The Politics of Torah, The Jewish Political Tradition and the Founding of Agudat Israel (review)

132 SHOFAR Winter 1998 Vol. 16, No.2 Cohen concludes that British and American contingency plans for defense of the Middle East "appear as little short of a farce." Although he offers no evidence to support his view, he contends that the Soviets could have conquered the Middle East with relative ease had they tried to do so. Whether or not the contingency plans could have been implemented in a realistic fashion, they were far from a farce. Cohen shows that these strategic plans had a tremendous impact on how Britain responded to the rising tide ofEgyptian nationalism and on how it conducted its entire Middle East diplomacy. So important were the plans that they impelled London to initiate tentative talks with Ben-Gurion on how to use Israeli territory to help defend the British complex at Cairo-Suez! Contingency war planning and peacetime diplomacy were inextricably linked. Few observers knew this at the time, but thanks to Cohen's book readers will now realize how important the Middle East was in the strategic calculations of Washington and London at the outset ofthe Cold War. Melvyn P. Leffler Department of History University ofVirginia The Politics of Torah, The Jewish Political Tradition and the Founding of Agudat Israel, by Alan L. Mittelman. Albany: State University ofNew York Press, 1996. 200 pp. $19.95. The title of this book is both attractive and fascinating, and anyone who has read the author's Between Kant and the Kabbalah, An Introduction to Isaac Breuer's Philosophy of Judaism knows that his new book will make a valuable contribution to our understanding and knowledge oforthodox German Jewry. We know from the opening pages that the author has something significant to tell us. In many ways, he has become the educator for vast numbers of Jews who know little about the founding of Agudat Israel, and such men as Jacob Rosenheim, Solomon Breuer-Isaac Breuer's father-and Isaac Itzik Halevy. As we begin to read, we realize that we are at the beginning of a story, a political struggle for a vision, of a definition, a clarification of the essence of Judaism, of orthodox Judaism, particularly in Germany. Defmitions are difficult to arrive at. Learned men feel as if they were with God at the creation, and to them something unique has been revealed. Often, we believe they achieve this honor. Often, we realize their closeness to God is often obtained at the expense of another whose neologues are different and considered unsuitable. We become enchanted by the language of the Rabbis, political in their search for power-a trait we see ever more clearly today. Happily, they join metahistorical speculations with their search for the Book Reviews 133 proper neologues. The faith makes it possible for them tO,use such phrases as "Shornrei torah v'mitzvot," "traditionelle-gesetzstreue" (traditional law-loyal). The words leave us in a forest of signs and symbols that make explorations hardly possible. They are lights leading us to the discussions among Rabbis whose will to defme is often greater than their will to clarify. Each feels a mission to reveal the hidden mystery of the Klal Israel, each wants to convince the other of the fact that he is "prinzipiell richtig." As we read Mittelman's book, we have the feeling that we are not dealing as much with religious men as with politicians. His last chapter, called "Renewing the Sacred Polity: The Founding ofAgudat Israel," reads like a political, i.e., machiavellian, novel of men in search of influence and power, each struggling to be the interpreter of the divine council, each battling over terms and nuances, each suspicious of the other, fearing that one term or another will diminish their dominance in the movement, giving them less voice in the fmal establishment ofAgudat Israel. The Kattowitz Conference of 1911-12 showed with stark clarity that life in this world is organization, but rarely compromise and consensus, although only through the latter do we bring the peace of humility. This matters little today. Few are concerned with this humility. What were these men fighting about in their subtle, clever, but rhetorical ways? They brought with them their sociological...