The New Zionism: In Memory of Mordecai Kaplan

The Monday night and Tuesday of this week commemorate the 21st yahrzeit of Prof. Mordecai Kaplan. Kaplan is best known for the founding of the Reconstructionist Movement in modern Judaism. This is a movement that presumes a particular form of interpreting the past that has deeply affected all of the major streams of Judaism in the 20th century. Here, however, I would like to present but one aspect of Kaplan’s thought, contained in a book published in 1955 and entitled “A New Zionism”.

Zionism is a central theme in Kaplan’s over-all conception of Judaism as a broad civilization that requires constant renewal in order to survive. In a certain sense Kaplan’s understanding of Zionism parallels his understanding of religion. Both exist far beyond the realm of ideology. They are much more than a specific body of ideas and beliefs. For Kaplan, Judaism – as religion – and Zionism – as a social, cultural and political movement – are in fact integral aspects of a single living organism. He believed that religion is essential for the existence of Jewish civilization insofar as it is what gives meaning to life, and what enables the establishment of an inspiring vision of the future that may in turn give rise to action in times of crisis. Zionism, on the other hand, is the movement of Jewish life that works for the actual re-building of Jewish existence particularly in light of the many challenges confronting it in the modern period.

There is an obvious difference between Kaplan’s view of Zionism as a movement for the reclamation of Jewish civilization in modern times and the more popular view of Zionism as a movement whose goal was simply the establishment and maintenance of a Jewish state. For Kaplan the establishment of a state is not a worthy goal in and of itself, but rather one step among many necessary for the success of Jewish revival. In his opinion the reestablishment of Jewish life in the diaspora is an equally worthy goal of the Zionist enterprise.

Kaplan’s book, “A New Zionism”, appears to have been a response to the position put forth by Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben Gurion, in the early years following the establishment of the state. For Ben Gurion spoke, in those years, of the Zionist movement as a sort of scaffolding on a building site upon which the structure of the state was eventually to be established. Now that the building of the state has been accomplished, he maintained, the scaffolding may be taken down. Ben Gurion’s view of Zionism in the 50’s, as a movement whose highest achievement is to be found solely in the establishment of the state, became manifest in practical policies concerning a wide range of issues that very much agitated Mordecai Kaplan.

Whereas Ben Gurion saw the state of Israel as the new basis for Jewish identity to the exclusion of all others, Kaplan believed that the key to Jewish identity in the present continued to be that of a renewal based upon an ongoing dialogue with Judaism’s traditional religious and cultural heritage. In this context he vehemently opposed the coalition agreements prevalent in Israeli politics that assigned responsibility for the character of Judaism in Israel to the Orthodox parties. He was in favor of the distancing of religion from politics so that matters concerning the status of the Jewish heritage within the state could become a topic of public discussion concerning the significance of Jewish existence in the state and without.

Kaplan also felt that Ben Gurion’s narrow position regarding the significance of Zionism vis-a-vis Jewish identity led him to an unfair appraisal of Judaism in the Diaspora. Though Kaplan thought that the establishment of the state was necessary for the ultimate revival of Judaism as a broad civilization, he opposed the notion that from now on it is only the Jews of Israel who can make the claim for a legitimate Jewish identity, and felt that it was necessary to charge the Jews of Israel and the Jews of the Diaspora with an equal measure of responsibility for building the Jewish future.

Kaplan’s disagreement with Ben Gurion’s form of Zionism stems from his insightful evaluation of the repercussions for Judaism following the historical transition from the traditional world of the middle-ages to modernity. He understood that the transition to modernity opened a world of opportunities to the Jewish people, but contained a significant degree of danger as well. Essentially, the transition from the traditional pre-modern world to the secular world of modernity was a transition from a relatively safe and secure world of religious belief based upon a super-natural acceptance of divine providence to an ever-changing reality dominated by this-worldly human endeavor and natural phenomena.

The new reality was such that all people, Jews included, now found human deliberation, determination and initiative to be the necessary pre-requisites for continued existence. This aspect of modern life found expression in the emphasis Kaplan placed on the need for Jews to struggle for continuity not only in the religious, cultural or spiritual realm, but in the material realm as well. In this respect he viewed Herzl’s political Zionism, the practical Zionism of the pioneers during the second and the third aliyah and even Ben Gurion’s post-State Zionism as a reflection of the pro-active character of the Jewish struggle for material existence in the modern period. He viewed Ahad Ha’am’s cultural Zionism, on the other hand, as an expression of the people’s readiness to bear responsibility for the continuation of Judaism in the spiritual realm.

This is the fundamental challenge of modernity, according to Mordecai Kaplan: How may the Jewish people acclimate itself sufficiently to the ways of the modern world so as to become a part of its culture, using whatever means necessary to insure continued existence as supplied by that culture, while using them in such a manner that would not disrupt the uniqueness of Judaism as a historical civilization?

In this light, we may understand his extreme ambivalence with regard to the attraction that such modernistic movements as the modern enlightenment, European nationalism and political socialism held for many Jews in the various stages of modern Jewish history. So long as these movements were integrated into the fabric of Jewish life through the will for existence as a people, they were able to further the rebuilding of the Jewish people on a material as well as a spiritual or cultural plane: The East European Enlightenment became a movement for the rebuilding of Jewish culture on a new secular and modern basis; nationalism became Zionism; and socialism became a movement that sought to rebuild the material infra-structure of Jewish existence on the basis of modern notions of justice and morality.

However, wherever the attraction to modernity was such that it erased the will to exist as a people, these very same movements became the decisive factor in the ever-increasing disintegration of Jewish civilization: The West European enlightenment led to spiritual and cultural assimilation; nationalism was appreciated by many only in regard to the prospects of citizenship in the new nation-states of Western and Central Europe, requiring the deepening of social and political assimilation; socialism came to mean not only the erasure of economic and social differences between peoples, but national, cultural and religious ones as well. Amid this backdrop arose the demand for the nullification of hopes for the betterment of Jewish life in the context of Jewish peoplehood in favor of a universal socialist revolution.

With this preface, we may formulate Kaplan’s criticism of Ben Gurion’s Zionism in the following manner: Kaplan felt that Ben Gurion’s exclusive emphasis on statehood unduly hid from public view the challenge of reclaiming and revitalizing the dimensions and meaning of Jewish life in the broader sense. He felt that had the reconstruction of Judaism in this broad sense been Ben Gurion’s prime concern, he would have had togrant the question of Israel-Diaspora relations as well as the question of the status and significance of Judaism as religion in the state of Israel a much higher place in his social and political agenda than he actually did.

Ultimately, Mordecai Kaplan thought that the goal of Zionism was to rebuild the people in a manner that suits the conditions of life in the modern period, even if the result is that the people will be of a different character than in the past. He believed that admitting to the necessity of rebuilding the people in correspondence to the dictates of modernity, however, does not preclude continuity with the past so long as the process of reconstruction proceeds in the context of a dialogue with that past. But for such a dialogue, the strengthening of the relations between Israel and the Diaspora is essential.

The return to the land of Israel and the establishment of a Jewish state is essential in order that Jewish peoplehood become manifest in all areas of modern day existence including the social, the economic, the political and even the military. Kaplan further believed that without a Jewish majority in at least one country on this planet, all hopes for the revitalization of Jewish civilization will ultimately be vanquished by the dominating national and cultural spirits of other peoples. But at the same time, the Jewish people continue to exist beyond the borders of the state and must continue, in this context, to see themselves as a voluntary religious organization that binds Israeli Jews with Diaspora Jews, and that binds both with the Jewish past. The goal here is not to copy the beliefs or even the religious behavior of the past onto the present. It is rather to insure that the Jews of the present in Israel and the Diaspora search for solutions to the problems facing them, while at the same time being informed by their common past. On this basis Kaplan hoped for the re-creation of a world-wide Jewish consensus regarding present day needs and the challenge of social improvement that might be formulated using the language of Jewish tradition.

It is impossible in a short essay such as this to give a detailed discussion as to how this might be achieved. Nonetheless, even from this brief presentation one may be sufficiently impressed with the depth of Kaplan’s thought concerning his “New Zionism”. Mordecai Kaplan has espoused a lofty vision that is both fundamentally Jewish and universally human. It is a vision for the revitalization of Judaism in all the various realms of human endeavor; a vision worth striving for even amidst the existential crises facing the state of Israel and world Jewry in the present day.

Dr. Yossi Turner is a senior lecturer in Jewish Thought at the Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem.

Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons Aliza Kol Fogelson