The publication of Theodore Herzl’s Der Judenstaat in 1896 marked the birth of the modern Zionist movement. (Wikimedia Commons) In a recent survey conducted by the American Jewish Committee, roughly three of four American Jews indicated a deep affinity for Israel. That American Jews today have such feelings toward Israel may not seem surprising, but prior
to the 1930s and 1940s kinship between American Jews and a prospective Jewish state was less predictable. Only the persecution of Jews begun by Adolf Hitler in 1933, culminating with the murder of approximately six million European Jews by 1945, convinced many American Jews to support Zionism, the movement to establish a Jewish state in Palestine. The trials and tribulations that followed Israel’s creation in 1948 made that support even stronger, and Alabama’s Jews were no different in their response.
The modern Zionist movement began with Theodore Herzl’s Der Judenstaat in 1896 and the First Zionist Congress that convened in Basel, Switzerland, in 1897. The movement was bolstered by Great Britain’s 1917 Balfour Declaration that promised “a national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine. In the United States, Eastern European Jews, many of whom immigrated in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, were imbued with Zionist principles from an early age and tended to be the most ardent supporters of Zionism. One of Alabama’s first Zionist organizations, for example, was founded in Birmingham by Russian immigrants Frank and Ike Abelson during the first decade of the twentieth century, and in Alabama such organizations coalesced around the state’s Eastern European Jews and around Montgomery’s Sephardim, who came from the Isle of Rhodes and the Levant.
By contrast, Central European Jews—many of whom had arrived earlier in the nineteenth century, embraced Reform Judaism, and acculturated to a significant degree—largely opposed Zionism. Reform Jews, including those in Alabama, supported the position taken in 1885 by the Central Conference of American Rabbis: “We consider ourselves no longer a nation, but a religious community, and therefore expect neither a return to Palestine, nor a sacrificial worship under the sons of Aaron, nor the restoration of any of the laws concerning the Jewish state.” They viewed themselves as Americans and adhered to the Reform position that saw acculturation into the larger American culture as the key to success. Alabama’s Reform Jews worried that any support for the Zionist cause would single them out as incompatible with the accepted cultural norms and southern traditions. Their inability to blend into a region of rigid conformity, they feared, would only serve to make them more conspicuous. As Rabbi Eugene Blachschleger of Montgomery’s Temple Beth Or taught his congregants, “I’m a Caucasian by race, I’m an American by nationality, and my faith is Judaism.”
This clash over Zionism added to already stark differences in religion, culture, and class between Eastern European and Central European Jews. As Birmingham Zionist leader Abe Berkowitz noted, prior to 1933 Alabama’s Reform Jews “had nothing whatever to do with Zionism.... It is fair to say that...they generally viewed Zionism as synonymous with Russian or Polish Jews.” Hitler’s assumption of power, how- ever, expanded the movement to include Reform Jews. As Nazi anti-Semitic policies and pogroms increased, Eastern European and Central European Jews worked hand-in- hand in Birmingham, Mobile, and Montgomery to alleviate Jewish suffering abroad. As the mass murder of European Jews became known by late 1942, many Reform Jews who had emphatically rejected the Zionist cause began seeing a Jewish state as a viable and even necessary option for Jewish survival.
By contrast, Central European Jews—many of whom had arrived earlier in the nineteenth century, embraced Reform Judaism, and acculturated to a significant degree—largely opposed Zionism. Reform Jews, including those in Alabama, supported the position taken in 1885 by the Central Conference of American Rabbis: “We consider ourselves no longer a nation, but a religious community, and therefore expect neither a return to Palestine, nor a sacrificial worship under the sons of Aaron, nor the restoration of any of the laws concerning the Jewish state.” They viewed themselves as Americans and adhered to the Reform position that saw acculturation into the larger American culture as the key to success. Alabama’s Reform Jews worried that any support for the Zionist cause would single them out as incompatible with the accepted cultural norms and southern traditions. Their inability to blend into a region of rigid conformity, they feared, would only serve to make them more conspicuous. As Rabbi Eugene Blachschleger of Montgomery’s Temple Beth Or taught his congregants, “I’m a Caucasian by race, I’m an American by nationality, and my faith is Judaism.”
This clash over Zionism added to already stark differences in religion, culture, and class between Eastern European and Central European Jews. As Birmingham Zionist leader Abe Berkowitz noted, prior to 1933 Alabama’s Reform Jews “had nothing whatever to do with Zionism.... It is fair to say that...they generally viewed Zionism as synonymous with Russian or Polish Jews.” Hitler’s assumption of power, how- ever, expanded the movement to include Reform Jews. As Nazi anti-Semitic policies and pogroms increased, Eastern European and Central European Jews worked hand-in- hand in Birmingham, Mobile, and Montgomery to alleviate Jewish suffering abroad. As the mass murder of European Jews became known by late 1942, many Reform Jews who had emphatically rejected the Zionist cause began seeing a Jewish state as a viable and even necessary option for Jewish survival.
Russian immigrants Frank and Ike Abelson founded one of the first Zionist organizations in Alabama.
Zionism remained a controversial issue upon which
not all Reform Jews agreed, as evidenced by the December 1942 creation of the American Council for Judaism (ACJ) by a group of Reform Jews uneasy about Zionism’s growing influence. The ACJ, whose early members included a number of prominent Reform Jews from Alabama, proclaimed that “we cannot but believe that Jewish nationalism tends to confuse our fellow men about our place and function
in society and also diverts our attention from our historical role to live as a religious community wherever we may dwell.” Still, the establishment of the ACJ came only two weeks after the US State Department confirmed the mass murder of Jews in Eastern Europe, which subsequently limited the ACJ’s popularity. As one scholar has noted, “[T]he fires of the Holocaust seared the young Reform rabbinical wing, as it did their fellow American Jews, converting them to a visceral under- standing of the indissoluble link that existed between Jewish catastrophe and Jewish sovereignty.”
Two of those young Reform rabbis seared by the fires of the Holocaust, Rabbi Milton Grafman of Birmingham’s Temple Emanu-El and Rabbi Bertram Wallace Korn of Mobile’s Congregation Sha’arai Shomayim, did much to champion Zionism within their cities and congregations. Grafman, for instance, joined an already active Zionist organization in Birmingham and began to attract congregants to a movement that had been largely bereft of Reform members. Moreover, because Reform rabbis generally had a greater public profile than either Conservative or Orthodox rabbis and were viewed as “ambassadors to the Gentiles,” Grafman and Korn helped to popularize the movement beyond the Jewish community. By mid-1943, lobbying efforts by Zionists resulted in the Alabama legislature becoming the first in the United States to endorse the creation of a Jewish state. Rep. Sid Smyer and Sen. James Simpson, both of Birmingham, sponsored a joint resolution in May 1943 stating that the “policy of the Axis powers to exterminate the Jews of Europe through mass murder cries out for action by the United Nations representing the civilized world” and calling for the “establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine.”
Two of those young Reform rabbis seared by the fires of the Holocaust, Rabbi Milton Grafman of Birmingham’s Temple Emanu-El and Rabbi Bertram Wallace Korn of Mobile’s Congregation Sha’arai Shomayim, did much to champion Zionism within their cities and congregations. Grafman, for instance, joined an already active Zionist organization in Birmingham and began to attract congregants to a movement that had been largely bereft of Reform members. Moreover, because Reform rabbis generally had a greater public profile than either Conservative or Orthodox rabbis and were viewed as “ambassadors to the Gentiles,” Grafman and Korn helped to popularize the movement beyond the Jewish community. By mid-1943, lobbying efforts by Zionists resulted in the Alabama legislature becoming the first in the United States to endorse the creation of a Jewish state. Rep. Sid Smyer and Sen. James Simpson, both of Birmingham, sponsored a joint resolution in May 1943 stating that the “policy of the Axis powers to exterminate the Jews of Europe through mass murder cries out for action by the United Nations representing the civilized world” and calling for the “establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine.”
Many Reform Jews who had been ambivalent or antagonistic toward Zionism in the pre-war years reassessed their position, while others simply accepted Zionism as a fait accompli after 1948.
When the Zionist dream finally came to pass in 1948 with the establishment of the state of Israel, it did not end the cultural rift that existed among American Jews. It did, however, foster a process of reconciliation that took many years to accomplish and included intermarriages between Central European and Eastern European Jews—and the Sephardim in Montgomery—that occurred during World War II and in the years that followed. Many Reform Jews who had been ambivalent or antagonistic toward Zionism in the pre-war years reassessed their position, while others simply accepted Zionism as a fait accompli after 1948. Reconciliation could be seen in Mobile, for instance, where those at Sha’arai Shomayim “appealed for a growing sense of unity and togetherness among all Jews of our community.” Rabbi Samuel M. Gup “supported this appeal by asserting that there [were] no theological differences among the Jews of Mobile...[and] that whatever social differences existed, these were of little consequence” considering momentous events in Palestine. In Birmingham, William P. Engel, the president of Temple Emanu-El, remarked that “the Jews have established their own nation, and whether we were Zionist or Anti-, enthusiastic or passive, we must admit that this is no longer the question. We can lay aside our likes or dislikes in these directions and hope that this new Nation will be established on the plane of tolerance, peace and understanding; that it will always be the refuge for the displaced and the abused people of the world and that its future history may be so moulded as to make it the beacon for all other Nations of the world to follow. We are no less loyal to America when we hope for these things.” The ACJ quickly dwindled in size and relevance as members withdrew from the organization because they saw no reason for “perpetuating internal Jewish controversy” after the creation of a Jewish state.
The close relationship between American Jews and Israel did not develop overnight. After Israel faced existential threats during the Six-Day War in 1967 and the Yom Kippur War in 1973, both of which evoked memories of the Holocaust, more American Jews moved closer to the Jewish state. Recent national opinion polls, moreover, suggest that continuing threats to Israel, such as those from Iran, have prompted American Jews to support the Jewish state in even greater numbers. The bond between American Jews and the embattled Jewish state, although not without controversy, remains strong in Alabama and throughout the country, forged from the persistence of Zionism and the traumatic experiences of the Holocaust.
This feature was previously published in Issue 106, Fall 2012.
The close relationship between American Jews and Israel did not develop overnight. After Israel faced existential threats during the Six-Day War in 1967 and the Yom Kippur War in 1973, both of which evoked memories of the Holocaust, more American Jews moved closer to the Jewish state. Recent national opinion polls, moreover, suggest that continuing threats to Israel, such as those from Iran, have prompted American Jews to support the Jewish state in even greater numbers. The bond between American Jews and the embattled Jewish state, although not without controversy, remains strong in Alabama and throughout the country, forged from the persistence of Zionism and the traumatic experiences of the Holocaust.
This feature was previously published in Issue 106, Fall 2012.
Author
Dan J. Puckett, associate professor of history at Troy University, is the author of the forthcoming In the Shadow of Hitler: Alabama’s Jews and the Holocaust (University of Alabama Press). Joshua D. Rothman, standing editor of the “Southern Religion” department of Alabama Heritage, is associate professor of history at the University of Alabama and director of the university’s Frances S. Summersell Center for the Study of the South, which sponsors this department.
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