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3. Zionism in Alabama, 1933–45
- The University of Alabama Press
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3 Zionism in Ala bama, 1933–45 The modern Zionist movement began when Theodore Herzl published Der Judenstaat in 1896 and the First Zionist Congress convened in Basel, Switzerland , in August 1897. It gained further impetus after Great Britain conquered much of the territories that comprised Palestine from the Ottoman Empire in 1917–18. On No vem ber 2, 1917, the British foreign secretary, Lord Arthur James Balfour, issued a declaration in a letter to Lord Lionel Walter Rothschild that promised a “national home for Jewish people” in Palestine, whereby the British government would “use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this objective.” Neither Balfour nor the British government , however, provided any timetable for the creation of the Jewish state.1 Nevertheless, the Balfour Declaration contributed greatly to the Zionist movement. The East ern European Jews who immigrated to the United States in the late nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries brought with them a strong adherence to Jewish tradition and the vivid memories of past persecution and pogroms upon which Zionism firmly rested. As Melvin Urofsky notes, among European Jews, “messianic hopes for redemption had always existed in the midst of Jewish misery.”2 Indeed, Zionist organizations had existed among a portion of Ala bama’s East ern European Jews since shortly after the Basel conference, but Hitler’s assumption of power and the Nazi persecution of the Jews energized the movement among East ern European Jews and even attracted some new supporters from the Reform community. In Birmingham, Montgomery, and Mobile, Zionists actively organized and campaigned not only to aid and rescue persecuted European Jews but also to build support for the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine, lobbying local and state politicians to support their agenda. In fact, where it concerned the establishment of a Jewish state, Ala bama’s Zionists had an easier time gaining support from Gentiles than from Reform Jews. The wealthier, acculturated Reform Jews of Ala bama did not embrace Zionism. Most Reform Jews supported the position of the Central Con- Zionism in Alabama / 75 ference of Ameri can Rabbis (CCAR), which, until 1937, opposed the establishment of a Jewish state. According to the Pittsburgh Platform adopted by the CCAR in 1885, “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.”3 Many of Ala bama’s Reform Jews agreed with the CCAR’s position and did not consider Judaism a nationality. They saw themselves as Ameri cans, adhered to the Classical Reform position that saw acculturation into the larger Ameri can culture as the key to success, and worried that any support for the Zionist cause would single them out as incompatible , or even conflicting, with accepted cultural norms and local traditions . As a result they did not believe in drawing attention to themselves, and they were uncomfortable with Jews being in the pub lic eye in connection with such a movement. This attitude cannot be attributed solely to the South or to south ern Jews, but the rigid conformity inherent in south ern society reinforced it and suggested to them that anything less than 100 percent commitment to American or southern ideals could arouse suspicion. Support for another po liti cal state, such as a Jewish state in Palestine, they believed, could easily raise the issue of dual loyalty. To emphasize the point, Myron Silverman, Emanu- El’s assistant rabbi, told the Birmingham Rotary Club in August 1939 that Christianity and Judaism “stood unalterably opposed to fascism and communism,” and the Nazis’ persecutions were shortsighted because “the German Jew is as much a German as any German citizen . . . just as an Ameri can Jew is an Ameri can. Every contribution they make to the culture of the country in which they live is made as a native of that country, not as a Jew. They are loyal to their adopted countries.”4 Indeed, the nativist sentiment that produced waves of prejudice across the United States in the 1920s and into 1930s—most notably anti- Catholicism and antisemitism , rooted in questions about communism, subversion, and immigrants’ loyalties—confirmed many Reform Jews’ belief that Zionists were too particular about their Jewishness, determined to cling to their East ern European culture, and less willing to acculturate to the larger Gentile society in which they lived. As Theodore Lowi...