MERCAZ USA Newsletter — Spring 2009

President's Column — Dr. Stephen S. Wolnek

[Ed: We are happy to present the following article "Who Is A Zionist" by Rabbi Reuven Hammer, former President of the Rabbinical Assembly and Head of the Rabbinical Court of the Rabbinical Assembly of Israel]"

"Who is a Zionist? That is a question that I thought about a great deal this week when I participated in the annual convention of the international Rabbinical Assembly in Jerusalem together with hundreds of my fellow rabbis from around the world. The organization itself, as well as the worldwide Conservative/Masorti Movement of which it is a part, certainly considers and always has considered itself Zionist, as do the overwhelming majority of its members even though they do not live in Israel. Of course the answer depends upon one's definition of Zionism. Those who subscribe to the classic political Zionist definition held by Ben Gurion among others, namely that a Zionist is one who lives in Israel or at least actively intends to do so, would say that they are not Zionists.

It seems to me that that definition has long been abandoned by most Jews and that Zionism today means believing and actively supporting Israel as the national homeland of the Jewish People no matter where individual Jews may live. It means asserting that Jews not only have a right to a state, but have the need of such a place in the land of Israel where they can be the majority culture and determine their own future destiny. Those who support and work toward that goal are Zionists.

If this definition is correct, Conservative Judaism was Zionist before the modern Zionist movement even came into existence since the intellectual founder of the movement, Zachariah Frankel, who lived in Breslau in the nineteenth century, wrote a book advocating a Jewish state in the Land of Israel long before Herzl's time. More importantly, in the early twentieth century Solomon Schechter, the President of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, was himself a delegate to early Zionist congresses and visited Palestine where his brother lived.

Schechter's advocacy of Zionism was bold and courageous. At that time the majority of Orthodox authorities violently opposed it. Reform Judaism was also vehemently against it. Most of the members of the JTS board were prominent New York German Jews who, although they supported the Seminary as a place that would help in the acculturation of the immigrants from Eastern Europe, were themselves Reform. That did not deter Schechter from active Zionism.

Obviously Schechter's Zionism was religious, connecting the return to Zion with the revival of religious Judaism. There are other versions of Zionism as well that are secular, but all of them have in common the concept that a Jewish commonwealth in the Land of Israel is a vital part of the existence of the Jewish People, its history and culture. Anyone who believes that, supports it, and works toward it is, in my mind, a Zionist no matter where he or she may live. One who resides in Israel but sees it merely as another place to live is not part of the Zionist enterprise.

We hear a great deal these days about post-Zionism. Believing in making peace with our neighbors, establishing a Palestinian State or making territorial compromises or even criticizing specific actions of Israel does not necessarily make one a post-Zionist. But denying the Jewish character of Israel does.

That Zionism is under attack by anti-Semites throughout the world is so obvious as to need no documentation here. Unfortunately some of those attacking Zionism are Jews. It is therefore all the more important that Zionism be strengthened within the Jewish community in the Diaspora and also within the Jewish community in Israel. To my mind the best way to do this is to see Zionism not as jingoistic nationalism, but as an integral part of Judaism as Schechter defined it — the attempt to realize the great truths and ideals of Judaism within the confines of the Jewish community in the only country where Jews are a majority and therefore in control of their own society and their own destiny. To put it simply, we deny that Zionism is racism. We affirm that Zionism is Judaism."

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