Nowadays, it seems people are afraid to be called a Zionist. This is the story of an American rabbi who lived before the State of Israel and was among the strongest Zionist practitioners in this country.
It has only recently come to my attention that this rabbi, who promoted the interests of Israel in numerous ways (more on that below), was referred to, in an academic paper, as expressing “animosity” toward “modern Zionism,” primarily on the basis of some statements he made years before the country of Israel came into being.
This characterization was presumably based primarily on the rabbi’s visionary piece on “Torahcratic – the True Zionism” (The Jewish Forum, May 1943 and repeatedly reprinted), which set forth his ideal projection of the best that the Torah and democracy have to offer to build a truly holy land, reflecting Jewish laws and customs. In other words, he had originally thought Israel should be a religious state – to which the academic took issue.
I leave it to you, dear reader, to decide whether he had the right to be called a Zionist in the classic sense, having been involved in Zionism in more of a variety of ways than virtually any other American who ever put a coin into an Israeli charity box (except for those who actually made aliah, though he came close, in two ways).
Actually, the short answer is that the rabbi could not have known in the 1920s or even in the early 1940s that based on the way that Israel would develop, religion and customs would indeed have a place in the country – in fact, even too much of a role according to many people.
The rabbi in question? My grandfather, Rabbi Herbert S. Goldstein, zt”l, who was known primarily for creating a prototype shul and Jewish Community Center called the Institutional Synagogue (the I.S., which later became the West Side Institutional Synagogue) and serving as the president of various national organizations including the Orthodox Union. But until now he has not been widely known for his Zionism.
When Rabbi Goldstein was still in his prime, in the 1940s, he was a contributor to the Universal Jewish Encyclopedia, which defined Zionism as “a modern movement aiming to fulfill the traditional ideal of the return of the Jewish People to Zion.” Note that there is nothing about politics in that statement.
Many American rabbis and other leaders at the time encouraged people to pray for Israel, to pay for Israel, and even to make aliyah, but relatively few did more than preaching, praying, and donating.
Here are some of the things Rabbi Goldstein did:
The bentcher distributed at his wedding, in 1915, included a pre-1948 version of Hatikva, in the future tense. How many people have the Hatikva in any form in their wedding benchers even now? How many had it in 1915? How many people even had wedding benchers in 1915 (in Hebrew and English)?
Additionally, how many people in America created such an environment around the house that one of their daughters made aliyah the year that Israel’s War for Independence concluded? It’s a no-brainer that aliyah from America by single young women was not fashionable or routine – or even necessarily safe – at that turbulent time.
Rabbi Goldstein’s signature shul was founded in 1917, and soon had 67 clubs at one time, within its first decade. How many shuls anywhere at any time encouraged the return of the Jewish people to Israel in such clubs as the Herzl Club, the Palestine Travel Club, the Girls of Blue and White, the Star of Zion Club, the Young Lovers of Zion, and the Zionist Advancement Club, otherwise known as the Zionist Advancement League?
The Maccabees was a network of up to 22 clubs in any given year meeting in the Institutional Synagogue, which fostered religious spirit, “which manifested itself in ‘religious activity, religious thought, Zionist thought, etc.’” (from The Maverick Rabbi, about Rabbi Goldstein, by the writer of this article, p. 256; Zionism appears in the Index a dozen times).
A section in the book beginning at page 263 is entitled “Zionism Even Before it Was Fashionable,” and begins “Solidarity rallies in support of the right of Jews to settle in the Promised Land of what is now Israel existed long before the state of Israel came into being. As early as 1919, the I.S. Orchestra played under the auspices of the Zion Advancement League of the I.S. at a…Zionist mass meeting, which Rabbi Goldstein addressed.”
Rabbi Goldstein was active in the Mizrachi as well as the Agudah during much of his life, with leadership roles in both. Some of his rabbinical students at Yeshiva University, where he headed the Homiletics Department training rabbis for two generations, recalled that he would produce membership cards in each organization. He felt both were doing G-d’s work. Leaders of both claimed he was really one of them. Although it’s true that he resigned from his prominent place on the Mizrachi Executive in 1926 over some principled dispute (a year after the first convention of the Mizrachi Hatza’ir was held in his shul), he came back after that dispute became moot, only to resign again in the 1950s, over another principled dispute – but then to rise again within the mainstream of religious Zionism to be called upon, for example, to deliver the opening prayer at the public meeting for Israel convened in the iconic Madison Square Garden in New York (February, 1957).
Two independent sources (including one of his sons-in-law, the long-time Chief Rabbi of Haifa, Shear Yashuv Cohen, zt”l, of the Mafdal) told me that it was Rabbi Goldstein who coined the name Religious Zionists of America (upon the consolidation of the American branch of the Mizrachi and Hapoel HaMizrachi in 1957), which is not surprising considering that Rabbi Goldstein co-founded the Rabbinical Council of America (and represented its first presidium) and the now-defunct Synagogue Council of America (SCA), which he also served as president, in which capacity he signed his name not “Yours truly” but “Yours in Service of G-d and Israel.” How many other American Zionists sign their letters that way? Historical Note: He was one of the only major pulpit rabbis to resign from the SCA after it was banned by the Moetzes Gedolei Hatorah.
Rabbi Goldstein devoted much of his active life after the country of Israel was founded to raising funds for various Israeli entities, in particular to helping orphan immigrants with a network of “Homes for Children in Israel.” He visited Israel almost every year in the 1950s (until his stroke) by ocean liner – a trip of multiple weeks each way, with a mashgiach aboard – and during Rabbi Goldstein’s time in Israel, he personally distributed much of the funds he had raised for a variety of Israeli entities, and participated in overseeing how the money was spent. He also was personally friendly with Chief Rabbi Herzog and other religious Zionist leaders.
According to the official biography of the legendary Mike Tress (by Jonathan Rosenblum), “Over the years, Rabbi Goldstein headed most of the [Agudah’s] Youth Council’s projects in Eretz Yisrael – the Keren Hayishuv, The Religious Palestine Fund, and Children’s Homes [known as Homes for Children] in Israel” (p. 159 in that biography).
According to a biography by Elliot Resnick, Ph.D., Congressman Sol Bloom was the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives during World War II, and Rabbi Goldstein befriended him and influenced him more than any other rabbi for decades, including most significantly, in the crucial 1940s. Congressman Bloom claimed – with evidence – to have influenced at least three delegations at the United Nations to switch their votes in favor of the Partition Plan endorsing Israel’s creation. The final tally was 33-13; had three votes gone the other way, Israel would have failed to win the two-thirds majority required! (See Resnick’s pages 136-139)
Here’s to the classic Zionist, loyal to G-d, over secular Zionists who could be more loyal to a movement, a party, or a position within it.