The love of Zion in the hearts of American Jews was
given ideological and practical expression in the last decades of the
nineteenth century when the Hovevei
Zion (Lovers of Zion) movement took root in the Jewish immigrant
community. Support for colonizing the ancient homeland was expressed
through ideological pronouncement, philanthropic endeavor, and personal
participation. From the rich store of early American Zionist material, we
choose a manuscript and a pamphlet.
By vocation, Ralph B. Raphael was a manufacturer of fine
hair jewelry; by avocation, he was a writer for the early American Hebrew
periodical press. in such periodicals as Zev Schur's Ha-Pisgah, he
addressed himself to contemporary issues confronting the East European
Jewish immigrant community in America.
Raphael, a resident of Pittsburgh, was an early member
of the American Hovevei Zion movement which, though small in number
in the 1880s and 1890s, made a significant contribution to Hebrew culture
in America and laid a foundation for the following century's Zionist
activities. The American Lovers of Zion published periodicals and organized
the first modern Hebrew schools in America, but the center of their
devotion was the growing yishuv (the pre-State Jewish community of
Palestine) of pioneers who were founding agricultural colonies in Palestine
and who declared themselves the vanguard of a mass return to the soil of
the ancient homeland.
In 1893, Raphael published She-elat Hayehudim (The Jewish Questions), an early Zionist tract, part polemic and part vision. It argued that the only place the
Jewish nation could live in peace and security, in well-being, and dignity,
the only place its spiritual life could be renewed and enhanced, was Zion.
Only through life in the Holy Land reconstituted as an autonomous Jewish
commonwealth, Raphael argued, can a solution be found to the endemic anti-Semitism which afflicts Jews even in the enlightened West, even in free democratic
America.
Raphael is aware of the objections that have been raised
to the Zionist dream, but he is confident that they can be overcome. He
points to the already established agricultural colonies in Palestine,
drawing an idealized picture of life on the soil, of entire families joined
in an enterprise which straightens their backs, lifts their hearts, and
transforms their very being. He hails the halutzim (pioneers) as the
creators of the new Jew and a new society. For such an individual and such
a society, no problem is too difficult, no challenge too great.
Let us imagine, he proposes, that the idea of resettling
the land wins the majority of Jewish hearts and wins supporters among the
nations; that Jews of America will buy land for those who wish to settle,
and Jews in other countries will soon join in the enterprise. To the degree
that Jews will settle on the land and make it flourish, the nations look
with favor on the enterprise.
The nations of the world will appoint a commission of
twelve judges to hear the claims of the various contenders for the Holy
Land. Catholics, Greek Orthodox, Protestants, Moslems, and Jews make their
presentations and pleas. After due deliberation the commission decides: Palestine
is for the Jewish people. Above all other considerations, the
enterprise and accomplishment of the new Jewish farm colonists "who
have come to the land of their fathers ... settling it to earn their
livelihood by the sweat of their brow" will have persuaded the judges.
Raphael sets forth his political philosophy in seventeen
points which constitute the commission's decision. Among them are:
The Turkish government is to be sovereign in all
external matters;
Christian colonies may remain so long as they do not
disturb the peace of the land;
Christian immigration is to be restricted, to be
determined by Jews;
A Christian commission is to supervise the holy places;
A special Jewish agency is to be appointed by the
nations to facilitate Jewish immigration;
The Jews may organize a militia to keep the peace;
For all internal matters, the Jews are to organize a
republican form of government, which is to meet in Jerusalem;
The Jewish government may mint its own coinage, levy
taxes, and elect a president who will serve for a five-year term;
The representative body, called the Sanhedria, is to be
elected for a ten-year term and will be empowered to govern;
The president, vice-president and members of the
Sanhedria must be Jews by birth.
Published at the Newark press of Ephraim Deinard, who
retained the second half of Raphael's manuscript, the two-volume manuscript
in the author's own hand came to the Library of Congress as part of one of
the Deinard Collections acquired by the Library through the year 1920.
Deinard had a hand in an attempt by American Jews at the
end of the nineteenth century to colonize Palestine. He was a founder of Shavei
Zion No. 2 of New York, an organization to purchase land and establish
a colony of American Jews in the Holy Land. The father of the Shavei
Zion movement was Adam Rosenberg. Born in Baltimore in 1858 and raised
in Germany, he returned at the age of twenty, studied law, and began to
practice, but the cause of Zion rebuilt soon became his vocation as well as
avocation.
Based on the Russian Dorshe Zion Society, its
American counterpart proposed, according to its bylaws, published in
Yiddish: a membership of 500, each member to contribute 200 dollars in
annual payments of 40 dollars or weekly payments of a dollar to purchase
land on which to establish themselves as an agricultural colony. Within
three months, a second group was formed in New York, then others in Boston
and Montreal. in fulfillment of the dream of life upon the land in a Zion
rebuilt, immigrants in America were ready to relocate again. In June 1891,
Rosenberg travelled with two colleagues to Palestine to buy land, and
building began, but poor planning and inept relations with the Turkish
authorities brought the project to an early end.
A memento of this first American enterprise at Zionism,
with aliyah and
settlement on the land, remains:
Constitution of the Shavei Zion Society No. 2, organized in
New York, the first day of Sivan, 5651, June 7, 1891. "If I forget
thee O, Jerusalem, may my right hand lose its strength."
This, too, came with the Deinard collections, and, as
Deinard's rubberstamped inscription attests, it was originally intended to
become part of the Library in Jerusalem, but like the members of Shavei
Zion, it never left the Land of Promise for the Promised Land.
