At the Crossroads: Essays on Ahad Ha'am

11. Ahad Ha-Amism in American Zionist Thought

CHAPTER 11 Ahad Ha-Amism in American Zionist Thought EVYATAR FRIESEL Spanning several generations, from the first decade of the century to the 1950s, Ahad Ha-Am was a major and enduring intellectual influence on American Zionists. Indeed his influence extended beyond Zionism to American Judaism itself. At the same time, American Jews trimmed his thought to their own requirements. Accordingly, it is appropriate to ask when, and through whom, did Ahad HaAm 's ideas enter American Zionist thought and how were his ideas altered by the American Jewish social and spiritual milieu? From its beginnings at the tum of the nineteenth century to the end of the Brandeis period in 1921, there were clear and distinct ideological trends in American Zionism. Afterwards, the debacle of the Brandeis leadership produced organizational as well as ideological confusion, blurring the lines between ideologies on the one hand and distinct policies and leading groups on the other. The first administration of the Federation of American Zionists, led by Richard J. H. Gottheil and Jacob de Haas, had been close to Theodor Herzl both personally and ideologically and opposed to "cultural" Zionism (although these differences never became important in American Zionist circles).1 Ahad Ha-Am's ideas were adopted and elaborated by the American Zionist movement in the period 1904 to 1910, during the second administration of the Federation of American Zionists, whose most prominent figures were Harry Friedenwald, Judah Magnes, and Israel Friedlander. The third administration, led by Louis Lipsky (1911-1914), while not opposed to the cultural Zionist position, was divided between adherents of Ahad Ha-Am 133 EVYATAR FRIESEL and activists like Bernard Rosenblatt and Louis Lipsky himself, who went their own ideological way. During the Brandeis era from 1914 on, the new line in American Zionism moved away from the conceptions of Ahad Ha-Am.2 The elaboration of Ahad Ha-Amism in America began then, during the first decade of the century. I shall deal in this essay with the early period up to the Brandeis era. Close to the American Zionist administration was a group whose members considered themselves (and were considered by others) followers of Ahad Ha-Am. As Abraham Eliyahu Lubarsky, an old friend, wrote to Ahad Ha-Am in 1907, "Schechter, Malter, Margolis, Schloessinger, Friedlander, Marx and Magnes, and their friends, did not rally to Herzl and Nordau, but preferred your banner; they are your adherents with their whole hearts and souls, even if sometimes they disagree with you on small details."3 Lubarsky's list included the outstanding names among contemporary American cultural Zionists ; only Harry Friedenwald was not mentioned, and Mordecai Kaplan, then still a student, could have been included later on. Most of these figures cotTesponded with Ahad Ha-Am; all expressed their support for his ideas in letters, articles, and at conferences.4 Some were tied to Ahad Ha-Am, both personally and ideologically, from their years in Europe. In this category were Lubarsky and Schechter, who became a declared Zionist only in 1906.5 Ahad Ha-Am observed the development of the Jewish community in America with a live interest, for many of his friends and followers were gradually settling there.6 Soon plans were made for him to visit the United States.7 During the years 1906-09 when plans were laid to establish Dropsie College in Philadelphia, Schechter and Lubarsky thought of Ahad Ha-Am as the possible head of the new institution.8 In 1910 he was invited to teach a course on the history of Jewish ethics. He accepted, but the trip was twice postponed, and in the end he was unable to gO.9 As it turned out, Ahad Ha-Am never visited the United States, in spite of his interest and the various projects and plans hatched by his American friends. The most important interpreter of Ahad Ha-Am among American Zionists, was Israel Friedlander. Born in Kovel, Poland, in 1876, Friedlander arrived in the United States in 1904, invited by Schecter to teach at the Jewish Theological Seminary.lO Friedlander had participated in the Sixth Zionist Congress (the "Uganda Congress") in 1903, and was familiar with European Zionism and its ideologies. He had introduced Western European readers to Ahad Ha-Am as early as 1898, as the first to translate Ahad Ha-Am from Hebrew 134 AHAD HA-AMISM IN AMERICAN ZIONIST THOUGHT into German. In 1904 he published the...