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Page 16 The Southern Israelite Reform Judaism and Zionism By MOSES P. JACOBSON Rabbi of Congregation Beth Ha-Tephillah, Asheville, N. C. When in the year 1882 Dr. A. Kuenen, the epoch-making Bible critic of Holland, issued his volume of Hibbert Lectures, entitled “National Religious and Univer sal Religions”, in which he pronounced Judaism to he distinctively a national re ligion, the scholarship and spokesmanship of Israel the world over voiced an utidis- cordant chorus of passionate protest. With the representatives of Reform Judaism it was comparatively easy to refute, for their constituency at least, Kuenen’s characterization* The recog nized rituals of Reform Judaism had eli minated every prayer expressing so much as even the suspicion of a hope or a desire for any form of Jewish national restoration. The Grand Sanhedrin of Paris, in 1807, had specifically declared that Israel existed only as a religion and no longer looked forward to any national rehabilitation. All over the world even Orthodox Jewry, in order to obtain every where the then debated Jewish civil equalities, had been for years strenuously repelling the impeachment that Israel was a nation within the nations. And Reform Judaism in its several rabbinical con ferences finally gave the seal of official declaration to this maintenance that Israel was a religious entity and only a religious entity. Orthodoxy had a somewhat more diffi cult task in meeting Kuenen’s contention. No authoritative body had made for it any formal pronouncement upon this sub ject. But its exponents nevertheless were enabled to build up an imposing argument even for historic Israel’s universalistic religious character by conclusive citations from the Bible, the Talmud, and the utterances of its most widely accredited later interpreters. There were, for in stance, the Mosaic and the Talmudic laws for the admission of strangers into the covenant of Israel, the universalistic dedi catory prayer of King Solomon, Isaiah’s explicit utterance, “My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the peo ples". Micah’s well-known summary of Israel’s religious requirements as being simply a God-conscious morality. There was likewise the instancing from the New t Testament about the proselyting activity ■ of the Pharisees. There were, further more, the Talmudic sentences relative to the conscious assumption by Israel of its messianic career immediately upon the fall of its Temple and the ultimate abro gation of the entire ceremonial law, even of the great fast and feast days, with the world’s general acceptance of Israel’s teachings. Scores of pronouncements by prominent rabbis, like that of Rabbi Akiba about the brotherhood of man be ing the one basic principle of Judaism, were quoted as a formidable array, it would seem, of almost irrefutable proof. In 1898 when in repudiation of the then two-year-old neo-Zionism of Herzl the Union of American Hebrew Congrega tions, in official Council assembled in the city of Richmond, Va., passed with only two dissenting votes, its rhetorical resolution about America being our Palestine and Washington our Jerusalem every religious section in American Judaism applauded the declaration. Hcrzlianism was taboo in those days, ex cept for denunciation, in every American Jewish pulpit, Orthodox, Reform and Conservative. The few Jews who at that time in this country identified themselves with the new movement were either un affiliated with the synagog or were Zion ists wholly apart from their synagogal attachments. A similar condition obtained almost everywhere else throughout the Jewish world. However it would now appear that the old Latin proverb would be more strik ingly true if it were changed into “Tem- pora mutantur ot Judaci mutantur in illis", “Times change and—not we but— Jews change with them.” It is true, Judaism is a progressive religion and change of a specific character is not only to its credit but is even necessary to its wholesome continuance. But to change a basic contention merely to secure every temporary advantage, and particularly for such advantage to revert to an old posi tion that has been denounced as utterly vicious, is not symptomatic of progress, but, on the contrary, is indicative of an utter deficiency in intrinsic conviction. Jewish nationalism and Reform Judaism are wholly incompatible. In fact they are diametrically opposed. The whole ancient ceremonialism, whose religious nonessentiality is almost a cardinal tenet with Jewish Reform, receives a new validity under Jewish nationalism. All this ertwhile separative legislation of ancient Israel, instead of being, as for merly declared, merely protective reli gious regulation, or inspirational discip line, as to either of which it may com- mendably be dispensed with in the light of superior religious resources in the new day, becomes under Zionism, in its any form, invested with a nationalistic in cumbency. The phylacteries, the fringed garment, the wearing of car-locks and of beards, the diet, the fast days and the feast days, etc., are no longer mere reli gious helps or ceremonies, nor are they merely folkways, mores, or customs, but are now national statutes and ordinances set down in an unrepealable Constitution Book and in its extending code,—the Bible and the Talmud. The Jew who disobeys these ordinances, and surely the Jew who openly counsels their ignoring P. Jacobson and tresspassing, is as bad as a Jew as at the present time a bootlegger is as an American. This is the only possible logical position that any Zionist can take unless he happens to be that nondescript somebody who is a Jewish nationalist simply for the other fellow. The most humiliating exhibition of op portunism which up to the present mo ment religious history has ever had to record is, alas, that by those of our Re form Jewish congregations which, while professedly anti-Zionistic in principle, yet have either kept or even put in their pul pits Zionistic ministers because of merely their oratorical or managerial qualifica tions. For material advantage these con gregations have thus sold themselves out to the enemy and have treasonably weak ened the whole cause of Reform Judaism. Their very innocence of the sacred wrong they were committing is at the very least a confession of their own spiritual bank ruptcy. 1 he Zionistic capitulation of Jewish Orthodoxy is scarcely less lamentable. Hitherto Jewish Orthodoxy has taken a Rabbi Moses special pride in maintaining tha monial livery was simply the h its religious priesthood to the its retention of nationalistic ,. x; in its liturgy was virtually noth: than a reminiscent piety, or a the evidence of a religious confidence to God’s ultimate manifest interposition to bring mankind to the recognition of Judaism’s spiritual truths, and thus en throne the birth land of their revelation in the reverential regard of all humanity, and that these expressions, not only did not involve, but absolutely precluded any practical program by Israel itself towards their realization. Orthodoxy’s espousal today of Zionism is a total reversal of this position. Not only by inevitable im plication, but even by express declaration as well the leaders of Orthodoxy have defended their surrender to Zionism on the allegation that Judaism cannot per manently maintain itself in the world at large. But a religion that requires a separate country for its survival can have no universalistic mission. More than this,— a religion that can live in only a special locality can have no claim to the allegi ance of any one who does not desire to live in that locality. It may command the interest of his intellectual, senti mental, or artistic curiosity. He may pay the price occasionally to see and hear a Palestine Sir Harry Lauder. But it would be absurd to say that he has any moral or spiritual obligation to maintain in this other land of his birth and his chosen residence a Palestinian synagog. If Judaism is a religion of possible preserva tion only in Palestine, or of possible in spiration only from Palestine, it is an exotic, not a necessity, not an indis pensable value, in America, or Great Britain, or Germany, or France, etc. There is not one common-sense excuse for, nor a single redeeming feature in. this whole mad Zionistic agitation, which is all the more deplorable for its having through its highly epidemic character in fected some of the most brilliant minds and generous souls in world-wide Jewry. The literary, artistic and musical stimulation which Zionism accredits itself with having given to our modern Jewish life, is of the very most pitiable character. The whole of Zionistic production in these spheres is nothing more than an eternal wearisome whine, and the new Jewish consciousness which Zionism plumes itself on having awakened is ‘ the same whimpering nature. Zionism has absolutely demoralized the consci ness of magnanimous dedication "hie American Judaism was instilling world-wide Israel and has made us si supercilious suppliants to all the sc< powers that be. From a philanthropic standpoint / (Continued on page 36)