by Rabbi Alan Silverstein, PhD | President of Mercaz Olami (Representing the global Masorti/Conservative movement)
In Professor Naomi Cohen’s “Diaspora Plus Palestine, Religion Plus Nationalism: The Seminary and Zionism” (“Tradition Renewed: A History of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America,” Vol. 2), she emphasized Solomon Schechter’s early adherence — already in the 1880s — to Hibbat Zion, the cultural/religious brand of Zionism. Also a Hibbat Zion member, Schechter’s twin brother moved to Israel as one of the first settlers of Zichron Yaakov. Solomon Schechter told his future wife, Mathilde, that had she turned down his marriage proposal, he would have become like his brother, “a farmer in Palestine.” Even before the formal birth of a Zionist movement in the late 1890s, Schechter was a Zionist. Toward the end of his life, he reiterated that “Zionism was, and still is, the most cherished dream I was worthy of having.”
Schechter came to the United States and JTS in 1902, prepared to do battle against assimilation and Reform Judaism’s rejection of Jewish tradition and concept of peoplehood. In Dr. Cohen’s words, “Schechter always posited that a Jewish national consciousness was inseparable from the Jewish religious faith.” As a religious Zionist, in contrast to adherents of Reform Judaism, Schechter insisted upon “the survival of the Jews as a distinct people.” Like Ahad Ha’am, the prominent Zionist thinker whose writings he admired, Schechter viewed Zionism as a strategy to reinvigorate Jewish life worldwide. Enhanced Jewish life in Palestine would radiate vitality to Jews throughout the globe. Schechter was uncomfortable with the secular nature of New York’s Zionist movement, the Federation of American Zionists (FAZ), and so refrained from official Zionist activity in the city.
Rabbi David B. Starr, in “Solomon Schechter’s Path to Zionism,” traced Schechter’s evolution from discomfort with FAZ’s brand of Zionism to public affirmation of the Zionist cause, in 1905, soon after Theodor Herzl’s death in 1904. Rabbi Starr attributes the change in Schechter’s stance to several types of factors — 1) Global Factors: the death of Herzl in 1904, the intensification of antisemitic violence with the Russian pogroms; discussions of territorialism within the World Zionist Organization, i.e., proposing an alternative Jewish “homeland” other than in Palestine. 2) Erosion of American Judaism: Schechter’s realization that his distaste for a non-religious framing of Zionism was superseded by the necessity of mobilizing American Zionism in the battle against assimilation. 3) New York City Jewry: From his perch at JTS, Schechter rose in the ranks of communal leaders; his academic platform invited engagement with such contemporary issues as the cause of Zionism.
To these factors, Naomi Cohen adds the influence of Schechter’s friend and his JTS faculty appointee, Israel Friedlaender, another admirer of Ahad Ha’Am. Dr. Cohen notes that “Friedlaender, along with Conservative Jews like Judah Magnes and Harry Friedenwald, was shifting the focus of the FAZ to spiritual and cultural Zionism.”
In a December 1905 speech at a Zionist meeting, Schechter publicly affirmed his identification with the Zionist movement. A year later, Schechter issued “Zionism: A Statement,” a paper that elaborated upon Schechter’s view of Zionism as “a bulwark against assimilation.” Schechter explained: “What I understand by assimilation is loss of identity or that process of disintegration which, passing through various degrees of defiance of all Jewish thought and disloyalty to Israel’s history and its mission, terminates variously in different lands…. It results in the severance of all affiliation with the synagogue…and is consummated by a final, though imperceptible, absorption in the great majority [of non-Jews].”
As a Jewish communal leader, Schechter sought and worked for Jewish unity. To Schechter, Zionism offered unification through its diverse paths toward Judaism and the renewal of Jewish peoplehood. “It may appear to one as the rebirth of national Jewish consciousness, to another as a religious revival, while to a third it may present itself as a path leading to the goal of Jewish culture, and to a fourth it may take the form of the last and only solution of the Jewish problem [antisemitism]…. On one point, however, they all agree: namely, that it is not only desirable but absolutely necessary that Palestine, the land of our fathers, should be recovered with the purpose of forming a home for at least a portion of the Jews, who would lead there an independent national life.”
As a devotee of Aham Ha’Am’s notion of cultural/spiritual Zionism, Schechter called for the rebirth of the Hebrew language as a unifying Jewish mode of expression. He lamented that “it is a tragedy to see a language held sacred by all the world in which the Holy Writ was composed, and which served as the depository of Israel’s greatest and best thought, doomed to oblivion and forced gradually from the synagogue” and replaced by the vernacular of the countries where Jews lived. Schechter pointed to concrete ways in which Zionism was strengthening the Hebrew language, synagogue life among Eastern European immigrants, and Jewry’s cultural creativity. In like manner, in 1913 Schechter joined with Israel Friedlaender and Judah Magnes in battling on behalf of Hebrew becoming the language of instruction at the newly established Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa. In the words of Dr. Norman Bentwich, a high official in the yishuv, Schechter “was absolutely convinced of the importance of the Hebrew language as a link among all Jewish communities of the world; he himself used Hebrew regularly in his correspondence with Jewish scholars.”
While Schechter came to respect an array of Zionist options, he identified his quest with religious Zionism, regarding a Zionist revival as going hand-in-hand with the revival of Judaism. “I belong to that class of Zionists that lay more stress on the religious-national aspects of Zionism than on any other feature peculiar to it. The revival of Israel’s national consciousness and the revival of Israel’s religion…are inseparable.” In that regard, Schechter countered the anti-Zionist Reform accusation that affirming Zionism meant rejecting Judaism’s engagement with social justice causes. In Professor Cohen’s words, “Schechter countered that the nationalistic and universalistic elements in Judaism worked in harmony, that ‘Israel must first effect its own redemption and live again in its own life [in order] to accomplish its universal mission.’”
Schechter celebrated the worldwide reawakening of Jewish identity ignited by the Zionist movement. “Zionism has already achieved great things. There is hardly a single Jewish community in any part of the globe which is not represented by a larger or smaller number of men and women acknowledging themselves as Zionists and standing out as a living protest against the tendencies just hinted at. It has created a press and has called into life a host of lecturers and speakers propagating its doctrines and preaching them boldly to Israel [Jews] all over the world.
“It has called into existence numerous societies whose aim it is to make the sacred tongue a living language by means of writing and even conversing in it….”
As noted by Rabbi Robert Fierstien in “Solomon Schechter and the Zionist Movement,” Schechter took a strong stand against those Zionists who were willing to consider a Jewish homeland elsewhere other than Palestine and embraced the imperative of establishing a homeland for the Jews in Palestine. Schechter’s championing of Zionism included his commitment to its being supported both by Jews who would become olim like his brother and Jews like himself, living in the Jewish diaspora.
Additionally, Schechter defended American Zionism against the alleged critique by anti-Zionists of dual loyalty, claiming loyalty to a state other than the USA. Schechter adhered to Ahad Ha’Am’s vision of multiple centers of Judaism around the world, all energized by the revitalization of Jewish life in Palestine. To be living in America as a loyal citizen and yet a Zionist was not a contradiction. Plus at the “end of time” — the Messianic Age — Schechter wrote: “America is not the final destiny of Judaism…. We believe in the advent of the Messiah who will redeem Israel and bring us back to the Holy Land….”
After the 1906 issuance of “Zionism: A Statement,” Schechter became an active participant in Zionist affairs. Notably, in 1913 he spoke at the World Zionist Congress in Vienna. Frequently, he would take vacations in Tannersville, NY, the town where American Zionists assembled for their conventions. He participated with enthusiasm and eloquence in debating issues of Jewish concern. Notably, Schechter was elected an honorary president of the Hebrew Conference at an assembly in Vienna that overlapped with the World Zionist Congress. His last major publication, “Seminary Addresses” (1915) included updated Zionist reflections.
“Zionism declares boldly to the world that Judaism means to preserve its life by not losing its life [through assimilation],” he said. “It shall be a true and healthy life, with a policy of its own, a religion wholly its own, invigorated by sacred memories and sacred environments, and proving a tower of strength and of unity not only for the remnant gathered within the borders of the Holy Land, but also for those who shall, by choice or necessity, prefer what now constitutes the Galut [the Diaspora].” With these goals in mind, Schechter assembled a JTS faculty of cultural Zionists and Hebraists. He influenced a generation of future congregational rabbis to embrace Zionism. Plus, as Bentwich noted, Schechter “inspired a group of young Zionist intelligentsia, including Judah Magnes, Henrietta Szold, Horace Kallen, Max Radin and Elisha Friedman.”
Rabbi Alan Silverstein, PhD, was religious leader of Congregation Agudath Israel in Caldwell, NJ, for more than four decades, retiring in 2021. He served as president of the Rabbinical Assembly, the international association of Conservative rabbis (1993-95); as president of the World Council of Conservative/Masorti Synagogues (2000-05); and as chair of the Foundation for Masorti Judaism in Israel (2010-14). He currently serves as president of Mercaz Olami, representing the world Masorti/Conservative movement. He is the author of “It All Begins with a Date: Jewish Concerns about Interdating,” “Preserving Jewishness in Your Family: After Intermarriage Has Occurred,” and “Alternatives to Assimilation: The Response of Reform Judaism to American Culture, 1840-1930.”