The Radical American Judaism of Mordecai M. Kaplan

5. Kaplan and Peoplehood: Judaism as a Civilization and Zionism

88 [Emil Fackenheim said that Kaplan represented] “the best side of the American pragmatic genius which refuses to subordinate realities to the requirements of philosophical or theological systems. The other is the indomitable love for amcha [the Jewish people] by an indomitable man.” —Sh’ma, 1972 Despite our focus on Mordecai Kaplan’s individualism and on Ralph Waldo Emerson’s influence, Kaplan was primarily a “man of the group.” From very early on, he was obsessed with finding a way to ensure the survivaloftheJewishpeople.Inhisclassicwork JudaismasaCivilization, Kaplan declared that it was only within the group that the individual could find fulfillment: “Only though the interaction with his group can the individual achieve personality and self fulfillment or salvation.”1 The continued existence of the Jews was always his overriding concern. Indeed ,heoncethoughtofcallinghisnewapproachZionistJudaism.Nothing was more important to him than the fate of the Jewish people. Not everyone understood Kaplan, including Emil Fackenheim, one ofhisseverestcriticsthroughoutthe1950s.Fackenheimeventuallycame to appreciate Kaplan and wrote a very moving essay in 1974 in celebration of Kaplan’s ninetieth birthday. In that essay, he acknowledged that Kaplan’s most important quality was his love for Israel and his concern for the fate of world Jewry. Fackenheim never retracted any of his criticisms , even as he recognized the power of Kaplan’s devotion to the Jewish people and his pragmatic brilliance as well.2 Judaism as a civilization is the concept most associated with Kaplan and is the cornerstone of his system. Many have questioned the use of K APLAN AND PEOPLEHOOD: JUDAISM AS A CIVILIZATION AND ZIONISM F I V E Kaplan and Peoplehood 89 the term civilization.For many years, RabbiSimon Greenberg(1901–93), a leading Conservative rabbi of his time, would ask me, whenever we met in the Jewish Theological Seminary cafeteria, “Why did Kaplan talk about Judaism as a civilization? The Eskimos have a civilization. Kaplan should have understood that what was distinctive about Jews was their culture. Civilization has to do with knives and forks.” Greenberg had a point. Civilization deals with all aspects of the life of a people, and every ethnic group has one; but culture deals with the higher creative aspects ofacommunity.Whydidn’tKaplancallhissystem Judaism as a culture?3 The most interesting recent explanation for Kaplan’s use of the term civilization comes from a young academic named Noam Pianko.4 In the 1920s, when Kaplan began to write his magnum opus, the term civilization was quite popular, especially in the works of the Beards and of John Dewey,todescribeAmerica.5 Somealsousedtheterm Christian civilization . Thus, Kaplan’s use of the term fits into the modalities of American thoughtofthetimeandmayalsohavebeenintendedtocounteranincipient anti-Semitism. In the mid-1920s, there was a rise in American nativism ,culminatinginrestrictiveimmigrationlaws.Thisfurthermotivated Kaplan to emphasize the multicultural nature of American civilization and to maintain that Judaism was also a civilization. Kaplan’sassertionthatJewslivedintwocivilizationswasenormouslyhelpfulforthesecond -generationAmericanJewsforwhomKaplanwas a guide. For these children of immigrants, most of whom desperately wanted to be American, Kaplan offered a compelling possibility: yes, he would urge, you can be American, but you can also be Jewish. You can have not one civilization but two. Being a Jew and being an American require adherence to the same values, he argued, so there is no inherent contradiction.6 In exploring the concept of civilization, Kaplan turned to a number of writers, one of whom was the British scholar Sir Alfred Zimmern (1879–1957). Zimmern, who taught Greek at Oxford, wrote extensively on political subjects and particularly on the nature of nationalism. He maintainedthatthere were twotypesofnationalism.One wasthe civilizationalmodelofnationalismexemplifiedbyBritain ;theotherwaswhat hecalledthe“Kultur”modeltypifiedbyGermany.Zimmernmaintained that, in the British Empire, there were different nations who were mem- 90 The Radical American Judaism of Mordecai M. Kaplan bers of one civilization. In the German model of nationalism, there was only one culture present, even though the culture might be spread over several nation-states. Zimmern had strong Zionist leanings and drew many of his ideas from Ahad Ha-Am. He maintained that the German model of civilization , with its emphasis on one group, engenders a deep antipathy toward “the free play of human groupings and discourages all spontaneous or unauthorizedassociations.”7 WheretheGermanmodelsignifiedrestriction , the British model implied pluralism and toleration of difference. From Zimmern’s explication, Kaplan concluded that obviously the best principle for America and for the Jewish people was the British civilizational model of nationalism. Kaplan’s views of the nature of civilization and his pluralistic emphasis were confirmed by...