On June 1, some 100,000 people are expected to celebrate the 60th anniversary of Israeli independence at the annual Israel Day Parade in New York. And over the course of this year, as many as 30,000 young American Jews will visit Israel through Birthright, a program created to strengthen Israeli-Diaspora relations, and thousands more will come on educational exchanges and volunteer programs in distressed communities, kibbutzim and the army.
To be sure, some of the Jewish attendees at the Israel Day parade will be protesting Israeli policies, and a shadow Birthright program has been set up to bring American Jews to Palestinian refugee camps. But these critics of Israel represent only a tiny fraction of the American Jewish community.
Six decades after the birth of Israel, the bulk of American Jews continue to support the Jewish state and view it as an essential component of their identity. This wasn’t always the case, however.
In the past, many American Jews were ambivalent about Zionism and the renewal of Jewish sovereignty in the Land of Israel. Some rejected the Jewish state as a violation of God’s monopoly over redemption, while others feared that it called into question their loyalty as Americans. Others denied that the Jews were a nation at all or deserving of a separate state.
Indeed, throughout much of history, the American Jewish advocates of Zionism and Israel have been a small and sometimes infinitesimal minority.
The difficulties of rallying American Jews around the Zionist idea were experienced by the first American Jewish proponent of Jewish statehood, the famed journalist, statesman and soldier, Mordechai Manuel Noah. In a speech at a New York synagogue in 1818, Noah called for the renewal of Jewish sovereignty in the Holy Land.
“Where can we plead the independence for the Children of Israel with greater confidence than in the cradle of American liberty?” he asked. As a way station en route to Zion, Noah secured the rights to a Niagara River island that he renamed Ararat, where Jews could prepare for the burdens of sovereignty. Though blessed by Christian “restorationists” who viewed the Jews’ return to Palestine as the prerequisite for Jesus’ Second Coming, Ararat was ignored by most American Jews. Mostly German-born, the roughly 15,000 Jews of Noah’s America were more interested in acclimating to their new Promised Land — America — than in relocating to their old one.
A similar disappointment awaited Emma Lazarus, the American Jewish poet whose welcome to the world’s tired, poor, huddled masses adorned the Statue of Liberty. Appalled by pogroms against Russian Jews in 1881, she promoted the reestablishment of Jewish statehood in Palestine as “a home for the homeless, an asylum for the persecuted, a nation for the denationalized.”
Lazarus created the first American Jewish Zionist organization in New York, but failed to attract followers. Orthodox Jews condemned her for arrogating God’s exclusive right to redeem the Jewish people, while Reform rabbis lambasted her for suggesting that Jews were a nation separate from America.
Consequently, Christians remained the most ardent exponents of Zionism in the United States. A petition calling for the immediate transformation of Palestine into a Jewish state, submitted to the White House in 1891, was signed by 400 prominent Americans, among them John D. Rockefeller, J.P. Morgan and William McKinley, but very few Jews. Of the nearly 200 delegates to the First Zionist Congress in 1897, only four hailed from America.
The dawn of the 20th century brought no major awakening of American Jewish backing for Zionism. Out of a total Jewish population of 3 million in 1914, only 10,000 were members of the American Zionist Federation. Fortunately, the president of the federation was Louis Brandeis, the future Supreme Court justice who managed to expand its membership ten-fold by the end of World War I. “Every American Jew who aids in advancing the Jewish settlement in Palestine,” Brandeis declared, “will be a better American for doing so.”
Still, only a small number of American Jews heeded his call, and far fewer followed the example of young Goldie Mabovitch — later Golda Meir — and left the United States for Palestine. Some of the leading American Jewish organizations were cool toward Zionism, if not openly inimical.
The rise of Nazism might have spurred American Jews to greater Zionist activism, but the increase in Depression-era antisemitism and the reluctance of American Jews to pressure a popular president acted as counterweights. Roosevelt did nothing to challenge Britain’s decision to close Palestine to Jewish immigration in 1939, effectively dooming European Jewry, and American Jews did little to push him.
Such passivity reached tragic heights during the Holocaust. Shocked by the revelations of the Nazi genocide, American Jews flooded the Truman White House with pro-Zionist telegrams, pressed the government to approve the partition of Palestine in November 1947 and, the following May, to recognize the newly created Jewish state.
Yet no sooner was Israel established than American Jewry returned to quiescence. Almost none of them protested President Eisenhower’s threat to impose sanctions on Israel during the 1956 Sinai Campaign, or his refusal to sell it arms.
Not many more denounced President Johnson’s failure to defend Israel in the period before the 1967 Six Day War. Though deeply concerned for Israel’s fate, most American Jews watched helplessly while the Jewish state was again surrounded by Arab armies sworn to annihilate it.
The Six Day War, however, represented a turning point for American Jewish-Israeli relations. Empowered by Israel’s feat of arms, American Jewish organizations unambiguously proclaimed their support for the Jewish state and exhibited an unprecedented readiness to champion its interests in Washington.
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee was established in 1953, but only became a powerful lobby in 1975, when it marshaled congressional opposition to President Ford’s “reassessment” of American aid to Israel. Since then, the influence of Aipac and other pro-Israel organizations has grown to the point that incumbents and candidates alike routinely visit Israel and affirm their commitment to its defense.
Nevertheless, recent years have seen diminishing support for Israel in certain sectors of the American Jewish community, particularly among the unaffiliated and those too young to remember the Holocaust or the Six Day War. Anti-Israel biases on campuses have also had a deleterious impact, as have harsh media images of Israeli settlers in the West Bank and Israeli warplanes over Lebanon. Only 60% of American Jews have visited Israel, and 40% of American Jews under the age of 50 describe their attachment to Israel as low. Israel’s largest reservoir of affection in the United States may no longer be American Jews but, once again, Christian Zionists.
These statistics, however, do not reflect the immense upsurge of Israel activism among a committed core of American Jews. That energy has served to galvanize the wellspring of pro-Israel sentiment that has long existed in the Unites States and which exercises a profound influence on American foreign policy.
In addition, one must not lose sight of the contributions of American Jews to virtually every aspect of Israeli life — to education, religion, culture and politics on both the left and right. Today, as Israel embarks on its seventh decade of independence, indissoluble bonds unite American Jews and the Jewish state, assuring the continuity and vitality of both.
Michael Oren, a senior fellow at the Shalem Center in Jerusalem, is the author of “Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East, 1776 to the Present” (W. W. Norton, 2007).
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This article mentions "critics" of Israel who will protest against her on this Yom Ha-'Atzmaut. If someone tells you that your driving needs improvement - that's criticism. But if he tells you that not only shouldn't you have a driver's license, you shouldn't even have been born - that's not criticism. I wonder if those "shadow" Birthright programs are based on a motivation of criticism, a desire to better life in Israel - or if they are based on an ideology of negating the whole idea of Israel's right to exist. If the latter is the case, let's not use the word "criticism".
Happy Birthday Israel! Sixty years is a long time to live a lie. I hope the world throws a great big party in your honor. Jesus loves you and so do I.
I think it is also important to note the tensions that existed among the Jewish left in the interwar period. Among Yiddish intellectuals, the question of Jewish settlement in Palestine was an explosive one, especially after the riots of 1929 and later. There were segments of the Jewish community that saw this violence against Jews as the birthpang of Revolution, and others saw pogroms. Those divergent perspectives on Arab behavior in Zionist Palestine has forever colored the way the Jewish left perceives Israel's existence, and its behavior in the territories.
During WW2, the vast majority of Americans, and certainly American Jews, had no idea as to what was happening in occupied Europe. It was only after the war that the atrocities were revealed. That said, over 600,000 Jews fought against the Axis powers. Roosevelt knew that little if anything could be done to save Europe's Jews, sealed tight under NAZI occupation, short of winning the war. I am convinced he was right. There was anti-Semitism prior to and during WW2, which kept more American Jews from protesting. We Jews did not have the priviledge of a one million man march in those days. Pearl Harbor brought US into the war actively, and Germany declared war on US. There are even disputes about whether Auschwitz bombing would have achieved anything at all, other than killing inmates sooner? American Jews have for the most part been supportive of Israel's creation and existence. We have purchased tens of billions in bonds over the years as well as given charity. There was the Jewish Brigade. Actively and physically aiding Israel is another matter, and not as easy as one might assume. Certainly, the activities of some Jews, (Pollard, etc.), as well as those who break other than laws against spying ( Abramoff, etc.), never show us in a good light. The Rosenbergs did not help us. While these are but small fractions of our people, they do add fuel to the anti-Semites fire. We must remember that many former Presidents went out of their way to aid Israel, in Israel's moments of greatest needs. ( Truman, Nixon, Johnson). Israel has beenfitted greatly from both Jewish and Christian pressures on our legislators., as well as the overall sympathy of the American people towards it. I firmly believe however, that we can always (as Jews) do more for Israel. We are a miniscule people..only 5.5m in the US and about the same in Israel. We have both been targeted by Jihadists and terror organizations. Had Hitler won WW2, I doubt there would be many Jews left alive, whether in Palestine or the United States. He had plans, as we all know, to exterminate the Jews of Britain, drawn up and ready to be implemented as well as the remaining Jews in the old Soviet Union. As far as divided loyalties, this is a clever device used by the anti-Semites to undermine our people. But sometimes, quiet behind the scene activism, is better than waving someone else's flag.
In opposition to Dave Levy's argument, it was common knowledge that the German's were killing all of European Jewry. The British Parliament stood in a moment of silence in order to honor the Jewish victims already in December 1942 - and afterwards the US government likewise published a statement on the murder of Europe's Jews. It was regularly reported in the newspapers. The reason that American Jewry didn't protest and demand that something be done was a result of its particular sociology: American Jews wished to be seen by the American public as Americans and not as a community that has interests and issues outside of the American experience. An excellent book on this topic is Larel Leff's "Buried by the Times".
By 1947, 7% of the total area of Mandatory Palestine (including 22% of the arable land) had been purchased with Jewish money, most of which came from Eastern Europe and not from Germany or America. Had relatively wealthy American and German Jews used their money to purchase much more Palestinian land sooner, which Arabs were more than eager to sell at the time for Jewish money, it is not inconceivable that there might have already been a Jewish state by 1938 rather than 1948. And the Holocaust might not have happened at all, particularly if Jews were seen to be leaving for their homeland in great numbers anyway.
ashkenazim may have little semitic blood in their veins. some look more polish with their sunken blue eyes and round slavic faces than poles selves. ashkenazim are an euroasian people who either latched onto judaism or were converted to it by either the isarelites or judeans. be it as it may, the new nation needed a homeland. seeing how much christian lands despised islam, they realized they can use them to establish a state in palestine. yes, christians have been against judaism or, rather, its numerous misteachings. one can't be against a people or person; one can be against only what people say or do. being against a person leads to possible/probable self destruction or much anguish. and the new people said a lot against us, goyim. thus it had been twoway street; hatred eliciting hatred. some of us nonzionists are no longer taken in by the label "antisemitic". thank u
My neighbors have an Italian Flag waving infront of their home. St. Partick's day is now an American holiday. The presidential candidates recently gave speaches in honor of Cinco de Mayo. It's great that in America today we can be happy about our heritage and still dedicated to the US.
bozhidar bob balkas, are you saying I'm not a "real" Jew because my mom converted? I think in inlaws would disagree with you.
Community afficiation is not genetic. An immigrant or a convert is just as authentic as anyone born within the community.
joseph, if one wants to call self a "jew", that's ok with me. but it is not ok with me that i call u a "jew". an ashkenazi, to me, is not a jew but an euroasian person. as to how much an ashkenazi is genetically semitic, nobody knows. at least some ashkenazi look as polish or german as most poles and germans do. exception being that a catholic pole is not a judaistic pole. and if religion is nationality for u, i can only tell u that u will be rejected having rejected others. the rejection of judaists being called "antsemitism". thus we r called antisemitic. we can call u antigoyim and throw muck at each other forever or stop the nonsense. how ab. it? thank u.
Imagine my surprise, when, upon viewing the article in the May 9, 2008 article, I looked at the photograph and stared right into the eyes of my late father!!! Hi is sitting in the front row, third from left and his name was Harry Davidoff. As far back as I can recall, he was an ardent Zionist and served on the Detroit Board of the ZOA for many years. It was quite a thrill to see him in this photo. Thank-you!!!