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6. 1947–1948: An American-Jewish or a Pan-Jewish Leader?
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106 6 1947–1948 An American-Jewish or a Pan-Jewish Leader? By February 17, 1947, even before Bevin’s proposal to bring the issue of Palestine before the United Nations had been authorized by the British Parliament, Silver had proclaimed the opening of a new chapter in the Zionist endeavor. The current challenge, he declared, was to ensure American support for the founding of a Jewish state. Without such support the effort vis-à-vis the United Nations was destined to fail. The understanding that statehood had finally become a tangible objective constituted the fulfillment of a dream that he had cherished since childhood ; his Zionist leadership thus took on a historical dimension far transcending the American-Jewish arena. As chairman of the Jewish Agency’s American section he soon found himself the de facto representative of the Jewish people (and not just of American Zionism) to the nations of the world. This latter role became apparent after a few days of procedural UN deliberations, when the General Assembly decided to appoint the Jewish Agency as the Jewish people’s sole recognized representative before the General Assembly on issues relating to Palestine, thus reaffirming its previous designation as such by the League of Nations. This effectively catapulted Silver to an entirely new status. All at once, he became the authorized representative of a pan-Jewish national entity in the making—an entity striving to secure recognition and exercise its rights in relation to the nations of the world. The need for unity in the name of a future Jewish state became the new basis for Silver’s leadership. The revolutionary nature of this new mode of action could be seen in Silver’s definition of the common denominator An American-Jewish or a Pan-Jewish Leader? | 107 characterizing the Reform movement. From 1945 to 1947, until just a few months before the start of the UN effort, Silver had also served as head of the movement’s rabbinical body, the CCAR. During most of that period, he had been careful not to draw this key Reform institution into Zionist/ anti-Zionist conflicts. This reflected his consistent approach throughout his rabbinical career of viewing the Jewish religion, rather than Zionism, as the unifying force within Judaism and, thus, as the decisive shared feature that ought to bind Zionists, non-Zionists, and anti-Zionists within the Reform movement. However, in June 1947, at the fifty-eighth annual CCAR convention, which marked the end of his term as president, Silver brought about a decision authorizing him to take any measures necessary to ensure a united American-Jewish front vis-à-vis the United Nations, and to demand, in the name of the Reform movement, that the United States actively support a UN resolution guaranteeing the Jewish people’s basic right to a national home in Palestine. This amounted, essentially, to making the issue of support for Jewish statehood something that transcended any internal religious or political disputes within the Reform movement. Silver’s first speech as the Jewish Agency’s representative before the UN’s Ad Hoc Committee on Palestine was yet another indication of his new self-perception as a representative of the overall national interests of the Jewish people. This first, historic address had been scheduled for May 8 at 11:00 a.m. Ben-Gurion, as the Zionist movement’s most senior figure, had been the originally designated speaker; however, a telegram the day earlier announced that he would be arriving in the United States only during the afternoon. At a joint meeting of the Jewish Agency Executive and AZEC, it was decided not to request that the deliberations be postponed but to let Silver deliver the historic address. Though by now a seasoned public speaker renowned for his oratorical skills, Silver was to recollect later that he did not sleep the entire night before. His speech underscored the importance of the Jewish Agency as the Jewish people’s representative body; Silver insisted that, as the representative of the Jewish Agency, he spoke “not merely for the organized Jewish community of Palestine,” but rather on behalf of the entire Jewish people (Neumann 1976, 261; Silver 1949a, 1963a). [3.238.79.169] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 23:36 GMT) 108 | Silver’s Pre-State Zionist Career As the UN campaign intensified, Silver increasingly focused his activities on the single, supreme goal of obtaining worldwide recognition of the future Jewish state. When this new prioritization required that he abandon practices that up...