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4. The Nonconformist American Jewish Leader
- Syracuse University Press
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• • 92 4 The Nonconformist American Jewish Leader A lt hough J u da h M agn e s’s e f f ort to radically reconstruct Reform Judaism drew upon cultural Zionism, this was only part of the larger process he was to engage in: the reinvention of American Jewish ethnicity under a unifying national ideal. Tirelessly expanding his public activities outside the walls of the synagogue, during the first two decades of the twentieth century he took leadership roles in the Jewish Defense Association , the Federation of American Zionists, and the New York Kehillah. He also involved himself in the contested effort to establish an American Jewish Congress during the early years of World War I. As a leader, he developed his American ideas and Zionist thought. In the process, out of the interplay of the cultural Zionism he brought from Germany, American progressivism, and his experiences in American Jewish public life, Magnes forged his own unique Jewish national ideal. Although definitions of progressivism are much debated, it is clear that Magnes was deeply immersed in the cluster of activities that is associated with the term. But his progressive activity was restricted. Unlike his contemporary Rabbi Stephen Wise, Magnes did not participate in any progressive reforms outside the Jewish community.1 He showed no concern for child labor laws, women’s suffrage, antimonopolism, or environmental conservation, to name just a few progressive issues. Rather, it is more precise to characterize Magnes as politically progressive . But when characterizing him in this way, it is important to note the subdivisions among the politically progressive. The categories created by historians are circumvented by individuals who cross over into different camps and by those who fail to fit into strict categories. Still, as the keyword “interests” seemed to dominate much of the concern of the American progressives , political debates during the Progressive Era reflected the struggle The Nonconformist American Jewish Leader | 93 to create a balance, however “uneasy,” between popular democracy and elite “responsible” leadership. In one form or another, progressives sought to create democratic efficient management systems to reform American society. On opposite ends of a spectrum were, to adopt Richard Hofstadter’s rather old terms, the “populist” progressives and the “ultraconservatives,” and in between the “conservative” progressives. Although the issues and actors involved in the debates were more complex than Hofstadter’s categories allow, his labels are useful if we understand them as features on a spectrum of progressive positions.2 They provide us with the opportunity to see how American Jewish politics mirrored the wider political debates in American society during the Progressive Era.3 Judah Magnes stood between the oligarchic German Jewish elite who feared any type of democratic intrusion on their rule and a new generation of American immigrant and Zionist leaders who insisted that American Jewish politics be based upon popular democracy.4 His goal was to refashion Jews in America as a solidified ethnic group that retained its internal diversity. To achieve this lofty goal, Magnes sought to create a balance in American Jewish politics between democracy and responsible nonpartisan leadership. Like American progressives trying to find the “authoritative will of a democratic nation,”5 Magnes endeavored to establish the “Jewish point of view” as a unifying national ideal for American Jews. Magnes was influenced by progressive corporate liberalism and its emphasis on ordering interest groups.6 After returning from his studies in Germany, he noticed that American Jews were torn apart by interests. While teaching at Hebrew Union College in 1904, he lamented about the “anchorlessness” of Jews in America: “We do not know what we are, what we stand for . . . our present is without a point of view.” Magnes hoped American Jews would achieve a degree of ethnic unity through democratic debate in which no Jewish interest group had controlling power. He thus wanted all the diverse groups within Jewish life to come together to create a democratic discourse that established a perspective representative of the modern Jewish people as a whole. “Let all of Jewish life,” Magnes wrote in 1912, “be represented by a circle of 360º.”7 Magnes’s varied companions in New York reflected his own Jewish nationalist ideological view on the heterogeneity of American Jewish life. In addition to his friendships with JTS scholars and German Jewish philanthropists , Magnes befriended Jewish educators, Eastern European radicals and socialists, American-born and immigrant Zionists, and Yiddish writers and artists. This multifarious cluster of Jewish activists and intellectuals [34.201.173.244] Project...