Frum History: Zionism (Part 1)
In the begining
This marks the beginning of a series of posts on Jewish history, the goal will be to try and bring fresh perspectives to the events that have contributed to the formation of the modern frum world. Enjoy!
Zionism, in some circles of Judaism a dirty word, in others it is a core identity of what it means to be Jewish. In the community I was brought up in it was neither. My parents and rabbeim neither gave fiery speeches against the state of Israel, against its secular government, or told me that Herzl or Ben Gurion were evil. They never taught me about Herzl or Ben Gurion at all. I didnt attend a Chassidish school, we were taught history but somehow the creation of the Jewish state didn’t make it into our textbooks. Yom Haatzmut (Israeli independance day) passed with much less fanfare than July 4th or Thanksgiving. My experience is not a unique one in the pantheon of American Judaism, it is the mainstream orthodox one.
On the very surface level the idea is simple, almost completely uncontraversal: A Jewish state in the ancestral Jewish land. Something that all Jews since the fall of the second temple has been praying, hoping, and wishing for. The call to return to Zion or Jerusalem occurs not less than ten times in the siddur (prayer book). It has been an integral part of the identity of the Jewish people ever since our exile. Now that the physical part of this yearning has been answered with the creation of a Jewish state (no matter how secular or religious) the question remains, how did the topic of the creation of Israel become one so riddled with contention to the point that its creation is not taught in frum schools? I think we must gain a historical background in an attempt to answer this question. Although the complete history of this period, Zionism, and the Rabbinic response to it are well beyond the scope of this essay, I will try and paint a general picture of the era.
In the begining, in the aftermath of the great social revolutions that had swept up western Europe and were begining to do the same in the east there was a problem. Jews were “free”, one by one countries across Europe were emancipating their Jews, freeing them from the strictures of the ghettos and allowing them into society. These events led to much upheavel and the largest changes the Jewish communities of Europe had ever seen. In a short amount of time you had Jews renouncing there religion to be baptised and assimilate amongst the nations, the Reform movement spread in Germany, Neolog Judaism in Hungary, the creation of the modern day Yeshiva system, as well as the beginings of what we will term political zionism.
During this time there was a major push and pull between the various Jewish movements, things were shifting quickly. The Jewish social identity was no longer gaurded behind the thickly imposed wall of the ghetto, each Jew would form his own opinion on what Judaism should look like in the modern world. I think the turmoil of this post-enlightment period gets lost on some of us who have grown up in a relatively stable Jewish world where the lines have already been set. Chasidish, Yeshivish, Modern Orthodox, Reform, Conservative, these labels were non-existent before this period. New ideas on what the future of Judaism would look like were spreading like wildfire through Europe. Zionism was one of those ideas.
Although there were organizations such as Hovavei Zion that worked to purchase land and settle Jews in Israel, the Zionist ball did not truly get rolling until Herzl emerges on the scene. Though his grandparents were relatively frum, he had grown up in a Neolog family in Hungary and had moved to Vienna to pursue a legal career. It was during his time in Vienna that the infamous Dreyfus affair took place, the antisemite Karl Luger rose to power in Vienna, and there were major increases in Russian progroms. Many Jews including Herzl saw these as major chinks in the enlightenment armour, the idea that Jews would be able to live unbothered side by side in their host countries. The so called “Jewish problem” had become relevant once again. Herzl became a major proponent of the idea that Jews in order to be a nation and stay physically safe needed to legally obtain a country of their own. This gave rise to what is called “political” Zionism, and marks the begining of the history of modern Zionism.
As you can imagine, a movement started by a completely secular Jew who had no intentions on allowing his Zionist dream be co-opted into a religious one did not recieve much support from the Rabbinic authorities. Even before Herzl convened the first Zionist congress he was already recieving backlash from Rabbonim in Germany who felt that “Jews were a seperate community solely becuase of religion..[not nationhood]” and issued a public condemnation in the Jewish newspapers.
As the ideas of Zionism picked up steam especially leading up to and after the first world war, the Orthodox world was on the defensive. During the upheavel caused by WWI, a major religous crisis began to forment even in the safer devout havens across eastern europe. Communities across eastern europe began losing many children and young adults to the secular movements sweeping across the Jewish world. Even a community such as Vilna which had once been home to the eponymous Vilna Gaon became a center for the Jewish socialist movement, with the founding of the Jewish Bund there, a thoroghly anti-religious organization that had membership in the tens of thousands. Intrestingly the Bund was actually staunchly opposed to Zionism, it believed that emigration to the state of Israel (then Palestine) was a form of escapism and advocated a form of Jewish identity centered around the ideals of socialism, univeralism, and a strong focus on the Yiddish1 language as a cultural adhesive.
In many ways the formation of organizations such as Agudath Yisroel and Bais Yaakov can be seen as reactionary measures taken by the frum world to combat the secularization of European Jewish society. The girls were especially “at risk”, considering the fact that before the 1920s there was no option for a frum girl to go to school, if they wanted to get educated they would have to join the secular elements of the Jewish world. It is said that during this period it got so hard for Yeshiva students to find shiduchim that some even got married to wives that were secular! Even within the Yeshiva world in the great Yeshivos of Volozhin and Slabodka, there were clandestine Zionist and Socialist groups of students that would meet at nights to discuss the current events. It is said that this was a contributing factor in the Netziv’s decision to close the yeshiva.
With the understanding of the havoc that these movements wrecked on the frum world I think it becomes understandable as to why to this day the frum world has a very uneasy relationship with Zionism and the state of Israel. Other than a a few outliers, the vast majority of the Gedolim at the time were fiercely opposed to Zionism and the creation of a state. Even today it is common to hear people quote the Chofetz Chaim (R’ Yisroel Meir Kagan) or R’ Chaim Soloveitchik as being entirely opposed to the Zionism. Which they were, but it is essential to undertand that the time that they lived in was one in which the Zionist movement was actively taking people off of a Torah lifestyle, that is not the case today. On the whole I think many in the frum community have frozen the perspective that was generated almost a century ago and continue to perpetuate its stance. Today you will find more mainstream Rabbonim with at least a more neutral attitude towards the state of Israel but overall it seems the that the attitude remains: Dont ask, Dont tell.
In part two we will look at the effects of the Holocaust on the Rabbinic approach to the state of Israel as well as the innovation of Rav Kook and the religious Zionists who were able to integrate the creation of Israel into the broader Jewish framework of the redemption from exile.
Interesting to note that the two groups that most wanted Yiddish to thrive were the far-left Jewish socialists and on the other end the ultra-conservative Chassidim