in a Political Party of Factions: The NRP and the Youth Revolution” (in Hebrew), Medinah, Mimshal Ve-Yehasim Benleumiyim 14 (1979), pp. 25–52; Judah Azrieli, The Knitted Skullcaps Generation: The Political 103

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4

5 6

7

8

9 10 11

12 13

Youth Revolution in the NRP (in Hebrew) (Jerusalem: Avivim, 1990); Jonathan Garb, “The Youth of the NRP and the Ideological Roots of Gush Emunim” (in Hebrew), in Religious-Zionism — An Era of Changes: Studies in Memory of Zevulun Hammer, ed. Asher Cohen and Israel Harel (Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 2004), pp. 171–200. Yitzhak Raphael sharply criticized this youth movement in his autobiography. See Yitzhak Raphael, “Not Easily Came the Light”: Chapters of a Life (in Hebrew) (Jerusalem: Idanim, 1981). Azrieli, The Knitted Skullcaps Generation, p. 25. See Eliezer Don-Yehiya, “Jewish Messianism, Religious-Zionism, and Israeli Politics: The Impact and Origins of Gush Emunim,” Middle Eastern Studies 23 (1987), pp. 215– 234; Ehud Sprinzak, The Ascendance of Israel’s Radical Right (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991). See Gideon Aran, “From Religious-Zionism to Zionist Religion: The Roots of Gush Emunim,” Studies in Contemporary Jewry 2 (1986), pp. 116–143; idem, “Redemption as a Catastrophe: The Gospel of Gush Emunim,” in Religious Radicalism and Politics in the Middle East, ed. Emmanuel Sivan and Menachem Friedman (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1990), pp. 157–175; idem, “Jewish Zionist Fundamentalism: The Bloc of the Faithful in Israel (Gush Emunim),” in Fundamentalisms Observed, eds. Martin E. Marty and R. Scott Appleby (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991), pp. 265–344; idem, “The Father, the Son, and the Holy Land: The Spiritual Authorities of JewishZionist Fundamentalism in Israel,” in Spokesmen for the Despised: Fundamentalist Leaders in the Middle East, ed. R. Scott Appleby (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997), pp. 294–327. On the multi-histories of the Gush, see, for instance, Zvi Ra‘anan, Gush Emunim (in Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Sifriat Poalim, 1980); Danny Rubinstein, On the Lord’s Side: Gush Emunim (in Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 1982); David Newman, ed., The Impact of Gush Emunim: Politics and Settlement in the West Bank (London: Croom Helm, 1985); Gershon Shafat, Gush Emunim: The Story Behind the Scenes (in Hebrew) (Beit El: Sifriat Beit El, 1994); Akiva Eldar and Idith Zertal, Lords of the Land: The War Over Israel’s Settlements in the Occupied Territories, 1967–2007, trans. Vivian Eden (New York: Nation Books, 2007); Hagai Huberman, Against All Odds (in Hebrew) (Sifriat Nezarim, 2008). Meir Har-Noi, The Settlers (in Hebrew) (Or Yehudah: Sifriat Ma‘ariv, 1995), p. 22. Ibid, p. 51. See Aviezer Ravitzky, Messianism, Zionism, and Jewish Religious Radicalism, trans. Michael Swirsky and Jonathan Chipman (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996), ch. 3; Dov Schwartz, The Land of Israel in Religious-Zionist Thought (in Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 1997), ch. 6; idem, Challenge and Crisis in R. Kook’s Circle (in Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 2001), pp. 38–71. Cited in Eliav Shochetman, And He Confirmed it unto Jacob as a Statute [Psalms 105:10] (in Hebrew) (Jerusalem: Kol Mevasser, 1995), p. 72. Yonah Cohen, Chapters in the History of the Religious-Zionist Movement (in Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Moreshet, 1995), p. 41.

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Religious-Zionism in the United States

Chapter Twelve

RELIGIOUS-ZIONISM IN THE UNITED STATES

Much has been written about the significant influence of American Jewry on the Zionist movement.1 This influence is also evident in religious-Zionism, at both the ideological and practical levels. The combination of the religiousZionist idea and the liberal features of American Jewry generated a special variety of religious-Zionism that affected the movement in Eretz Israel. The problems confronting religious-Zionism in the United States were new and largely unique, such as the desirable extent of cooperation with Reform Jews, a five-day working week, and the building of a Jewish educational system from the ground. The spiritual leaders of the movement, and particularly R. Joseph B. Soloveitchik, were also exceptional. The development of religious-Zionism in the United States is at the focus of the discussion below.

LANDMARKS

Religious-Zionism in the United States began with several organizational attempts, some ephemeral, and some more stable.2 An American branch of the Mizrachi movement founded at the end of 1903 as a branch of the European party involved power struggles within the American Zionist movement and broke up a few months later. Branches and youth organizations (“The Glory of the Mizrahi,” “Daughters of Jerusalem”)3 began organizing in 1910, and the American Mizrachi Movement was established in St. Louis in late 1912 after a private visit by Hermann Struck. Dov Baer Abramowitz was appointed as the director of the “temporary” center, and Leon Gelman as his secretary. A significant turning point in the Mizrachi activity was the visit of R. Meir Bar-Ilan to the United States at the beginning of 1913. At the end of 1915, he was joined by R. Judah Leib Maimon (Fishman), who had been expelled by the Ottoman authorities in Palestine. These two leaders laid 105

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the foundation of religious-Zionism in the United States. The first National Mizrachi Conference met in mid–1914 and marked the movement’s official beginning. The Conference met in Cincinnati, because it was a central location and home to a well-established Jewish community. A further reason, however, was symbolic: the city was the stronghold of Reform Judaism, which negated Zionism. Note that, at the time, whoever was not avowedly Reform or Conservative was almost automatically Orthodox. Mizrachi members decided not to join the Federation of American Zionists and retain their independent status. Bar-Ilan and Maimon, together with Mordechai Lipson, renewed the appearance of the weekly Ha-Ivri in the United States (in early 1916). Bar-Ilan moved sweepingly and aggressively. Within two years, the Mizrachi expanded from 30 to 101 branches, and the center moved from St. Louis to New York. Growth also reflected the losses suffered by Jewish centers in Europe during World War I and the resulting shift, largely to the United States. The move to New York released the movement from involvement in inner power struggles and from its oppositional status in the Federation of American Zionists, of which it became an integral part. Bar-Ilan was among the leaders of the campaign to assist European refugees. The Mizrachi under his leadership was a founding partner of the Joint (American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee). One of the Mizrachi’s important achievements was its intensive campaigning for a five-day working week to allow for Sabbath observance, which succeeded in several places. Another was the establishment of many educational institutions (Jewish schools, summer camps, and so forth). Worth noting is the founding of the Mizrachi Teachers’ Institute in New York in 1917, which included Meir Waxman and Moshe Zeidel among its teachers and the promotion of the Yitzhak Elhanan Yeshiva. The two institutions would join up in 1926 to establish Yeshiva University, headed by Bernard Revel. Religious-Zionist activity during the ten years of Bar-Ilan’s presidency (1915–1926) is characterized by the dialectical opposition between the methods of its leaders. Bar-Ilan’s style of action favored rapid expansion, the conquest of new strongholds, and the establishment of new branches. He also focused most of his efforts in providing financial assistance to settlements in Eretz Israel at the expense of building up the movement in the United States. Whereas Bar-Ilan was an ubiquitous, centralist leader, whose style obstructed the emergence of new cadres, Maimon believed in supporting existent centers, focusing on education, and strengthening Jewish identity. Maimon was also critical of the “unchecked” expansion of the movement under Bar-Ilan’s leadership. The style of Bar-Ilan, who made skilful use of his 106

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rhetorical talents, may have been better suited to the dynamic and communal lifestyle typical of the United States. The Mizrachi movement in the United States grew and expanded. In line with the liberal surroundings, an organization of Mizrachi women developed, and branches of Ha-Po‘el ha-Mizrachi were also established. Beginning in 1925, the women’s organization in the United States established educational and vocational training institutions for women in Eretz Israel. Bar-Ilan and Maimon applied themselves to struggle against the ignorance and alienation of American Jews from religion. Religious-Zionism continued to waver between the promotion of the movement and its political and educational institutions in the United States, and assistance to the movement’s activities in Eretz Israel. Note that Mizrachi members did not refuse cooperation with organizations of Reform and Conservative Jews. Life in the United States had always demanded communal cooperation. Although they rejected their ideology, Mizrachi members supported closing ranks to achieve joint aims, such as working for Eretz Israel, in an approach that contrasts with the strong opposition of Agudat Israel to this type of cooperation. During World War II, the Mizrachi engaged both in rescue activities and in developing religious-Zionist education in the United States as a substitute, as it were, for the Torah world destroyed in Europe. In the words of the American Mizrachi president, Leon Gelman: “Not only to save Jews but to save Judaism.” For this purpose, they founded in 1939 the ”American Mizrachi Committee for the Strengthening of Torah and Judaism,”4 headed by Jacob Levinsohn. A few months later, they established The Mizrachi Educational Committee for Religious Education,”5 which numbered Joseph Lockstein and Reuven Gafni (Weinschenker) among its leaders. Religious-Zionism tried to set up a “yeshivah ktanah” [junior high yeshiva] in every Jewish center. Although these institutions integrated the teaching of religious and secular subjects, many took exception to them as inappropriately secluding children from the American educational system. At least according to the testimony of Mizrachi leaders and its historians, reports of the Holocaust awakened the movement’s members into action (demonstrations, assistance campaigns, and so forth), which included the transfer of Torah institutions from Europe to the United States and the rescue of their students with the help of the Committee for the Strengthening of Torah and Judaism. But how can these testimonies be reconciled with research findings about the ineffectiveness of American Jewish activities at this time?6 Are the actual implications for action of religious consciousness in general, and 107

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religious-Zionist consciousness in particular, in any way different from those of the sweeping secularizing trends then prevalent among American Jews? This question requires serious consideration. Studies by Ephraim Zuroff and others seem to indicate that activity and protests among American religious Jews at the beginning of the war were stronger among ultra-Orthodox groups.7 Note that, in some regards, religious-Zionism in the United States was somewhat weakened due to two main reasons: ■ The arrival of ultra-Orthodox rabbis to the United States after World War II. ■ The aliyah of American Mizrachi leaders: Bar-Ilan went to Eretz Israel in 1925, Gold in 1935, Gelman in 1949, and Jacob Hoffman in 1954.8 Many other leaders followed them, and the movement sunk into weary routine. Attempts by prominent religious-Zionists from the Yishuv to meddle in the leadership of American religious-Zionism led to conflicts. Nevertheless, the movement effectively supported the establishment of a Jewish state, opposing the British mandate and providing economic assistance. Note, finally, that the merger of the Mizrachi and Ha-Po‘el ha-Mizrachi was hard for the American movement because, at the time, any Communist associations appeared objectionable in the United States. The American merger of a religious workers movement with the Mizrachi was therefore delayed for several months.

A LEADING IDEOLOGUE: RABBI JOSEPH DOV R. SOLOVEITCHIK

In the midst of World War II, a great and exceptionally talented scholar joined the Mizrachi in the United States and became the leading ideologue of religious-Zionism: Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik. His ideological and spiritual influence on the movement can only be compared to those of Rav Kook. Soloveitchik studied at Berlin University in his youth. He wanted to write his dissertation on Plato’s influence on Maimonides but could not find a suitable advisor and wrote instead on the philosophy of Hermann Cohen. From the 1940s, Soloveitchik emerged as a phenomenologist interested in the structure of Jewish conscience and, from the 1950s, as an existentialist thinker interested in the meaning of concrete Jewish existence. From 1946 and until his death in 1993, he served as honorary president of the ReligiousZionists of America. Why did Soloveitchik leave Agudat Israel and join the Mizrachi? Several answers have emerged to this question.9 Some claim that he took his decision 108

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in the wake of reports about the destruction of European Jewry. Some claim that, following R. Aaron Kotler’s arrival in the United States, Agudat Israel radicalized its position and Jews of German extraction with an academic background were pushed to the sidelines. Possibly, the alienation then typical of life in the United States, a country of minorities with relatively shallow roots, also affected his decision. Evidence of his concerns may appear in an essay he wrote at this time, Halakhic Man. In this work, Soloveitchik attacked the view of religion as a comfortable haven, harmonious and simplifying the complexities of life. Indirectly, he seems to have placed Zionism beside the representatives of this approach in Christian theology. Soloveitchik describes those escaping to religion from life’s complexity as one who “clings to religion as does a baby to its mother and finds in her lap ’a shelter for his head, the nest of his forsaken prayers’ [H. N. Bialik, ’Hakhnisini tahat kenafekh’] and there is comforted for his disappointments and tribulations.”10 The use of Bialik’s language, whom Soloveitchik admired, seems to intimate a fear of Zionism that sought a substitute for religion. Halakhic Man includes an additional element that explains Soloveitchik’s choice of religious-Zionism. The figure of halakhic man is described in quasiKantian terms. According to Kant, perception not only apprehends reality but also creates it according to its unique structure (forms of sensibility, categories, etc.). Similarly, halakhic man shapes reality according to his own perceptual structure, which includes pure halakhic models. According to Soloveitchik, Halakhah encompasses all areas of life and is actually the only content in the perception of halakhic man. Clearly, then, in a world where Halakhah cannot be fully realized, perception will necessarily be lacking. Only the Zionist vision, which strives to establish an autonomous sovereign entity, may lead to the full realization of Halakhah. Only a Jewish state can implement agricultural laws, the sabbatical year, and so forth. Hence, Soloveitchik supported a movement leading to the realization of Halakhah, and thereby to the materialization of the ideal Jew. Soloveitchik became the most important ideologue of religious-Zionism in the United States. His sermons at the Mizrachi-Ha-Po‘el ha-Mizrachi Conferences in the United States exerted decisive influence on religiousZionist ideology. “Kol Dodi Dofek” (Fate and Destiny), delivered on Israel’s Independence Day at Yeshiva University, became the ideological manifesto of religious-Zionism. An analysis of Soloveitchik’s homily on the verse “the dew of Heaven and the fatness of the earth” (Genesis 27:28) shows that, despite the time and the stormy events that had affected religious-Zionism, and despite the development of its philosophy since Reines’ times, his views 109

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fit those of Reines on crucial issues. Reines had ascribed great significance to national honor, and Soloveitchik introduced this concept into religiousZionist ideology. In his view, religious-Zionism saved the honor of religion by not leaving national renaissance solely in the charge of secular Jews: “Thanks only to it [the Mizrachi movement] do we have a share in the wonderful chapter of building the land and establishing the State.”11 The State of Israel is doubly important for Soloveitchik: (1) The state affirms Jewish existence in the face of anti-Semitism. The affirmation is both physical, the guarantee of the Jewish people’s survival, and symbolic, namely, the fact that the state has many enemies turns it into a symbol of Jewish existence. (2) The state is the vehicle that confirms the possibility of realizing Halakhah in the modern world. This aspect is no less important than the previous one, and Soloveitchik presented it as the dogma of the Mizrachi: I believe with perfect heart that this Torah is given to be observed, realized, and fully carried out in every place and at all times, within every social, economic, and cultural framework; in every technological circumstance and every political condition . . . The Torah is given for realization both in galuth, where it relates to the private life of the individual, and in the Jewish State, where it must deal with new problems and embrace forms of public life.12

Soloveitchik’s outlook suits Reines’ openly apologetic stance, in its stress on the survival motif in the Zionist endeavor. Soloveitchik added to it the expansion of Halakhah from the personal and communal realms to the statenational one. Finally, the state as an entity that was born from the suffering of the Holocaust is a renewed reconciliation between God and the people of Israel, as Soloveitchik clarified in his exposition in Fate and Destiny. Soloveitchik, however, rejected metaphysics as useless. The causal and metaphysical question (Why?) is replaced by the existential question of meaning. Soloveitchik supported the entry of religious-Zionism into politics. Although opposed at first to the mixture of religion and politics, he was persuaded that issues of education and religion must be handled by people for whom religion is the foundation of existence. He took issue, however, with the intensive endeavor to enact religious legislation, and preached moderation. On the question of territorial compromises for the sake of peace, Soloveitchik adopted a compartmentalizing stance after the Six-Day war, claiming that politicians and military commanders should decide on these questions. He was also critical of ultra-Orthodox leaders in the United States, 110

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claiming that their opposition to religious-Zionism borders on hypocrisy: in their communities in the United States they favor openness (“Are all your presidents and synagogue officials Sabbath observers?”), while they oppose religious-Zionists because of their cooperation with transgressors and their active stance in the secular world. Since Soloveitchik’s attitude toward religious-Zionism follows from the central place of Halakhah in his doctrine, he was naturally extremely critical of the collective secularization of the Zionist movement in general, and in the State of Israel in particular. Yet, his philosophy incorporates the view unique to religious-Zionism, whereby secular Jews perform pre-determined divine moves and act as tools of divine providence.

PRAISE AND CRITICISM: LEON GELMAN

Leon Gelman (1887–1973) is a Mizrachi leader who left a significant mark on the movement. For many years, he edited the movement’s publications in the United States, including Der Mizrachi Weg [The Mizrachi Way]. After coming to Israel, he served as chairman of the World Mizrachi Organization, and then as its honorary chairman. Gelman was highly critical of secular Zionism and, in 1958, wrote these revealing comments: Faith, ancestral traditions, observance, religious outlooks . . . all were denied and rejected, knowingly and deliberately, by secular Zionists. It [Zionism] was created for this purpose. The secular trends that evolved during the Sturm und Drang era engulfed all that was holy in a wave of heresy and rage, strengthening faith in natural forces instead of faith in a divine force beyond nature, and were intended to destroy the Torah of Israel and its vitality.13

In his articles, he was critical of Ben-Gurion and of Samuel Hugo Bergman, of Jewish studies in Israel, and of religious reform. Gelman also protested a prevalent perception of American Jewry, which he considered insulting. Attitudes to American Jewry were characterized, in his view, by unjustifiable derision and prejudice, resting on a mistaken view of Americans in general as lacking values and meaningful religious allegiance, although the opposite was true. Americans cherish freedom and equality, and religion (mainly Protestantism) is essential to their lives. Concerning American Jews and their Zionist involvement, Gelman claimed that their role 111

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in the diffusion of the Zionist idea had been central even before Herzl. He also praised the foundation of the medical center and the settlement in Poriyah by a group of American Jews in 1911, presenting it as a paragon of heroism and devotion. The Balfour Declaration “was formulated in Washington and later went sour in London.”14 Gelman’s criticism of the Israeli mentality as opposed to the American style is worth noting: Whereas there, in America, we see heartiness, cordiality, and feeling, here the apparatus, the party, and collectivism rule. Hence the relationships between friends, human relationships, and the attitudes to others. Politics and the structure of the party and the movement crush and grind away the individual, even the best and the brightest. He is worn down and shattered in the millstone of factionalism. Rift and divisiveness, friction and conflict, secession and disintegration destroy and ruin everything . . . And there? In the country of “materialism and banality,” as it were, human fraternity prevails not only from an individual perspective. It is well known — a heart that accepts the notion of “love thy neighbor as thyself” will not reject the notion of “love the Lord, thy God.” This same Jewry that many reject, could be a model and a paradigm in its generosity, its kindness, its virtues, and its graceful attitude to the God of Israel, the people of Israel, and the State of Israel.15

Gelman published these comments after his aliyah to Israel. His views are worth comparing with those of Rav Kook and David Cohen (ha-Nazir) on the experience of life in Eretz Israel and abroad. Rabbis Kook and Cohen also spoke of the collectiveness of Eretz Israel against the individualism prevalent abroad; they, however, pointed to the ideological and spiritual implications of this distinction, whereas Gelman presented the moral and political dimension. Mechanisms of political identification that were imperative in Eretz Israel during the Mandate and in Israel’s early years are strongly contrasted with American individualism. Gelman also praised American Jewry for coping with its problems by itself, whereas the Yishuv depended on outside help. “We did not wait for handouts.”16 Gelman also emphasized the Jewish creativity of American Jewry in various realms, and the development of a Jewish educational system. The pinnacle of Jewish education, and here one must agree with Gelman despite the one-sidedness of other aspects of his criticism, is Yeshiva University. Bar-Ilan University, as noted, was established at the initiative of the Mizrachi in the United States, in the model of Yeshiva University. Gelman, as other important leaders of American Jewry, also moved to Israel. But he remained an American patriot and a strong supporter of 112

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American Jewry, which is in many ways a product of American community life, as noted above. A fascinating and unanswered question is Gelman’s attitude to the process now current among many American Jews and the renewed definition of Jewish identity, when many choose to break the tie between their Judaism and the State of Israel.

SUMMARY

As in other times and concerning other issues, chroniclers of religiousZionism stress the hurdles that the Zionist movement placed on the path of religious-Zionism in the United States as well, obstacles that Bar-Ilan had already fought to remove. The problematic relationships between the Zionist movement and religious-Zionism in the United States requires an in-depth analysis, as an important chapter in a comprehensive study of the relationship between them.

NOTES 1 See, for instance, Samuel Halperin, The Political World of American Zionism (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1961); Evyatar Friesel, The Zionist Movement in the United States, 1897–1914 (in Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University and Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 1970); Naomi Wiener Cohen, American Jews and the Zionist Idea (New York: Ktav, 1975); Charles S. Liebman, “Changing Jewish Identity in Israel and the United States,” in Israel: Culture, Religion, and Society, ed. Stuart A. Cohen and Martin Shain (Cape Town: Kaplan Center at the University of Cape Town, 2000), pp. 23–37. 2 See Yosef Salmon, “The Mizrachi Movement in America: A Belated but Sturdy Offshoot,” American Jewish Archives 48 (1996), pp. 161–175. 3 Heb. ”Tif’eret Mizrachi,” “Bnot Yerushalayim.” 4 Heb. Va‘ad le-Hizuk ha-Torah ve-ha-Yahadut al-yad ha-Mizrachi be-Amerika. 5 Heb. Va‘ad ha-Hinukh ha-Haredi she-le-yad ha-Mizrachi. 6 See, for instance, Henry L. Feingold, Bearing Witness: How America and Its Jews Responded to the Holocaust (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1995). 7 See Ephraim Zuroff, “Rescue Priority and Fund Raising as Issues during the Holocaust: A Case Study of the Relations between the Vaad Ha-Hatzala and the Joint, 1939–1941,” in American Jewish History, vol. 7, America, American Jews, and the Holocaust, ed. Jeffrey S. Gurock (New York: Routledge, 1988), pp. 405– 426; idem, The Response of Orthodox Jewry in The United States to the Holocaust: The Activities of the Vaad ha-Hatzala Rescue Committee, 1939–1945 (New York: 113

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8 9 10 11

12 13 14 15 16

Yeshiva University Press, 2000). See also Mordechai Friedman, “The Public and Political Response of American Jewry to the Holocaust 1939–1945” (in Hebrew) (Ph. D. dissertation: Tel Aviv University, 1985). See Yaakov Tsur, Rabbi Dr. Jacob Hoffman: The Man and His Era (Hebrew) (RamatGan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 1999). For a bibliography of works by and about Soloveitchik see http://www.math.tau. ac.il/~turkel/engsol.html Joseph B. Soloveitchik, Halakhic Man, trans. Lawrence Kaplan (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1983), p. 140. Joseph B. Soloveitchik, The Rav Speaks: Five Addresses on Israel, History, and the Jewish People, trans. S. M. Lehrman and A. H. Rabinowitz (New York: Toras HoRav Foundation, 2002), p. 186. Ibid, p. 174 . Aryeh Leib (Leon) Gelman, The Nation Everlasting (in Hebrew) (Jerusalem: Mosad Ha-Rav Kook, 1958), p. 6. Idem, In the Paths of Judaism (in Hebrew) (Jerusalem: Mosad Ha-Rav Kook, 1967), p. 235. Ibid, p. 243. Idem, In Gracious Ways (in Hebrew) (Jerusalem: Mosad Ha-Rav Kook, 1969), p. 261.

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Chapter Thirteen

RELIGIOUS-ZIONISM: PRESENT AND FUTURE

In this last chapter, my concern is to trace the contemporary social and ideological processes characterizing religious-Zionism. Traditional structures that for decades had been typical of the movement have changed or even collapsed, and the movement now confronts a new horizon. In my discussion, I confine myself to a description of these changes, without judgments or evaluations.

TRENDS

Over the last twenty years, several new trends have become part of religiousZionism, all different in their character and their expressions and all pointing to directions previously marginal or unknown. Although they vary in the extent of their influence and in the level of support they enjoy, together they present a multifaceted mosaic that erodes the image of unity previously characterizing religious-Zionism:1 ■ R e l i g i o u s - Z i o n i s t f e m i n i s m. Although the calls of women demanding reconsideration of their status and the re-examination of Orthodoxy’s borders in their regard have not yet crystallized in an inclusive organization, they have emerged from several directions and are coalescing into a movement. This awakening has influenced rabbinic and judicial echelons directly, and some of its central manifestations are: (a) Torah study. Establishing a system of women’s midrashot parallel to the men’s yeshivot.2 (b) Women’s miniyanim (prayer quorums). In the more radical variations, the miniyanim are egalitarian and, with certain constraints, allow women to participate and lead prayers at the synagogue. 115

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(c) Institutionalization. The establishment of Kolech [“Your Voice”] and the ideological undertaking of Emunah (the NRP’s women’s movement) to advance the status of women have made the feminist trend a substantive element of religious-Zionism.3 C e n t e r s o f s t u d y a n d r e s e a r c h. A series of previously marginal institutions involved in academic pursuits have become central and are formulating a new agenda. The Yaakov Herzog Center for Jewish Studies founded by the Religious Kibbutz Movement and, in Jerusalem, the Shalom Hartman Institute and Beit Morasha, are examples of institutions seeking to focus attention on the adaptation of Halakhah to modern reality, and are in many ways adjacent to the rabbinic yeshiva world. These institutions are centers for the study of Judaism, and their teachers and scholars are rabbis and academics with a modern Orthodox world view. The closeness of some of these institutions to the Ne’emanei Torah va-Avodah movement, aiming to promote pluralistic values in a national religious context, is not a mere coincidence. Ideologically, they seek to create a pluralistic discourse concerning existential problems. They publish extensively and have developed a network of classes and lectures intended for the wider community, extending the circles targeted by the religiousZionist public. They have also legitimized the academic connection; their members have university degrees or are professional academics, and many of their students attend Israeli universities. In public life, they are seen as supporting a moderate and intellectualist religious-Zionist line. T h e “ m a m l a k h t i ” i d e o l o g y. Until the mid–1980s, the national perception of religious-Zionism had hallowed the State of Israel as “the beginning of redemption.” This perception is also a direct result of the “unity of Israel” metaphysics of religious-Zionism. But after R. Zvi Israel Tau and his disciples broke away from the Merkaz Ha-Rav yeshiva and created Har Ha-Mor, the mamlakhti principle assumed renewed intensity. The distancing of religious-Zionism from the national consensus and its association with a defined political movement (ha-Ihud ha-Le’umi) was particularly troublesome to supporters of the mamlakhti ideology. Some of them expressed their concern in this regard by supporting Shas rather than the National Religious Party-Ihud Leumi. The line endorsed by the Har Ha-Mor yeshiva is also supported, even if partially, by yeshivot such as the one at Mitspeh Ramon. Another development worth noting is that the pre-army preparatory courses began to flourish from the end of the 1980s. These courses, which prepare youths for full army service, focus on issues of faith, identity, and personality development. Some of the 116

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leading figures in these pre-army courses support the mamlakhti approach noted above. T h e h i l l t o p y o u t h. Groups of young people who grew up in the settlements, immigrants from North America, newly observant elements, and others. To some extent, they have retreated from the religious-Zionist ideal of openness and involvement and call for a return to the sources and to nature. They meticulously observe certain commandments, and their spiritual sources are also inspired by Hasidism. These youths have established outposts and settlements detached from cultural centers and from the spiritual leadership of religious-Zionism,4 and have sought institutional and rabbinic sanction from the yeshiva at Yizhar and from rabbis associated with it, such as R. David Dudkewitz. They are also influenced by figures such as R. Yitzhak Ginzburg (see below). M o v e m e n t s i n t h e p o l i t i c a l r i g h t. A series of radical right-wing movements that despise the relatively flexible political orientation of the official religious-Zionist establishment and offer alternative options for spiritual and political identity. The right wing no longer coalesces into a monolithic movement such as Gush Emunim but spreads over a series of ideologies and world views. Two entirely different expressions of this new kind of right-wing religious-Zionism are: (a) R. Yitzhak Ginzburg, who established groups of disciples drawing inspiration from Hasidic sources, and particularly Habad, as well as from several grandiose political and theocratic approaches. His outlook supports a radical activist messianism.5 Among his disciples are also some who define themselves as religious-Zionists. (b) The Zu Artsenu [This is Our Land] movement, which developed into the Manhigut Yehudit [Jewish Leadership] movement. This movement called its supporters to join the Likud party, and eventually submit a religious candidate as prime minister. Its ideologues, such as Prof. Hillel Weiss, Moshe Feiglin, and Motti Karpel, call for the creation of a “faith consciousness,” meaning a return to the “authentic” religious messianic interpretation of Zionism.6

These trends reflect organizational attempts at various levels, attesting to diversity within religious-Zionism. Even if some of them are marginal, the arrival of the Internet about a decade ago makes the marginal and the antiestablishment conscious and influential.7 The Internet makes once distant authorities close and accessible. Internet responsa are today one of the most influential factors in the lives of religious youths. Contrary to the original 117

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nature of responsa, which had focused mostly on halakhic issues, Internet responsa address issues of leadership, ideology, and theology. Rabbis such as Shlomo Aviner, Shmuel Eliyahu, Eliyakim Levanon, and Yuval Sherlo are available and online to answer questions of religious-Zionist youths. The official rabbinic establishment has recently expressed opposition to this phenomenon, claiming it leads to superficiality and even contempt for responsa.

SOCIAL CHANGES

These organizational attempts point only to general directions. Undercurrents continue to be at play in the religious-Zionist public, exposing the changes that have affected it in the last two decades. Several facts and processes reflecting social changes in the religious-Zionist public are presented below: ■ T h e “ N e w Wa v e.” Openness to cultural fashions is reflected in the promotion of a view that advocates incorporating Hasidism into the ideology and day-to-day life of religious-Zionism on the one hand, and mysticism and new age trends in general into its values on the other.8 ■ E x p a n s i o n. The penetration of religious-Zionism into realms that had previously been blocked. These realms had been viewed as dominated by left-wing elements or groups identified with the government (media, senior army appointments, and so forth). ■ E d u c a t i o n. The number of national yeshivot is currently six times greater than their number twenty years ago.9 The Amit network, for instance, which offers a moderate alternative to the educational model of yeshiva high-schools, has gained considerable strength. ■ Tr a d i t i o n a l r e l i g i o s i t y. Observance had been an unequivocal aim of religious-Zionism from the outset. Although levels of observance had been a matter of discussion and of daily ethos, the very definition of observance had never been questioned. Recently, a phenomenon of “light” religiosity has become widespread, involving declared norms of nonstrictness in the observance of halakhic and semi-halakhic obligations.10 This religiosity is becoming an ideology. ■ E x p e r i e n t i a l r e l i g i o s i t y. The prayer ritual is a central element in religious life, which is conducted in a conservative framework and in set patterns (a cantor facing the community, a rabbi preaching, and so forth). One expression of the search for a fresh experience is the growth of prayer miniyanim in the “Carlebach” style. The prayer is accompanied by singing and dancing, collapsing the rigorous frontal framework. 118

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L e i s u r e p a t t e r n s. Religious-Zionist youngsters no longer recoil from recreation options such as pubs, and some have indeed opened up specifically for this public. Religious “rock stars” have begun composing alternative religious music (Aharon Raza’el, Sinai Thor, Shivi Keller, Udi Davidi, Gabriel Hason, Adi Ran, the groups Rev‘a le-Shev‘a, HaMadregot, and others), which has spread to the center of religious-Zionist consciousness. Reports of religious-Zionist youngsters experimenting with (apparently soft) drugs have also surfaced in recent years.11 These developments place religious-Zionism at a new crossroads. Peter Berger noted that one of religion’s reactions to modernity is negotiation, that is, religion renounces certain demands in order to accommodate the modern world.12 Religious-Zionism has never been as involved in negotiation as in the period that began in the late 1980s. We could try evaluating to what extent the postmodernist climate has been a decisive influence on religious-Zionism. The behavior of many religious-Zionist youths can be explained according to their opposition to a specific ideology.13 The hilltop youth, for instance, do not search for an ideology but intuitively see the natural surroundings of Judea and Samaria as their home. And in the style of R. Shimon Gershon Rosenberg (Shagar): “The ’hesdernik’ is no longer the good boy he had once been.”14 On one hand, different ideologies have increasingly become part of religious-Zionism, and on the other, postmodernism is also leaving a mark on a religious-Zionist movement retreating from the rigid ideology of the past. The diversification of religious-Zionism can also be ascribed to several crisis-like events, such as the uncovering of the Jewish underground, the Oslo accords, the murder of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, and the evacuation of the settlements in Gaza and Amona. The diversification, however, is not exhausted by crises and must be viewed against the background of involvement in a postmodern and multicultural world.

IDEOLOGY

Let us return to the ideological sphere. In many respects, R. Soloveitchik’s philosophy stands in stark contrast to religious-Zionist thought, which takes metaphysics as its grundnorm. An imaginary meeting between Rav Kook and R. Soloveitchik, who expressed their ideas in entirely alien terms and modes of thought, would probably be characterized by misunderstanding and lack of dialogue. The formative element of Rav Kook’s philosophy is metaphysical, causal, teleological historical philosophy, and historiography. 119

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Rav Kook himself, his son R. Zvi Yehuda Kook, his students, and his students’ students to this very day expound on history as a progressive march towards redemption. This is exactly the kind of explication that R. Soloveitchik quietly struggles against. As far as he is concerned, these reasons are a pointless and superfluous guess as to the mysterious ways of God. His great message was the call to focus on the question of meaning and on halakhic answers to this question. The rejection of metaphysics in R. Soloveitchik’s work relegated it to the margins of Israeli religious-Zionist consciousness. The figure of R. Soloveitchik as a polymath who was a religious-Zionist was a source of admiration and pride, and his works were diligently studied in Zionist yeshivot. They were not, however, a constitutive component of religious-Zionist consciousness. Fate and Destiny was always seen as a model of religious-Zionist homiletics, but its anti-metaphysical ideas were never internalized. If we compare the place of R. Soloveitchik’s and Rav Kook’s works in the consciousness of religiousZionist youth, we will understand R. Soloveitchik’s marginality in the public discourse of these circles. The mainstream concept speaks of a metaphysical, monolithic nation, where the collective possesses a transcendent meaning and the messianic reading of history is the only one possible. R. Soloveitchik’s existential concepts, which view the meaning of Jewish existence as true solidarity governed by Halakhah, was not a significant driving force. This situation has changed in the past fifteen years. Religious-Zionist society has undergone social, communal, and political changes that still await adequate sociological discussion. What follows, then, is in the nature of preliminary remarks. The religious-Zionist collective continues to exist, but now fosters a new-found individualism, illustrated in such developments as the “hilltop youth” and Orthodox feminism. Another are the many nationalist yeshivot, whose numbers have trebled in the last two decades. The multiplicity of yeshivot emphasizes individualist tendencies in the yeshiva community. Traditional “lernen” (which had usually referred to talmudic studies) is now a far broader concept including religious philosophy, Kabbalah, and Hasidic thought (known in religious-Zionist circles as emunah) and extending also to community service and outreach, a large range of military roles available to hesder students, and so forth. At the same time, R. Soloveitchik’s work is making its way to the center of consciousness in Zionist yeshivot. The latent call to abandon metaphysics and to return to “real” existence is shaping the lives of many religious-Zionists. The erosion of metaphysical unity allows individualist tendencies to flourish and thrive. Indeed, Fate and Destiny can safely be said to have become the 120

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unofficial manifesto of the next generation of religious-Zionists. If Rav Kook and his circle had set the tone of religious-Zionism single-handedly in the past, R. Soloveitchik’s approach is currently becoming a genuine option. Another element requiring attention is the status of the Greater Land of Israel ideology in light of the territorial compromises of the past three decades. Religious-Zionist thought developed two distinct concepts of Eretz Israel: ■ A n E a r t h l y L a n d. This “instrumental” approach views Eretz Israel as a prerequisite for the full realization of Halakhah, devoid of any metaphysical meaning. Eretz Israel is the only place that can ensure not only the well-being but also the cultural and religious development of the Jewish people. Influenced by nineteenth-century nationalist ideals, supporters of this approach viewed the motherland (moledet) as a key factor in the development of a volksgeist. ■ A D i v i n e L a n d. This view of Eretz Yisrael, which can be termed “ontological and essentialist,” clams that Eretz Israel has an independent mystical quality (segulah). This quality, when bound to the national particularity (segulat am Israel), results in a far more powerful combination than the usual national condition. The divine perception of the land begins at the peak of the earthly one: the volksgeist, meaning the romantic and organic components of the nation (including the “motherland”) is only the starting point. The combination of nation and land lead to the joining, and even the fusion, of two independent and metaphysically autonomous beings, with easily discernible radical messianic consequences. This approach presents Eretz Israel as an independent personal essence, endowed with a will and holiness of its own. Rav Kook and his circle fostered this approach, which became prevalent in religious-Zionism. R. Soloveitchik is a key spokesman for the instrumentalist position. Although he occasionally resorted to essentialist phrasings when referring to Eretz Israel, he regarded it as a place where Halakhah can reach full bloom. Fate and Destiny can be read as offering answers on this question as well: metaphysical meaning has proved useless, to be replaced by the meaning inherent in concrete halakhic action. The realization of the vision is actual life in Eretz Israel, not the fostering of metaphysical reasoning. The scale of values that R. Soloveitchik introduced in Fate and Destiny finally became the only approach that does not struggle with history and does not seek to explain it in terms less and less compatible with reality, and indeed prevents a crisis when the vision collapses. These new developments have not precluded the extensive involvement of religious-Zionist youth in the study of texts by Rav Kook and his disciples. Quite the contrary: many new books publications have appeared on these 121

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subjects, and intensive learning of these texts is still the mainstream educational trend in religious-Zionism. R. Soloveitchik’s thought, however, is suited to the recent developments within religious-Zionism, and its adoption appears increasingly natural and sensible. This spiritual event reflects, to some extent, the changes that religious-Zionism has experienced in the last two decades.

NOTES 1 Some of these developments are reviewed in Yair Sheleg, The New Religious Jews: Recent Developments among Observant Jews in Israel (in Hebrew) (Jerusalem: Keter, 2000), Part 1. 2 See Tamar El-Or, Next Year I Will Know More: Literacy and Identity among Young Orthodox Women in Israel, trans. Haim Watzman (Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press, 2002); Tamar Ross, Expanding the Palace of Torah: Orthodoxy and Feminism (Hanover, MA: Brandeis University Press, 2004). 3 See, for instance, various articles in the proceedings of the yearly conferences of “Kolech: Religious Women’s Forum” edited by Margalit Shiloh, To Be a Jewish Woman-Proceedings of the First International Conference: Woman and her Judaism (Jerusalem: Urim, 2001) and To Be a Jewish Woman — Proceedings of the Second International Conference: Woman and her Judaism (Jerusalem: Urim, 2003) ; Lilach Rosenberg-Friedman, ed., From Faith to Action: On the Seventieth Anniversary of the Emunah Movement (in Hebrew) (Jerusalem: Emunah, 2006). See also Yoram Kirsch, “The Status of Women in Religious-Zionist Society: Struggles and Attainments” (in Hebrew) in Religious-Zionism-The Era of Change: Studies in Memory of Zevulun Hammer, ed. Asher Cohen and Israel Harel (Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 2004), pp. 386–421. See also Dov Schwartz and Judith Tidor Baumel, “Reflections on the Study of Women Status and Identity in the Religious-Zionist Movement,” The Review of Rabbinic Judaism 8 (2005), pp. 189–209. The entire issue of Democratic Culture 10 (2006) was devoted to gender and society in Israel. Particularly relevant in this context are Zehavit Gross, “The Mute Feminist Psychological Template of Girl Graduates of Religious-Zionist High Schools in Israel” (in Hebrew), pp. 97–133, and Tovah Cohen, “Jewish Women’s Leadership: Israeli Modern Orthodoxy as a Test Case” (in Hebrew), pp. 251–296. 4 See Shlomo Kaniel, “The Hilltop Youth: Biblical Sabras? An Exploratory Study of the Residents on the Hills of Judea and Samaria” (in Hebrew), in Religious-Zionism-The Era of Change: Studies in Memory of Zevulun Hammer, ed. Asher Cohen and Israel Harel (Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 2004), pp. 533–558. 5 See Yehiel Harari, “Mysticism as a Messianic Rhetoric in the Works of R. Yitzhak Ginzburg” (in Hebrew) (Ph. D. dissertation: Tel Aviv University, 2005). 6 On these movements see Motti Inbari, Who Will Build the Third Temple: Jewish Fundamentalism and the Temple Mount (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2009). 7 Harari, “Mysticism as a Messianic Rhetoric,” pp. 225–226. 122

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8 See, for instance, Nahum Langental and Nissim Amon, When Moses Met Buddha (in Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Miskal, 2005); Odeya Tzurieli, ed., Prophesy, O Son of Man: On the Possibility of Prophecy (in Hebrew) (Jerusalem: Rubin Mass, 2007), introduction. See also Jonathan Garb, “The Chosen Will Become Herds”: Studies in Twentieth Century Kabbalah (forthcoming, Yale). 9 See, for instance, Eliezer Don-Yehiya, “Religious Fundamentalism and Political Radicalism: The National Yeshivot in Israel” (in Hebrew), in Independence-The First Fifty Years: Collected Essays, ed. Anita Shapira (Jerusalem: The Zalman Shazar Center for Jewish History, 1998), pp. 431–470. Note that, two decades ago, all soldiers doing their military service in yeshivot hesder served in the same divisions and the same units. Entire cohorts enlisted one time in the armored corps and another in the Giv‘ati Brigade. Today, youths from yeshivot hesder have many options of military service. The multiplicity of options has contributed to attitudes such as that of General Elazar Stern, head of the Army’s Human Resources Division, who sought to break up the homogeneous units and scatter the soldiers serving under this arrangement. This event is a further expression of the opening up of the ranks and the expanded horizons of the religious-Zionist public in recent years. 10 This pattern conforms to modes of religious practice common among broad segments of Middle-Eastern and North-African Jewry. Contrary to the traditionalism typical of these communities, however, in this case we are dealing with an ideology involving the selective choice of specific norms and the rejection of others. Note also that some of the changes in the norms of halakhic behavior are ascribed to the student body at Bar-Ilan University and include, for instance, symbolic head covering for married women. See Dov Schwartz, “Bar-Ilan, the Idea of the University, and Religious-Zionism” (in Hebrew) in Bar-Ilan University: From Concept to Enterprise, vol. 1 (Ramat-Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 2006), p. 79. 11 See, for instance, Shaul Schiff, Be-Sod Siach, in “Ha-Zofeh,” 15 June 2007. 12 Peter L. Berger, A Far Glory: The Quest for Faith in an Age of Credulity (New York: Free Press, 1992). 13 On the youths’ connection to secularization processes, see Shraga Fischerman, The “Formerly Religious” (in Hebrew) (Elkana: Orot Israel, 1998). 14 Shimon Gershon Rosenberg, Broken Vessels: Torah and Religious-Zionism in a Postmodernist Environment (in Hebrew) (Efrat: Yeshivat Siah Yitzhak, 2004), p. 113. Students at yeshivot hesder are perceived in this context as the elite of the religiousZionist camp.

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PRIMARY SOURCES Admanit, Zuriel. Downstream, Upstream (in Hebrew). Tel Aviv: Ha-Kibbutz Ha-Dati, 1977. Ahituv, Yosef. On the Verge of Change: A Study on Contemporary Jewish Meanings (in Hebrew). Jerusalem: Ministry of Education, 1995. Amiel, Moshe Avigdor. Sermons to My People (in Hebrew). Warsaw: Feniks, 1926–1928. ————. Reflections to My People (in Hebrew). Jerusalem: n. p., 1936. ————. The Spiritual Problems of Zionism (in Hebrew). Tel Aviv: Histadrut Hamizrahi, 1937. ————. For the Perplexed of Our Time (in Hebrew). Jerusalem: Mosad Ha-Rav Kook, 1943. Aminoah, Nehemia. At the Fountain [Al ha-Mabu‘a] (in Hebrew), edited by Yeshayahu Bernstein. Tel Aviv: Aminoah Memorial Fund, 1968. ————. Religious Labor Movement (in Hebrew). Jerusalem: Torah va-Avodah, 1931. Aminoah Nehemiah and Yeshayahu Bernstein, eds. Yalkut: An Anthology on the Torah va-Avodah Idea (in Hebrew). Jerusalem: Torah va-Avodah, 1931. Amon, Nissim and Nahum Langental. When Moses Met Buddha (in Hebrew). Tel Aviv: Miskal, 2005. Avi‘ad (Wolfsberg), Yeshayahu. Gateways to Philosophical Problems of Our Time (in Hebrew). Jerusalem: Mosad Ha-Rav Kook, 1948. ————. Judaism and Present (in Hebrew). Jerusalem: WZO, 1962. ————. Reflections on the Philosophy of History (in Hebrew). Jerusalem: Mosad Ha-Rav Kook, 1958. Aviner, Shlomo. Am ke-Lavi (in Hebrew). 2 vols. Jerusalem: n.p., 1983. Avneri, Yossi, ed. The Seventh Convention of Ha-Po‘el ha-Mizrachi Movement in Eretz Israel (1935) (in Hebrew). Ramat-Gan: Bar-Ilan University, 1985. Bar-Ilan (Berlin), Meir. From Volozhin to Jerusalem (in Hebrew). Tel Aviv: R. Meir BarIlan Publication Committee, 1971. ————. Writings (in Hebrew). Jerusalem: Mosad Ha-Rav Kook, 1950. Ben-Nathan, Raphael. In One Movement (in Hebrew). Jerusalem: Moreshet, 1991. Berkovitz, Eliezer. Faith after the Holocaust. New York: Ktav, 1973. Bernstein, Yeshayahu. Mission and Pathway (in Hebrew). Tel Aviv: Moreshet, 1956. ————, ed. Mizpeh (Hazofeh Yearbook for 1953). 124

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137

Index of Names

INDEX OF NAMES

Bart, Eliezer 51 Bat-Yehuda, Geula 17, 26, 61, 128 Baumel, Judith Tidor 122, 137 Begin, Menachem 98, 99 Belfer, Ella 26, 62, 70, 130, 131 Ben-Artzi, Hagi 33, 130 Ben-Avram, Baruch 40, 130 Ben-Gurion, David 16, 83, 88, 96, 111 Ben-Nathan, Raphael 89, 94, Bentwich, Norman 39 Ben-Ya‘akov, Yohanan 93,130 Berger, Peter L. 61, 119, 123 Bergman, Samuel Hugo 111 Berkovitz, Eliezer 2, 8, 125 Berlin, Meir — see Bar-Ilan, Meir. Berlin, Naphtali Zvi (Ha-Netziv) vii Berlowitz, Yaffa 26, 130 Bernstein, Yeshayahu 8, 45, 46–48, 50, 125 Beth-Arieh, David 49, 68 Bevin, Ernest 83 Bialik, H. N. 13, 109 Bik, Abraham 50 Binyamin (pseudonym of Joshua RedlerFeldman) 37, 52 Blank, Naomi 79, 130 Boaz, Hagai 40, 130 Buber, Martin 11, 59 Burg, Joseph 96, 101

Abraham vii Abramowitz, Dov Baer 95 Admanit, Zuriel 9, 66, 125 Ahad Ha-Am 13, 22 Ahituv, Yosef 66, 70, 125 Albo, Yosef 21 Alfasi, Yitzhak 50, 129 Almog, Shmuel 17, 61, 129, 134 Alon, Yigal 99 Amiel, Moshe Avigdor 17, 55, 56, 59, 61, 62, 125, 130, 133, 137 Aminoah, Nehemia 8, 47, 50, 68, 125 Amital, Judah 102 Amon, Nissim 123, 125 Antman, Shalom 62 Appleby, Scott 94, 104, 129, 131 Aran, Gideon 97, 98, 104, 129 Arigur, Yitzhak 61, 129 Asher, Yitzhak 9 Avery-Peck, Alan J. viii Avi‘ad, Yeshayahu (Wolfsberg) 4, 7, 8, 53, 125 Aviner, Shlomo 8, 118, 125 Avneri Yossi 8, 33, 40, 50, 125, 129 Azrieli, Judah 103, 104, 129 Bahya Ibn Pakuda 21 Barak, Ehud 103 Bar-Eli, Zila 70, 129 Bar-Ilan, Meir 9, 18, 26, 31, 34, 40, 41, 43, 50–54, 57, 59–62, 70, 74, 81, 83, 105– 108, 113, 123, 125, 129, 134 Bar-Lev, Mordechai 26, 70, 93, 94, 129 Bar-On, Mordechai 94, 130, 131

Carmy, Shalom 8, 134 Casper, Bernard 8, 133 Chipman, Jonathan 104, 135 Churgin, Pinhas 92, 126 138

Index of Names

Fishman, Judah Leib — see Maimon, Judah Leib. Frank, Daniel H. 69, 132 Friedman, Ina 17 Friedman, Menachem 9, 35, 40, 41, 61, 104, 129, 132 Friedman, Mordechai 114, 132 Friesel, Evyatar 113, 132

Cochavi, Yehoyakim 62, 135 Cohen, Asher 62, 85, 93, 104, 122, 130 Cohen, David (ha-Nazir) 2, 31, 112 Cohen, Hermann 108 Cohen, Stuart A. 113, 134 Cohen, Tovah 122, 130 Cohen, Yedidia 70, 129 Cohen, Yonah 103, 104, 130 Corinaldi, Michael 94, 130

Galnoor, Itzhak 62, 133 Gaon, Sa‘adia 21 Garb, Jonathan 104, 123, 133 Gardi, Nathan 50, 126 Geller, Yaakov 62, 133 Gelman, Leon 105, 107, 108, 111–114, 126 Genichovsky Eliyahu Moshe 48, 94, 126 Genizi, Haim 62, 79, 93, 129, 130 Ginzburg, Asher (Ahad Ha-Am) 13, 22 Ginzburg, Yitzhak 117, 122, 133 Glasner, Moshe Shmuel 8 Gold, Zeev 83, 108 Goldberg, Harvey 40, 138 Goldman, Eliezer 33, 66, 70, 93, 126, 127, 133 Goldmann, Nahum 3 Goldwicht, Hayyim Yaakov 91 Goren, Shlomo 8, 126 Gorni, Joseph 70 Graetz, Heinrich 22 Green, William Scott viii Greenberg, Gershon 80, 133 Greenwood, Naphtali 79, 135 Gurock, Jeffrey S. 113, 138 Gutman, Israel 80, 135

Dan, Joseph 17, 137 Davidi, Udi 119 Don Yehiya, Eliezer 61, 62, 70, 79, 93, 94, 103, 104, 123, 131 Don-Yehiya, Shabtai 50, 131 Dotan, Shmuel 9, 62, 131 Drori, Zephanyah 100, 101 Druckman, Haim 100, 101 Dubnow, Simon 22 Dudkewitz, David 117 Duschinsky, Jacob 9, 126 Eden, Vivian 104, 131 Eisenstadt, S. N. 9 Elam, Yigal 94, 131 Eldar, Akiva 104, 131 Eliash, Jehiel A. 68, 82, 93, 126 Eliash, Shulamit 80, 132 Eliav, Mordechai 132 Elihai, Yosef 132 Eliyahu, Shmuel 118 Eloni, Yehudah 26, 132 El-Or, Tamar 122, 132 Eshkoli-Wagman, Hava 74, 79, 80, 132 Etkes, Imannuel 40, 132 Etzion, Judah 98 Etzion, Yitzhak Raphael (Holzberg) 22

Hacker, Joseph 17 Hacohen, Dvorah 79, 94, 131,132 Hacohen, Yehuda 8 Halbertal, Moshe 18 Halevi, Judah 21, 76 Halevy, Isaac 25 Halevy-Levin Isaac 93, 134 Hallamish, Moshe 26, 62, 70, 130, 131, 133, 137 Halperin, Samuel 113, 133

Farbstein, Joshua Heschel 51 Federbusch, Shimon 8, 62, 126, 135 Feiglin, Moshe 117 Feingold, Henry L. 113, 132 Feuchtwanger Jacob 25 Fischerman Shraga 123, 132 Fishman, Aryei 50, 65, 68, 69, 70, 132 139

Index of Names

Kirsch, Yoram 122 Kisch, Frederick Hermann 64 Kissinger, Henry 97 Klausner, Israel 17, 134 Klausner, Joseph 11 Klein, Menachem 94, 134 Knohl, Dov 93, 134 Knoller, Rivka 79, 134 Kolatt, Israel 61, 134 Kook, Abraham Yitzhak 2, 3, 8, 9, 15, 17, 27–50, 59, 61, 62, 64, 69, 70, 76, 77, 78, 80, 100, 101, 104, 108, 112, 119, 120, 121, 124, 126, 130, 133, 134, 135, 136, 138 Kook, Zvi Yehuda 7, 8, 28, 31, 77, 78, 80, 97, 100, 101, 102, 103, 120, 127, 129, 130 Kotler, Aaron 109 Kressel, Gideon 9, 40, 127 Krone, Moshe 73, 95

Hameiri 37, 50, 51, 53, 126 Hamiel, Hayyim 33, 133 Hammer, Zevulun 93, 95, 97, 101, 104, 122, 130 Harari, Yehiel 122, 133 Harel, Israel 93, 104, 122, 130 Harlap, Jacob Moses 31, 39, 59, 77, 78, 80, 126, 133 Har-Zion, Meir 99 Hason, Gabriel 119 Hellinger, Moshe 61, 70 Herzog, Isaac 39, 40, 72, 73, 82, 85, 86 Hoffman, Jacob 108, 114, 137 Holzberg, Raphael H. 26, 126 Huberman, Hagai 104, 133 Inbari, Motti 122, 123 Intriligator, David — see Beth-Arieh, David. Ish-Shalom, Benjamin 8, 33, 133 Israeli, Shaul 133

Landau, Shmuel Hayyim (Shahal) 7, 43, 44, 46, 47, 48, 50, 51, 52, 57, 127, 131 Landauer, G. 46 Langental, Nahum 123, 125 Lehrman, S. M. 9, 114, 128 Leibowitz, Yeshayahu 85, 93, 127, 133 Lempertas, Izraelis 80, 133 Lev, Isaac 70, 127 Levanon Eliyakim 118 Levanon Israel 62, 127 Levi, Yitzhak 101 Levinger, Moshe 100 Levinsohn, Jacob 107 Lichtenstein, Aharon 91, 94, 134 Liebman, Charles S. 113, 134 Liepschuetz, Eliezer Meir 68 Lipson, Mordechai 73, 74, 106 Lockstein, Joseph 107 Luz, Ehud 15, 17, 18, 93, 134

Jabotinsky, Ze’ev 60 Jawitz, Ze’ev vii, 13, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 26, 28, 46, 51, 126, 128, 129, 130 Jospe, Raphael ii, viii Kadari, Menachem Zvi 6, 9, 79, 133 Kadari, Shraga 59 Kalischer, Zvi Hirsch 65 Kaniel, Shlomo 122 Kaniel, Yehoshua 17, 39, 133 Kant, Immanuel 56, 56, 109 Kaplan, Lawrence J. 33, 114, 128, 134 Kaplanski, Shlomo 64 Karpel, Motti 117 Kastenboim, Abraham 47 Kasztner, Rudolf 72 Katz Jacob 40, 132 Katz, Jonah 74 Katz, Shmuel 41, 134 Katz, Yossi 69, 134 Katzburg, David Zvi 9 Katzburg, Nethaniel 26, 61, 69, 79, 134 Keller, Shivi 119

Maimon, Judah Leib 8, 15, 16, 23, 24, 26, 31, 32, 34, 38, 41, 51–53, 59, 68, 73, 81–84, 105–107, 127, 129 Manekin, Moshe Zvi — see Neriah, Moshe Zvi. 140

Index of Names

Reines, Yitzhak Ya‘akov v, vii, 3, 8, 10–20, 23, 24, 26, 43, 45, 51, 54, 57, 64, 79, 109, 110, 127, 128, 130, 131, 137 Reinharz, Judah 61, 134 Revel, Bernard 106 Rosenak, Avinoam 33, 62, 135 Rosenberg, Shalom 8, 133, 135 Rosenberg, Shimon Gershon (Shagar) 119, 123, 128 Rosenberg-Friedman, Lilach 122, 128 Rosenblueth, Pinhas 50, 59, 136 Rosenheim, Jacob 25, 54 Rosner, Shlomo 70, 129 Ross, Tamar 122, 136, Rubinstein, Abraham 9, 40, 62, 136 Rubinstein, Danny 104, 136 Rubinstein, Eliyakim 99, Ruppin, Arthur 59, 64

Marcus, Baruch 39 Margaliot, Reuben 9 Margalit, Shiloh 122, 128 Marty, Martin E. 94, 104, 129, 134 Marx, K. 46 Matar, Nadia 103 Melamed, Baruch Zalman 100 Meltzer, Pinhas 68 Michael, Reuven 26, 134 Michman, Dan 62, 79, 80, 135 Mohilewer, Shmuel vii Morgenstern, Aryeh 41, 135 Mossinson, Benzion 25 Motzkin Leo 11 Near, Henry 40, 130 Nehorai, Michael Zvi 8, 33, 135 Neriah, Moshe Zvi 8, 68–70, 74, 86, 90, 100–102, 129 Neusner, Jacob viii Newman, David 104, 135 Nissenbaum, Yitzhak 11, 23, 26, 57, 58, 59, 62, 74, 127, 136, 137

Safrai, Zeev 69, 136 Sagi, Avi 9, 41, 62, 69, 126, 133, 136 Salmon, Yosef 26, 40, 50, 113, 132, 136 Schiff, Shaul 123 Schramm, Lenn J. 17, 134 Schwartz, Dov 8, 9, 17, 18, 26, 33, 40, 41, 61, 62, 70, 80, 94, 104, 122, 123, 136, 137 Schweid, Eliezer 17, 50, 137 Shabtai, Daniel 93, 130 Shadur, Joseph 69, 134 Shafat, Gershon 99, 104, 128 Shain, Martin 113, 134 Shamir, Yitzhak 97, 99 Shapira, Abraham 50, 102 Shapira, Anita 8, 61, 123, 131, 134, 137, Shapira, Israel 62, 137, Shapira, Moshe 48, 52, 60, 73, 82, 84, 87, 88, 93, 130, Shapira, Yeshayahu 45, 50, 68, 102, 131, Shapira, Yosef 8, 101, 137 Sharon, Ariel 59, 103 Shatz, David 33, 134 Shatzberger, Hilda 93, 137 Sheleg, Yair 122, 137 Sherlo, Yuval 118 Shiloh, Ephraim (Schultz) 75

Ostrovsky, Moshe — see Hameiri, Moshe. Patashnik, Aharon 62, 135 Peles, Hayyim 69, 135 Penkower, Monty Noam 61, 135 Peres, Shimon 99 Philber, Yaakov 100, 101 Pick, Hayyim 52, 83 Pilowsky, Varda 61, 132 Pinkas, David Zvi 84, 93, 137 Porat, Dina 80, 135 Porat, Hanan 100 Rabin, Yitzhak 98, 102, 119, Rabinowich, Eliyahu Akiva 28, Rabinowitz, A. H. 9, 114, 128 Ran, Adi 119 Raphael, Yitzhak 17, 22, 26, 33, 50, 62, 69, 96, 104, 126, 127, 135 Ratzabi, Shalom 93, 135 Ravitzky, Aviezer 26, 102, 104, 135, 136 Raza’el, Aharon 119 141

Index of Names

Vermus, Danny 95 Vilian, Yaakov 41 Vital, David 7, 138

Shiloh, Margalit 122, 128 Shochetman, Eliav 104, 137 Shragai, Shlomo Zalman 44, 45, 47, 48, 50, 59, 62, 68, 69, 75–77, 80, 126–129, 135–137 Silman, Ya‘akov 47 Simha, Meir 16 Simon, Ernst Akiva 68 Sivan, Emmanuel 104, 129 Slomiansky, Nisan 99 Sokolow, Nahum 6 Soloveitchik, Joseph B. 4, 9, 105, 108–111, 114, 119–122, 128, 134–136 Sprinzak, Ehud 104, 137 Statman, Daniel 70, 126 Stein, Batya viii, 8, 17, 136, Stern, Elazar 123 Strauss, Leo 14 Struck, Hermann 52, 105 Swirsky, Michael 93, 104, 134, 135

Warhaftig, Itamar 9, 41, 134, 138 Warhaftig, Zerah 26, 62, 70, 73, 85, 87, 88, 96, 131 Watzman, Haim 122, 132 Waxman, Meir 106 Weinschenker, Reuven — see Gafni, Reuven. Weinstein, Menachem Weiss, Daniela 103 Weiss, Hillel 117 Weizmann, Chaim 6, 11, 52, 59, 83 Wiener Cohen, Naomi 138 Wiskind-Elper, Ora 33, 133 Wolfsberg, Yeshayahu — see Avi‘ad Yeshayahu. Ya‘avetz Ze’ev — see Jawitz, Ze’ev. Yaron, Zvi 33, 138 Yerushalmi, N. 62 Yosef, Ovadia 102

Tau, Zvi Israel 100, 103, 116 Tchursh, Katriel Fishel 9, 48, 61, 137 Thor, Sinai 119 Tomaschoff, Avner 33, 138 Tsur, Yaakov 114, 137 Tzurieli, Odeya 123, 128

Zameret, Zvi 94, 130, 131 Zehavi, I. Zvi 9, 138 Zeidel, Moshe 106 Zeliger, Yosef 23 Zertal, Idith 104, 131 Zlotnick, Judah Leib (Avid‘a) 6, 9 Zohar, Zvi 40, 93, 138 Zuroff, Ephraim 79

Unna, Moshe 8, 66, 67, 70, 87, 94, 128 Unterman, Isser Judah 93, 137 Ussishkin 64 Uziel, Ben Zion Meir Hai 37, 61, 64, 82, 85, 93, 128, 129, 135

142

Index of Subjects

INDEX OF SUBJECTS

Activism 5, 17, 48, 53, 60, 95, 96 Agudat Israel 24, 25, 30, 31, 39, 49, 54, 55, 57, 73, 87, 107–109 Alienation 4, 107, 109 Aliyah, Second 29 Altalena 84 Antisemitism 12, 16, 54, 76, 79, 110 Apocalyptics 3, 11, 12, 35, 79, 80, 98, 100, 132 Arabs 59, 60, 76, 82, 98 Assimilation 55, 72, 76, 88 Attributes 29, 56, 72 Autopsies 88

Creativity 55, 112 “Culture controversy” 11, 28 Degel Yerushalayim 31, 34 “Democratic Fraction” 11 Divine immanence 12, 45, 56 Education 4, 5, 11, 19–25, 28, 43, 46, 51, 54, 57, 66, 68, 73, 78, 88, 89–92, 101, 105–107, 110, 112, 118, 122 (see yeshiva high schools, ulpana, yeshivot hesder, pre-military training course, “No ‘am,” “culture controversy”) Elites 91 “Eli-Tsur” 82 Emancipation 2 Esoterism (esotericism) 14, 15, 18 Eternity 21, 100 Ethnic 28, 54 Evolution 21, 76 Exile in Eretz Israel 44 (see Ha-Po‘el haMizrachi)

Bahad [Brith Halutzim Datiyyim] 43, 46, 49, 57 Balfour Declaration 31, 35, 56, 112 Bible 22, 29, 36, 75 Biriyah 83, 103 “Black Sabbath” 83 Bnei Akiva 6, 57, 67–69, 72, 83, 90, 97, 100 Bourgeoisie, religious-Zionist 99, 100, 103 “Brith ha-Hashmona’im” 82 “Brith Shalom” 59

Forms of sensibility 56, 109

Chief Rabbinate 6, 32, 34, 37–40, 66, 74, 82, 85, 86, 88 Christianity 25, 72, 109 Communism 35 Community 1, 2, 4, 5, 29, 36, 45, 54, 67, 106, 113, 118, 120 Compartmentalization 36, 59, 60 Covenant 82

“Gahelet” 97, 100 (see “Gush Emunim”) Gentiles, attitude to 30, 36, 58, 77 Ghetto 58, 74, 78 God 3, 4, 11, 12, 20, 21, 30, 35, 44, 45, 49, 56, 57, 76–78, 83, 100, 110, 112, 120 Greek culture 20 “Gush Emunim” 95, 96, 98–100, 102, 103, 117 143

Index of Subjects

“Haganah” 40, 52, 81, 82, 84, 97 “Hakhsharot” 71, 72 Halakhah 36, 39, 55–57, 81, 85–88, 109– 111, 116, 120, 121 Halakhic state 37, 54, 85, 88 “Halukah” 10, 11 “Ha-Mizrachi ha-Vatik” 53 Ha-Po‘el ha-Mizrachi 34, 42–49, 52, 57, 60, 63–8, 72, 75, 84–87, 92, 95, 107– 109 (see also settlement, Torah vaAvodah) Hasidism 5, 117, 118 “Hastening redemption” 11, 12 “Havlagah” 40 Hebrew 4, 6, 22–25, 90 (see language controversy) Hebrew University 23, 102 Heresy 30, 59, 76, 111 Hibbat Zion vii, 2, 3, 10, 12, 16, 63 “Histadrut” 19, 42–44, 47–49, 85 “Historical Alliance” 87, 89, 101 History, Historiography vii, 119 Holiness 36, 121 “Holy rebellion” 44, 49 Holocaust 69, 71, 73–79, 107, 110 “Homah u-migdal” 65 Honor, national 98, 110

Kabbalah 120 “Knesset Israel” 29 Labor movement 42, 49, 52, 53, 61, 74, 87 Language controversy 23 Lehi 82, 99 Likud 89, 96–98, 117 Magistrate’s Court 35, 37 Materialism 112 “Meimad” 102 Messiah 3, 29, 35, 75, 77, 100 Messianism 76, 117 Metaphysics 110, 116, 119, 120 Miracle 85, 86, 89 Modernity vii, 53, 119 Modesty 36, 37 Morality 20, 56 Myth 68, 74, 83, 97, 99, 103 Nations of the world 28, 35, 76 Nationalism 22, 27, 28, 47, 55, 60 (see also ethnic, history, national honor, philosophy) Nature 2, 6, 12, 20, 31, 36, 44, 45, 49, 57, 67, 99, 111, 117, 118, 120 “No‘am” 90, 91 NRP 50, 89, 92, 93, 95, 96, 98, 101, 103, 104, 116, 125

Ideology 1, 20, 35, 45, 47–49, 54–57, 66, 67, 76, 97, 101, 107, 109, 110, 116, 118, 119, 121, 123 Idolatry 75, 76 Infinity 56 (see God) Inquiry (in faith matters) 73 Intifada 98 Israel, People of 11, 29, 35, 36, 58, 86, 100, 110, 112 Israel, State of 3, 7, 38, 61, 66, 79, 81, 86, 87, 95, 96, 101, 110–113, 116 Israel, Land of 6, 66, 78, 83, 89, 121 IZL 82, 84, 99

Openness 19, 21, 22, 111, 117 Opposition 13, 17, 24, 27, 30, 36, 38, 40, 53, 55, 57, 83, 88, 95, 96, 106, 107, 111, 118, 119 Orthodoxy (non-Zionist) 36, 79, 115 Partition controversy 58, 60 Peel Commission 58 Philosophy 21, 49, 56, 67, 108, 109, 111, 119, 120 Prayer 16, 57, 74, 96, 109, 115, 118 Pre-military training course 92 Prophecy, Prophets 45 Purpose (teleology) 4, 14, 19, 31, 35, 39, 42, 78, 85, 92, 107, 111

“Jewish National Fund” 52, 63 “Joint” 106 144

Index of Subjects

Temple 58, 98 Theology 11, 29, 32, 56, 103, 109, 118 “Thing in Itself” (in Kant) 30, 56, 109 Torah va Avodah 6, 44, 46, 48, 57, 65, 68, 72, 73, 85, 116

Rabbinic authority 5, 43, 60, Religion 12, 22, 28, 30, 31, 37, 38, 44, 47, 52–54, 56, 60, 65, 67, 73, 85, 88, 107, 109–111, 119 Redemption vii, 1, 3, 11–13, 15, 29, 31, 32, 35, 44, 59, 75–77, 79, 84, 87, 97, 98, 100, 101, 103, 116, 120 (see also Hastening redemption, Apocalyptics) Religious Kibbutz 49, 65–67, 74, 75, 85, 116 Religious legislation 87, 89, 90, 110 Revelation 29, 45 Revisionist movement 60 Revolution vii, 1–7, 10, 15, 20–22, 35, 46, 68, 92, 95

Uganda Proposal 17, 19, 23 Ulpana 90 Underground, Jewish 98, 119 Underground, Holocaust 71, 72 Underground, British Mandate 81–83, 97 Urban settlement 43, 95 Unity 2, 16, 22, 38, 40, 60, 72, 82, 84–86, 90, 115, 116, 120 War, First World 101 War, Lebanon 98, 101 War of Liberation 84 War, Six-Day 7, 81, 90, 95–97, 101, 102, 110 War, Yom Kippur 95, 97, 102 “White Paper” 40, 52, 83 “Who is a Jew” 88 Will 12, 20, 29, 32, 42, 59, 78, 101 Women’s suffrage 36 Women’s conscription 66 Work 6, 20, 30, 42, 43–49, 52, 55, 58, 67, 68, 75, 85, 87–89, 105–108

Sabbath, Struggle for 51–53, 58, 72, 82, 87, 88, 106, 111 Sabbatical year controversy 36 Sacrifices 75 “Saison” 82 Sanhedrin 6, 38, 81 Science 21, 22, 76, 88, 108 Secularists 10, 16, 86 Secularization 12, 13, 25, 51, 53, 55, 58, 82, 86, 88, 89, 103, 111 Settlements 36, 49, 52, 55, 58, 63–65, 84, 102, 106, 117, 119 “Shas” 102, 103, 116 Socialism 46, 54, 56, 65, 66 Soul 29, 44, 45, 56 “Status quo” 37, 53, 85, 88

Yeshiva high schools 19, 118 Yeshiva University 106, 109, 112 “Yeshivot hesder” 91, 92, 101, 123 Yeshivot, non-Zionist 24 Yishuv, old 10, 30, 36, 37, 39 Yishuv, new 10, 30, 37 “Youngsters Revolution” 92, 95

“Tami” 98 Technion 23 Teheran children 73

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