Jews and Diaspora Nationalism

t he tau b e r i nst i t u t e se r i e s f or

t he st u dy of e u rope a n j e w ry

Jehuda Reinharz, General Editor

Sylvia Fuks Fried, Associate Editor

the brandeis library of modern jewish thought

Eugene R. Sheppard and Samuel Moyn, Editors

This library aims to redefine the canon of modern Jewish thought by publishing

primary source readings from individual Jewish thinkers or groups of thinkers in reliable

English translations. Designed for courses in modern Jewish philosophy, thought, and

intellectual history, each volume features a general introduction and annotations to

each source with the instructor and student in mind.

Jews and Diaspora Nationalism: Writings on Jewish Peoplehood in Europe and the United States

Simon Rabinovitch, editor

Moses Mendelssohn: Writings on Judaism, Christianity, and the Bible

Michah Gottlieb, editor

Jews and Race: Writings on Identity and Difference, 1880–1940

Mitchell B. Hart, editor

for the complete list of books that are forthcoming in

the series, please see http://www.brandeis.edu/tauber

Brandeis University Press Waltham, Massachusetts

Jews & Diaspora Nationalism

Edited by Simon Rabinovitch

W r i t ings on Je W ish PeoPl e hood in eu roPe a nd t he u ni t e d stat e s

brandeis university press

An imprint of University Press of New England

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Israel Knox, “Is America Exile or Home? We Must Begin to Build

for Permanence,” is reprinted from commentary, November 1946,

by permission; copyright © 1946 by Commentary, Inc.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Jews and diaspora nationalism: writings on Jewish peoplehood

in Europe and the United States / edited by Simon Rabinovitch.

p. cm. — (The Tauber institute series for the study of European

Jewry) (The Brandeis library of modern Jewish thought)

Includes index.

isbn 978-1-58465-761-3 (cloth: alk. paper)—

isbn 978-1-58465-762-0 (pbk.: alk. paper)—

isbn 978-1-61168-362-2 (ebook)

1. Jewish nationalism—History. 2. Jews—Identity. 3. Jewish

nationalism—Europe—History. 4. Zionism. 5. Judaism and

politics. 6. Socialism and Judaism. 7. Jews—United States—

Identity. I. Rabinovitch, Simon.

ds 143.j485 2012

320.54095694—dc23 2012018561

5 4 3 2 1

For my parents, Martin and Belinda

Contents

Foreword ix

Preface and Acknowledgments xi

Diaspora, Nation, and Messiah: An Introductory Essay,

Simon Rabinovitch xv

I | From Haskala to National Renaissance

1 | “The Eternal People,” Perets Smolenskin 3

2 | “Jews as a Spiritual (Cultural-Historical) Nation among

Political Nations,” Simon Dubnov 23

3 | “The Jewish Renaissance Movement” and “Jewish Autonomy,”

Nathan Birnbaum 45

4 | “Paths That Lead Away from Yidishkayt,” I. L. Peretz 56

II | Socialism and the Question of Jewish Peoplehood

5 | “A Jew to Jews” and “Why Only Yiddish?” Chaim Zhitlowsky 81

6 | “The Worldwide Jewish Nation,” Vladimir Davidovich Medem 105

7 | “Jewish Autonomy Yesterday and Today,” Jacob Lestschinsky 125

8 | “The Founding Tasks of the Kultur-Lige” and “The Kultur-Lige,”

The Kultur-Lige 140

III | Preservation and Reconstruction in the Republics

9 | “Democracy Versus the Melting-Pot: A Study of American Nationality,”

Horace M. Kallen 155

10 | “The Future of Judaism,” Mordecai M. Kaplan 169

11 | “A Basis for Jewish Consciousness,” René Hirschler 182

12 | “What Is Jewish Tradition?” Avrom Golomb 189

13 | “Is America Exile or Home? We Must Begin to Build for Permanence,”

Israel Knox 203

Epilogue 14 | “Jerusalem and Babylon,” Simon Rawidowicz 217

Suggestions for Further Reading 233

Translation Credits 239

Index 241

Foreword

Perhaps no other force has so permeated the thought of modern times as nationalism. But the practical implications of nationalism have never been clear, especially for peoples with so originally distant and continually vexed a relationship to a specific territory as the Jews have had. Jews and Diaspora Nationalism: Writings on Jewish Peoplehood in Europe and the United States addresses the centrality for much of modern history of the notion that Jewish national-ism may not need to revolve around full possession of a unique place. Self-evidently, this version of “nationalism” has come to seem counter-intuitive in the wake of the Holocaust and the establishment of the State of Israel, when Jewish nationalism and political Zionism appear as synonymous with each other. This volume offers readers an incisive introduction to how, before that equation occurred, Jewish thinkers mobilized, innovated, and adjusted notions of national belonging within the diaspora centers of Europe and the United States. Simon Rabinovitch’s presentation of French, German, Russian, Yiddish, Hebrew, and English primary source materials bespeaks wide- ranging articulations of Jewish nationhood, which have all too often been forgotten with Zionist devaluations of Jewish existence outside of the land and state of Israel. Yet the sheer difference between diaspora nationalism and current views risks obscuring how contentious were the debates about how to define diaspora nationalism in the first place, a struggle for a plausible vision which this volume beautifully captures. And while diaspora national-ists and Zionists typically engaged in heated polemics, Rabinovitch argues that diaspora Jewish nationalism did not suddenly end but was eventually transformed into affiliation with and support for the State of Israel. For this reason, it is not easy to interpret the trajectory of Jewish collective politics as the aspiration to collective unity and self-protection made its way through the great age of nationalism that modernity brought to the world as a whole. Reviving lost alternatives and showing how Jewish nationalism both in Israel and for its many observers around the globe assumed its current form is the task of this volume’s important exercise in recovery.

Eugene R. Sheppard and Samuel Moyn, Editors The Brandeis Library of Modern Jewish Thought