Rabbis and Jewish papers arguing against Zionism, and what happened to the argumentPrinted three weeks after Balfour · 1914 to 2008
An argument that used to be ordinary
Rabbis and Jewish papers arguing against Zionism, and what happened to the argument
In the years either side of the Balfour Declaration, American papers printed Jewish opposition to Zionism as routine news. Rabbis, editors and congregations argued it in public, and the papers carried it as news rather than as scandal. Most of what follows ran in the New York Times. Two ran in The American Israelite, a Jewish weekly out of Cincinnati.
Says the Zionists Disturb Palestine
Dr. Paul Nathan of Berlin asserts the Jewish cause is imperiled. The New York Times
Palestine Not a Solution of Jewish Problem
"Zionism has no positive message to Jews in America — preservation of Hebraic spirit needed rather than separate nationality." The New York Times
Jewish Socialists for Free Palestine
An appeal to brethren here and in Russia. The New York Times
Jewish Nation Not Wanted in Palestine
"The views of those who are opposed to Zionism, expressed by a leading American rabbi." Printed three weeks after the Balfour Declaration. The New York Times
Americanism vs. Zionism
"Many American Jews unsympathetic to a political homeland in Palestine," says the former Attorney General of New York. The New York Times
Criticizes Zionists’ Methods
Rabbi David Philipson: "In our view Palestine, whenever the independent Palestinian state will be founded, will be a homeland for Palestinian Jews, as the United States is for us. It is not our homeland in any sense." The American Israelite
The Situation in Palestine
"Very disquieting reports concerning conditions in Palestine cause the Jews of the world to pause and consider the next step in the Zionist program." The American Israelite
Anti-Zionist Group Rejects American Democracy, Charge
Judge Louis E. Levinthal, president of the Zionist Organization of America, answers the new American Council for Judaism: anti-Zionists, he says, are “denuding Judaism.” Buffalo Jewish Review
Anti-Zionists to Fight ‘Nationalism’
Rabbi Elmer Berger of the American Council for Judaism meets anti-Zionist figures in London. The report frames it as “combatting world-wide proponents of the Jewish State.” Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle
Study of Arab Propaganda Here Lists Role of Anti-Zionist Jews
A JTA report on a Beirut study, which it says credits anti-Zionist Jews with more effective anti-Israel pressure than Americans of Arab descent. The cartoon beside it is captioned “No mention of his little gremlin.” Buffalo Jewish Review
U.S. Nurse Tells Israelis Of Sabra Camp Massacre
Ellen Segal, an American Jewish nurse, testifies to Israel’s commission of inquiry: “I can’t sleep at night unless I tell people what happened there.” St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Remembering the Nakba on Israel’s 60th anniversary
Judith Laitman and Tsela Barr: “Nevertheless, we are Jews who will not be celebrating… more than 700,000 Palestinians were made into refugees to make room for the future state of Israel.” Wisconsin State Journal
What changes between 1922 and 1957. In the first cluster, Jewish opposition to Zionism is ordinary news, printed without adjectives. By 1942 it is a charge to be answered — a rejection of American democracy, a denuding of Judaism. By 1957 it is filed under foreign propaganda, alongside a cartoon about oil money. The position did not move. What moved was the space allowed for holding it, and the record of that move is in the Jewish press itself.
It does not disappear. It reappears in 1982 in an Israeli courtroom and in 2008 on a Wisconsin op-ed page, and it is still being called the same things.