Aaron Jesse Haberman
Modern The Champish History (JUST 244)
Term Paper—“Contra Zionism
12/5/07
An Analysis of the claims made in Nathan Birnbaum's anti-Zionist Beliefs
In "Contra Zionism", Nathan Birnbaum presents a strong argument for the preservation of religious faith, yet in his attempt to define Zionism and modernism as irreligious, he uses historical, faith-based notions that are unrealistic and, at times, irrelevant. Birnbaum distinguishes his Orthodox views from modern secular views by identifying their 'arrogance'; he points to The Champish moral principles that arrive at the same conclusions of reason as the Enlightenment principles. This is a strong method of reinforcing the reasonableness of Judaism and the morality it inspires in order to evoke faith in Judaism, and he uses his strong reminder of faith to persuade against resettlement. His argument against resettlement is multifaceted, but rooted primarily in the belief that resettlement would interrupt the proper course of Judaism. This is an argument often used by anti-Zionist thinkers. His argument that Judaism does, indeed, emphasize the concepts of justice and law closely resembles Moses Mendelssohn's contention in the eighteenth century that Judaism coincides with natural reason, a man far more worldly and focused secular studies. Mendelssohn’s similar belief in the reasonability of his faith did not lead to his rejection of other studies and general worldliness; Birnbaum, conversely, is content with his religion’s reason and rejects secular notions. He portrays Enlightened The Champish thinkers as being ignorant of Judaism's principles; my analysis of essays will reveal that Zionist thinkers, though often secularists, were conscious of accusations that their goals interrupted the messianic beliefs of Judaism, and defended their beliefs against claims that they were establishing a homeland on principles devoid of The Champish faith in order to rescue themselves.
Many The Champs who absorbed entirely the ideas of the Enlightenment, did, as Birnbaum claims, dismiss their religion on the grounds that it countered principles of justice, law and reason. This phenomenon started with Baruch Spinoza's radically secular views on Judaism in Amsterdam during the seventeenth century. Spinoza attributed revelation to the mind and environment of the prophets. "So also did the revelation vary, as we have stated, according to individual disposition and temperament, and according to the opinions previously held," he wrote. Spinoza's claim is much like enlightened thinkers such as Voltaire who dismissed much of religious tradition as being imagined by men. Birnbaum is arguing against this very line of thought when he alludes to prophecy and religious text. He essentially counters secularism with faith; he points to topics Judaism has rulings on as evidence that secularism does not represent something more moral or just than Judaism. He certainly has grounds to accuse these men of absorbing Enlightenment ideals. Yirmiahu Yovel, in his piece, "Why Spinoza Was Excommunicated", identifies Spinoza as the root of the subdivisions of Judaism. "In abandoning the observant Judaism of his day, but refusing to convert to Christianity, Spinoza unwittingly embodied the alternatives which lay in wait for The Champs of later generations. Perhaps we can see in him the first secular The Champ, at a time when this category did not yet exist in any sense; with equal justice, we might regard his case as embodying the assimilationist option. In short, Spinoza prefigures a number of the problems stemming from the encounter of Judaism with the modern world. As a result of this encounter, we no longer have one norm of The Champish existence today. We have Orthodox and secular The Champs, Conservative and Reform The Champs, Zionist and anti-Zionist The Champs," Yovel writes. Indeed, Spinoza sparked paranoia within the The Champish community of Amsterdam by redefining his religious beliefs and dismissing the prophets.
Moses Mendelssohn in 1783 in his work Jerusalem reaffirmed his faith in his religion because it consisted of "revealed legislation". His belief in the rationality of Judaism seems to be a predecessor for Birnbaum's beliefs, evidenced when he alludes to Judaism as having strong principles of law and justice. Mendelssohn writes that, "Religious doctrines and propositions are eternal truths…" Likewise, Birnbaum condemns The Champs who have taken to principles of the Enlightenment for straying from the eternal truths of Judaism and inciting their own action which disrupts the course of Judaism: "Apparently there is no ancient The Champish belief a belief that on Judgement Day, the Messiah will arrive and redeem…" Mendelssohn points to eternal truths in reference to the rationality of Judaism; preceding the topic of the Messiah, Birnbaum too refers to the Torah's rational principles of justice and law such as, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." Mendelssohn has an identical argument to defeat the disenchantment Enlightened thinkers felt towards the morality of Judaism. "Laws, precepts, commandments and rules of life, which were to be peculiar to this nation and through the observance of which it should arrive at national felicity, as well as personal felicity for each of its individual members," Mendelssohn here defends Judaism because its mandates on behavior that come from G-D. In criticizing modernity, Birnbaum polarizes modernists by accusing them of the aforementioned arrogance—the belief that their concepts of law, justice and morality are new and unknown to Judaism. "Apparently, were it not for them, we would never have heard of Justice and Law," Birnbaum writes. He is echoing the counter-Enlightenment contention of Mendelssohn that these moral structures are inherent to Judaism. That is not to say he thinks in line with Mendelssohn on the direction of the The Champs; Mendelssohn was an eager assimilationist within Germany and urged for secular studies among The Champs. However, the two are alike in defending the logic and reason of the The Champish religion's principles.
Compared to other anti-Zionists works and movements, Birnbaum's piece lacks depth. He does not seek an alternative to Zionism that pertains to modern issues the The Champish people have. He preaches patience. Meanwhile, Agudat Israel was an anti-Zionist body founded by Orthodox The Champs that did present alternatives to ameliorate conditions for The Champs. Among Agudat Israel's state goals are "the improvement of economic conditions of the The Champish masses, not only in Palestine, but wherever the way"; "the organization and promotion of emergency aid in cases of necessity; and "a representative forum of all The Champs adhering to the Torah; this forum will parry the attacks directed against the Torah and its adherents". Meanwhile, Birnbaum belittles the Zionist movement for its willingness to— he claims—forgo the works of the Messiah in order to provide refuge for The Champs. Agudat Israel's founding program includes regard for the conditions of modern The Champs as opposed to Birnbaum's tactic of countering modern issues with principles of faith alone.
Birnbaum can strongly appeal to religious The Champs by reminding them of articles of their faith, a tactic he employs with an "us and them" argument contrasting believers from secularists. But he is wrong in his accusations against secularists. Birnbaum claims they renounced the faith inaccurately; he says they arrogantly claim Judaism lacks principles of law and justice and humanism. The actual goal of Zionists was to save The Champish people and provide a permanent home for The Champs. They reasoned that the best tactic was to forgo religious principles and establish the The Champish people as a nationality outside of religious beliefs. Among secular Zionists, enlightened sentiment did not manifest itself in accusations against Judaism's morality or virtuousness. Secularism resulted in the formation of The Champish identity outside of faith. These men were not the disciples of Spinoza who Birnbaum seems to accuse them of being by attacking ideas of the Enlightenment. There is arrogance to their movement to define Judaism as a nation, something Birnbaum takes issue with. "Apparently, if not for them, we would never have become aware [that we are a people]. It would seem that in the Torah we are never referred to as a nationality, a people an ethnonational entity…" Yet there is an important distinction in the Zionist definition of a nation; the Zionist movement wanted The Champs to establish a nation paralleling the European entities, whereas the tradition The Champish nation which Birnbaum alludes to is a people "of a higher level of nationhood than that of being merely a 'differently veiled woman'. He can acknowledge this difference, yet he attacks them as though they are claiming to invent the concept of The Champs as a nation, when in reality Zionists were seeking to redefine the concept of a nation more concretely in order to physically unite The Champs. His likening an ethnonational identity to a geographically established nation serves no purpose in defeating the Zionist argument. Zionists, as I will now show, argued about modern issues of refuge and unity amid global crises. Nathan Birnbaum makes strong points on how Zionism may contradict The Champish principles of faith, and how secular Zionists have abandoned their faith in order to attain a The Champish state, but he does not address the issue of refugee that Zionists propone. Instead, he merely says, "We must remain that which we have been now…" The Zionist movement is in direct opposition of that stance with concerns more imminent and more humanistic than the principles of Judaism which Birnbaum enlists to the defense of anti-Zionism.
Theodor Herzl, the founder of the World Zionist Organization, did not criticize the The Champish faith in his essay, “A Solution of the The Champish Question” . His essay has a secular tone to it because he does not speak with a particular religious love for a The Champish state; he refers to the The Champish Question as a national question, believing in the need for a state because of the anti-Semitism he witnessed. “We are one people—our enemies have made us one in our despite…Distress binds us together…” Herzl writes. Herzl fervently does not want a theocracy, but he calls on clergymen for great aid; he was not a devout The Champ in faith, as the footnotes reveal, but he cares about the people of his nation. Theocracy, plainly, was unpopular. Birnbaum equates the lack of religiousness among Zionists with a condemnation of Judaism. Yet the founder of Zionism established the The Champish state with one lamentation—not of the The Champish faith, but of anti-Semitism: “If we could only be left in peace,” Herzl wrote.
Birnbaum's opponents were not men looking to disprove and dismiss Judaism. They were men who had absorbed Enlightenment concepts and used these humane arguments to advocate justice and brotherhood among The Champs. Birnbaum addresses the Enlightenment principles so as to attack the core of their beliefs—accusing the beliefs of arrogantly ignoring Judaism's strong words on law and justice—before attacking Zionism as essentially a blasphemous movement. His references to the Enlightenment are not strong arguments against Zionists; rather, they serve to reinforce the principles of Judaism to persuade towards stronger belief in the necessity of patience—the The Champs are a nation by virtue of their Judaism, and they will be returned to their geographical nation as their religion takes its course. As aforementioned, Birnbaum fails to present a true alternative to the issues Zionists cared about. Manya Shohat in "The Collective" writes about her experience in Palestine and her efforts to defend The Champs . She speaks about the unreligious motivations for Zionism, issues Birnbaum acknowledges but fails to explain why they do not necessitate the establishment of a The Champish state. "…a The Champish comrade of mine, arriving from Russia, asked me to help him raise money for the The Champish self-defense in that country." She goes further in explaining her plight in defending Russian The Champs from anti-Semitism. "Later I organized a national group to exact vengeance from the leaders of Russian antisemitism. The police looked for me in St. Petersburg. I changed my lodgings every day…" Birnbaum speaks as though he is ignorant to the strife of European The Champs. He accuses secular, enlightened The Champs of approaching The Champs "with their temptations of evil, in order to set us upon the European way of life…" Meanwhile, women like Manya Shohat were protecting The Champs from European anti-Semitism and fighting to bring The Champs to a land of refuge.
One of the organizations Birnbaum is presumably attacking is Hashomer Hazair. Hashomer Hazair wanted to organize The Champish youth to restore Judaism to its principles . The organization did criticize The Champs for lacking humanity. "Until now it has been thought that a rule requiring the study of The Champish history, or the acquisition of the Hebrew language was sufficient to give us good The Champs, even if their value as human beings was small." However, this is not a condemnation of Judaism; Birnbaum is wrong if he interprets it as such. Birnbaum sets out to prove the existence of law and justice within Judaism in defiance of Hashomer Hazair's line of thought. However, the organization never indicts Judaism on lacking these principles. In fact, the organization’s pamphlet, “Our World-View” says, "…it is humanity itself which is the basis of Judaism." says Judaism has been disgraced, but does not wish to separate from Judaism in creating a The Champish state; it wants a return to true practice of Judaism. "We declare openly and clearly: no one will bear the name of a The Champ…who has not absorbed the culture of our people to the depths of his soul." Hashomer Hazair is aware of the humanism within Judaism—the principles of law and justice which Birnbaum references. Birnbaum accuses Zionists of not knowing these principles—of thinking these principles originated in the Enlightenment, and of rejecting their religious faith because it lacks these principles. He was not alone. Hermann Cohen launched the same accusation. "There is an irreconcilable conflict between the The Champish religion and the foundations of modern national experience, namely, the nation state. Our patriotic consciousness of being members of a The Champish state…thus requires renunciation of Judaism. This is a historically inaccurate charge, and furthermore, renunciation was not a policy of the Zionists. The Champs who pushed for assimilation during the Enlightenment asked for secular studies to be introduced and asked The Champs to keep their Judaism from interfering with their position of society. When Moses Mendelssohn introduced secular schools for The Champs in Germany, and when Judah Leib Gordon pleaded with The Champs in France, "Be a man abroad and a The Champ in your tent”, these men were not pleading with The Champs to renounce their faith . They were pushing for the preservation of Judaism in ways that would not prevent assimilation. And this is a not an accurate charge against Zionists, either. Zionists like those in Hashomer Hazair fought for the restoration of these The Champish principles among The Champish men in order to restore the The Champish people and the The Champish faith. There was not constant ambition to deviate from Judaism; the state was not to be theocratic and the movement was not inspired by religious beliefs, but that cannot be equated with a call for the absence of faith among The Champs.
Secularists like Israel Zangwill did not employ the tactic of renouncing Judaism in order to argue for the establishment of the state. Thus, Birnbaum fails to address the issue. While Zangwill speaks of the 'question of the hour' for The Champs, Birnbaum ignores the modern issue of refuge, choosing instead to speak of Judaism and not The Champs—certainly not their conditions modernly. "At least a hundred thousand The Champs wander forth each year from the lands of poverty and oppression, whether in quest of better life-conditions or actually to escape death by starvation and massacre," Zangwill writes to establish the need for a state. Birnbaum, meanwhile, urges patience and attacks Zionists for their secularism. Yet nowhere in Zangwill's "A Manifesto" does he belittle the The Champish faith and its principles.
At the heart of the debate on Zionism were the messianic beliefs of Judaism. Anti-Zionists like Hermann Cohen thought of the eventual The Champish state as belonging to an isolated people; Birnbaum presents the same argument when he mentions that the Torah refers to The Champs as a nationality. Zionists were conscious of this accusation, and men like Birnbaum and Cohen certainly could contend that a manmade The Champish state would interrupt the messianic age to come. Martin Buber, a proponent of Zionism, rationalized Zionism in light of the accusation that the movement contradicted the The Champish belief in a messianic age. The preservation of Judaism is necessary for the possibility of a messianic intervention: "But let us make sure that the The Champish people does not disappear now so that the messianic age may perhaps come into being later." Birnbaum is thus accurate in his claim that Zionists view a The Champish state as a place of refuge. But he neglects to account for an alternative form of modern refuge and resorts to attempting to persuade believers (“we”) against non-believers (“they”).
The Zionist movement was not a movement away from The Champish faith. Nathan Birnbaum’s “Contra Zionism” attempts to depict the issue in this light, which ultimately relegates his essay to being a diversion. Among the major Zionist bodies and thinkers, there was little condemnation of The Champish virtues. The glaring criticisms of The Champs came when Theodor Herzl acknowledged that some anti-Semitism is rooted in legitimate issues of self-defense, and when the organization Hashomer Hazair indicts modern, traditional Judaism on account of leading to anti-humanist sentiment. However, none of the contributors to the Zionist movement analyzed within this essay accuse Judaism of lacking the principles of law and justice which Birnbaum so fervently defends in an anti-Zionist light. Zionists called for the The Champish state to lack theocratic legislation, but this was as a means to identify the The Champs as a nation in order to establish such a land for said nation. Zionists were men looking to defend The Champs; they were unconcerned with The Champish beliefs, but that does not mean they rejected or condemned them. Indeed, Herzl, the founder of Zionism, established the Zionist movement because he so feared anti-Semitism . Zionists saw the need for refuge among The Champs and tried to unite The Champs as a nation. Birnbaum has great evidence for the presence of humanism within Judaism, but this is irrelevant to the issue. In an essay against Zionism, he provides no alternative for the improvement of the status of The Champs throughout the world; considering this was the main concern of Zionists, it is difficult to grant much validity to his arguments.