by Rabbi Alan Silverstein, PhD | President of Mercaz Olami (Representing the global Masorti/Conservative movement)
Upon assuming the leadership of the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York, Solomon Schechter immediately proceeded to assemble a high-quality roster of faculty committed to joining with him in interpreting Judaism for American Jews. As Norman Bentwich observed, Schechter’s recruitment of intellectuals was modeled upon his inspiring experience in England within a network that “sought to arouse Jewish consciousness and an interest in Jewish culture…. Included in this group were Dr. Moses Gaster…, chief rabbi of the Sephardic community…, Israel Zangwill…, Lucien Wolf and Joseph Jacobs…, Solomon J. Solomon…, Asher Myers, editor of ‘The Jewish Chronicle’…, and Israel Abrahams…, a tutor at Jews’ College, who would later succeed Schechter in teaching rabbinical studies at Cambridge University….” This group of creative thinkers “called itself the ‘Wanderers.’”
In New York’s JTS, Schechter sought to duplicate the “Wanderers” synergy. To that end, Bentwich wrote, Schechter “found in the United States Louis Ginzberg, who, like Schechter himself, was a great master of Midrash, and J. M. Asher, who became Professor of Homiletics [sermons]. From Europe Schechter recruited Israel Friedlaender of the Strasbourg University in Bible exegesis, and the historian Alexander Marx, who had just finished his studies at Konigsberg. Later, Israel Davidson was engaged to teach medieval literature…. Realizing also the great need in American Jewry for trained teachers, Schechter established in 1909 the Teachers’ Institute as part of the Seminary, with Mordecai Kaplan as its director.”
Assessing the Jewish peoplehood commitment of this New York City group that was akin to the “Wanderers,” Dr. Naomi Cohen commented that the JTS faculty “fully supported Schechter’s Zionist position. Like the president [Schechter], all were traditionalist Jews who subscribed to the two-centered [Palestine and the Diaspora] vision and cultural theories of Ahad Ha’Am. Their Zionism was a private and low-keyed affair. As Alexander Marx, professor of history explained, “We were all Zionists — but not active [in the Zionist movement].
“Except for Friedlaender and the young Mordecai Kaplan, the luminaries of the faculty — Marx, Louis Ginzberg, Israel Davidson — confined their organized Zionist activities primarily to participation in the short-lived Achavah Club [which] discussed aspects of contemporary Jewish problems from a learned perspective. Achavah limited its membership to [Zionists], ‘adherents of National Judaism.’” Like Schechter, “Friedlaender and Kaplan…regularly attended Zionist meetings and delivered Zionist lectures…. Their wives followed suit; Lilian Friedlaender, Lena Kaplan, and Mathilde Schechter…were among the first directors of Hadassah.”
In particular, during the Schechter years at JTS, “it was Israel Friedlaender who chalked up the most impressive Zionist record…. He played a multi-faceted Zionist role: organizer, committeeman, polemicist, and, above all, theoretician. Baila Round Shargel’s biography of Friedlaender, titled ‘Practical Dreamer,’ offers numerous examples of Friedlaender’s approach: ‘Diaspora plus Palestine, religion plus nationalism.’… His views, like Schechter’s, but developed in far greater detail, made him a major influence on Seminary students, who knew him as the Zionist ‘par excellence.’”
Friedlaender tried to be a consensus builder. He rejected the polar opposites of either Jewish religion without nationalism as well as Jewish nationalism without religion. He offered a synthesis in accord with his formula of “Diaspora plus Palestine, Religion plus Nationalism.” His Zionist objective was to unite as many American Jews as possible around a common principle: to include the wealthy philanthropists as well as the still impoverished immigrants in support of upbuilding Palestine.
Dr. Shargel reminds us of the expanse of the Zionist activities that Friedlaender engaged in. He “served as chairman of the Zionist Council in New York in 1905. He headed the [nationwide] FAZ education program beginning in 1906. For several years he worked with Harry Friedenwald and Henrietta Szold assembling materials for a Zionist manual…. To assure a Zionist future in America, he organized Young Judaea and was active in the Intercollegiate Zionist Organization. By 1910-11, he rose to serve as chairman of the FAZ executive committee.”
Rabbi Simcha Kling in “Zionism and the Conservative Movement,” added the observation that Friedlaender viewed Zionism as essential for Judaism’s survival in the modern era. He “did not believe that Judaism in the Diaspora could survive if there were no Eretz Yisrael; on the other hand, the establishment of a revived Eretz Yisrael did not mean the end of Diaspora Jewry….” In a pamphlet titled “Zionism and World Peace,” Friedlaender concluded that “Judaism represented an indissoluble combination of nationalism and religion…, a national religion.… The Jewish people was, first and foremost, a religious nation.”
Rabbi Kling made note of Friedlaender’s satisfaction in watching Zionist striving spread both among American Jews of the earlier German immigration as well as more recent arrivals from Eastern Europe. “The German Jews were beginning to appreciate the effects of a Hebraic life in Palestine on the Diaspora and the Russian Jews were helping build a sound Judaism in the New World…,” Kling wrote. “Zionism should not be concerned only with the securing of a Jewish center for the Jewish people as a whole.”
Additionally, like his mentor Ahad Ha’Am and colleague Judah Magnes, Friedlaender “did not minimize the potential danger of the Arab presence [in Palestine] to either the physical well-being or the spiritual advancement of the Jewish people [there].” He offered a list of educational recommendations to promote good will between Jews and Arabs in the Land: “A Bureau of Information to collect data on all aspects of Arabic life, a periodical devoted to promoting good relations between Arabs and Jews, translation of Arabic classics into Hebrew, and the republication of the works of medieval Jewish writers who wrote in Arabic.”
Schechter and his Zionist faculty did encounter opposition from key philanthropist and anti-Zionist Jacob Schiff. Fortunately for Schechter and his cohort, the non-Zionist chair of the JTS board, Louis Marshall, came to their defense. Dr. Naomi Cohen recalled that “Marshall defended Schechter’s right to support Zionism publicly; the board, he said, never sought to control the judgment of individual directors [board members], faculty members, or students. He emphatically denied [Schiff’s accusation of] the incompatibility of Zionism with American patriotism.
“A self-styled non-Zionist who was critical of political Zionism, Marshall nonetheless praised Zionist accomplishments in words strikingly similar to Schechter’s. ‘Zionism has been productive of immense benefits to Judaism. It has stimulated a living interest in its history and developments among thousands who have hitherto been indifferent to things Jewish and among many who otherwise would have been lost [to the people of Israel]. It has rescued Hebrew from the category of dead languages. It has given birth to manly Jewish consciousness [and it] has made Jewish culture signify something that is positive instead of the shadow of a name.’”
Rabbi Alan Silverstein, PhD, was religious leader of Congregation Agudath Israel in Caldwell, NJ, for more than four decades, retiring in 2021. He served as president of the Rabbinical Assembly, the international association of Conservative rabbis (1993-95); as president of the World Council of Conservative/Masorti Synagogues (2000-05); and as chair of the Foundation for Masorti Judaism in Israel (2010-14). He currently serves as president of Mercaz Olami, representing the world Masorti/Conservative movement. He is the author of “It All Begins with a Date: Jewish Concerns about Interdating,” “Preserving Jewishness in Your Family: After Intermarriage Has Occurred,” and “Alternatives to Assimilation: The Response of Reform Judaism to American Culture, 1840-1930.”