2010-06-29

Jewish return to Palestine is a relic akin to animal sacrifice

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

by Neil Godfrey

A New York Times commentary piece titled:

American Jews who Reject Zionism . . .

So they still exist! Last I read about them was in Chaim Potok’s novel, The Chosen.

Excerpt:

Until Theodore Herzl created the modern Zionist movement early in the 20th century, the biblical injunction to return to Israel was widely understood as a theological construct rather than a pragmatic instruction.

Most Orthodox Jewish leaders before the Holocaust rejected Zionism, saying the exile was a divine punishment and Israel could be restored only in the messianic age. The Reform movement maintained that Judaism is a religion, not a nationality.

“This country is our Palestine,” a Reform rabbi in Charleston, S.C., put it in 1841, “this city our Jerusalem, this house of God our temple.” The Reform movement’s 1885 platform dismissed a “return to Palestine” as a relic akin to animal sacrifice.

Only when the Reform leadership, on the eve of World War II, reversed course did its anti-Zionist faction break away, ultimately forming the council in 1942. Its discourse was simultaneously idealistic and contemptuous — a proposed curriculum in 1952 described Zionism as racist, self-segregated and non-American . . . . .

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0 thoughts on “Jewish return to Palestine is a relic akin to animal sacrifice”

Jim says:

2010-06-30 00:33:31 GMT+0000 at 00:33

now that’s a post title that grabs attention! when i saw it i just knew i had to read it.

Reply
neilgodfrey says:

2010-06-30 22:08:56 GMT+0000 at 22:08

What are “the churches” in the US doing to combat Christian Zionism?

Reply
rey says:

2010-07-01 05:51:37 GMT+0000 at 05:51

“Jewish return to Palestine is a relic akin to animal sacrifice.” Amen.

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