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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 July 2009
If any single motif runs through the historiography of this country, it must be: “America is different.” Even before we became a nation, observers such as Hector de St. Jean Crevocoeur commented on how this new land, with its openness, its freedom, and its innovation, contrasted with the Europe from which its settlers had come. If this motto has been so persistent for America as a whole, then, to use the Talmudic idiom, how much more so has it been for America's Jews.
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2. A fairly comprehensive picture of Marshall can be drawn from Reznikoff, Charles, ed., Louis Marshall, Champion of Liberty: Selected Papers and Addresses, 2 vols. (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1957)Google Scholar, which is general, and from a specialized study, Rosenstock, Morton, Louis Marshall: Defender of Jewish Rights (Detroit: Wayne State Univ. Press, 1965).Google Scholar
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4. Good samplings of all these early Zionists can be found in Hertzberg, Arthur, ed., The Zionist Idea (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Co., 1959).Google Scholar
5. Ibid., 181–97.
6. Kurland, Samuel, Biluim: Pioneers of Zionist Colonization (New York: Hechalutz Organization of America, 1943)Google Scholar; the manifesto of the Biluim can be found in Sokolow, Nahum, History of Zionism, 2 vols. (New York: Longmans Green, 1919), II, 332–33.Google Scholar
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9. Adler, Joseph, The Herzl Paradox (New York: Hadrian Press-Herzl Press, 1962)Google Scholar, explores the complex legal and social antecedents that Herzl utilized in justifying his leadership and the creation of the congress.
10. Glazer, Nathan, American Judaism (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1957), pp. 16–17Google Scholar; for a dissenting view, see Chyet, Stanley F., “The Political Rights of the Jews in the United States, 1776–1840,” American Jewish Archives, 10 (04 1958), 14–75.Google Scholar
11. Glazer, Nathan, “Social Characteristics of American Jews, 1694–1935,” in Finkelstein, Louis, ed., The Jews: Their History, Culture and Religion, 2 vols. (New York: Harper & Row, 1955), 2:1701.Google Scholar A contemporary study by the Union of American Hebrew Congregations yielded similar results. As my friend Ben Halpern has cautioned, however, these figures can be misread. Not all Jews were rich and successful; most German-Jewish immigrants remained small businessmen. Even so, few immigrant groups produced so successful an elite so quickly.
12. The debates over these various issues can be followed in Plaut, W. Gunther, ed., The Growth of Reform Judaism: American and European Sources to 1948 (New York: World Union for Progressive Judaism, 1965).Google Scholar
13. The 1869 conference proceedings have been translated from German, together with a very useful introduction, by Temkin, Seftin D., The New World of Reform (London: Leo Baeck College, 1971)Google Scholar; the Pittsburgh Platform can be found in Plaut, , Reform Judaism, pp. 31–41.Google Scholar
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16. In addition to Brandeis, the Provisional Committee consisted of Joseph Barondess of New York, Harry Friedenwald of Baltimore (president of the F.A.Z.), Elias Wolf Lewin-Epstein of New York (long-time representative of the Carmel wineries in Palestine), Nathan Kaplan of Chicago (president of the Knights of Zion), Louis Lipsky of New York (executive secretary of the F.A.Z.), Rabbi Judah L. Magnes of New York (a member of the American Jewish Committee and of the New York Kehillah), Rabbi Stephen S. Wise of the Free Synagogue in New York, Henrietta Szold (honorary secretary of the F.A.Z. and president of Hadassah). In addition, the Mizrachi and Poale Zion were each asked to designate a member. The religious Zionists chose Rabbi Meyer Berlin, while the labor Zionists named Nachman Syrkin.
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20. The question of why Brandeis became a Zionist has long fascinated historians, and a number of theories have been put forward. Halpern, Ben, “Brandeis' Way to Zionism,” Midstream, 17 (10 1971), 3–13Google Scholar, argues that a sense of blood kinship, derived from strong familial ties, led the Boston attorney to seek roots among his own people, while Shapiro, Yonathan in “American Jews in Politics: The Case of Louis D. Brandeis,” American Jewish Historical Quarterly, 55 (12 1965), 199–211Google Scholar, charges that Brandeis embraced Zionism in a bid to further his political ambitions after losing out for a position in Wilson's cabinet. Of all the theories this is most debatable, and I have argued its fallacies in other places. Shapiro's book on American Zionism posits a sociological approach, in that Brandeis and his associates were “marginal men,” excluded from the full fruits of their talents by discrimination; thus they turned inward to lead their own kind. Geller, Stuart M., “Why Did Louis D. Brandeis Choose Zionism?” American Jewish Historical Quarterly, 62 (06 1973), 383–400Google Scholar, argues that Brandeis' economic philosophy provides the key. David Ben-Gurion told the justice's granddaughter that it was a simple case of justice, he joined the movement to secure freedom for his people; she related the incident to me in an interview in July, 1969. There is a story, probably apocryphal, that when Brandeis read about the First Congress and Herzl's ideas, he told his wife that there was a cause to which he could give his life. Wise, Stephen S., Challenging Years (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1949), p. 185Google Scholar; since that was in 1897, and Brandeis paid no further attention to Zionism for over a decade, there seems little base to the tale.
21. “What Loyalty Demands,” 11 28, 1905Google Scholar; Boston, Jewish Advocate, 12 9, 1910.Google Scholar
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25. Brandeis, Louis D., The Jewish Problem, and How to Solve It (New York: Provisional Committee for Zionist Affairs, 1915), p. 12.Google Scholar This pamphlet, originally a speech to Reform rabbis, represents the best single presentation of Brandeis' Zionist philosophy, and with the exception of some of Mordechai Kaplan's writings, the most developed ideological statement of American Zionism.
26. Brandeis, to Brandeis, Alfred, 01 7, 1912Google Scholar; Brandeis, to Billikopf, Jacob, 01 25, 1915Google Scholar, Louis D. Brandeis Papers, University of Louisville Law Library, Louisville, Ky.; Boston Post, 09 28, 1914.Google Scholar
27. Quoted in Bardin, Shlomo, Self-Fulfillment through Zionism (New York: American Zionist Youth Commission, 1943), p. 97.Google Scholar
28. Between 1914 and 1928 alone, he gave $450,000 to Zionism, channeled mainly through deHaas or the Palestine Economic Corporation set up after 1921. At his death, he left half of his three-million-dollar estate to Zionist agencies.
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30. Kallen, Horace M., Of Them That Say They Are Jews (New York: Bloch Publishing Company, 1954), p. 137Google Scholar; American Jewish Committee, Executive Committee meeting of Vlay 9, 1915, quoted in Rischin, Moses, “The Early Attitude of the American Jewish Committee to Zionism (1906–1922),” Publications of the American Jewish Historical Society, 49 (1959), 192.Google Scholar
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35. Lowenthal, Marvin, Henrietta Szold: Life and Letters (New York: Viking Press 1942), pp. 67–68.Google Scholar
36. Ibid., pp. 76–77.
37. Statement on death of Louis D. Brandeis, October 6, 1941, Henrietta Szold Papers (Personal), Record Group A 125, Central Zionist Archives, Jerusalem, Israel.
38. Bernard Richards Interview, Hebrew University Oral History Collection, Jerusalem, Israel; author's interview with Halprin, Rose, 03 23, 1973.Google Scholar
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46. Greene, Victor R., “Slavic American Nationalism, 1870–1918,” in American Contributions to the Seventh International Congress of Slavists (The Hague, 1973), III, 197–215.Google Scholar
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